The End of African Unity?
by Shawn Hattingh
In August and September of 1974, people across the length and breadth of South Africa celebrated the coming independence of Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique. People like Mamphela Rampele led massive rallies honoring the success of the liberation movements in these countries. There was even spontaneous dancing in the streets, and the air was filled with a sense that South Africa would soon be joining these countries in ending racist and capitalist oppression through revolution. This was due to the fact that the defeat of the Portuguese Empire in Africa gave South Africans a renewed sense of hope, which was one of the catalysts that ignited the 1976 uprisings against apartheid. In those heady days African Unity was not an empty phrase; it was rather the ideological backbone of the fight against capitalism, imperialism, and apartheid. By the end of the decade South Africans were fighting and dying side by side with Angolans and Zimbabweans in the struggle against the racist forces of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa. People from all over Africa were making massive sacrifices to help free their bothers and sisters in South Africa by providing refuge and moral and material support on a massive scale. Hope sprung eternal for a united Africa: an Africa that could collectively defeat imperialism and gain its freedom.
Fast forward to May 2008. Small groups of South Africans were once again in the streets, but there was no dancing and celebration. This time, they were not fighting side by side with Angolans and Zimbabweans; they were hunting them down! Over the last few weeks xenophobic attacks have erupted in some areas in South Africa. The political leaders across the country have assured all and sundry that it has only been a small section of the population, driven mostly by criminality, who perpetrated these attacks. This, however, does not give the full picture. Xenophobia has been rearing its ugly head in this country since at least the 1990s. Within the last few years, various arms of the state, such as the police force, have been directly involved in routinely harassing people from other parts of the continent.

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