Skilled young black SA'ns flock into UK
Mar. 19th, 2007 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nairiporter Kwaito nights a sign of changing times
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=24&art_id=vn20070318103625410C506609
By Alexis Flynn
London - Quarter to eight at Heathrow Airport and every morning the scene is the same: a line of recently disgorged passengers snakes around the sterile lounge of passport control.
At that time of day, most are arrivals from Johannesburg and Cape Town - 300 000 South Africans make the trip every year.
Today's queues differ from the queues that became an early morning feature at Heathrow soon after the elections in 1994 in one major respect - they include an ever increasing number of black faces. Where not so long ago the South African abroad was likely to be white and middle-aged, a new generation has emerged - young, skilled and black.
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=24&art_id=vn20070318103625410C506609
By Alexis Flynn
London - Quarter to eight at Heathrow Airport and every morning the scene is the same: a line of recently disgorged passengers snakes around the sterile lounge of passport control.
At that time of day, most are arrivals from Johannesburg and Cape Town - 300 000 South Africans make the trip every year.
Today's queues differ from the queues that became an early morning feature at Heathrow soon after the elections in 1994 in one major respect - they include an ever increasing number of black faces. Where not so long ago the South African abroad was likely to be white and middle-aged, a new generation has emerged - young, skilled and black.
Partly due to the country's burgeoning middle class, black South Africans now count for a third of short-term migrants.
British Home Office records distinguish new arrivals on the basis of nationality only, not race, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it is only a matter of time before there is a 50/50 split between black and white South Africans in London.
"It has certainly been noticeable over a 10-year period. Initially, many black South Africans moving to the UK had done so to study or as nurses on work permits," says a source at the South African high commission
"What we see now are more tertiary graduates and high-school leavers on two-year working holiday visas. They are working in a range of sectors, too: in education, finance, medicine - and, of course, the ones fresh from matric who take the low-skilled jobs."
While English-speaking whites have set up camp in the leafy suburban enclaves of Wimbledon and Southfields in south-west London, black (and Afrikaans) South Africans seem to prefer the more urban but vibey reaches of Stratford, Lewisham and Walthamstow in the east.
A host of kwaito nights have sprung up at clubs around the city, with one particular DJ's monthly show at a West End bar attracting homesick South Africans from as far afield as Glasgow.
The critically acclaimed play Generations finished a successful run at the Young Vic theatre last week, with a cast boasting several young South African vocalists led by Pinise Saul, the gospel chorister.
Other performers include Njabulo Madlala, a South African baritone who recently sang in the Covent Garden Royal Opera House production Bird Of The Night and Molaudi Bopape, whose punk rock/rap crossover band Weapons has played the Glastonbury festival and sell-out gigs across the country.
Black South Africans making London their new home is hardly a recent phenomenon: many members of Thabo Mbeki's cabinet - and the president himself - lived in the city in exile in the early 1960s. According to one account, the young Mbeki was a fan of comedy shows such as the Monty Python and Not the Nine O' Clock News.
London has a long-established reputation as an "international" city, where political or religious dissidents could find sanctuary from oppression at home.
One of the earliest black South Africans to seek opportunity here was the writer, journalist and co-founder of the ANC's predecessor, Sol Plaatje, who lived in Leytonstone for the duration of the First World War. Plaatje, who came to Britain to try and stop the implementation of the 1913 Land Act, wrote several books during this period, including Native Life in South Africa.
"He was a renaissance man," says former Generations star Sello Maake Ka-Ncube, a London resident himself. "One of the first things he did after arriving was to direct a stage version of Hamlet! Imagine, you're in a strange country, having that on your mind. He was an irrepressible personality."
Black South African art, music and literature were very well represented throughout the decades. In the late 1950s and early 60s, a wave of talented performers decided to stay in London after touring, rather than returning to the pass laws and Group Areas Act of apartheid.
These included icons such as Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, but there were others, too, less famous but no less talented, some of whom still live in London today.
The Manhattan Brothers, for example, jazz superstars of the 50s, took the opportunity of touring with King Kong in 1959, leaving behind their homeland.
But life in grey, damp, post-war England was never easy, as former King Kong cast member David Seremane recounts. Having lived in London for more than 47 years, he speaks with an accent suspended over the equator. Although he has spent most of his adult life in Britain, his heart, he says, has always remained in South Africa.
