What we are witnessing in South Africa is not simply xenophobia, a general fear of foreigners. It is Afrophobia: hostility directed specifically at black African migrants from north of the Limpopo River, while white foreigners from Europe are often welcomed, celebrated, or viewed entirely differently. This selective hostility exposes something far more painful than economic anxiety: it is the symptom of a deep wound in our collective psyche, a self-hatred implanted by centuries of colonialism and apartheid, that we now turn outward onto those who most resemble us.

This is why Afrophobia cannot be explained away as nativism or economic concern dressed up in civic language. It is anti-black racism directed at fellow Africans, the internalisation of colonial and apartheid hierarchies of race and worth, now replayed by the very people those hierarchies were designed to crush. And to understand it, we must be willing to look into a mirror we have long refused to face.

What the mirror reveals, psychologists call self-projection: the unconscious process by which we take the parts of ourselves we have been taught to despise and cast them onto others, attacking in them what we cannot bear in ourselves. Three and a half centuries of colonialism and apartheid did not merely dispossess black South Africans of land, labour and dignity. They waged a sustained assault on black self-worth itself. Generations were told, in law and in liturgy, in classroom and in workplace, that blackness meant inferiority, backwardness, criminality. Steve Biko understood this when he wrote that the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. Frantz Fanon had diagnosed it decades earlier: the colonised subject, saturated in the coloniser’s contempt, comes to see himself through the coloniser’s eyes. This is self-hatred in its purest form, and self-hatred, left unhealed, does not stay inside. It seeks a target.

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And the target it finds is close to home. The poison of internalised contempt does not evaporate with a new flag and a new constitution. It settles into the subconscious and waits. So when a wounded people encounters a stranger who looks like them, darker, perhaps, poorer, speaking an unfamiliar African tongue, the stranger becomes a screen onto which all that internalised shame is projected The Zimbabwean labourer, the Mozambican mechanic, the Malawian mu`adh-dhin and the Somalian shopkeeper: are attacked not because they are foreign, but because they are black and foreign. They embody, in the distorted mirror of the colonised mind, everything we were taught to hate about ourselves. The violence directed at them is, at its root, violence against our own reflection.

Once we understand this, the puzzle of selective hostility solves itself. This is why the European, American, and Asian migrant walks unmolested through our streets while the African migrant’s shop burns. Whiteness was installed at the summit of the colonial hierarchy of worth, and that hierarchy still governs the subconscious, even of those it crushed. To defer to the fair-skinned foreigner while brutalising the dark-skinned one is no coincidence. It is the colonial order reproducing itself through the hands of its former victims. Can black people internalise racism and despise their own blackness without even knowing it? The evidence burns in our townships.

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If the diagnosis is self-hatred, then for Muslims the cure begins with Divine revelation. The Qur’an, in Surah al-Rum (30:22), proclaims that “among the signs of Allah are the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of our languages and our skin colours”. Our different tongues and our different shades of skin are not accidents to be ranked, nor flaws to be despised; they are ayat, Divine signs. To celebrate this diversity is to affirm a sign of Allah in creation. To despise the darkness of another’s skin, or, through projection, the darkness of one’s own, is to turn in contempt from a sign of Allah in the universe. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, sealed this teaching in his final sermon when he proclaimed: no Arab has superiority over a non-Arab, nor white over black, except in God-consciousness (taqwa).

Healing, however, begins with honesty. We must find the courage to name Afrophobia for what it is: self-hatred turned outward. And then we must undertake the harder, slower work, decolonising our minds, reclaiming the dignity of our blackness as a sign of Allah, and rebuilding the Pan-African solidarity that carried us to freedom. The black stranger at our door is not our enemy. He or she is our brother and sister, and our mirror. Until we can look into that mirror without flinching, the fires will keep burning. When at last we can, we will see reflected there what Steve Biko declared in defiance and what Allah had proclaimed in revelation long before: Black is Beautiful, for black skin is among the signs of Allah, and every sign of Allah is beautiful.

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On July 15, 2026, my flow of birthday wishes was interrupted with news more consequential, but mournfully sad: John Louis Esposito, at the age of 86, was no more. Sombreness overwhelmed me, and I counted back the almost four decades since I first encountered him, as one of those who were curiously excited about the South African transition, the presidency of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu’s witness, and the prospects for a new future free from all discriminations following the travesty of apartheid.

In the last decade, I had the wonderful privilege and honour (for two years) to encounter him up close at Georgetown University in the USA. He had accepted to host me as Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Al Waleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding (ACMCU), following my stint as South African Ambassador to the USA under President Obama. Up to that moment, we had encountered each other regularly across the world, in conferences and seminars, at think tanks during the halcyon years of the Arab Spring, and anywhere else where Islam and its shadow, islamophobia, were on the agenda. 

Most memorably, in 2012, John Esposito and I were two of probably only 15 participants in Doha with key leaders of the Arab Spring who were gathered to consider Constitution-Making and Statecraft in what we hoped would be a qualitative leap out of authoritarianism. He was the only one who was not Muslim among eminent scholars like Yusuf al Qardawi, Hassan al Turabi, Jasser Auda, Tariq Ramadan, Hashim Kamali, and others. While the Muslims were cautiously optimistic, Esposito doubted that the Empire and their minions could accept a Muslim world with an alternative liberatory statecraft, and without the confirmation bias of Muslims being – without cause – naturally extreme and therefore, in need of strong authoritarian law and order regimes. These were the critical informants to a pervasive islamophobia.

