Transcription
Fast changing and news breaks at lightning speed. Let us guide you through events and stories about global narratives and developments in geopolitics, diplomacy, foreign affairs and world economy. Get factual and multi-angle perspectives on stories around the globe. Global television brings you diplomatic perspective every Monday and Friday at 9:00 p.m. with Ramsey Enoch Agu. Diplomatic perspective. The world in front of you. Diplomatic perspective here on Global Television. My name is Adik Michael. A pleasure to have you join us tonight.
Who extra some developments. Of course, there have been recent development to the recent protest, xenophobia attacks in South Africa on some immigrant of course who are also from Africa. There's been a lot of response from both government of Ghana, government of Nigeria and other countries in respect to all of that development. The president uh sir Ramosa also pleaded you know with the people of South Africa to not take the laws into their hands but a lot of reactions of people over the statement and what really all of this is to Africa. Joining us tonight is Marquet political commentator joins us from United States of America to extra some of this development the spotlight in South Africa. Good to have you Mr. Marquet on the show.
>> Thank you for having me.
>> Yeah. Give us an understanding what is your view about all of that because some person will say this time uh this attack is an open attack it's coming out publicly people are coming out publicly uh the vigilante group so-called vigilante group are coming out publicly to uh to attack people all in the name of getting uh illegal immigrant out of the country. Do you feel this is a welcome development as we speak?
It's one of the saddest things we've observed this year. The fact of the matter is that it's not about illegal immigrants, and in fact, it's not new. You can check on YouTube and see videos that are 11 years old from the BBC where black South Africans are attacking other blacks in their country whom they deem illegal. This is demonstrating to us that the South African is the most mentally colonized group of black people on the planet Earth. And while the whites own 80% of their land and all of their economy, they focus on the poor black person who came from Zimbabwe or who came from Congo or some other country. And instead, they claim it's like, you know, these people are taking our resources. Well, not quite. The resources are in the hands of your merchant class, which are the Asians and the whites. These are other black people in a similar position to you struggling and you're struggling against them for crumbs instead of knowing that the the steak dinner is on the table of your former colonizers, the ones who abused your grandmothers and you're pretending as though you don't see them there controlling things still to this day. So this is a recurring issue unfortunately.
>> Do you feel this has a negative impact in the continent as as a whole? because some persons feel uh I mean what is playing out is already in the international community what does it speaks towards about Africa's unity Africa's image in the global stage it's it points out that Africa is still very uh disjointed you have the United States of America the European Union uh you have the Gulf states cooperate on oil you don't have enough meaningful cooperation among the African states like for example the African Union I think we're all waiting for them to come out and condemn this in a strong way and that's been largely absent they've been a bit quiet and more importantly we have to not only be able to condemn bad actors but also to protect Africa as a whole thing that I find very strange and comical is that uh the Israelis they have gotten nuclear weapons they make sure that no one messes with them and they're in a tough neighborhood But the Africans who have suffered enslavement, colonization, we have no nuclear weapons at our disposal and we allow all of the foreigners, the former colonial powers to come in and still take our resources. And so for pan-Africanism to be real at any level, we have to have more cooperation economically. Perhaps we can consider currencies. And we don't even see countries that have similar languages cooperating in an effective way. whether it's a former you know the franophhone countries or the anglosphere they're they're still not having significant ties so what it shows us is I think they the word is utu I per perhaps can't pronounce it very well but this idea of African brotherhood is mythological and what's worse even countries like say um Benin who said you know if you're you have subsaharan blood but you don't have citizenship at any country in Africa you can come here we applied we did the data or the DNA ancestor paid the money and then they're like, "Nope, sorry. Just kidding." And we'll keep your money. So, we need governments in Africa that have real cooperation. We need uh military alliance to protect Africa from outsiders. Um, and most importantly, we need identity. The blacks in South Africa have been living among the whites and admiring them, and now they're behaving like their white oppressor toward black people. So this is a very dark time in the continent of Africa, especially if we do not see African nation states sanctioning South Africa. Every single African government should put the harshest sanctions possible on South Africa. They should be pulling ambassadors. They should be pulling investment. South Africa should suffer greatly for this.
