The cost of turning on Africa — by Aderemi Ogunpitan

Every nation has the right to secure its borders and enforce its immigration laws. But there is a profound difference between protecting a border and turning fellow Africans into convenient enemies, punchbags and destroying their legitimate businesses.

South Africa’s growing culture of xenophobia is not solving unemployment, crime, corruption, failing public services or economic decline. It is merely providing politicians and frustrated citizens with a scapegoat while the real causes of the country’s decline remain untouched.

History has a long memory. Much of Africa stood with South Africa during apartheid, often at great political and economic cost. Repaying that solidarity with hostility risks squandering decades of goodwill.

The consequences may not be immediate, but they will come. That I know. Africans have long memories when it comes to being treated badly.

Reputations travel. So do resentment and reciprocity.

South African businesses, professionals and diplomats operating across Africa could eventually encounter the same suspicion and hostility now directed at other Africans at home.

However, I hope we are bigger than that, and not so small minded.

A nation that blames its neighbours and friends instead of confronting its own failures does not become stronger. It becomes more isolated.

Xenophobia is not a development strategy. It is an admission that South African leadership has run out of answers.