|
Sunday Independent - column for Sunday Despatches 26th November Whether to migrate, or not to migrate.
For some that is the corrosive, seemingly unending question.
"Do it." I advise them firmly. "Or don't do it."
But some just hang about in limbo, getting ready to flee. Or getting ready to really settle down - until unsettling news happens, and they think about fleeing again.
Take my friends the Mpheles, a stable, highly educated couple whose talents would be welcome in almost any country in the world. They paid me a fleeting visit the other day to tell me they were thinking of emigrating.
"Do it!" I said. "Do it. But do it only in the firm, clear knowledge of your reasons for breaking up your present home, and exchanging your present life-style for an unknown future."
So Zeke and Miriam Mphele sat down with us to examine the known present. They quickly reeled off their reasons for wishing to "relocate", as the Americans euphemistically call it.
"There's so much crime," complained Miriam. "You think you have it bad in this place, but in our neighbourhood it's often worse. Half the people in our area seem to have had a personal experience with violence. Each time I pick up our local paper and read about the crime and mayhem, I go cold."
"That's mainly because of unemployment," I prompted her.
"Maybe", said Zeke, "but unemployment is just another reason for wanting to emigrate. It seems that unemployment will never end, especially when people keep drifting into our area in search of jobs. But ours is a motor industry town, and overseas competitors are moving in, and undercutting the city's economy. Out-of-work is a constant state - therefore crime and violence will just continue. In any case, it seems that, these days, many of our young don't want to work. They seem to think the world owes them a living. They just take - and who are we to argue with a handgun?"
"Those are pretty familiar reasons for wanting to cut and run - I mean relocate," I said. But there need to be more compelling pressures than the obvious ones you've named."
"It's the racism," said Miriam, to my surprise. "We just can't seem to get away from the racism that suffuses everything we do. It's supposed to be legislated against. Its supposed to dwindle and disappear. Instead it seems to be getting worse. "Yes," agreed Zeke, ""And you can't trust the police to protect you. Despite all the blacks now in the Force, it seems they still can't root out its traditional racism," said Miriam.
This was definitely a new perspective for me, coming from the Mpheles.
"Any other reasons for wanting to change countries, so irrevocably?" I probed.
"Well, you've seen recently how our Government often doesn't work. It's a joke. And the civil servants - and everyone else for that matter - live by 'the gimme's' when they're not living on their wits. Even the Post Office is slowing down, and simply letting private technology take over. Values are deteriorating. We worry for our children."
I pounced: "So it's concern for your children that is the basic cause for your fears?"
"Yes!" said Miriam. "Schools are being vandalised. Drugs are everywhere! Standards are deteriorating. There's little discipline."
And you feel that just by running. . . er. . . relocating, you can solve all these problems?"
"No. But what we are lacking is hope. There needs to be hope for a better life for all of us - including those unemployed youths we were talking about," said Zeke.
"And, where you live, you see no hope? Surely there is hope?" I badgered them.
Zeke sighed. "You go on, and on. There is always hope. It is relative. But, while there are lots of political speeches, lots of promises, nothing seems to change.
"Do it!" I cried. "Come back to the land of your birth. Come back and be our neighbours in Johannesburg. I never did like that house of yours in Detroit anyway."
My present neighbour, whom I had invited to listen to our debate, was stunned.
"Mr Mphele. All those reasons you have given for wanting to leave America to come to South Africa, are the same as mine for emigrating to the United States.
What's the difference, man? Surely its not the colour of our skins?"
Zeke looked at him for a long time. "Absolutely not Mr Jones. We are both South Africans - except that you want to leave home, and I want to come back. "One difference, I think, is that there is not much hope of change in American cities - though here there is too much hope. But the real difference is that in South Africa there are real prospects for forging a new nation - and really exciting opportunties. There is room to breathe, to expand here."
"Mr and Mrs Mphele. Come over to my place, and we'll drink to that. Perhaps you'll want to buy my house - if you don't get mugged on the pavement outside." |