>> Do you feel or do you think this is not about anger? Because some of the groups, some of I mean if you listen to some of the grievances, they they feel that there are no jobs. They feel that the hunger level I mean is on the rise. They feel that their hospital facilities is not enough to take care of the people. Go back to your country.
>> Well, what you'll notice consistently is that when you hear people the xenop we can't call them xenophobes. We have to call them afrophobes, right? They're not scared of people who shouldn't be there. the the Chinese, the Asians, the Indians, the whites, it's about the blacks, right? So that's number one, we have to clarify. And number two, they never use data. So we'll hear these folks speaking about that they're taking our jobs. Well, let's think about a couple things. Let's consider some data. So number one, in terms of wealth in South Africa, the median wealth of a white household is 1.4 million rand, whereas for a black household, it's 70,000 rand. So, if you're trying to figure out where the money's at, it's not in the hands of someone who just got there from Namibia. It's in the hands of the white folks who own your land and your economy. That's where the money is. And I would even put to them that there are some other things that are far more important than that that we have to consider which are very strange in South Africa. For example, one in five black South Africans have HIV AIDS. One in five. That is staggering. That's your true emergency, South Africans. But then you say we're all South Africans. Well, if we're all South Africans and we're equal and we're all a part of the same thing, why is it that one in five, also known as 20% of black South Africans have HIV AIDS? But in the case of whites, it's less than 1%. It's like 3 to 6%. I say all that to say this, there's huge disparities in wealth, disparities in land ownership, disparities in all in all asset categories, disparities in health. And what we have to be honest about is that it's not about money. It's about power and it's about the fact that South Africans are scared to go at the current power holders and instead they go for the easy target, the immigrants. And even if they won against the immigrants, they still would make no progress because they still are fundamentally in an apartheid economy. And it's actually quite sad that the South Africans gaslight and lie about what they're doing when we can see it on television. We have to fundamentally acknowledge that the South Africans are devils. And the reason that I say that, and this is no hyperbole, when you see black people, South Africans go into a hospital and you have elderly women, you have sick people, and you're telling them to leave out while being sick from a hospital, you are a devil. And we can also see videos where South Africans are basically antagonizing children going into primary school. And it reminds me of the racist white majority in the United States in the 1960s when they wouldn't let black people get education. And there is no doubt that there's a great need for education throughout the world, but especially in a place like South Africa. And so many of the leaders, whether it's Ddoula or it's that woman Justenta, we never see them speak intelligently, use data, facts, and figures. It's all emotionalism because they've been confused and brainwashed. And this is not a new thing. I saw a video that was 11 years old about the same thing South Africans were attacking blacks. And then I looked in the comments, I saw someone write six years later, "Oh, hey, I'm back. It's 2019. They're still doing the same thing." And I guess we have to go back in 2026 and say they're still doing the same thing they've not learned. And because of that, they must be punished harshly. The sad reality is that these people are bullies. And you must meet force with forth force.
>> I mean it's really a matter of concern because when you look at the fact that uh uh migration uh is is a global phenomena. It's not just what is related to Africa. You know when we see people living in Africa go to the west but there's been I mean the recent issues about countries saying putting their country first. You know we've seen America saying America first. We've seen many countries and nation say we are prioritizing a country. As a matter of fact, you know, some African countries have, you know, have been blacklisted, you know, in a way where of coming into some countries. So, but now that speaks about our democracy in Africa in a view because in all of that, it boils back to the fact that when we do not have proper leadership, when we do not have, you know, things working in many nations in Africa, there's always bound to be this pressure. Do you feel that if Africa leaders get to fix the countries right, things will get better? you know so that we'll stop I mean because in 2026 one will say we ought not to be at this stage where we are you know talking about you know some of the issues that are very very I mean familiar with us from many decent democracy and I've heard it said before that democracy is just a form of government it's not a magic bullet and so Africa's biggest issue is not democracy uh it's economics it's education um it's political organization and ridding these countries of uh corruption. And that doesn't mean that the West is not corrupt. My government, the United States, is extraordinarily corrupt, but we have enough wealth that the politicians skimming off of the top does not destroy quality of life for the average person or even the lowest class so badly. So democracy is not the issue in Africa. The issue is number one identity. uh having authentic leaders who actually care about the population. Number three, stopping the foreigners from coming in and causing havoc. Whether we're talking about the Arabs, uh we see them active in Sudan. Whether we're talking about uh the Chinese, sometimes the Chinese come in and they do good things. Other times they come in and they deal with leaders who are not good managers of the economy and these people accept predatory loans and the Chinese take a port or a rail station or an airport as collateral and those are not good deals. Do we blame the Chinese? Do we blame them?
