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Opinions expressed in this section are not necessarily those of GRILA. |
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Insider/Outsider: Journeying Back to South Afrika by Yolisa Dalamba (GRILA Toronto member)
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Insider/Outsider: Journeying Back to South Afrika
by Yolisa Dalamba
GRILA member (Toronto chapter)
I am and will probably forever be an insider-outsider. I was born in Africa but forfeited my "authenticity" when my parents left for a life in North America. Even though I spent most of my childhood and adult life in Canada, I have never found full acceptance as a Canadian because of my African origins. I am neither fully African or Canadian.
My parents left South Africa to escape the evils of apartheid, a sophisticated system of separate development based on racism. My parents wanted their children to have equal access so we could succeed in life because we had the ability and the desire. We were blessed to leave South Africa even though I would later retrace my steps, searching for that little Xhosa girl I'd had no choice in leaving behind.
Never will I forget my first day of primary school in Toronto in 1970. The teacher, a perky young woman, claimed me as the perfect object for "show and tell". I was made to stand in front of the class and answer questions about Africa. I might as well have jumped right out of their TV screens - yes, live and direct from a Tarzan movie!
Children asked me everything from whether I lived in a treehouse to whether I had ever eaten anyone I knew . They asked if I had brought bananas for lunch and were amazed that I could even understand them and think logically enough to answer back. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the types of attitudes I would encounter about Africa, the most aesthetically striking of continents and the most demonized and misunderstood. These stereotypes have served to justify our global displacement as African people.
Needless to say, the trauma I endured that first day has stayed with me. And the taunts - "nigger", "midget" and "pygmy" - became hateful reminders of a reality and identity that was never mine until we came to this "free" land. On that day, Canada showed me it would never accept me for who I was and, sadly, more than 30 years later not much has changed. Although Canada proudly celebrates its multiculturalism, racism continues to fester. In this Canada, the "real" Canada , any European can dismiss you with a blink while arrogantly demanding, "Go back to where you came from!"
By the time I was 12 years old, I had developed sophisticated ways of surviving and connecting to diaspora Africans. This was after spending years, many among whites, where I was keenly aware of being forced to sacrifice my identity while I either tried to become invisible or tried desperately to be one of them. At other times, I overcompensated for not being one of them, because being African just wasn't cool and I would never really belong! Instead I would have to accept my inferiority and their patronizing and belittling attitudes.
By by my early teens, I had a desperate need to be among my own African people , most of whom were African Caribbeans. In order to belong, I found I could adopt the cultural linguistic nuances of whoever I was with at any given time. I could speak with a Caribbean accent (Jamaican and Trinidadian) just as easily as I could an African American (AA) twang. This skill seemed to come naturally to me. And as I became more comfortable in my desire to reclaim and reassert my Blackness, I even perfected an African accent! Oh yes, I went that far back!
This ability to adapt in a culturalized linguistic space deeply confused me for a while. It was motivated by 1) desperately wanting and needing to belong within my own global African community, and, since Caribbean Africans are the majority here, that's what became most familiar; and, 2) discovering that, even among African Diasporans, I was still regarded as inferior because I was a continental African.
Many Caribbeans have rejected their continental African origins and seeing me reminded them of the conflict that was ablaze within them around their identity. So when I was with continental Africans, I learned to celebrate Africa and became African - or, perhaps more accurately, I reconnected the pieces of that little Xhosa girl I had been forced to abandon long before. This was a child's way of celebrating, in a safe space, an identity she had long abandoned.
It was indeed some time before I became conscious of my linguistic gift and eventually utilized it as a powerful tool that gave me access to multiple ethno-cultural spaces and experiences within the broader space of "Africanness". This ability to adapt fascinated me as I easily moved in and out of different but inherently related intra-cultural locales . People have often asked me, "Where are you from? I can't place your accent." Confidently I would reply, "I'm a global African." I didn't belong anywhere but could belong wherever I chose.
