South Africa’s xenophobia allegations raise difficult questions about African unity, mutual respect and migration.
How can a country known for being one of the friendliest and most welcoming in the world be accused of turning against its own African brothers and sisters?
As Africa Month 2026 is observed across the continent, allegations of xenophobia against South Africa once again hang heavily over the national conversation.
This year, the African Union’s Africa Day theme, on ensuring “Sustainable Water Availability and Safe Sanitation ” speaks directly to infrastructure, development and survival. Yet beyond pipelines and dams, the theme also unintentionally offers a cultural metaphor for modern African life: the shared well that gives us life.
In African culture, there’s a saying that goes: “Do not throw mud into the well that gave you water“. Like many proverbs across the continent, different tribes and communities have their own variations in different languages, but the lesson remains largely the same: communities can only survive when people learn how to coexist with respect and and a level of responsibility to shared resources.
Does the well come with responsibilities?
A village well belongs to everyone who depends on it. The people who dug it protect it because their children will drink from it tomorrow. Visitors may draw water too, and as a sign of respects, no one is expected to contaminate the same water they drink from.
In a year where Africa is reflecting on water access and sanitation, perhaps, as Africans, we can also reflect on the deeper cultural lessons behind water.
Respect ranks highly in African culture, and it is expected in how people treat both one another and the land they live on. As the saying goes, “the well that welcomes strangers must also be respected.”
In your culture, how do guests behave in your home?
The same principle applies inside a home.
In many African cultures, a guest is treated with dignity and generosity. Food is shared. Water is offered before questions are asked. But guests are also expected to remember they are visitors in someone else’s home.
When you are welcomed into another person’s household, how do you raise your concerns? Do you challenge the family with respect and humility, or do you raise your voice at the people who have sheltered you? Do you honour the rules of the household, or do you bring your own house rules to someone else’s yard?
These may be uncomfortable questions, but they reflect conversations that require some introspect.
Xenophobia or a cry for respect?
International headlines continue to accuse South Africa, a multicultural nation proud of its identity as the Rainbow Nation, of hostility towards foreign nationals. Yet within South Africa itself, many citizens argue that the frustrations being expressed are specifically about illegal immigration, overwhelmed public services, unemployment and pressure on already stretched local resources.
Various community groups insist that concerns around undocumented migration should not automatically be interpreted as hatred towards fellow Africans.
Perhaps, for some South Africans, the issue is not hatred but a desire for respect within their own home.
In March this year, Nigerian national, “chief Solomon Ogbonna Eziko“, was controversially installed as an “Igbo King” in KwaGompo City on 14 March 2026. The ‘coronation’ happened in a country where indigenous nations like the Vhavenda and Zulu continue to endure intense legal battles over their own rightful traditional leadership. Some may wonder, how foreign nationals can justify establishing parallel kingdoms on South African soil, or even suggest it.
One may question whether foreign nationals should involve themselves in sensitive local traditional leadership matters by coronating new chiefs and community leaders while South Africa itself continues to face legal battles over rightful chieftaincies within its own tribes and royal houses.
Still, parts of the world appear determined to place a single label on the country.
Cultural sensitivity, respect and understanding the responsibilities of being a guest in another person’s home often makes for a peaceful coexistence.
South Africans have seen this before
Remember when Donald Trump accused South Africa of a so-called “white genocide”? Despite repeated explanations from government officials, analysts and ordinary citizens about crime statistics, historical inequality and the broader realities of violence affecting all communities, many felt Trump’s narrative had already been decided before South Africans could even speak.
Now, once again, the country finds itself in a similar position.
A call to reflect
Africa Month and Africa Day call on the continent to remember its united goals and shared identity; and a shared well prospers and continues to give life giving water when everyone understands both their rights and responsibilities towards it.
Perhaps the real question Africa must ask itself this year is not whether we share the same water. Perhaps we should ask ourselves what role we each play in ensuring the well remains clean, protected and sustainable for generations to come.
And perhaps the greatest question of all is whether Africans are still willing to listen to one another before deciding who poisoned the well.
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