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Joram Nyathi Group Political Editor
ITALIAN Prime Minister Matteo Renzi early this week summed up the tragedy unfolding in the Mediterranean Sea, that body of water separating Africa from Europe. That was after about 800 migrants trying to cross that narrow strip of water into Europe from the Libyan coast drowned when their rickety, overloaded boat capsized.

That single catastrophe on Sunday brought the number of such deaths to 1,750 so far this year. The International Organisation for Migration estimates the total figure for the whole year could hit 30,000 dead.

Renzi pointed out that the Mediterranean was “a sea, not a cemetery”. This was in reference to the huge number of deaths. He appealed to fellow Europeans for help in dealing with the challenge of migrants escaping poverty and war in Africa and the Middle East.

Most of them never manage to escape; instead they meet swift death in gurgles of sea water. Mothers, fathers and children.

Most of the people trying to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea land on the Italian island of Lampedusa. It is the narrowest point between Europe and Africa. Once these migrants make it to shore, they become the responsibility of Italy.

Yesterday the European Union was forced to convene an emergency summit to work out ways to stop people trying to cross into Europe and how to distribute and share the cost of those “qualifying for protection”.

Renzi called for decisive action by Europe against what they call people smugglers, or, in his own words, “slave traders of the 21st Century”. This called for the identification, capture and destruction of vessels used by traffickers to ferry their easily perishable and disposable cargo of desperate Africans and Arabs.

Now European leaders believe part of the solution is to constitute a stable government in Libya. Italy says 90 percent of the migrant boats which end up on its shores set off from Libya where, according to the EU’s foreign policy guru, Federica Mogherini, there is “no state entity to control borders”.

That’s the tragic irony. Mogherini didn’t say what happened to the “state entity” in Libya. Renzi didn’t mention it. Most likely the EU summit will adopt a number of drastic measures condemning these desperate Africans and Arabs to death without a single mention, except perhaps in hushed voices, of what created the institutional void in Libya, thus turning it into a slaughterhouse from which those who escape meet their grief in the Mediterranean Sea.

But Africa knows why there is “no state entity to control borders” in Libya. The militant Islamic group ISIL probably knows too, and has set up bases to train their fighters. That dangerous woman, former US Secretary of State and next President of the United States, Hillary Clinton, knows what ruined Libya. She boasted in October 2011 after the trio of France, the UK and the America orchestrated the brutal murder of a seating African head of state, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, telling a bemused, shocked but impotent Africa, “We came, we saw, he died”.

She hadn’t reckoned with that Caesarian ghost, more powerful in death than in life. Gaddafi’s unavenged spirit is wreaking havoc across Libya, at one point accounting for an American ambassador, and now a xenophobic Europe is trying to erect a military wall on the Mediterranean Sea to avoid taking care of the fruits of its gory labour in what was once one of Africa’s most prosperous welfare states.

This is classic xenophobia, of a very racist type. Europe and America cannot escape culpability by ascribing the human tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea to war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. This is a product of their gunboat diplomacy pursuant to their greed for other nations’ resources.

America is pursuing deadly wars in the Middle East, including destabilising Syria to force the removal of President Assad. The phoney nuclear threat posed by Iran is not yet resolved; it won’t be any time soon so long as Israel wants to be the sole nuclear power in the region and feeble Obama won’t stand his ground.

Daily, people are being killed or displaced. As you read this, Sudan has been forced to summon the ambassadors of Norway, Britain and America who on Monday criticised the conduct of general elections in that country well before the results are out. This can only foment trouble.

In their arrogance, Europe and America will not acknowledge that it is their warmongering, not the absence of democracy, which has created most of the current human tragedies in the third world.

Now that these poor souls have been displaced by war, hunger and political instability, Europe wants a “final solution”, a most savage and morally reprehensible in a normal world — either they stew in the war in their countries or they will have their boats torpedoed in the sea.

It is that simple. Thousands if not millions of Africans and Arabs are going to be drowned in the Mediterranean by European soldiers so that they don’t take their problems to peaceful Europe. Very few will ever “qualify for protection” because these are desperate, expendable people with no skills to sell.

Thank you Renzi for reminding us of Europeans’ capacity for barbarism in the slave trade. Except now the slaves are no longer desirable cargo, so they must be deliberately destroyed at sea where not even the most diligent journalist can be able to bear witness to the most dastardly anti-African genocide post-colonialism.

They argue that rescuing this human flotsam can only encourage more savages to try their luck. Thank you. Most importantly, this cargo must be destroyed because in it could hide “evil” Al-Qaeda and ISIL sleepers trying to take their war with America to paradisal Europe.

This is a challenge to Africa. Europe and America must clean their mess in Libya. They must restore stability, constitute a legitimate authority, even if it means stationing a peacekeeping force at their own expense, after all they have already stolen more than enough of Libyan oil. They must be made to endure the burden of carrying their cross, and that calls for unity, for an Africa which knows its collective destiny and that it must speak with one voice. That is the heart and soul of this piece.

Enter Zwelithini

Zimbabwe hosts the Sadc summit as chair next week. It is the same week we have our annual Zimbabwe International Trade Fair which often attracts thousands of foreigners, including exhibitors.

These important events cannot, and should not, be overshadowed by the frenzy of afrophobia in South Africa which has just jolted the continent. We need to look at the bigger picture just as we must never lose sight of who is sniggering at what is going on.

We must be clear as to who benefits from a divided Africa. Africa should be wiser to resolve the imbecilic acts of a few misguided elements who have no idea that they belong to the same exploited class as those they attack as foreigners. That is to say, it is foolhardy for Zimbabweans to talk of revenge attacks against South Africans and South African companies. You can’t do that without reducing yourself to the level of the savage. Instead, this is where we should be demonstrating leadership, that our vaunted literacy translates to real education.

It is definitely not in Zimbabwe or Africa’s best interests that next week’s Sadc Summit and ZITF are overshadowed by unduly acrimonious, divisive discourses around afrophobia when there are more pressing matters of economic integration and industrialisation in which South Africa is supposed to play a leading role.  A more uniformly developed Africa will of necessity reduce labour migration to South Africa by spreading opportunities across the board.

We are more vulnerable to external manipulation the more we are divided. While the West might be anxious about the impact of these afrophobia attacks on their profits, they are just as happy to see how easy it is to get Africans at each other’s throats and forget about their natural brotherhood and common destiny. How easy it is to confuse Africans about who their real and eternal enemy is and how that enemy should be resisted!

If something positive can be derived from King Zwelithini’s ill-informed words which purportedly sparked what was latent and bound to explode any time, it is that Zimbabweans must put their talents to the development of their own economy, to produce most of the goods currently imported from South Africa and export more than they currently do to the region.

That said, the truth is that we are  stronger together. No to afrophobia. Africa unite.