"I visited the country five times in 40 years, every time to bury someone close to me. I only saw my father's headstone years after he died." He has been making the journey with increasing frequency and says it is a "relationship that is being worked on with enthusiasm".
Seremane's words are a poignant reminder of the human and emotional costs of exile. The exiles who stayed have acted as a link between the successive generations of migrants, helping many to find a platform from which to launch themselves into British life.
Finance and the medical profession are more than amply represented. Simphiwe Zulu qualified as an attorney four years ago. Having lived in England for three years, he is now an investment banker. For Zulu, the transition was a seamless one.
"I was desperate for the opportunity to live abroad, to experience a different culture and people before I was too old.
"Working here has meant a completely different career trajectory. I have embarked on a new profession with a degree of ease that I think would have been unthinkable for me before. Life here is easy. We have a good time and it is worth making the most of it."
Nurses, many of them black South Africans recruited directly from South Africa, make up a significant part of the community - they even have their own union, the Association Of South African Nurses in The UK.
Mandy Hlophe left life as a trauma nurse at Chris Hani-Baragwanath hospital seven years ago and is now living and working in Leicester, with her 10-year old son.
"I feel appreciated here. I work in a nice clinic where the fact that I am South African is hardly noticed. My colleagues are from Estonia, Latvia, Zimbabwe and Malta. All that matters is that we can do a job and are valued for the extensive skills we have. The NHS (Britain's National Health Service) is well resourced, all things considered. Plus, the quality of life one enjoys is a bonus."
But would she ever return home?
"Yes, certainly one day," she says. "But not yet. I have an opportunity and I need to make the most of it."
There is a downside to the experience of being young, black and South African in London. A senior diplomat at the high commission, who asked not to be named, said that staff were now dealing with up to two cases per week of citizens asking for help after falling into serious financial difficulty.
"We are seeing more and more young people, black and white, who are not prepared for life in a foreign country.
"Many of them have been recruited in South Africa by agencies who promise wages and living standards that then fail to materialise upon arrival. I know of groups of young South Africans working on farms and in factories for what is little more than a slave wage, but unfortunately there is little we can do unless they come and ask us for help."
The diplomat said that in his experience race did not matter - skills were the key issue.
"Broadly, it seems white and black South Africans fare exactly the same. If they are skilled or university educated, they tend to enjoy a comfortable life here.
"Those that aren't, who arrive with only a matric, struggle to find good, paying jobs.
"Without a steady income, this city can soon swallow you up. It is very, very expensive. To survive at this level you need to be streetwise or get streetwise fast." - Foreign Service
British Home Office records distinguish new arrivals on the basis of nationality only, not race, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it is only a matter of time before there is a 50/50 split between black and white South Africans in London.
"It has certainly been noticeable over a 10-year period. Initially, many black South Africans moving to the UK had done so to study or as nurses on work permits," says a source at the South African high commission
"What we see now are more tertiary graduates and high-school leavers on two-year working holiday visas. They are working in a range of sectors, too: in education, finance, medicine - and, of course, the ones fresh from matric who take the low-skilled jobs."
While English-speaking whites have set up camp in the leafy suburban enclaves of Wimbledon and Southfields in south-west London, black (and Afrikaans) South Africans seem to prefer the more urban but vibey reaches of Stratford, Lewisham and Walthamstow in the east.
A host of kwaito nights have sprung up at clubs around the city, with one particular DJ's monthly show at a West End bar attracting homesick South Africans from as far afield as Glasgow.
The critically acclaimed play Generations finished a successful run at the Young Vic theatre last week, with a cast boasting several young South African vocalists led by Pinise Saul, the gospel chorister.
Other performers include Njabulo Madlala, a South African baritone who recently sang in the Covent Garden Royal Opera House production Bird Of The Night and Molaudi Bopape, whose punk rock/rap crossover band Weapons has played the Glastonbury festival and sell-out gigs across the country.
Black South Africans making London their new home is hardly a recent phenomenon: many members of Thabo Mbeki's cabinet - and the president himself - lived in the city in exile in the early 1960s. According to one account, the young Mbeki was a fan of comedy shows such as the Monty Python and Not the Nine O' Clock News.
