Memory, Migration and the Unfinished Project of African Solidarity

Few issues expose the tensions within modern Africa more starkly than migration. Recent reflections by Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, founder and leader of the March and March Movement, have reignited a debate that extends far beyond one country or one political movement. They compel us to confront a larger question: how sho

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ld Africans reconcile national sovereignty with the ideals of Pan-African solidarity?

Public discourse is seldom enriched by outrage. The issues raised deserve thoughtful engagement because they touch the very foundations of Africa's shared history.

Many younger Africans understandably did not experience apartheid. For them, it belongs to history rather than lived memory. Yet freedom is inherited, but memory must be taught. When memory fades, gratitude weakens, solidarity frays, and history begins to repeat itself.

For those of us who came of age during the liberation struggle, apartheid was never merely South Africa's burden. It was an assault on African humanity. Across the continent, ordinary Africans embraced the struggle because they believed that no African could be truly free while apartheid endured.

Every sovereign state has the unquestionable right to regulate its borders and enforce its immigration laws. South Africa is no exception. But when one African crosses into another African country, a deeper question emerges: who, in the larger African story, is truly the foreigner?

The generation of Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Samora Machel and Nelson Mandela understood that political independence would remain incomplete without continental solidarity. Their vision of Africa transcended the colonial boundaries they inherited.

South Africa faces genuine economic and social challenges. Yet unemployment, inequality and slow economic growth cannot be explained simply by the presence of African migrants. History repeatedly shows that migrants become convenient targets during periods of economic uncertainty. The xenophobic attacks of 2008, 2015 and 2019 remain painful reminders of that reality. During those periods, the Government of Ghana was compelled to prepare for, and in some instances facilitate, the return of Ghanaian nationals whose safety had become a matter of national concern.

My own perspective is shaped by experience. As a student in Geneva during the mid-1980s, I closely followed Southern Africa's liberation struggle. I wrote and performed anti-apartheid poetry, engaged with members of both the ANC and the PAC, studied South Africa academically, and later served as Secretary of York University Against Apartheid in Canada. Like countless Africans of my generation, I proudly sang Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, whose stirring words became a hymn of hope for a continent yearning for justice.

For me, perhaps the saddest consequence has been the quiet erosion of a uniquely African bond. I remember a time when, whenever Nelson Mandela stood before the world, Africans everywhere stood a little taller. His voice seemed to carry the hopes of an entire continent. His triumphs were our triumphs, and his moral authority belonged not only to South Africa but to Africa itself.

Today, that instinctive emotional solidarity has been weakened. It is not because Africans wish South Africa ill. Rather, recurring tensions and xenophobic violence have strained a relationship once forged in shared sacrifice and common purpose.

There is an irony that Africa cannot afford to ignore. At a time when some African states continue to champion deeper continental integration and the free movement of people, goods and ideas, other voices call for the exclusion or expulsion of fellow Africans. One vision looks to a shared future; the other retreats behind borders. The challenge for our generation is not to choose one over the other, but to reconcile legitimate national interests with the Pan-African ideals that inspired our liberation.

The issue has never been one of debt or repayment. It is one of memory. Sovereignty without solidarity risks isolation. Solidarity without sovereignty risks disorder. Africa needs both.

History will not judge Africa merely by how faithfully it defended its borders. It will judge us by whether we remembered the ideals that made our freedom possible and whether we found the wisdom to carry them into the future. Reconciling memory with sovereignty, and national interest with continental responsibility, remains one of the great unfinished projects of African freedom.

Author's Bio
Seth K. Awuku is the Principal and Founder of Sovereign Advisory Co. Ltd., Takoradi, Ghana. He holds an LL.B, a B.A. (Hons) in Political Science, and is an M.A. candidate in Legislative Drafting. A former immigration and refugee law practitioner in Canada, he writes on constitutionalism, governance, diplomacy, public policy and Pan-African affairs.

Email: [email protected]