In wake of globalization and wars, a lot of people are leaving the place they call home to new places and new experiences. They are immigrants, expatriates, refugees, settlers. They leave home for different reasons. Maybe to look for better jobs or a better future; Maybe it is to look for safety as is the case of mostly the oppressed and war refugees; Maybe it is for family reasons or maybe it is just for the heck of it, searching for new adventures in the unknown. Whatever the reason for leaving home, the traveller expects a minimum of safety in that place which will be their future abode, be it temporal or forever. It is always a challenge when you leave the known to the unknown. You don’t know who your neighbours will be; In the case where it is a whole new country, you need to learn a new culture; you might need to learn a new language as well. As an immigrant, you must and need to adapt to your new habitat.

How easy is that?

You start looking for your own, your type, the person that looks just like you. An African migrating to Europe will look for the next African around him to bond with, a European migrating to Africa or Asia will look for his own, same with the Asian or the Arab. But when an African migrates to another African country, she/he doesn’t feel a stranger, they feel at home. Africans from different countries will call themselves brothers, sisters. A Swiss migrating to Sweden does not see him/herself as a foreigner. It is a common phenomenon. You feel safe with your own image and being in a foreign place, the thing closest to your image is the person who looks the most like you. Are these persons the safest amongst the lot? What about the person that do not look like you? Basically, the point I am trying to make here is, how safe are you among your own and among the “other” in a foreign land?

Following a number of recent criminal and barbaric atrocities to humankind, being a migrant myself, I have been asking questions. How safe am I in my new home? Who is my friend, who is my enemy, who got my back? Why the hate, why the anger, why the distrust? What is with mankind?

On the night of 04.04.2015 a fire break out in a planned refugee camp in Tröglitz, a city in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. According to investigation, it is a clear case of Arson. Following long weeks of xenophobic protest by the German far-right Nationalist party NPD against the accommodation of asylum seekers in the city, racism is the suspected motive for this crime. Former mayor of Tröglitz, Markus Nierth resigned his position earlier in March following extreme right-wing animosity. He was harassed and threatened by locals and right-wing extremists, especially after he supported the building of the refugee camp. The act of arson has been condemned by many key politicians; a number of them stressing that, Germany is open to foreigners and will always protect those who come to them for protection. In such a hostile environment as Tröglitz, how safe is home from home? How safe are you from the other?

What about your own?

Last week in Houston, Texas, Nigerian Osa Alohaneke (56), was accused of killing his Cameroonian born fiancée Evelyne Ebane Epiepang (52), stabbing her to death and severely wounding her sister. Your fiancé, your partner, the person you are to trust the most, is the one who becomes the enemy. Two people, so far away from home, such tragedy. How safe is home from home, how safe are you among your “own”?

Two days ago on 14.04.2015, in a school in Hamburg, Germany, a 17-year-old pupil stabs his 17-year-old schoolmate to death. Both of them refugees, both originally from Afghanistan. Motive of the crime is unknown, the effects of the crime barbaric and shocking nonetheless. And you ask yourself, who is your friend, who is your brother, how safe is home from home, how safe are you among your “own”?

Xenophobia in South Africa. Or Afro-phobia? At least five people have been killed and many foreign-owned shops looted in the city of Durban in the past few days. South Africans setting other Africans on fire, looting their shops, accusing them of taking their jobs. Accordingly, targeted are mostly Ethiopian and Somalian refugees and Zimbabweans. It is not so long ago that the rest of Africa opened their doors to South African refugees, in the wake of Apartheid. Have we forgotten so soon? Zulu King, Goodwill Zwelithini has been accused of instigating the violence, accusations he refuses. In constitutionallyspeaking.co.za the King is quoted to have said:

“[W]e talk of people [South Africans] who do not want to listen, who do not want to work, who are thieves, child rapists and house breakers…. When foreigners look at them, they will say let us exploit the nation of idiots. As I speak you find their unsightly goods hanging all over our shops, they dirty our streets. We cannot even recognize which shop is which, there are foreigners everywhere. I know it is hard for other politicians to challenge this because they are after their votes. Please forgive me but this is my responsibility, I must talk, I cannot wait for five years to say this. As King of the Zulu Nation… I will not keep quiet when our country is led by people who have no opinion. It is time to say something. I ask our government to help us to fix our own problems, help us find our own solutions. We ask foreign nationals to pack their belongings and go back to their countries (loud cheers).”

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An African, migrating to another African country, thinking they are safe, thinking they are among their own. An Afghan befriending his fellow man far away from home, thinking he is safe, thinking he is among his own. A Syrian, running away from war, going to the “other,” seeking refuge, seeking security, seeking safety, thinking he is among friends, thinking he is protected.

And I ask again, why the hate, why the anger, why the distrust? What is with mankind? How safe is home from home? How safe am I among the other? How safe am I among my own?

Who is my Friend?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2nsINQ9a7w