African integration and xenophobia: South African attitudes

The question of the extent to which South Africans are enthusiastic about greater African political and economic integration is an important one. To address this question, we first have to acknowledge that there is no universal understanding of integration in the African context. Each country is full of cultural and social paradoxes based on a complex matrix of consensus and contradictions. Thus, attempting a single premise for integration is inadequate and untenable.

South Africa’s ambivalent relationship with the concept of African political and economic integration highlights how multifaceted the notion is. This is further complicated by ideologies of pan-African loyalty and histories of postcolonial liberation. Moreover, the South African citizenry has, in diverse ways, shown aversion to the manifestations of integration within their borders, culminating in the xenophobic attacks in 2008. Thus, the concept of integration can be unhelpful as it elides the many voices and many silences surrounding the interactions between post-colonial African states.

Before looking at the question of South African attitudes, it may be helpful to review the experience of and theorising around integration north of the border. Historically, the concept of African unity and the theories pertaining to the evolution of integration have long been contentious. In the 1960s, Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere held two distinct theories for African integration. Both men were lauded as great Pan-Africanists and champions of African unity, but Nkrumah wanted a United States of Africa without delay whereas Nyerere advocated gradual progress towards union, with each step building on the last.[1] Thus a singular unitary concept of African integration did not even exist in the earliest conceptualisations.

Moreover, different theories for integration were further complicated by the development of intrastate notions of individual statehood tied to created nationalities in the context of post-colonialism. After independence, each state cultivated its own macrocosm of historical, sociological and cultural patterning with dense identities of nationality, territory and economic policy. In fact, disunity and a lack of integration between African states, highlighted by regional hostilities and country wars, have often been blamed on Africa’s ‘artificial’ borders set by the colonial powers and retained by the then newly independent states, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Importantly, this framework for statehood failed to appreciate the complexities of African histories of migration and forced movement during the colonial period and was imprinted from a colonial legacy of attachment to the unit of state and models of citizenship.

Thus a central feature of the African state was the institutionalisation and legalisation of a distinct ‘otherness’ which determined not only political rights and freedom of movement but also the right to hold land and the rights to economic power.[2] Even the founding laws of the new states, which aimed to put in place equal rights of all races and ethnicities, were reproductions of colonial models of enforced exclusion. In this sense state nationalism has made African integration even harder to achieve because each of Africa’s new democracies, so hard fought for, institutionalised the concept of the nation-state, and the corollary was a distorted closed-door environment.

The East Africa Community (EAC) is the newest attempt at African integration on the continent, and serves to illustrate the tensions between nationalism and integration in the African context. In September 1999, the East African Cooperation Treaty was signed, where Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya agreed to loosen border controls for the free flow of goods. However, the nation-state concept continues to limit further development. The citizenry themselves have internalised notions of statehood which entrench concepts of exclusion rather than unity and result in, for instance, Ugandans having suspicions that Kenyans will ‘steal’ their land. Therefore, the historically complex formation of the nation-state in Africa goes to the core of integration and interstate relations. How states approach efforts toward new forms of regional/continental unity exemplifies this complexity.

Attempts to build continental unity continue. They can also be seen in the state membership and participation in the African Union (AU). The AU was established on 9 July 2002 as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and currently has representatives from 53 member states. The objectives of the AU are based on the premise of ‘African solutions for African problems’ and aim to facilitate political and socio-economic integration on the continent, as well as to negotiate, promote and defend common African-based positions.

However, the AU’s lack of intervention in the case of Zimbabwe, where the citizenry are still under the despotic leadership of Robert Mugabe, has questioned the effectiveness of the African Union and by association has brought to the fore issues of integration. The lack of action by the AU shows a distinct lack of willingness to challenge notions of statehood and therefore blocks integration.

AFRICAN DILEMMAS

The contradictions in the South African government’s approach to integration in Africa epitomise African dilemmas. South Africa’s experience with integration shows a distinct lack of consistency. Historically, South Africa has been intrinsically linked to its neighbours and wider Africa through mutual political struggles. The armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) Umkhonto We Sizwe was supported by and allied with other liberation movements in Africa, namely the MPLA of Angola, ZAPU of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), FRELIMO of Mozambique and SWAPO of Namibia. In this mode, African identity was not built on national identities – whether South African or Angolan or Zimbabwean – but rather on an African brotherhood.

On the other hand, South Africans have lived in a state that for decades has ploughed its own furrow. Apartheid, despite being opposed by the majority of South Africans, also implanted ideas – political, economic, social and cultural – that separated them from Africans living outside its borders. Today those differences persist despite the liberation of South Africa, making it hard for South Africans to believe or accept the reality of integration, and more actively makes them reluctant to embrace it.