So in the end, far beyond the limited and negating attitudes of others, I saw that ability as a legacy of colonial oppression that attested to our multiple cultural identities. Somehow the spirits of those Africans in the Diaspora who didn't survive the Middle Passage lived within me and I was one of their multi-linguistic representatives as, for a moment, their voices live within and speak through my tongue. My linguistic talent became much more than a mere survival tactic or an attempt to fit in and be accepted in a cold and hostile environment. It led me to discovering the many faces of what Africa had to offer the world: a kaleidoscope of shades, cultures, languages, desires and other gifts of creation.
Moving back to Africa was a monumental turning point in my life. Going "home" to a free South Africa was a powerful attestation of belonging. The incredible feeling of not having to legitimize myself every day because I am "a minority" remains profoundly liberating. Living in a country and culture where indigenous Africans are the undeniable majority was deeply validating. When I walked down the street in Johannesburg, most people looked like me, not just because they are Black but because they are African.
That kind of familiarity is so powerful! Seeing and being among people who are culturally and ethnically similar, if not the same, strengthened my spirit, heightened my "strut" and renewed my confidence. I was home! It wasn't until I returned to Canada that I would hear those ugly words again, "Go back to where you came from!" spat in my face. But now, I can ask those hecklers when they plan to get out of my country and continent first!
What I found most grounding about being in South Africa was the realization of a past, a history and herstory that was as long and deep as the Zambezi River. When elders saw me they would immediately start recollecting fascinating stories about members of my family, either from school, work or the community. Indeed, memory is one of the most powerful symbols of history . Reclaiming those stories, memories and experiences gives me a solid foundation and helps me toward the fulfillment of my spiritual journey.
Knowing how reclaiming his/herstory affected me has often made me wonder how other children in Canada struggle to belong on a daily basis when they don't have families, familiar surroundings or those timeless histories. And how are they able to create these stories in the new world? How do they compete with those who are surrounded by their great-grandparents' legacies which help them to open doors to better careers, better quality education, more effective support systems and the knowledge of self?
The reality of my absence from "home" was immediately striking. I had lost most of my indigenous ethnic language, lost the customs and understanding of who I was and where I had come from. I had also acquired new ways of seeing and being that were different from people at "home". While I often didn't fit in, I was always aware of who I was and where I came from, no matter how far removed I was from my second home in Canada.
The most striking reminder of my not being a "real" South African came when I had to confront gender attitudes while grappling with my own identity. I firmly believe that one of South Africa's greatest obstacles is its attitude towards women, particularly indigenous Africans . Due to the legacy of apartheid, racism and violence continue to plague this deeply scarred society.
While my own people criticized me for having lost my mother tongue, that did not begin to compare to the horrors of intense racism, sexism and violence. I didn't belong when I listened to stories about men bludgeoning their spouses, the epidemic levels of child abuse (especially the girl child) and femicide. I didn't belong when women tolerated a culturalized master/servant role. I didn't belong when I listened to endless stories of rape and abuse from my female students. I didn't belong when I walked down the street trying not to draw any attention to my body because it could bring misery and death.
What haunts me most is the level of tolerance toward so much death and abuse. Indigenous South Africans have become immune to the notion of death. There is so much death that it is common to hear of people attending more than four funerals in one day much less a weekend. It is common to hear about shootings at funerals. It is common to read about African people standing in lines for days at a time while they are robbed and beaten for their pension cheques. It is common to hear about a farmer trying to poison his African workers. It is common to hear about girls being gang-raped at school and being kidnapped by local gangsters.
Being a woman in South Africa is like living with a terminal illness. Every day you wonder if it will be your turn to meet death at the hands of some patriarchist. While women struggle for equality and wait impatiently for an inattentive government to commit itself to change beyond "progressive" policy, our blood is freely flowing, we are losing our minds, and we are dying.
It is obviously not acceptable for African women to be conscious, feminist, independent or confident . The violation of women glares at you every day. Every day, African women walk untold distances carrying babies and the heaviest of loads under the glaring sunshine. Every day, women are raped and murdered by their partners. Every day, women are being infected with HIV/AIDS because of unfaithful partners and vicious rapists. Stressed and unhealthy African women force themselves to sit by the filthy polluted roadsides of inner cities with their babies to sell a few sun-beaten pieces of fruit, peanuts and "chappies" bubblegum for a pittance while inhaling gasoline fumes from passing cars and buses.
