METHODOLOGY

The term ‘Diaspora’ was first used to describe the exodus of the Jews from their homeland during the holocaust of 1941 [d] when they fled persecution from the Germans under the infamous leadership of Adolf Hitler. Five decades since that initial diaspora, the term has assumed multiple meanings other than its original. Among others, it describes the now common-place paradox of persons who voluntarily or are forcibly removed from their native countries, be it temporarily or permanently.

According to the Institute of Cultural Diplomacy [e], an advocacy body, the African diaspora, which can be broke into three main periods, “is one of the most important in world in terms of numbers”. They argue that the first African diaspora was that of slaves labour to the Americas, the second being the colonial diaspora where persons mostly sought greener pasture in countries that once colonized them. For example, people from Francophone Congo would be inclined to seek opportunities in France as opposed to Anglophone Britain. The third form of the African diaspora encompasses the current phenomenon where millions of Africans are emigrating from their homelands to other African counties be it for economic, political and security reasons.

The focus of my exploration is in part influenced by the society I come from. My current town of residence once served as a recruitment center and the main transit route for labourers from East and Central Africa en route to the South African mines. Upon completion of their tenures, not all returned to their homelands. A considerable number of them opted to settle in Francistown, making it a melting pot of cultures from Angola, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Among them and poignant to my argument was Emmanuel Mbatista an Angolan who spoke nine African languages. Interestingly, Mbatista could not sustain a conversation in a pure lingual but veered from language to language.