Africans should reclaim forefathers’ dream of Ubuntu

It is a cloudy Thursday afternoon in Johannesburg. I’m on an Uber taxi to the nearby Brightwaters Mall in the Ferndale area and my driver briskly asks me if I have heard the news about the attacks against foreigners in Durban and the worsening situation witnessed in Johannesburg’s Central Business District from the previous evening.

We chat a bit and, as he adjusts the volume of the radio, there is breaking news that President Jacob Zuma is scheduled to address a special session of the National Parliament at 3 p.m. in Cape Town, to give an official statement from the presidency on the bizarre and callous attacks meted out on foreign nationals in Durban, Kwa Zulu Natal Province and parts of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province.

The news anchor goes ahead to say that at least six people have been killed, several injured and thousands of foreign nationals uprooted from their homesteads are camping in football pitches under police protection.

It is not the first time South Africa is faced with this kind of challenge and international shame. In 2008, more than 60 people lost their lives with thousands others displaced and repatriated. Nearly eight years later, South Africa is back to square one on xenophobia.

As the attacks continue in parts of South Africa, the lessons we have to deeply reflect on as Africans are the gains and causes of freedom, pan-Africanism, solidarity, unity, brotherhood and the foundational values that our forefathers – Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Julius Nyerere, and others — gallantly fought for and bequeathed to us.

On July 12, 2002, Mandela, while giving a closing address to the VIX International Aids Conference in Barcelona, told the world: “In Africa, we have a concept known as Ubuntu, based upon the recognition that we are only people because of other people.”

FAST LANE TO UNDOING GAINS

The recent spate of attacks in South Africa indicate that we are on a fast lane to undoing those gains and values that were so painfully fought for and defended by these forefathers.

On a different trajectory, we need to appreciate the broader challenges that face all countries across the continent. These range from immigration challenges, rampant unemployment especially for the youth, and inadequate provision of basic amenity services by municipal and national authorities.

South Africa is battling a high unemployment rate and slowdown of service provision especially in the townships. Yet still, these challenges are not unique to South Africa and, as President Zuma said in his address to Parliament on Thursday, “No amount of frustration or anger can ever justify attacks on foreign nationals — who help us to develop a cosmopolitan atmosphere and also contribute in boosting our economy”.

Such challenges are commonplace among several African nations and must not be allowed by fellow Africans to transcend the sacred values that bond our common humanity.

We cannot, in this century, turn savage and breed a culture of mass violence. Listen to Mandela at a rally in Alexandria Stadium, Johannesburg, on August 19, 1995: “We cannot blame other people for our problems. We are not victims of the influx of foreign people into South Africa. It saddens and angers me to see the rising hatred of foreigners.”

All said and done, the State is presented with every opportunity to intervene so that no more lives are lost and no more folks injured or arbitrarily uprooted from the safety of their homes.

It’s that time for assessing related causal factors and conducting economic self-examination with long-term solutions in mind.

Folks should continue honouring the Mandela vision for Africa by denying racism, afrophobia, and xenophobia — which are calamitous drifts from the dream.

Mr Jakakimba, a Research Fellow, African Democratic Institute, is a PhD candidate in law at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.