Mohamed wakes up early at five every morning to set up his stall on a street corner at six o’clock every morning between Monday and Friday. I usually pass him on my way to work wondering what made him come to South Africa. Was it the war in his country? Did he come here seeking a better life, or is he here because it’s easier to do business in South Africa? You can tell by looking at him that he is not South African, he has a striking resemblance of an Ethiopian, Sudanese or Somali. I wondered whether he belonged to any of the latter groups.
His hair is curly and his skin is dark, signifying generations of cultural and racial interactions between Africa and the Arab world. He is very approachable, sporting a welcoming signature smile of a street vendor trying to score some sales of a potential customer. After buying a couple of loose cigarettes and a bar of chocolate he agrees to give me five minutes of his time on this busy street corner. He comes from a province called Somaliland which is situated in Northern Somalia, a place with a rich history and culture. He doesn’t speak English very well, so my listening skills had to be sharp in order for me to get accurate information. As our interview progressed I realized that it was not about getting accurate structural information, but about understanding a culture that is totally different to mine and the different conditions that other people on continent live under.
Many men love talking about politics in general, and Somalis are no exception. Coming from a country with a deep political and religious history, Mohamed breaks down the differences in political and religious culture between South Africa and Somalia. We start off with the political climate and what drove him to come to South Africa, leaving his family and friends behind in his war torn country which was at the centre stage between the western forces and the communists during the Cold War. Somali is situated in the Horn of Africa, a region known for its many conflicts both on an interstate and intrastate level. These conflicts have been raging on for decades, resulting in famine and genocide and displacing millions of people in the process.
Mohamed talks about the conflict in his country as the main cause of making his way down to South Africa, in one of the most dangerous journeys he has ever embarked upon. They were always at risk of being shot, arrested or eaten by wild animals in their journey. In what started as a voyage of about twenty young men, only eight of them made it into the country and two of the eight died while crossing the crocodile infested Limpopo River. That was about nine years ago, and he remains thankful to Allah everyday for making it into the country, even after he was refused refugee status by the South African government because of his affiliation with a rebel movement in his home country.
“Life in South Africa is more than what I imagined while I was in Somalia.” He says, with a deep thoughtful expression on his face. He reckons we are very lucky not to have experienced a civil war during or after apartheid. “Wars in Africa are different, they are brutal, unlike the gentleman’s war of America and Europe where you die by the hand of a gun, in Somalia you can get hacked to death and have your heart cut out by the enemy while you are still alive.” I could tell by his facial expression that I had opened up old wounds that made my life experiences inferior to his. I realized that in Africa we fight different kinds of struggle; ours in South Africa was to be treated as equals and have access to the same opportunities. His struggle was about survival.
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