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Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the role of public discourse in shaping and influencing Africa’s perception of the war in Ukraine. It will discuss and analyse discursive practices in which different rhetoric and narratives in Africa are changing public opinion on the war.

Paper long abstract:

The Russia invasion of Ukraine has come at a time when countries in Africa are already struggling to recover from the impacts of the pandemic. Despite the war breaking out in a geographically distant region, it still entails several repercussions for the African continent. Given that both Russia and Ukraine play important roles in the continent, this episode is now going to have both immediate and lasting implications for Africa’s economics and politics. While there has been widespread condemnation of the attacks on Ukrainian civilians and their own citizens fleeing the warzone – from countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, etc., – there has been a much more muted response from some key African nations. The paper examines the role of public discourse in shaping and influencing Africa’s perception of the war in Ukraine. It will discuss and analyse discursive practices in which different rhetoric and narratives in Africa are changing public opinion on the war. In other words, it shows the link between language, public discourse and the construction of antagonistic perceptions of the Russian-Ukraine war in Africa. Using the narrative paradigm theory and critical discourse analysis, the paper shows how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reinvigorated public discourse surrounding most of Africa’s longstanding foreign policy of autonomy and non-alignment. The paper concludes that, while African countries may go along in broad solidarity with the people of Ukraine, they should not be expected to follow Western dictates blindly.