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It was this dual insight – the yearning of Muslims to live with dignity, as well as the fundamental, if not deliberate, Western distortion of Islam, Islamism, and the Muslim – that made John Esposito different. He was a different Christian, a different American, a different academic, a different human being! These identities did not make an aberration of John Esposito. He would insist that because he was Christian, American, an academic, and a human being, he needed to testify to the truth inherent in each of those identities: his own faith made him recognise the profound faithfulness of Muslims; his own Americanness made him desire freedom, democracy and rights for Muslims under authoritarianism or extremism; his academic training made him uncompromising on rigour and evidence; and his humaneness created in him a deep well of human empathy and compassion. By this definition, right-wing evangelicals were the aberration; American support for tyranny and warmongering was the aberration; moral clarity produced by academic scholarship without the requisite moral courage to act was the aberration; and human silence and complicity in atrocity were the aberrations in the human condition.

In his scholarship of Islam and Muslims, in his development and mentoring of Muslim scholars, in his friendship with Muslim leaders, in his writing of over 50 books about Islam and Muslims, in his activism against islamophobia, in his advocacy for a shift in policy and law about Muslims, and in his institution-building like the Bridge Initiative, John Esposito was neither oracle nor orientalist. He was neither our source of guidance and wisdom, nor were we the exotic other to study. He did not speak for us, or about us without us. But his scholarship gave him the insight and understanding of Islam and Muslims, the sincere representation of which gave him the credibility of an insider-outsider both for Muslims and most non-Muslims. Because he studied with rigour, he understood with empathy, and he could interpret with integrity, free of the emotion that comes too easily to victims of history. So, he did not infantilise Muslims. 

But neither did he idealise us. He was a witness to the battle for the narrative and interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah; for their appropriation either for the middle ground or the extremes; and for their application under conditions of minority or majority – believing firmly that application may change but the Maqasid, the intents, remain unshakeable! Because he applied academic rigour and stood on evidence, he could dispassionately critique Muslims about the management of our own unresolved demons and ambiguities ranging from the ‘other’ to gender to politics to sectarianism. But always as the sensitive and compassionate outsider-insider. 

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But he was also a thorough insider to all things Christian and American. He shared their rituals and celebrations, but he also knew their suppositions and presumptions about Islam and Muslims. The most pernicious of these excused occupation and genocide; gave license and arms to authoritarians; allowed islamophobia to fashion travel bans and unspeakable bigotry, especially after 9.11; and wage a forever war on the Muslim heartlands. All because the theory espoused was one of the modernisation of the Muslim ‘other’– which Esposito vigorously critiqued – because its corollary, secularisation, the stripping of religious sensibility from the Muslim, was not only misplaced, but would invite resentment and blowback, and thus breed the next generation of extremists. All of this made John Esposito dangerous to the empire and the superpower. He was constantly attacked by detractors in the Western conservative ranks for seemingly endorsing our fault lines and for acting as a Trojan horse for bringing Muslim scholars to the USA, where they flourished without the burdens of violent occupation, authoritarian surveillance, and stultifying orthodoxy.

Deservedly, tributes have poured in for John Esposito and messages of condolences for his beloved Jean and their dogs. All of these have fulsomely recognised his contribution to Islam, Muslims, and humanity. These have focused on his writing and his bridge-building. Muslim tributes have cautiously tried to manage the fine line between an instinctive desire to recognise in him one worthy of the highest honour in this world and the next while managing the strictures of soteriology – the theology of salvation – which inhibits us from showering even a fraction of our prayers on those imbued with absolute nobility and impact. Yet the tributes have touched the fine line: Many have invoked the Quranic formula that we originate with Allah and we return to Allah; Anwar Ibrahim describes him as a ‘true friend of the Muslim World’; Arsalan Iftikhar muses that John Esposito ‘… did more for educating the world about Islam than most of our two billion Muslims…”; and Jonathan Brown, who succeeded Esposito at the ACMCU, prays ‘May God grant his soul mercy.’

*Ebrahim Rasool is the Former Ambassador to the USA and Senior Fellow at Georgetown University.

The post John Esposito – an empathetic truth teller appeared first on Al-Qalam.

Islamophobia in South Africa can no longer be dismissed as the work of a few misguided individuals or isolated extremists. 

The evidence points to something far more organised. Anti-Muslim prejudice is being shaped by an ecosystem of media narratives, political opportunism, imported ideological networks and social media disinformation that increasingly defines Muslims as outsiders, regardless of their history, citizenship or contribution to the country.

The recent intervention by South Africa’s Film and Publication Board following the circulation of a grotesque Facebook post depicting the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, in a vile and hateful manner illustrates both the seriousness of the problem and the urgency of confronting it. The Board correctly recognised that the material amounted to advocacy of hatred based on religion and warned that it had the potential to incite harm.

The episode exposed more than one hateful individual. It exposed an environment in which anti-Muslim hatred has become normalised.

That environment was on full display following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet reshuffle, when Yusuf Cassim was appointed Deputy Minister of Higher Education. Within hours, a South African citizen whose family has deep roots in the country was being labelled a foreigner, terrorist, suicide bomber and associated with Boko Haram, Al Qaeda and Hamas simply because he is a young South African of Indian Muslim heritage.

Though Cassim belongs to a political party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), whose policies on Palestine we find reprehensible due to its bias in favour of the settler colonial regime, we find the abuse was not based on facts. It was based on identity.

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The campaign against Cassim demonstrated how quickly political appointments can become vehicles for racial, religious and ethnic scapegoating. What should have been a debate about governance became an attack on whether a Muslim belongs in South Africa at all.

Veteran journalist Max du Preez warned that the intensity of the hatred reflected levels of ethnic and religious bigotry not witnessed since the democratic transition in 1994. 

