Xenophobia and Africa in the 21st Century: Towards a Xenophilial Framework For Sustainable Development*

Abstract

Africa and in fact all of the globe is experiencing unprecedented and fast-paced changes at virtually all fronts; political, ecological and economic, among others. The almost inseparable twin phenomena of globalization and digitalization have created what can best be described an Heraclitean global society of constant flux; a society of constant change that reminds us of the Greek Logos of Heraclitus. The continent Africa in particular finds itself in a constantly evolving globe where time is of the essence and where no one waits for the other to catch up. Africa in the 21st century exists within a framework of global competitiveness and knowledge economy; a world where what you bring to the global table determines or defines your identity or place in the global village. The germane question is: is the continent Africa ready to take its place in the emergent globalized society of the 21st century? Put differently, is the continent Africa on the path to sustainable development? Are the dynamics playing out on the contemporary African continent supportive of the kind of roadmap capable of engendering growth and development? Against the background of the prevalent and contemporary experiences of xenophobia and xenophobic attacks in Africa, the paper attempts to interrogate the phenomenon xenophobia vis-à-vis the desideratum for sustainable development in Africa. The paper comes in three overlapping parts. In the first part we conceptualize the phenomenon xenophobia. With particular reference to South Africa, the second part of the paper discusses the content and consequences of the African experience of xenophobia and xenophobic behaviors and tendencies. Against a background of the need to address the threats poised by contemporary xenophobic trends and tendencies, the paper, in the third part, develops an epistemological construct xenophilia as a veritable opposite to counter narrative to xenophobia. The fourth and concluding part of the paper prescribes a xenophilial framework, which the paper argues provides a veritable tool for positioning Africa for development in the 21st century.