AmaBlacks!!! Chant Down Xenophobia

I wrote this note seven years ago. Seven years later…we’re still here - the more things change, the more they stay the same. I’m one of the people who are asking what our leaders and government have done since 2008 to address the hatred for black Africans that culminates in violence.

But what have AY done besides add to the future problem by giving birth to a South African child? Future problem because I see my child, 20years from today, somewhere in Mozambique or Ethiopia where he will be exploring and probably living his dream after working hard in school and community, having to deal with the raw anger of his peer who grew up without a father because he was burnt to death in South Africa, by South Africans…

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Even though the day marked Africa day 2008 celebrations in South Africa, if you had ever asked me what I would be doing on Saturday May 24th 2008, being in a rally,(in Jozi even) would have been the last thing on my mind (if it had to ever cross my mind at all). But there I was in central Jo’burg, eHillbrow, thee notorious Hillbrow.

There I was, in the very first row of over three thousand people of all races, nationalities, ages, shapes and sizes…marching, toyi-toying, chanting, singing, protesting, freeing my voice…making my voice heard! Who would have thought? I mean who would have thought in this day and age, long after the holocaust, long after the death of apartheid in South Africa, I Philile Masango, daughter of Margaret and the late S.V. Masango would be marching for “freedom” from racial and ethnic segregation? Fighting in South Africa nogal?

But it had happened; the so-called xenophobic attacks had spread through-out South Africa like a wild fire. Africans were killing each other like flies…once again. This time though, it was hitting too close to home…too close for comfort. Somebody had to say something, do something…

So there I was, up and about by 07h30 on Saturday morning 24th May 2008-on the eve of Africa day- a day when I should be celebrating my heritage as an African child, an African woman, and African wife.

To be precise, at that time I was in the stationery shop at Campus Square in Auckland Park getting my banners enlarged and printed. “Fokof Kaffir, Fokof Kwerekwere/ Racism=Xenophobia” read one of them. Another with the map of Africa circled by a barbed wire, read “Love sees no borders”. It wasn’t all I wanted to say. It wasn’t all I wished I could say. But it was something. It would make a statement.

After my banners were done I drove to Louis Botha Avenue to pick up my close friend and classmate Michael Tsingo- a Zimbabwean national. Actually he’s the one who had made me so much more aware of the magnitude of the attacks. Earlier that week he had sent me an SMS saying he’s feeling down. So I asked why? And he replied “how can one be fine when his fellow countrymen are being murdered?”

That’s when I became aware of how much I had ignored the attacks because, as I thought, “they are just attacking foreigners in the townships”. I had forgotten that some of those foreigners are my friends. Wait a minute; maybe I had even forgotten that I too, was a foreigner in this “rainbow nation”.

Anyway fast forward to the march in Hillbrow. Thousands of people had turned up, activists of all sorts who know discrimination all too well-Gay and Lesbian activists, HIV and Aids activists, human rights activists, Inter-racial couples and celebrities. But those who touched my heart the most, were people who brought their whole families.

On a cold winter morning, Blacks, Indians and Whites all came with their toddlers and even babies, to protest against the brutal and gruesome xenophobic attacks. What became clear to me, as I watched them prepare to march, was that all these people, as much as I have classified them as white, gay, lesbian etc, all they wanted, all they’d probably ever want, is to be classified firstly as human. And that was the statement we were all making when we participated in the march.

"Senzeni? What shall we do?” Oliver Mtukudzi’s song played in the background as we marched through Hillbrow. As we marched, people came onto their balconies and yards to watch. Some applauded and thanked us for embarking on the march.

But some were not so encouraging. As we passed a block of flats, I saw a group of women giving us zap signs and shouting “fokof, hambani nibuyele kini vele makwekere” (Fuck-off all you foreigners, return to your home countries). These were women of my mother’s age and it pained me that they would feel this way about their fellow African brothers and sisters. “Nitjontja imisebenzi yethu”(You’re stealing our jobs) they shouted.

Now that statement right there, hit me in the heart. No one has said it straight in my face, but I’ve always been made to feel like that whilst working in Mzansi. I’m sure many Swazi’s making a living in Jozi would relate.

