Xenophobia or Afrophobia: Is it the fear of foreigners or the fear of fellow Africans? by Mary Izobo – International Human Rights Lawyer

Xenophobia or Afrophobia: Is it the fear of foreigners or the fear of fellow Africans?

I am what you would call a nomadic African who has not had the luxury of being sedentary. In my twenty-something years, I have lived in five countries and still counting. South Africa, where I recently completed a Master’s degree is my latest home. However, I have felt more unwelcome in South Africa than anywhere else.

In 2007, when I first arrived in Pretoria, a policeman stopped my car to check where I was from, because apparently, I looked ‘different’. As soon as I said I am from Nigeria, he asked for my bags which he proceeded to search it disparagingly, as if it contained pieces of dirt, and not my treasured valuables. He then demanded to search my handbag. By this time I had had enough of his disrespectful behaviour, so I refused to give him my handbag. I pointed out that by law, no policeman is allowed to search a female handbag without a warrant of arrest and only if I was charged with a particular crime. However, I did offer my bag to be searched by a female officer if he could find me one.

Then the policemen vented his anger, and swore at me, calling me a ‘bloody kwere-kwere’. I later learned that the words like ‘magrigamba’ and ‘shangaans’, was derogatorily used to refer to foreign Africans. These pejorative words serve a special function in South African society, to create an artificially homogenous, undifferentiated group of people, who are vulnerable and often to serve as scapegoats for everything that is wrong within South Africa. The ‘makwere-kwere’ is supposed to be responsible for unemployment, crime, drugs, and even the ‘stealing of wives and girlfriends’. The situation becomes worse when those in leadership positions do not appear eager to condemn the stigmatization and baseless blaming of foreign Africans.

I still struggle to understand how I, a Nigerian, living in Pretoria, am considered more of a foreigner than a white immigrant from Netherlands, also living in Pretoria. I am also baffled that, from where I sit, it seems that in Southern Africa, immigrants of lighter skin, from other continents apart from Africa, are referred to as ‘expatriates’, while those who look like me are referred to as ‘foreign nationals’. This was the fate in April 2015 when some South Africans descended on other Africans. Exactly a year later, this is the case in Zambia. What exactly is going on? Is this xenophobia, Afrophobia or shall we call it xenophobia Africana?

Let me hasten to say that while Zambian xenophobia is the most recent manifestation of this ghastly anomaly, it is not unique to Zambia, not even on the African continent. Africa has a particularly checkered history of xenophobia probably because its post independence countries are young. It may also be because the borders of African states are an irrational imposition by European powers – the legacy of the 1883 Berlin Conference. The boundaries left Africa condemned to the rule of Uti Possedeitis originating from Roman law meaning ‘may you continue to possess such as you do possess’. This law is allegedly intended to legalize and formalize property ownership, ensuring so-called border integrity and colonial territorial sovereignty. Inequality and lack of economic opportunities within and between countries are key push and pull factors in economic migration. These are all global realities that drive migration. It seems Southern Africa is no exception. In fact I would suggest that the situation in South Africa in 2015 and now Zambia in 2016 is worse because it entails damage to property, physical violence and even the killing of fellow Africans just because they come from another country in Africa. Even undocumented foreigners, so-called, do not cease to be human with rights and therefore they do not deserve to be killed or displaced and their properties vandalized.

There have been sporadic attacks on foreigners in Southern Africa since 1994. Between 2000 and 2008 about 67 people were killed in South Africa because they were perceived as foreigners. In 2008, 62 people were killed, out of which 21 were South Africans because those South Africans looked like the ‘Makwere-kwere’. South Africa acted in the same position it had condemned years ago, during the apartheid regime. ... ‘Racist’ against its own. They have violated the very reason they were called the ‘rainbow nation’. In 2015, xenophobic attacks broke out again on the excuse of ‘the kwere-kweres are stealing jobs’. Research carried out shows that 82% of the South African’s workforce are non immigrants, 14% are domestic migrants while 4% are expatriates. Why then must Southern Africans continue in horrendous acts against Africans? Where does all this hatred come from? The foreigners whose shops were looted were trying to make a living while adding to the African economy.

It is sad that xenophobic attacks continue and just like 2008 and 2015 in South Africa, everything died and little or nothing was done. Today, there is another case of xenophobic attacks in Zambia. These attacks on African foreigners are intentional; and the goal is to humiliate, denigrate, terrorize and unfortunately also kill fellow Africans. This must stop. We are Africans and Africa is home to us all.

As a human first, then an African and a Nigerian living in another country, it would be a pity if I and other Africans in the diaspora were to spend the rest of our stay in another African country constantly looking over our shoulders in fear. It is a paradox and a painful irony that Africans seem to be safer in countries like Europe and America than in Africa.

We are all Africans; let us rise above our nationalities. Africa Unite!

Article by - Barrister Mary Izobo 

B.A French(Ibadan) , LLB(Scotland) , LLM(Pretoria),  BL(Abuja) , CS(Besancon) , GMNIM(Kaduna)