 Africa is considered as an ‘ungrateful’ state (due to the non-recognition of Nigeria’s efforts at abolishing Apartheid regime) from 1994 when electoral democracy was introduced, as if the country was not a legally, politically and internationally sovereign state. The nadir of perceived diplomatic row was experienced in 2015 due to the xenophobic/Afrophobic attacks on non-South Africans attributed to undiplomatic utterances of the king of the Zulu nation in South Africa. Before this time, incessant attacks were directed against African citizens from the Horn and Southern African states. Claims and counter-claims of foreigners being the agents of criminality and sources of unemployment for South Africans have triggered anti-immigration attitudes and acts in the country. The chapter introduces the politics of xenophobia into the hegemonic discourse. We attempt to demonstrate how Nigeria has used recurring incidences of xenophobia as a driving force to assert its power position in Africa as against a shared hegemonic power between the two African major powers.
Xenophobia has become a consistent feature of contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. In recent times, countries that are often described as an oasis of peace and tranquillity and the epitome of democratic virtues like Ghana have been cited by intellectuals in the discourse on xenophobia. This chapter argues that xenophobic attitudes in Ghana are not only driven by politico-economic factors but have also been institutionalized and legitimized by politicians seeking self-aggrandisement through political empowerment. Versed in the ‘do or die’ modus operandi for winning political power, these elites have given impetus to widespread xenophobic political attitudes, either eliminating opponents, and/or resorting to ‘divide and rule’ tactics which may involve brutal killing of citizens, expelling foreigners and/or causing ‘fear and panic’ in society. Using data gathered by means of unstructured interviews and by historicising xenophobia in the country, this chapter explores the implications of the resurgence of xenophobia in Ghana’s democratic project. The findings reveal that, xenophobia, orchestrated by political sycophancies, is often driven by politico-economic factors to score political gains. This gives rise to violent reciprocal political antagonism, which is a threat to peace, democratic consolidation and the socio-economic development of the country. The chapter concludes by reiterating the need to replace personal political aggrandizement and patronage politics with active civic political participation. It recommends a pragmatic national agenda to combat the spate of xenophobia in Ghana.
There is a robust literature on xenophobia in South Africa. Furthermore, there has been recent, although still minimal academic interest in South Africa’s soft power credentials. However, no attention has been paid to the actual or potential role of higher education in the projection of the country’s soft power in the hearts and minds of the remarkable number of international students enroled at the country’s tertiary institutions. By extension, the effects of anti-immigrant sentiments on such power have been ignored. Against this backdrop, this chapter addresses two critical questions: First, does South African higher education elevate the South African soft power? If yes, to what degree? If not, in what ways can this sector enhance Pretoria’s soft power? Second, does xenophobia have an impact on South African higher education’s soft power potential? The study found that the South African higher education sector has enormous potential to portray the country in a positive light and enhance the state’s soft power in Africa. However, recurrent anti-immigrant sentiments circumscribe such potential.
This chapter examines the causes of Afrophobia in South Africa. It argues that the occurrences of Afrophobia in South Africa can be understood as a direct consequence of corruption. South Africa is characterized by economic inequality, which represents a direct consequence of capitalist model of economic development (the poor get poorer and the rich get richer). The chapter identifies corruption as a factor that exacerbates inequality in the country and argues that a psycho-social effect of corruption – when scarce resources are abused and appropriated for the benefit of a few at the expense of the majority – engenders frustration amongst the masses. The frustration is then translated into aggression and the ‘foreigners’, becomes the subject of a misplaced hostility. Central to the frustration-aggression theory is the supposition that all acts of aggression are a result of previous and growing frustration; and all frustration leads to some form of aggression. Bureaucratic malfeasance, the increasing gap between the poor and the rich as a result of corruption is emphasized as a primal cause of frustration and this leads to animosity towards foreign nationals, especially those from other African countries. It concludes that Afrophobia is s direct consequence of economic inequalities in South Africa.
