Like Mwalimu Zeleza, when I heard of the outbreak of violence directed at African non-citizens in South African townships, I recognized the pathology of Africans attacking fellow Africans, of our self-hatred and an apparent blindness to the European originators and primary beneficiaries of Africa's biggest problems.
The violence has parallels in Kenya and in Rwanda, for in all cases, one group of Africans is isolated and adorned with the mask of the colonial masters for the performance of a deadly "liberation" ritual in which the poor majority "drives out" fellow blacks in white colonial masks. The equation of intra-African violence with the struggle against apartheid explains how ANC president Jacob Zuma found himself in the embarrassing situation of his heroic anthem "Bring me my machine gun" being sung by youths attacking African migrants.
Despite the similarities with other African countries, however, South Africa brings with it a unique feature that could account for why poor Africans are increasingly finding it easier to attack each other than to attack the African elite and the imperialist class whose interests the elite represent: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. One of the reasons that South Africa has maintained what Zeleza rightly calls the deadly myth of exceptionalism is probably because of the accolades it has received from the Western world for instituting the TRC following the downfall of apartheid.
Black South Africans had barely heaved a sigh of relief from the trauma of apartheid when Archbishop Desmond Tutu led them to accomplish the super human feat of listening to the confessions of gruesome acts committed against their kith and kin. The TV pictures of Archbishop Tutu's lowering his head as he was overcome by grief remain engraved in my mind, for they represent the profound horror and suffering of black South Africans which could not be expressed through words; only through tears. However, as black South Africans endured this painful grieving process, they were also asked to swallow the bitter pill of amnesty and of no promise of reparations or wealth re-distribution. A casual observer can therefore recognize that South Africa is upheld as the model which the rest of Africa is supposed to emulate; which is to have whites confess their sins before their black victims, pay no reparations or suffer imprisonment, while God damn the Africans as their open wounds fester, leading them to explode against women, children, neighboring ethnic groups, fellow citizens, and in this case, fellow Africans.
The problem is not so much in the reconciliation process, but in the concentration on the racial divide with focus on white South Africans. There was no parallel process to reconcile blacks, South African and foreign, with each other, yet like any other oppression, apartheid was profoundly divisive for the community that endured it. As many have pointed out, the countries neighboring South Africa, notably Mozambique and Angola, endured deadly civil wars instigated by South Africa's aggressive destabilization of regimes of neighboring countries. Samora Machel remains etched in Africa's memory as one of the most prominent non-South African casualties of apartheid South Africa, and the scars inflicted by the apartheid government's foreign policy are still carried by the Angolans who have lost their limbs to mines. Bourkina Faso also lost Thomas Sankara after the young revolutionary dared tell François Mitterand to his face that France's accommodation of the apartheid regime was unacceptable.
While Mandela honorably visited several African countries after his release to thank various African countries for their support, this "reconciliation" process was largely removed from the average black South African, unlike the case for the TRC. This failure is reflected in Pius Adesanmi's commentary [0] on the xenophobia earlier this year, in which he noted that African migrants were bitter at the black South African leaders for not reminding their people of the contributions of the whole continent to the struggle against apartheid. Adesanmi quotes them as saying: "Imagine these South Africans treating us like this...It means Mandela never told them the truth. Mbeki never told them the truth."
Perhaps the starkest reminder that the elaborate forgiving and healing process instituted for the benefit of white South Africans was not replicated to heal intra-African relations is embodied in the horrifying picture circulating the international media of an African migrant victim of a "necklace" lynching. This form of execution, previously inflicted on those considered sympathizers of the apartheid regime, raises the question as to what happened to the black South African families who lost loved ones in such a humiliating manner. Did these families reconcile with those who torched those "necklaces" on their loved ones, so that both sides could collectively come to terms with the damage inflicted by apartheid within black communities? Were there similar ceremonies for Mozambicans, Namibians and Angolans to join with the South Africans in grieving and reconciling after apartheid?
Even if such reconciliation processes amongst Africans were indeed carried out, they barely received any coverage in the media. All over Africa, we were and still are flooded with stories about reconciliation between blacks and whites, but never between blacks themselves. Right now, Europe is gearing up for a big bash in London to celebrate Mandela's 90th birthday, which our venerated statesman has made a commitment to attend despite his advanced age. Our continent receives no such honors from him any more, although one must concede that our African leaders would not go to such lengths to facilitate such an occasion, despite all their talk of African Unity and of a United States of Africa. In the same spirit, Mzee Mandela, previously dubbed a terrorist, has been honored since 1994 with the highest of Western honors including the fancy prize from the Swedish academy and a statue in London. Within the literary world of the American academy, nothing has earned South Africa more attention than the TRC. The literary texts, with Nadine Gordimer and Coetzee the unsurprising choice authors, are often juxtaposed with the TRC.
The message from this imbalance to Africans is simple: crimes committed against us by each other are normal and do not deserve to be addressed through meticulous court trials, reconciliation commissions and national healing. The only time we are expected to go through these processes is when whites are the perpetrators of the injustice. Thus, Africans are expected to spend time understanding the historical background and institutional structures that led Europeans to commit crimes against us, but the same commitment is not demanded of them when the crimes are committed by our fellow Africans.
