The Convenient Silences of 'Xenophobia'

I did not want to write about ‘xenophobia,’ but I was unable to contain myself when I saw four of my colleagues standing with anti-‘xenophobia’ posters and with these words printed on them: “injury 2 one, injury 2 all;” “Africa for Africans;” “Africa Unite;” and “we are all foreigners somewhere.” I am sick and tired of the word ‘xenophobia’ and the way the petite bourgeoisie are pretending they have nothing to do with it. However, this article is not about my dislike for the petite bourgeoisie, but rather about the silences in the media and conversations on the topic of xenophobia.

I identified five convenient silences that exit in the popular discourse of ‘xenophobia’ in South Africa. I called it convenient because everybody know about it but choose rather not to speak about it. These five silences are: (1) race, (2) gender, (3) locality, (4) nationality and (5) class. If you consider these five silences that you realise that what is happening in South Africa is not xenophobia but something completed different.

Firstly, if you define xenophobia it simple means is the fear of all strangers. If this is the case then it does not explain why only a certain group of foreigners are attacked. White European and Chinese foreigners are not being targeted even though they just as foreign African nationals.

Secondly, the feminist movement also haven't say anything about this particular incident mainly because the majority of victims are males. Here the popular discourse is lacking because it does not consider the gender of the victims.

Thirdly, popular discourse also does not consider the location/locality of these 'xenophobic' incidents. Yes they refer to the place like for Diepsloot Soweto or wherever it is happening, but the discourse neglects to contrast it to where white foreigners are residing. It does not happen in Sandton or the Waterfront, it happens where the majority of people are poor and destitute.

Fourthly, popular discourse neglects to contrast the nationality of the victims to other foreign nationals. Chinese and European foreigners are not being attacked. It is only some foreign nationals on the African continent who are being attacked, especially those who own spaza shops.

Finally, the discourse also does not focus on class. ‘Xenophobia’ in South Africa happens amongst the working class and not amongst the elite in society. Thus, ‘xenophobia’ is rather class bias.

If we consider these silences in the popular discourse we have to conclude that it is not xenophobia, it is also not 'Afrophobia.' If it was 'Afrophobia' then foreign nationals from West Africa would have also been attacked. It is not black on black violence. If it was black on black violence then black people from all walks of life would have participated in these attacks. It is also not economic violence or criminality since it does not explain the pogroms (mob). Crime does not explain the pogroms.

It has to be something else!

My investigation so far has led me to the 'politics of belonging.' If you see it as a 'politics of belonging' then what is happening in South Africa is not unique to South Africa. It is happening all over the continent and the world. In Uganda it is called 'indigeneity, in Cameroon it is called 'autochthony' and in the USA and Europe it is the ‘anti-immigrant sentiment.’

The 'politics of belonging' raises the question as to who may lay the claim that one group belongs more than another in a particular geographical area. As you would see this already raises issues around the idea of the national versus the international - nationalism versus globalisation.

Just a few years ago everyone was hopeful of the prospects of globalisation; however these incidents the world over see a retraction into the idea of the national. We have once more become a citizen of the nation-state. Some argue that the politics of belonging is fuelled by national consciousness. I am not convinced since the politics of belonging in most cases are isolated incidences. 

So far, through my investigation, I have narrowed the cause of the politics of belonging to migration and scarcity. What I observed so far is that there is always a migration from an area of ‘scarcity’ to an area of ‘plenty.’ The migrants integrate themselves amongst the locals and develop a new national consciousness which they share with the locals. However, when a scarcity arises a politics of belonging is ensued as to who may lay claim to the resources. The locals believe since they were the first they have the sole right over the resource distribution. This automatically leads to a confrontation especially since some of the migrants developed the same national consciousness as the locals. They believe they belong just as much as the rest, especially if they have been there for generations. 

The confrontation in most cases has been violent. However, in Europe and in the USA this confrontation so far has mostly been through law. In some cases the confrontation develops into a full scale civil war such as the one in the Great Lakes region of Africa (Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo); where the immigrant’s national consciousness is just as strong as that of the local’s. 

If we consider this, the politics of belonging is a much better explanation then the current ‘xenophobia’ discourse. The consequence of the discourse will be the following: ‘xenophobia’ will be trapped in a dominant narrative and will be reinforced by empirical research. This will blind us from its broader significance.

