Abstract
This chapter engages with the psychological implications on identity construction and perception from the colonial period, roughly lasting from 1880 until the beginning of its dismantlement in the 1960s, and the pursuant decolonial period and struggles encountered today. We discuss the collective aspirations of self-determination grounded in colonial African states, and the acquiring, internalising and embodying of an imagined future with its consequences for collective solidarity and nationalist struggles. The legacy of forced nation-building processes on today’s climate of rising xenophobic violence is further highlighted. This is particularly important in the discussion of a Pan-Africanist psychology, since the liberatory social climate of excitement and enthusiasm offered fertile ground for Pan-Africanist ideals, which xenophobic violence successfully upsets. While highlighting some examples of anti-immigrant sentiments in Europe and the US, the main focus of the chapter is on South Africa’s current situation through a contextualised psychosocial reading of national identity.
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Notes
- 1.
The New York Times ran a story about the incidents in an article called Protesters Clash With Police After Minnesota Officer Shoots Black Man see: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/11/us/brooklyn-center-minnesota-police-shooting.html
- 2.
Mead W.R. “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia.” Wall Street Journal. February 3, 2020 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-the-real-sick-man-of-asia-11580773677
- 3.
Sam Nujoma, first President of Namibia, said that “Ghana’s fight for freedom inspired and influenced us all, and the greatest contribution to our political awareness at that time came from the achievements of Ghana after its independence. It was from Ghana that we got the idea that we must do more than just petition the UN to bring about our own independence”, quoted in Bines, A (2008) “The Legacy of Kwame Nkrumah in Retrospect”, The Journal of Pan African Studies, 2(3), 129–159, p. 132.
- 4.
Taken from Kwame Nkrumah’s independence speech in March 1957. A full transcript of the speech can be found at: https://panafricanquotes.wordpress.com/speeches/independence-speech-kwame-nkrumah-march-6-1957-accra-ghana/
- 5.
For example, the joint border demarcation mission between Ghana and Ivory Coast fixing the exact location of the border and making it visible on the ground by constructing fortifications from 1970 to the late 1980s
- 6.
Organization of African Unity, “Border Disputes Among African States”, AHG/Res. 16(I), Resolutions Adopted by the First Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, held in Cairo, UAR, from 17 to 21 July 1964
- 7.
See the Human Rights Watch report at: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/south-africa
- 8.
Nyamnjoh (2016) explores the novel by Phaswane Mpe (CitationRef CitationID="CR9003">2001</CitationRef>) called Welcome to Our Hillbrow and how the novel describes what black South Africans mean when they refer to people as makwerekwere. The derogatory naming of a perceived stranger who is most likely to be mistaken for an insider. Amakwerekwere constructs a boundary between South African as ‘deserving citizens’ and amakwerekwere as ‘undeserving outsiders’—hence capturing the interlocutor symbolism of cultural belonging and citizenship.
- 9.
The incapacity of articulating local languages as the epitome of a lack of feeling of ‘being at home’ (Nyamnjoh, 2016) and the workings of language as crucial marker of belonging is objectified in stereotype content
- 10.
As reported in the African Union’s Labour Migration Statistics Report in Africa (Second Edition): https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/39323-doc-brochure_-_exec_summary.pdf
- 11.
Extract from a speech given by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on 3rd September 2019 report on BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49566458
- 12.
- 13.
Collins Khoza died during lockdown following a violent altercation with South African National Defense Force Johannesburg metro police in his own back yard. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-05-21-the-army-may-have-killed-collins-khosa-but-saps-should-be-setting-the-standard-for-preventing-brutality/
- 14.
Nathaniel Julius, a Black 16-year-old teenager with Downs syndrome, was shot and killed by police in Johannesburg’s Eldorado Park in South Africa after he couldn’t answer the officers’ questions. https://themighty.com/2020/09/nathaniel-julius-killed-by-police/
- 15.
For an alternative report on policing in South Africa, see Re-imaging Justice in South Africa beyond policing: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1krNcg_saPFABqjuFkQvtVKUpIjivd8Es/view
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Kessi, S., Boonzaier, F., Gekeler, B.S. (2021). National Identity, Xenophobic Violence and Pan-African Psychology. In: Pan-Africanism and Psychology in Decolonial Times. Pan-African Psychologies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89351-4_3
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