The recurrent pattern in these controversies in South Africa is that they are consistently targeted against people of African descent; it represents an instance of black-on-black discrimination. South Africans of Indian or European origin have not faced the same level of scrutiny.
By Chimezie Chika
Chidimma Adetshina and the Trials of Xenophobia
Perhaps the most important news that has engaged the internet in recent weeks now seems to be the hullabaloo involving Chidimma Vanessa Onwe Adetshina and the Miss South Africa 2024 beauty pageant. The issue became prominent towards the end of June when it was revealed that Miss Adetshina—who has Nigerian ancestry through her father (her names are a blend of Igbo and Yoruba languages)—was competing in South Africa’s prestigious beauty pageant.
Miss Adetshina’s involvement sparked immediate controversy. This was due to widespread outcry from South Africans demanding her withdrawal, arguing that she was not “South African enough”.
The corollary of exchanges and arguments that followed, not only within South Africa but also between Nigerians and South Africans on the internet, are too extensive to detail fully. However, the crux of the matter is straightforward: Miss Adetshina was alleged to have no claim to South African citizenship because her mother is Mozambican and her father is Nigerian.
According to South African nationality law, any person born after 1995 in South Africa is a citizen of the country, provided one of the parents is either a South African citizen or a permanent resident. The belief was that Miss Adetshina’s mother was a South African citizen. However, following the outcry, bizarre allegations surfaced that Adetshina’s mother may have committed citizenship fraud by stealing the identity of a South African woman to register her child at birth. This allegation was later supported by an investigation by the South African Department of Home Affairs, which suggested that there may indeed have been identity theft.
Several other sources in the country have sought to clarify the legitimacy of Miss Adetshina’s claim to citizenship, but voices have been divisive. The issue formed another sour point in the relationship between Nigeria and South Africa, as has often been the case in recent times, which manifests itself these days most conspicuously in acerbic online spats. The recurring grievance in this case seems to be the prominence of her Nigerian ancestry. After placing in the top 11 finalists, Chidimma withdrew her participation from the Miss SA contest, citing the well-being and safety of her family.
The unstated reason for Miss Adetshina’s withdrawal may be that her chances of further success had been severely damaged by the controversy. While this might benefit South Africa as a country if Miss Adetshina’s case were an isolated incident, it is not. Last year, Melissa Nayimuli faced the same backlash during the same event because her father was Ugandan. Detractors claimed she was “not South African enough”.
It is interesting to note how, around the world, certain demographics are now forced to defend the authenticity of their nationality. The mantra often seems to be that it is not ‘enough’. The recurrent pattern in these controversies in South Africa is that they are consistently targeted against people of African descent; it represents an instance of black-on-black discrimination. South Africans of Indian or European origin have not faced the same level of scrutiny.
I would in fact agree with concerned South Africans who find a real problem in a bonafide foreigner who poses as a citizen to partake in a national prize—no country would take such a situation lightly. However, the troubling issue here is not just the potential for identity fraud but the tendency to discriminate based on types of foreignness in a country that owes its modern existence to the blending of Africans with “foreign” elements.
Would the same controversy have ensued if the Chidimma were a European immigrant? Based on precedents, the answer to this is clear enough.
South African xenophobia, which has included gruesome violence in many cases, has become a frequent news topic over the past two decades. Africans and African businesses are targeted in premeditated attacks, while South African politicians often exploit the situation with ironically ironical fascist sentiments. There is a significant contradiction between the nation’s ideology of a “Rainbow Nation” and the practice of “South Africa for South Africans”. This contradiction is not unique to South Africa but is also evident across the continent.
The senseless sentiments of haughtiness are staggering, and the results are never justified. In Nigeria, for example, there is a blind insistence on tribal support at the expense of national progress, as seen in the last election where many Yoruba voters preferred a Yoruba president with questionable credentials over a more qualified candidate from another ethnic group. This highlights precisely why complete political and economic integration within Africa remains a challenge: we often find ways to hinder efforts at progress.
It is also part of the reason why African countries may never be able to make strong progress as a political bloc. We need to put our continental house in order.
