Who gets to be African? Pan-Africanism in South African schools

Ten years after the #RhodesMustFall movement reignited debates about decolonisation and identity in South African education, Esma Karadağ explores how Pan-Africanism continues to evolve in the country’s schools. She reveals the complexities and contradictions that shape how students engage with African identity. This blog delves into the tensions between historical legacies and current realities, both in the classroom and in the digital world, asking the crucial question: who gets to be African?

In post-apartheid South Africa, Pan-Africanism has returned to the classroom - but not without contradictions. Originally conceived as a liberatory project forged in the struggle against colonial domination, Pan-Africanism once resonated powerfully with the African National Congress’s (ANC) early ideological commitments. In the classroom today, it carries the weight of that legacy while also serving as a mirror of South Africa’s fractured present.

At the height of apartheid, teaching African history was itself an act of resistance. Today, however, Pan-Africanism is caught between symbolic curriculum gestures and deep-rooted structural inequalities. From the Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall movements to the more recent expressions of student disillusionment, a new generation is challenging who gets to define African identity - and who is excluded from it. Based on interviews with history teachers from schools with varying socioeconomic profiles, my research shows that high school students’ responses to Pan-Africanism reflect persistent class and ethnic/racial divisions.

The role of social media
In historically white, racially diverse schools - once known for their apolitical stance during apartheid - Pan-Africanism plays a significant role in shaping how students confront questions of identity. The rise of social media has played a pivotal role in amplifying discussions around race, identity, and justice, bringing Pan-Africanism back into the spotlight. Movements like #RhodesMustFall, #FeesMustFall, and #BlackLivesMatter have amplified these discussions, especially among middle-class students.

Sarah, a teacher at a multiracial school, noted, ‘So much of this is related to identity’, explaining that Pan-Africanism helps students reflect critically on their sense of self. Elizabeth, a teacher from KwaZulu-Natal, observed a growing interest in Pan-Africanism among her students who saw it as a way of reclaiming their voice: ‘The idea that those voices were silenced for so long, now they must come to the forefront… Where do I fit in the grander scheme of this thing?’

South Africans identifying with Africa
The influence of social media cannot be overstated. These platforms provide a space for real-time conversations about race, decolonisation, and inequality, and teachers have noticed a shift in students’ political consciousness. Sarah remarked that since the #FeesMustFall movement, Pan-Africanism has become a central part of students’ vocabularies. ‘When we talked about nationalism, they no longer saw themselves as identifying with South Africa as a nation, but they saw themselves as identifying with Africa’. This shift illustrates how local movements for social justice can transcend national borders, allowing students to see their struggles as part of a larger, global fight for racial justice. The digital space, therefore, has become a critical site for the revival of Pan-Africanism, connecting South African students to a global network of activists and thinkers advocating for equality and decolonisation.

Thinking in black-and-white terms
But this identification with Pan-Africanism is not evenly distributed. In middle-class schools with mostly white students, the idea often gets reframed. David, a history teacher at one such school, said his students tend to see Pan-Africanism as something meant only for black people. Instead, they gravitate towards Charterism - an inclusive vision of African identity rooted in the 1955 Freedom Charter, a key anti-apartheid document that called for equality and non-racialism. ‘Charterism feels friendlier to them’, David explained. It defines ‘African’ as anyone who lives on the continent, regardless of race. Pan-Africanism, on the other hand, feels too broad and distant. ‘My students think in very black-and-white terms’, he added. For many white students, Charterism offers a way to say, ‘I’m white, but I’m still African’. That’s where they find a sense of belonging.

Disconnect in working-class schools
In stark contrast, teachers in working-class schools, particularly those based in townships in Cape Town, shared a very different narrative. Many working-class schools that once pulsed with pro-African student activism are now drifting into political silence. In under-resourced schools, where the daily focus is often just getting through the day, ideas like Pan-Africanism can feel distant - unless a passionate teacher brings them to life. For students growing up in post-apartheid townships marked by poverty and rising xenophobia, connecting with broader African solidarity isn’t always straightforward. It’s a big shift from the past, when black schools were key spaces for political resistance and radical thinking. Today, deepening inequality is not only shaping students’ futures, but also how they see themselves, and whether they believe they have any power to change the world around them.

Eurocentric perspectives persist
Even though these schools still serve mostly black students, Pan-Africanism no longer resonates in the way it once did. What explains this disconnect? Why is it that students in schools most affected by inequality and marginalisation, the very conditions Pan-Africanism seeks to challenge, appear to show the least engagement with it? Part of the answer lies in the way identity is constructed in the everyday. Such classroom moments expose the limits of Pan-African discourse when it does not account for the lived experience of students. As Emily, a teacher educator, pointed out, students often resist connecting with South African or Southern African history, preferring to identify with America or Europe. She linked this to the lingering legacies of colonialism, which continue to shape how students relate to their own heritage. This resistance isn’t just about personal preference; it speaks to a broader educational challenge: creating curricula that speak to students’ lived experiences and identities. As Cebo K., a public history researcher, put it, South Africa suffers from a legacy of ‘so-called South African exceptionalism’, a mindset that has been reinforced by the ANC’s failure to fully centre African histories in the curriculum. This omission has allowed Eurocentric perspectives to persist, fragmenting the sense of a unified African identity.

Afrophobia
The realities of xenophobia (Aprophobia in the South African context) in the classroom also paint a troubling picture. Teachers like Lindokuhle, who works in a Cape Town township school, spoke about the derogatory terms students use to describe fellow Africans. Words like ‘Queta’ (a slur for migrants from other African countries) reflect the deep-seated Afrophobia that many South African students internalise. Even within the same classrooms, where African students from different nations learn together, the entrenched prejudices against ‘foreigners’ create a toxic environment of division. As Lebo, another teacher, noted, students often hide the fact that one of their parents is from another African country, fearing social stigma and discrimination. This reality complicates efforts to foster Pan-African solidarity among young people who are, in many ways, still learning to see themselves as part of a broader African community.

Limited access
What emerges from these teachers’ accounts is not apathy but inequality in access, exposure, and engagement. While Black middle-class students often explore Pan-Africanism through digital platforms and classroom debates, connecting it to global struggles and identity formation, their working-class peers encounter significant barriers. In under-resourced schools, limited access to digital media, language obstacles, and pressing material concerns restrict students’ engagement with broader Pan-African ideas. For many, Pan-Africanism feels distant or abstract - less a lived reality than an unfamiliar ideal. The difference is not simply in interest, but in structural conditions that shape how (and whether) such ideas take root.

In this context, teachers play a pivotal role. Not only in what they teach but in how they invite students to imagine themselves within Africa’s unfinished story. Because ultimately, the future of African unity will not be written only in textbooks, but in the identities students are allowed to imagine for themselves.     

Photo credit: SAME Foundation. The school on the photo nor the SAME Foundation are involved in the described research.