In Kenya if you are a white person you cannot escape the word Mzungo following you around wherever you go. Commonly thought to mean ‘white person’ a quick internet search states that there are many different interpretations of this Swahili-based word, from ‘stranger’ or ‘person of foreign decent’ to the more interesting ‘one who wanders aimlessly’ or ‘ one who runs around in circles’, describing the way Africans saw early European traders and missionaries. The word, or a derivative of it, is used in most Bantu languages of East, Central and Southern Africa.
But ever since we arrived in Kenya and could be forgiven for thinking that this word was pinned on our backs and people thought it was our name I have been trying to grapple with the question, is it racist?
Fresh from a recent visit home where we savoured the anonymity of UK life I came straight back to shouts of ‘Mzungo how are you’ (the regular favourite). The first and second person to ask this on my 10 minute stroll out at lunchtimes will usually receive a short ‘very well thanks’ from me, the third or fourth a polite smile but no answer but by the fifth and sixth person it is down to completely ignoring them or a not very polite reply. Some people who say this act like they just can’t suppress it and the excitement of seeing you makes them blurt out the term despite themselves, others you sense deliver the word with much more ill feeling. VSO training asks you to think about what it will be like to live as a minority and if you are prepared for that, I thought on the whole I was but I didn’t expect that on a daily basis people would feel the need to remind me that I am different to them.
Obviously this minor inconvenience in my daily routine does not compare with the discrimination that thousands of people across the world have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of their race and I am well aware that we are not stopped from doing anything, prohibited from certain places or abused in any way. We are however treated differently as a result of our skin colour, mostly based on the assumption that we have lots of money, or according to children in Mombasa, lots of sweets that we will happily give out. But it is the notion of pointing out someone’s difference that makes me uncomfortable, and surely in some way that is discrimination?
Here in East Africa it is clearly a culturally acceptable term and one that colleagues tell me is not meant as an insult, more stating a fact. With our basic Kiswahili you can hear children on buses being taught by their parents to call you the word, they can be very surprised if you respond in their language to tell them that is not your name! I have even heard reports that the growing number of Chinese people in this part of the world are also being called Mzungo by people who must take it to mean foreigner, or as a friend tells us, someone with money. But in the end to my British sensibilities the concept of shouting a word that denotes the colour of your skin at a total stranger in the street just seems rude and, well, wrong. And what erks me more is when people who know me say it to my face. The security guard at work recently stopped me to ask ‘where are you going for lunch Mzungo?’ when I asked him why he called me that he replied ‘because you are one’. Hmmm.
So while I don’t think I have yet resolved to decide whether it is racist or not one thing I do know is that it is bloody annoying and I will not miss it!
Dear Writer, thank you for expressing your feelings very precisely. i wish to correct you on the spelling of Mzungu and NOT Mzungo.
ReplyDeleteWell, with the little children who have never seen a white person they are excited and because of the help they receive from white people they think they hve money. sometimes they call them "mzungu"coz may be when they first encountered one they were told this is a mzungu.
from my point of view this is not discrimination at all.you can share your feelings with the community around you to stop them from calling you a mzungu so that you can be an advocate for others who will come to work there in future.
Enjoy ur stay in Nairobi!
It goes without saying that being called "mzungu" is not at all racist or discriminatory in any way. the word came about as a result of us being colonized by foreigners we did not know or heard of before and since we did not know English we referred to the foreigners collectively as 'mzungu'.
ReplyDeleteIts the same way an African living in UK is called 'black' or 'colored'. I would take the latter references as racist and I do because I have them hurled at me every day living here. But Mzungu is very innocent.
I can't help but feel that the second comment has actually reinforced the point of the post. M/wazungu is used to collectively describe a group of people identified not for being 'foreign', but because of their skin colour. I can't imagine in the Britain that I know and love, someone could be walking down the street or sat on a bus and have people shout 'black man' repeatedly at them. I know several people from several African countries who are currently living in the UK. I call them by their names. If I didn't know them personally, I wouldn't call them anything, nor indeed would I know they were not British. It is this context that makes the mzungu references so strange to me, and it appears to the post's author. There are many terms to which persons of different ethnic origin migrating to Britain were referred upon arrival; most were considered 'innocent' at the time by our grandparents' generation - the same people who died in their millions defeating a racist evil murdering its way across Europe. But over time as communities integrated further and grew in confidence, their offense at such terms became clear and prompted British society to change its behaviour (although a nasty little minority do, it has to be acknowledged, revel in the offense these terms cause). Most discriminatory language and behaviour is now illegal and rightly frowned upon by the vast majority of people in the UK.
ReplyDeleteSo in response to the blog's main question; calling someone mzungu is treating someone differently because of the colour of their skin. Technically, this is racism, but as a white person temporarily living in Kenya I certainly don't believe this is leading to any serious impediment to my life; it isn't stopping me getting a job or a promotion, or increasing the likelihood of the police suspecting me of being a terrorist or drug dealer.
While it remains exceptionally tiresome, the manifestation of this 'discrimination' is limited to the odd chancer trying to rip me off, being asked every ten yards to get in a taxi, or to sponsor a stranger to go to university, and the despair that some parents are wasting time teaching their children to shout 'mzunguhowareyou' when they could be teaching them something useful instead.