Absent from much of the public discussion was the fact that Yusuf Cassim is not an immigrant. He is a South African citizen who has participated in the country’s democratic institutions for years. Yet the facts mattered little because the objective was never accuracy. It was a narrative construction.

The architecture of Islamophobia depends precisely on this process. Muslims are first portrayed as perpetual outsiders. Once that perception takes hold, citizenship, history and constitutional rights become secondary to prejudice.

This process did not begin in South Africa.

Following the attacks of September 11, Muslims across the world became associated with extremism, terrorism and violence through relentless media stereotyping. Entire communities were judged through the actions of fringe organisations while the overwhelming majority of Muslims disappeared from public consciousness except when viewed through the prism of security.

These portrayals reflected more than poor journalism.

Israeli-aligned think tanks, lobbying organisations, intelligence networks and politically connected research institutions supplied narratives that were amplified by sections of the media. Anonymous intelligence briefings, speculative research and unverified claims became accepted truths through constant repetition. Those same reports were later cited as evidence to reinforce the original assumptions.

Manufactured consent evolved into manufactured suspicion.

South Africa has not been immune to these influences.

Years ago, sensational reporting claiming widespread ISIS recruitment in South Africa illustrated how irresponsible journalism can reinforce anti-Muslim prejudice. Emotionally loaded language blurred the distinction between criminal organisations and ordinary Muslim communities. The effect was to encourage readers to associate Islam itself with terrorism rather than to understand the complexities of violent extremism.

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The same mechanisms continue today.

During the recent surge in anti-immigrant protests, fuelled by economic hardship, unemployment and failures in border management, Muslim organisations appealed for calm, rejected vigilantism and warned against xenophobia, Afrophobia and Islamophobia. Humanitarian organisations provided emergency assistance to displaced migrants facing threats of violence, consistent with their longstanding charitable obligations.

Yet these humanitarian efforts were immediately recast by nationalist voices as evidence that Muslims were siding with foreigners against South Africans.

The accusation reveals how humanitarian action itself has become politicised.

Muslim organisations were criticised for assisting vulnerable migrants while simultaneously being accused of divided loyalties, foreign influence and hostility towards Black South Africans. Support for refugees was deliberately conflated with support for illegal immigration. Calls for peaceful and lawful responses were reframed as opposition to South African interests.

This narrative serves a broader political purpose.

It redirects legitimate public frustration over unemployment, crime, corruption and ineffective immigration policies away from state failures and towards visible minority communities. Muslims become convenient symbols through which wider anxieties are channelled.

History demonstrates the dangers of such politics.

Apartheid relied upon narratives that identified certain communities as permanent threats requiring exceptional treatment. Different populations were targeted, yet the underlying logic remains unchanged. Social problems are personalised, minorities are blamed, fear is amplified and discrimination is presented as common sense.

The beneficiaries of this process extend well beyond fringe activists. Political opportunists, media platforms driven by outrage, lobbying networks, ideological movements and foreign influence operations all benefit when society becomes polarised along religious and ethnic lines.

Once Muslims are portrayed as outsiders, the definition of who belongs continues to narrow. Today the target may be Muslims. Tomorrow it may be another minority community. The machinery of exclusion rarely confines itself to one group.

South Africa’s constitutional democracy was built upon the rejection of precisely this politics of exclusion.

Confronting Islamophobia, therefore, requires more than prosecuting hate speech after it occurs. It requires exposing the institutions that manufacture prejudice, challenging media narratives that normalise suspicion, scrutinising imported ideological campaigns that inflame division and refusing attempts to weaponise economic hardship against vulnerable communities.

The Film and Publication Board demonstrated that institutions can recognise explicit religious hatred. Equal vigilance is required against the more sophisticated forms of prejudice that operate through political rhetoric, media framing and digital disinformation.

The silence surrounding these deeper forces is not accidental.

It reflects an ecosystem in which prejudice is manufactured, misinformation is legitimised and political interests profit from keeping Muslims under perpetual suspicion.

*Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the Media Review Network.

The post Islamophobia in SA – When manufactured fear becomes political currency appeared first on Al-Qalam.

I have just returned from a three-country African Mission with the Humaniti International Foundation.  Zanzibar was our first stop, where we delivered paediatric cardiology equipment to detect and diagnose heart defects in children, and will now commence with the requisite training for optimal use. In Tanzania’s Mwanza City we visited a facility in which ‘born too soon’ premature babies (some as small as 800 grams) are given a chance at life;  while in war-torn Sudan we inaugurated 10 water distribution points for 5000 Internally Displaced Persons, while caring for orphans whose fathers perished in the war, and starting a process to rebuild the health system for mothers and children.

I provide this travelogue to contextualise, firstly, that I travelled through Africa in the aftermath of perceived xenophobic aggression against other fellow Africans in South Africa, and while Bafana Bafana was playing in the FIFA World Cup in North America.  Secondly, I explain my travels to highlight that much of the paediatric equipment and training provided were funded through a Ramadan Campaign conducted in South Africa by Humaniti, and thus South Africans contributed to such health in Africa.  

The juxtaposition of xenophobic aggression and humanitarian generosity was surprising, if not confusing, for many of the Africans we met:  from high government officials and NGO leaders; to veterans who knew the ANC in Morogoro, Tanzania – and possess memories of children attending a school in Dakawa gifted to Tanzanians by the ANC;  to ordinary citizens in a sports bar in Addis Ababa watching South Africa play in the FIFA World Cup;  to refugees/IDP’s in Port Sudan. 

It was confusing because here was a South African generosity at work – the South Africa many said they know historically – and yet, the images they carried on their devices showed fellow Africans being threatened, given ultimatums, sometimes assaulted, often blamed for South Africa’s problems, caricatured as drug dealers and criminals, and hounded out of communities.  This was expected of Donald Trump and his ICE, not the land of Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela.  What they expected of the inheritors of such great icons was human outrage, principled condemnation, political resolve, and legal protection – not moral equivocation, electoral posturing, and political fragility. 

