The discourse of African unity has long echoed as the resonance of an old dream, one that haunted the imagination of the continent’s leaders and intellectuals. It was built on a firm conviction that Africa’s fragmentation into competing political entities and its subjugation to colonial borders formed a structural barrier to its renaissance.

Yet this discourse, which took on a quasi-metaphysical aura in Africa’s political imagination, now faces a severe test: how to translate it into a troubled reality marked by economic crises, growing social fragility, and uncontrolled migration flows that spill beyond Africa’s borders, creating political and financial pressures on other continents as well.

The current debate around migration and the presence of foreigners in countries such as South Africa reveals the contradiction between the ideal of unity and the imperatives of legal sovereignty. It raises a central question: can the African ideal be used as a tool to bypass national law, or will the law remain the last line of defense against chaos disguised as solidarity?

Migration as a mirror of internal fractures

Migration in Africa is more than the movement of people; it reflects the continent’s deep structural inequalities. Societies with weak institutions and eroded safety nets find themselves unable to absorb incoming populations, while migrant communities often become an added source of tension, compounding the fragility of already strained conditions. 

In South Africa, for example, the economic crisis, marked by high unemployment and deteriorating public services, intersects with waves of migration from neighboring states, fueling a sense of threat among ordinary citizens. This has given rise to populist movements such as Operation Dudula, which not only demand stricter border control but also demonize foreigners, portraying them as the root of every crisis.

While this reaction may seem instinctive under pressure, it ultimately reflects the state’s failure to craft a balanced migration policy, as well as the inability of political elites to produce an inclusive discourse that does not reduce complex problems to the presence of  

Legal sovereignty as a line of defense

In its ideal form, African unity presupposes freedom of movement and openness to the “other.” But when practiced in fragile institutional settings, this freedom can slip into chaos. For this reason, civil society leaders insist that legal sovereignty cannot be suspended in the name of lofty ideals.

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Law, then, becomes more than a regulatory framework; it is the dividing line between a society as an organized entity and said society slipping into a state of “lawlessness.” For solidarity to be viable, it must be rooted in respect for the rule of law, not its suspension. A state that abandons its laws in the name of a fleeting sense of unity risks losing legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens; or at least, this is how migration opponents frame the issue.

But here lies a deeper paradox: while citizens call for stricter enforcement of the law, waves of violence against foreigners often erupt at the same time. Shops are burned, properties looted, and more than one African country has witnessed this recurring cycle, which over time becomes an expected pattern among migrant communities, including those who form part of the host country’s economic backbone. This disconnect between appeals to legality and acts outside the law exposes a crisis not merely of legality, but of social legitimacy itself.

In this context, the foreigner becomes the “internal other”, at once present and estranged, contributing to the economy but living in a position of legal and social vulnerability. This reproduces the logic of the scapegoat, in which the outsider is blamed for every internal failure: from the state’s inability to create jobs to the shortcomings of development policies. His estrangement deepens even within societies where he may have been born, as a second or third-generation descendant of migrants. 

Investing in fear

This phenomenon cannot, of course, be understood apart from the rise of populist currents that thrive on fear of the “other.” The same dynamic is visible in Europe and the United States, albeit in different contexts, where migration is weaponized as a political tool, a convenient way to rally public anger and deflect it from deeper structural issues, such as corruption, lack of social justice, and persistent economic dependency.

The paradox is that the rhetoric of African unity remains confined to summits and academic conferences. Meanwhile, on the ground, the game is played with a counter-discourse, one that stokes hostility toward foreigners and reduces African solidarity to little more than a rhetorical illusion.

Unity suspended between aspiration, capacity

From a strategic standpoint, African unity remains an existential necessity. A continent of over one billion people cannot hope to tackle food security, climate change, or a shifting international order if it remains fragmented into weak states. Yet the path to unity does not lie in slogans open to the unknown, but in the construction of robust institutions capable of managing complexity.

Migration thus becomes a litmus test of Africa’s capacity for meaningful integration; one based on coordinated border policies, fair labor exchange, and joint development programs that reduce the drivers of displacement. By contrast, the casual opening of borders without a clear vision is a recipe for social explosion, undermining unity instead of reinforcing it.

The danger of a discourse that places unity above the law lies in its normalization of “permanent exception.” If it is permissible to suspend the law in the name of solidarity on migration, what is to stop its suspension in other, more critical matters? In this way, sovereignty erodes gradually, and the unity project itself loses credibility.

True unity, then, is not found in bypassing the law but in harmonizing laws through integrative mechanisms, building a regional migration regime founded on shared rules and fair standards, balancing the rights of migrants with the interests of host societies.

African unity should not be reduced to emotional rhetoric or the oratory of conferences. It is a project that requires institutional realism, an understanding that solidarity is not about abolishing sovereignty, but about shaping a shared sovereignty that protects both citizen and migrant alike.

To invoke unity as a reason to override the law is merely a recipe for reproducing failure. Mature unity is one built on the foundation of law and investment in human potential; not as “citizens” or “foreigners,” but as active participants in a larger continental project.

The challenge facing Africa today lies in how to turn the slogan of a “United Africa” into a practical structure, allowing it to become grounded in respect of law and a balance between the ideals of unity and the demands of national sovereignty. Only such a pragmatic formula can make African unity a viable project, beyond the romantic metaphors that dissolve at the first encounter with concrete reality.