Beyond the Street Attacks in South Africa

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Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Sep 4, 2019, 9:49:44 AM9/4/19
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Beyond the Street Attacks: The Deep, Capacious Lineage of Afrophobia in South Africa


By Moses E. Ochonu


Let no one tell you that the Afrophobic violence in South Africa is a recent or isolated phenomenon. It is not.

Makwerekwere, a term of contempt as dehumanizing and racist in its deployment as the use of "cockroach" to mark people out for slaughter during the Rwandan genocide, is not a recent invention. It was a staple of the South African xenophobic lexicon as early as the late 1990s and early 2000s when it was operationalized to demonize, devalue, and mark non-South African Africans for attack.

In 1996, when Mahmood Mamdani, a holder of an endowed chair and the director of the Center for African Studies, was pushed out of the University of Cape Town (UCT) and accused of trying to Africanize the core African studies curriculum, it wasn't just white faculty members who protested Mamdani's curricular reform. Some black South African academics also were uneasy that Mamdani was trying to move the curriculum away from a pedagogy rooted in the Bantu Apartheid education policy, in which the "tribe" was the unit of inquiry and scholarly engagement, towards an African epistemology defined in continental ontological terms.

The irony of course is that today South Africa is the epicenter of decolonial African epistemology, the incubator and preeminent arena of the most consequential debates around decolonizing the African university and its colonial legacies. It makes one wonder if there is a dissonance between what is expressed and published and what is believed. 

But beyond speculation, what is certain is that the Mamdani affair, as it has come to be known, happened because many white and black South African academics opposed the effort of Mamdani to decolonize the African studies curriculum and integrate it into a decolonial African epistemological tradition with which academics in other African countries were already familiar, and which for decades had informed curriculums in the humanities and social sciences in African institutions.

In other words, some black South African intellectuals did not like the idea of redefining their country and its university African studies curriculum in pan-African terms as part of a broader Africa encompassing both north and south of the Limpopo River. Several black South African faculty did not want their view of "African studies," which defined South Africa as an exceptional sociopolitical and cultural formation outside of Africa, challenged. Nor did they want their students to be taught about, and in the context of, all of Africa. South African exceptionalism, originally posited by the ideologues of Apartheid as a divide-and-conquer strategy, was being carried forward by some black South African intellectuals.

Along the same lines, when I was in graduate school at the University of Michigan, South Africa-based Kenyan literary scholar, Professor James Ogude, came to spend an academic year there around 1999/2000 and I remember him saying how his South African graduate students, when they were traveling to other African countries, would say "I'm going to Africa," and he would angrily correct them with the question, "and where the hell are you now'? 

I never forgot that anecdote, for it revealed, even in that first decade of South Africa's post-Apartheid history, how many black South Africans resented the rest of the continent and wanted to preserve and further the ideological, racist decoupling of South Africa from the rest of Africa. They had wittingly or unwittingly become the handmaidens of this segregationist ideology.

Earlier this year, when I attended the annual Africa conference at the University of Texas, I had the opportunity of having drinks with several scholars in the hotel suite of the convener, Professor Toyin Falola. One of the scholars was a South African university administrator. I cannot recall the beginning or trajectory of the conversation but this administrator eloquently and passionately narrated the history of how Apartheid ideologues formulated a policy of ignoring South African academics to employ black academics from neighboring African countries such as Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, and others. He was compelling. He couched his narrative in the colonial logic of divide-and-rule. It all made sense. I was left with the impression that this was a great explication of yet another instance of how apartheid played African groups against each other. 

Then I went back to my hotel room and played back the colleague’s polemic, reflecting on its subtexts and unspoken underpinnings. It occurred to me that he had launched into that defensive narrative to justify the politics of excluding and resenting academics from other African countries on South African campuses. In other words, this was just a sophisticated academic rendition of the Afrophobic hate script being violently implemented on the streets of some of South Africa’s major cities and suburbs.

This is a rather longwinded way of saying that South Africa's xenophobia/Afrophobia has a long and deep genealogy. It runs very deep. It is not just the province of the unlettered, uninformed underclass in poor townships and suburbs. It reaches all the way to the realm of high culture, high politics, and high academe.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) party, claims to be the liberal alternative to the ANC and controls the provincial government in Guateng, where most of the Afrophobic attacks and killings have occurred. A few years ago, it released a hardline immigration policy that legitimized and pandered to the Afrophobic sentiments of poor South Africans in and around Johannesburg, clearly opportunistically and callously exploiting African self-hate for political capital. 

As for the ANC, much of the attention has been on Bongani Mkongi, the hateful, inciting Deputy Minister of Police, and on several other ANC officials who have peddled barely disguised Afrophobic rhetoric in various political settings. But the current South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, last year gestured favorably to the Afrophobic street warriors by condemning African immigrants whom he said were invading townships and establishing spazas or small shops, a statement that lent presidential authority and legitimacy to the hateful declarations percolating and circulating on the streets and on social media.

In official and officious public forums and in enlightened company, the practiced tactic is to deny and condemn xenophobia in as broad a language as possible or to invoke Apartheid as a defensive bulwark against what many South Africans see as unfair criticism of their right to isolationist, exclusionary policies and politics. But in political settings, the rhetoric can be quite raw and uncannily similar to the one articulated by the violent enforcers on the street. Moreover, the message from the top, whether it is disguised in academic and historical explanation and jargon or drenched in wonky policy speak, filters to the soldiers on the streets, the operative codes being quite legible to everyone.

 

Ibrahim Abdullah

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Sep 4, 2019, 10:02:32 AM9/4/19
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What is happening in SA is not phobia; it’s war against African nationals. Let us just call it by it’s right name. We have come a long way—from alien compliance order to Ghana must go to the vicious attack against the so-called Moors in Senegal when the CFA was devalued.

Enough is enough—it’s war against other Africans with official cover from above. And it takes us back to the umuganda of the genocidaire  in Rwanda. And like Rwanda in 1994, it is frighteningly popular in contemporary SA. 

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 4, 2019, 2:31:29 PM9/4/19
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thanks to ibrahim, and especially moses for their interventions condemning attacks on fellow africans in s africa. more might be added here: the role of african labor pools drawn from the adjacent african states, going back many years, which created one body of african workers in low paying, under valued occasions--mine "boys" or ag workers--and others at home who moved up the social scale and educational ladder. more important for this posting, however, is the role of africans, especially nigerians, who came from further away, and not simply like the tswana or zimbabwean men and women, in subordinate house servant roles. nigerians came for commerce and trade, but alsoeducation, for schooling and especially like many intellectuals of omotoso's generation, to find something better than what the military regimes at home offered. they came for opportunity.
and they had children. settled in, became famous (thinking not only of kole omotoso but his talented children, filmmakers).
then we have that repulsive film District 9 that used racist tropes against nigerians as gangsters, aliens, monsters,...that hid behind the gauze of anti-apartheid rhetoric while confirming xenophobic imagery of nigerians.

i mention all this since the attack against makwerekwere, i.e. mostly nigerians, does not date from yesterday.
k

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdu...@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond the Street Attacks in South Africa
 

Michael Afolayan

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Sep 4, 2019, 2:32:04 PM9/4/19
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"I never forgot that anecdote, for it revealed, even in that first decade of South Africa's post-Apartheid history, how many black South Africans resented the rest of the continent and wanted to preserve and further the ideological, racist decoupling of South Africa from the rest of Africa. They had wittingly or unwittingly become the handmaidens of this segregationist ideology."

Great essay, Moses. You've captured the essence of what is going on in the land that Mandela fought and died for. What we see today is as if that "Mandela Spirit" is finally dead in the grave in the minds of many of our South African brethren, never minding that an African ancestral spirit never dies! I recall the kindred, fraternal spirit, like a mother's travail, that we all experienced in the 1970s, when our campuses were made readily available to students not just from South Africa but from all southern African countries. In fact, some of us were forced to drop certain classes to accommodate students from South African nations who arrived late. It was the time in our nation's history when Sunny Okosun sang "There is Fire in Soweto and My People Are Suffering." The Apartheid government even petitioned for Interpol to arrest Okosun in Nigeria and Obasanjo yelled, "Over my dead body!" I wonder why a segment of the nation has sunk so deep into the abyss in its embrace of violence against the proverbial hand that previously fed it and even lost some of its own fingers and limbs doing so! No excuses, but my speculation is that the violent apartheid struggle and the militant dispositions of the past have lingered in the minds of that group and now replaying that militancy on their brothers and sisters, not even against those who perpetrated injustices on them! As for those "handmaidens of (the) segregationist ideology," they are still there, imprudent and confused. For them, the saying is still in order that "I freed a thousand slaves, and would have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves." 