And so, defeat to Mexico was deemed South Africa’s come-uppance for thinking we’re better than other Africans.  Some celebrated our defeat for forgetting the sacrifices Tanzanians made to accommodate us when white supremacists hounded us out of SA. Others wished our whole nation was red-carded for humiliating fellow Africans. There was little middle ground, but huge disappointment with great resentment. Other than blaming an impending election and the inevitable pack of populist hyenas who sense a feeding frenzy, what could SA have done better as the frenzy unfolded?

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This question made me think back to when I was Premier of the Western Cape and we had the initial sparks by local South Africans against other African Nationals, which by 2008 turned into a national onslaught against fellow Africans.  In 2008, the Western Cape had much displacement of African Nationals, but only one fatality, compared to other areas in South Africa.  What did we do differently?

Firstly, we were determined not to have intelligence failures, whether in picking up early the signs of disquiet and resentment against other Africans, or in identifying the causes, potential hotspots, or critical figures, while maintaining surveillance on all three.  

We convened the intelligence community regularly as an ANC-led Western Cape Cabinet to interpret the dangers in hate speech, the degree of mobilisation, the possibility of orchestration (domestic and foreign), and the probability of hotspots erupting.  The question today is how much of this is being done, with what urgency, is intelligence fed to the relevant Minister, and to what extent has the disquiet been placed before cabinet or the President for proactive defusing or real-time combating? But clearly, there has been intelligence negligence along this chain of command. 

Secondly, we deployed soft power into the hotspots of Masiphumelele, Joe Slovo, and others in Cape Town to obviate the later use of hard power.  We located this soft power into a Unit for Social Cohesion in my office to deal with both intra–South African tensions as well as inter- African ones.  The methods included dialogue to find a common definition of the problems and provocations, dealing with economic rivalry through workshops which shared retail insights and collaboration, managing social harmony by regulating the sale, for example, of RDP houses to foreign nationals. Again, these don’t require elaborate national dialogues – they require political will.

Thirdly, we set up early warning systems through our Bambanani EPWP workers responsible for safety in communities.  These Bambananis alerted us both to the flaring of hate speech as well as to criminality either by South Africans and other Africans, whether drug dealing or scamming, so that the rule of law could deal impartially and decisively with any crimes from any source to prevent the emergence of a culture of impunity. 

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Foreign nationals often follow the latitude in boundaries allowed for South Africans to determine their degree of adherence to, or compliance with, the rule of law.

Fourthly, when we were alerted to ‘xenophobic’ flare-ups, we could deploy law enforcement early to prevent rather than combat; to identify and harness the interim infrastructure for temporary shelter; and to ensure a cooling-off period, behind a law enforcement cordon, before attempting reintegration of communities.  This cooling-off period was also used to attend to ‘agitators’ who exploited the fears and anxieties of ordinary citizens and they were often working for local shopkeepers or taxis who were threatened by the success of other Africans in business. 

Today, we may have to ask more international questions about these hidden hands who have interests in SA being unstable, distracted, and fragmented, given that we are in the crosshairs of powerful forces.

Finally, we remained true to dignity of Africans, and resisted as much as what we could, when the DA-led City of Cape Town created secondary trauma for victims of these attacks and located them on the cold, wet, far-flung beaches of Cape Town, ostensibly for their safety, but certainly at the expense of their dignity and work opportunity. In such cases, ANC leadership had the guts to sit in the sand with fellow Africans as a sign of disagreement with their isolation and solidarity with their plight.

Displaying such moral courage may today be difficult for an ANC electorally besieged and compromised in a GNU. But if we cannot stand on principle in Africa, we accelerate the erosion of our standing in Africa, and we forfeit the trust of even more citizens in SA.  We must learn to apply the rule of law as the only antidote to criminality from whichever source.  Failure to do so enables the populist political hyenas, the unscrupulous businessperson who fails to compete, and ignites a fire that will consume us.

Ebrahim Rasool is the former ambassador to the U.S. and former premier of the Western Cape

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As justice-seeking people, we have a responsibility to raise concerns about exploitation, particularly of vulnerable groups, wherever in the world they are. The role of women in the Baloch insurgency has become one of the most contentious and emotionally charged aspects of the conflict in Pakistan’s southwest. While groups such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and their supporters often present female participation as a symbol of empowerment and resistance, there is a compelling counterargument that deserves closer examination.

In recent years, the emergence of female suicide bombers and women in militant propaganda has been celebrated by some as evidence of women’s agency within the insurgency. Yet critics argue that this narrative obscures a more troubling reality. They contend that the recruitment and deployment of women in militant operations may reflect manipulation and ideological conditioning rather than genuine liberation.

This concern is not without precedent. Across numerous insurgencies and extremist movements globally, women have often been recruited not solely through ideological conviction but through a combination of social pressure and emotional dependency. Security analysts have long observed that militant organisations frequently exploit these vulnerabilities to advance strategic objectives.

Particularly troubling are allegations surrounding the disappearance, after recruitment, of young women from Balochistan. Families have periodically appeared before the media claiming that daughters or female relatives vanished and later surfaced in militant circles. While individual cases remain disputed and difficult to independently verify, the recurring nature of these allegations has fueled growing public concern.

Another issue receiving increased attention is the reported targeting of university students. Critics of the insurgency argue that educational institutions have become important battlegrounds for influence and recruitment. They allege that politically active and intellectually capable young women are especially vulnerable to ideological messaging that frames militancy as a noble cause. Supporters of student activism also argue that political engagement is a legitimate democratic right, but in this context, the coercion and manipulation is unacceptable. Nevertheless, the debate highlights the broader struggle over influence among Baloch youth.

