Africa is not exempt from the global phenomenon of hostility to the migrant. As early as 1961, Frantz Fanon warned that, although anti-colonial nationalism constituted new nations in resistance, and marshalled extraordinary courage and commitment in struggle, without “a rapid step … from national consciousness to political and social consciousness”, new forms of chauvinism could emerge. “From nationalism we have passed to ultra-nationalism, to chauvinism … These foreigners are called on to leave; their shops are burned, their street stalls are wrecked.”
Across Africa, colonial arrangements that tied rights to territory, within or between national borders, continue to be exploited by elites to sustain oppressive forms of rule. Mahmood Mamdani’s compelling body of work has illuminated the failure of most post-colonial states to break with the colonial attempt to divide people into ethnicities tied to territories.
In South Africa, migrants who arrive from countries like Somalia or Pakistan, and without great wealth or professional accreditation, face systemic discrimination from an extremely corrupt and abusive state. Politicians shamelessly refer to people, irrespective of their legal status with regard to citizenship, as “foreign nationals”, and the conflation between “illegal immigrants” and “criminals” is relentless. Johannesburg mayor #Herman_Mashaba ’s xenophobia is repulsive to the point of being Trumpian in its crudity.