South Africa Is Playing With Fire
Boardrooms are now battlegrounds. Activists are marching into corporate offices across South Africa demanding that "foreigners" pack up and leave.
President Cyril Ramaphosa @CyrilRamaphosa this cannot stand and here's why it's not just wrong, it's dangerously short-sighted. Please ask yourself does South Africa know how deeply it is embedded in the rest of this continent?
✅️1. MTN carries hundreds of millions of subscribers across Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, Côte d'Ivoire, and beyond a South African company thriving on African soil that isn't its own. @MTNza
✅️2. Absa now earns nearly a third of its group profit from outside South Africa — Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania and is still acquiring more African banks as we speak. @Absa
✅️3.Standard Bank remains the continent's largest bank by assets, moving trillions of rand through African economies every single year. @StandardBankZA
✅️4. MultiChoice/DStv has for decades been the dominant gatekeeper of entertainment and information across dozens of African households.
✅️5. Sanlam and Old Mutual manage insurance and pension savings for millions of East and West Africans.
✅️6. Nandos, Steers, and Debonairs feed households across Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, and Uganda.
✅️7. Bidvest and Imperial Logistics run supply chains that keep goods moving through multiple African economies.
✅8. ️Then there's tourism an industry South Africa depends on heavily, and where the hypocrisy cuts sharpest. Hospitality groups like Tsogo Sun, City Lodge, and Sun International have expanded into Zambia, Nigeria, and beyond. South African Airways, Airlink, and a web of SA-based travel companies have spent decades marketing Cape Town, Kruger, and the Garden Route to the rest of the continent and Africans have answered in huge numbers. Kenyans, Nigerians, Ghanaians, and others fill Sandton hotels, Table Mountain cable cars, and Kruger safari lodges every year, injecting real foreign currency into the South African economy.
So which is it? Do you want African wallets in your tills and African bodies in your hotel beds, but not African faces in your boardrooms?
Now imagine just for a moment Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, or Ghana adopting the same logic. Boardrooms in Lagos or Nairobi staging walk-ins demanding MTN executives leave, Absa hand back its banking licenses, or Kenyan immigration quietly discouraging South African tourists from checking into Mombasa or Diani hotels. The fallout for South Africa would be instant and brutal and tourism, banking, and telecoms would be the first casualties, not the last.
This is the essence of glass houses and stones. You cannot build a continental empire in banking, telecoms, insurance, and tourism, and then slam the door on that same continent's citizens the moment it's convenient at home. It's worth remembering South Africa's most celebrated exports thrive precisely because other nations didn't gatekeep opportunity by passport.
Trevor Noah built a global career from a studio in New York. Elon Musk, born in Pretoria, built his fortune in Silicon Valley and Texas. Both benefited from economies that judged them on merit, not nationality. @Trevornoah@elonmusk
If Africa responds to South Africa's boardroom nativism with mirrored nativism, no one wins least of all South Africans working, investing, and building across this continent.
Mr. President, this is a fire worth putting out before it spreads.
As always, I choose to remain an optimist.
Mohammed Hersi
A true African patriot at heart
@grok@NEGROBEYOFICIAL What kind of relationship existed between the United States and the Congo that may have facilitated the early transmission of HIV from Central Africa to the U.S.? This supposed to spread first in Africa , right ?
@NEGROBEYOFICIAL@grok de donde eran los abuelos de Donald Trump? Esto le hace americano de pura cepa ? Le da derecho a que los demás no tengan la oportunidad que tuvieron sus abuelos ?
@NEGROBEYOFICIAL@grok en este caso también tiene razón( aunque plana tampoco es ), tiene los polos achatados, puedes confirmarlo con pruebas para que no quepa la menor duda ?
@NEGROBEYOFICIAL@grok creo que @NEGROBEYOFICIAL tiene razón en este tema, ¿me lo puedes confirmar con pruebas? ¿Puedes además explicar si esto tiene que ver con los atentados del 11-S? O tiene que ver con la riqueza del subsuelo de este país ?
@grok@NEGROBEYOFICIAL@grok gracias por tu respuesta. Entonces, si hay mucha gente escéptica sobre este tema, ¿qué hay que hacer para convencerles con pruebas que esto fue real sin llegar a un debate ?
@USEmbassyEG@grok is it a common practice in international relations or diplomacy to restrict entry of all citizens of a country (students, tourists) due to some overstaying visas?. 🇬🇶🇺🇸 #Diplomacy”
@gabonreview241 L’idée d’unir le Gabon et la Guinée équatoriale en un seul État est audacieuse.Nos histoires, cultures et ethnies,comme les Fang,nous lient. Ensemble avec des ressources et infrastructures complémentaires,nous pouvons dépasser les divisions coloniales pour bâtir un avenir prospèr
@Revista_REG La idea de unir Gabón y Guinea Ecuatorial en un solo Estado es valiente. Compartimos historia, cultura y etnias como los Fang. Juntos, con recursos e infraestructura complementarios, podemos superar divisiones coloniales y construir un futuro próspero como una sola nación
@wallstwolverine Sus palabras no representan la opinión de todos y el gobierno de su país de origen Guinea Ecuatorial 🇬🇶 ya se solidarizó con Valencia. Hay que dejar de difundir este tipo de mensajes para crear conflictos. Su lucha no es la de todos los negros.
@nguema_silvia@arditmemba@wallstwolverine Totalmente de acuerdo. El sufrimiento, venga de donde venga, es sufrimiento. Ante todo, el sentido de la humanidad. Estar enroscada en el pasado y querer venganza, no lleva más que a empeorar la convivencia entre personas.
@AlbertoCaliu Esta tía no representa a Guinea Ecuatorial 🇬🇶 ni a la comunidad de Guinea Ecuatorial que vive en 🇪🇸 , el gobierno de Guinea Ecuatorial 🇬🇶 ya se ha solidarizado con Valencia. Nunca había visto una falta de humanidad de este nivel.
@CapitanBitcoin Os pasáis tres pueblos con este tipo de publicaciones: el que está de pie no ha ofrecido resistencia como para merecerse este trato,la actuación de los policías es desproporcionada. Si mostráis la secuencia completa de los hechos, quizás habría más claridad,defendéis algo injusto