I’d waited in the queue for ages and when I got to the front the officer looked at me, looked at the paperwork, shook her head and pointed in the direction of another building.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Because you were not born here,’ she replied, in a dry unfriendly manner. ‘If you are not born in South Africa you apply for your ID document over there.’
I’ve lived in South Africa for forty years. I’m a citizen and as South African as they come.
But off I went to the ‘other building.’
This one was small, dark, hot and had a very long queue. Inside the people were mostly black, from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Nigeria, Zambia, Rwanda and I could go on and on but you get it. They were people from all over Africa, living in South Africa.
With legal paperwork.
With the correct documentation.
Applying, just like me, for ID books.
But because we hadn’t been born in South Africa we were separated out and made to feel different. Shown to be different. Pointed out to be different.
May I say that I immediately had feelings of Nazi Germany.
Nazi Germany feelings are not good feelings.
I chatted to the people in this line. Good people. You get to know a person when you wait in a long line together. They were all here in South Africa for one reason – a better and safer life.
It took a while but we got our ID books.
I went home. Me with my lily white skin to my lily white house in a lily white suburb where I am safe and I am not a threat and therefore not going to be targeted by anyone xenophobic.
Not yet anyway.
But I’m not sure how the black people are feeling. The ones who are called ‘foreigners’. They go home to not so lily white suburbs, to much poorer areas, to a lot of hatred and baying for blood and to people who want them gone.
Today there is an anti-immigrant march taking place.
In South Africa, the rainbow fucking nation, an ANTI IMMIGRANT MARCH.
I am so ashamed.
I’m even more ashamed that we have no counter marches. Not one teeny little pro immigrant march.
And not a single leader who seems willing to organise one.
Reading this makes me feel like crying for so many different reasons.
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sorry and I get it.
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I guess it didn’t help that I read this right after reading the Washington Post to catch up on US news.
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everyone has gone mad.
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I am exactly like you, living here as a SA with an ID book, but not born here. Now I dread having to go at some point to get the new ID card. I am putting it off as long as possible. This singling out of people never does any good. I really hope we are not at the level of Nazi Germany.
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No. But a bit Trump like.
Also what I did not mention is that people born in SA get a card. We, even though we’re citizens, get a book. Outrageous actually.
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I did not know this. How stupid! Makes no sense, as all you need is that different number in your ID code and everyone knows you weren’t born here. So much for consistency and trying to stop forgeries! sigh
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wow I dont even know what to say! the world is a horrible place right now
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going backwards everywhere
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What a dreadful experience. I lived in South Africa for 2 years back in the 1970s and on arriving at Johannesburg airport I was taken to one side by armed guards because I was holding a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine ( which unknown to me was banned in SA). I was made to feel like a criminal, my passport stamped to show that I had brought in illegal goods and was then returned to my husband under armed guard.
Fortunately the vast majority of people I met were lovely, the country is beautiful and the experience ended up as a positive one and I am so glad I went there even though it was still during apartheid. It made me value the freedoms of the UK and I have never taken them for granted since.
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i remember bring Playboy through during the apartheid years, also smuggling an ornamental PENIS through from South America and getting so scared!!!
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Shocking story and also that you have to carry a book! Needless to say I still have my id book!
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you don’t have to carry one around but if you’re over 16 you need one as ID, used in the same way as a driver’s license or passport I suppose. Not awful that you need one, but awful the way it is done.
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Yes I have the old green id book and make sure to have it whenever I go back
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So this is the crux: ‘Not awful that you need one, but awful the way it is done.’ It is not Nazism by farrrrrrrr. It is the attitudes that annoy…not yet steered toward one form of fascism or another, but the aloof arrogance.
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you’re right Switters, and a lot of it based I think (I hope) on stupidity and ignorance.
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I’m sorry, but did you just compare being made to stand in a different line with an evil empire that murdered millions of people and tried to conquer the world?
Is it possible that your feelings might be a bit unreasonable?
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I tried to create the feeling that things start slowly and badly and we don’t recognise them or do anything before it is too late.
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I love this piece and hate what you went through. This awfulness seems to be consuming the world
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and what I went through wasn’t even a big deal so imagine for people who are really targeted.
ugh.
hi.
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I know. I know.
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Seems like sign of the times. Populist, nationalism on the rise globally…
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yip. very bloody depressing.
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“…a nation where your origin didn’t matter, united with liberty for all! Wait, we tried that, and the white Protestants took the fuck over, and decided no one else mattered 😔”
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and we did it here before too and that was one monumental fuck up.
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Aside from the US It seems these anti-immigration rallys are happening everywhere. It’s a space between them and us. It’s crazy.
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a sign of the very right wing times.
i keep hoping this will maybe bring people closer together, but not too confident.
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First words that popped into my head:
Papieren Ein Bitten
….give or take the ‘n’ at the end. Sounds chilling in any language. Brrrr…
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exactly.
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Emotional earthquakes. Sometimes the Earth moves in all the wrong ways. Take care.
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Heartbreaking to think that in our “rainbow nation” we have so much intolerance for one another
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Yip.
How did we get to this point huh
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Its a rather sad state of affairs. the thing is that the culture has become that of incompetence because the people in charge are not there to lead but there to loot. its really alarming.
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