Week 5 - Some Experiences with Xenophobia

Location: Kampala, Uganda

From the moment our plane touched down in Entebbe, Ugandans have received our group with open arms. In fact, I cannot think of a single day when I have not been warmly greeted with the words, “You are Most Welcome.” I do not think that any of us could say that we have at any time felt as if we were not wanted here. As Americans, we have come to see respect and friendliness as a fundamental characteristic of Ugandans. Though my own naivety led me to expect every Ugandan to be welcoming to every “outsider”, my dealings with refugees and other non-Western in-migrants has challenged this initial belief. Though most of the refugees I have interacted with generally seem to feel accepted by their Ugandan peers, I have been shocked to learn of the hostility that they face on a daily basis.

The first time I witnessed this hostility occurred on the night of April 29. Though much of our group left the country for our short break, I decided to stick around Uganda to visit with some family friends from Ethiopia. Before I left the United States, my father emailed me the names and numbers of several people that he knew from his hometown, Debre Zeit. Like much of my own family, many of the Ethiopians residing in Kampala came during the 70s to escape the violence of Mengistu Haile Maryam’s regime. One longtime family friend was able to escape from such circumstances and now owns a successful restaurant in Kampala’s Kabalagala district and several guesthouses across the city. As I was eating a meal with her grandson, a Ugandan friend of his named Kevin got into a heated argument with a man named David over football. Rather than stick to a criticism of his sports knowledge, the Ugandan friend lashed out at David, telling him that he was a refugee that did not belong in the country and making fun of his difficulty with English. Though this may merely have been an outburst of anger and nothing more, the look in David's eyes throughout his rant suggested that he was expressing some deeply embedded attitudes.

Another example of this negative perception of refugees revealed itself to me during an interview with a 48-year-old Congolese refugee named Michael. Two years ago, as he was sleeping outside of the InterAid Uganda Urban Refugee Centre with his wife and ten children, Michael was awakened with the kick of a Ugandan police officer. As they violently beat his entire family, Michael claims that the police simultaneously assaulted them with vulgar and xenophobic remarks. After telling me this story, Michael showed me a picture that had been taken by onlooker as his family was being beaten by the police. Though he had come to Uganda because of its supposedly generous attitude toward receiving refugees, the harassment that he has received from both the police and from private citizens has caused him to fear for his own safety on a daily basis. Given that this same fear was the very reason that Michael had left the Congo in the first place, I found this very disturbing.

I find it difficult to be too critical of those Ugandans who hold hostile attitudes toward refugees. Uganda is a resource strapped country, so I can see why many of its citizens are not open to the idea of letting in more people who may overstretch those sparse resources. However, I also know that many of these prejudices are entirely unfounded and inexcusable. Most of these refugees are not receiving a single dime from the government. Most of these refugees are not receiving a single grain of rice from the government. What little assistance they do receive comes from NGOs such as InterAid and UNHCR. I firmly believe that most Ugandans are aware of this fact. However, the ones who are not seem to be making life for many refugees in Kampala miserable.

-Article covering beating of "Michael" and his family:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200808220104.html