Taking on the mantle of the stranger in our midst

In the early 1990s I was awarded a scholarship to study overseas. I arrived in Boston in September during what the Americans call the fall season, without a doubt the best time of the year to experience the exquisite autumn colours of the gently rolling New England countryside.
And throughout my time there, all my soul yearned for was the barren, drought-stricken expanse of the Karoo where we had spent time in our family’s formative years.
It brought into sharp relief something that Dennis Brutus once told me, that there is no virtue in exile.
It is an extremely painful, debilitating experience, for whatever reason one may be exiled. It is a wrenching, soul-destroying separation from loved ones, parents and children, from the food one was raised on, from the music, dance and poetry which nourished one, from the table games which kept families close and the meanderings which expanded young minds, from the sounds in streets and veld to the smells from chimney stacks and of earth, a separation from the very land where one was birthed.
Today, I am a migrant worker in Cape Town and my tenure has enabled me to connect with refugees from Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC, who experience the pain of exile far more tangibly than I ever could.
Right now, Government and civil society are linking in a massive effort to staunch any outbreak of violence against foreigners. Compared to the outbreak of violence in 2008, there is a greater preparedness, given the experience gleaned in the past and the fact that rumours have been building up over many weeks now, an early warning system which has been heeded by the many who have taken to the road to reach their homelands.
But the majority cannot go home. And that requires a different and a longer-term response from all of us.
Too many locals believe that foreigners, especially African foreigners, are in our city because they have willingly given up their homelands. Instead, they are forced here by social, political, economic, religious, gender and other oppressions, the heartbreak of separation assuaged by the once-weekly or once-monthly call and the ability to transfer funds home, infrequent as that may be.
There is the further bizarre notion that foreigners in our country are living high on the hog at the expense of South Africans. The contrary is more likely to be the case, with a pattern of establishing and continuously affirming legality in some form, securing work and a place to stay, jockeying for acceptance as a fellow human being without being too visible to the rapists and the thugs – the ones on the street corner and at the station, as well as the ones who may employ you or get into your cab late at night. All of that happens under “normal” circumstances; in the madness of this xenophobic season, the stakes are raised beyond belief, as refugees are violated at every turn.
Ironically, apart from the thugs, the ones who are most vociferously opposed to the strangers in their midst are likely to be those who are also recent émigrés, given the history of this place as a preference area for a particular ethnic group in a former era.
And even those who can go back 100 years or more in their family histories to establish a connection with this place may need reminding of voyages from distant shores. To be sure, this settler city’s relationship with new settlers mimics experiences in the US and Australia which were settled on the back of vast influxes of refugees, yet where the fear of today’s immigrants runs exceedingly deep.
As a country, as a city and as local communities, we must move way beyond the humanitarian work which is needed now. We have to begin to accommodate – no, to welcome - the foreigners in a very conscious action. It requires that we have honest conversations around and with the strangers in our midst, who often are invisible to those of us going about our daily lives.
We all have a role in this. But I am particularly struck by how the definitive texts of all the major religions in our country – from the Christian bible, the Jewish Torah, the Muslim Qur’an, to the Hindu Upanishads - exhort us to welcome the stranger. The Jews were an exile people. Shortly after his birth, Jesus Christ was taken into exile in Egypt by his parents to escape the persecution of Herod. And the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) made humanitarian outreach to refugees a key part of his own exile in Medina.
And so faith communities have a particular role to play in starting conversations about how we relate to the exiled and refugee foreigners, the strangers in our midst, conversations that explore what it means to stand in the gap for those who may trace their roots to another country, but are effectively stateless.
In simple ways, ordinary people must and can play a role by praying, by speaking out against the criminal actions of perpetrators of violence against foreigners, by providing sanctuary and hospitality to victims, by re-committing to a society based on human rights for all, citizen and foreigner.
It means taking on the mantle of the other, understanding their plight as exiled, disadvantaged people, but also recognising and understanding their humanity, which is no different to ours.

Then they came for me

First they came for the Somalis, the Rwandans, Malawians, the DRCs, the Nigerians and the Zimbabweans; and I didn’t speak up because I was not an African.

Then they came for the Pakistanis, the Koreans, the Chinese; and I didn't speak up because I was not an Asian.

Then they came for the Arabs and the Jews; and I didn’t speak up for I was neither Arab nor Jew.

They came for the people of other religions; and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a person of another religion.

Then they came for the shopkeepers and the traders; and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a shopkeeper or a trader.

Then they came for the gay couple; and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a gay couple.

They came for the albinos; and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an albino.

Then they came for the Aids orphans and the widows; and I didn't speak up because I wasn't weak and marginalised.

Then they came for me - because I was the last stranger in their midst; and there was no one left to speak up.

Inspired by German Theologian Martin Niemoller