Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, writing in a pre-Africa Day opinion column published in the state-controlled Sunday Mail, blamed the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa on “long colonialism” describing it as, “… a racialised war of black African underdogs”. News24 reports that in his opinion piece, Mnangagwa also said that anti-Chinese sentiments in Zambia, South Africa, and Namibia, “… revealed a sinister, deceitful and manipulative hand of the West”, specifically singling out Namibia’s move to shut down small Chinese retail shops to protect consumers against counterfeit products as “fake nationalism”. Zimbabwe Community in SA chairperson Ngqabutho Nicholas Mabhena, in response, said Mnangagwa was right about fake nationalism, but insisted the reason black people were fighting among each other was because of corruption by the ruling elite.
