Ubuntu is The Emergency Room For Xenophobia in Africa

Instead of filling the answer as Xenophobia, let us analyse how we can use Humanization to inform policies on how people treat each other. 

This will make it possible for people to engage in humane acts as opposed to inhumane ones toward each other.

Xenophobia, is used to explain the inhumane treatment of perceived non-South African citizens that led to deaths and destruction of livelihoods in South Africa in September 2019.  

Foreign-owned shops, were looted or burnt (expropriation) or both during riots in the Johannesburg suburb of Turffontein on September 2, 2019. This form of violence targeting foreign nationals in South Africa, tells one of the need for scripted operating procedures that address how Africans can relate with each other. They should not take anything for granted. 

We risk shelving our responsibilities to other humans. We also risk not analyzing the historical abuses, precarious and insidious legacy of Apartheid to South Africa in particular and to Black people wherever they are. As Chimedza (2019) aptly puts it:  "apartheid was officially killed what remained is the structural web of social, cultural, economic and political institutions of racialised superiority. The logic of violence, ‘homelands’, trauma and deep suspicions seeded by white apartheid did not magically melt into a ‘rainbow’."

From an objective point of view, Apartheid was a White/Afrikaner a deterministic way of deploying everything they could have their hands on, in order for them to live and lead fuller lives in Africa.

However, the same region has practitioners of Ubuntu.  A deterministic way of cultural socialism that seeks to provide resources to people to lead fuller lives in a given social context irrespective of whether they are Xhosa, Zulu, Dutch, British, German, Chinese, Tswana, Igbo, Yoruba, Acholi, Langi, Kamba or Zande. Apartheid denied Ubuntu a chance. Now is the time for Ubuntu ideals to be put into practice in South Africa. Ubuntu mobilizes, utilizes and deploys agency, autonomy and self-determination to form humanization tools. 

Bukenya is a Ugandan who is now a permanent resident of Kenya. Kombe is a Kenyan who is now a permanent resident in Uganda. Habte is an Ethiopian, who is a permanent resident in Uganda. Abunya is a Nigerian who is a permanent resident in South Africa.

Human agency, autonomy and self-determination are inalienable and ubiquitous. They transcend, bend but not break tribe, border or laws. They cruise in space, time and are fuelled by engagement in life fulfilling activities. They inform the codes with which the scripts of life are written. Agency, autonomy and self-determination inform the ideals of humanization but are not limited by humanization. They are spontaneous, innovative and intuitive. This is what makes Italians people settle in Argentina; Scots, settle in Australia; Nigerians, settle in China. This is what makes some women and men make perpetual vows of celibacy.  And, so on and so forth.

The scripts of life are both written and un-written. They include instruments of law, ethics, religion and intuition. There are many examples around us. They may be in form of Constitutions, cultures, traditions, norms or regulations.

"Our New Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and Taxes," uttered Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the Unites States of America. He could have said, agency, autonomy and self-determination as well. After all, they were Lockean adherents.

Mother Theresa, is said to have made the quip: “we don’t always think of the pen while reading the letter.” In this same vein, we may fail to think of agency, autonomy and self-determination while we make policy pronouncements, read Constitutions, documents stipulating rights or laws directing how we are to conduct our day to day activities of citizenship and life.

In defining citizenship or means to find a fuller life, we need to remember that we are either empowered or limited by status, i.e., political, economic, social and cultural. These translate into the historical use of space in form of labour, investments, ownership of property, birth, residence, power roles and race. These are parameters to look out to when considering citizenship.  What this also means is that this is what creates diversity among us. We are all not the same in status. This is why we must employ intuition and draw in aspects of justice to address inequalities or inequities as we move toward the parity outcome.

The state has pronounced itself in matters of citizenship. The state governs within a given boundary, proscribes laws within those boundaries, holds courts, safeguards the security and provides for citizens. This is what is known as full citizenship. In the hands of a citizen, this is what translates as a passport, birth certificate or National ID. But, this is state level citizenship. It enables them to mobilize, utilize and deploy agency, autonomy and self-determination.  This in turn is what galvanizes citizens.

This is how they are able to say, they are South Africans, Ugandans, Kenyans, Egyptians or South Sudanese.  But remember, we are humans even before we see ourselves are statoids (if ever there is such a term). So, we have an obligation toward Humanization.

Humanization not only obliges us to address and maintain an environment for fuller quality life for all, but asks us to seek out those who are left out by our prejudices or scripts of life. Humanization tampers with the rigid tendencies of scripts and makes them flexible.

But, most times humans have blindly accepted one way of defining citizenship. In giving up obligation to fend for self (self-preservation) and a tendency to define citizenship as having a given country’s passport we are failing in our goal toward full humanization.

What Ubuntu asks: 

States can invest in the communities that make them up by improving the living standard of the people who make up these communities.

States can come together and so can communities and plan ways to stop any tendencies of mayhem in Africa. We do not have to always go to The Hague for prescriptions.

States reward and recognize everyday efforts to address hate crimes as part of governance or diplomacy between states and communities. These should become internationally recognized events. And, not one time jet set hops from one country to another. 

That we agree there are diversities. These manifest as disparities in affluence or otherwise.  Africa is one and the same place where the rich are living side-by-side with the poorest. Ubuntu asks that governments ensure that the rich are respected as well as the poor empowered.

That we are drawn to making conclusions or stereotypes which most of the time also invoke hate. Ubuntu asks that we examines our utterances, action and inaction towards those who are not like us as a result of status (citizenship, race, sex, gender, orientation, power, education, qualifications and the like).

That we acknowledge the good sides of those we think are inhumane. We should hate the crime and not the people. 

That there is to be realistic and not just rhetorical as far as Africa goes. There is need to conduct continent wide exorcism and rid Africa of the fertile seeds of Apartheid that reproduce at a given and regular season. This can be in form of youth empowerment schemes.  

That we cannot wish away differences in opinion but can through preparation and dialogue use our differences to stoke enduring uplifting action plans. 

That all humans are created equal whether Black or White. This is self evident and that they should be provided opportunities to engage in enjoying equality and pursuits that promote life, liberty and happiness.

That there are “painful threads of Africa’s history whose solution is an alternative inclusive future. A Pax-Africana renaissance” (Chimedza, 2019).


Tom R. Muyunga-Mukasa is an African-American Political Scientist. Read more of these blogs please. Thank you.

There is a cancer gnawing at the heart of South Africa’s political system and its seed was sowed and watered by apartheid. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYAGA