S1, E4: “Returning – Personal Experiences: Foreigners and Refugees in South Africa.

Hi, everybody! I know this has been a long time coming, but thank you for tuning in.

As most of you know, I am starting a segment which will include the stories of foreigners and refugees all over the world. I believe that sharing your experiences and your stories is a way for us to break barriers between people. I believe that storytelling is freeing, it is educational and it allows different perspectives and bonding between different groups of people.

This segment starts with my story.

As some of you may know, I am a Congolese living in South Africa. I am proudly Congolese, and I don’t think there will ever be a time where I will introduce myself as anything other than Congolese. You may ask “Well, why is that?”. The answer isn’t because I believe my country is beautiful, or that it births beauties and legends, or that it is the literal heart of Africa, or that it has so much overlooked talent and potential – although ALL of those things are 100% true. Congolese people are so beautiful, and unique, and talented, and majestic and and and… I could go on for hours. That is not to say that people from other nations aren’t, but I love my people with a different sort of passion.

I arrived in South Africa with most of my family when I was 5 years old. My very first memories of this country are very foggy, but the memory of feeling different is one I will never forget. Like most foreigners, my family left our home country because of instability and war. My parents brought us to South Africa, hoping that their very young children could have a chance to live a life free of war and persecution. Although in some instances that was true, we had to fight a different sort of war: the one of discrimination.

Living in South Africa is basically all I have known. Most of my life was spent here, I started and finished all of my schooling in South Africa (grade R through to two degrees at university), my work is here, my immediate family is here, my friends are here – but despite having being raised here, I have always had the distinct feeling of being different and unusual. That is further exacerbated by the fact that as a foreigner, my identity documents are so different from everybody else, I have to go to extra lengths to get anything done, I am constantly worried about opportunities for my family, my friends and other people like me, and then there’s xenophobia.

Xenophobia in South Africa is a hot topic. It is widely believed that foreign nationals come to South Africa to steal people’s jobs, opportunities, and lovers (ha!). Now, I know many things can be stolen, but let’s be real: the opportunities available for South Africans far outweigh the opportunities available for foreigners – that is a known fact. There have been so many scholarships, jobs, internships and university programs that I have been eligible and qualified (sometimes overqualified) for throughout the course of my life, but I was not able to apply for those opportunities because their T&C’s would include being a citizen, which I was not, even after more than 15 years in South Africa (let’s not even get started with this story!). So to me, xenophobia and discrimination against foreigners and refugees doesn’t make sense at all. It is neither logical nor smart to persecute groups of people for the belief that they are stealing opportunities not even available to them.

I have been treated differently because of the way I speak, the way I look, and because of my culture. I remember during the 2008 xenophobic attacks, I was coming home from school and an adult came to me and placed a lit cigarette butt into my hair and told me to go back to my country – that was traumatic. I remember being told I couldn’t pursues studies in a certain stream because I was foreign, that I should go do it in my home country instead and leave those opportunities for students from South Africa. I remember missing my orientation week in my first year because universities classify anybody who is not South African, as international students – meaning double the fees, even if you did your schooling here – and you have to go through a strenuous process for them to correct this “system error” on a yearly basis. I remember having to fight for every single opportunity I have ever gotten, because “that’s just how it is”.

A lot of people go through so much more on a daily basis. So much worse. It is unfortunate that there are bottlenecks in place when it comes to Africans. Sad that they suffer in Africa, especially when they shouldn’t. It is sad to see a mother or a father working hard for their families, get discriminated against for inhumane reasons, and get treated like less than garbage, simply because they were not born on the “right” side of a border.

I hope that one day we build an Africa that is all-inclusive, a world that is all-inclusive. One full of equal opportunities for people, and that those opportunities don’t come with conditions based on race, nationality, or other factors. I hope we educate our brothers and sisters by sharing our truths and our lives with them, so that they can understand that we are no different from them. That borders shouldn’t separate us, should not create them vs us narratives, but should rather be an opportunity to learn about each other and fully immerse ourselves in each others lives, beliefs, and cultures. I hope for nations united instead of divided, with a goal of uniting our people, instead of getting distracted by petty things.

I would love to invite anybody with a story: please share it. And those willing to educate themselves and get a different perspective: welcome, thank you for joining us. Join us next week for our first co-blogger, and a piece on their story!

Love to you all!

For those wanting to share their stories, please use the contact information below:

martineilunga6@gmail.com

+27 61 580 4143

Not all wars are fought physically, and not all battles are won with fists.

T. Nsenga