Escaping Fanon’s Blind Alley: A Critique of Rhodes Must Fall Campaign

Fanon’s revolution was high jacked and postponed on the eve of Africa’s independence. Africa is dependent and at the mercy of a ruthless global system. So what happened?! Now with hindsight we are able to observe a number of shortcomings with regards to Fanon’s revolution. Firstly, Fanon’s revolution was conceptualised at a national level at a time the colonial system unified at a global level. The conduit of this system at a global level was the then newly formed United Nations. Even though Fanon’s revolution had the potential of changing the nation it was incapable of changing the global environment. Thus, the scope of Fanon’s revolution was the first shortcoming, hence as soon as African states gained their independence they realised that the colonial structure evolved into something global.

Secondly, Fanon’s revolution never came into existence as it was highjacked and postponed on the eve of independence. What some scholars discard from their analysis of post-colonial thought is the following: independence was a negotiated settlement between the colonial African state and the colonial power. It was the colonial administrator of the colony who acted as the interlocutor between the colonial power and the African elite. African liberation fighters and intellectuals were co-opted into the negotiations between the colony and the colonial power. The aim of these negotiations was to ensure favourable conditions for the European beneficiary at the time. It was only once these conditions were met that the colonial power granted independence under the farce called democracy. A negotiated settlement thus can hardly be considered as a revolution. The result was that the African was held once more captive by the same global forces that were responsible for colonialism. 

Thirdly, the native intellectual nor Fanon anticipated the technological advances of the 20^th century. I noticed in the current scholarly work of African intellectuals they are not anticipating any possible technological changes in the future. This anticipation of future technological advances is important since technology played an essential part in the evolution of the colonial system. Technology allowed information to travel faster between colonial powers and for troops to be deployed in Africa at a much faster rate. The UN and its sister organisations such as the IMF and the World Bank became the conduit of this evolved system. Technological advances during this period helped to consolidate their position and they became the structures through which colonial powers could coerce and control African states. The aim was to continue the colonial status quo - where the African state is the producer of raw materials and cheap labour. In addition to this, the old civilising project continued under the banner of modernisation, development and transformation. The outcome was the continuation of the status quo and Fanon’s revolution never took off.

Thinking of the future and technology was a major shortcoming during Fanon’s time and it still resonates in today’s scholarly work. The consequence is that scholarly work is trapped in the past. What many scholars forget is that we live in a present that influences the future. Thus, we must look at the past, live in the present and shape the future. However, since we shape the future in the present we must be mindful of how this future might looks like. Important to note is that the present is a constant which makes it nearly impossible to predict the future. The tricky part is that the future is a constant which makes an end to it rather impossible. If there was an end to it the future would stop at some point. Even though we are not possible to arrive at an end we can shape the direction and reality of the future. This raises the question of how do we shape a future for the African which is without a colonial legacy.

The direction and reality Fanon had in mind can be found in his Wretched of the Earth, especially the chapter on national culture. The opening sentence of that chapter reads as follow: “Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it” (Fanon, 1963, p. 206). Many of you might know this quote by heart since many pseudo-revolutionaries use this nowadays. Many on these ‘revolutionaries’ never read the whole book and does not know the complexity of this opening sentence. The first time I read that sentence I wondered why he used the words ‘relative obscurity’ and ‘mission’ in the same sentence. After attending a number of seminars and reading much scholarly work on the post-colonial condition of Africa, I realised its significance.

Its significance is captured in a question: how do we think ourselves out of the post-colonial dilemma? The answer to this question will allow us to shape the direction and the reality of the African's future. First, we have to frame and contextualise this generation’s mission while keeping in mind that the future is a constant. We ideally want to shape a future reality where inequalities of our colonial past are no more. Secondly, for this to happen we have to restart Fanon’s revolution. A revolution by nature is violent but not all violence can be considered revolutions. It also thoroughly destroy all the remnants of the previous system's politically, socially and economically attributes. It is driven by the people and importantly it builds a new one from its ruins. However, even though it is violent and devastating it is more promising than transformation.

