One
seemed as though half the most important opposition politicians
in Africa were allegedly not citizens of the country where they
lived and worked – allegations often based on absurd arguments
about ancestral origins on the wrong side of colonial borders
that did not exist at the time of the individual’s or his parents’
birth. Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Alassane Ouattara of Côte
d’Ivoire – a former president and a former prime minister –
are only the most high-profile politicians or critics who have
found themselves excluded from office or denied citizenship in
this way.
Common to all these situations is the manipulation of citizenship laws: the detailed rules and regulations by which individuals can obtain recognition of their right to belong to a state, to
claim equal protection under its laws, to vote in its elections and
stand for office. Much as discrimination in these cases is always
multifaceted, with raw violence at its extremes, the apparently
dry detail of the rules for obtaining papers can hide an ocean
of discrimination and denial of rights. The use and abuse of the
law frames and enables the politics of ethnic exclusion. Reform
of the law can be the first step back from conflict and the start
of a politics of inclusion.
The pattern of these crises of citizenship is not haphazard.
They are closely linked to the colonial heritage of each country;
and in particular the migration and land expropriation that was
implemented or facilitated by the colonial authorities. It is not
a coincidence that the countries where citizenship has been
most contentious are often the countries that saw the greatest
colonial-era migration; migration not only of Europeans and
Asians to the continent, but in even greater numbers of Africans
within the continent.
Today, however, the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who migrated are now regarded as foreigners
without a true claim to belong to the new polity. Yet they are
in the land of their birth and lifelong residence and have no
claim on the protection of any other state. Millions of people are
thus presumed to have the right to exercise citizenship rights,
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