So sad!

Michael O. Afoláyan

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Ibrahim Abdullah

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Sep 4, 2019, 4:55:49 PM9/4/19
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Moses:
Mahmood was NEVER pushed out of UCT; he left after he got an offer from Columbia. And there were no black faculty at UCT that challenged the curriculum and Mahmood and I were putting together. It was the UCT  VC Mampela who openly sided with those “White” faculty who kicked against the course we drafted for the African Studies program. 

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Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Sep 5, 2019, 1:57:10 AM9/5/19
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Ibrahim,

Thanks for the insider/witness perspective. I didn't mean "pushed out" in the literal sense. I think it is clear that the conflict/pressure made it difficult for Mamdani to continue to lead the African studies center and to continue pursuing other initiatives, hence his receptiveness to the offer from Columbia. The fact is that he left UCT before he had intended to do so and because his agenda was frustrated. The separation as you know was nasty and bitter. I'll leave it at that. I take your point about the involvement of VC Mampela and the absence of black faculty at UCT at that time. But as you know, black South African academics and intellectuals at other South African institutions (some were not affiliated with universities) defended UCT and their white South African compatriots against Mamdani. If I recall correctly, there were even a couple of Op-eds written by black intellectuals siding with UCT and criticizing Mamdani's decolonizing curricular reforms.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CE8F68B2-D921-4BCB-8C30-7EA5A13FF8FA%40gmail.com.

Ibrahim Abdullah

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Sep 5, 2019, 7:50:46 AM9/5/19
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Don’t forget—assuming you’re aware of that struggle—that UCT was labouring to rebrand itself after the Mafeje Affair. They could not have terminated MM’s contract nor kicked him out of the SA academy. The Apartheid UCT could turn down Archie Mafeje precisely because of the obvious—he was an Other who was not welcomed. The difference between MM and Mafeje was the context: the Apartheid and Post-Apartheid academy. The SA academy is full of cowards who cannot articulate or defend what they stand for. Cloak and dagger 🗡 intrigue is their stock in trade. The Dar culture of open and frank debate and the pugnacious culture of the Nigerian academy of yore is foreign to the Bantustan academy in the Limpopo and beyond. 

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Sep 5, 2019, 7:51:20 AM9/5/19
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Disclaimer:  My response may not be  popular nor populist



Ken.
Having read a cross- section of views on this thread I think there are two major issues: one is pure immigration matters and utopian expectations, the other is the dictates of democratic polity .

The visions of pan Africanism which underguarded the fall of Apartheid in South Africa led to expectation that the state birthed would belong to the African 'brotherhood'  That is the utopian aspect of the situation.  'Come help me liberate my state' is not the same as 'come help liberate our state' In the hey days of liberation struggle South Africans deliberately appealed to socialism to secure the help needed from other African nations ( which makes the current attacks so poignant)  If the ratio of immigrants to native rises sharply in a country you have  the situation that led to BREXIT in the  UK (with which the country is still battling as of today in the Commons) and the case of South Africa.  The difference is there is an orderly withdrawal scheme in the UK and not attacks on foreigners and their businesses. After all South Africans are not constituting 80% of neighbourhoods of other African countries.

The second issue is the dictates of democracy.  Democracy allows for appeal to lowest common denominator as Trump did and as the Deputy Police Minister in South Africa did.i.e. in order to court the votes of the lowest classes which incidentally are the most numerous for liberal capitalism to work as expected, political elites often pander to their whims even if such whims are illogical.  Democracy thrives on satisfying the wishes of  the majority or appearing to do so.

To be in the good books of these lot foreigners too must proactively court them in schemes established from proceeds and profits from their business and not just operate on the level of rights.  These would be the foot soldiers of foreigners and their businesses championing their causes against their detractors.

Many of those on the lowest echelon should be employed by the foreign businesses and tax deductible schemes encouraged  . I understand many are said to be unemployable due to drug use.  Foreigners can establish drug rehabilitation centres promising to employ those who successfully participate.  Government will be gushing with appreciation for those coming in to help solve problems that are overhangs of the brutalization of the Apartheid era.  Moreover, they will use such projects to confront those baying for the blood of foreigners and ask such people not to bite the fingers that literally feed them.  Jealousy is a human problem but there are measures that can be put in place to alleviate its depredations.

Government must then put in place an effective visa system to ensure only those legitimately needed are allowed in.  If illegal immigrants open businesses channels must be put in place to ensure they are reported and are legitimately closed down by law enforcement agencies.  Government must leave no one in doubt there will be no vigilante justice.

Until the charter of African Union is fully operational in a neo-Marxian way and national boundaries crumble, there will always be African countries and natives will determine the fate of foreign nationals.

OAA





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-------- Original message --------
From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Date: 04/09/2019 19:33 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond the Street Attacks in South Africa

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thanks to ibrahim, and especially moses for their interventions condemning attacks on fellow africans in s africa. more might be added here: the role of african labor pools drawn from the adjacent african states, going back many years, which created one body of african workers in low paying, under valued occasions--mine "boys" or ag workers--and others at home who moved up the social scale and educational ladder. more important for this posting, however, is the role of africans, especially nigerians, who came from further away, and not simply like the tswana or zimbabwean men and women, in subordinate house servant roles. nigerians came for commerce and trade, but alsoeducation, for schooling and especially like many intellectuals of omotoso's generation, to find something better than what the military regimes at home offered. they came for opportunity.
and they had children. settled in, became famous (thinking not only of kole omotoso but his talented children, filmmakers).
then we have that repulsive film District 9 that used racist tropes against nigerians as gangsters, aliens, monsters,...that hid behind the gauze of anti-apartheid rhetoric while confirming xenophobic imagery of nigerians.

i mention all this since the attack against makwerekwere, i.e. mostly nigerians, does not date from yesterday.
k

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdu...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 4, 2019 9:58 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond the Street Attacks in South Africa
 

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 5, 2019, 11:27:43 AM9/5/19
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dear olayinka
thanks for this thoughtful answer. i will try to craft a response after thinking about what you said.
one point for now: the situation and solution you describe is very close to the situation that obtains around much of the world. different societies have met the influx--whatever its causes--in different ways. some have refused to let more immigrants in (this is EU policy now); some have welcomed in millions, partly as an ethical obligation or political pressure, etc et. think of jordan and turkey with millions. some like tanzania, with half a million burundians, not being in a position to easily refuse, partly for UN pressures, AU pressures, or political choices. there are very few countries around the center of africa without refugees. kenya and uganda have enormous numbers of somalis and sudanese, and so on.

it aint new in south africa.
how is it handled? you detail the ideal, which is important to hear. but in addition to your wise suggestions for managing the influx, beyond the practical suggestions and political considerations, there underlies all these situations: people migrating to another country, far from home and family, in some cases under desperate conditions, are human. they are you and me. they are my grandparents, my relatives, my fellowmen or women.
they are us.

that's the poem soyinka wrote "Death in the Dawn."
the traveler wipes his feet in the dew of the dawn, sets out. as it happens, a car hits someone; that person lies dead on the road. the traveler looks, sees his face.. it is his own.
it is us.
everything you mentioned has to come after that recognition of the fellow humanity in the other. the rest is secondary.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 5, 2019 6:18 AM

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Sep 5, 2019, 11:27:51 AM9/5/19
to usaafricadialogue, Olayinka Agbetuyi
rich contribution, Olayinka

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/VI1PR04MB449325947112FC9D875D6653A6BB0%40VI1PR04MB4493.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.

Toyin Falola

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Sep 5, 2019, 11:34:52 AM9/5/19
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Ken:

 

  1. How do nations construct nationalism, patriotism, identity, etc. if they are not nasty/hostile, etc. to foreigners?
  2. How do you do the blame game if you cannot distribute resources or offer opportunities in any equitable manner? If all Nigerians were to be deported today from South Africa, all those angry folks will still not have jobs.
  3. Who builds cultural capital? Whether in the US or South Africa, what you see are people with established cultural capital who walk into new spaces and able to function and succeed.

We have tried, in UNESCO, to sell the idea of a borderless world but no one has taken us seriously….rather, we were mocked several times.