The use of female suicide bombers presents perhaps the strongest challenge to the empowerment narrative. Suicide attacks are designed to maximise political and psychological impact. When women are deployed in such operations, questions inevitably arise about the extent to which coercion and personal agency intersect. To portray these actions simply as acts of liberation risks overlooking the complex mechanisms through which militant organizations recruit and retain followers.

Equally significant are allegations that women associated with militant networks may be exposed to various forms of exploitation and abuse. While many such claims remain contested and require rigorous independent investigation, they point to a broader pattern observed in conflicts around the world: women often bear disproportionate costs in environments dominated by armed actors.

The discussion should not be reduced to a simplistic choice between state and insurgent narratives. Human rights concerns exist on multiple fronts in Balochistan, and allegations against all parties deserve scrutiny. However, it is entirely legitimate to ask whether the glorification of female participation in armed struggle masks deeper questions about vulnerability and exploitation.

Ultimately, the women of Balochistan deserve more than symbolic roles in a protracted conflict. Whether one views the insurgency sympathetically or critically, the objective should be to expand opportunities for education, political representation, and personal security. A society that offers meaningful opportunities to women is likely to be far more empowering than one that celebrates their involvement in violence.

The central question is therefore not whether women can participate in political struggles. It is whether militant organisations are genuinely advancing women’s interests or merely using the language of empowerment to serve broader strategic objectives. That is a question that deserves far greater public debate.

The post Exploitation of women and the cost of the Baloch insurgency appeared first on Al-Qalam.

Muslims and politics is often a vexed topic, maybe because it is often misunderstood. In my recent presentation at The Muslim Association of Canada Convention, I addressed the issue, ranging from socio-political activism to political governance and policymaking, and how Muslims play differential roles across various political scenarios.

Necessarily, the need for Muslims, wherever they are, majority or minority, to understand what politics is, to understand the imperative of power, to ensure that management of power should lead to development, rights, inclusion, and, therefore, the betterment of society. The injunction is Quranic (11:61) in that we are obligated to cultivate the earth on which we dwell and from which we emerge.

But the uneven, even conflictual, understanding of politics in a global Muslim community reflects a fraught relationship with politics. Muslims are largely victims within states that have perfected the art of surveillance, exclusion, and autocracy. Sometimes elections could lead to illiberal outcomes, and yet others face a reality of a minority in ambiguity – embracing political democracy, but often subjected to Islamophobia, demands of secularization and assimilation, and suspected of subversion.

Amidst such mixed experiences of politics, South Africa, because of the favourable political condition Muslims are under, are expected to draw on a 350-year evolution from victims of colonialism, segregation, and apartheid to beneficiaries of democracy, human rights, and freedom, to help navigate such conundrums.

However, to avoid simple replication, it is necessary to frame my analysis by probing the common Arabic or Muslim vocabulary for politics, political participation, political governance, and policy development. Drilling down into the word Siyasa, into the etymology of Siyasa, becomes crucial to reorient the Muslim approach to politics.

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Siyasa emerges from the practice of animal husbandry, managing livestock as the key to food security, and in turn, as the key to securing livelihoods in fragile and sensitive ecosystems. The practice of shepherding livestock as the precondition for the well-being of people thus lends its name to the very notion of politics! And therefore, the political practitioner is akin to the shepherd with the responsibility to carefully manage a sensitive and fragile resource.

Furthermore, previous conversations with Hassan al Turabi, who is, par excellence, a master of Arabic linguistics, deepen this concept of Siyasa. He adds the dimension of rotation and circulation. Livestock do not graze at the same place – they need to be rotated to prevent overgrazing and the depletion of feed. And therefore, if circulation and rotation are germane to Siyasa, then very clearly they should be germane to the socio-economic and political sphere because you require the circulation and the rotation of wealth, and not its monopolization, as well as parties, political leaders, politicians, governments, and those charged with managing the politics and policies of a country, a community, a nation, and a polity.

The next proposition to be made is that there is not a singular, undifferentiated idea of Siyasa, or political governance, and political activism in Islam. It is largely contextual. Siyasa takes a different form and shape, based on different imperatives at play in different contexts. For me, there are four basic contextual scenarios that shape the objectives and practice of Siyasa, all reinforcing the ultimate objective: The well-being of people, the development of society, the assurance of food security, and the development of the community. The 4 scenarios expand on the metaphor of livestock management.

1.     Keep the Wolves Away! The fundamental task of a shepherd is to protect the flock from aggression, imbalance, anything that disrupts the just interaction amongst different elements of the ecosystem. Any greed of the wolves cannot lead to the decimation and insecurity of the livestock. Therefore, when there are threats to the livestock by the wolves, then the responsibility of Siyasa rests on 2 R’s: Resistance, and when the threat is endemic, Revolt, both requiring political activism against injustice, exclusion, autocracy, denial of rights, undue surveillance… through forms of mobilization and organization.

2.     Restock and Sow! The transition from conflict creates the imperative of fundamentally restoring the grazing fields and husbanding the new generations of livestock, after the wolves were fought and hopefully defeated. That means that the R’s of providing Relief and starting the Reconstruction are crucial to meeting the challenge of post conflict stabilization and development as the imperative of Siyasa.

