Remigration E-Book

C.-A. Rebaf

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 123

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Three very different people meet on a rubber dinghy carrying refugees from Tunisia to the Italian island of Lampedusa. A reporter from Berlin, Alan, who is looking for a story incognito, a pretty young woman, Lerato, from Tanzania, who wants to go to Berlin for adventure, and a deserter, Feven, from Eritrea, who has been sentenced to death at home. In a desperate situation, the boat is picked up by an NGO boat and taken to Piombino. From there, the refugees are given the choice of being taken to Germany by bus or staying in Italy. Lerato and Feven travel to Germany and are taken to the initial reception center in Ellwangen. Alan follows them and gives them a home at his apartment in Berlin-Lichterfelde. The three get on well and Alan writes a successful story about their escape across the Mediterranean. So much for a largely realistic part of the plot. Now the plot turns into fiction and becomes a vision of the author: In Germany, a new party, the JvI, wins the general election. It has clear goals, one of which is the remigration of 1.5 million people from Germany. It slowly becomes clear to the reader how this is supposed to happen: the re-migrants are accommodated in sufficiently comfortable containers, transported to Hamburg by truck, transferred to a container ship and taken to the west coast of Africa. There they are forced to switch to rubber boats and land on the nearby coast. The route of their escape is essentially mirrored. The remigration inflatable boats are distributed across the numerous West African countries that are completely overwhelmed by this invasion. The third part now describes Feven and Lerato's journey across Africa from Mauritania to Tanzania, during which they were trapped in the clutches of Boko Haram in Nigeria for a long time. The description of the circumstances there gives the reader clues as to why people flee Africa in the first place.

Leseprobe

Logo

self publishing wespen-kontor

Titel

C.-A. Rebaf

Remigration

A cruel vision

self publishing wespen-kontor

Table of Contents

Logo

Titel

Impressum

Dedication

On the beach of the Mediterranean

Change of command

Boredom on a bobbing rubber dinghy

Mombasa's beautiful beaches

From Nairobi to Tunis via Frankfurt

Next stopover then Mediterranean

Nameless

John is Alan

Teeny weeny afro

From Piombino to Ellwangen

Still in Ellwangen

In the EAE

In the jungle of regulations

Amira in her place of longing, Berlin

A new party

The next election

The first government statement

The implementation of the theses

The day X

Disturbing reports on BBC and JvI's next successes

Our remigration story

The landing

Across Africa from West to East

Disaster

In the jungle of Boko Haram

In chains on a concession(10)

Our rescue

Arrival in Tanga

News from Africa at last

The decline of JvI

Prosecution at the International Court of Justice

Humanity continues to evolve

A nice little family

Thank you!

Impressum

Any similarities with living or other legal persons are purely coincidental. All persons mentioned by name are fictitious.

In some places in this book, racist scenes or racist language are reproduced or used that could be directed against people of certain ethnicities. This in no way reflects the personal opinion of the author, but merely serves as an authentic representation of the respective situation from a literary and artistic point of view.

AI content from neuroflash (text) as well as from canva (cover picture) was used.

To paraphrase Fontane and Grass, migration and remigration is a 'broad field'. I would love to get in touch with those affected, regardless of their school of thought, on the basis of this volume. Write to [email protected]. I may then have to revise it; or rewrite it completely to do justice to its complexity.

Text, prompt and book cover: All rights by C.-A. Rebaf 2025

[email protected]

American english version translated bei DeepL

Dedication

For Lea Lerato

On the beach of the Mediterranean

"That sleazy guy had actually wanted to fuck me! And I was still seriously considering whether I should force myself to do it."

Was there a choice? But this fat Arab was not to be trusted. Would this one time be enough? He had me in the palm of his hand, because I was determined to get a place on one of his rubber dinghies. I had no more money.

'Berlin, Berlin, I'm going to Berlin' had been ringing in my head for months. Berlin, the place of longing that my mother had always raved about to me since my childhood days in Tanga. Why didn't she just stay there back then? I wouldn't have to put up with the constant insults from these fat Arabs here today, whose language I don't even understand, their gestures and hand signals are enough. With index finger and thumb, imitating my vulva, the other hand with the outstretched index finger imitating their cock. Then always this fucky, fucky, fuck.