Considering Zimbabwe, for example, South Africans feel widely outraged by the level of repression and lack of democracy they see there. On the other hand, they do not wish to become too integrated with their neighbour and prefer to maintain some distance. Thus, South Africa has been the most outspoken about the issues in Zimbabwe, yet President Jacob Zuma has continued with former president Thabo Mbeki’s policy of ‘quiet diplomacy’, even after having expressed the need for more drastic action. This paradoxical approach stresses the difficulty in understanding integration in the context of Africa because though South Africa participates in integrated forums it does not challenge the structures or ideologies of state that make further integration impossible. This disjunction between policy and action clearly illustrates the lack of enthusiasm by the South African government to engage critically with the concept of integration.

This raises another argument about whether South Africa actually wants to challenge these established structures as they maintain the status quo and currently the status quo supports South Africa as the regional economic superpower and influential political authority.

Therefore, though South Africa has supported other regional and continental formations of economic integration – current support of SADC (Southern African Development Community) and other regional economic blocs, for example – it has not actively followed up on substantial initiatives to politically integrate, and any economic integration is purely for profitability’s sake. In fact recently, the future of a regional economic bloc, the Southern African Customs Union, has come under scrutiny because South Africa substantially subsidises the smaller states – particularly Lesotho and Swaziland – and the South African Treasury is uncomfortable with the subsidy’s extent, given competing domestic demands.[3] Therefore, economic forms of integration are only used when profitable for South Africa.

Furthermore, these contradictions in understanding integration have manifested themselves most acutely within the South African citizenry. Despite the strong rhetoric of African solidarity that all governments and many citizens espouse, in practice there is great ambivalence, with many people finding their right to citizenship and belonging under threat today.[4] This problem was highlighted in May and June 2008 with the xenophobic attacks, where working-class South Africans attacked and destroyed the property of migrants and refugees. South Africans felt that the growing numbers of foreigners in South African informal settlements were threatening their access to resources, which they feel they are entitled to by virtue of their citizenship.

It was a stark reminder that the policies and rhetoric around African integration and unity remain external to the consciousness of South African citizenship in the context of regional/African relations. Furthermore, the laissez-faire policy approach to foreigners that the South African government had adopted entrenches and may even encourage the conflictual attitudes of the citizenry.

Notions of South Africans’ misgivings about integration are therefore correct. For South Africans, integration, as broadly and conventionally defined, implies dangers, of impoverishment, of cultural dilution and of erosion, even though the dominant ideology of Pan-Africanism persists at a rhetorical level.

In the absence of a universal, coherent conceptualisation of integration, African nation-states continue to engage with integration in an unenthusiastic, ambivalent manner. Where governments have engaged in endeavours aimed at economic and political integration, very little effort has been made to entrench the ideals, values and norms associated with African unity in the consciousness of their citizens. Furthermore, laissez-faire policies in the South African context have served to validate the inherent tensions between citizens and foreign nationals, culminating in the xenophobic attacks of 2008. The concept of national identity is fluid and in the case of South Africans it is incredibly fractious and fractured.

The solution to South Africa’s schizophrenic attitude lies in the unpacking and dissecting – in public spaces like the media, cultural performance and academic research – of the concept of integration and what it means to different parties on the continent, both as governments and as people. This conversation goes to very core of what the values that make us African are and what are the means by which this African identity is entrenched. Through this it will be possible to decipher what the concept of integration means and, therefore, whether it is a desirable for the future for African states.

I am a child of exiled parents who applied for asylum in the UK because they were discriminated against by the apartheid government for choosing a partner of a different race. This enforced denial of shared identity and abrogation of basic rights is the perfect example of how far South Africa has to go to find internal integration and national peace. Only with a broader understanding of human rights, equality and individual dignity, with a government advocating the same, will South Africa be able to overcome its past and find a more comprehensive stance on regional and greater African integration.

Ultimately, integration as a desirable political and economic configuration depends on the ability of African governments, civil society and broader populations to engage with the concept, its definition, its consequences and most importantly, the means through which it is achieved.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Ella Philda Scheepers is with the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] Shivji, I.G, ‘Pan-Africanism in Mwalimu Nyerere’s thought’ 2008 found at http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56108
[2] Manby, B Struggles for Citizenship in Africa 2009 Open Society Institute
[3] Draper, P and Khumalo, N ‘The Future of the Southern African Customs Union’ Trade Negotiations Insights. Volume 8. Number 6. August 2009 found at http://ictsd.org/i/news/tni/52394
[4] Manby, B Struggles for Citizenship in Africa 2009 Open Society Institute