South Africa: What is an African? "There is nothing there that says ‘this is the enemy I must hate’.

[pampango]

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/blog/index.php/2010/11/mmawere/south-africa-profiling-what-is-an-african/

Former (South African) President Mbeki observed that: “If hatred of others who are different were the reason (for "the 2008 violence against black South African citizens and residents born in foreign African states"), whites would have been the target. When I walk down the streets of Johannesburg and this other black person approaches me, there is no way (of) me telling that they are Zimbabwean or Mozambican. There is nothing there that says ‘this is the enemy I must hate’.”

...white Africans in post-colonial Africa have the same rights and obligations as citizens. The complexion of the majority of sub-Saharan Africans is black and as correctly observed by Mbeki, there is no way of telling who is Zimbabwean or Mozambican when one walks down the streets of any African state. However, there are many white persons, for instance, who believe that they have a better claim to be South African than other black persons born outside the country.

As a Zimbabwe-born South African citizen, I frequently get asked questions primarily from white South Africans like: “Where are you from? When are you going to get Zimbabwe sorted out? How is Zimbabwe?” It is evident to me that such questions are rarely asked to a white Zimbabwean, for example, who made the same choice to be South African as I did. There is an automatic assumption that a white immigrant is a value adding citizen than a black African born in another state.

The history of Europe is well documented and it is generally accepted that Europeans who make a choice to be African are not coming from a poorer existence than they enjoy in Africa and, therefore, their presence has some civilising and uplifting aspect to it. The challenge for black Africans is that their native home countries are generally poorer than South Africa, and invariably, an assumption is made that their presence in a more developed country like South Africa is not in the national interest.

The concept of black economic empowerment that formed part of the policy thrust of the Mbeki administration sought to redefine the national identity question. As a result of this policy, a black person is now legally defined in peculiar and divisive manner to exclude all other black persons who were not subjected to the apartheid experience.

Invariably, Africa’s past was so distorted that black people see no value in working together in Africa even when they are acutely aware that outside Africa their degrees of freedom are limited. When one walks the street of New Delhi, for example, there is no way of telling what a South African looks like. We are all Africans and yet in Africa, we fail to use our numerical advantage to build a seamless and borderless continent.

Mbeki has opened the debate that we must engage in if we are to build a secure future for our children. Imagine the humiliation a son or daughter of a foreign-born African who is born in South Africa, but can never belong to the country of his birth just because of his heritage. Should such children change their surnames so that they can be considered South African? White South Africans who make the same choices to be part of South Africa are not exposed to the same choices? They simply become part of the melting pot.

We have to be vigilant and in as much as the concept of being Chinese, for example, is not limited to one identity, I have no doubt that the concept of being African can be developed and shaped by our ideas.

It is never late to make a new declaration of African independence premised on an inclusive and holistic definition of African identity informed by our contemporary experiences and not by the pain the past has occasioned of the majority of Africans.