Ethnonationalist Populism and Africa
Unfortunately the global ethno-nationalist wave is not yet a spent political force
Unfortunately the global ethno-nationalist wave is not yet a spent political force. There’s Modi in India, Netanyahu in Israel, Putin, Erdogan to name a few still pushing the legal guardrails that constrain their desire for more power. But ethnonationalism is also present on the African continent as well, though not covered nearly as much by media organizations. And it presents itself in ways similar, though dissimilar, to far right autocrats in Western nations. Operation Dudula activists in Johannesburg, for example, are known to target small businesses that hire immigrants and issue threats. The activists and their vulnerable victims are both African.
The Zimbabwe migrant case might be the first big breakthrough story of right-wing, anti-immigrant ethnonationalism in Africa. It is not the first internationally discussed incident of xenophobia in South Africa by any means. It is just the most talked about and one that might actually play a big part in South African Presidential politics. Sporadic — and worrying — instances of xenophobia have occurred against immigrant workers in the country since 1995, but it was around 2008 that it became a perennial problem. Also, in 2015, a high point of tensions, there were xenophobic riots in Durban. Since then, xenophobic violence has displaced tens of thousands. And South Africa, of course, has no shortage of far right white nationalist grievance narratives. I don’t really give much of a damn about those, to be frank.
But what is more interesting to the topic of this conversation is to what degree that immigration is an issue in the 2024 general election in South Africa. Semofore’s Jan Foreman examines the issue in depth:
With the 2024 general election approaching and the ruling ANC party expected to lose support, many observers believe immigration will become an even more contentious issue with political parties seeking to be portrayed as tough on immigration to protect the interests of voters.
The likely result is that vigilante gangs will gather support among disenfranchised people, emboldening them to carry out their campaign of intimidation on African migrants in poor areas. The ANC’s waning popularity increases the chance of smaller parties focused on anti-immigrant policies entering a coalition government at a national or local level, or becoming so popular that larger parties co-opt their extremist ideologies.
Zimbabwe’s statistics agency estimates that nearly 800,000 of its citizens live in South Africa, having fled the economic crisis that has gripped their homeland for two decades — although many economists say the real figure is likely to be far higher because official numbers do not include illegal migrants. Most Zimbabweans living in South Africa take low-paid work, leading to resentment from locals in poor areas.
The truth about democratic backsliding in all of Africa is mixed, as one can imagine. Only about a half a century out of colonialism, most Africans still find themselves more identified with their tribe than with their country. Benevolent autocrats like Paul Kagame of Rwanda belong to the right-of-center, yet his de-emphasis on tribe identification (largely because of the 1994 genocide) has made his country one of the safest for migrants in Africa. In fact, the UK, in a deal with Kagame, is deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. The head of the Anglican church and some Rwandan opposition politicians are stridently against this backroom immigration deal, it should be noted.
All of Africa is not as hospitable to migrants, or even democracy (though, to be sure, Kagame is not much of a democrat). According to the new 2023 report by Freedom House, which measures democratic trends globally, overall global freedom declined for a 17th consecutive year across the planet in 2022. The 2023 edition of Freedom in the World is the 50th edition and titled Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy, and contains some disheartening facts about the African continent. Eleven African countries saw improvements in their political rights and civil liberties, while 9 experienced declines. More:
… The largest one-year score decline in the region, and in the world, took place in Burkina Faso, which lost 23 points and fell from Partly Free to Not Free status as it suffered two successive coups.
… The largest one-year score improvement in the region was seen in Kenya, which is rated Partly Free and gained 4 points after holding its most transparent presidential election ever.
… Half of the region’s people live in countries considered Not Free, while only 7 percent live in Free countries.
Soldiers staged two coups last year in Burkina Faso, which scored a 30 out of 100 on the Freedom House Index. At the time, Trevor Noah poked fun bittersweetly at the frequencies of coups in the country. And in 2018, Burkina Faso moved into the ideological orbit of China, which involves, largely, a turning of the back on human rights. The influence of China on the African continent and the rise in ethnonationalism are not mutually exclusive phenomena. China fuels African populist ethnonationalism.
Forty-six African countries have signed onto the Belt and Road Initiative, even as the West, after the Cold War, largely disengaged with the continent. The Biden administration is doing its best at present to make up for lost time after previous administrations largely ignored the continent. But, according to the BBC:
Another big factor is a decades-old relationship which was cemented in 1970 when African countries played a critical role in helping China re-join the United Nations amid protests from the US.
"Since then the relationship has only strengthened," Cliff Mboya, a Kenya-based China-Africa analyst, told the BBC.
"For 30 years now China has made it a tradition that its foreign minister visits Africa first every new year - this is not just symbolic but signals that they are invested in a long-term relationship and this makes a big impression on Africans."
Younger Africans may not be so impressed - they have an overwhelmingly positive view of the US and its development model, according to a recent Afrobarometer study.
Again, Yowiri Museveni of Uganda, who has been something of a benevolent authoritarian ruler in Uganda for nearly four decades, has kept friendly relations with both the former Trump administration as well as with China. The drawbacks of these ethnonationalistic alliances to the everyday lives of Ugandans have been noted by human rights observers. “A report last year by the U.K.-based Business and Human Rights Resource Center found 181 human rights allegations connected to Chinese investments in Africa between 2013 and 2020, with the highest number of incidents in Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” writes Kate Bartlett in Voice of America.
Finally, there is the issue of homosexuality, or rather anti-homosexuality, which has become a serious human rights issue on the continent in recent years. Uganda’s President and Parliament have both been major opponents of any sort of codified homosexual human rights. And it is a major element in ethnonationalist populism in Africa. And for the anti-homosexuality legislation moving across the Continent, the blame here belongs largely to US evangelicals — not China. “Family Watch International (FWI), has been training African politicians, religious and civil society leaders for years to oppose comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) and LGBT rights across the African continent," write Nandini Archer and Claire Provost in openDemocracy. "UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima, from Uganda, told openDemocracy that ‘CSE is an integral part of the right to education and to health. It is not optional. It is not negotiable.’” openDemocracy also noted that Focus on Family, which has been a partner of the anti-LGBT World Congress of Families, gave $1.9 million since 2008, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association gave $7.5 million during that same time period.
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