By Tembo Alick Jolophan
Political Scientist and Socialist.
The reported decision by the United States Embassy in Lusaka to suspend visa issuance to Zambian nationals alongside citizens of 38 other countries effective January 2026, raises profound diplomatic, ethical, and geopolitical questions that affected states, particularly in Africa and the Global South, cannot afford to treat lightly.
While every sovereign nation reserves the right to regulate entry into its territory in the interest of national security, sweeping and indiscriminate measures of this nature undermine the very values the United States has historically claimed to champion: fairness, mutual respect, and partnership. Casting entire nations and regions as potential security threats without transparent criteria, due process, or prior bilateral engagement reinforces a troubling hierarchy in global mobility governance, where some passports confer dignity while others invite suspicion.
THE UNEQUAL ARCHITECTURE OF GLOBAL MOBILITY
For decades, citizens of Africa and the developing world have navigated increasingly hostile visa regimes, often justified by vague and unsubstantiated security narratives. These restrictions rarely affect political elites; instead, they punish ordinary people, students seeking education, researchers pursuing knowledge, traders sustaining livelihoods, tourists fostering cultural exchange, and families maintaining human bonds across borders.
Zambia, like many African states, has consistently cooperated with international security frameworks, migration controls, and counter-terrorism initiatives. Subjecting such countries to blanket restrictions signals a deeper reality: that compliance and partnership do not guarantee respect within an unequal global system that continues to treat African mobility as a problem rather than a right.
This is not merely a Zambian issue; it is a structural injustice confronting the African continent and the Global South at large.
RECIPROCITY IS NOT HOSTILITY; IT IS AN EXPRESSION OF SOVEREIGNTY
Diplomacy is anchored in reciprocity, equality, and mutual recognition of sovereignty. When one state unilaterally imposes measures that disproportionately disadvantage the citizens of another, it is neither radical nor reckless for the affected state to consider proportionate responses. Reciprocity is not retaliation; it is the assertion of dignity.
African and Global South states should therefore consider coordinated and principled responses, including:
– Reviewing visa policies for U.S. citizens to ensure symmetry, fairness, and mutual respect.
– Issuing formal diplomatic protests demanding transparency, justification, and clear timelines.
– Engaging collectively through regional and continental bodies, such as the African Union (AU) and SADC, to present a unified African position.
– Accelerating South–South mobility frameworks to reduce structural dependence on Western travel corridors and approval systems.
Such actions affirm that African states are not passive recipients of externally imposed decisions, but sovereign actors capable of shaping the norms that govern global engagement.
PAN-AFRICANISM AND THE IMPERATIVE OF COLLECTIVE SELF-ASSERTION.
At its core, Pan-Africanism is about reclaiming agency, political, economic, and psychological. Visa regimes that systematically marginalize African citizens are not isolated administrative tools; they are instruments that reinforce historical patterns of exclusion and dependency.
This moment demands continental solidarity. An injury to the mobility of one African people is an injury to all. Africa must speak not in fragmented national whispers but in a confident collective voice that insists on equal treatment of its citizens on the global stage.
RETHINKING PARTNERSHIPS IN A MULTIPOLAR WORLD
This episode must also trigger a broader strategic reassessment. Genuine partnerships cannot be sustained on selective openness, open markets without open people, cooperation without trust, rhetoric without respect.
As global power diffuses and alternative centers of economic, educational, and diplomatic cooperation expand, countries like Zambia must deliberately diversify alliances. Over-reliance on any single geopolitical bloc weakens sovereignty and bargaining power.
A world that builds walls around people while preaching openness in capital and ideas is neither just nor sustainable.
CONCLUSION: DIGNITY MUST BE ASSERTED, NOT REQUESTED
The suspension of visa issuance to Zambian citizens is more than an administrative adjustment; it is a litmus test of how nations value one another’s people. A calm, firm, coordinated, and reciprocal response by affected African and Global South states is not only appropriate but necessary.
History reminds us of a hard truth: respect in international relations is rarely granted voluntarily; it is asserted through unity, principle, and self-confidence. Africa must respond not from anger, but from conviction rooted in sovereignty, dignity, and Pan-African solidarity.
NOTE: The author, Tembo Alick Jolophan, is a PhD Candidate in Political Science, holds a Master of Arts in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Lusaka, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Philosophy from the University of Zambia.
He has expertise in political administration and party management, policy analysis and governance research, conflict resolution and interparty dialogue, strategic planning and institutional development, and advocacy for social and economic justice.
