Friday, September 08, 2006
Cape Argus
Rashid came to South Africa with a group of fellow Somalis in 1991 when the former dictator Siad Barre was ousted from the capital Mogadishu, ending 22 years of dictatorial rule. Despotism was replaced by the tyranny of warlords, the burden of which collapsed the state apparatus, leaving citizens vulnerable and all but hopeless.
Somalis who leave in the hope of a better life elsewhere have no diplomatic representation to call on.
There is no national currency and no passports are issued or recognised. Somalis abroad live, instead, by their acumen and their hope.
“We came here when South Africa gained independence,” Rashid recalls. “We thought we’d be safe here. Some of us came by ship, others by road, some jumped the border. Some interrupted their studies to start a new life here.”
Increasingly, though, Somalis feel under threat.
“What will happen tomorrow?” Rashid asks.
Following Tuesday’s meeting, it was established that there is no certainty about the number of Somalis killed but that numbers may have been exaggerated. Rashid, however, feels aggrieved that, as far as he knows, “not one case has been … brought to court”.
And, as he sees it, the message South Africans are getting is “if you kill a Somali, you won’t get punished”.
While exact figures of how many Somalis live in Cape Town or the province are hard to come by, figures released by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees indicate that, in 2004, there were 7 118 Somali refugees in South Africa and 3 893 asylum-seekers.
Tal Schreie of the UCT Law Clinic says it should take five to six years at the very most for an asylum-seeker to be recognised as a refugee.
But because of the huge backlog of cases, the Home Affairs department has been taking much longer.
The backlog, Schreie says, is running at 110 000 cases nationally – 22 000 in Cape Town alone. Some cases date back to 1998.
Despite the challenges Somalis face, however, they have proved remarkably resourceful and are acknowledged as skillful entrepreneurs who end up employing South Africans in their businesses. In refugee circles, this is perceived as one of the main probable reasons for hostility towards them.
Ali Rashid laments the fact that “most South Africans don’t want to learn about Somalia. That makes it difficult for us to interact.
“We do have some South African friends, but most people are not interested in our culture or our country.”
Somalis have had to try to assimilate. “I find I’ve been eating a lot of gatsbys since coming to South Africa,” he grins, adding: “What I like doing after work is getting together at the Company’s Garden with friends.”
Somalis gather at a city restaurant which has become a regular meeting place where news is exchanged and traditional Somali dishes served.
They make a living selling clothes, cigarettes and groceries or working as taxi drivers. In most cases, they say, they employ between three and nine South Africans.
If South Africans have been mostly tolerant so far, the past few months have been hard for Somalis like Ali Rashid to bear.
What is harder for him to accept is that, after living in Cape Town for seven years, “now all of a sudden I am told that I should be careful. I am being told that ‘you people, we’re going to kill you’.”
He adds: “We came to be safe and now we are targets.”
For the time being, Somalis are standing together, collaborating on a document on their plight which they intend to submit to the Minister of Safety and Security and forward to the United Nations.
Source: Argus Times, Sept 8, 2006