TF

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 5, 2019, 4:01:23 PM9/5/19
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hi toyin,
i think this is an issue that will never go away. if we look at american policy toward immigration, it shifted radically after 1880, when the great migrations began, till 1920s, when huge barriers were constructed. mexicans were welcomed for their labor, then thrown out, then re-recruited.
burkinabe kids fuel the cote d'ivoire coffee and cocao industries, and yet there was an anti-immigration war not too long ago.
i agree on point 1: nations are formed around exclusionary ideologies. you are in or out,  citizen or an alien. but it isn't fixed since we are always in the act of constructing the kind of nation we want, and probably almost all countries in the world remain divided, as is the u.s. now over this issue, with trump on one side, and me on the other.
do you know of any country not similarly divided? how does nigeria like it ghanaian neighbors: just fine, till the economy turns south, and they get ejected....  just as ghana ejected its northern neighbors when ahmadou kourouma wrote about it in The SUns of Independence.
2.resources are not being distributed equitably under neoliberalism, the dominant ideology of today. i am voting for sanders or warren or anyone who seeks to redistribute the wealth. and immigrants are only the touchstone for that fight, not the cause. that said, the people who have lost under neoliberalism will find their scapegoats, and i really do not know how to counter that from happening. the struggle seems to be endless
3.cultural capital, but also real capital. if you have a million dollars, they will take you anywhere. you can't build a world of justice when capital rules. but you can try to instill a sense of that value in your children, and then pray it will take hold.

i know that's what you do. what our generation can try to do.

maybe olayinka's answers are part of the practical way to address these issues you raise.
k

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 5, 2019 11:34 AM

Biko Agozino

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Sep 5, 2019, 4:01:59 PM9/5/19
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Brotherphobia or sisterphobia is an ancient problem that should not be confused with xenophobia. Europeans attacked and killed fellow Europeans for centuries over who should get the lion's share of the colonization of Africa. The Semitic people are still at each other's throats even though they all claim to be the children of Abraham. Nigerians have been slaughtering fellow Nigerians like rams since the genocidal war orchestrated by the British against the Igbo. South Africans have been massacring one another in the struggle over crumbs from the table of apartheid colonizers since the reign of Shaka Zulu and especially during the confrontations between Inkhatha and ANC supporters. White farmers are fleeing in large numbers as they are targeted by those from whom they stole the land. Tanzanians and Swazis have been butchering each other to make money medicine or 'muti' just as Nigerians have been doing juju especially when cattle is used as a modern colonization scheme backed with weapons and charms of all sorts. Somalis and Rwandans are still at it just like Sudanese, Egyptians, Libayans and Algerians.

The solution is Pan Africanism and the erasure of the borders that colonialism imposed on Africans. South Africa and Nigeria could follow the lead of Ghana and Ethiopia and invite the African Diaspora to return and be give dual Africana citizenship. With the coming of the African passport and the policy of free trade and open borders, Africans can travel where they choose and settle, marry, study, work, trade or run for office in any part of Africa just as the Americans do in the US. Intellectuals and activists can help by thinking beyond their national consciousness as Fanon urged and realize that the people have voted with their feet in utter disregard for the artificial lines that colonizers drew on the sand to divide and weaken Africans as Azikiwe observed in his London 1959 speech on Pan Africanism.

The government has a role to play here by going beyond job creation towards the funding of cooperatives that would train Africans from wherever and grant them funding to start enterprises in partnership with fellow Africans. The Igbo have perfected this though their individual efforts in apprenticeship but with huge grants from the governments across Africa, there would be annual enterpreneureship grants to support emerging apprentices to set up their own shops in partnership with others to create wealth across Africa.

Toyin, can you forward to us the UNESCO proposal on a borderless world which was how the world existed when Africans discovered all other continents and populated them millions of years ago?

Biko

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Sep 6, 2019, 6:22:08 PM9/6/19
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Prof.

I have also stated my preference for a borderless world on this forum stating only disease controls check points should be established.

With the example of EU/UK I now realise I was being utopian.  World capitalism would collapse and what would replace it?

The world would be ungovernable!

OAA



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-------- Original message --------
From: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Date: 05/09/2019 16:35 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond the Street Attacks in South Africa

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Ken:

 

  1. How do nations construct nationalism, patriotism, identity, etc. if they are not nasty/hostile, etc. to foreigners?
  2. How do you do the blame game if you cannot distribute resources or offer opportunities in any equitable manner? If all Nigerians were to be deported today from South Africa, all those angry folks will still not have jobs.
  3. Who builds cultural capital? Whether in the US or South Africa, what you see are people with established cultural capital who walk into new spaces and able to function and succeed.

We have tried, in UNESCO, to sell the idea of a borderless world but no one has taken us seriously….rather, we were mocked several times.

TF

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>


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Date: Thursday, September 5, 2019 at 4:27 PM

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Sep 6, 2019, 6:22:08 PM9/6/19
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Ken.

I recognise we need to make a separate case for war refugees, Ill come back to that later but we are first of all talking of those the late Baronness Thatcher described as economic migrants from Africa and Asia in the mid-eighties which made Europe accelerate the formation of the Union which was mainly ideational up till that period.  I recognise your reference to intellectuals like Dr Omotosho and similar people who left their country because of  military repression (I belong to that group by the way). That was why I found Thatcher's idea of economic refugees problematic.  It had racist overtones.

Now that military dictatorship is on the wane should unbridled immigration from less fortunate economies continue?  Why not form new economic pacts with destinations of migration so new outlets of companies there are established in sources of migration so countries of destination gain by outsourcing to cheap labour company and weaker economies become thereby strengthened.  Of course this must be with a view to encouraging economic and technological development of source countries using what I once called the osmotic pressure of capitalism.  Then eventually there will be an equilibrium.

As for war refugees Baroness Thatcher advocated they should go to the nearest safe country for the same racist reason:  too many colour migrants are not wanted in the UK. This is because she realised problems provoked by western policies are often responsible for wars so it is counter- productive to absorb refugees from such countries thereby footing the bill for their sustenance.  That was why you had the African refugee situations you cited.  The other corollary is the liberal democratic zero sum politics that have been inadequately mastered in its positive aspects.

Even when refugees are absorbed in millions by host countries you cited its at their expense and this affectscdconomic planning.  Yes, some are skilled labour force, if such skills exist in the host countries pressure is put on the labour pull.  That is why the  US stated if professionals are immigrating to the country.  The position has to be advertised internally to ensure an indigene is not being robbed of a job, exceptional talent visa etc, etc.

The place to solve that problem to my mind is the UN where countries that export refugees need to be made to pay into the coffers of receiving countries.  It is only fair to do so to ensure they are not wilfully exporting their problems.

OAA




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-------- Original message --------
From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Date: 05/09/2019 16:35 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond the Street Attacks in South Africa

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dear olayinka
thanks for this thoughtful answer. i will try to craft a response after thinking about what you said.
one point for now: the situation and solution you describe is very close to the situation that obtains around much of the world. different societies have met the influx--whatever its causes--in different ways. some have refused to let more immigrants in (this is EU policy now); some have welcomed in millions, partly as an ethical obligation or political pressure, etc et. think of jordan and turkey with millions. some like tanzania, with half a million burundians, not being in a position to easily refuse, partly for UN pressures, AU pressures, or political choices. there are very few countries around the center of africa without refugees. kenya and uganda have enormous numbers of somalis and sudanese, and so on.

it aint new in south africa.
how is it handled? you detail the ideal, which is important to hear. but in addition to your wise suggestions for managing the influx, beyond the practical suggestions and political considerations, there underlies all these situations: people migrating to another country, far from home and family, in some cases under desperate conditions, are human. they are you and me. they are my grandparents, my relatives, my fellowmen or women.
they are us.

that's the poem soyinka wrote "Death in the Dawn."
the traveler wipes his feet in the dew of the dawn, sets out. as it happens, a car hits someone; that person lies dead on the road. the traveler looks, sees his face.. it is his own.
it is us.
everything you mentioned has to come after that recognition of the fellow humanity in the other. the rest is secondary.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Thursday, September 5, 2019 6:18 AM

