Protesters hold a banner during a rally against ill-treatment of refugees. Time magazine reported recently: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a promise to all Syrian refugees: if you manage to physically reach Germany, you can apply for asylum. File picture: Patrick Domingo Protesters hold a banner during a rally against ill-treatment of refugees. Time magazine reported recently: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a promise to all Syrian refugees: if you manage to physically reach Germany, you can apply for asylum. File picture: Patrick Domingo
Two monumental events affecting SA hundreds of years ago are very similar to what is unfolding today, says Murray Williams.
Cape Town - As the “migrant/refugee crisis” continued to boil in Europe, especially around the upheavals in Syria, I came across two texts: “Their numbers peaked near an estimated two million. As they gained influence and more openly displayed their faith, hostility against them grew. A series of religious conflicts followed, causing their political and military privileges to be abolished, increased persecution, and the abolition of all legal recognition of their religion, forcing them to convert.
“While nearly three-quarters eventually were killed, roughly 500 000 fled.”
The second text explains: “The militaristic king’s forces caused a wave of warfare and disruption to sweep to other peoples. The movement of people caused many tribes to try to dominate those in new territories, leading to widespread warfare; consolidation of other groups.
“During his reign, he ordered widespread killings and devastation to remove all opposition and he reorganised the territory to establish the new order. The death toll has never been satisfactorily determined, but the whole region became nearly depopulated. Normal estimates for the death toll range from one million to two million.”
Both are descriptions of terrible human displacement and suffering at huge scale. But as the astute reader would have guessed, neither are about Syria. Neither even describe events this century, or the last.
Both are slightly edited descriptions of two “crises” several hundred years ago, affecting South Africa.
The first describes the suffering of the French Huguenots, the Protestants who were inspired by John Calvin, in the 1530s, and whose faith was outlawed when Louis XIV repealed the Edict of Nantes in 1685 – creating a generation of hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing across the world.
And the second was the Mfecane, also known by the Sesotho name “Difaqane”, meaning scattering, forced dispersal or forced migration, a period of widespread chaos and warfare among ethnic communities in southern Africa, 1815 to 1840.
How similar these monumental historic events are to what is unfolding today. Not only in Syria and Europe, but across the globe.
The crisis has come to be reflected, in many people’s minds, by the single image of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old lying face-down on a Turkish beach.
One immediate effect of this public empathy is a reminder of how superficial the language of “difference” is.
Since the origin of man – whether you believe that was seven million years ago, or 6 000 years ago, created over “seven days” – it seems clear: We are all refugees, from somewhere, once upon a time. We are all one race. We are all human. Perhaps we should act like it.
* Murray Williams’ column ’Shooting from the Lip’ appears in the Cape Argus every Monday.
Cape Argus