3.     Cultivate the Land! The transition development is the imperative scenario of Siyasa, where restorative justice starts to take shape, and therefore the cultivation of society needs to take place, institutional resilience against the wolves put into place, and the systemic wherewithal for food security and development instituted. The institutions and systems of governance manifest as Siyasa, whether as majority countries or minority communities, where the R’s of securing Rights, ensuring Representation, and assuming Responsibility for development. The character of Siyasa means its ability to respond contextually and, therefore, to manifest as out and out socio-political activism, to transitional management, where new shoots are being sprouted, to making society work through institutionalization of rights and responsibility for development.

4.     Rotate the Shepherd! This fourth scenario emerges out of the third where the institutions and democratic practices are in place. But there may be the need to circulate and rotate the shepherds, as germane to Siyasa. Shepherds have lapses, temptations, are prone to corruption, and can become tone-deaf to the very vulnerable and the very poor. Therefore, there is a need for activism, electoral campaigning, judicial intervention, media investigation, and civil accountability to change the shepherd. The system may not qualify for a revolt or a resistance, but certainly for the R’s – Renewal and Reform.

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For a community alienated from politics, the very origin in the Muslim imagination of politics, in the notion of Siyasa, provides a set of metaphors that allow us to understand that not all politics has the same form. We can err when we misidentify the juncture we’re in; but are we confronting wolves or a tone-deaf shepherd? Must we revolt or reform? Is our justice in a transitional or restorative phase? Each choice has an implication for the way Siyasa is practiced.

*Ebrahim Rasool is the former ambassador to the US and former Premier of the Western Cape

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This past Sunday, I spent time with a friend who was among the first to visit me at Leeuhof Prison in the 1980. I was imprisoned for my political activism work.

After my release, when police harassment was relentless, he helped me enroll at As-Salaam Educational Institute in Mahlathini Village near Braemar and Umzinto — a refuge for young activists fleeing persecution. At a time when Black Consciousness adherents faced violence from all sides, this brother left the comforts of suburban life to enter my township, intent on taking me to safety. Yet, inspired by Biko’s teaching that conquering the fear of death is the most liberating act, and that the manner of one’s death carries political meaning, I chose to stay and confront the situation head-on.

As we reminisced, he reminded me how the BCM had warned of the neocolonial and neo-apartheid horrors that would follow the reformist CODESA. 

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With sadness, he asked whether, now that I witness the continuity of racial capitalism, I regret dedicating my life to the struggle. I laughed off the question, but it lingered. Later, another comrade posed the same challenge: how do I keep going in this work despite disappointments, reversals, and betrayals? My answer remains simple yet profound: love, faith, and hope.

Faith anchors the conviction that freedom is not only possible but divinely mandated. In South Africa’s Black Theology of Liberation, faith framed resistance as a moral and spiritual battle. It transforms despair into determination, shielding against fear and doubt.

Hope sustains vision through hardship. It is resilience embodied — a “helmet” protecting the mind against despair, enabling endurance through imprisonment, exile, or violence. Hope is an active expectation, expressed in songs, prayer, and revolutionary rhetoric.

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Love binds communities together, ensuring the struggle is about dignity and solidarity. Love transforms resistance into collective action: caring for families of prisoners, protecting the vulnerable, and building unity. In liberation theology, love demands justice and nurtures reconciliation.

Together, faith, hope, and love form a resilient moral framework. Faith grips the present, hope secures the future, and love sustains the community. Yet balance is essential. Faith without love risks rigid ideology; hope without faith collapses into naïve optimism; love without hope may lead to burnout. Only in harmony do these forces keep liberation movements principled, humane, and enduring.

*Bofelo is the former Secretary General of the Muslim Youth Movement.

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The final lunar month of Dhul Hijjah is expected to begin on Monday, 18 May 2026, with Hajj taking place from Monday, 25th May 2026. The 9th of Dhul Hijjah (Day of Arafah) is expected to be on Tuesday, 26 May 2026. As over two million pilgrims from across the globe gather in the sacred precincts of Makkah to fulfil the fifth and final pillar of Islam, Muslims throughout the world who are not performing the pilgrimage often ask: What is our role during these sacred days? How do we, as non-pilgrims, participate in the spiritual blessings and transformative ethos of the Hajj?

The first ten days of Dhul Hijjah are among the most sacred days in the Islamic calendar. Their sanctity derives from the fact that they host the rites of the Hajj itself. The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) emphasized their spiritual significance when he proclaimed: “There are no days during which righteous deeds are more beloved to Allah than these ten days.” (Sahih Bukhari)

The first ten days of Dhul Hijjah are therefore not only for the hujjaj (pilgrims); they are sacred days for the entire Muslim ummah. While the pilgrims engage directly in the manasik al-hajj, the rites of pilgrimage, those of us at home are also invited to participate spiritually, ethically, and devotionally in the blessings of this sacred season.

There are at least three important ways in which non-pilgrims can participate in the Hajj experience indirectly and in solidarity with the pilgrims.

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The first is through fasting, especially on the Day of Arafah. The standing on the plains of Arafah (wuquf al-Arafah) represents the spiritual climax of the Hajj. It is the moment when pilgrims gather in humility, repentance, and prayer before Allah. Non-pilgrims are encouraged to fast on this day as a means of spiritual solidarity with those gathered at Arafah. The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) taught: “Fasting on the Day of Arafah expiates the sins of the previous year and the coming year.” (Sahih Muslim)

Importantly, the Prophet (pbuh) himself did not fast while standing at Arafah during his farewell pilgrimage. This clarifies that the fast of Arafah is intended primarily for non-pilgrims. Through fasting, the hearts of believers across the globe become spiritually connected to the pilgrims gathered on the sacred plains of mercy and forgiveness.