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 8, 2019, 8:28:40 AM9/8/19
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dear oaa
world capitalism would not collapse under the weight of open migration. please reflect on it; in a sense it is the opposite. consider all the countries in africa, with open borders, where neighbors of rich countries migrated into them. some people migrated, not everyone; but almost always, it was young men who provided cheap manual labor. at times, almost slave labor, like the burkinabe c;hildren into northern cote d'ivoire. but the ebb and flow of peoples into nigeria, ghana, s africa, all were indicative of this pattern. tanzanians into kenya. burundians into tanzania, and even into congo. somalis, sudanese, the continent did not collapse under the weight of migration.
the u.s. had virtually open borders between 1880 and 1920, and half the u.s. population is made up of descendants of those immigrants, including yours truly.
go back far enough, there is no corner of the world which was not marked by migration, the great bantu migration, even those thought to be indigenous, like pygmies, having migrated into the forest under pressures of agriculturists. ditto for the kung. dig deeply enough in history, and you will find this is true absolutely everywhere.
so what are we stopping here? economic migrants? of course. is that bad? they won't keep coming until it is unprofitable for them.
what is really at stake is one simple truth, which most people are too greedy to admit. the rich ones want to keep the benefits to themselves. that's the start and finish of the story.
you are right, the rich will scream and kill the newcomers if they can. others will welcome them with compassion. it is a choice. make your choice. don't hedge it with, well, let's make sure they have good jobs, this or that. the economic forces will undoubtedly come into play. but do you give these people a chance to make a new life, or hedge it and say, only under these conditions?
i say, fight the xenophobes, not on their terms, which are the terms of hatred and greed, but on our terms, which are openness.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Friday, September 6, 2019 3:29 PM

Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 8, 2019, 3:45:25 PM9/8/19
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dear olayinka
it is good that you are reflecting on these issues, and making suggestions to how they could become workable.
i do really view the broader situation, the context, quite differently from you, though i appreciate the spirit with which you are seeking to work out the present untenable situation.
for me the context begins with neoliberal globalization. that means, wealthy and powerful nations have found a way to increase their profits by outsourcing, producing their goods abroad, and shipping them via containers back to the consumer nations.
the problem begins with that: the notion that maximizing profits matters more than any other value; that the transportation is not problematic in and of itself; that models for globalization work to the disadvantage to most of africa.
the solution is not to imagine africa turning into china or bangladesh or indonesia or vietnam; but to seek to modify every element of globalization so as to assume a re-equilibrium of wealth and power.
that won't come by voluntary changes on the part of the great powers. there is a struggle here, reflected intensely in the political struggle either to maintain the current power and monetary structure, or to change it. every country in the west struggles over this, and is divided radically. i hope china, too, is undergoing that struggle and might eventually change into a more just social and economic order.
that's my basic belief about what we ought to be debating, not how to satisfy racist societies in their greed. i would work for change with the Green parties, for instance, throughout europe. i would donate to candidates like warren or sanders in the u.s., and volunteer to work with them; i'd lobby against legislators whose commitments support the current divisions of wealth, and seek change.
and i would not ask poor nations, with no economic or political clout on the world stage, to pay their oppressors to permit their citizens to seek work in their countries. i'd work to change places like the u.k. or france so that they ceased to decide priorities on racist grounds, and i'd join forces with s.o.s.- racism or other groups with similar goals. eventually change isd going to come, and we need to work to make that happen. racists will lose, we have to believe this.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Friday, September 6, 2019 4:47 PM

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Sep 8, 2019, 3:45:25 PM9/8/19
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Ken.

I totally agree your thesis of migrations since time immemorial.  The Bible documents that trend since the time of the birth of Jesus Christ. But capitalism as we know it today was at its infancy then, which was why Jesus took umbrage to stop its incursion into the temple.  He failed and the saducees and pharisees made sure they handed over the 'spoilsport' to his tormentors. How much more now the system is at its peak.

Yes in a certain way its the rich who have much to lose but more importantly its the workers in each individual country.  

The more cheap labour is brought in the more the collective bargaining power of existing workers is put at risk as recent experience has confirmed.

During the debate that led to Brexit on Victoria Live a BBC programme a polish migrant said he was relocating to Australia because his employers would not give him a deserving wage reflecting his qualification and experience because they argued he could not get that amount in Poland.  What is more other Polish immigrants are queueing up at the gate!  He said he told them he was not using his salary to pay for a house in Poland but a mortgage in the UK and he could not keep up.

Many British workers hold the Poles in deep contempt for the same reason that they would take any low wage thereby robbing them of their jobs since low wages increase the profit margins of the rich employers who want to get richer.  As soon as the new immigrants settle in  however they want higher wages making the greedy employers source for cheaper employees making immigration figures spin out of control ad infinitum.  

Now all that take an unsustainable toll on social services.  The rich do not need those social services as do the graduated middle class as the rich can pay for private services and private schools for their wards, private health care  with much, much still left over. Replicate the situation world wide and you can see how a free fall system would leave the world in an ungovernable scenario of instability of labour force like the polish guy I mentioned.

This is why steering the middle course of controlled immigration benefits everyone in the end.  Even the African cases you mentioned there was still some control but they were not looking for the predictable economic growth pattern of the OECD countries.

OAA




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-------- Original message --------
From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Date: 08/09/2019 13:40 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond the Street Attacks in South Africa

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dear oaa
world capitalism would not collapse under the weight of open migration. please reflect on it; in a sense it is the opposite. consider all the countries in africa, with open borders, where neighbors of rich countries migrated into them. some people migrated, not everyone; but almost always, it was young men who provided cheap manual labor. at times, almost slave labor, like the burkinabe c;hildren into northern cote d'ivoire. but the ebb and flow of peoples into nigeria, ghana, s africa, all were indicative of this pattern. tanzanians into kenya. burundians into tanzania, and even into congo. somalis, sudanese, the continent did not collapse under the weight of migration.
the u.s. had virtually open borders between 1880 and 1920, and half the u.s. population is made up of descendants of those immigrants, including yours truly.
go back far enough, there is no corner of the world which was not marked by migration, the great bantu migration, even those thought to be indigenous, like pygmies, having migrated into the forest under pressures of agriculturists. ditto for the kung. dig deeply enough in history, and you will find this is true absolutely everywhere.
so what are we stopping here? economic migrants? of course. is that bad? they won't keep coming until it is unprofitable for them.
what is really at stake is one simple truth, which most people are too greedy to admit. the rich ones want to keep the benefits to themselves. that's the start and finish of the story.
you are right, the rich will scream and kill the newcomers if they can. others will welcome them with compassion. it is a choice. make your choice. don't hedge it with, well, let's make sure they have good jobs, this or that. the economic forces will undoubtedly come into play. but do you give these people a chance to make a new life, or hedge it and say, only under these conditions?
i say, fight the xenophobes, not on their terms, which are the terms of hatred and greed, but on our terms, which are openness.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Friday, September 6, 2019 3:29 PM

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Toyin Falola

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Sep 8, 2019, 3:45:25 PM9/8/19
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Ken:

 

  1. Is this world capitalism static?  I think rapid technological advances will profoundly reshape it in a way that we may not require some older institutions—including many universities—and labor
  2. Declining population in some parts of the globe will reignite racism.

I don’t have answers, just complicating the reading.

TF

 

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220, USA

 

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 7:28 AM
To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond the Street Attacks in South Africa

 

dear oaa

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 9, 2019, 6:55:17 AM9/9/19
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dear olayinka
i question your assumption that the influx of foreign workers is necessarily at the expense of local workers.
is that true? if so, i'd like to see the statistics that confirm that.
i wonder if the stress on services, as we might see also in the u.s., is not due to the anti-community ideological of thatcher and reagan who dev oted themselves to neoliberal notions of less government, at all costs. you get less govt by lowering taxes.
that ideology has done much to destroy the positive social work government should be undertaking, even down to the simple task of maintaining the roads. i warn you against driving in america, my friend, since our roads have declined drastically. i advise you against taking trains in america, since they are unbelievably late and unreliable and old and decrepit.
i advise you against going to emergency rooms, overflowing with the poor w;ho cannot afford medical insurance, still.
shall i go on? there is no end to the evil wrought by the rightwing govts and ideologies, including those inaugurated by clinton, that wrecked the social function of govt.
tax microsoft, and you will have enough money to take care of social services, and don't stop poor people from coming.
but you can't tax microsoft, or google or apple or any of them; you can't contarol the pollution of container ships; you can't stop production to shift to asia or south of the border, since not only are wages cheaper, the line-up of production support and engineers is stronger in china. you can't control borders by purely legal methods, so guns and gunships force africas back into libya where they face enslavement.
the decent world order envisioned after world war II has been wrecked. and it is our job to vote for those who will seek to reinstitute it.
in my last trip to naples this past summer i saw african on the street begging, hat in hand. literally. this is a reversion to a pre-industrial world model, which italians are creating to stop immigration. they are not trying to incorporate immigrants into their economic order, but impeding it.
if they are welcomed, the social services financing will ultimately grow, as long as the economic order is designed to accommodate them. the healthier societies will do that, but only if the population wishes to do so. we are part of the population of the world who should work toward that end.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Sunday, September 8, 2019 11:03 AM

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Sep 9, 2019, 2:53:17 PM9/9/19
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Dear Ken.

