Xenophobia as Afro-Phobia: Towards a Political Philosophy of Change to Afro-Philia

As at present, a fundamental problem negating intensive and extensive integration of self-other relations in Africa, bothering the African mind, is xenophobia: the fear and, by extension, revulsion against any human (or non-human) subject of foreign origin. What is usually understood as xenophobia in Africa is actually Afro-phobia: Africans from within reject other Africans from without, while non-Africans are largely not so treated. This reasoning contextually motivates the phrase, xenophobia as Afro-phobia. Confront- ing the problem and its outcomes, much scholarship has dominantly come from social sciences, confirming that that there could only be little non-social scientific voice to the discussion. Given this gap, this work is philosophical. The claim is that, in the present world where continental (perhaps, inclusive of diasporic) Africans should committedly reinvent their largely common ontology (idea of African being) and cosmology (African worldviews), unitedly confronting continental and non-continental challenges, xenopho- bia as Afro-phobia regrettably expresses a morally unjustifiable divergence rather than cooperative convergence. Addressing the problem, this work critically interrogates xen- ophobia as Afro-phobia, before foregrounding a political philosophy of change, ulti- mately promoting Afro-philia, rather than xenophobia as Afro-phobia, in the African per- son. Successfully developing this political philosophy of change, its epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, and logic must be intelligible to Africans and its ultimate practical realiza- tion. These constitute the present goals.