Unconsciousness and Bureaucratic Violence at Addis Ababa International Airport
“The bureaucratic violence of visa processes is felt by migrants everywhere. It’s institutional and personal,” writes Samuel Hall co-founder Nassim Majidi describing her experiences of immigration at Addis airport.
By Nassim Majidi
Addis Ababa: I arrived at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport on July 6, enthused with the idea of meeting my friends — professors and scholars from Gondar to Addis, representing different institutions — and spending an evening listening to music in what I consider to be the jazz capital of the world. We share a common passion for migration, and the willingness to meet and exchange, in person. In my excitement, after years of COVID restrictions, and internal conflict in the country, I had not realised how much Ethiopia had changed, and with it, my position in the country.
I was held by immigration officers for eight hours upon arrival — from the moment I landed at 9 amto the moment I was told I was set free at 5 pm — I was told I had arrived illegally, without a confirmed e-visa. During those eight hours, I was told that if I spoke, I would be deported. I was told that I had to sit, without water, or food, but more importantly without any information. I was told to “sit and wait” until “the big boss” could come and see me. Did he even exist? The question came to me after four hours as I was losing my sense of reality.
Shahram Khosravi writes about waiting, as a state of consciousness. I felt unconscious on July 6.
I did not feel the hours go by, as I felt I was floating in a space between arrivals and immigration, as my arrival was stalled. As airport staff was vacuuming, taking breaks for lunch, joking, talking, and sleeping during the very quiet day at the arrivals terminal, I asked myself whether I should speak up or sit down. Only two women came to me, and one elderly man, to see if they could help me. The immigration officers — three men who felt very powerful on that day — showed me they had no willingness to help. They intimidated me, verbally and physically.
As I had internet access, I searched for instances of bureaucratic violence. I came across David Graeber’s book The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. He tells the story of hours of frustrating, never-ending paperwork, of repeated errors that take people, continuously, back to square one. That is how I felt, every hour of that day, back to square one facing the threats — never-ending — of deportation. It was a loop, and I was stuck in it, in time and in space.
It’s not a position I have had to be confronted with since I received my French passport two months before 9/11. It is a position though that I knew, and remember very well as I relived many memories from my childhood and youth: I recalled instances that I experienced as an Iranian immigrant and migrant for the first 21 years of my life.
The experiences of long lines of questioning, of being taken to “the side office” at airports for hours, of having my belongings checked. I was used to walking with fear through airports thinking about whether I would be “randomly” stopped or allowed to proceed.
Back then, I was used to the extra checks on my person, my luggage, being asked extra questions and answering them, every time, with a shaky voice. That voice was back on July 6 in Addis. I preferred to stop talking so that I would stop hearing this voice, one that I do not like to hear.
I had, over the last 20 years, lost many of those imposed and protective reflexes. I had entered a comfort zone of the international traveller and career woman. I felt I had nothing to prove, I felt at ease. In one day, I was thrown into a physical and illegal space of domination; I was physically dominated. A tall immigration officer, in front of me, I am short. A man with a team of three visa officers, I was alone. They acted like a gang, laughing, ridiculing me, shutting me down.
This is what migrants live through everywhere, at every border point, all over the world. The lack of decency is common, and the ignorance of border officials is a problem that our own research has flagged throughout this and other continents.
I can’t complain. My position in society is largely protected — I have a French passport, I can travel anywhere, I have an international career, I am my own boss, I am an entrepreneur, I am a thinker, I speak several languages…but in this context, I did not speak the local language. I became, in the span of one day, vulnerable. I was reminded that I was a foreigner, a woman, and a non-Amharic speaker with Tigrayan friends. My work was questioned (they said I was a journalist, I explained I was a researcher).
The first shock was at arrivals. When others, in the same situation as me — with pending visa approvals — showed up at till number 1A to solve their problem, they were allowed to get on-arrival visas. I was told that, as a non-African, I could not.
