Angry expat

Can. not. wait.

I realised that I am going to be travelling in Thailand when South Africa has its elections on the 22d of April. I am leaving tomorrow morning.

My original intention with this post was to ask any blogging and tweeting South Africans to keep me informed by making noise about what goes on during the election. I will have limited to no internet access, and this is great, as holidays are for escaping from it all. But I really am interested in the elections. And it is amazing how hard this information can be to come by on the internet, despite it being a big event.

I am not talking about who the actual President will be, because that is a foregone conclusion. But I am interested in the stats, the provincial results, the controversies, and of course your opinions. I have never voted in an election before. I want to be a part of some kind of a democratic system in some country. Maybe one day. But til then, you guys can keep me connected.

However a post on SARocks yesterday pushed me to extend this post. This subject has been weighing on my mind for months now, but I put off writing about it, because I feel that I can add nothing fresh or intelligent to the discourse, and because no one wants to hear another expat going on about it.

But if I don't write this now then it will buzz around in my head until I explode. So I apologise in advance for writing a long and tedious and badly written post that no one would actually want to read other than me. This post is for me. It is for my sanity OK? 

I have not encountered this attitude in anyone who reads my blog regularly, you all seem pretty chilled. This post is directed at the general anti-expat negativity out there in the world.

So stop reading now and have a fantastic Easter if you celebrate it, and I will be back to blog my usual nonsense in a few weeks.

And P.S. thanks so much for making me a runner up in the SA blog awards. I am aware that "runner up" in this competition means only that I did not win, and so I am one by default, but hey, it has a cool ring to it :)

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WARNING. BORING LOONG BLOGPOST. DO NOT READ. HOWZ THOSE HAMSTERS?

There is a huge "thing" about South African expats. I don't even know how to describe it. A negative vibe, a debate, a controversy? It is not quite any of these things. And yet there is so much negativity going around about expats that I feel I need to go on the defensive even though I am not entirely sure what I am defending, or why.

Whenever I read ThoughtLeader or forums or blogs on the subject of expats the same old arguments and antagonisms come up again and again. And it tires me now. I never even thought of myself as an expat until I became aware of this debate. I was just me, a spindrifting seamonkey, letting life take me where it wanted.

And now I feel defined by a word that has morphed and mutated and gained so many negatative connotations that I cannot even begin to relate to it. I have always abhorred labels of any kind. Labels that diminish potential, diminish you in the eyes of others, labels that bring only debilitating cliches and premature judgements.

We South Africans have always been excellent at dividing the world into binary oppositions. World experts in fact. If it is not black and white, then it is expat and... what? Real South Africans? Sometimes it feels that way. 

There is a lot of bad feeling about (usually white) expats in South Africa. Here are some of the reasons I have come across:

• we are whiny. We whine about our new countries and we whine about the state of South Africa.


• we are miserable and wish we were back home


• some expats actively badmouth South Africa and seem to wish harm upon the place.


• some expats are very bitter about the situation in SA and/or are racist.


• we don't move on with our lives and leave South Africa behind.

All of these accusations are true of some expats. However many of them can be applied to South Africans in South Africa too. So why is there this bad name and strong negativity directed at expats?

 Because we are a minority. The sins of the few always stick to the many with minorities. It would be ludicrous to imply that all South Africans are whiny and miserable and racist just because some are. But when it comes to expats we are all lumped together.

I often encounter the attitude that expats no longer have valid opinions about the country, that we don't count because we are not there, and our views are treated as insignificant. The fact that we may show an interest in SA and care about what happens there is seen as not moving on. It seems we are expected to forget we ever were South African, and should miraculously become something else. Unfortunately things don't always work that way.

I ask, moving on from what? How can I move on from what is within me? 

I am a South African, a woman, a climber, a scientist, an expat, but none of these things are all there is to me. I don't walk around obsessing about South Africa to everyone I meet. But I cannot move on from something that makes up my psyche.

My head is filled with my daily life: food, work, friends, family, food, boyfriend, climbing, food, books, movies. FOOD. And yes, politics too. And yes, sometimes politics in South Africa. It is hardly my sole obsession but it interests me. 

For me, taking an interest in the state of South Africa is as natural as breathing because it is where I am from, and it is the country that shaped my view of the world, that made me who I am. 

And I love South Africa, flaws and all. I still hope to move back. I fully acknowledge that I may not. I think it would be self-defeating to decide to move back at the cost of all other options or situations that arise. But if possible I want to move back some day. When/if life leads that way.

I feel that I will always be passionately interested in SA, even if I never live there again. I blame studying  Philosopshy and Literature via UNISA (both subjects have strong African components); it keeps SA closer to my thoughts than I expected. I have to write essays about things like affirmative action, ok, and I have to research these things. How can I not reflect on the socioeconomic situation, the attitudes, the prejudices and the confused attitudes that make up the country?

Why do expats from other countries not have such strong and cliched connotations attached to themselves? Why is it such an emotive subject for South Africans? This question has been flying around for ages, and I do grasp the basic psychological theories, although I am sure there is more to it than these.

Firstly, expats sometimes leave because they feel forced to, either due to crime, or an inability to get jobs, or because they are afraid of the future in what they perceive as an unstable country. They are therefore angry or bitter and go through a phase of badmouthing the country and those who choose to stay. You who stay represent expats' disappointments and frustrations.

I had a friend who, because of bad personal experiences, went through this bitter phase. And yes, it was just a phase. He got over it. He now recommends SA as a holiday destination to everyone, and he is no longer bitter. People get over it.  Expats are not all permanently bitter and twisted. Any that are do damage only to themselves.

Then of course there are the people who are still in SA who lash out at expats. They are possibly feeling insecure about their decisions and take it out on expats, because we are seen as cowardly, apathetic or whatever other pejorative terms have attached themselves to this evergrowing cliche of a word. We are your scapegoats, people. We are an easy target. We represent your own insecurities.

Stop falling for the cliche. Nothing in life is as cut and dried as we so desperately wish it was. We all have our reasons for staying or leaving. Some of us in both cases are interested in the country, some are not. 

If we are, it is not always because we cannot move on, or are sad, or whatever. Maybe we have phases where these labels are true. But they are always phases. And being interested in your home country is natural. 

I know that I achieve nothing and provide no benefit to the country by being "interested" in  or "caring" about what goes on in SA. I am not so egotistical as to think I am a better person for taking an interest. I just do and I have the right to and I am not going to defend this any more. 

I am what I am, a South African who has hybridised to England, and may rehybridise somewhere else, and who mostly grapples with being the only non-Chinese person at her workplace.

I think what I am trying to say in my laboured and confused way is that we are all stumbling about trying to make sense of life. None of use know what is going on. We all go through phases, and we all change constantly. Nothing is fixed. We are all processes. We have to work it all out in our own ways.

Don't tell us to move on, as if we can discard South Africa like a piece of litter. We will if that is something that is necessary in the process of our lives. It is not a necessity for everyone. An expat is not only expat. And don't try to simplify complex issues by dismissing them with cliches. 

I am unapolagetically South African, now and probably in the future.  That is just me. I don't claim that for all expats. So write me and my opinions off if you want, but I am not going to subdue them any more just because I feel that you feel that they don't count.