From Segregation to Integration: a History of Africa

I secretly wrote a poem for the schools Allied Arts competition (I assure you I didn't cheat and enter a high school competition - the Sixth Form category is an "Open" section as well.) And I won the category. Impressive? - not really - my competition was mostly high schoolers (I felt like an impostor at the prize giving sitting with all the cute Grade one and dignified Form Four winners - it made me reconsider ever entering again!). But I thought I would share it as, though highly personal, it is now public.

From Segregation to Integration: a History of Africa

Accounts--Permanent Residents—TEP—Students

The signs divide us deftly:

Four rows that ebb and wane

Like a tide not sure if it’s coming or going.

We shuffle forward, mute, dumb.

Mindlessly drawn closer and closer,

Packed, desperate, like cattle to be dipped:

The dirty white walls suck our humanity.

We are the same here:

Powerless.

The fate of our state in this place

In the hands that hold the stamps

that give recognition, permission,

Connection.

In the Permanent Resident line I stand behind

A Chinese man

A black woman

Two black men

What history ties them here,

Leaves them, like me, with

“ALIEN” in bold blue block-letters on their IDs?

At the front of the TEP queue

a European – (the real kind, from Europe) –

argues: “I brought it last week. They told me not to worry about the stamp.”

A black woman comes up behind me:

“I’m behind you.”

She joins the student queue.

Mr Patel is called to the front

He leaves, stamped papers in hand,

Satisfaction on his brown face.

The cheerful guard escorts a lady and her baby to the front.

Explanations to the next in line:

(slightly ironic) respect for a mother.

An American

(here long enough to ignore “No cellphone” signs

and need another stamp)

is in the TEP queue beside me.

I can feel him

Trying to make eye contact,

Stretching to touch in this sea

of wearying bureaucracy,

Looking for recognition, solidarity,

Connection.

I ignore him.

Our only connection

The colour of our skin

I’m not like him – a foreigner, different--

I’m Zimbabwean, local.

These are my people: we are the same here.

Connection with him will mark me,

Set me apart, make me different.

I avoid his eyes.

The new constitution

says I can vote now,

Apply for citizenship,

For the word ALIEN to be replaced,

For paper proof of the 27-year allegiance of my heart.

            They’re saying you’ll never survive the process.

These are not my people.

I do not belong.

We are not the same.

Leave without my stamp, I can be refused re-entry.

Just red tape/They’ll never really do it/Not even legal, they say.

But they come back every year for their recognition-giving stamp.

I make eye contact with the American. Smile.

Exchange resigned, connecting shrugs.

The truth hurts, but

We are the same.

Both asking for recognition, permission

Connection.

“Welcome to Zimbabwe, friend.

Apartheid is dead.

Segregation reigns supreme.”

Rebekah Bell

July 2013