Xenophobia, #RhodesMustfall and the revival of Black consciousness

I have been in my own world lately and because I haven’t followed the “news”, I have not been aware of the popularised and on-going events around me. One such event is the recent spate of xenophobic attacks that have been happening in some parts of South Africa. These attacks on foreign ‘African’ nationals started in the Kwazulu Natal province and have begun to spread to some other parts of the country, specifically, the Gauteng Province, according to President Jacob Zuma’s speech addressed to the parliament of South Africa on 16April 2015.

I spent the evening of 17 April reading articles and listening to radio and TV debates, discussions and even advertisements on the inhumanity of xenophobia and violence in general, and how the current episodes must end by any means necessary, never to rear its head again in South African society. The comments on the issue however, have been more diverse; for instance, some people, albeit a small number, have phoned in (on the sample of radio stations that I have exposed myself to), echoing the call made by the head of the Zulu nation, Goodwill Zwelithini that “all foreigners must pack their bags and leave”. An overwhelming amount of commentary has taken an opposing, non-radical view, and a lot of citizens have used the given platform to condemn the violent acts. Some foreigners, those who are not scared for their lives, have also contributed- some, offering an understanding of the situation and others condemning it, arguing with a whimpering plea of we are all “Brothers”, we are all “Africans”.

Reactions abound from the various sections of African society. It is alleged that Nigerian Terrorist group Boko Haram and its Somali counterpart Al Shabaab, have issued payback threats to attack South Africans in retaliation for xenophobic violence. Al Shabaab has appeared on social media websites in images with words like “we will enter Durban” and “For all the foreign lives lost in SA, there is a price to pay”. A number of Nigerian media outlets reported on the 18 April that Boko Haram “gives South Africa 24 hours to end xenophobic attacks or face bombing”. It further issued warning that if the South African government does not contain the situation, it will execute all South Africans living in Nigeria, Chad, Niger and other surrounding countries.

Some of Africa’s most respected thinkers such as Robert Mugabe and Achille Mbembe have also been searing and clinical in assessing the events that have claimed several lives and displaced thousands. Mbembe for instance points out that the current hunt for “foreigners” is the product of a complex chain of complicities — some vocal and explicit (such as the current hunt for ‘foreigners’) and others more tacit. He points out that the South African government has recently taken a harsh stance on immigration. New, draconian measures have been passed into law, which have had devastating effects for people already established here legally.

Mbembe writes: “A few weeks ago I attended a meeting of “foreign” staff at Wits University. Horrific stories after horrific stories. Work permits not renewed. Visas refused to family members. Children in limbo in schools. A Kafkaian situation that extends to “foreign” students who entered the country legally, had their visas renewed all this time, but who now find themselves in a legal uncertainty, unable to register, and unable to access the money they are entitled to and that had been allocated to them by Foundations”. The above narrative that Mbembe paints is one I can personally relate to.

Another respected African thinker and authority who has joined the discussion is Kwesi Kwaa Prah who points out that it is actually incorrect to single out South Africa for Xenophobia, as it has occurred and continues to occur elsewhere on the continent. As examples, he recalls the Aliens compliance Act, under the Busia administration of 1969, when Ghana expelled thousands of Nigerians and other West Africans, many of whom were born there.

Another example was in Nigeria in 1983, during a slump in the oil market, when Nigeria expelled millions of West Africans including 1.5 million Ghanaians, using alien restrictive legislation. Professor Prah suggests that xenophobia cannot easily be confronted, and there is a very important need for it to be studied historically and scientifically in order to fully come to grips with it.

Concerning the current episode, of interesting note, is the small cohort of analysers who have compared the current events to racism and have gone ahead to distinguish it from Xenophobia. It has been termed as “Afrophobia” because the crosshair of the violence seems to be on migrant Africans and not the other cohorts of migrants such as the many Caucasian and the equally numerous Asians.

I AM A ‘FOREIGNER’ AND I AM PLEASED AND EXCITED ABOUT AFROPHOBIA

As a ‘foreign’ African currently living in South Africa, I should probably be scared for my life. Hundreds of people like me have been displaced, a few have even been killed. But no, my sentiment is not one of fear, rather, it is one of happiness and optimism (and I am not suicidal!). I am happy that this event is enabling Africans to finally talk about issues that we have avoided with impudence since the so-called independence boom in the mid-20th century.

