WATCH | ‘I am because of you’: Cape Town Africa Day picket stands against xenophobia

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:03][music] >> What we are here is to restore that solidarity.

[00:00:10]We We are here to make sure that we are not some other continent. We are part of Africa. And so, if an injury to one is an injury to to all. So, if someone has been hurt in Durban, they want to to say to our our migrants, you don't belong here.

[00:00:29]Our our belongingness is by virtue of us being African.

[00:00:34]That is why we belong, not because we have a little book.

[00:00:39]In 1956, they also wanted people to have a little book. You can't have to Cape Town. You must go there to Durban. You must stay there in Gauteng. And this is a corner for a free state. So, we we know that world. It didn't work. We fought against it, and now we can go anywhere in South Africa.

[00:01:03]In 2008, I was I was like I was infected and affected because I was pushed out of a train. But, luckily, the train was anchoring, so I just brushed my I had some bruises on my toe, but it didn't make me to hate South Africa because I know inherently South Africans are not xenophobic. But, looking as I was talking today, looking at this the the circles of life, South Africa has been also through historical traumas, which hasn't been treated. And sometimes, people are quick to judge and say that they are xenophobic. For me, I look at it from a different angle, that people are responding to their traumas.

[00:01:45]This is an issue of the political will.

[00:01:47]The government can do it. People are doing People are perpetuating anti-xenophobic sentiments, and the The actually knows about it. The broadcasters they they they flood it on air.

[00:02:01]There's lack of political will for government to do something because if government wanted to really do something about it, they got all the powers to do it. In in a way you look at it, the government is also looking at at at at their votes.

[00:02:12]Their vote. They don't want to alienate the the voters. So, that is that is that brings a a little bit a soft hand where the government wants to deal with this thing. But if the government was firm and said that this is wrong is wrong. We don't have to condone with crime.

[00:02:27]And that that would have been the political will to to actually cut it down. But it it keeps rising.