The second way non-pilgrims participate in the Hajj is through the celebration of Eid al-Adha. Eid al-Adha is not merely a cultural festival or social holiday. It is deeply rooted in the culmination of the Hajj journey. The joy of Eid derives its meaning from the successful completion of the sacred rites by the pilgrims. The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) famously declared: “The Hajj is Arafah.” (Musnad Ahmad).

In other words, the standing at Arafah is the essence and culmination of the pilgrimage. When Muslims around the world celebrate Eid al-Adha after the pilgrims depart from Arafah, they do so in spiritual unison with the hujjaj. The global Muslim community becomes symbolically united in devotion, gratitude, and remembrance of Allah.

The third and final way non-pilgrims participate in the Hajj is through the udhiyah or qurban, the ritual animal sacrifice performed during Eid al-Adha and the days of tashriq that follow. The Qur’an explicitly links the sacrifice to the rites of Hajj in Surah al-Hajj. The sacrifice commemorates the faith, submission, and moral courage of Prophet Ibrahim and his family. At its deepest level, however, the qurban is not simply about the slaughtering of an animal. The Qur’an reminds us that: “It is neither their meat nor their blood that reaches Allah, but rather your consciousness of Him.” (Qur’an 22:37)

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The sacrifice thus calls believers to embody generosity, compassion, and care for the vulnerable. In a world marked by widening inequality, war, hunger, and displacement, the spirit of qurban should move us beyond ritual symbolism toward social solidarity and ethical responsibility.

The Hajj season also reminds us of Islam’s profound vision of human equality and unity. Pilgrims stand side by side regardless of race, nationality, language, or class. The simple garments of ihram strip away worldly distinctions and remind humanity of our shared dignity before the Creator.

At a time when our world is witnessing devastating wars, rising xenophobia, deepening racism, and growing social fragmentation, the Hajj offers an urgently needed moral and spiritual message: that human beings are one family under God and that true piety lies not in wealth, power, or ethnicity, but in righteousness and moral consciousness.

For non-pilgrims, participating in the sacred days of Dhul Hijjah through fasting, Eid celebration, charity, remembrance of Allah, and qurban allows us to share spiritually in the blessings of the Hajj journey.  May Allah grant all pilgrims a Hajj Mabrur, a pilgrimage accepted with Divine grace, and may these sacred days renew within all of us a deeper commitment to faith, justice, compassion, and human solidarity.

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On 24 May 2026, more than 1000 South Africans will enter the vast tented camp of Mina at the start of their Hajj journey. I recall that moment nine years ago when I performed my Hajj.  It came as a bit of a surprise when I saw our white tents were a small little piece of a zone set up for Non-Arab Africans.

The exact number housed on any given Hajj year can vary slightly depending on overall Mina capacity limits, tent layouts, and Saudi space‑management rules, but the planned capacity for the Non-Arab African‑countries sector is generally on the order of 150,000–180,000 pilgrims.

Arab African countries like Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and others are placed closer to Arabic-speaking countries. This year, our country’s allocated number is 1140. For years, we largely remained unaware that we are thrust together with our African Muslims in a sea of devotion. We balance only on our little wave, unaware of how far the other waves around us could take us on our journey of achieving the Islamic commitment to the unity of all of humanity.

As I recall, most of that day was spent in prayer and reflection. The only opportunity to meet women from other countries came when we visited the ablution facilities before sunrise and during the day. It struck me then that those moments were not conducive at all to striking up a good conversation or making an unexpected friend. Most of us make lasting friendships with other South Africans but seldom with pilgrims from other countries, which I have always understood to be part of the exercise.

It occurred to me then that it was a pity that there was not a structured opportunity to hear about Islam in another African country from their women, so that we could increase our understanding and knowledge. We should deepen our understanding of others who are our neighbours on this vast continent, destined to be propelled forward in the coming decades.  I understand this to be a Qur’anic obligation.

Then across my desk came the news that former Member of Parliament, Dr Ismail Vadi, has recently launched a research entity to increase our awareness and understanding of Islam in Africa. It gave me such a great pleasure not only to report this on my website (www.zubeidajaffer.co.za) but also to publish in full the inaugural 66-page booklet should you wish to read the initial findings.

He launched the new research institution, the Centre for Islamic Research – Africa (CIRA), in Johannesburg to deepen understanding of Islam across the continent among South Africa’s two million Muslims.

In the preface to its inaugural booklet, CIRA founder Vadi notes that South African Muslims – just 0.4% of Africa’s estimated 500 million Muslims – know little about their co-religionists in the continent’s 54 nations.

 “Continued ignorance of our diverse Islamic history, legacy, traditions, and traits is intolerable,” he said, urging a correction of this “intellectual and spiritual imbalance.”

South Africa’s Muslim community, tracing roots to Indian, Southeast Asian, and indigenous origins, has grown post-apartheid with arrivals from Somalia, Nigeria, Palestine, and beyond. Diverse across socio-economic lines, they form influential middle classes in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Western Cape, he said.

The initiative arrives amid global and African conflicts, positioning South African Muslims to engage broader continental narratives. 

According to the booklet, approximately 45-50 percent of Africa’s total population identified itself as Muslim in 2025, with the total population of Africa estimated at approximately 1.56 billion people. This represents about 18.8 percent of the total world population, ranking Africa as the second-most populous continent, second to Asia.

CIRA will research political, economic, social, cultural, and religious trends through an Islamic lens, partnering with organizations continent-wide. The booklet, drawn from open sources, offers a “small step” toward awareness, acknowledging Africa’s predominantly Christian other half.

If I am allowed to dream, perhaps my granddaughter will one day arrive in Mina to perform her hajj and meet other African women forming friendships that will solidify continental unity.  Perhaps her generation will understand that we could form part of a sea of devotion in Africa if the waves of Islam and all other faiths seek cooperation. They will stand as a testament to a rejection of separateness that is so fashionable in the world today. 