Transformation is similar to revolution but distinctively different. It also aims to change the system but at a slower pace, with minimal disruptions and it is driven by representatives of the elite on both side of the spectrum. More importantly it does not aim to destroy the old system but to rather alter the old system so that it largely continues the status quo. Moreover, transformation unlike a revolution is ongoing and has the potential of continuously altering itself in such a way it keeps the dominant social order in power. Here we see that transformation contradicts revolution. The dominant social force on both side of the spectrum will thus opt for transformation so that the system continues benefiting them. In a revolution they will be on the receiving end, hence elites of African states and scholars opt for transformation rather than a revolution as it secures their interest in the system.

An excellent example would be the Rhodes must fall campaign by UCT students and staff. In the words of the UCT SRC this is want they want to achieve with their campaign: “It is in the interest of transformation and nation building that our universities remove all colonial and apartheid symbolism and begin to reflect the South Africa we seek to build.” As you can see they opt for transformation, a transformation that will be negotiated by a selected few on both sides of the spectrum. It is also clear that they want to alter the system and is not interested in a completely new system. As I made it clear transformation does not has the potential to remove all the remnants of the old system. Thus, the Rhodes must fall campaign will not deliver on what the general populace at UCT has in mind. 

This brings an important view to the fore: what kind of mission do we want as the next generation of African scholars that will shape a future reality which is free from our colonial legacy.  Where do we assist? One thing is none negotiable: it has to a be a revolutionary mission. To put is more forcefully: the mission can only exist in a revolutionary project as it will lose its value in transformational project. We need a need a new system and not an altered system that will largely continue the status quo. This is why the Rhodes must fall campaign is a misguided struggle without any real revolutionary substance and is out of touch with the realities African students are facing. Instead of storming the Bastille (reference to the French Revolution) and overthrowing the system, they opted for meek, watered down struggle to stay relevant in a post-apartheid South Africa. Instead of storming the institution they stormed a statue, a symbol. Their struggle is so short sighted that they do not realise that once the statue comes down their struggle is over. This show how out of touch they are with the realities of the current generation’s struggle and do not see that dawn is breaking. They and many other pseudo-intellectuals are stuck in Fanon’s blind alley and is incapable of finding resonance in Keita Fodeba’s poem African Dawn:

“Dawn was breaking—dawn, the fight between night and day. But the night was exhausted and could fight no more, and slowly died. A few rays of the sun, the forerunners of this victory of the day, still hovered on the horizon, pale and timid, while the last stars gently glided under the mass of clouds, crimson like the blooming flamboyant flowers.”

They are so out of touch with our reality that they do not see dawn breaking. Ask the students of Wits, UKZN, CPUT and UWC. They have become so stuck in the rhetoric of the day that they use transformation, struggle and revolution interchangeably. They have become the petty bourgeoisie – the gate keepers of the system. They are incapable of seeing that our struggle is a global struggle and that transformation would not help us overcoming the burden of our colonial past. They are incapable of seeing that even if we transform the nation, the nation would be held captive by the global structure and will have to conform to the status quo once more. The only thing that will get us out of this situation is revolutionary thought and action. Let us learn from the past, live in the present and shape a future reality that is without a colonial legacy.  

Enhancing Humanities in Africa

It seems as Humanities across the globe is in a crisis. Several reports contribute this crisis to a decrease in funding, a declining number of students who enrol for Humanities and a declining number of graduates who find a job after they graduated in Humanities (Delany, 2013; Levitz & Belkin, 2013 and Tworek, 2013).

A recent study by the Academy of Science of South Africa echoes some of the global trends. One of the key findings, in their report titled Consensus Study on the Future of the Humanities in South Africa, indicates that humanities is a state of intellectual stagnation and has been in this moribund condition for the past 15 years. A report commissioned by the Department of Higher Education called the Charter for Humanities and Social Sciences had similar findings. The difference between the two was that the Charter was institutionalised as the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences and has to address the challenges Humanities in South Africa are facing. Even though these reports are only based on the state of Humanities in South Africa we may infer that this is most likely the case in the rest of Africa.

However, the reality is Humanities in Africa inherited a particular history of privilege and subjection at independence and since then we have been grappling with it, and it seems as we are stuck. These reports opened a debate in South Africa and other parts of Africa as to what is the way forward for Humanities in Africa.