The South African Complex
A keen interest in the paradoxical origins of xenophobia in South Africa has led me to reflect on its presence among Africans and people of African ancestry globally. It seems that in their modern interpersonal relations (because this issue was nonexistent in earlier times), Black groups often exhibit an unspoken, undiagnosed asocial resentment towards other Black groups (history proves this).
I am inclined to call this the South African Complex, as the most prominent evidence of this discrimination has been visible in South Africa since the 1990s. However, it is not confined to South Africa; it is evident throughout Africa and the African Diaspora. It seems to me that the hatred of one’s own race can somehow manifest as hatred by other races. Love and hatred, it appears, have particularly sticky characteristics.
The psychology behind the South African Complex can be reasonably traced to historical amnesia. Its origins are steeped in a paradox that seems to elude many South Africans today, despite their having endured over sixty years of state-sanctioned discrimination in their own country. Speculatively, if we apply aspects of Alfred Adler’s theories of fluctuating individual inadequacies, as discussed in The Neurotic Character, to a demographic that suffered the severe racial prejudice of Apartheid, we begin to see the underlying issue.
Another real irony is that, prior to the end of Apartheid, Black South Africans—many of whom have now become part of a xenophobic mob—exhibited the most amiable fraternal relations with other Africans. In short, Black South Africans are largely beloved today because of this reputation, which they built during the heyday of African National Congress (ANC) pan-Africanism in the Apartheid and immediate post-Apartheid era.
The biggest symptoms of the SA Complex are partitionism—we will come to this—and ruthless pursuit of self-interest as a group, group solipsism in other words. This tendency to lapse into group solipsism in modern African discourse often renders pan-African sentiments laughable, as seen in the quick failures of efforts by figures like Nkrumah, the OAU, and Muammar Gaddafi. Africans are frequently friendly and brotherly until they begin to feel threatened by each other’s successes.
There is little allowance for genuine competition within each other’s territories and scant evidence of substantial economic and capital integration, unlike what we see in Europe. The biggest hindrance to this is self-interest, which is exacerbated by greedy African politicians who are the foremost proponents of unchecked self-interest.
The Apartheid regime relentlessly pursued a policy of separation. South African blacks were restricted to designated areas, had identity cards that afforded them very limited privileges, faced time restrictions on access to prosperous areas of cities, and were excluded from participating in elections, among other oppressive measures.
Today, this same partitionism is repeating itself, but now it is being perpetrated by those who once suffered from it. It is crucial for a country like South Africa to recognise that the South African identity is too complex a configuration for such xenophobic separatism to be effective.
The South African Complex is Us at Our Worst Humanity
Ethnicity remains central to the South African Complex, and its evidence is scattered across African history. The Rwandan Genocide stands as a particularly painful example. The Biafran War and the genocidal attempt against the Igbo are another. Additionally, there are the Liberian Civil Wars, the state-sanctioned genocide in Ethiopia’s Afar region, the ongoing genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region, and the unchecked extermination in the DR Congo, with accusations of Rwandan complicity.
All these factors contribute to why Africa remains so divided; we have partitioned ourselves into self-serving, solipsistic groups. We don’t need to live intimately with each other, but we do need tolerance, if not love. There’s little point in our current approach if we reflect on history, yet we consistently fail to learn from it. In a global world where we are now scrambling for scarce economic resources in a ruthless Darwinian struggle, the voices of hatred are rapidly drowning out those of reason and complementarity.
The voices of hatred espouse a closed-minded, simplistic rhetoric centred on national purity. They seek to define national identity in purist terms, akin to a new kind of Nazism. Despite the lessons from the destruction wrought by Hitler’s madness, its purveyors seem convinced that in a world where race and nationality are increasingly mixed and intertwined, it is still possible to adopt a dangerously racially purist stance.
One provocative instance occurred in 2022—and remains ongoing—involving growing resentment towards African immigrants in America by some African-Americans. These individuals, who refer to themselves as “Foundational Americans”, use the term to distinguish themselves from Africans. A particularly viral Twitter (now X) Space conference #securethetribe, held on the 27th of January 2022, revealed the hatred directed by African-Americans of a certain ilk towards Africans in America, whom they claim are taking their jobs and making life difficult for them who are the real “foundational” Americans.
