South Africa – Shocking but not surprising

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Dallas TX May 20, 2008 3:43PM CDT
I was among the first lot of Kenyans who visited post-apartheid South Africa in the early 90s. I went down to Johannesburg to meet a business contact I had been corresponding with by letter and phone but had never met.

South Africa had just opened up, restrictions to visit the country on our Kenyan passports had just been lifted and I had a deal I had to close.

Previously, that would have meant an expensive trip to Europe or Japan. I was hearing good things about South Africa so going down there was a no-brainer. I got to Jan Smuts airport (Johannesburg International Airport OR Tambo International Airport) late in the afternoon and was greeted with suspicion even before I got through customs.

Two police officers’ were scanning passengers as they got off the skywalk and into the terminal. One of the officer’s gaze was fixed on me just as I stepped into the terminal. He leaned over to his colleague and whispered something in his ear.

The other officer looked at me and shortly after that they chuckled. I knew something was up right away. Within seconds, I was pulled away from the procession heading to customs and lead into a room and one of the officers shut the door.

They were both white, much smaller in frame than I was. I did not sense that they were rude, but the way they rummaged through my luggage told me a lot about what they thought of me. After they finished searching through my suitcase, they probed my body and told me, “You can put your things back.”

Within a few minutes, I was back on the line to customs and immigration. Everything went smoothly at the immigration booth and I think my passport was stamped for 90 days.

Jan Smuts reminded me a lot of JFK airport in New York – huge, old and functional. Like JFK, it did what it was designed for very well – move a lot of people from one place to another very quickly.

After customs and immigration, I hooked up with a Malawian man I made friends with on the plane and we decided to share a room. He knew Johannesburg well, read the bible a lot so I figured I could trust him.

We got into a taxi and ended up in a cheap hotel somewhere in Jo’burg – REALLY cheap hotel. I think my share was something like US$8.00 per day. The hotel looked dingy, but that did not bother me. I’d been to many hotels like this all over the world so I did not think much of it.

What was different was the expression of the local people. The hotel was small, I’m guessing perhaps 50-80 beds and had 3 or 4 bars. One bar was located at the main entrance and you had to wade through a bunch of drunk people to reach the stairs which was the only way to the third floor where our room was. The other bar was in a verandah at the back and the last one was on the rooftop. The drinking went on literally for 24 hours.

My business contact was a white person. He came to pick me up on the third day of my visit because he had a very busy schedule. I remember making my way through the bar to meet him at the reception and the whole bar became silent.

In fact, from that point on, there was total silence each time I entered and exited the hotel. Most of the patrons at the bars were black. I had done this almost ten times in the last two days I was been there and although I noticed strange stares, I figured black people always stared at each other no matter where in the world you were, especially if you were a stranger in their midst and so it must not be a big deal.

As we drove around the city and made my stops, I noticed that everywhere I went with my white South African friend, everyone’s gaze was stuck on me, not on him. Up until that point, I had lived in the US for a few years and the only conclusion I could come to was that the blacks in South Africa appeared really suspicious, just like the blacks in the US of people they were not familiar with. I’m obviously not talking about every black person in the US or every black person in South Africa.

I’m sure there are other more academic, nuanced explanations for this, I’m just talking about my impressions and observations.
I have been to several countries where English is not the main language and although there is always suspicion at first when interacting with a local, I’m almost always able to break the ice.

There was a black cashier working in a convenience store across the street from my hotel who was very pleasant to me and greeted me with a huge smile every time I walked in to get a snack. She wanted to show me South Africa. She taught me a few phrases in Zulu. We became friends. She wondered what Kenya was like. She seemed quite different from everyone else I met.

I met another South African through an acquaintance in Kenya and he was very nice to me. He worked 10-12 hours in a factory but he made time to show me around a couple of times. In the US, I have very good black friends who do not portray this stereotypical persona at all.

Apart from these encounters, everyone else I met during my visit treated me either with suspicion or curiosity. I remember stares in the streets but when I caught someone looking, they would quickly turn their face around or look into the ground.

My Malawian roommate suggested that I may have been stopped at the airport because I looked like a former ANC militant coming back to cause trouble – tall, muscular, military-style crop.

Apparently this did not cut it with the normal person on the street. There must have been some other identifier that told them I was not a local. When my white contact took me to his office, the only people who came to talk to me were white South Africans, Australians, British and other foreigners. We talked about rugby, wildlife, the world economy and even had tea.

The guys in the office were really amazed that a young Kenyan man was making this much headway into South Africa looking for business and remarked that perhaps this was a sign of good things to come.
I was not able to strike a single conversation with a black South African. They said “Hi” because their boss asked them to and moved on.

I left South Africa, returned to Kenya briefly and then headed back to the US which was my base. My white friend told me to make sure to call him ahead of time before my next visit and he would put me up in a much better location because the part of town my hotel was located was a little dangerous for foreigners.

He repeated this very emphatically on the last day of my visit as he drove me back to the airport.
I remember recounting to some friends in the US what I thought of black South African men and one of my friends chewed me right off the bat.

He said that just because I was in South Africa for two weeks did not give me a justification and moral authority to make such a prejudiced comment because I did not know what those people had gone through and our black “brothers” deserved a little more respect than that.

I tried to tell him that this was my experience, prejudiced or not but he would buy it. I did not comment further nor had the desire to engage him further. That conversation ended very abruptly.

Of all of my friends I knew that he was the one african politico in my circle whom I thought had the capacity to understand this sentiment, boy was I wrong. You know who you are. If you happen to read this (we are still buddies, we just saw this situation differently ), I wonder what you think about what I said back then within the context of what is happening in South Africa today.

Some people in South Africa are arguing that the attacks on foreigners are justified because foreigners are taking over a lot of opportunities and jobs that should go to to the local people.

Others are saying that it is purely xenophobia and any excuse is fair game to justify their actions. I think that both economics brought on by failed leadership and xenophobia play a part in this situation and either one could be a driver or motivator for the other depending on the circumstances.

More news on the violence in South Africa:

Violence in Gauteng

Xenophobia deflects government failures

Kenyan targeted in South African violence

UPDATE: May 20, 2008 4:01PM CDT: First reports are coming in that Kenyans are now also being targeted in South Africa
UPDATE: May 21, 2008 11:01PM CDT: Kenyans’ property torched in SA attacks
UPDATE: May 22, 2008 07:14AM CDT: – Africans burning, stoning and killing Africans – Warning- this is very graphic
UPDATE: May 22, 2008 10:29AM CDT: – Nairobi Chronicle commentary on South Africa
UPDATE: May 23, 2008 11:22AM CDT: – Attacks spreading to Capetown, army called in – Bloomberg
UPDATE: May 23, 2008 11:23AM CDT: – Kenya orders evacuation of SA xenophobic attack victims

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