Friday nights are commonly known as the day when the "man of the house" will come home drunk after drinking away his earnings at the beerhall or local shebeen (an illegal beerhall where they often serve African home-made beer) and he may feel the urge to beat on his partner as well as their children. Millions of mothers have lived with this legacy for decades and now young girls are growing up to expect the same.
Every day in South Africa I struggled to understand why this society has become so inhumane to allow the systematic oppression, the blatant physical and mental abuse of women. There is such a lack of a strong feminist consciousness that most young African women cannot begin to articulate a sense of lasting hope - in having healthy and fulfilling future relationships, respectful and empathetic partners, and a society committed to fighting against epidemic levels of violence against its most vulnerable. So deeply scarred is this society that violence is a way of life, not an exception.
But even while I questioned, I knew the answer. Apartheid has turned everything upside down and inside out, including the people themselves. The worst part is the numbing silence when the campaigns against violence should be trumpeting just as loud as those for liberation and the anti-apartheid struggle. And these campaigns should not only be the concern of feminist and women's movements, but there should be a national movement to end violence, the declaration of a state of emergency!
For me, the impact of untenable levels of violence and violation was desperately silencing and reminded me how much of an outsider I was . Although I was lecturing at one of the country's most respected universities, I was always conscious of my race and gender and the possible repercussions of dissent. Speaking out automatically rendered me a misfit, while not speaking out contradicted everything I had the privilege of openly standing up for in Canada as an activist. While many are speaking out, there are far too few compared to the scope of this epidemic.
I had witnessed more scenes of violence than I had ever imagined possible and my spirit was terribly troubled and overwhelmed. While colonization was bad enough, apartheid has truly destroyed vital components of our humaneness. Never had I experienced such intense rage and self-hatred among a people, and yet too few critique it openly. And while we talk about violence and violence against women in North America, it is a living manifestation in South Africa. The notion of a society without such intense levels of violence and violation was familiar and comforting only to me in my solitude and those like me who had endured exile.
However, being an African in the South of the Limpopo helped to developed a new pride in me. While I do not speak much vernacular and do not fully understand many of the cultural nuances and traditions of a lived African reality, I have concluded that this lack of knowledge cannot prevent or deny my African heritage. My link is undeniable as is my link to Diaspora Africans, which has also been strengthened.
While continental Africans boast of an authenticity that binds them to the continent in unique ways, our contemporary Diaspora experiences have also exposed their desire to be "other". The prospect of becoming an African American is an ideal for many Africans, whether in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe or Latin America. That African American popular culture has become the yardstick of countless Africans - both youth and adults - because it represents self-realization and a renewed Black consciousness.
At this point in my life, I celebrate the fact that the particular space I have chosen to locate myself within is one that understands both positions, a privilege I had often realized internally but which continues to be solidified every day by having reconnected and reconciled both worlds.
I am deeply renewed by this realization because it informed and "armed" me with at least two cultural locales, which could be rigidly posited against and beside one another. Stuart Hall's thoughts on "duality" and "hybridity" often spring into my consciousness, as do those of Dubois, Gilroy and Foucault, who have deliberated at length the ideology of "double consciousness". I have been blessed with multi-texts and understandings that are influenced by Caribbean, African American, and African identities. WOW!
I have seen and lived the ugliness of being invisible in Africa and Canada . And I have found, after having returned to Canada, that the invisibility of African women in this society is nothing less than shocking ! In Canada we are not visible in the media whereas in Africa the majority is denied visibility because of its historical, economic and geographic positioning.
My experience has led me to assert the complexities of a deepening African (continental and Diaspora) feminist consciousness that celebrates not only our survival but our beauty and spirit. As our voices begin to harmonize more clearly around the call for reparations for colonization, apartheid and slavery, I am a living symbol of all those realities. In this time of border crossing, forced migration, immigration, cultural recovery and reclamation, Africans and those of African descent can indeed belong through redefining ourselves.
This opinion article was written by a independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of GRILA
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