I am happy that, because of these attacks, we are talking about what it means to be African or South African, or Somalian or Nigerian. I am happy that the youth of South Africa are rightly frustrated and taking action (albeit crudely) and that they are not playing the role of the passive spectator of a social spectacle in all things governance- politics and economics. I am happy that the spirit and soul of black folk that led us out of slavery by rebelling and standing firm against the status quo of imperialism and oppression is rearing its head in African societies once again. In fact, I am delighted that when things seem to be so unfair, we can stand up and say No! And challenge the so called social order- something is not right, things need to change, we say.

South Africa recently saw this spirit manifest in the #RhodesMustFall movement which engulfed the University of Cape Town (UCT) and witnessed the removal of an imperial memorabilia- the Statue of Cecil John Rhodes from the UCT. This spectre, I believe, continues to haunt South Africa in the recent xenophobic attacks and will continue to haunt Africa in general until we Africans do something about it.
Civil conflict, and in fact, all violent conflicts in society, are manifest when an old society is heavily pregnant with the birth of a new society.

Frankly, our African social and economic landscape is a chaotic mess and designed to be so by nobody else but us. The way we live, the written and unwritten laws that constrain us are all designed by us- sometimes explicitly and most often than not, they become the norms of the day through implicit acceptance and ignorance. Today, the African socio-economic landscape comprises of spaces where respect is not a human right, but rather something earned. Our social institutions, the constraints that structure behaviour and interaction, are all programmed with the fallacy of money, power, respect; (the unwritten rule of the day).

Money first, power second, then respect. We all know however, deep inside, somewhere, that respect is not earned. Respect is a universal human right, and this is what essentially the South African youth in Kwazulu Natal and Gauteng are angry about, this is what swarms of African youth all over the continent are antsy about. This is what Boko Haram is angry about, this is what Al-Shabaab is angry about and we must not be naïve about this any longer. It is manifesting in a rapture of violence because that is the only way they believe that their point can be made. Each person in African society must be accorded respect, under no circumstances must respect be denied.

Note, that when I use the term respect and human right, I don’t mean the mere right to live or the respect for another’s life, I mean that a human right of respect is the capability to live a life which is meaningful to an individual. To be human also means to be capable. Each one, I believe, has a universal human right to unlimited rations in order to attain their individual capabilities. When there is respect for capable living there is no need for money and power. Where there is due respect, this Western, Eurocentric “capitalistic” economic game ends. Inequality ends with respect. In a world of respect people will not work to earn a living, but people will rather be engaged in vocations because that is simply what they enjoy doing. A job/work is something you do for money to survive and a vocation is something you do because you enjoy doing it.

Contrary to what contemporary economists believe, I am of the perspective that we must not look at the political economy through a paradigm of scarcity, but rather one of abundance; because there is no scarcity in the real political economy, there is triumphant abundance and a lot of waste in resource use and allocation for that matter. In a world where some people are worth billions (of whatever currency) and as a result attain access to different capabilities in life, others are not even worth a few cents, and have limited means of improving their capabilities. Does every human not have a universal right to self-determination? It seems that the (global and African) political-economy thinks otherwise.

For these reasons, I reiterate, I am happy that some South Africans are so frustrated by the current institutional structure of money, power, respect; that they have rationally resorted to any means, and in this case, settled on the easily accessible means, prejudice- which is ever ready to rear its draconian head of violence in all societies; one only needs to point it to the “other”, “the foreign” or “the extra load” because where there is separation, there is necessarily conflict.

Personally, I do not condone killing another. However, I also acknowledge that all successful social revolutions are necessarily violent. There is nothing like a peaceful revolution, because in order for the current social order to change, it must be threatened and removed by force because it does not want to wield its power. Peace, after all only maintains the status quo and that is why there is such a thing as peace dogma purported by those in power because it maintains the status quo which favours no one but the incumbent and powerful.

What I think can be done in South Africa and Africa generally is to try and minimize the impending bloodshed by opening up platforms for intense debates and critical discussions on what it means to be South African and African all across the continent. Xenophobia after all is just the other end of a stick characterised by ethnic rivalries and other intra-group issues.

THE IMPORTANCE OF IMPERIALISM COLONIALISM AND APARTHEID IN IDENTITY FORMATION

One of the most important episodes of separation in the history of mankind is the separation between the colonizer and the colonized. The oppressor and the oppressed, the civilized and the uncivilized, the capable and the incapable. This was the underlying assumption in the colonial and apartheid social institutional order and power structure. This is also the rationality that enabled slavery to go on for many centuries without any moral compunction on the part of the colonialists and the colonized.

