11/06/2026
AFRICA MUST UNITE – A PAC PERSPECTIVE.
Holding this book, Africa Must Unite, one is reminded that the debates taking place in South Africa today about so-called _"African foreigners"_ are not new.
More than sixty years ago, Kwame Nkrumah warned that colonial borders and divisions would continue to weaken Africa long after formal colonialism had ended. He argued that Africa's strength lay in unity, political cooperation, economic integration and the free movement of African people across the continent.
The PAC has always maintained that no African is a foreigner in Africa. The struggle against colonialism and apartheid was not fought by South Africans alone. Africans from across the continent sacrificed, sheltered, trained and supported liberation movements in the fight for freedom. To now define fellow Africans as enemies is to forget that shared history.
This does not mean that concerns about crime, unemployment, border management and pressure on public services should be ignored. Every sovereign state has the right and responsibility to manage its borders and enforce its laws. However, the PAC rejects the dangerous narrative that seeks to blame African migrants for the failures of government, corruption, economic exclusion and the unfinished project of land restoration and economic justice.
Nkrumah's message in Africa Must Unite was that Africa would remain weak and vulnerable if Africans turned against one another instead of confronting the structural legacy of colonialism and economic domination. He envisioned an Africa where political and economic unity would replace artificial divisions imposed by colonial borders.
Today, as tensions around migration continue to rise in South Africa, the PAC calls for a balanced approach: secure borders, lawful migration, protection of national interests, and unwavering Pan-African solidarity. We must fight crime, not nationality. We must address unemployment, not scapegoat Africans. We must build African unity, not African hostility.
As Nkrumah taught, the future of Africa lies not in division, but in unity. The question before us is whether we will allow colonial borders to define our future, or whether we will finally embrace the Pan-African vision that generations of African revolutionaries fought for.
Africa must unite. The struggle for African liberation was continental; the struggle for African development must be continental too. 🖐🏿🌍