The rules had changed after COVID, as a French citizen, I had fewer rights than African counterparts. I could understand that Europe does the same.
The second shock was physical. A tall officer told me to sit, then to stand, then took my passport from my hands, and threatened to deport me. I was shaking. The third shock was the arrogance that an ineffective system would not be questioned, but that I would be treated as a criminal. The system had not worked, but I was blamed. I was told that neither of my two visa applications were reflected “in the system” and that my presence, as a result, was illegal. I had applied for a visa three days before my arrival, for which I had paid, and on the e-visa status check on the government website, the reference number clearly showed this application was in the system. I was told I had to re-apply and that it would be sorted out in 20 minutes. So, I followed orders. I paid again. I re-applied, and then I waited, waited, waited. After that, no one spoke to me for eight hours.
I used the change of airport staff shift — the transition between day and evening shifts — around 4–4.30pm to go back to the immigration office. A woman at till 1A kindly told me that I should walk to the immigration office on the right. I went. I told them my story, I cried. A lady from Ethiopian airlines and an immigration officer were embarrassed by what I was telling them. They told me to go get food until they could sort things out. I told them I would not move until I had a firm answer on what was happening to me. After 45 minutes, my visa came through. They told me “check your email, you have it, it’s there!” There it was. It was that simple: the officer called the e-visa office, unlocked the issue, and I was set free.
I was told to go. But I waited. This time, I chose to wait.
I wanted to wait for the “big boss” to arrive, to complain, to feel heard after a day of feeling invisible and inaudible — which is what refugees and other migrants feel every day. I felt I had to speak up, not only for myself but for migrants and against border bullies everywhere. At 7 pm, the ‘big boss’ arrived. I recognised he was the boss as I saw him step out of the elevator. I went to greet him. He listened, he apologised, he reiterated that no one had told him one word about my situation and about my waiting.
All the times I had been told that “the big boss is coming to speak to me” were lies used to keep me waiting. He told me to stay, to personally commit to the safety of my stay as a guest in his country, as the head of the immigration section at the airport. I told him I would be leaving that same evening as I had felt unsafe all day and still felt unsafe. I was avoiding danger, protecting myself, and my family, by returning home to Nairobi.
Some people — many of the people that my colleagues and I study, from Afghanistan to Nigeria, Egypt to Ethiopia — cannot afford to leave on their own terms: they are detained, deported, or forced in other bureaucratic ways to leave. I could afford to leave, so I left, on my own. I wanted to feel a sense of power over what was happening to me. I retook control — although I was largely humiliated at the end of this long day.
Khosravi asks, when do migrants stop waiting, “before a new waiting starts?”
His work brought me comfort on that day, as I knew I was not alone. The power dynamics, and the bureaucratic violence of visa processes, are felt by migrants everywhere. It’s institutional, and personal.
I will end on a final note on how bureaucratic violence, stupidity, and technology are used to humiliate migrants. My uncle, at the age of 85 years old, travelled from Iran to France, as he had been given an appointment at the US embassy in Paris. He had waited over a year for this appointment. He had his land deeds translated from Persian to English, certified, alongside his bank accounts, to show that he would have to go back to Iran.
But he does not fit the “mold” or norm of the “good migrant”: he is not married (his choice), he does not have children (his choice), and he does not have a job at his age (who would?). He didn’t show a “convincing case” to the immigration officers. The labels attached to him by the US bureaucracy are not those he identifies with. They did not pay attention to his personal case. This would have probably been his last trip to see his niece, my cousin, in the US. His last time, their first rejection. They rejected him within one minute of the start of his appointment, as the message on the screen was clear. Why was he not informed by email to avoid exhaustion at his age? Why did he have to feel humiliated?
We have to reflect, as Graeber did, on Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. We have to be aware of this bureaucratic violence and change. Everywhere. We have to demand better treatment. We will continue to work — and fight for — this, as researchers documenting the lives and stories of migrants.
*Feature Image is for representation purposes only
