CHIMEDZA: Xenophobia is the work that apartheid began in the lives of black South Africans

There is a cancer gnawing at the heart of South Africa’s political system and its seed was sowed and watered by apartheid. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYAGA

The latest episode of widespread xenophobic violence in South Africa has attracted Pan-African condemnation.

The scenes of black people charging at other black people, mainly of African origin, reveal a very dangerous instability that is threatening to erode forms of Pan-African solidarity that existed during the liberation days. There have been reports of retaliatory attacks in Nigeria, Mozambique, Nigeria and some artistes have cancelled any performances in South Africa.