That is why poverty and disillusionment with the post-apartheid era should not be seen as the primary causes of the violence against African migrants in the poor South Africa townships. If black South Africans are not meting the same violence against white South Africans, who are invariably richer than African migrants, it is because blacks were not required to go through the same process of reflection and reconciliation with their brothers and sisters from the continent as they were with whites. In addition, white South Africans and the rich African elite remain inaccessible to the poor, and so the poor remain the primary victims when discontent with living conditions is being expressed. It is only now that violence has gained astronomic proportions and the attention of the international community that the political leaders have moved into action. But between 1994 and now, blacks have suffered waves of crime and black women have suffered rape, without the South African army being called in to protect its own people.
While the violence against African migrants betrays a deeply entrenched inferiority complex as Mwalimu Zeleza points out [0], this inferiority complex is not natural; neither can it be reduced to a residue of apartheid. The inferiority complex is actively maintained and perpetuated by a global system that calls upon Africans to be generous to their white violators, but which remains silent and is even complicit when Africans are violated by African criminals and political leaders. This global system vilifies Mandela when he fights against apartheid, but later showers him with praise when he leads his people to give audience to the criminals of the apartheid era. The same imperial system was silent and supportive to the Interahamwe in 1994, but now spends time throwing barbs at Rwanda's Paul Kagame for not respecting press freedom, while its intellectuals go into overdrive finding weaknesses with the gacaca system that seeks to implement justice and reconcile Rwandans using a system rooted in Kinyarwanda traditions.
These global dynamics have prevented Africans from actively remembering that the relationships which suffered the greatest animosity and trauma were those with ourselves, our families and fellow Africans, not those with the Europeans. In Kenya, for example, the number of Africans who died at the hands of both the Mau Mau and the British colonial government were infinitely more than the British settlers. In Algeria, the harkis and their descendants in France still contend with a painful legacy after their country was polarized by French colonialism. All over the continent, African women and children continue to suffer untold sexual, physical and economic abuse because African men have not come to terms with the impact of racism and oppression on their self-perception and psyche.
It is high time we Africans sat down and honestly discussed how the human identities of class, race, gender, ethnicity and nationality within Africa have been poisoned by racism. And we must do this within closed doors of our countries and our languages, away from the scrutinizing eye of Western donors and scholars. We must do it for ourselves and among ourselves, damning whether it meets the principles of human rights charters or the mildly enlightening but un-replicable theories such as Marxism and feminism. It is unrealistic and unfair for us to spend so much energy reconciling with and forgiving Europe for slavery, colonialism and apartheid, while almost none on acknowledging, explaining and forgiving the injuries we inflicted on each other across individual, gender, class, ethnic and national boundaries. Likewise, it is absurd that Euro-America culturally and politically imposes a policy of "forgive and forget" on us. How can Euro-America be forgiven when it has not apologized, and how can it claim to have repented the sins of racist exploitation if it has not abandoned the initial errant and exploitative behavior? Moreover, Euro-American continually protects its settlers and post-apartheid communities in Africa, but remains aloof when we unleash our frustrations on each other or when politicians and criminals inflict suffering on their fellow Africans in the name of history or "African standards."
Africa must find the time to mourn; regularly. It makes little sense to celebrate liberation without remembering and mourning the millions of victims who lost their lives under brutality or in the struggle. Africa is further prevented from being emotionally and psychically connected to our history by the philanthropists and do-gooders who shed crocodile, and maybe sincere, tears on our behalf. Every time Madonna, Bono, Angelina Jolie and ilk adopt children, hold concerts, produce documentaries and visit the G8 on our behalf, they effectively impose another barrier between Africans and their past. The inherent message of philanthropy is that Europeans know our pain better than we - the people who bear it - do, and therefore they are best placed to weep for us. Meanwhile, when Africans mourn apartheid, racism, colonialism and slavery, we are told to "get over it" and not to "dwell on the past" that academics separate from the present using the latest "post" theory. And the more we are distanced from our history, the less likely we are to learn from it.
This fundamental absurdity explains why some Kenyans born after independence have no idea how brutal colonialism and apartheid were and think that colonialism is worth experimenting again. After all, the logic implies, a second colonialism will give the younger generation their own "independence" to fight for and celebrate, since the "fruits" of the first independence are not enough to feed everyone.
Africa can only heal when she is allowed to weep for her own children and take credit for her children's accomplishments. With her own voice, in her own words and in her own languages, she must express the pain of poverty, weep for the victims of injustice, embolden those burdened by an inferiority complex and pronounce healing on those suffering from disease. She must also celebrate the strong, prick the conscience of the rich and curse those who set poor against each other to protect their own power. Only then can she spur us to forgive, understand and comfort each other with the same energy and meticulous study that West demands of Africans for Euro-Americans. Until such a time comes, we will continue to instinctively find our African brothers and sisters a convenient and accessible scapegoat for injustices of which we are all victims.