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African man being attacked in South Africa. Image: Reuters |
It
started in South Africa. Well…it didn’t really. It was however one of the first
times I had seen something so disturbing. So for me, it started in South
Africa.
It was
sometime in 2015. The news was flooded with gruesome images (and videos) of
angry mobs chasing a man, capturing him and beating him to death. The mob was
made of men, women and children who seemed eager – too eager – to kill this
man. There was no justification for the scene that played out but I needed to
know why these foaming-at-the-mouth people decided to take a man’s life in such a deliberately wicked manner.
I found
out his crime; he was an immigrant. Just that. But for many South Africans,
that was enough.
That
incident wasn’t an isolated case. It was however my introduction into the word
categorized as xenophobia.
I
wondered how people could be so brutal and decidedly evil. There were nights
when I couldn’t sleep because of the images and videos I had watched. I tried
to understand the rationale behind killing immigrants. Some South Africans said
these immigrants were the dregs of society and brought with them a life of
crime and criminality. If that was the case, why then did they only seem to
attack affluent or middle class people who were doing well for themselves, who
had their own shops or businesses or who were students? Another rhetoric was
that these immigrants were taking jobs away from citizens. Again, that rhetoric
was flawed because in many cases, immigrants worked the dirtiest, most
degrading jobs that citizens didn’t want. So if you didn’t want to do
them, how could they have been ‘taken away’ from you?
As I
mulled over these problems, even more disturbing stories began to come out.
From America, Europe, South East Asia, Northern Africa and even our neighbors
in other parts of Africa, there seemed to be a whole lot of hate for African
immigrants; especially if they are from Nigeria.
Recently,
I watched another really disturbing video showing how policemen from a Northern
African country – I cannot remember which – treat black Africans in their
prisons. This police man in particular beat an African prisoner so bad that he
could not cry again. He just grunted every time a blow or a kick landed on his
already bruised and broken body. Not satisfied with what he had done, the
policeman pulled out a pocket knife and repeatedly stabbed the victim’s back
with quick jabs of pain. The victim cried out again but the sound was lost in
his throat. Only the agonized expression on his face explained what he had been
trying to do.
I was
sick to my bone at the images I had seen. I am very visual so I really guard my
eyes from these kinds of images but I stumbled on these two and was glued to my
screen; a testament of how horrifying they were.
My
question then is, why do Africans go to other countries when they are obviously
not wanted there? Why risk mob action, police brutality, racial or xenophobic
discrimination, robbery and even death? And worse, why do they still stay in such countries after witnessing
the hateful way with which their kin are treated?
The
answer, though glaringly obvious, still hurts.
Our
countries are not working!
It is 2019
and many African countries are still dealing with poor infrastructure,
communally entrenched corruption, sub-par education, poverty, religious and
tribal discrimination, firmly rooted patriarchy, a myriad of preventable and curable diseases, unnecessary wars
of power and supposed superiority etc. We are still lagging far behind! The
rest of the world is championing new fronts in all spheres of life. We can’t
even access basic necessities if we are not among the wealthy or middle class
in our countries. Affluence divides the line of people in all countries, and it
is a problem in Africa because many of the affluent are where they are because
they shortchanged the rest of the population.
So I want
to tell my brothers and sisters to come back home and away from those horrible
countries but... what are they coming back to? To failed systems that lets them
down all the time? To governments that do not even care for them? Or to a
no-dream country? Because you see, people would rather risk everything they
have, even unto death, if it means a chance at a better life. That
is why many Africans still try to cross the Mediterranean even though people
are dying DAILY at sea. That is why we have immigrants doing the most
disgusting jobs to survive. That is why our brothers and sisters return to
communities where a brother was killed, hoping the sharp looks of hatred are
just that; knowing that one day, they may transcend into something much worse.
This is
the reality of the continent we call home.
And this
why we have to, collectively, rewrite the entirety of our lives as Africans. We
need to make our countries work! When each of our countries works, our
continent will work! Europe is probably the most stable continent in the world
because they have created systems that improve the lives of their people. Even
Tunisia, which is a bedlam most of the time, works. Why can’t we have effective
systems for ourselves? Why do we seem so keen on imploding first before finding
ourselves? When will we catch up to the rest of the world?
We need
to take a cue from Nehemiah’s wall; a system where everyone worked to fix their
own wall as they added to the grand wall of Jerusalem. We don’t have to wait
for our nobles and leaders to start causing the desired change that we want. We
can start from ourselves and our immediate environment. Educate ourselves and
our children, love our neighbors as we do ourselves, work hard, clean our
environment, refuse to be corrupt or mediocre and contribute to our national
development as if it was our personal projects; which it should be. If we all
did our parts, all contributed to developing our land, all contributed to being
a better family, race, country and people, maybe…just maybe, our brothers and
sisters may not be too eager to run away from home, to face harsh conditions in
the name of searching for ‘greener pastures’ and worse, lose their lives. Maybe
if our home could become our haven instead of our hell, we wouldn’t have to see
videos of members of our family beaten to death, or near death like in India;
the reason I am writing this post in the first place.
This is
my prayer for everyone who has to be in a foreign country that doesn’t want
them. I pray for your safety; you are going to need it.
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