There have been several books that have changed my life, two of these are on the life of PAC founding president Robert Sobukwe and Black Consciousness Movement’s Steve Biko. Before these political rebels, there was the soul-shaping 1916 piece Native Life in South Africa by ANC founder Sol Plaatjie.
Their Pan-African ideas led me to vote PAC in a previous election, believing in the goal of a united Africa that could lift where it stood and, in doing so, elevate the whole continent and its populations. Yet, all I felt in the aftermath of that show of support was a swig of betrayal and the bottle of emptiness.
It was an ideology that, like most, lives best on paper but dies quickly on impact.
We romanticise Africa’s role in uniting against Apartheid and use it to drive demands for us to be one, but the reality is that the continent has always been at war with itself, even while Mandela was in prison. Its greatest leaders have been those who pushed for co-operation but were never able to convince a diverse group of people to actually work together.
The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was officially anti-apartheid in its stance, but for all its lip service, there were several countries that engaged with Pretoria, especially economically and for assistance in regional conflicts.
Decades later, the OAU’s successor, the African Union, faces the same dilemma of preaching unity, solidarity, and harmony between nations when countries are fighting each other over xenophobia and immigration.
Many countries on the continent have been outraged at anti-illegal immigration protests in South Africa that have often turned hostile, aggressive, and even violent. And Ghana, no matter what you believe its motives actually are, have rightly called for an AU discussion on it.
It is time for us, as a continental family, to talk about immigration. Not just the protests and anti-foreign sentiments, but all of the problems of immigration, of which most countries on the continent are culpable and complicit.
Sadly, the AU’s Mid-Year Coordination Meeting, which was supposed to hold this discussion next week in Egypt, has now been postponed indefinitely.
Are global figures getting caught in the euphoria?
Meanwhile, the debate has become more ferocious, with not only Bafana Bafanas World Cup loss being a platform for hate against the country, but even the World Health Organisation’s head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, issuing a public statement against the country.
Ghebreyesus holds one of the most important positions in the world and commands both respect and a global audience because of that, but he used his position to spread what South African officials have outright called misinformation.
Did he really get it wrong, or is the SA government covering the extent of the crisis?
It would be hard to imagine that someone whose organisation oversees the well-being of billions of people and who, during the Covid-19 outbreak, spoke on disinformation, would get swept up in the hysteria of xenophobia because it involved a couple of his Ethiopian countrymen- but then we also live in a world where a US president can make up claims about genocide in South Africa despite everyone else in the room with sense telling him there is no evidence of it.
Ghebreyesus once got the world’s applause for speaking out on fake videos and “dangerous” false news that he termed an “infodemic”, but he now needs to acknowledge the same spread of manipulated images and AI-generated content that is driving xenophobic sentiments across his home continent.
It’s time for a talk
We know that anti-illegal immigrant sentiment is strong in South Africa, and most of that has roots in a feeling of the government failing to properly manage migration and corruption. But the country is not unique in this. Across the continent and world, migration is a blazing-hot topic. One that the AU has never fully addressed.
Even in the weeks of outrage, people from across the continent on both sides of the fence have called on the AU to speak, but have found only silence.
Africa has often been lazily characterised as incompetent and factional, but the continent’s leaders have done nothing to beat that stereotype when they now refuse to engage on migration.
Ghebreyesus cannot tweet a few characters for vibes and then dip, any more than the AU can preach tolerance and unity and then fail to create a platform for accountability, resolution, or possible sanctions. They need to be part of a full and frank discussion- warts and all.
But this conversation will not happen because it brings uncomfortable truths for many heads of state on the continent.
It is far easier for them to label other countries as hateful than to face the failings of their own governments. It benefits them more to politicise migration than to engage directly with the issue constructively. It is more convenient to blame other groups for “stealing” jobs and opportunities than to admit they have not created enough opportunities for those who elected them.
They may walk outside to throw stones, but they don’t really want to hurt the “boys club” that serves them most, and the AU is all too happy to maintain the status quo of chaos.
It is time for Africa to discuss its problems and allow its citizens to speak. Only then can we find a commonality, a humanity, that can plant the seeds of unity.