After all, I've already made my way through half of Africa to the Mediterranean. Perhaps I should have been a little more economical at the beginning, more by hitchhiking, not in the air-conditioned luxury buses, then my money would have been enough. But all my girlfriends had strongly advised me not to get into a car alone with strange guys. In Kenya, or even in Ethiopia. But now I had the salad.

How was I supposed to get across the damn sea to Italy?

Then he spoke to me. A madman? His Kiswahili sounded strange, as if he wasn't actually African. However, his appearance proved otherwise and he was on my side, i.e. with the refugees.

"You really want to leave with this boat, you have no money, but you don't want to fuck with someone like that! I like you proud Africans who dare to go off on your own."

He radiated a beguiling charm to me and I had to force myself to exercise restraint. After all, he hadn't immediately complimented me on my stunning beauty like many others before him. But I had also made sure to conceal it under scarves. In the morning, I always put some Sahara dust on my cheeks as a kind of make-up primer. I looked him in the eye. That was a mistake, because he now recognized my positive charisma, against which I was powerless. It's always better as a woman to just look at the ground, unfortunately. I much prefer to walk through my world with my head held high so that I can observe everything.

He then tried to communicate with me in English after I didn't respond.

"I still have money for two seats on the boat and I'll lend you your share."

Wow, what kind of pronunciation was that? Did the guy learn that at Oxbridge? In any case, the English spoken at home sounded much more African.

"Come on hit it, let's make a deal."

Of course, I wondered what he really wanted from me in return. But as far as I could tell from the corner of my eye, he looked rather slight and not at all macho and I imagined I could win a fight against him. After all, I had practiced martial arts as a hobby for years and was physically quite fit as a result. Of course, this also benefited my figure. He waited next to me, unsure. I reconsidered my option and, probably quite surprisingly for him, I held out my hand and said: "Deal!"

Beaming with joy, he buzzed off and in a few minutes I had a seat next to him on the boat that was due to set sail tonight. What had I let myself in for again? Was this the beginning of an endless friendship or the disaster of my life?

We were both given life jackets. Not everyone on the boat was so luxuriously equipped. He had obviously booked a first-class passage for us.

In the evening, about 35 women, children and a majority of men sat tightly packed in a rubber dinghy. It was pitch dark. Every now and then the light of a cell phone came on and I could briefly recognize individual faces. So far I had only seen dark-skinned people. I wasn't just scared, I was downright terrified. It pressed against my sphincter from time to time. My patron wasn't there yet and I tried to keep a seat free next to me.

There was an outboard motor at the stern and perhaps the only light-skinned person sitting at the tiller. An Arab with a wild beard like Ayatollah Khomenei. He was wearing a dark, tight-fitting garment and a black and white Arafat scarf around his head and neck.

He finally came and when he sat next to me, I felt a little more at ease, almost safe. How could it be with a man I didn't even know and to whom I had only said 'ok'?

Then there was a hectic murmur. Obviously we were all there. The engine started and we headed out into the open sea into the night.

I had looked at Wikipedia at home and found that the distance from Mahdia here in Tunisia to Lampedusa was about 120 km. Assuming we manage 5 km/h, we need about 27 hours, so we should arrive tomorrow night.

After a while, I got tired of such thoughts and fell asleep. My head fell on my strange neighbor, who I didn't even know his name.

Change of command

I woke up when the engine noise became quiet and the throttle had obviously been set to 'stand by'. Then it stopped completely. What an eerie silence!

Suddenly I heard a splash, as if someone had fallen into the water. Some cell phone lights came on and tried to scan the surface of the water. As I was sitting against the rubber wall of the boat, I saw someone in a diving mask and fins crawling quickly away from the boat. His wetsuit glistened like a fish skin. Suddenly, some distance away, I saw a light blinking, blinking, blinking. The wetsuit fish swam straight towards it and we simply floated with the boat in the water.

Then a woman shouted in an African dialect: "He's gone! Our captain is gone."

My neighbor asked me in English if I understood what was being said. I explained it to him.

"One of us has to take over the outboard and drive off. Can you translate and shout loudly?"

We were sitting so close together that nobody could get up and move backwards without the boat threatening to tip over.

I don't know how I had the presence of mind to ask him:

"... And in which direction?"

"We have a clear sky and the stars are shining brightly. If I can locate the North Star, I can roughly indicate north-northeast. But someone has to start the outboard motor and steer."

In the meantime, there was a wild flurry of words and one person tried to shout over the other. So I just waited.