Its like preaching to the choir here.  I am all for voting for the right government to do all of those things you said.  Margaret Thatcher borrowed a leaf f,rom the racist right wing governments of America.  That was why caricatures portrayed her (bag in hand ) as Reagan's girlfriend. She came in as Conservative leader (equivalent of American Republicans or antebellum Democrats)  determined to copy American policies to reverse the Labour party policies which encouraged immigration, was marked by high government spending for social services which was inclusive for all races and segment.  Because govt finances were not limitless it led to unemployment since much of money that should be used for job creation was used for social services.

In the election that brought Thatcher in an advert showing an unending queue for unemployment benefits was captioned ' Labour isnt working' with a multi layered pun on 'working'  The implication was that the UK was too generous under Labour and therefore ran deficits other than surplus.  Basic economics teach that it is funds from. surplus that create further wealth during normal economic cycles.  The alternative is to borrow to invest which leads to inflationary pressures because of the cost of borrowing. Because  Thatcherism succeeded  by appealing to the selfish profiteering interests of the rich where neo-Marxian Labour policies failed it became the economic and governance Holy Grail.  Labour had to defer to it by re- inventing itself as a party who cared about  welfare at the expense of economic growth before it could snatch power again from  the onservatives  (New Labour.)  It had to do away with the revolutionary neo-Marxian Robin Hood rhetoric of high taxes to the rich to redistribute to the poor.    This was why I said for the Marxists to succeed in Nigeria they have to borrow a leaf from the New Labour strategy and stop threatening revolution as Sowore recently did.  Blaming Buhari by saying he did the same thing while in opposition wont cut it either.  He is now Buhari the President and not Buhari the opposition leader.  He has to balance the interests of the rich and the poor.  This was what New Labour had to face to convince the rich it was a government in waiting ready to serve the interests of ALL.

Something had to give if the rich are to be courted to contribute to wealth creation under Labour instead of being scared off to tax havens.  New Labour scratched its head.  How to bridge financial  gap without also over burdening the lower classes, looked across the Pond at America: Eureka:  Lottery money.  Labour in its earlier incarnation as a neo-Marxian entity could not share the religious overhang with the Conservatives that it is sin to gamble.  New Labour therefore  became the first UK party legislate gambling itself as not a harmful or sinful enterprise;  so long as it provides government with the cover for lowering taxes across the board and funding for its programmes.  Thus there is a percentage of all draws that goes to fund government projects as demanded by the people.  Bingo! Win-win situation:  Rich folks do not have to be taxed higher to provide for the stated needs of the people.  Everybody pays for it ( since the rich wanting to be richer plays the lottery too.)  So lottery it is: voluntary self-taxation!

Now that is government financing;  now racist overtones:  Thatcher never hid the fact she hated foreigners- unless they were rich and coming to contribute to the wealth of her country.  That was why she master minded the policy that even war refugees must go to the nearest available country t o their war- torn country knowing full  well that most war-torn countries were outside western Europe.  People coming in from non- warring countries because of political persecution were promptly branded economic migrants undeserving of political asylum.

When I first got a bus shuttle in the early 90s from La Guardia to JFK in New York  I was shocked that was the level of bus transportation almighty American capitalism could provide. Compared to British transport system. I thought may be that was  only because New York was the capital but living in several American cities has confirmed for me it is nation wide so I know how American capitalism treats its internal others.  British transport system would have gone down the same way had the Labour Party not put up a stiff resistance to government cuts under the Conservatives.  British Conservatives have been described as those who know the cost of everything and the value of none!

Yes, not all immigrants are threats to the job prospects of host countries and that was why I advocated an effective visa system for South Africa based on its needs. However, no government no matter how rich can throw its doors wide open for ALL immigrants.  You and I may debate extensively what the cut off point should be and which country is doing too little.  The countries themselves decide and they put in place a government that carries out their decision.

OAA



Sent from Samsung tablet.


-------- Original message --------
From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Date: 09/09/2019 12:07 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond the Street Attacks in South Africa

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dear olayinka
i question your assumption that the influx of foreign workers is necessarily at the expense of local workers.
is that true? if so, i'd like to see the statistics that confirm that.
i wonder if the stress on services, as we might see also in the u.s., is not due to the anti-community ideological of thatcher and reagan who dev oted themselves to neoliberal notions of less government, at all costs. you get less govt by lowering taxes.
that ideology has done much to destroy the positive social work government should be undertaking, even down to the simple task of maintaining the roads. i warn you against driving in america, my friend, since our roads have declined drastically. i advise you against taking trains in america, since they are unbelievably late and unreliable and old and decrepit.
i advise you against going to emergency rooms, overflowing with the poor w;ho cannot afford medical insurance, still.
shall i go on? there is no end to the evil wrought by the rightwing govts and ideologies, including those inaugurated by clinton, that wrecked the social function of govt.
tax microsoft, and you will have enough money to take care of social services, and don't stop poor people from coming.
but you can't tax microsoft, or google or apple or any of them; you can't contarol the pollution of container ships; you can't stop production to shift to asia or south of the border, since not only are wages cheaper, the line-up of production support and engineers is stronger in china. you can't control borders by purely legal methods, so guns and gunships force africas back into libya where they face enslavement.
the decent world order envisioned after world war II has been wrecked. and it is our job to vote for those who will seek to reinstitute it.
in my last trip to naples this past summer i saw african on the street begging, hat in hand. literally. this is a reversion to a pre-industrial world model, which italians are creating to stop immigration. they are not trying to incorporate immigrants into their economic order, but impeding it.
if they are welcomed, the social services financing will ultimately grow, as long as the economic order is designed to accommodate them. the healthier societies will do that, but only if the population wishes to do so. we are part of the population of the world who should work toward that end.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Sunday, September 8, 2019 11:03 AM

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 9, 2019, 9:09:53 PM9/9/19
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hi oaa
nice posting. a few thoughts on it
there are maybe two schools of thought on borrowing. those who argue, as you do below, that it leads to inflation, putting pressure on govts to push to balanced budgets; krugman, on the other hand, argues for strategic endebtedness, borrowing so as to stimulate the economy, which can lead to a surplus that pays off the debt.
i am dubious that a reasonable influx of migrants will so weigh on the economy as to destabilize it. but, i really don't know. and a reasonable scale of immigration should, normally, be agreed upon by citizens. i can accept that as inevitable in a normal society.
it's not normal now; the wars, waves of immigration, and xenophobic hatreds are out of proportion, and can't last forever.
but if we aim for reasonableness here, we might wish to remember how the economic needs that drove americans to openthe border to mexicans to work the fields of california served the american farming interests, and the move to expel those same workers later turned that useful labor into a kind of slave value.
the same happened after ww2 when france recruited north africans, only to try to expel them in the 1970s when the economy turned south; and the germans who recruited turks for the same reasons.

now the current huge wave of syrians, afghanis, eritreans, etc., who streamd into europe until 2016 or so were put to work in germany, sweden, countries that needed youthful labor to replace the aging population. the xenophobic swing against them is as unreasonable as the attempt of theresa may to expel the windrush generation.

racism, yes. and cruelty in all those cases when families experienced enormous pressures in the wake of the migration.
same with mineworkers with swazis, etc in s africa.

in the end, we have to all learn to deal with the influx or new peoples, and overcome prejudices, if we are to get along in the world. maybe that also means trying to balance the pressures of class difference, as you argue. but it is hard to bend very far to accommodate the wealthy classes when they resist taxation.
sometimes it takes enormous pressure to make those changes occur, as in the case of the american civil war, or the russian revolution.
ken


kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Monday, September 9, 2019 2:21 PM

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Sep 11, 2019, 12:48:39 PM9/11/19
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I agree with your main points.  The UK has had no qualms that it needed new bloid to keeo the econimy going in the face of dwindling birth rate and ageing population.  The question is from where.

The racists and many Conservatives think there should be a colour bar.  That was why the momentum of the European union was accelerated in the 80s and 90s to saturate the job market and eliminate demand from outside.  

Unfortunately it backfired and was to successful for the goal of the planners.  It made planning impossible because you can never tell how many would come every year and it kept increasing whenever member nations had economic problems.

I can understand the situation caused by war in Africa.  IThe wars will not  last forever.  The South Africans are concerned about those who came for economic activities. That is why I agree with you that they cant simply tell them to go home or attack them.  They can only restrict new entrants through visa controls.

Each country will need to decide how to make the rich pay more without the risk of capital flight.

