The Rastafari Council of Ghana strongly condemns the continued assaults on, and hostility toward, immigrants in South Africa. Equally, we condemn similar attitudes expressed in Ghana toward Nigerians, Nigeriens, and other Africans, as well as in all African countries where fellow Africans are treated as outsiders allegedly predisposed to corrupting the social or economic fabric of host nations.
Such hostile eruptions seem inevitable within colonially derived economic systems that create widespread financial desperation among populations. That is why, in denouncing anti-immigrant sentiments and actions wherever they occur, including in Ghana, we also expect similar official statements from the formidable South African Rastafari community — the largest on the continent — to help reorient public sentiment.
These anti-immigrant tendencies mirror the wider global resurgence of attitudes rooted in colonial notions of nationhood, citizenship, and identity. The antagonisms are fueled by anxieties inherent in scarcity-based economics, micro-nationalism, and the failure to reject the inherited colonial framework that continues to shape political and social consciousness across the world.
The accusations leveled against visitors can just as easily be directed at citizens themselves. Moreover, crackdowns on undocumented immigration have never meaningfully improved any country’s socioeconomic conditions. In reality, visitors are among the primary forces that enrich societies culturally, intellectually, and economically. African mobility and exchange have historically strengthened the continent, not weakened it.
We further condemn those who identify as Africanists yet attempt to justify these colonially conditioned affronts to the dignity of fellow Africans in the name of narrow patriotism.
At the same time, we commend the many people in host countries who have courageously rejected these divisive attitudes and defended the dignity and humanity of fellow Africans. We also salute the intervention of Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and acknowledge the governments that have publicly condemned such fracturing tendencies.
Given the urgency of the matter, with lives and livelihoods at risk, we support all measures taken by states to correct this grave error in judgment. Yet we cannot wait on governments alone to resolve this problem. Organizations and individuals committed to African unity must urgently intensify educational initiatives aimed at confronting the divisive misconceptions and ideological foundations that enable these tragedies. This should include the formation of emergency coalitions dedicated to consistently promoting Pan-African solidarity, historical consciousness, continental unity, and the development of more meaningful economic systems across Africa.
Once again, we affirm that visitors enrich nations, and that African unity remains indispensable to the dignity, progress, and future of the continent.
Rastafari Council of Ghana