kwere kwere / journeys into strangeness

A multimedia exhibition on the history of migration and identity in South Africa

Curator: Rory Bester

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I am very pleased to open this exhibition and would like to congratulate the curator and organiser, Rory Bester, and thank him for inviting me to open it. As Coordinator of the Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign, I deal with these issues on a daily basis and have always felt that there is a strong connection between hardcore political, social and economic realities and their cultural expression. Culture has been repeatedly used by the Campaign in our public awareness and advocacy work. We hope that this exhibition in some way inspires each and every one of you to think of ways in which you can play a role.

Tonight we have all been invited to embark on trip, a pilgrimage, an adventure. Some of us will find a place of discomfort and others a place of refuge. The exhibition takes us back in time. It touches on today and provides a looking glass to events of the future. Some of us will be disturbed, others inspired, others left confused. For a journey into strangeness is a journey into the unknown and the unfamiliar.  

Migration is about new beginnings and for the person travelling, is accompanied by both hope and trepidation. Crossing borders into strange lands influences not only the migrant’s identity, but also that of the host nation. In South Africa, a worrying response to the newcomers is that of discrimination that often leads to violence.

Kwere Kwere, amagringamba, illegal aliens are all derogatory terms that South Africans invoke when speaking negatively of foreigners in our midst. Xenophobia is the deep antipathy to foreigners and foreign things. An unnatural and irrational fear of the foreign and as it is irrational, there can be no address to xenophobia without profound implications for self-definition and identity.

Xenophobia is about borders. Borders of inclusion and exclusion and to draw these boundaries requires a degree of power. The cultural sphere is a powerful one. It can play a role in reinforcing oppressive cultural codes and norms and thus perpetuating exclusion.

We know from the Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign that culture can also be used as a tool for social justice and transformation.  Culture in any form, be it images, dance, music, theatre has the ability to communicate in ways that transcend language, religion, gender, nationality. The Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign constantly uses art, photography, drama and music in our work in youth, with media practitioners, government officials etc.

Dealing with complex societal issues can often best be interrogated through cultural means and this is what the Kwere Kwere exhibition contributes to. Culture does not operate in a vacuum. It both reflects and influences society. As a well known South African photographer Peter McKenzie who has run numerous photography workshops for the Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign, commented, “photography is the two dimensional representation of a three dimensional situation”.

Zola Maseko, producer of ‘The Foreigner’, a groundbreaking film dealing with xenophobia in South Africa, was recently asked whether the incident reflected in his film, was based on actual incidents. His response was that it is a case of life imitating art. The film, ‘The Foreigner’, which is a part of the exhibition, has been a valuable resource for the Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign.

At a workshop with teachers, a participant asked whether it was credible to view these issues through the eyes of a street child. It reminded me of a few years ago when I was working with street children in Pretoria. A woman from Laudium would cook the most delicious briyani’s for the children. One young boy, despite not having eaten in two days, would not touch the briyani fearing that he would be bewitched if he did.

This incident (and this exhibition) reminds us that xenophobia is not only about the fear and hatred of foreigners, but it is also about the difficulties of co-existing with people of our own country. This has manifested itself not only in racial divisions but also with ethnic xenophobia that was highlighted by a participant at one of the Campaign’s media workshops. He said that, – “as a Zulu national, my parents have always been at odds with Xhosa, Sotho, Shangane and Batshwana speaking people.”

This ties in with the campaign's growing realisation that xenophobia expresses itself in post-apartheid South Africa largely because South African communities lacked contact and are ignorant about the history of Africa. It is this ignorance, coupled with competition for scarce basic resources, which leads to fear, mistrust and suspicion.

When we look at developing more informed images of Africa, an important question that all in the cultural domain are confronted with is that of representation. The questions that emerge are not only what is being represented but who is doing the representation, who is looking, and does it conform to how those who are being represented see themselves?

These questions have been key in informing how the Campaign uses culture for advocacy purposes.  To address this, the Campaign has fostered close partnerships with migrant communities and the refugee community in particular. Part of this exhibition is work done through the Campaign and is entitled, “Soutra: Images of Refuge”.

The Soutra photography project is a project of self-representation and entailed training refugees in photographic skills. The photographs are of refugees and taken by refugees. This project was developed further through the Voices of Refuge Project that entailed training refugees to produce radio documentaries. Both of these successful projects are now expanding to other areas in the country. Projects of this nature allow us as the listener or audience to be informed and engage through unmediated communication.

This raises issues of empowerment and access. With the majority of South Africans and migrants without the resources or skills to ensure self-representation, the same questions arise around who is representing? And what is being represented.

South Africa, understandably, is in the process of constructing a national identity out of a violent and fractured past and parallel to this construction, is the vision of our President’s African Renaissance ideal. Multiple processes, nation-building, Africa-building and globalisation, operate simultaneously; but are producing tensions and contradictions on the ground. The debate for those involved in culture is where it locates itself in these processes of re-identification and reconstruction.

This exhibition is an effort to take this process forward. It encourages self-reflection and provides an opportunity to add texture to the new canvass. Through images of exhausted commuters trying to cope with harsh borders of apartheid, to a South African women’s love for a Senegalese man; a human face begins to replace the bland statistics, static maps, and satellite created human ants. It poses the possibility for reassessing vaccination marks and beginning to heal some of the old wounds.

In conclusion, I quote the words of a refugee from Somalia, which may be nostalgic and idealistic, but it is at the level of culture that we construct new notions of the ideal…

“Once upon a time humanity used to roam the planet unhindered. There were no borders to prevent him from making contact with other cultures. The only obstacles were flooded rivers. Until colonialism and racism came, humanity did not have any fears in making contact with people of other cultures. Then borders were drawn and racism became the human quality. I expect civilization where humanity will not see each other in terms of which country they come from.”

I would like to praise the Gertrude Posel Gallery for hosting this exhibition and for what is a growing commitment to dealing with these issues. The recently formed Wits Forced Migration Programme, one of the few programmes of this nature in the world, will further enhance our knowledge and understanding of the complex dynamics that are associated with migration. We hope to see many more initiatives like this in the future.