Did you ever imagine that any atrocity would seem a bit too much to Boko Haram, the thuggish army of butchers in West Africa?
Well, the xenophobic attacks in South Africa attracted the attention of the group, which condemned the killings, beatings and arson perpetrated by South Africans on fellow Africans.

That even Boko Haram found the attacks appalling should shame Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, who apparently instigated the riots, which he later shed a few crocodile tears over. No one will be convinced by his half-hearted reversal of message. The damage has been done, and it cannot be undone.

Sociologists and psychologists will no doubt spill much ink on this, probably the most violent bout of hate that some South Africans have shown against their brothers and sisters, but clearly there is something very badly wrong down there.

The particular brand of colonialism that South Africa was subjected to was the most destructive of colonialisms. It was a form of physical and mental emasculation that squeezed humanity out of all it touched and in place of that “ubuntu” crammed loads of self-loathing and self-derision.

That that self-hate can find objects to vent itself on from the rest of Africa is a by-product of that most dehumanising form of settler colonialism.

The white supremacists taught themselves and their victims that blacks were inferior to whites but that it was better to be black living under apartheid than to be black living in badly managed independent African countries.

The arrival on the scene of caricatures like Idi Amin and Jean Bedel Bokassa did not help improve on this false education. We are still witnessing the more resilient effects of Bantu education.

Nor did the advent of democracy, which very quickly proved to be an empty promise, with the majority poor continuing to wallow in their abject poverty while a fistful of “tenderpreneurs” — yesteryear’s freedom fighters — lived the lives of maharajahs.

The poor, who failed to understand the logic of the more things change the more they remain the same — and said they did not understand — were shot dead. So, who remembers Sharpeville or Soweto when platinum is wanted on the world markets?

The Zulu warrior was always a valiant fighter, as the Brits were taught by Cetshwayo at Isandlwana in 1879, but that fight was taken away from him long ago when he was made a vassal of the Boers and packed into hostels.

Sick, helpless and impotent, he can only vent his frustration on badly fed Somali shopkeepers and scrawny Mozambican economic refugees. It is a cowardly Zulu king we have, who cannot even stand for what he has uttered.

We saw precious little armed action against the apartheid regime, apart from the stone-throwing toddlers of Soweto and elsewhere. Just where was this Goodwill — wrong name — when some of us were traversing the world speaking and campaigning and organising in behalf of his people?

Senseless actions proceed from senseless thoughts and words, and then breed more senseless thoughts and words. In the middle of the mayhem, the whole world heard one meathead attempt what his feeble mind took for an explanation. “No,” declared this sage of sages, “This is not xenophobia, it’s Afrophobia.”

Great. In other words, we do not hate foreigners, we only hate Africans. Of course, the Boers taught them that Africa is north of the Limpopo.

There are only two African countries on the continent with the word Africa in their official appellations. One calls itself central — which is roughly true — can hardly be called a republic, but is firmly African. The other does not consider itself African and is fast losing the quality of a republic.

Soon those experts who go around checking on the pathologies of countries will declare it a failing state.

As a senior official of that country once told me as we discussed the bungled constitutional process in Tanzania, “Look, why do you feel frustrated because your rulers don’t have the stamina to write a proper constitution? What’s the point of writing a super progressive constitution like ours when your country is still being run by hooligans?”

No comment.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: [email protected]