Facts are often missing from debates on migration. Has the deportation of undocumented people from the US resulted in more jobs and services for US citizens? Did the busing of 50,000 migrants out of South Africa deliver more medicines to the country’s dilapidated clinics? Will Europe’s documented youth have more access to housing if unsuccessful asylum seekers are safely stashed behind barbed wire in “return hub” countries?
Let alone having all the answers, in many cases, we do not even ask the right questions. Where, for example, do these migrants actually come from? What prompted them to set out on journeys that require them to confront dangerous, and sometimes corrupt and extortionary, border forces, cross seas and deserts, and often risk death?
ZAM explored these questions in depth in a previous project, which is worth revisiting. See below under “ZAM Recommends”.
The questioning goes hand in hand with the search for facts. Both are hallmarks of investigative journalism, an important pillar of ZAM’s work, precisely because so much of what we deal with unfolds in a confusing arena: the dynamics between Africa and Europe. Where, in this arena, is the truth about the movement of both people and wealth?
The search for truth is difficult, wherever in this arena we find ourselves. As a team, we at ZAM have tried to seek it through the diverse perspectives of the migrants we are. See our joint story on xenophobia, written from the heart, in this newsletter. Also in this month’s edition, an interview with Judith Sargentini, in which she explains how, as a progressive migration expert, she often finds herself battling untrue narratives. Investigative journalist Ladji Bama, now exiled from Burkina Faso, tells us how the easy crowing of victory by his country’s leaders conceals rather than illuminates the truth. And Rwandan colleague Samuel Baker Byansi warns that the government in his home country now uses ethnolinguistic language to rally support for its claims to create a "Greater Rwanda".
Throughout history, bluster by the powerful has drowned out the voices of the marginalised. Reason why our Glitching the Future team travelled to Groningen University to help place the “challenge for inclusion of the unseen and overlooked” firmly on the agenda of a changing Europe.
The search for truth often comes with disappointment: every time a solution, or the promise of a better world, seems within reach, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow recedes a little further. But it is heartening to know that we are not the only ones struggling with this. Nelson Mandela reminded us to “climb a hill and find a bigger one”. Amílcar Cabral warned against claiming easy victories, as well as against telling lies. Inspired by these wise words, ZAM will keep asking questions, challenging easy answers and digging for facts.
Team ZAM