After the 2015 attack on foreign nationals in South Africa, the 2017 outbreak of xenophobic violence attracted wide condemnation across the globe. The image of the South Africa government was put in the global limelight as African migrants and foreigners were attacked in their various locations in the country. A sizeable number of South Africans, especially in the academic community, rose against the attack of African migrants. Anti-xenophobic protests were organized in South African cities with government officials in attendance in a bid to dissociate the state from the attacks. Despite this, South Africa’s foreign relations with some African countries was strained as anti-South African sentiments dominated discourse in the international media and fora. This chapter engages with the spate of xenophobic attacks and contends with the reasons adduced to have sparked the violence. While people have attributed the attacks to series of developments, it is discovered that prejudices against black foreigners have degenerated into deep-hatred. The chapter argued that this has blurred the comparative advantages and benefits of a cooperative and collaborative neighbourliness. The chapter reveals that black South Africans would benefit more from their follow foreigners through collaboration towards the development of a robust informal sector of the economy. Black foreigners, equipped with artisan skills could train and share their knowledge with their South African counterparts with a view to boosting participation in the informal sector of the economy. This will therefore transform the prejudiced hatred to love and cooperation for mutual benefits rather than the incessant violent attacks that deepens the scars of resentment between the immigrants and locals.
Xenophobia has become endemic and central to policy discourse in post-apartheid South Africa. Attacks on foreign nationals of African descent and efforts to violently ‘expunge them’ from South Africa are of great concern to other African countries as well as the global community. Aside from the governance crisis and mass impoverishment that characterises African states, the global economic meltdown has heightened the influx of immigrants into the country. Political instability, insurgency, terrorism and ethnic wars in many African countries also resulted in a mass exodus to South Africa. South Africa is the largest economy in Africa. However, it has recently suffered an economic slowdown and has recorded high unemployment rates and poor service delivery. South Africans (both white and black) directed their frustration at black immigrants that are considered as threats to the economy. Foreigners have also often been accused of defiling the society by peddling drugs, and engaging in sex slavery and other societal ills.  It calls for concerted efforts by state and non-state actors to stem the tide of xenophobia in the country.
Xenophobia is one of the major forms of recurrent violence that has bedevilled Africa in general and Southern Africa in particular. As presented in this chapter, it is the mega form of violence in which all other forms of violence such as racism, sexism and tribalism metamorphosise and are reproduced. I argue that xenophobia is a consequence of colonial heritage. Colonialism either created or reinforced clashes of identity (race, tribal cleavages and ethnicity) upon which xenophobia thrives. Theoretically, I adopt the three categories of violence postulated by Slavoj Zizek, namely, subjective violence, symbolic violence and systemic violence to argue that xenophobia has a logic which perpetuates coloniality through various forms of reproduced ‘violences’. Therefore, it should not be analysed as a standalone form of violence, but rather as the main ‘reservoir’ of ‘violences’. Drawing from the Southern African experience, particularly that of Zimbabwe, the chapter identifies three preconditions necessary for the perpetration of xenophobia. They are the construction and reinforcement of certain identities, contestation over land and land ownership and by extension, exclusion from land ownership, and human movement wherein states’ borders are crossed by outsiders thereby encroaching on the territory of the insiders. The chapter reinterprets the occurrence of violence in Zimbabwe and concludes that colonialism explains xenophobic violence.
The imperative to emancipate the black majority citizenry from the imbalances and injustices of unequal access to land inherited from the colonial regime in post-1980, saw Zimbabwe attempting different phases of land reforms. Major amongst Zimbabwe’s land reform strategies was the radical Fast Track Land Reform Programme of 2000, which allowed the unlawful seizure and redistributing of the country’s white commercial owned farms to new black citizenry occupants of African descent. Not only was the reform process effected with arrant disregard for the rule of law, but it was also clouded with antagonisms, severe human rights violations, and xenophobic repercussions, particularly against the white Zimbabwe citizens of European ancestry. This chapter investigates Zimbabwe’s post-2000 land reform programme with a particular focus on identifying the prejudices that tinted the implementation process and its implications on the country’s development prospects. The chapter characterises the prejudices as “xeno-ethnophobic” towards white commercial farm owners, while noting that this analytical dimension of the management of post-2000 land reform strategy in Zimbabwe’s has not been detailed by most researchers and scholarships.
Xenophobia often manifests as creeping resentment of those who are seen as not belonging, such as immigrants, or as hostilities