In fact that very statement reminded me of an evening at work (SABC) that week, just before I went on air to present the programme Business Review. This show comes after the news, which the studio crew and I watch whilst we’re waiting for me to go on air. On that particular day the xenophobic attacks were obviously making headlines. And while we were watching that clip on the xenophobic attacks, one of the guys, Bra Georgie shouted “hhayi mabahame vele, iSouth Africa eyethu, sebafuna igavament yethu ibhekelele bona, hhayi suka!” (Indeed, they must all go, now they want our government to take care of them…no ways!)

Now, this is the same Bra Georgie, two generations older than me, who muses with me, almost on a daily basis about his days of studying 'eTopher' (St. Christopher’s high school), and gallivanting at the famous “Why Not” during his stay in Swaziland, back in the day when black South Africans were trying to liberate themselves from the racist Apartheid rule. Today it seemed he had forgotten all of that as his fellow crew members cheered him on “Vele mabahambe” (You’re right Bra Georgie, they must go).

I decided not to engage them in their silly talk. As I sat there, listening to them, about five minutes to air, I wondered if they at least remembered that I AM A FOREIGNER like those makwerekweres (foreigners) they so desperately wanted to see being removed from their beloved South Africa.

Eventually, just about a minute before I went on air, I snapped! I told them (my tone and emotions weren’t exactly a bunch of cheers) that “You guys are just jealous, ngoba sifundzile (because we are educated) and we come to South Africa knowing exactly what we want to do with our lives and how to do it, look at you now waiting on a foreigner like me to be the star of the show….”. By the time I finished saying what I had to say, it was 10 seconds to air and everybody had to be silent. And then there was silence. Talk about perfect timing…or maybe ‘twas perhaps yet another kwerekwere knowing what to do and how, in foreign territory.

Let’s go back to the march of May 24th 2008. As we continued our “long walk to freedom” into the Jozi CBD, we passed the Methodist Church which houses many foreign nationals who’ve just come into South Africa. Many of those who seek refuge here are Zimbabweans, mostly women and children. At that point I felt deeply emotional and somewhat hopeless and defeated.

On that particular day, all I saw penetrating through the windows of that double-storey building which was packed to the rafters, were lost, numb and terrified faces, and in front of them, their tired hands waving at us, re-assuring us that we are fighting a good fight for them.

And just then, I could see the pain in my Zimbabwean friend Michael’s face, who at that point whispered in my ear “we seem to fit in a place that doesn’t even want us”. I didn’t give him a response. I had no reply, and yet I understood quite well what he meant…. I was them. But at least I fit somehow, because at that moment I had the liberty of walking down the streets of Jozi in protest. I had the liberty of walking down the SABC and Wits University corridors during the day, but they didn’t. They seemed as trapped as they must have felt when they made the decision to flee their native lands.

A brief pause was made by the marchers at the church with the organisers giving a short message of hope and prayer to those many bruised and hurting spirits appearing behind the windows. Behind those windows, they did not speak, just kept on waving. That’s when I realised that as much as I felt defeated, they didn’t feel that way. In fact at that moment I saw in their eyes, penetrating through those thick, sound-proof-looking church windows that they had the brightest glimmers of hope, and it was that hope that reached our hearts.

Yes, they had revived our spirits…because as we did our final stretch of the march, we did not walk. No! we did not march. We skipped in rhythm; some ran…as if possessed, as we chanted down xenophobia, racism sexism and all forms of discrimination.

We danced for all to see that the Lumumba’s and Biko’s may have been killed but the spirit of our Africaness, which has for generations been skinned-alive, battered and blistered, has never died nor been defeated and it would certainly not die now.

Yes, I believe as we ran for the final destination of the march that the final speeches made at the end of our protest action were just a formality because we had all gotten the message, as Black, White, Indian, Coloured and Gay as we were, we had once again revoked in us the lesson that we are all interconnected and exist because the other exists.

Yes, as we wrapped up with the speeches, we believed that those who had seen our protest had revoked in them, that same life lesson. Love sees no borders. And all the world needs is love.