Africa, home to so many people who can't
wait to leave
1 April, 2011 | By Jonny Steinberg (Times LIVE)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
continent.
In the Tunisian coastal city of Zarzis, for instance, scores of small
boats have left shore each night, heading north towards Italy. The
daily exodus began on January 14, the day the country's president
left office. With the president gone, the country's border police
stopped work, and people were free to go. By early March, an
estimated 15000 people had left Zarzis this way. "If I were their
age," the city's mayor told the New York Times, "I would do the
same."
Over the past few years, European governments have done deals
with a string of North African leaders, persuading them to block
migrants from crossing the Mediterranean in exchange for generous
aid. In 2008, Italy pledged $5-billion to Libya over 20 years. In
exchange, the Libyan government agreed to intercept the Europe-
bound migrants from Sudan and Somalia who use Libya as a
thoroughfare. Undocumented immigration to Italy immediately
plummeted. W ith Gaddafi's armed forces preoccupied, large
numbers are again arriving in southern Europe .
It is an uncomfortable image for any African to absorb: for
thousands of people, the reflexive response to acquiring freedom
was to get out.
Events in South Africa, too, are increasingly shaped by the desire of
people to leave this continent. Of the thousands of Africans who
have come here from as far away as the Congo, Ethiopia and
Somalia, a great many report their destination of preference is
Europe or the US , and that South Africa is something of a halfway
post.
The majority will never get to the developed world, but it is worth
pausing to reflect that they are walking South African streets
because they wish to make a life on another continent. I met a
Somali recently who had paid R40000 for a fake South African
passport, an air ticket to São Paulo, and access to a network that
would smuggle him to Mexico, from where he would cross the
border into Texas. His plans were waylaid and he remained here,
R40000 the poorer.
Foreign nationals are not the only people in South Africa whose life
choices are shaped by thoughts of departure. Generations ago,
much of South Africa's white population arrived here unsure
whether they would settle; they considered themselves international
migrants before anything else. After an interlude of several
generations, whites are thinking of themselves as international
migrants once more.
Consider, for instance, how many children of Afrikaans speakers
described themselves in the last census as English speakers; this is
nothing if not an adaptation born of the desire to be able to live
abroad.
In their own, complicated way, those who govern South Africa also
express a desire to leave. As Jacob Dlamini has perceptively
observed in his Business Day column, the recently announced
tender to build a R62-million VIP medical facility for the exclusive
use of cabinet ministers and visiting dignitaries shows a desire to live
here without living here. At the very least, it reveals a discomfort
about living here in body; for one's body, it seems, must receive the
sort of attention ordinarily available only in the developed world.
None of this is as frighteningly Afro-pessimistic as it may seem.
Those who leave Africa invariably maintain ties with the continent
and thus continue to shape it, for good and for ill. The remittances
sent home from Africans abroad, for instance, often fund the
education of nieces, nephews and cousins. There are many doctors
and engineers on this continent whose studies were made possible
by the flight of their relatives. Diasporas also create opportunities for
international trade. When I last walked through the markets on
Canal Street and 125th Street in New York, many of the goods on
sale were made in West Africa. It was Senegalese immigrants who
imported and sold them, and who thus stimulated craft production
back home.
At bottom, though, the desire to leave on the part of so many bodes
poorly.
People who expend their energy imagining a life elsewhere are
unlikely to create anything lasting in Africa. Men and women who
dream that their descendants will tread the soil of another continent
neither plant trees nor build institutions that might outlive them.
Steinberg is with Huma at the University of Cape Town. His
new book, Little Liberia, is out
Courtesy
wait to leave
1 April, 2011 | By Jonny Steinberg (Times LIVE)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Among the images of Africa
that the uprisings in Tunisia,
Egypt and Libya have
spawned, there is one that
Africans find hard to think
about. It is the image of
flight. The moment the
dictators fell, untold
continent.
In the Tunisian coastal city of Zarzis, for instance, scores of small
boats have left shore each night, heading north towards Italy. The
daily exodus began on January 14, the day the country's president
left office. With the president gone, the country's border police
stopped work, and people were free to go. By early March, an
estimated 15000 people had left Zarzis this way. "If I were their
age," the city's mayor told the New York Times, "I would do the
same."
Over the past few years, European governments have done deals
with a string of North African leaders, persuading them to block
migrants from crossing the Mediterranean in exchange for generous
aid. In 2008, Italy pledged $5-billion to Libya over 20 years. In
exchange, the Libyan government agreed to intercept the Europe-
bound migrants from Sudan and Somalia who use Libya as a
thoroughfare. Undocumented immigration to Italy immediately
plummeted. W ith Gaddafi's armed forces preoccupied, large
numbers are again arriving in southern Europe .
It is an uncomfortable image for any African to absorb: for
thousands of people, the reflexive response to acquiring freedom
was to get out.
Events in South Africa, too, are increasingly shaped by the desire of
people to leave this continent. Of the thousands of Africans who
have come here from as far away as the Congo, Ethiopia and
Somalia, a great many report their destination of preference is
Europe or the US , and that South Africa is something of a halfway
post.
The majority will never get to the developed world, but it is worth
pausing to reflect that they are walking South African streets
because they wish to make a life on another continent. I met a
Somali recently who had paid R40000 for a fake South African
passport, an air ticket to São Paulo, and access to a network that
would smuggle him to Mexico, from where he would cross the
border into Texas. His plans were waylaid and he remained here,
R40000 the poorer.
Foreign nationals are not the only people in South Africa whose life
choices are shaped by thoughts of departure. Generations ago,
much of South Africa's white population arrived here unsure
whether they would settle; they considered themselves international
migrants before anything else. After an interlude of several
generations, whites are thinking of themselves as international
migrants once more.
Consider, for instance, how many children of Afrikaans speakers
described themselves in the last census as English speakers; this is
nothing if not an adaptation born of the desire to be able to live
abroad.
In their own, complicated way, those who govern South Africa also
express a desire to leave. As Jacob Dlamini has perceptively
observed in his Business Day column, the recently announced
tender to build a R62-million VIP medical facility for the exclusive
use of cabinet ministers and visiting dignitaries shows a desire to live
here without living here. At the very least, it reveals a discomfort
about living here in body; for one's body, it seems, must receive the
sort of attention ordinarily available only in the developed world.
None of this is as frighteningly Afro-pessimistic as it may seem.
Those who leave Africa invariably maintain ties with the continent
and thus continue to shape it, for good and for ill. The remittances
sent home from Africans abroad, for instance, often fund the
education of nieces, nephews and cousins. There are many doctors
and engineers on this continent whose studies were made possible
by the flight of their relatives. Diasporas also create opportunities for
international trade. When I last walked through the markets on
Canal Street and 125th Street in New York, many of the goods on
sale were made in West Africa. It was Senegalese immigrants who
imported and sold them, and who thus stimulated craft production
back home.
At bottom, though, the desire to leave on the part of so many bodes
poorly.
People who expend their energy imagining a life elsewhere are
unlikely to create anything lasting in Africa. Men and women who
dream that their descendants will tread the soil of another continent
neither plant trees nor build institutions that might outlive them.
Steinberg is with Huma at the University of Cape Town. His
new book, Little Liberia, is out
Courtesy
Ethiopia calls for reinstatement of
stolen African art
stolen African art
- Afrik News - " No
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of the possessor of
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items remain stolen
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