Suddenly the engine started and we drove off. My neighbor tried his star sighting and yelled from time to time

"more right! more left! straight ahead!"

Is that how we were able to find the tiny island of Lampedusa in the vast Mediterranean?

I hated myself and my idea of being able to get to Berlin, the place I longed for. My gut hated me too! Surely everyone had paid a horrendous price, the rest of their savings for the crossing and now?

My neighbor seemed to sense my thoughts and explained to me:

"The risk of being picked up by one of the warships patrolling here is too great for the smugglers. At the helm of the boat, he would then be held responsible for smuggling migrants and would go to jail in the EU for around 20 years. Incidentally, anyone caught at the tiller back there would face that!"

"But someone has to move the boat forward."

"Sure, but under EU law he is a smuggler because he is supporting the illegal immigration of all of us here."

"Is there no way out?"

"Only if a lifeboat from the NGOs finds us."

Boredom on a bobbing rubber dinghy

Then it suddenly became brighter in the east, the day seemed to be slowly dawning. Judging by the rising sun, we drove a little to the left of the east. Could have been right.

Then the engine stuttered and was suddenly silent.

After quite a while, someone from behind asked us to see if we could find a canister of gasoline somewhere. A murmur and bustle began and the boat swayed dangerously. However, none was found. Great, we were now simply drifting on the open sea.

My neighbor suggested making a sail out of scarves, but the devout Muslim women did not want to take off their headscarves. Only the Arafat scarf of our fish captain was stretched by hand. So at least we made some headway.

The sun burned mercilessly on us. Many were glad not to have sacrificed their cloths and tried to protect themselves with them. We only had water in small bottles. Every man for himself. The first sounds of pain echoed across the water. We simply bobbed along and were dependent on help from others.

Every now and then one of us went into the water to relieve himself and then laboriously crawled back over the rubber bulge into the dry. After my bowels had become more and more uncomfortable, I decided to go on one of these toilet swimming trips. It was also good to get out of the uncomfortable sitting position and stretch out in the water. The others in the boat also had it a little easier when a tight sardine jumped out of the can and they could move around better. I had held back so far because getting back into the boat was not so easy and I don't know how I would have managed it without the help of my generous companion.

To thank him for his support and because I was bored anyway, I decided to be a little more talkative with him. Maybe he was the last person I could talk to before I died.

When I sat next to him again, still soaking wet, after an arduous climb over the high bulge, I thought it was time to introduce myself. He had reached under my arms and pulled me up. Thanks to Neptune, I wasn't too heavy.

"Thanks for the help. I'm Lerato, by the way, and you?"

"John," came the reply after a while. "Are you from Lesotho?"

"Wow, are you an expert on Africa that you can locate my name so well geographically?"

I looked at him from the side. He remained calm and ignored my question.

"If I tell you that I'm from Tanzania, will I upset your world view?"

"No, not necessarily. I would think that your mother or father went there once and picked up the name."

Now he surprised me with his acumen and I admitted defeat.

"Toucher!" I smiled at him.

"I'd love to!" he grinned back

"Yes, you're right, my mother is from Lesotho and was stuck in Tanzania when they met in Tanga. And you?"

"Congo," he interjected monosyllabically. "My parents are both dead. Blown up by a landmine. Africa is a dangerous place."

Somehow I was annoyed that I had already said so much more about myself and was just quiet now.

"... And Miss Lerato then hitchhiked from Tanga to Tunisia?"

I liked this ironic manner and smiled back.

"No, Miss Lerato took all the public transport on offer. The flights that I had carelessly authorized tore deep holes in my coffers. That's why there was no money left for a crossing."

"Poor planning!"

"Why? After all, I'm in a boat!" I grinned mischievously.

"Maybe it would have been better if you hadn't done that."

We were silent and I looked at him more closely. He had a brightly colored cotton scarf wrapped around his head, not just to protect himself from the sun, because somehow I had the impression that he was trying to hide something else with the scarf. I kept noticing his un-African English.

"But you don't talk like a native of the Congo!"

"Why, should we speak French instead?" he replied, this time in that slow African French. It sounded better, more familiar, more authentic.

"I spent a long time in England and quickly tried to adapt. Maybe I have a talent for languages."

"Interesting!"

Then there was another long break.

"And how does Miss Lerato get from Tanga to Tunisia by public transport?"