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Date: 10/09/2019 02:16 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond the Street Attacks in South Africa

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hi oaa
nice posting. a few thoughts on it
there are maybe two schools of thought on borrowing. those who argue, as you do below, that it leads to inflation, putting pressure on govts to push to balanced budgets; krugman, on the other hand, argues for strategic endebtedness, borrowing so as to stimulate the economy, which can lead to a surplus that pays off the debt.
i am dubious that a reasonable influx of migrants will so weigh on the economy as to destabilize it. but, i really don't know. and a reasonable scale of immigration should, normally, be agreed upon by citizens. i can accept that as inevitable in a normal society.
it's not normal now; the wars, waves of immigration, and xenophobic hatreds are out of proportion, and can't last forever.
but if we aim for reasonableness here, we might wish to remember how the economic needs that drove americans to openthe border to mexicans to work the fields of california served the american farming interests, and the move to expel those same workers later turned that useful labor into a kind of slave value.
the same happened after ww2 when france recruited north africans, only to try to expel them in the 1970s when the economy turned south; and the germans who recruited turks for the same reasons.

now the current huge wave of syrians, afghanis, eritreans, etc., who streamd into europe until 2016 or so were put to work in germany, sweden, countries that needed youthful labor to replace the aging population. the xenophobic swing against them is as unreasonable as the attempt of theresa may to expel the windrush generation.

racism, yes. and cruelty in all those cases when families experienced enormous pressures in the wake of the migration.
same with mineworkers with swazis, etc in s africa.

in the end, we have to all learn to deal with the influx or new peoples, and overcome prejudices, if we are to get along in the world. maybe that also means trying to balance the pressures of class difference, as you argue. but it is hard to bend very far to accommodate the wealthy classes when they resist taxation.
sometimes it takes enormous pressure to make those changes occur, as in the case of the american civil war, or the russian revolution.
ken


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Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 11, 2019, 2:09:49 PM9/11/19
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to reiterate and confirm your points. the u.k. and ireland had no trouble welcoming zillions of polish workers, while they did everything to impede africans, and even attempted to expel windrush gen people, perhaps one of the really evil things they did thanks to May.
well, there are no doubt lots of very good people there who oppose racism and xenophobia.
who will win?
ken

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517 803-8839

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Abikal Borah

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Sep 11, 2019, 4:20:58 PM9/11/19
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I would also like to share a video below about xenophobic and racist attacks against Africans in India. This particular incident took place in 2017. I think it is a global issue that we are encountering. The failure of various societies to cope with human migration needs deeper introspection. The issue also demands serious discussions about the faultlines of racial imaginary in relation to black bodies.     

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/BN8PR12MB3057A7D0128AEABBF660DEA8DAB10%40BN8PR12MB3057.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

Mary Frances Kocurek

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Sep 23, 2019, 4:52:24 PM9/23/19
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The xenophobia towards South Africans and from South Africans against other citizens of the country and continent is not a recent issue. The internal stigmas in South Africa have been present for decades. Recently, there has been a debate over the African Studies curriculum in Universities. Some educators believe that the curriculum in Africa should be streamlined to match throughout the continent, which would present the course as "encompassing both north and south of the Limpopo River. [But] several black South African faculty did not want their view of "African studies," which defined South Africa as an exceptional sociopolitical and cultural formation outside of Africa, challenged' (Beyond the Street Attacks: The Deep, Capacious Lineage of Afrophobia in South Africa). To me, this article brings up forms of xenophobia and stereotyping that are not widely known. From this article, I learned that even the most educated and informed individuals can hold onto biased opinions on groups around them. It is important to consider the opinions and backgrounds of teachers when learning so that students themselves can form their own thoughts from the factual information they are learning. If it is censored, as in not teaching about certain important aspects of the subject, such as excluding South African when teaching about African Studies; or if it is biased, and the students are unaware of the bias, then the students are sort of cheated out of forming their own opinion based on facts. This is so important because if those who are educating the youth and up and coming leaders of the world teach in a biased manner, these attitudes of "afrophobia" and xenophobia towards citizens of South Africa are passed down and are never reformed. The "pan-African" studies approach could allow the youth to examine the entire continent and form their own opinions on each area, including South Africa. This in turn could eliminate "what many South Africans see as unfair criticism of their right to isolationist, exclusionary policies and politics" (Beyond the Street Attacks: The Deep, Capacious Lineage of Afrophobia in South Africa).  It is cool to me to learn that educators can take such an active part in politics!

Grace Troutman

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Sep 26, 2019, 12:51:55 PM9/26/19
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Reply test 

Tejas Karuturi

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Sep 29, 2019, 3:05:38 PM9/29/19
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One of the reasons that many South Africans carry xenophobic feelings can be rooted towards the apartheid that took place in their country. It seems that the curriculum in South Africa is designed to portray the country in a unique way that is based on isolating itself from other countries. Not wanting to integrate a decolonial African epistemological tradition would prevent others from learning about other African countries and the values that they hold. What I found interesting is that intellectuals and scholars can hold xenophobic and stereotypical views towards others without trying to explore the diversity of the continent as a whole. 

Ben Wolf

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Sep 30, 2019, 7:12:26 PM9/30/19
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This was an interesting read on the genealogy of xenophobia in South Africa.  The belief in South African exceptionalism, originally used as a divide-and-conquer strategy during Apartheid, has been perpetuated by some black South African intellectuals. I had never considered exceptionalism in the context of South Africa, but this article provided useful knowledge to help explain recent xenophobic violence in South Africa. This article also helped me to understand the contemporary situation of government, high culture, and academia, support of xenophobia. 

Afra Ismail

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Sep 30, 2019, 9:03:02 PM9/30/19
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The education system in South Africa favors keeping their education separate from the ideologies and curriculums taught in the countries surrounding it and in the rest of Africa. Their ideologies of being superior and looking down on “black” ideas and knowledge is propagated by the Apartheid views. On many South African campuses they justify their habit of excluding topics from African countries on their campuses even firing educators who were claimed of trying to “Africanize” their core African studies curriculum. This xenophobia and anti- Africanism is very appalling to learn about especially to discover the root coming from Apartheid ideologies.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Oct 1, 2019, 8:28:12 AM10/1/19
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Afra.

South African blacks are not alone in nationalising their education  curricula. Nigerians and Ghanaians do it too so that is not a big deal.  The United States is not exactly modeling its educational curriculum on that of Canada because they are both North American!  That is why we have the notion of nationalitIES (plural) 

Africa is not one monolithic entity like the US so the different educational curricula of African countries is as diverse as the countries.  

How many of these are going to be copied into the South African curriculum and how systematic and holistic would these be?

Should the South Africans allow themselves to exchange one set of colonisers (white) for another (black Africans.?)

Should they not be allowed to evolve their own curriculum which incoming African nationals MUST subscribe to?

OAA.



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Sione Angilau

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Oct 1, 2019, 10:10:17 AM10/1/19
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This post is shedding light on the fact that people from South African are stuck in their ways and are afraid of foreiners coming to take their jobs. This reminds me of what we see today in America and how Americans are scared of Central Americans taking their jobs. The problem with this is it makes the society a hostel environment to foreigners and each other. Only thing that this fear is going to do is be detrimental to the society and toxic for the country. 

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Oct 2, 2019, 1:17:53 AM10/2/19
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It would be nice to get some suggestions as to how this problem  ( xenophobia/ Afrophobia)
should be solved.




Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
 


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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Oct 2, 2019, 11:57:25 AM10/2/19
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1. Unbridled immigration should be the first candidate to be tackled same as in the wider world and not just in Africa.  People will counter with the dream of African unification (whatever that means) but until it is attained in Ayi Kwei Armah's ( (Ghanaian novelist) vision of reciprocity 'the Way.'  one sided mass immigration will not cut it

2. Everyone has a country ( generally)  Except in cases of war people should try and fix their economies rather than use that as excuse for wholesale export of populations which affect demographic planning in countries of destination.

3. New wealthy immigrants as I suggested earlier  should be seen to be giving back proactively to host communities where they made their fortunes and demonstrate humility rather than oppressively ostentatious lifestyle that breeds resentment ( humility kills no one!)

OAA



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Date: 02/10/2019 06:22 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Beyond the Street Attacks inSouth  Africa

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It would be nice to get some suggestions as to how this problem  ( xenophobia/ Afrophobia)
should be solved.




Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
 


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To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Beyond the Street Attacks in South Africa
 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

This post is shedding light on the fact that people from South African are stuck in their ways and are afraid of foreiners coming to take their jobs. This reminds me of what we see today in America and how Americans are scared of Central Americans taking their jobs. The problem with this is it makes the society a hostel environment to foreigners and each other. Only thing that this fear is going to do is be detrimental to the society and toxic for the country. 