>> No. They're coming in to do business. Uh, and it's based on the decisions of the Africans in terms of if that's going to be a good business deal. And I'll give you an example of something we could learn from Chinese history. You know, the Chinese just a short time ago, they were not what they are today. They actually learned from the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union gave them helped them with ideology because at the time they were like, you know, communists. But they also sent engineers and they sent builders to build in China, but also to teach them how to build. And so what we cannot do, and I've seen this in Kenya while I was on the ground, I've seen this in South Africa. I've seen this in Ethiopia. What we cannot do is allow the Chinese to come in and not only give predatory loans, but also have so many Chinese people come in. And I've seen this in Zambia as well. And the Chinese have their own police, and the Chinese are not showing respect to the native African population. And most importantly, they're not teaching. They must teach us how to build so that we do not have to rely on them for all time. And so we must remember that we have to develop ourselves. And that's why Africa has to act as a body because if we don't, we'll have a situation like Zimbabwe. When Robert Mugab was getting sanctioned in in Zimbabwe, the reason his country couldn't get out of it is because the African continent could not collaborate in countering it. Whereas when you observe the Europeans, they move as one. The former colonial powers, they move as one. Africa must do the same thing. We should not be allowing the West to control our economies through sanctions, through currency manipulation, through forcing IMF and World Bank cooperation or submission. So it must be Africa for the Africans. And that's why when I refer to whites in South Africa, I refer to them as whites in South Africa. Because I tell you what, you go to Europe, you bump into somebody, they'll tell you, hey, go back to Africa. You're in Asia, they'll say, "Go back to Africa." You're in Latin America, they say, "Go back to Africa." You're in the United States, they'll say, "Go back to Africa." How is it you go back to Africa and you're still not home? That's what makes what's going on in South Africa so very heinous. We are human like everyone else. We should have a home. And if anywhere, we should be accepted in Africa where our blood goes back into the land.
I mean do you feel this about constant repetition of history because a lot of countries are saying look I mean South Africa you we had some help in history render some help for you we had a lot of South Africans coming to country got scholarship we had a lot of view I mean and all of that you know in aware of the fact that you must learn through history so some are now pointing fingers said South Africa are they do they have I mean do they have loose memories are they forgetting so soon what they might have actually gotten from other part of Africa. And now that that gets me to the point of do you do you think that in a way of this vigilante group mobilizing themselves having a logo having a group they are coming out on the street proudly you know jumping on the street getting someone on the street asking if they have a legal document to stay in the country are they in a way taking the laws into their hands?
