{UAH} US AND canada LEAD IN ABUSING africans who want to travel to those countries.Terrible
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11:18 AM |
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Immigration officers should treat Africans with respect
Posted Tuesday, August 6 2013 at 01:00
Recently, a number of Ugandans who had applied to travel to Toronto, Canada to attend the 10th Anniversary Convention of the International Community of Banyakigezi, one of the pioneer Diaspora organisations of Ugandans that has branches all over the world, were denied entry visas.
Those denied visas include me, the coordinator of the Uganda Chapter who had been invited to make a keynote presentation at the meeting. Others denied visas included the Executive Director of Uganda Wildlife Authority, Dr Andrew Seguya, a number of other senior staff at UWA and the Ministry of Tourism who had hoiied to sell the recently acclaimed and high billing of Uganda as a tourist destination. Their hopes and plans were dashed by a Canadian official at the High Commission in Nairobi.
We were given the refusal order that stated rather condescendingly: "You have not satisfied me that you would leave Canada at the end of your stay as a temporary resident."
The refusal of visas to Africans who apply to enter European and North American countries (Canada and USA) is a common practice ironically in a globalised world. This overarching system practiced by western countries is unfortunately a strong relic of neocolonial paternalism that many innocent Africans find appalling, an outrage and outright insulting to their intelligence.
In a recent incident of somehow similar nature in which a young Senegalese was abused before finally being given a visa by French visa officials but after a grinding interview, the young woman was so upset, she rejected the visa and told off the French. In a letter, quoted in edited version below, the young woman said what I and many Africans feel. It is such a horrible twist of irony that the nations of migrants such as Canada and USA whose ancestors invaded these lands and largely contributed to decimation of indigenous people are somehow stuck in their guilty conscience that make them believe Africans can abandon beautiful Africa en masse and run them into the sea.
The letter quoted below expresses how African feelings continue to be abused and will continue to be abused until we do something about it.
"My name is Bousso Dramé and I am a Senegalese citizen who, on this day, has decided to put pen to paper so that a message that I care deeply about can be heard loud and clear. During my short life, I have never ceased to defend my pride of being a Black and African woman. It goes without saying that I believe in the bright future of my dear Africa. I am equally convinced of the necessity to put an end to prejudices that prevailed about Africa due to the colonial era and the difficult contemporary situation of this continent. It is high time Africans respected themselves and demand to be respected by others. This vision of a certainly generous and open, but also proud and determined, Africa, demanding the respect that it is owed and has been denied for far too long, is a strong conviction of mine that enables me and literally carries me forward.
However, during my numerous interactions with, on the one hand, some staff members of the French Institute and, on the other hand, civil servants at the French Consulate, I have had to deal with condescending, insidious, sly and vexatious behaviours and remarks. Not once, not twice but multiple times! I have tried to ignore this behaviour but the appalling welcome I have been greeted with at the French Consulate, unfortunately, broke the camel's back.
An all-expenses-paid trip, even the world's most beautiful and enchanting one, is not worth the suffering that my fellow citizens and myself endure at the French Consulate. No matter how exciting the training, and God knows this one really appealed to me, it is not worth the pain of enduring this kind of behaviour. As a matter of coherence with my own value system, I have, therefore, decided to renounce that offer, despite being granted a visa.
Renounce symbolically. Renounce in the name of those thousands of Senegalese who deserve respect. A respect they are being denied within the walls of these French representations, and on Senegalese soil moreover. This decision is not a sanction against individuals but against a generalised system which, despite the ever-increasing list of complaints from my fellow citizens, does not seem inclined to question itself.
Furthermore, I find it particularly ironic that the partial headline of the training that I will not attend reads: "Is France still the homeland of human rights? To what point are French citizens also European citizens and citizens of the world?"...
Proudly, sincerely and Africanly yours, Bousso Dramé".( End of letter)
How each one of us would have loved to tell the Canadians in their faces that they are insulting us by basking in the African sun thousands of kilometers away from the freezing Tundra that their country is, unhindered and freely visiting the beautiful valleys and hills that Uganda is, mingling freely with the beautiful and friendly people that Africans are, but they go ahead and bundle us together like a sack of grasshoppers unable to reason and tell us we are not welcome to their countries. Like young Brousso said…"
Please keep your visas" . We are Africans.
Dr Bahana is the Coordinator of International Community of Banyakigezi-Uganda Chapter.
john.bahana@gmail.com
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