OPINION: Operation Dudula is but one of the events that have painted a glaring picture of black-on-black hatred, violence and division.
By Vusi Gumbi and Dr Chidochashe Nyere
Borders are a powerful idea that was invented by the West, a social construct and an enduring concept that has fostered and perpetuated division among Africans, as well as how we relate to each other. Perhaps a more helpful starting point from which to consider the nature of division is the scramble and partitioning of Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1884 – 1885.
After imperialists like Otto von Bismarck and Leopold III and their European counterparts met in Berlin to divide Africa on the basis of ensuring their amicable relations in colonisation so as not to occupy ‘each other’s territories’, African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Haile Selassie, among others, in response to the partition of Africa and, by extension, colonisation, established a body that would foster the liberation of African countries and their subsequent unity. Pan Africanism would be the foundation on which the Organisation of African Unity, later named the African Union, was formed on May 25, 1963.
By the 1990s, Africa had experienced full independence with the third wave of democratisation. This is the epistemic foundation for today’s ‘othering’ in citizenship and migration policies. The Berlin Conference of 1884 – 1885, where major European powers partitioned Africa among themselves and formalised it with the existing borders, which have mostly remained intact and are the cornerstone of the contemporary State in post-colonial Africa, are the source of this colonial legacy. As a result of the Berlin Conference and consequent colonialism especially of the African continent, Africans have been subjected to an inhumane, barbaric and violent existence.
They have therefore been conditioned to be the recipients of hate. This is not to say that Africans have no agency of their own in this matter and that they cannot change their destiny, but the outward socio-economic conditions make it rather difficult to manoeuvre such space. In other words, as a result of colonialism, a template of being, action and thought was instituted.
Operation Dudula is but one of the events that have painted a glaring picture of black-on-black hatred, violence and division. We saw chaos breaking out at the Pan African Parliament in Midrand, South Africa – 2021 – when there was an impasse with the rotation of the presidency. In the past, rotation was followed by consensus which led to the east, west and central regions holding the presidency without incident. However, in 2021, the southern region argued that only the north and south could propose presidential candidates since they were the only regions who had not occupied the presidency – the three other regions objected in what mirrored the politics driven by artificial borders drawn up in Berlin.
Just like 2008, we have seen the profiling of Africans in South Africa – a senseless act requiring people who do not “look” South African to name certain body parts using vernacular languages.
This is the culmination of Operation Dudula and after this, it will lead to tribalism. What is unfortunate is that Cyril Ramaphosa’s inauguration as president of the Republic on the 66th anniversary of the former Organisation for African Unity (Africa Day) on May 25, 2019 signalled the advent of an administration that would work towards Pan Africanism, yet has let groups like Operation Dudula gain traction. The unbecoming scenes from Diepsloot, where crime has been attributed to black illegal foreigners, point to how African communities are burning from Afrophobia and at times this is sparked by politicians and aspirant politicians trying to gain relevance by making reckless statements based on the logics of the Berlin Conference, thereby derailing Pan Africanism coming true. Blaming the foreigner is kicking the can down the road because it effectively becomes a simple solution to a complex problem.
What Operation Dudula has highlighted is that unless there are concerted efforts led by the government to correct the ills of colonialism and reverse the evil of apartheid by tackling the elephant in the room – the asymmetrical economic structure and the resultant relations today, the template that was inaugurated by colonialism will continue to destroy African societies particularly. This is also to highlight the complications there are that entrap Africans, consolidate the material conditions inaugurated by colonialism and perpetuated by economic conditions that Africans largely remain subjected to. This is the bigger challenge in the grand scheme of things than the violent outbursts that occasionally erupt and manifest as xenophobia in South Africa today. The fighting over of resources – which is at the centre of the violence that is misconstrued as the rooting out of crime – or better still, the scavenging of meagre resources only serves to highlight the inequality that remains unchallenged by government because it has become part of the colonial masters, only it has a form, language and skin colour as the rest of us. Thus, it is elusive to locate as it speaks our language – sometimes revolutionary language which arouses emotions that ferment the idea that we are together in the struggle – that it has long abandoned. This is the complication that the government allows such xenophobic and violent outbursts (now code-named: Operation Dudula) to continue as that deflects attention from its failures. The fighting over resources spells the real problem that envelops the South African society as a whole; it is the economic inequality that has remained untransformed at the watch of the government. Economic transformation and economic reform remain white elephants that hinder and thwart any meaningful attempt to reconciliation between races, tribes and nationalities. This is the stumbling block to realising the Pan African ideals for South Africa in this case, but this is equally true for all of Africa generally.
* Vusi Gumbi is a Research Assistant and Dr Chidochashe Nyere is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg.
** The views expressed here may not necessarily be that of IOL.