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Oct 2, 2019, 4:49:55 PM10/2/19
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my solution is the complete opposite of olayinka's. he would put up barriers; i would tear them down. he would measure the policy by issues that turn on income and wealth, i would completely oppose such measures.
when hong kong faced incorporation into china in 2000, canada opened its doors to any hong kong citizen who came with a million dollars.
i would open the door to anyone, regardless of income.
the fear of wealthy countries is that people would come to share in their wealth. the dream of poor people is that they would have an opportunity abroad that they wouldn't have at home.
given a choice, most people want to stay in their home countries; but life is not always good there. when too many people have immigrated into a wealthier country, the opportunities there will diminish and the incentive to migrate will end.
or reverse. when poland developed more wealth, poles started to return from ireland and england. when opportunities in tunisia got better than in algeria, tunisians stopped emigrating.
when the french wanted workers after world war two, they went to north africa to recruit. when the factories had become developed, and the economy turned south in 1970s, the french tried to force the algerians to return.
and so on.
there is only one real reason to have a government: not to oppress people, but to support those in need who can't deliver necessities for themselves on their own. either because they are infirm, or because it is too great a job to build your own roads just for yourself. 
when african countries became independent in the 60s, all you needed to cross the border was an ID, not a passport, not a visa. you worked where you could find a good job.
now selfish people in selfish states want to keep the wealthjust for themselves, and use outsiders as their slaves. that's what the history of white south africa was about.
is that a model for us, or rather a south africa where people from lesotho and zimbabwe came to find work and a better life. if they were exploited yesterday, the solution for today is not to expel them, or nigerians, but to welcome them.
toyin will object, we are not in that world today. i agree. so we choose: either align with the rightwing neofascist ultranationalists in europe, with trump, with autocrats like orban, monsters who campaign on policies of exclusion, or find humane solutions to all people who just want a decent wage.
if we can't have open borders, we might start with open hearts and figure out ways, like DACA, to ameliorate the situation instead of putting up selfish conditions of immigration, like brain drains and money incentives.

under colonialism, africans needed permission to move to the cities. under czarist russia, you couldn't move about the country without police approval.
what about now? what kind of world should we be trying to make?
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 11:30 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Oct 3, 2019, 4:11:03 AM10/3/19
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Ken.

I would agree with Toyin Falola that we are not in the world you paint today.  Each country wants the best livelihood for its citizens.  Economically resources are not boundless and are locked in different countries.  Your plan might work if Africa is a borderless socialist state; it is not.  Hence your plans are utopian.

One last point which I wanted to add which might circumvent borders and reduce burning of businesses in envy is the successful businesses in SA build branches of their businesses in their home countries and send South Africans there to head such units. They attach posters of such persons at strategic points on premises of their SA site.  Anyone sent to burn the place can easily see they are destroying a business in which South Africans have vested interests and will refuse the order to destroy as that potential Mugabe assassin refused the order on that editor by the editor's compartment.

It also undermines the argument foreigners came to take South African jobs as they can see the foreign business creating jobs abroad for South Africans. It makes it difficult for politicians to stoke up hate against migrants.

What is more, it accelerates the vision of an economic integration of African countries and free movement of peoples which you desire.  It also leads to quicker recovery of the home countries  of migrants to South Africa reducing the need for further mass migrations

OAA



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-------- Original message --------
From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Date: 02/10/2019 22:25 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Beyond the Street AttacksinSouth   Africa

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my solution is the complete opposite of olayinka's. he would put up barriers; i would tear them down. he would measure the policy by issues that turn on income and wealth, i would completely oppose such measures.
when hong kong faced incorporation into china in 2000, canada opened its doors to any hong kong citizen who came with a million dollars.
i would open the door to anyone, regardless of income.
the fear of wealthy countries is that people would come to share in their wealth. the dream of poor people is that they would have an opportunity abroad that they wouldn't have at home.
given a choice, most people want to stay in their home countries; but life is not always good there. when too many people have immigrated into a wealthier country, the opportunities there will diminish and the incentive to migrate will end.
or reverse. when poland developed more wealth, poles started to return from ireland and england. when opportunities in tunisia got better than in algeria, tunisians stopped emigrating.
when the french wanted workers after world war two, they went to north africa to recruit. when the factories had become developed, and the economy turned south in 1970s, the french tried to force the algerians to return.
and so on.
there is only one real reason to have a government: not to oppress people, but to support those in need who can't deliver necessities for themselves on their own. either because they are infirm, or because it is too great a job to build your own roads just for yourself. 
when african countries became independent in the 60s, all you needed to cross the border was an ID, not a passport, not a visa. you worked where you could find a good job.
now selfish people in selfish states want to keep the wealthjust for themselves, and use outsiders as their slaves. that's what the history of white south africa was about.
is that a model for us, or rather a south africa where people from lesotho and zimbabwe came to find work and a better life. if they were exploited yesterday, the solution for today is not to expel them, or nigerians, but to welcome them.
toyin will object, we are not in that world today. i agree. so we choose: either align with the rightwing neofascist ultranationalists in europe, with trump, with autocrats like orban, monsters who campaign on policies of exclusion, or find humane solutions to all people who just want a decent wage.
if we can't have open borders, we might start with open hearts and figure out ways, like DACA, to ameliorate the situation instead of putting up selfish conditions of immigration, like brain drains and money incentives.

under colonialism, africans needed permission to move to the cities. under czarist russia, you couldn't move about the country without police approval.
what about now? what kind of world should we be trying to make?
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 11:30 AM

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Oct 3, 2019, 6:22:15 PM10/3/19
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dear olayinka
what i said was utopian. is that a bad thing? sometimes the current received truths, as with the notion of hegemony that gramsci created, is not a good thing.
your idea of mitigating anger against foreigners might also be naive, as the xenophobia is less rational than pure emotional hatred and envy. further, if south africa operates in other african states, as it does enormously, that will not assuage the xenophobia at home, even if it is irrational. who owns Nandu's, for example? or  Africa  MAgic? is the expansion of south african business across the continent anything other than an extension of neoliberal capitalist structures? corporations know no borders; but poor people are held like prisoners within the confines of their states because they possess none of the power, ie. capital, of the corporations that govern them.
i view our job as at least talking about this, not accepting it as inevitable. it isn't bad, then, to be "utopian," but rather is part of the process of analyzing how hegemony functions--the first step of oppositional politics.
olayinka, when you propose a small scale solution, it is a good start in as much as it recognized that there is a problem, and that playing up to purist nationalism needs to be resisted somehow
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 10:47 PM

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Oct 4, 2019, 6:38:16 AM10/4/19
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Ken.

I have not used utopian in a pejorative sense. It is simply an analytical phrase.

Yes reification prevents the South African poor from seeing what the nature of capitalism is.  Capitalism has its discontent.  Trust me if the level of foreign south Africans are in Nigeria as there are in SA there will be a deafening loud cry.  Remember Nigeria had its own Ghana must go and vice versa even when we are talking of sub- regional migrations. So Nigeria is not in a position to play holier than thou here.

Part of the reasons Nigerians are being picked upon is that they are distant migrants.  There is a relative level of tolerance for near by  migrants whose nearness is recognised by similar linguistic accents.  

All these issues come to play in subliminal nuances.  It is good to attempt a strictly rational analysis as you do but human affairs many times defy the rational even among the knowledgeable classes who are adept at disguising there non rational selves better.

OAA.



