Anatomy of xenophobia: we all have our ‘outsiders’, even here in Kenya
What you need to know:
- Today, migrant Africans are the new outsiders in South Africa. They are accused of stealing jobs that belong to South Africans and blamed for the poverty that still stalks this mineral-rich country 20 years after apartheid ended.
- During colonialism, black Africans were banished to reserves while Indians were confined to certain sections of urban areas. After independence, depending on who was in power, certain ethnic communities were favoured while others were deemed to be “outsiders”.
- Political appointments are made purely on the basis of tribe and how much power that tribe wields, both in terms of numbers and influence. In coalition governments based on tribe, such as the current one, tribe takes on life-or-death significance.
Everyone has their outsiders; even outsiders have their outsiders.” I cannot remember when I first heard this provocative statement but I was reminded of it when I saw images of African migrants being burnt alive and butchered by South Africans.
For decades, blacks were the “outsiders” in South Africa. They were forced to adjust to a white world not of their own making and were made to believe that they did not belong. They were exploited, discriminated against, and scapegoated by a white minority that believed in its own supremacy and the separation of the races.
Today, migrant Africans are the new outsiders in South Africa. They are accused of stealing jobs that belong to South Africans and blamed for the poverty that still stalks this mineral-rich country 20 years after apartheid ended.
Yet, data from the Migrating for Work Research Consortium, an organisation that examines the impact of migration on the South African labour market, shows that less than 4 per cent of South Africa’s working population comprises African migrants, and that nearly a third of these migrants work in the lowly-paid and precarious informal sector.
Thus, it is not the small-scale Somali trader or the Zimbabwean casual labourer who is to blame for the persistent inequality and poverty in South Africa. Rather, post-apartheid governments have failed to bridge the inequality gap between blacks and whites and between the rich and the poor.
Leading anti-apartheid activists in the ruling African National Congress morphed into compradores, adopting exclusionary and elitist policies that locked out the majority of black South Africans from the fruits of independence.
Anti-apartheid activists such as Cyril Ramaphosa, once a vocal critic of the exploitative labour practices of South African mining companies, now sits on the board of one such firm and is reported to be one of the richest men in South Africa.
Kenyans and other Africans have reacted with shock to the violent xenophobic attacks against fellow Africans by South Africans whom they feel should know better. Have South Africans forgotten so quickly that if it was not for the frontline African states that gave refuge and succour to the anti-apartheid activists, Nelson Mandela and his comrades might still be languishing in prison? Has the dream of a tolerant, non-racist, and inclusive Rainbow Nation evaporated so fast?
A Somali living in Japan recently wrote to me, asking why Kenyans are so horrified by the xenophobia displayed by South Africans when they themselves exhibit the same attitudes towards certain ethnic communities, such as the Somalis.
OUTSIDERS
During colonialism, black Africans were banished to reserves while Indians were confined to certain sections of urban areas. After independence, depending on who was in power, certain ethnic communities were favoured while others were deemed to be “outsiders”.
Some, like the people of the coast and northern Kenya, were made to feel like outsiders through policies that led to their marginalisation. These outsiders had to find their own survival mechanisms to make it in this society.
Since independence, the Kenyan state has decided who is an “insider” and who is an “outsider” and which territorial spaces they should occupy. This has led to the politics of exclusion based on geographical boundaries. The idea that territories should be ethnically homogenous is what led to the forcible eviction of communities deemed to be “outsiders” from the Rift Valley in 2007/2008. The 47 new counties, to some extent, also reflect this idea.
Nubians, Somalis, Turkanas, Asians, Giriamas, and others lower down on the citizenship ladder are the eternal outsiders in Kenyan society, where tribe and ethnicity determine one’s destiny.
Political appointments are made purely on the basis of tribe and how much power that tribe wields, both in terms of numbers and influence. In coalition governments based on tribe, such as the current one, tribe takes on life-or-death significance.
Yes, everyone has their outsiders, even Kenyans.
Meanwhile, while the European Union has been holding emergency meetings to address the issue of hundreds of illegal African migrants dying in the Mediterranean Sea on their way to Europe, the African Union has yet to convene such a meeting. Nor has it addressed the issue of growing Afrophobia in South Africa.