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Indonesia recently hosted foreign policy practitioners from middle powers – countries with significant regional influence, catalysts for multi-lateral reach, and while having some military and economic leverage, they hone a diplomatic ability to secure stability and development. Jakarta gathered two such categories (traditional north/western and emergent middle powers from the Global South) at a critical moment in the history of the world in which the United States, and its regional ally in the Middle East, Israel, are conducting a war of choice against Iran, with negative global reverberations in supply chains, inflation, and security.

But Iran is proving more resilient than expected, and survival itself is victory. The United States, however, no longer appears impervious to resistance, but while it is vulnerable as a superpower, it still retains sufficient superpowers to prevail. Middle powers, traditional and emergent, are now forced to consider what a post-American world would look like. In the interim, they have to cope with an America that is an incoherent, rogue, and punitive superpower, bereft of strategic vision. 

Among middle powers, South Africa is regarded as significant, despite our own challenges and self-doubt: it is regarded as credible for its convening of BRICS and the G20, courageous for charging Israel with genocide; garnered great sympathy for bearing the brunt of Trump’s lies about a ‘white genocide’and his punitive measures; and in turn, there are great expectations about SA’s role in strategizing a way out of the current impasse. My input articulated a few key themes, culminating in a set of five scenarios on offer for a world needing to respond to an unhinged superpower dealing with its eclipse.

The foundational theme is to recognise a transition from the unilateralism of a dominant United States that took the world through 30 years of wars, running up a deficit of 39 trillion US dollars and creating a war-weary US citizenry. Now we are witnessing the emergence of multipolarity – competing poles in the world: some regional, like ASEAN; some a collection of emergent economies, like BRICS; and some tentatively defensive, like the EU. But none, yet, are in any position to challenge the dominance of the USA.

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The corollary theme is that the Middle East, as the theatre of conflict, demonstrates the erosion of consent. The dominant consensus that existed, of Israel’s impunity, following the Jewish Holocaust, is increasingly coming to an end.  In the United States, where most citizens are denying Israel such a free pass – US arms fuel unjust aggression and the genocide of Palestinians. This has severe implications for whether Trump will be able to carry through the Netanyahu playbook of destroying Iran. Already, Trump is hesitant as Iran’s resilience creates discontent at home and among allies, and this is translating into a war effort that is regarded as pointless and operationally inept, all at the behest of Israel.

Yet, while the US may appear to be erratic, declining, and run by a narcissist, we must not underestimate the United States. The emerging multipolarity that can assert itself against the USA has not yet been established. Despite disenchantment with and fragmentation from the USA, few can act decisively. Therefore, the world requires a set of strategies to respond smartly and collectively to the USA. What then are the scenarios for such a strategic response to the United States of America by middle powers? The scenarios posited for middle power relations with the USA currently are five. 

The Ideal Scenario is one of Mutuality and Reciprocity and is premised on cooperation and exchange based on mutual need, in which the USA walks on two legs – soft and hard power – and therefore invests in other countries a combination of exchanges of markets for trade, investments in capacity, and development aid against vulnerability, to ensure mutual development and security, with limited migration to the north. This is obviously the scenario spurned by Trump in his amputation of the leg of soft power, and for the immediate future is highly unlikely. 

Trump’s preferred scenario is the Scenario of Surrender. Surrender Greenland, the Panama Canal, national sovereignty, energy, critical minerals, and rare earth elements, and in the case of Iran and Palestine, sovereignty, land, resources, and dignity. Venezuela is the template, and SA is on the menu. For Middle Powers, this scenario is not tolerable.

The instinctive, responsive scenario is one of Retaliation against the USA. Only China comes close to having the wherewithal for retaliation, and even then, not in a sustained and sustainable way. When China withheld rare earth elements, like Gallium, in response to 250% tariffs by the USA, it forced Trump to go to Seoul and negotiate a reprieve. Iran is proving the workability of such a scenario – only because it has nothing to lose. But for everyone else, this will remain a difficult scenario while no multilateral capacity exists.

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These 3 scenarios are not possible or probable in the current context, which therefore compels the search for intermediate scenarios. 

Therefore, the fourth lies between Mutuality and Surrender – the Scenario of Appeasement. It means conceding to pacify an aggressive party to prevent a conflict by satisfying its demands. This was the word used to describe the initial approach to Hitler, and various countries are trying this with Trump, offering jets, Trump Towers, deals for his children and investments in the USA. Alternatively, such propitiation can often take the form of smiling through blatant lies and ad hominem attacks. This is currently the most likely scenario in relation to the USA.

The fifth scenario lies between Mutuality and Retaliation and can be called a Scenario of Contingency. It is a soft retaliation in which insurance policies are taken out to mitigate the shocks of a capricious power. This is sophisticated, necessarily so, and involves a series of mitigation measures like finding alternative markets for tariffed goods, alternative sources of investment and development aid, and basically ensuring that your eggs are not all in one basket. Simultaneously, this must be accompanied by tying your wagon to other multi-lateral engines and ensuring that the world is building a collective insurance against unilateral actions.

In working through these scenarios and finding one, or a combination of a few, the middle powers must divine whether the scenario is a holding operation – to see out the Trump years – before returning to ‘normal’ or whether this is permanent – on the assumption that the USA is fundamentally altered and, once it tastes the power of tariffs and bellicosity, it will not return to the status quo ante, even though that was itself aggressive and invasive. However, the erosion of trust in the USA – whether by NATO or the Global South – is such that there must be an unstoppable momentum to transform the emerging multi-polarity into an effective multi-lateralism that can withstand an untethered superpower.

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