They're absolutely vigilante groups and the most disturbing thing is that there's no doubt that the African the South African government condones what they're doing is allowing them to do it and at times cooperating. You can see videos where the South African police are just standing there watching as though they don't have laws and courts. And what's more, the good news is that the world is changing and in some ways for the better. And congratulations to the Nigerians. They have the largest refinery in subsaharan Africa and that I trust will probably be an even better thing with the straight of Hormuse being closed and you know cutting off part of the world's oil supply. that Nigerians must be respected and I hope that strong countries like Nigeria, they behave as strong countries. Not only strong militarily and in terms of population, but being a good moral force in the continent of Africa and especially protecting their citizens because we know that there have been Nigerians, there have been people from Ghana, people from Congo and other places that have been abused and it is with the consent of the South African government. And the South African government benefits from this and I'll tell you why. The truth of the matter is if you're in a developed economy like South Africa allegedly is, and I remember flying in there, you know, leaving the airport in uh Cape Town and you see all these shanties and it's only the blacks there. Then you get to Cape Town, it's all of the sudden looks like San Diego. It's beautiful million-dollar properties, but everyone's white except me. And I sell that to say those people living in those shanty towns. And the reason that they don't see any progress is because of the South African government. Their public compulsory education is obviously insufficient. and it does not provide gainful uh skills for gainful employment. So this is why when you get an immigrant, the South African is competing with a low-skll low-income immigrant for a job. If South Africa's developed economy did their job, then you wouldn't be competing with these immigrants. For example, I live in the United States. We get a lot of immigration. I've never once had a problem with immigration because I'm not competing with people coming from poor countries in Latin America. Why? because I'm well educated and I can take advantage of higher opportunities in a developed service-based economy. And South Africa's government's failings are why they're allowing the South Africans to wrongly blame the immigrants because it gets them from being under the microscope. The microscope that acknowledges you had load shedding because you couldn't manage your electrical grid. That's pathetic. They let them attack the immigrants because you forget that the South African government failed to protect the borders. If the government protected the borders, you wouldn't have these illegals inside of the country. So the South African government is extraordinarily guilty.
I mean, what we're talking about is about over 2.4 million legal migrants in South Africa. Yeah, there's some person said, "Oh, fine. We may have other um illegal immigrants who probably are in that country." uh do you feel that is enough for government if I mean for them to stand up to you know be able to address this issue by you know uh of course restricting the vigilante groups in these harassments and attacks and fishing out who they call illegal immigrants into the country other than you know this concern attack do you feel that there will be a way forward from from the lengths of things you're seeing because at the end of the day it will take the government of the day to get to do things it take the government of the day to sanction to arrest and whatever I mean as the case may be?
>> I don't see a solution under the current political structure in South Africa it is um it's a very deceptive matrix that operates in that country I remember many years ago my first time in South Africa and mind you I've had employees in South Africa I've been there many times I've been all over uh the country and I remember the very first time I was there and I saw an EFF uh you know rally and I became more familiar with MMIM. I had studied them before I showed up because I was going there to do business and invest. I want to know the nature of the country and I found that you know initially they're supposed to be revolutionary and then they get into office and now they're just a part of the establishment and they maintain the existing power structure over time ever since the end of apartheid. So South Africa actually requires a real revolution, an authentic revolution. And we've seen that these xenophobic or afrophobic uh attacks have been going on for more than a decade. So why would it change now if the nature of government has fundamentally not changed? And I would even further that the South Africans are being fooled. They're being fooled by many actors in government. Even Malmma who sometimes says things that are seemingly good. I remember when Uganda was putting forward a law against uh sexual deviance and we Africans have values. We do not promote sexual devian. And Malimma wrapped a rainbow flag around himself and protested the Ugandans putting up a law to protect the morality of their country. And I thought, gee, that's very strange. And I'll tell you why it's particularly strange. Because that's a white colonial mentality. The idea that you're not even in that country, but you're trying to control and dictate what goes on in another African country. especially when you're trying to control and dictate that they follow European or Western values because those are not African values. And we can observe the laws of the 55 countries of Africa to validate that. But here's what you really need to understand about how little the South African government cares about the South African people. Mima was promoting LGBTQ. South Africa, one in five South Africans have HIV, AIDS. If you look at transmissibility of that deadly disease, the homosexuality is the leading cause. be 20 times more likely to transmit it male tomale sexual intercourse. So why would he promote something that gives you a 20 times increase in this deadly disease? That's because they don't care. And when I'm there in Camps Bay, when I'm there in Maboning and Joberg, when I'm there in Durban at the beach, I never see any public health announcements to stop this pestilence in the land. The government fails on education. They fail on health care. They fail on protecting the borders. The government does not care about the South African, but as long as they can confuse the blacks to fight against the blacks, the government will never be addressed. And the whites will maintain control uh from the uh as a puppeteer and in in the background invisible. And the reason they're invisible is because they don't live among the blacks. They live uh where people are wealthy.