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-------- Original message --------
From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Date: 03/10/2019 23:25 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Beyond the Street AttacksinSouth    Africa

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dear olayinka
what i said was utopian. is that a bad thing? sometimes the current received truths, as with the notion of hegemony that gramsci created, is not a good thing.
your idea of mitigating anger against foreigners might also be naive, as the xenophobia is less rational than pure emotional hatred and envy. further, if south africa operates in other african states, as it does enormously, that will not assuage the xenophobia at home, even if it is irrational. who owns Nandu's, for example? or  Africa  MAgic? is the expansion of south african business across the continent anything other than an extension of neoliberal capitalist structures? corporations know no borders; but poor people are held like prisoners within the confines of their states because they possess none of the power, ie. capital, of the corporations that govern them.
i view our job as at least talking about this, not accepting it as inevitable. it isn't bad, then, to be "utopian," but rather is part of the process of analyzing how hegemony functions--the first step of oppositional politics.
olayinka, when you propose a small scale solution, it is a good start in as much as it recognized that there is a problem, and that playing up to purist nationalism needs to be resisted somehow
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 10:47 PM

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Oct 4, 2019, 9:18:48 AM10/4/19
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good points olayinka.

kenneth harrow

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michigan state university

517 803-8839

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Sent: Thursday, October 3, 2019 10:20 PM

Harrow, Kenneth

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Oct 4, 2019, 12:57:08 PM10/4/19
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olayinka, apply some of your reflections to this situation. 400,000 burundians fled burundi since 2015 when nkurunzima decided to abrogate the constitution and run for a 3d term. the insecurity throughout the country that followed, with a youth movement that attacked opponents, and largescale attacks and killings in much of the country, generated such insecurity that many fled to the drc (!) as well as rwanda and tanzania. already, hundreds of thousands of burundians had fled there earlier, consequent to the civil wars in past years.
when mzee nyerere had governed, and his heritage prevailed, refugees were welcomed and placed in camps.
the tide has turned, an authoritarian regime succeeded, and now we have mass deportations, despite the u.n. and international law.
tanzania was not taxed with paying for these refugees; they were in u.n. camps.
yet they are now being deported.

the reality is the following: there are almost 70 million people in the world today who are displaced or refugees. people who have fled wars in central america, in central africa, in the horn of africa, in the middle east, in burma, etc.
of those 70 million, about 25 million are actual refugees, legally entitled to asylum.

i am not terribly interested in appeasing wealthy countries like south africa, or european countries that include places like germany and sweden, for fear that foreigners will destabilize their regimes. we have an international order with laws pertaining to asylum, rights of refugees, of people dispossessed or at risk of harm.

if you put yourself in their shoes, you will not be asking for the moon; just a chance for a life.
ken
Africa Tanzania begins mass deportation of Burundi refugees. Tanzania intends to deport up to 200,000 Burundian refugees by year's end. Burundi is going along with the plan, but the UN's refugee ...


kenneth harrow

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Sent: Friday, October 4, 2019 9:02 AM

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Oct 4, 2019, 11:06:57 PM10/4/19
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I agree with Ken. We have to be sympathetic/empathetic with respect to refugees,
many of whom are the victims of dictatorship and maladministration.
 

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
Sent: Friday, October 4, 2019 12:43 PM

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Beyond the Street AttacksinSouth Africa
 

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Oct 4, 2019, 11:07:16 PM10/4/19
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Ken. 

I thoroughly understand that the refugees themselves are not asking for the moon.  That was why I exempted them from those seeking better fortunes abroad (as in the continual drive of  Nigerians outwards even in peace time when military dictatorships had ended)

But I also stated in earlier posts the international community should expedite resolution in time of war and make reparations to countries that accepted refugees from war torn countries from the accounts of such countries once peace is secured, to send the signals to anticipated victors in wars that win or lose, ultimately war does not pay.

Refugees can then be encouraged to go home if they so desire and if they do not their former countries should support their existence for the rest of their lives in their new country of abode.  This is because people would not generally want to leave their  original homes unless pushed out.  For as they say East or West;  North or South most people think home is best as stated by the late Nigerian politician Chief Adisa Akinloye after spending decades in the UK in exile.

OAA



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-------- Original message --------
From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Date: 04/10/2019 18:13 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Beyond the Street AttacksinSouth     Africa

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olayinka, apply some of your reflections to this situation. 400,000 burundians fled burundi since 2015 when nkurunzima decided to abrogate the constitution and run for a 3d term. the insecurity throughout the country that followed, with a youth movement that attacked opponents, and largescale attacks and killings in much of the country, generated such insecurity that many fled to the drc (!) as well as rwanda and tanzania. already, hundreds of thousands of burundians had fled there earlier, consequent to the civil wars in past years.
when mzee nyerere had governed, and his heritage prevailed, refugees were welcomed and placed in camps.
the tide has turned, an authoritarian regime succeeded, and now we have mass deportations, despite the u.n. and international law.
tanzania was not taxed with paying for these refugees; they were in u.n. camps.
yet they are now being deported.

the reality is the following: there are almost 70 million people in the world today who are displaced or refugees. people who have fled wars in central america, in central africa, in the horn of africa, in the middle east, in burma, etc.
of those 70 million, about 25 million are actual refugees, legally entitled to asylum.

i am not terribly interested in appeasing wealthy countries like south africa, or european countries that include places like germany and sweden, for fear that foreigners will destabilize their regimes. we have an international order with laws pertaining to asylum, rights of refugees, of people dispossessed or at risk of harm.

if you put yourself in their shoes, you will not be asking for the moon; just a chance for a life.
ken
Africa Tanzania begins mass deportation of Burundi refugees. Tanzania intends to deport up to 200,000 Burundian refugees by year's end. Burundi is going along with the plan, but the UN's refugee ...


kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Friday, October 4, 2019 9:02 AM

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Oct 6, 2019, 12:33:10 PM10/6/19
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olayinka
what you state should be the case, below, is exactly what is happening. the refugee camps in kenya, uganda, filled with hundreds of thousands of sudanese and somalis, are u.n. managed and paid for. ditto for the camps in tanzania, rwanda, etc. what you describe is how the u.n. handles refugees--even if the funds are not entirely what they should be
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Friday, October 4, 2019 9:54 PM

Nick Perry

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Oct 7, 2019, 1:30:51 PM10/7/19
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This article discusses the long-rooted “phobia” of pan-Africanism in South Africa, which is backed up mostly by examples in academia and the political space of South Africa. For example, in 1996, when Mahmood Mamdani was pushed out of UCT (University of Cape Town) based on his efforts to “Africanize” South African curriculum. From what I read in the article and the article responses, it seems like this push-back to pan-Africanism is due to their “unique” history and a somewhat supercilious attitude. This attitude is very detrimental to all parts of Africa, including South Africa itself, because it creates more violence and stunts development. Without development, the outside world will continue to have the same attitude about Africa (including South Africa itself!) as South Africa does about the rest of the continent. Africa has long been criticized for civil conflicts by world superpowers, such as the genocide in Rwanda(a parallel the author reflects on), yet is not moving away from this as countries close themselves off from each other.

Laura J Jackson

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Oct 9, 2019, 9:38:52 PM10/9/19
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This article goes into the xenophobic and afrophobic attitudes commonly perpetuated in South Africa. My own knowledge of xenophobia in South Africa is limited to 21st century incidents that have been brought to my attention through various forms of media. This article, however, goes into the history of such attitudes. Xenophobia and afrophobia have been an intrinsic part of South Africa’s relationship with the rest of the continent since the beginning of apartheid. These attitudes are reinforced by not only the political climate but also through the information presented in academic circles.

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Kiana Fithian

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Oct 9, 2019, 9:38:53 PM10/9/19
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This article highlights the discussion of xenophobia being deeply rooted in South Africa. Similar to the ideas of American Exceptionalism, there are those in South African preaching its exceptionalism. That is the idea that the development of South Africa in all aspects puts the country on a pedestal above the rest of the African continent. This exceptionalist idea is behind the debate regarding Mahmood Mamdani’s push to change the African studies curriculum to relate more to the pan-African ideology. It had never occurred to me that there was this sense of superiority felt by some South Africans over other African countries. The author stated that xenophobia in South Africa is not a new phenomenon, rather it has a deep history. I am curious as to the historical events that created and fueled xenophobic ideas in South Africa.

Mohammed N Chowdhury

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Oct 10, 2019, 5:11:55 AM10/10/19
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The article does a brilliant job in depicting the roots of xenophobia in South Africa. Xenophobia has been present in South Africa as early as the beginning of apartheid and often during times of racial conflict in South Africa, violence was a way that the people commonly fought against change and even against government rulings. South Africa, being a resource-rich country, has immense potential to grow and be a developed nation but its 'eagerness' to resort to violence and its negative sentiment towards foreigners has often held it back in the sense that South Africa is often unable to attract top talent, whereas nations such as Rwanda and Nigeria are able to do so. I personally am curious as to why the South African public's immediate response to unfavourable situations cause them to retaliate violently.

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Kennedy Harmon

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Oct 10, 2019, 7:29:15 PM10/10/19
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This article explains the effects of afrophobia and xenophobia in South Africa and what it has done to the country. Afrophobia has turned into a stereotype about South Africa and has had many people become afraid of this country. Although afrophobia and xenophobia are genuine fears, they should not hold one back from experiencing the country and what it holds. The author mentions the Rwandan Genocide and how that is a acrophobic fear, but does not mention how the country has grown from the incident. I believe South Africa has the potential to grow and prospe and people should not bash on the country because the past/current situations. 
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