Pillay (05 April 2013, Mail & Guardian) argues that “we should lead the critique of the humanities and social sciences we have inherited by pointing to its limitation.” Leading the critique would mean we are taking responsibility for a ‘new’ Humanities going forward. In addition to this, Premesh Lalu in an article in the Mail & Guardian encourages African scholars to think ahead and out of the deadlock (Lalu, 07 June 2014, Mail and Guardian). I have to agree as I found that the majority of scholarly work in Africa is stuck in the past and disregard the present and the future. There are two things we have to bear in mind in this debate: we cannot change the past and we live in the present. I am not disputing the importance of the past but we have the tendency of disregarding the present and the future in scholarly work.

Like many other disciplines, Humanities also operates in the present. Our reality is that the present is materialistic and technologically driven society. Technological advances shapes a future which is changing so rapidly that even the most progressive technologically driven disciplines find it hard to keep up. This can be either a threat or an opportunity. If we see it as an opportunity a new generation of Humanities students has to be innovative, contemporary and at the fore front of societal change. Thus, we must anticipate changes and approach it progressively. However, this can only be possible if we are clear of the future we want for Humanities in Africa.

So what is our point of departure?

Mahmood Mamdani of the Makerere Institute for Social Research (MISR) recently asked the question how do we think the world from Africa? In the famous Hollywood movie ‘Blood Diamond’ the mentor of the protagonist said to him TIA which means ‘this is Africa.’ He referred to the main stream Western view of Africa which is seen as violent, corrupt and exotic. Since then a new movement amongst young African musicians developed which is called TINA which stands for ‘this is new Africa’. This movement decided to reclaim African music and expose it to world. They are not standing back for any of their Western counterparts and have some of the most popular videos on Youtube. It is time for Humanities in Africa to reclaim their place in world but we can only do this if we know what our point of departure is and only then we are able to think the world from Africa.

“It is not yet Uhuru”

Introduction
The author of the above quote is Oginga Odinga. He was influential in the struggle for Kenya’s independence and became the first vice president of an independent Kenya. Uhuru is a Swahili word which means freedom and he therefore implies that Africans are not yet emancipated since Africa’s independence. A postcolonial period is what the name suggests; an era after colonialism which must be free from any form of colonial oppression. However, if we analyze the period after colonialism, we will find that the quality of existence for most ‘black’ Africans did not change much since the independence of Africa. The only obvious change is the emergence of a small affluent ‘black’ elite in Africa, whilst the majority of ‘black’ Africans are poor. This begs the question: Are we really free? This essay will attempt to answer this question by arguing that freedom in Africa is not yet achieved. And will, therefore firstly, discuss freedom in a postcolonial Africa and lastly, it will look at the ‘back to route’ movement which is essentially going to explain where it all went wrong for Africa after independence.

Freedom in postcolonial Africa
What does freedom in a postcolonial Africa entail? How can freedom be obtain and maintained in a postcolonial Africa? These are some the questions we need to ask ourselves as political studies students when we want to found out if we are really free. Freedom in postcolonial Africa is a very contentious issue with many arguments but with no clear answer. And it seems as none of these arguments can help poor ‘black’ Africans to achieve the freedom that they have been waited for since the independence of Africa. Before we can start a discussion on freedom in a postcolonial Africa, we will firstly have to look at the various levels which Africa was colonized and secondly at the meaning of freedom that one of the leading political scholars in Africa provides us with in his book Uhuru Na Maendeleo (Freedom and Development).

According to Ture & Hamilton (1992: 6-23) colonialism had operated in three areas which were politics, economics and culture. During colonialism political decisions which affected Africans were made by colonial powers through a process of British indirect rule and the French assimilation. Further, the colonial project from the beginning was an economic project; colonial powers came to Africa not to ‘civilize’ but to exploit them economically. On, the cultural front colonial powers created an ideology that “relegated the black man to a subordinated, inferior status in society” (Ture & Hamilton: 1992: 23). This therefore meant that for Africans to be completely decolonized they had to be decolonized at all three levels. More simply put, is that they had to operate completely independent from the West at all three levels. The next section will discuss freedom in a post colonial era.