The case is almost exactly a replication of South African xenophobia: the complex of hatred and victim-mongering. Spearheading this propaganda is Tariq Nasheed who is credited with coining the term, “Foundational Black Americans”, which he had defined as those Black people who have been part of the original foundation of America since the advent of slavery in the 16th century.
African-American hatred against African cannot be minced: it is self hatred. Yet, it is a hatred which, though dangerous, cannot be taken too seriously. Figures like Nasheed appear to be economic opportunists, profiting from obscure grievances with his website, which is rife with race-based merchandise and relentless capitalism (“Buy the FBA flag”, “Buy FBA handkerchief”, “Buy my FBA book”, “Buy FBA T-shirt”). Despite the commercial nature of their ventures, the rhetoric they promote can be highly inflammatory, straining the relationship between Africans and African-Americans.
The discourse never exhausts itself. Black people are always at a crossroads in their relations with one another, first and foremost, before their relations with other races. If our houses are not in order we will not achieve an end to racism and its allies. The major question we should ask as a race is: what are we prioritising? Is it hatred for one another or material self-interests? And I am not the first to pose these questions.
The Rise and Fearful Rise Again of Nazi Politics
For decades after WWII, the world thought it had seen the worst of fascism. However, current global events suggest otherwise. In Europe, there is a troubling resurgence of swastika rhetoric, if not the symbol itself. There is increasing apathy towards immigrants and naturalised citizens alike, with a clear and troubling focus on black individuals. This is not a matter of diplomacy; it is a stark reality that reveals the persistence of racial prejudices and xenophobia.
For years now, the soft fascism of Hungary’s president, Viktor Orban, has been well known. He has relentlessly a kind of Hungarian nationalism that rejects immigration and multiculturalism of any kind—a policy that continues to put him at odds with the EU in certain respects. Ireland, which has seen peace in the last several decades, is brewing with the rising power of far right-wing political formations.
In recent years, there have been riots against “foreign” Irish citizens. Most of the sentiments of the far right are racial purity and a rejection of multicultural ethnic elements: very familiar Nazi turf. One only needs to follow the hashtag #IrelandBelongstotheIrishon social media to understand the full scale of what is going on.
It is important to point out that there is a moderate anti-immigration policy that does not come off as far-right nationalism; it only becomes disagreeable when fascist elements are given platforms to express their unique brand of ethnic and racial hatred. It should also be noted that the paradox of the South African Complex is evident here, for the Irish have one of the largest diasporas in the world.
Far-right business in the UK recently took a fatal and violent turn, jeopardising the lives of Muslims and people of African descent. The riots in the UK saw the destruction of properties and businesses owned by immigrants.
The far-right agitators want the same things: a Euro-centric anti-immigration Britain, devoid of multiracialism. So ironic is this stance that it makes no sense to the historical antecedents of the UK, for the British identity today cannot, in all honesty, be removed from its colonial past. The British identity today is a result of its colonial past. These are, however, not things that fascism pays attention to.
The implications of xenophobia, in whatever form it takes, do not bode well for our world. It will only lead to violence and fatality. From instances of ethnic and racial hatred, we have learned that such animosity often inevitably leads to war and destruction. Many of these conflicts are already unfolding—in Africa, in the Middle East, and in Europe. At this rate, is it possible to avoid World War III? Nonetheless, it is our duty, as humans, to strive to prevent the ultimate destruction of our planet by our own actions.
Chidimma Adetshina may appear to be a minor case, but it could serve as a prompt for us to reflect inwardly as Africans, as Black people, and as humans, and to re-examine our global priorities. Progress—collective progress in all its facets—should be the driving force behind all our interactions if we aim to create a better world for future generations.
Chimezie Chika’s short stories and essays have appeared in or forthcoming from, amongst other places, The Republic, The Shallow Tales Review, Terrain.org, Iskanchi Mag, Isele Magazine, Lolwe, Fahmidan Journal, Efiko Magazine, Dappled Things, and Afrocritik. He is the fiction editor of Ngiga Review. His interests range from culture, history, to art, literature, and the environment. You can find him on Twitter @chimeziechika1.