I mean this really leads to about a lot of advocate for some calls for immigrants uh and foreigners in the country in which uh is really about economic when you look at uh some of those things uh I mean because when we look at the right of immigrants of course or foreigners as the case may be you know is enshrined within uh the provisions of the United Nations enshrined you know even with the conduct of the African Union all of that is is getting uh to be to play Indeed that speaks about if a AU really have the capacity the pause or what it takes you know to jump because if the rights of immigrants the rights of foreigners you know are being infritten in some country like a South Africa it gets to speak that you know they are now I mean now giving them uh the powers or the vigilante powers to do whatever they wants to do that mop is been decided to who they want to stay in the country you know or not.
>> Well, the truth is that no international body can have impact unless they have military and we see that right now with the behaviors of the American administration. Um they kind of do what they want and whether the UN, you know, agrees or doesn't agree that they do what they choose and that's because the UN does not have an army that they can call in to stop it. Similarly, the African Union, they've been quite quiet, but they don't have an army to go in and stop the South Africans from doing what is occurring. And that is why countries like Nigeria, which shall be the superpower in Africa, that is why countries like Nigeria a need to get things together and b they need to project power effectively. And just one note and I have the utmost respect for the Nigerian people. In fact, I have SASS in Africa, an organization that's all about Africa and it's headquartered in Nigeria in Lagos. But the key is we the South the Nigerians cannot allow the power of a Donald Trump or these foreign entities to go into Nigeria as though the Nigerians cannot manage their own affairs. And until we can keep the outsiders out, maintain our sovereignty and our own power, and then when appropriate, project it across the continent, not until the then can we truly say that there's a such thing as international human rights. Not until then can we stop hate crimes occurring within the borders of some countries. And truth be told, I think South Africa will forever be a unique case, right? Because they have that significant white population that's still dominating the economy. And here's the funny thing. when you think about the blacks versus the whites and it's like well what have the blacks learned over time. Donald Trump falsified a claim that whites were being eliminated in South Africa. This was completely untrue and he created a program to extract them and give them opportunity. And he even brought the president of South Africa into uh his uh white house, showed him like fake evidence and then chastised a grown man, a head of state just like he was a child. And the head of state of South Africa like stood there and like behaved like you know he was a colonial subject which is an embarrassment to the entire continent especially South Africa. Now you would have to ask yourself where do we see a black nation rescuing black people wherever they may suffer on earth where do we see a black nation or a black leader bringing to account a a white troublemaker and saying hey you did this and we condemn you and you never see it. It's like we don't have self-respect. And that is why we must condemn every single South African wherever we see them at whatever level they be. This is including the Trevor Noas. Until they speak up and do something, every South African is guilty and we must lay the hammer on them because what they're doing is egregious and most importantly they're lying about it. I and I've gotten at least a hundred death threats. I did two million views on the video speaking out against this. South Africans send me death threats or they say, "Oh, you don't understand." What is the likelihood that I don't understand? What is there to understand about grown men, Zulus, and the organization Doula trying to block children from going to school? What is there to understand? How complex is it to understand that you are kicking old women out of hospitals? There's nothing to understand. You're doing wickedness and you should pay for that.
A lot to unpack in some of these issues coming from South Africa. Margaret Bolton is an author and a political commentator. Thanks so much for joining us here on Global TV, the diplomatic perspective tonight. We appreciate your time.
>> Thank you for having me.
>> Hello everyone. Of course, uh it's really a developing uh situations. We have seen what leaders are doing to arrest all of these situations. Some countries are speaking out in getting this matter resolved and of course advising some of course of some of the migrants in the country to take heat as well. But eyes are watching and of course every I mean international community as well are putting eyes closely looking at the situations unfolding in South Africa. That's a size of a show tonight on diplomatic perspective. Ian Michael see you again. The world is fast changing and news breaks at lightning speed. Let us guide you through events and stories about global narratives and developments in geopolitics, diplomacy, foreign affairs and world economy. Get factual and multi-angle perspectives on stories around the globe. Global television brings you diplomatic perspective every Monday and Friday at 9:00 p.m. with Ramsey Enoch Agu. Diplomatic perspective. The world in front of you.