There is an annual pilgrimage that many black families make over the festive season. It is the trek to emakhaya to visit the in-laws in whichever godforsaken rural enclave they may come from.
There, for the duration of your stay, umakoti (the bride) is expected to tend to the entire extended family with countless cups of tea, pots of mgqusho (samp and beans), tripe or whatever type of traditional delicacy your region boasts. Now, the general counsel passed down from generation to generation, from mothers to daughters, is to try to establish pretty early on in your courtship — or when you meet your potential hubby — where exactly home is.
This is to establish how far-flung it is, which will then give you an idea of how much hard labour will later be expected of you once you are married. For example, will you have to walk to the river to fetch water? Will there be any chopping of firewood involved? Is there electricity? Is there cellphone reception in the area?
These are all crucial nuggets of information that must be extracted from the unsuspecting potential spouse in order to determine the longevity of the relationship and whether you will be able to put up with these demands once the initial years of starry-eyed marital bliss have long faded.
A new lexicon has now entered that age-old discussion among girlfriends and mothers. It goes like this: does going to emakhaya mean you may now have to carry your passport and cross borders? This is a reference to whether your partner is a foreigner and how far you might have to travel to see the in-laws. Might you be cooking sadza in Zimbabwe or yams in Lagos? The widely held logic is that once you need travel documents to visit “home”, then you have travelled a bridge too far.
No rational argument
There seems to be no rational argument behind this.
Therein lies the rub, in my view, with what ails some South Africans and our cock-eyed views about the “otherness” we perceive about Africans from north of Beit Bridge. Even in the most educated, worldly and urbane circles you are likely to find this kind of language of exclusion, ignorance and prejudice. It doesn’t seem to be informed by anything other than a fear of something different or unknown. We entertain the most banal and backward language such as “he speaks with a strange accent”, or “he has that angular West African forehead that I don’t like”.
Better still, there is the oft-used “my boyfriend is so exotic because he is French” when the guy is actually Congolese. We seem oblivious to the fact that ascribing to him a new and seemingly more acceptable identity, such as being French, belies a self-loathing among us as Africans. The worst thing is, we don’t even realise how offensive this is.
Yes, in our plush suburban homes, we entertain the most denigrating, nonsensical ideas, but in the company of others we want to say and be seen to say politically correct things. There is a great deal of hypocrisy, which defines our relationship as Africans. We are quick to rally around superficial calls for unity when it comes to the World Cup and other major global events, but on the ground it would appear that we view each other with suspicion and disdain. The fact is, we don’t understand each other; we’ve never tried.
As a nation, we were all filled with a deep sense of shame after the deadly xenophobic attacks in 2008, but what has that shame and remorse amounted to when the same kind of violence emerges time and time again? The denialism adopted by some in government isn’t helpful. If we don’t call the thing by its name, how are we supposed to tackle it adequately and rid our society of this inexplicable hatred?
Policy-making
Policy instruments that deal with the distribution of scarce resources are certainly the most obvious way to tackle the problems giving rise to xenophobic violence. However, policy-making cannot begin to correct the warped and twisted views in people’s hearts and minds about what they think and feel about each other.
Campaigns aimed at eradicating this prejudice shouldn’t be superficial, nor should they be rolled out only when there is an upsurgae of violence — they should be concerted, frank and continuous so that the impact is long-lasting and genuine.