Zebra Crossing Essay

The novel Zebra Crossing by Meg Vandermerwe is about the struggle of a young and vulnerable girl by the name of Chipo who leaves Zimbabwe to South Africa with her brother for a better life. she deals with current events, historical issues, and cultural beliefs depicted in the text as being a refugee, xenophobia, and being albino respectfully.
A current even that is happening all around the world today is migration of refugees. For people like Chipo their home country can not support them and/or political violence. Countries are either refusing to let in refugees or accepting refugees to a certain amount. Sometimes people and their governments forget that refugees are people but rather just numbers or even pests. “Refugee sounds like flea. That is how, we are warned, many at Home Affairs view us. Like fleas that needs to have their heads

squeezed off” (Vandermerwe 11). This quote is important because it shows a refugees point of view. Chipo says that the government of South Africa views her and others like her as a flea. An annoying and ugly animal that bites sucks off other animals. this shows that in Chipo’s world and in the real world many refugees are seen as people sucking the resources of the country they migrate to, which they need to get rid off. This is of course untrue but important to understand because as a reader being able to read what Chipo and her friends go through as refugees gives me a better understanding of the current issue of Syrian refugees coming to Canada because i get to understand the issue from a new perspective. Overall having a current event depicted in the text gives the novel more validity and genuineness.
South Africa is home to as much as 1.7 million foreigners, almost all coming from Zimbabwe and there has been many anti-immigrant attacks such as the one where 62 people were killed in 2008. this historical event/issue is depicted in the novel when Chipo is in discussion with her brother on xenophobia when he was attacked. “‘That smoke spread like blood over the houses of those foreigners burned out of the townships by their African brothers and sisters who bared their teeth and raised their pangas, chanting, ‘Go home or die here!’....But there is a saying, that hope springs eternal. Back in Zimbabwe, before we left, George dismissed any possibility of encountering such troubles: ‘There is xenophobia everywhere. Even here. Besides, that was long ago. South Africa says they will host the World Cup on behalf of all Africa. Does that sound like a country that plans to turn on its African brothers and sisters?’” (Vandermerwe 104). This quote is important because it shows the hostile setting in which Chipo and other refugees live in. Chipo and her brother are both frustrated that other Africans would do such a thing to each other. the story is set around the time when the 2010 World Cup was being played in South Africa and its whole premise was around the idea that all of Africa had an opportunity to show their talents to the world yet looking back historically there was many xenophobic attack on Africans by South Africans just like how George was attacked. Overall this global and historical perspective is important as a reader to understand when reading the novel because it set around so much on the issue of Xenophobia and the horrible attacks foreigners endure in South Africa.
Finally an sad cultural belief that is depicted in the novel is the one around albino people.

Chipo being albino get treated very badly by her community because they have this cultural belief that albino people are born when there is an unholy marriage/relationships, and that they are linked with witchcraft, thus creating this idea that albino people are not really human and should not be treated like one. “When Mai Mupfudza saw me looking, she spat at her feet and turned her back on me. It was local superstition - spit and you will protect your unborn child from catching the sope’s curse” (Vandermerwe 30). This quote is important because it shows how badly Chipo is treated and that she has to endure and be shameful of her uniqueness because of the cultural belief around the world and specifically in African countries that dehumanize people like her. The fact that she is called a ‘sope’ rather than her name and is connected to witchcraft and superstitions demonstrates dehumanization for people like Chipo. overall this toxic cultural belief is shown in the novel throughout to show readers the struggles albino people go

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