Restore to us what is naturally ours
Tajudeen reports back from the launch of the Citizenship Rights in Africa initiative (CRIA) held last week in Kampala, Uganda. If we are all Africans, and recognised as such, then we can stop 'foreignising' people who disagree with us, or referring to other Africans as aliens, or discriminating against fellow citizens as 'indigenes' or 'settlers', and practising other forms of xenophobia that are so rampant across Africa. An African citizenship will, he says, restore to all of us what is naturally ours - being African.
Last weekend I returned to Kampala for a few days. It is always a pleasant return for me in a way I do not or expect to be welcomed to Lagos, or feel very homely in my current abode, Nairobi, now more notoriously referred to as Nairobbery. Kampala is a city bursting with all kinds of construction: roads, hotels, bungalows and shopping malls. It is a frenzy the economics of which I have not been able to understand. They are all ostensibly being built for the Commonwealth Summit (CHOGM) being held in November. No expense is being spared and the government is in overdrive to give all kinds of subsidies and concessions to ensure that all these luxury apartments are completed before the summit begins. In this rush it is strangling the struggling domestic furniture industry because CHOGM builders can go to Malaysia and import all that they need with little or no tax. After the summit what will happen to these hotels? Would a one-week summit generate returns to keep them open forever? It is clear that in spite of all the rush some of them may never be completed, while some may find other uses, and the very big ones like the new Serena Hotel should survive having risen from the ashes of the old Nile Hotel to the status of a hotel 'fit for a Queen'.
My visit was not about touring the dizzy heights of Kampala. I was in town to participate in a launch of a very important campaign sponsored by the Global Pan African Movement (PAM), the International Rights Initiative (IRRI) and Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI): Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative (CRAI).
It is a matter that concerns all Africans. We may call ourselves Ugandans, Nigerians, Malawians or whatever, but are we really citizens? Do we really enjoy the full rights, freedoms and feel the complementary obligation to be loyal and voluntarily discharge our duties towards these states? I am always envious at the rate at which Western governments dispatch airplanes and soldiers to take their citizens out of any conflict situation, whether war or natural disaster, across the world. Hence Westerners are often the first refugees from any theatre of conflict. How many times has an African government mounted the same operation to rescue their citizens?
How many times have we heard any of our numerous diplomatic representatives in Europe or America or even in Africa make any public comment about the treatment of their citizens in the countries they are resident in? But let one Westerner be unfortunately lost in some impenetrable forest anywhere in the world, and the ambassador or high commissioner and the full weight of their propaganda machines - the BBC, CNN, VOA, RFI - would be brought to be bear on all of us; and if it is in Africa our security establishments will do anything to find the missing Westerner yet may not raise a finger for their own citizens. That is why many of our people will not run to the police or the army or 'government people' when they are in trouble.
The one aspect of citizenship that makes news is the now routine arbitrary denial of citizenship to compatriots who may have fallen out with the powers that be. The most recent demonstration of this is the publisher of the only surviving privately owned media in Zimbabwe, and also the proprietor of the Mail and Guardian in South Africa, Trevor Ncube. Because he would not toe the line, the Zimbabwean government refused to renew his passport, denationalised him and rendered him stateless. An older, well-known case is that of Jenerali Ulimwengu, who is the CEO of the Habari Corporation, publishers of several Kiswahili and English language newspapers in Dar es Salaam. Of course there was the more famous case of Zambian President Kaunda who was denationalised by his successor, the little man with even smaller brain, Chiluba, who was later 'discovered' to be of DRC origin himself.
Jenerali and Trevor were at this meeting and gave chilling, if sometimes ridiculous, accounts of the processes leading to their denial of citizenship. Trevor has brothers and sisters who are not in trouble at all, and Jenerali also has siblings who were never the subject of any investigation by the Mkapa government. What is common to both cases is that the matter was purely political. The first time I met Mkapa, it was Jenerali who took me to his house near the Aga Khan hospital in Dar. He was certain that 'he was our man' to succeed President Hassan Mwinyi. Our man indeed!
But Trevor and Jenerali or Kaunda are lucky because their cases became a source of huge embarrassment to their governments who had to back-off either in court or gave in politically. There are millions of people across this continent who are affected. According to the press statement issued at the launch of CRAI:
'Tens of millions of Africans have been victims of the pandemic of statelessness and denial of citizenship. In terms of the number of people affected and the implications for peace and security, it is easily the most serious human security and human rights problem on the continent today.'
It further stated: 'Statelessness and the arbitrary denial of citizenship violate human dignity, undermine the integrity of government and its institutions, dislocate families, destroy the livelihoods of those affected, and render the victims open to further abuses of their rights and lead to war.'
Leading international and African advocacy groups joined the three organisations in launching CRAI. It is a cry for liberty in which all of us have a role to play, either as part of the problem, or as part of the solution. Anyone of us could be a victim. The solution is very simple: accept Africans as Africans and treat them with dignity anywhere they may be as legal African citizens, from Cape Town to Cairo.
If we are all Africans and recognised as such then we can stop 'foreignising' people who disagree with us, or referring to other Africans as aliens, or discriminating against fellow citizens as 'indigenes' or 'settlers', and other forms of xenophobia that are so rampant across Africa. If we disagree we should try to solve them peacefully or understand the basis of our differences without resorting to stripping our opponents of their humanity and citizenship.
Rights should derive from our being human beings and the state has an obligation to protect all of us as citizens regardless of the circumstances by which we come about our citizenship which may include, ancestry, birth, settlement, marriage, migration, naturalization. Conferring African citizenship on all Africans may not solve all our problems but it provides an important legal and political basis for us to hold our governments accountable and enjoy the full rights of political and socio-economic participation wherever we may be without fearing expulsion and statelessness. It will also remove the insult that non-Africans are freer to move around the continent, especially those holding North American and European passports, while Africans are routinely humiliated and treated as 'others'. We are both 'others' abroad and still 'others' in Africa. Do we not deserve a place to call 'ours' where we can enter or leave without hindrance? We may never quite be Nigerians, South Africans or Kenyans, Chadians or any of the other possible colonially-induced artificial creations, but at least we can be who we are: AFRICANS. An African citizenship will restore to all of us what is naturally ours.
* Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.
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