With Africa Day approaching on May 25, a widening rift among young South Africans has emerged over whether to embrace Pan-African unity or retreat into nationalism, driven largely by unemployment, poverty, and anti-foreigner sentiment.
Africa Day marks the 1963 formation of the Organisation of African Unity, now the African Union, which was created to promote liberation and cooperation across the continent. But more than six decades later, the ideals appear to be losing ground among the youth.
“The youth are definitely going towards more nationalism than Pan-Africanism, which I believe is a demise of our youth because we need to find something that we find relevance in,” one young person said in a street interview.
Another echoed the shift: “Africa is moving more towards nationalism because everyone is trying to protect their own interest and protect their own benefits. For example, these recent xenophobic movements. Africa is not moving to Pan-Africanism because if it was that case, everyone would be coming together as Africans sharing the same interest.”
A migrant student from Congo, living and studying in Johannesburg, said South Africa has provided him with opportunities and a sense of belonging. However, he warned that growing nationalism is weakening the spirit of Ubuntu and creating divisions among Africans.
“I think it’s a dangerous thing to just blame all foreigners for illegal migrants,” he said. “You must make a distinction between illegal and foreigners and also refugees. If you group everything together, you almost make everyone an enemy who just wants to live in peace and do their businesses.”
Other young people pointed to double standards in how migration is discussed. “When politicians talk about migrancy as a problem, it’s always about foreign nationals that come from the African continent, whereas there are so many European or American migrants living here who don’t pay taxes, and that doesn’t seem to be a problem,” one argued.
Experts say growing economic struggles and less education around African history and unity are making it easier for division and nationalism to grow among young South Africans—a trend seen in many countries worldwide, linked to economic insecurity and political polarization.
“South Africa has always been and will continue to be part of the continent. Its future is tied up economically, politically, socially in what happens with its neighbors,” one expert said. “We have to condemn at all levels the explicit and implicit hate speech, the scapegoating we see from political leaders from the ground up. Until we start doing that, people will continue to use that language and divide South Africa from the rest of the continent for their own political or economic gain.”
Another commentator noted that Ubuntu was explicitly included as a core value and right in the 1993 interim constitution but was later removed from the 1996 constitution. “It’s that piecemealing of Ubuntu that has stripped away the core of Pan-Africanism for our people, making it very hard for us as the youth who are born post-apartheid to relevance ourselves with what Pan-Africanism is,” they said. “We are identifying ourselves within multi-racialism as opposed to trying to destabilize oppressive systems to create our own principles.”
Despite rising tensions, some youths still believe African unity remains possible but say leaders and institutions must do more to rebuild solidarity and address inequality. As South Africa commemorates Africa Month, the conversation among young people reflects a generation caught between economic survival and the ideals of African unity—with nationalism and Pan-Africanism increasingly competing for influence over the country’s future.
