Help unify Africa by outing xenophobia
IN HIS 1959 speech on foreign policy, Dr Kwame Nkrumah said: “In Ghana, we regard our independence as meaningless unless if we are able to use the freedom that goes with it to help other African people to be free and independent, to liberate the entire continent of Africa from foreign domination.”
These words were said more than 50 years ago, yet they remain a constant reminder of the independent African continent envisioned by the charismatic nationalist leader and many others who sought to secure complete African liberation.
Nkrumah dreamt of a beautiful continent where there would be one humanity, a continent where people were committed to continental stability, unity and prosperity. And, dare I say, a continent where there was no fighting one another based on differences.
Today we celebrate the journey of this African unity prophesied by Nkrumah under the name Africa Day.
Yet, in South Africa we do so knowing that our country, which had all the makings to become an integral part of African unity, is ranked among the most xenophobic countries in the world with almost 70 people murdered, 600 shops looted and more than 10 000 people displaced in xenophobic incidents in the past two years, according to a special report by Xenomatch.
Perhaps then we should use this moment in Africa Month to confront xenophobia, stigmatise it and offer hope. We should ask ourselves if we have abandoned the humanistic Bantu philosophical saying “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” (A person is a person through others), or if we have become the beast that we once conquered.
It is true that before independence, we all shouted: “South Africa belongs to all who live in it”. However, today, that principle seems to be applied with certain conditions, particularly for those we call amakwerekwere – a moniker for a stranger.
It is also true that before independence we all shouted: “I Africa mayibuye” (African must come back). But now that Africa is back to its rightful owners, what are we doing to embrace it?
Looking at the figures, it is clear South Africans have not learnt from the 2008 xenophobic pogroms. Instead of saying sorry – and mean it – to our fellow African brothers and sisters against whom we have committed acts of agonising violence as bad as those in the past, we appear to take pride at “replacing the coloniser” even though philosopher and revolutionary Frantz Fanon warned against this in The Wretched of the Earth. The IFP agrees that the congestion of immigrants to South Africa, especially undocumented immigrants, threatens the government’s proficiency to deliver services, hence we support the call for efficient controls in our ports. It also accepts the hypothesis that the under-classes in South Africa are mostly xenophobic because they have been excluded from sharing the national cake.
As a Shona expression goes: “Ukama igasva hinozadziswa nekudya”, meaning social relations are intrinsically void in the absence of food.
However, there is no excuse for xenophobia, which in South Africa is Africanised as Afrophobia in which black African foreigners are the exclusive target.
And if anyone argues differently then they need to explain how Tanzania, one of the poorest countries on the continent, can grant full citizenship rights to 162 000 refugees from Burundi while a rich one like South Africa thinks of foreigners as a threat.
What the country needs to do is address the legacies of colonialism by redistributing wealth and resources and decentralise power, vertically and horizontally.
To do this, we need to include the lived experiences and thinking of most Gauteng citizens who have been omitted from a sustainable dialogue about South Africa’s future, namely the wretched of this province.
It is via such dialectics that we will be able to build a cohesive, unified, prosperous society that is intolerant towards prejudice, discrimination, and lawlessness. It is also through such discussions that we could meaningfully negotiate the gap between the poor and the rich in this modern, world-class province.
Let’s teach South African citizens that their country has a moral debt to the African continent which will not be repaid by the song-and-dance festivities on Africa Day.
Let’s be generous to fellow Africans who, in our time of need, welcomed us into their homes and gave us a chance to experience the “spirit of free” Africa and helped us to liberate ourselves from the shackles of apartheid.
Have we, South Africans, become the beast we once conquered?