One of the tragedies that Zimbabweans living in places that have become extremely dangerous – that is assuming they were not dangerous all along – is living with the fear of death, while at the same time not seeing the return to the safety of your own country as a particularly welcome proposition.

It has become the story of poor working class Zimbabweans toiling in South Africa where all this xenophobic nonsense continues despite the staged euphoria of the African Union’s golden jubilee.

No wonder President Sata had unkind words for the dream of a “continental passport!”

Zimbabweans who still dream of returning home, if only they could get jobs, have become the classic example of being caught between a rock and hard place.

I read the other day a news feature which I felt had been repeated for the past 10+ years but (not) surprisingly continues to be reported even today.

It was about a woman deported from South Africa only to return the very same day.

And what she had to go through to make it back to her Johannesburg hovel is mind-blowing.

But there is no new story there, yet the pertinent issue is why this keeps happening, why young people who continue to lose colleagues to xenophobes will tell you they are not about to quit the not-so-bright lights of Jo’burg.

Why, they ask, return to the misery back home?

Yet I know some who have returned to the potholed streets of Bulawayo claiming they want to return to school after witnessing what opportunities education can open for them in South Africa.

It’s sad really, but this is a song that has played for so long it has numbed our sense of shock and shame.

This entry was posted on May 28th, 2013 at 2:36 pm by Marko Phiri and is filed under Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.