Othering
Ghanaian migrants are being forced to return to their home country following protests against illegal immigration. This is not happening here in the UK - although it serves as a salutary warning - but in South Africa. What are we to make of such African-on-African xenophobia and what lessons can we draw from it? We in Europe might like to think of it as tribalism, remembering the horrors of the Ugandan genocide whilst conveniently forgetting the role of colonialism (in that case Belgian) in promoting it. I suspect, though, that this tendency may be universal. For starters, it shows that resentment against migrants is not intrinsically race-based. Fear of strangers and the ostracism of outsiders seems to be a common human response, heightened by obvious signifiers of 'foreigness' such as skin colour, language, or dress and symbols specifying particular religious adherence. It also appears to be exacerbated by numbers of migrants (perceived or actual) and wider economic pressures...