Marion Berger is an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan concentrating in Social Theory and Practice and German. After graduating next May, Marion aspires to incorporate community organizing into a career as a professor. Marion’s dispatch is a thoughtful discourse on the current issue of xenophobia in South Africa, how we have incorporated it into our teaching experiences, and how our American privilege makes us exempt from any repercussions. You can watch Marion read the first paragraph of their dispatch by clicking here.
Are We the World?: American Privilege and South African Xenophobia
One of the first things I saw upon my arrival in Johannesburg last week was a large billboard on the way to where we were staying that read in bold letters: #No To Xenophobia. When I loaded my South African cell phone up with airtime a few days later, I got an automated text message from the cell phone company granting me a free download of a #notoxenophobia ringtone.
In America, we are not taught to differentiate African countries from one another, so the idea that xenophobia could exist within the continent was at first a foreign one. Further, because we are American, we are exempt from the xenophobic attacks in South Africa. This exemption is the embodiment of American privilege. Most Americans could easily spend the three weeks we are spending in South Africa without any serious acknowledgement or understanding of the xenophobia that affects so many Africans in South Africa even though we, too, are foreigners.
Despite our own safety, the mass messaging about xenophobia has made it clear that this is an issue many non-native South Africans are facing. In fact, at the Charles Hugo Primary School where we taught this past week, many parents have pulled their kids out of school due to fear of their children being attacked on the way to school.
Within POA, we have discussed and tried to digest this American privilege which exempts us from such concerns. Throughout our time here, one of the recurring themes has been not to cower away with guilt due to one’s privilege, but to own it and use it for good. Our conscientization requires for us to use our privilege to stand in solidarity with those who are victim to the xenophobia in South Africa, and to use our privilege to take a firm stance against xenophobia.
We have made several efforts to make our firm stance against xenophobia clear in the spaces we occupy. At every graduation ceremony and at both symposiums, we sing the song “We Are the World.” While “We Are the World” was originally written and performed by Michael Jackson, the song was remade in April 2015 by musicians and singers from across the African continent who came together to perform the song as a rallying cry against xenophobia. We make this message clear in our introduction to the song each time.
We additionally decided to include a small message against xenophobia when teaching the module at Charles Hugo this past week, noting that everyone deserves love regardless of whether they are HIV positive or aren’t from South Africa.
While all of these actions may seem insignificant, in truth, they all represent a crucial facet of our study in South Africa, which is that we are not here to be tourists, nor are we here to be saviors. We are here to put theory into action, and this requires us not just to discuss HIV and AIDS, but to interrogate everything around us and recognize the responsibility of solidarity.
I will close with a quote from Gregory Maqoma, the director of Rain Dance, a play we attended in Johannesburg that openly and firmly takes a stance against xenophobia. Maqoma writes in his “Director’s Note” in the program for the show: “History shows us that it is not only inhuman and senseless to think of someone as a foreigner, but also difficult to state who exactly is a foreigner—given the human fossil record that dates back well over two million years. Ultimately, we are all born in and of Africa. Any form of hate perpetuates and leads to conditions where homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, terrorism, and bigotry can breed. South Africa as a nation cannot afford to write another chapter in that history of pain against other human beings.”