London has a long-established reputation as an "international" city, where political or religious dissidents could find sanctuary from oppression at home.
One of the earliest black South Africans to seek opportunity here was the writer, journalist and co-founder of the ANC's predecessor, Sol Plaatje, who lived in Leytonstone for the duration of the First World War. Plaatje, who came to Britain to try and stop the implementation of the 1913 Land Act, wrote several books during this period, including Native Life in South Africa.
"He was a renaissance man," says former Generations star Sello Maake Ka-Ncube, a London resident himself. "One of the first things he did after arriving was to direct a stage version of Hamlet! Imagine, you're in a strange country, having that on your mind. He was an irrepressible personality."
Black South African art, music and literature were very well represented throughout the decades. In the late 1950s and early 60s, a wave of talented performers decided to stay in London after touring, rather than returning to the pass laws and Group Areas Act of apartheid.
These included icons such as Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, but there were others, too, less famous but no less talented, some of whom still live in London today.
The Manhattan Brothers, for example, jazz superstars of the 50s, took the opportunity of touring with King Kong in 1959, leaving behind their homeland.
But life in grey, damp, post-war England was never easy, as former King Kong cast member David Seremane recounts. Having lived in London for more than 47 years, he speaks with an accent suspended over the equator. Although he has spent most of his adult life in Britain, his heart, he says, has always remained in South Africa.
"I visited the country five times in 40 years, every time to bury someone close to me. I only saw my father's headstone years after he died." He has been making the journey with increasing frequency and says it is a "relationship that is being worked on with enthusiasm".
Seremane's words are a poignant reminder of the human and emotional costs of exile. The exiles who stayed have acted as a link between the successive generations of migrants, helping many to find a platform from which to launch themselves into British life.
Finance and the medical profession are more than amply represented. Simphiwe Zulu qualified as an attorney four years ago. Having lived in England for three years, he is now an investment banker. For Zulu, the transition was a seamless one.
"I was desperate for the opportunity to live abroad, to experience a different culture and people before I was too old.
"Working here has meant a completely different career trajectory. I have embarked on a new profession with a degree of ease that I think would have been unthinkable for me before. Life here is easy. We have a good time and it is worth making the most of it."
Nurses, many of them black South Africans recruited directly from South Africa, make up a significant part of the community - they even have their own union, the Association Of South African Nurses in The UK.
Mandy Hlophe left life as a trauma nurse at Chris Hani-Baragwanath hospital seven years ago and is now living and working in Leicester, with her 10-year old son.
"I feel appreciated here. I work in a nice clinic where the fact that I am South African is hardly noticed. My colleagues are from Estonia, Latvia, Zimbabwe and Malta. All that matters is that we can do a job and are valued for the extensive skills we have. The NHS (Britain's National Health Service) is well resourced, all things considered. Plus, the quality of life one enjoys is a bonus."
But would she ever return home?
"Yes, certainly one day," she says. "But not yet. I have an opportunity and I need to make the most of it."
There is a downside to the experience of being young, black and South African in London. A senior diplomat at the high commission, who asked not to be named, said that staff were now dealing with up to two cases per week of citizens asking for help after falling into serious financial difficulty.
"We are seeing more and more young people, black and white, who are not prepared for life in a foreign country.
"Many of them have been recruited in South Africa by agencies who promise wages and living standards that then fail to materialise upon arrival. I know of groups of young South Africans working on farms and in factories for what is little more than a slave wage, but unfortunately there is little we can do unless they come and ask us for help."
The diplomat said that in his experience race did not matter - skills were the key issue.
"Broadly, it seems white and black South Africans fare exactly the same. If they are skilled or university educated, they tend to enjoy a comfortable life here.
"Those that aren't, who arrive with only a matric, struggle to find good, paying jobs.
"Without a steady income, this city can soon swallow you up. It is very, very expensive. To survive at this level you need to be streetwise or get streetwise fast." - Foreign Service
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Good flight to Cape Town
Date: 2007-03-19 11:02 am (UTC)Re: Good flight to Cape Town
Date: 2007-03-20 08:21 am (UTC)Re: Good flight to Cape Town
Date: 2007-06-01 03:29 pm (UTC)