This Logic was once challenged by Black folk. It is being challenged once again, by Africans because the battle that was begun on the continent years ago, was never allowed to see out its end. Africans were bamboozled into believing that all is nice and dandy, when it really wasn’t. It still isn’t. Economics is the new slavery.

If you are put in a prison, you must break out of it, in order to be truly free. You must take your freedom. You do not ask the prison warden to permit you freedom. You will only be placed in a bigger prison, if you are stupid enough to ask, and your asking of the prison warden is evidence of your mental slavery.

Is the story of Africa and colonialism depicted by the prisoner and prison warden narrative? Where Africa is the prisoner and the prison warden the colonialist? I think so, but for the purposes of brevity, I will not go into it in this discussion, it will only divert attention from the issue at hand- xenophobia.

Like so many other modern African states, South Africa is the creation of European Imperialism. Its very name, its borders and the very sense of nationalism which engenders its many people with such strong allegiances is a creature of colonialism. This is not a characteristic of South Africa alone, as previously mentioned, all modern African countries are creatures of imperialism. Ivory Coast, as an example is an easy pick. It is called Ivory Coast because that is the region of Africa where the imperialist found abundant ivory. Its people today call themselves Ivorians because they happen to be the Negros (Niggers) that lived closest to where the white imperial lord and his army found ivory in Africa. Nigeria is another example- its name, after the great Niger River, the country’s dominating physical feature, was suggested in the 1890s by British Journalist Flora Shaw, who later became the wife of the Colonial Governor Frederick Lugard. Nigeria was created and named by the imperialists, just as you may put a chain on a dog and proceed to give it a name. Last year to my dismay, the Nigerian government actually celebrated this fact- 100 years of the consolidation of colonial territories (1914-2014).

It was the imperialists that drew up and carved out all the borders of Africa and later through the granting of “flag” independence, nationalised these regions that today represent our individual and collective identities. Under French imperialist, Charles De Gaulle for instance, entire regions were divided and sub divided arbitrarily for the purposes of divide and rule. In De Gaulle’s mind, independence would never be granted to a big territory because of long term threats which could inevitably sideline future imperial interests, so in order to qualify for independence the imperialists had to divide the colonies up.

What does it mean therefore to be a South African, an Ivorian or a Nigerian? Are we merely creatures of imperialism? Or are we something more than that? Personally, I am an African, I am not a neo-colonial creature. What are you? Oh, dear reader…?

After Africa gained continent-wide independence, the goal was one of complete de-colonization. De-colonization, meaning that as free and independent people, Africa had acquired a universal right to self-determination that necessitated the complete removal of all colonial institutions and constraints.

This meant deliberations and intensive debates on borders, on language and on nationalism, among many others. In fact, such was the goal of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) – which was created to unite the whole African continent into a super African nation. The generation of African leaders that led Africa through the independence struggle are almost all dead and gone; only Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe remain standing to my knowledge. The current generation of African leaders are too busy engaging in corrupt activities and perhaps rationally so, because they have been bamboozled to such an extent that their eyes have been completely taken of the ball. The process of de-colonization thus was halted even before it began.

The recent removal of the Rhodes Statue from the campus of the University of Cape Town was in my eyes a rallying cry by the South African youth that the process of de-colonization must follow its course. The youth made de-colonization their own struggle. I say to the youth, if we can collectively see the sense in removing a colonial statue why can we not see the sense in rethinking our geography? Why can we not see the sense in rethinking the lingua franca of our Nation? - The African nation? We must be innovative and inventive with our continent. Africa is a work in progress and we must be proud and in fact feel privileged to be part of the founding generations of Africa (remember, we are not even a 100 years removed from being classified as animals).

Personally, I am from Earth. On Earth I am African. I am not a neo-colonial construct and never claim allegiance to any neo-colonial ‘nation’. We can all let go of the colonial mentality that attaches us to colonial constructs. Free your mind. De-colonize your mind. De-colonize Africa.

* Sekou Nyabinghi is a Masters student in Economic History at the University of Cape Town. He does not claim allegiance to any neo-colonial 'Nation' construct and is an African from the Fante and Dagomba ethnic groupings in West Africa.

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR/S AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM
* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Please do not take Pambazuka for granted! Become a Friend of Pambazuka and make a donation NOW to help keep Pambazuka FREE and INDEPENDENT!
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.