HomeOld_PostsWhy Afrophobia won’t go away soon: Part One.....pan-African dream must remain alive

Why Afrophobia won’t go away soon: Part One…..pan-African dream must remain alive

Published on

THE Afrophobic violence which erupted in South Africa recently has elicited the usual moral condemnation from within SA itself and Africa in general.
There are those who feel such violent outbreaks are an embarrassment to the Rainbow Nation; that it is not only something which portrays SA in bad light but undercuts the optimism and hope which characterised the birth of South African democracy in 1994.
Surely the black-white nation which the late Nelson Mandela led to freedom and democracy should never be associated with such Afrophobic barbarities.
Then there are those who feel SA is accommodating too many foreigners, especially those who hail from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, Ethiopia and the DRC, among other countries.
They regard all these foreigners as taking away their jobs, women, houses and shops.
And the list of alleged crimes goes on and on.
Nigerians in particular, are alleged to be promoting drug trafficking and prostitution on an industrial scale which SA has not witnessed before.
In fact, the list of crimes allegedly committed by immigrants from Africa is a long one.
Apparently such a list does not exist for immigrants from Hungary, Greece, Serbia, Italy, Germany, France, Britain, Poland, Turkey and Holland.
If such a list does exist, it means that it is one of the best kept secrets in South African society.
And the reason immigrants from all these European countries are regarded by locals in a positive light is simple.
Whites are regarded by most locals as potential employers and/or benefactors by virtue of the colour of their skin.
In other words, most locals regard themselves as potential beneficiaries from the mere presence of white immigrants in SA.
After all, is this interpretation by some locals not in line with what their history has been telling them all along, if not for centuries?
The response of the rest of Africa to the violence associated with Afrophobia in SA is one of suppressed fury; there is this complete shock, bordering on disbelief that some South African locals can turn against their own black brothers and sisters, that they would like to drive them all out of South Africa back to their countries of origin.
Then there is this gut-wrenching sense of betrayal, this reluctant recognition that all that which the rest of Africa did when it hosted thousands and thousands of South African exiles from the 1960s right up to the early 1990s may actually not count for much to many South Africans of today.
Why, they ask, should some South Africans turn against their fellow Africans when in fact, it is independent African states which assisted them to liberate their country?
Africa provided homes to South African exiles; it provided a huge amount of resources which South Africans used in their liberation struggle.
Many African countries, especially those which became known as Frontline States sustained huge losses both in human life and material terms because the apartheid regime attacked them regularly for harbouring and supporting South African freedom fighters.
Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana come to mind here.
One can go on to mention the political and diplomatic support which was always extended to South Africans unconditionally in their hour of need.
How come such a large number of South Africans have forgotten so much so soon?
Meanwhile, beneath all these unanswered questions is a genuine sense of bewilderment about how to handle such an awkward situation pitting black people against each other; there is also a burning desire to understand what could have gone wrong between South Africa and the rest of the continent.
Aggravating this overwhelming sense of bewilderment is the fact that the violent outbursts associated with the South African Afrophobia are a real threat to the African Dream which says that one day, maybe in one or two generations, Africa will achieve complete economic and political integration.
This dream has been burning in Africa since the days of Marcus Garvey; it is a dream which refuses to die.
With these periodic irruptions of Afrophobic violence, it seems as if that grand pan-African dream is being chipped away at the edges bit-by-bit by some of the very people who only recently began to benefit from the decolonisation project of the whole African continent.
The question is why?
Why should Africa find itself engaging in such a self-defeating and shameful fratricidal war, as if it has run out of clearly defined enemies?
But anyone who has read African history and/or lived that history is aware of how tragic it has been, always.
Africa’s enemies are well documented by those enemies themselves.
They are the same people who have not hesitated in the past to subject Africans to slavery and colonisation and, recently, to neo-colonisation.
While it is true the horrors associated with Afrophobia are heart-rending and difficult to forget, it is vital we try as much as possible to understand the South African dilemma from a number of angles.
First, violence associated with xenophobia is not something new at all; such violence has taken place in Africa and the world well before SA became free.
Second, we need to take into account that the long isolation which South Africa experienced during the apartheid era has had a lasting impact and that it will take many decades across many generations to undo it.
This isolation partly explains why many in South Africa today speak, rather innocently, about their wish to go to Africa as if they are located on a different continent altogether.
Some speak about Africa being north of the Limpopo River.
Third, there is the whole issue about understanding what apartheid itself came to mean to individuals and communities in SA; how this creature called apartheid defined the African in social, moral and psychological terms and how indeed the African came to inhabit what the French philosopher Jean Paul Sarte labelled as the nervous condition of the so-called native.
In light of all of the above, the task before us in regard to Afrophobia is difficult, but straightforward: it is how to respond to it in a way which does not destroy the pan-African dream.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest articles

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

The contentious issue of race

 By Nthungo YaAfrika AS much as Africans would want to have closure to many of...

More like this

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

Discover more from Celebrating Being Zimbabwean

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading