My foreign brothers and sisters living in South Africa, it is time we stop pretending that this problem will solve itself. South Africa is a country, not a refuge for an entire continent that has given up on fixing its own problems. We cannot all abandon our countries, run to South Africa and expect South Africans to carry the consequences of our governments’ failures. South Africans fought for their freedom in 1994. What is stopping us from going home, voting, challenging corrupt leaders and fighting for better governments? How long are we going to keep running away while our countries fall apart? We are putting so much pressure on South Africa that we risk destroying one of the few remaining places people still run to for opportunities. And when South Africa reaches breaking point, where exactly are we going to go? Europe? America? Another African country already struggling with the same problems? We cannot keep exporting our problems from one African country to another and expect the continent to prosper. Genuine asylum seekers deserve protection, and criminality should never be attributed to an entire nationality. But those of us who have the freedom to return home must ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions. If every African who is unhappy with their government runs away instead of fighting for change, who will be left to fix those countries? We cannot all be refugees from our own responsibilities while expecting someone else’s country to survive the burden. Go home. Vote. Demand better. Fight for your country. Because if we destroy every place we run to instead of fixing the places we come from, eventually, there will be nowhere left to run.