Julius Nyerere argues that there are three forms of freedom: (i) national freedom - which is the freedom of citizens to determine their own future; (ii) freedom from hunger, disease, and poverty; and (iii) individual freedom - which includes the right to live in dignity and equality and the right to freedom of speech, etc. For Africans to be free in a postcolonial Africa they have to experiences all three forms of freedom. But, as people that stay in Africa, we are all aware of the inequalities that are present in our societies. This, therefore, seems as that we as Africans in a postcolonial Africa are partly free. We are free to choose our government and our individual freedoms are protected by our constitutions, but we are not free from poverty, hunger and disease.

Firstly, the reason for this is that during the struggle for Africa’s independence we “decided for practical reasons to accept a fragment of independence” (Fanon; 1987: 120). The “fragment of independence” that Fanon here refer to is that we have exchanged economic power for political power and because we do not have the economic power we are burdened by social inequalities such as poverty, hunger and disease. This also means that we were never economically decolonized. A classic example would be how the ANC, during negotiations for a democratic South Africa, had to choose between economic power and political power. Today 15 years since the first democratic elections in South Africa this is still visible, the ANC has the political power and the ‘whites’ has the economic power. Inequalities, in Africa, are entrenched by Western capitalism through neo-colonialism. Neo-colonialism “addresses itself essentially to the middle class and to the intellectuals of the colonial country” (Fanon; 1987: 122) and therefore it creates unequal relationship between ‘black’ people in Africa. This unequal relationship causes the emergence of a small ‘black’ elite and the poor ‘black’ masses in a postcolonial Africa. And as long as we will have Western capitalism present in a postcolonial Africa we will not be free from Western oppression.

The second challenge that we face Africa is intellectual colonization. Intellectual colonization is a result of cultural colonization. Intellectual colonization makes us accept the unequal relationship that Western capitalism portrays as ‘right’. For example, every time we watch something on television the ideas of Western capitalism are being fed to us ‘as the right way of life.’ This simply means that you as the audience want to live your life like those ones on television. You want to drive their cars, you want to go to their schools and you want to do their jobs. But not knowing you are agreeing to the veiled inequalities that this life presents. To drive that car, to live in that house and to do that job, you are in support of the idea that some people must be rich whilst some must be poor; and some must be the servant whilst others are the boss. This entrench inequalities in Africa and deny Africans from the freedom which many had died for.

Where it all did went wrong for Africa
The ‘back to route’ movement explains where it all went wrong for Africa. There are number of arguments that we can discuss but this section will discuss the work of Issa Shivji. He wrote a document which is titled ‘The silences in the NGO Discourse’ in which he discusses how freedom in Africa was taken. Firstly, he notices that the generation of African nationalist, after Africa’s independence, crafted a form of nationalism which was modelled on that of the colonial powers but the ideological genesis of African nationalism lay in Pan-Africanism (Shivji; 2006: 6). Julius Nyerere and Kwame Nkrumah has realised that in order for African nationalism to work it must happen in Pan-Africanism, if not independent African stated will become pawns on a chess board for European imperialists’ (Shivji; 2006: 6). This was the biggest mistake most African leaders made. They went for self-interest over the interest of the majority. This gave Western imperialist the opportunity to regain their grip on Africa through various ways such as supporting corrupt African governments if they benefit from it and by only supporting “crisis-ridden economies” (Shivji; 2006: 9), if African governments adopted the structural adjustment programmes by the Bretton Woods institutions.

Towards Uhuru in Africa in the 21st century

A number of scholars has came with solutions to fix the Uhuru problem. This section, however, will only discuss the work of Julius Nyerere and Thabo Mbeki. Julius Nyerere suggests the following solution:

Our first step, therefore must be to re-educate ourselves; to regain our former attitude of mind. In our traditional African society we were individuals within a community. We took care of the community, and the community took care of us. We neither needed nor wished to exploit our fellow man (1973: 166).

His solution according to Bogue (2003: 103) brings two aspects to the fore which needs to be considered to enable us to achieve human equality: they are (1) intellectual decolonization and (2) the relationship between the individual and the community. Julius Nyerere wrote Ujamaa as a political framework to stimulate the intellectual decolonization of Africans, after the independence of Tanzania. His thought was based on human equality. If we study his concept of human equality it is apparent that human equality may achieve freedom. The second aspect means that you have individual rights within the community but your rights must not be greater than that of the common good of the community. This, therefore, entails you to generated wealth as an individual for the greater good of the community and not for your selfish needs.

Posted by Jacob Cloete ©

 Posted June 02, 2011