Since Prof. Adebayo Adedeji’s South Africa and Africa: Within or Apart?, published in the 1990s, not long after apartheid, South Africa’s role in and relations with the rest of Africa continues to attract the attention of the inquiring mind of international relations experts. This edited collection by the Pan African constitutionalist, Prof. André Mbata Mangu, that brings together familiar faces in the scholarly community, is another addition to this growing body of literature. I commend CODESRIA for funding this project and seeing that its product reaches our shelves and libraries.
We cannot stop thinking or writing about this topic. South Africa is not an exception or a special country, but everybody wants it to be a positive force in the renaissance of our continent, working together and in tandem with other countries and our regional organizations. To focus a book on South Africa’s regional role, is not to elevate Tshwane above its neighbors and other nations. It is rather a challenge to the country’s leaders at the Union Building to think about the responsibility that this country has towards the continent that helped liberate it from apartheid. It is also an exercise in educating Afro-pessimistic voices gaining ground within South Africa and enlightening the minds of many of us who see Africa as a distant Other.
This book helps South Africa to think hard about xenophobia, integrating African migrants into its communities, and whether pursuing the African renaissance is still a project for its leaders. It asks even more difficult questions about the ideological underpinnings of Tshwane’s regional role.
For me as a foreign policy practitioner who has worked as a South African diplomat and serving as staff of the African Union, I was looking for two things. Is there anything new to learn in this book? Yes. I learned a few things. I am impressed by the courage and forthrightness behind the authors’ take on issues difficult for some of us. Is this book helpful? Certainly. It will be a handbook to help us understand the actions of South Africa and its policy makers on the continent – be it on peace and security, development integration, the free movement of people, or on questions of international law, constitutionalism and human rights.
After finishing reading it, I was left nostalgic, thinking back to the days when I used to be active in CODESRIA; and about all my Dakar-days-friends, some of whom are among the authors assembled for this collection. I am not just nostalgic. The book has also left me re-centered, re-focused, and energized. Its interrogation of South Africa’s actions, agenda and intentions in our region is refreshing.
For CODESRIA, this project should just be volume-one of a series that will be extended to other countries on the continent. Each African nation has a big role to play in its immediate neighborhood and across our continent, for Africa to succeed in its efforts to claim its place in the 21st century. This mission is a collective effort that no single country can do or achieve alone.
Dr. Eddy MalokaChief Executive Officer (CEO) of the African Peer Review Mechanism Secretariat