Going by her word, Franca Plange presents her November installment of the Diaries of an evolved Black woman which has for the past few months been brought to you exclusively on www.nydjlive.com.
This time, the young lady refers to a book she has read which I know rings a bell in your mind Sizwe Bansi Is Dead.
Get a glass of juice as you follow her thoughts.
I read a book in Senior High School titled Sizwe Bansi Is Dead. It is a book by South African author Athol Fugard which was written about the experiences of black South Africans in the country in the era of Apartheid.
At that time it was required that every black and colored citizen over the age of sixteen carried an identity book that restricted employment and travel within the country. This identity book was also known as a “passbook”.
As the story unfolds, we get to see the journey of the protagonist “Sizwe Bansi”, who struggles to get a permit to live and work in Port Elizabeth away from his hometown, “King Williams” town.
We are gradually taken through his experiences to find out how he eventually had to exchange his ID card with that of a dead man so he could continue to live and work in Port Elizabeth, under the dead man’s name “Robert Zwelinzima” and his National Identification Number (which he struggled to memorize). So Sizwe Bansi died so he could live again.
I fell in love with this book after reading it; so much so that when I had to study it again in the university I was completely intrigued. Not only because of the high humor content by the individual characters, but how in a deeper sense the issues raised in the book are so relevant in modern times; considering how long ago the book was written.
This scenario of Sizwe exchanging his name with that of the dead man’s, and taking on all the dead man’s details including his single status is very familiar in recent times. So that it was necessary for him to even remarry his own wife just so she can also change her name to “Mrs. Zwelinzima”.
This very scenario brings to mind the many immigrants from Africa living illegally abroad under ghost names and in fake marriages just to gradually graduate from illegal citizens to legal ones.
In the early days of July this year, news broke out about a Ghanaian woman and her “supposed” husband living in the UK who had been found guilty of several counts of defrauding tax payers and fake identify over a period of eight years.
You can find the full story online but in a summary, she had taken on the name and full details of a dead Ghanaian woman who had legal permit to live in the UK. She did so through the help a man called “Boateng” who also posed as her fake husband; and for eight years lived together both under fake identities and in a fake marriage. They were sentenced to a few months in prison after which they are to be deported back home.
When I first came across this news, the story of Sizwe Bansi first came to mind. There are many of such stories all over Africa. People save so much money and end up giving them to so called “Visa contractors” who more often than not dupe these Western hopefuls.
One cannot even count the number of African youth who year in year out leave their university degrees and families behind at home in the hopes of living in the western world, amidst the cold and various forms of racial discriminations.
Married men leave their wives and children in search of greener pastures but always end up marrying white people in order to gain legal permit to stay there. Africans in our usual religious hypocrisy even have the guts to go to churches to seek for God’s favor in Visa acquisition when they are actually going under fake identities.
This norm has become so frequent that it almost seems normal now to travel outside the country under a fake identity. It ranges from either posing as someone’s child, spouse, sibling or even attending international conferences which can last for a whole year.
Ama Darko in her novel “Beyond the Horizon” also talks about “Mara”, a girl whose husband travels outside the country in search of greener pastures and promises to make her join him immediately he settles down.
After waiting for years, Mara joins her husband only to find out he was married to a white woman, and the irony of the issue is that Mara is introduced to the white woman as her husband’s sister. So she lives in their house, witnesses her husband making “sweet” love to his white wife whiles she plays his sister and their house help.
This is not even the worse of it; in order to earn extra income; her husband introduces her to prostitution and encourages her to also get married to a white man so she could also get a legal permit.
I am not in any case suggesting that immigration is bad, but why would I want to leave my homeland to live illegally in a land where my very complexion is a crime on its own. Live under so many insecurities and the fear and possibility of being arrested at any time at the least suspicious act.
So many “Sizwes” are still willingly dying; burying their names, families and their very lives with “Robert Zwelinzima’s” corpse.
Immigration is a good thing, because I believe in the fact that we all need that exposure to broaden our thinking base whiles interacting with people from different backgrounds. However, if it has to be under the circumstance where I cannot actually enjoy freedom of movement and the very essence of living a fulfilled life, then I must as well forget about ever leaving my country.
As such, until I get that invitation by a legal immigrant to come and visit, that schooling opportunity I am so much hoping for, the casting audition by Leila Djansi or better still, that interview BBC is yet to grant me… lol!; I guess I am going to continue with my national service in my country, in my reserved seat beside the “mate” in the “trotro”, under my favorite coconut seller’s umbrella in Osu and constantly pray for the month to end quickly for my service allowance so I can buy the next novel I want to read and think of the next topic I want to write on!
