XENOPHOBIA: A Neocolonial Response of A Failed Government and Downtrodden Masses

Neocolonialism can be defined as the continuation of the economic model colonialism after a colonized territory has achieved formal political independence.  This concept was applied most commonly to Africa in the latter half of the twentieth century. European countries had colonized most of the continent in the late nineteenth century, instituting a system of economic exploitation in which African raw materials were expropriated and exported to the sole benefits of the colonizing powers. The idea of neocolonialism, however, suggests that when European powers granted nominal political independence to colonies in the decades after the Second World War, they continued to control the economies of the new African countries.

In neocolonial societies the ruling class often attempt to break up and destroy working class solidarity by dividing the poor and working people against each other. They use ethnicity, sexism. They try to break multinational unity of the working class by dividing white workers and people of colour. The ruling class also uses xenophobic hysteria, native born against immigrant workers.  

Kwame Nkrumah in his book, "Class Struggle in Africa" published in 1970, clearly outlined this on page 66, when he wrote that: "In neocolonialist States where there are immigrant workers, and where unemployment is rife … the anger of workers is surreptitiously fomented and directed by the neocolonialist puppet regime not so much against its own reactionary policies as against the “alien” workers. It is they who are blamed for the scarcity of jobs, the shortage of houses, rising prices and so on.

The result is that within the continent, an African immigrant worker is victimized both by the government and by his own fellow workers. The government brings in measures to restrict immigration, to limit the opportunities of existing immigrants, and to expel certain categories. The indigenous workers for their part are led to believe by the government’s action, that the cause of unemployment and bad living conditions is attributable in large measure to the presence of immigrant workers. Mass feeling against them is aroused and helps to increase any already existing national and ethnic animosities. Instead of joining with immigrant workers to bring pressure on the government, many of them strongly support measures taken against them. In this, they show a lack of awareness of the class nature of the struggle and the bourgeoisie benefit from the split among the ranks of the working class.

Workers are workers, and nationality, race, tribe and religion are irrelevancies in the struggle to achieve better living standards. 

In the context of the African socialist revolution there is no justification for regarding non-African workers as a hindrance to economic progress and there is similarly no justification for the victimization and the expulsion of migrant African labour from one territory or another. In Africa, there should be no African “alien”. All are Africans. The enemy-wall to be brought down and crushed is not the African “alien” worker but balkanization and the artificial territorial boundaries created by imperialism."

Pressure must therefore be brought on the government of South Africa to acknowledge the existence of Afro phobia in the country and take steps to quell it. In the alternative, African governments should severe all diplomatic ties with the government of South Africa.