‘WE CAN’T THINK LIKE AFRICANS’

IT seems every year there are xenophobic attacks on black, African immigrants (notice I didn’t say ‘foreigner’) in some parts of South Africa. I recently learnt of a theory called exceptionalism and it is the ‘theory that something, especially a nation, does not conform to a pattern or norm’.

This  theory is  apparently how the national South African identity is constructing itself in post apartheid South Africa. Based on this, it seems South Africans believe that they are not part of the ‘norm’, in this regard ‘the African norm’. They consider themselves better than other Africans due to the fact that they may feel as if they are closer to embodying more Western ideals of reality.

Slain Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi said in his book, Green Book, which was released in 1975: “The survival of most African countries is dependent on their alignment with the east or west but not with other African countries, this is why we have xenophobia. If Africans could realise that united we can accomplish more, these problems we are facing will be minimal.” We all remember how this leader’s life ended, only because he had created an autonomous African State that didn’t require any intervention from the west or east. Gaddafi was no way perfect, but sometimes you may not like the messenger but it doesn’t alter the necessity and truth of his message.

This 1975 statement is timely as Afro-phobic attacks continue to occur in South Africa with anti-immigrant marches being proposed and immigrant-owned shops being looted.  It’s due to colonialism, which forces the oppressed to construct their identities around a Western-centric ideal, and has led to the toxic idealogy of the ‘Better African’, which leads to xenophobia and a hierarchy within the oppressed populace, those closest to Western identity being the ‘better’ ones.

The idea of a post colonial world is a lie. The paper written by M Ndlovu shows that even though ‘judicial/administrative’ colonialism ‘ended’, colonial ideals continue to dictate other aspects of our African realities. Therefore, these ideals are still maintained, even by the oppressed.  It is sustained in a ‘concealed manner’ by ‘acceptable responses’ to anti-systemic movements.

The abolishment of apartheid comes to mind, as political power was passed back to black people, economic power remained in white hands. Colonialism continues to survive today due to the fact that black people continue to do the work of the coloniser by oppressing their own. 

Colonialism’s hegemonic identity has constructed such a twisted system that it has created pockets of oppressive interactions within the oppressed population. These power dynamic can be seen in many other groups of marginalised groups e.g like Xenophobia.

What interests me is the clear disparity in how white immigrants, from non-African countries, are given pretty names like ‘expats’ and black people of the African soil are called ‘foreigners’, it’s mind boggling how this works. It reminds me of a quote that ‘no African is foreign in Africa’, yet we continue to fight each other over amenities and jobs but it’s our governments that continue to keep the economic disparities so disgustingly glaring.
President Jacob Zuma once said, in a press conference back in 2013; “We can’t really think like Africans, we’re in Johannesburg.” He further went on to say that ‘wasn’t some road in Malawi’. These statements not only show that the president of that country thinks that they are better than other Africans but that South Africa is the archetype of superiority in Africa. The xenophobic attacks are in part supported by those in power with statements such as these.
All I know is, we are better together. These Afrophobic ideologies are holding us back, rather than helping in advancing us. Please, that black skin you persecute is the same skin that you wear. 

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