The lack of interwebbedness in the RSA
Yesterday my niece gave birth to a beautiful girl who elicited equal adoration and awe from her Indian family and her white Afrikaans relatives alike. And I thought “This is what the new South Africa is all about. Fok Mal Emma, Stiff Hoofnaaier, die Arme Weerstands Beweging (seriously, mostly poor Afrikaans-speaking whites) en al die ander kaksoekers.”
Rustum Kozain wrote a moving article about the sad state of our nation, and he asks necessary questions:
Dit is inderdaad asof selfs die kranse nie antwoord gee nie. Sekerlik is dit hartverskeurend?
That is why I called the first bit of my stories about “Die Hel in Helmien” on my blog “Uit die Blou van ons Gewrewel“: Die Stem het nie meer ‘n stem nie, en hemel op apartheids aarde is ook nie meer daar nie. When I heard that E.T. had been murdered I felt a raw sadness for all of South Africa: we have reached a new low if we celebrate the murder of a decrepit, delusional, kak poor and terrified old man by kak poor, poorly educated and desperate young men. Shame on us. And what is even more heartbreaking is the nazi salutes at E.T.’s funeral. E.T. seems to be more powerful dead than alive: previously there were a handful of nut jobs, now there seem to be more. And when Mal Emma went to Zim to have a tea party with the Mad Hatter, I felt another kind of grief: die mensdom wil nou eenmaal nie leer nie.
Apart from some wine farmers, I’ve never seen a rich farmer. While I was on a photography shoot near Graaff Reinet, many years ago, we asked a sheep farmer if he’d be willing to let a donkey-cart driver and his grandson stay overnight. Of course he said yes, and being stupid advertising people from Gauteng, we gave him an expensive bottle of whiskey in appreciation, unfortunately before we entered the house. Bare bones. Bare furniture, but polished to a dull gleam, no trimmings, no mooi lappies, no alcohol. Nothing. Kak arm. Just their god and their dry land and their sheep.
It is greed that paints pictures of harsh farmland as something to be coveted. Very few people have the guts to farm, and fewer make a success of it. Years ago a friend’s dad, after a lifetime of struggle, lost his dairy farm because the cost of running it far outstripped the profit. By then his parents were old and his mom looked twenty years older than she really was. And also, a friend reminded me of “the exploitative relationship between big corporations and farmers”: farmers receive a pittance for their produce while corporations make huge profits from the high prices they ask of us, the end-users, and we blame the supposedly rich farmers.
Rustum asks in his column:
Maar ek wil weet, hoe begin ons om mekaar te herken?
But I want to know, how do we start recognising each other?
We can make a start by recognising in one another that need for a stukkie grond we can call home. A longing for belonging equally in a place of safety, security and progress. Apartheid negated that belonging for the majority of South Africans in too many ways: taking the land, causing mothers and fathers to be removed from their families, taking away the right to quality education, and the list goes on. And now it is the white man’s turn for this kind of misery: I am surrounded by elderly couples whose children had to go and find jobs overseas. There seems to be no end to the cycle of discontent and anger. I’ve never felt that I belong, and I envy those who talk proudly of their ancestors and their roots, no matter how bloody the trail often is. Apparently all my forefathers were a bunch of colonial, racist bastards, and I have nowhere to call home.
Rustum also touched on our inability to read within ourselves the tags we attach to others:
Too few South Africans seem to realise that we have to take individual responsibility for breaking the chain of racism, hate, anger, intimidation, abuse and finger-pointing, exactly because of this mirror-image of each other. In my mind that was exactly what the Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State, Prof. Jansen, tried to do. Instead he became the target of racism and hate speech, as if two wrongs could make a right. Few of us appear willing to step forward and say, “It stops with me.”
I feel we need stronger leaders who do not shirk individual responsibility and who do not justify their own bad behaviour as their cultural/traditional/previously disadvantaged right.
There are no innocents here. Years ago, after twice being attacked while living in Woodstock, I described the events to several people without defining the colour of my attackers’ skin. But here’s the rub: black people immediately presumed that they were coloured gangsters from the Cape Flats, and coloured and white people immediately decided that they must have been black and from Khayelitsha.
We fear each other because we can hurt each other, and now that the tables are turned on the white population, lunatic fringes like the AWB get a lot more attention than they deserve. I despise the media for making so much of this pitiful group, and by extension painting such a racist picture of all white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans. I find the British press to be the biggest hypocrites: they never acknowledge English citizens’ passive enjoyment of the apartheid years, or that those with dual-citizenship are standing with the left foot in False Bay and the right foot in Brighton, ready to flee. An English liberal lefty friend of mine, who recently adopted a beautiful black baby, has a wealthy friend in Canada who will help her to emigrate if South Africa implodes. Her father, who suffers from dementia and who lives in a care facility, keeps shouting “Fucking kaffirs!” at the top of his voice when he is upset … the majority of his care-givers are black. As I drove out of our gate the other day, I noticed a black woman walking, with obvious discomfort, towards Durban Road to catch a taxi. I gave her a lift to Belville station because I was on my way to see my Doc in the area. Her legs hurt. She was fifty three, worked as a part-time domestic somewhere in our area and spoke Afrikaans even though I addressed her in English. She was of the opinion that Somalis and other immigrants are to blame for a lot of misery in our country. She said their children have no manners and they steal from South Africans. And she was angry with the government for not doing anything about it. Due to the economic downturn she could also not afford to continue her son’s tertiary education, so he was just sitting at home grumbling.
I also despise the press for making so much of Mal Emma and his toxic rantings. Rustum wrote:
So sad. It is all too sad. Somehow the lunacy of the past weeks made me hyper-aware of my surroundings when I had to go to several shops yesterday. What I saw was people getting along. Polite, friendly, spontaneous, at ease. A lot of people in South Africa just want to get on with living, but because certain politicians and newspapers keep the focus on ugly reminders of an uglier past, I tend to become fearful and wary. When I don’t go out often enough — when I only absorb headlines online — I think, “Oh fuck, we’d better get out of here” and then inevitably “Oh shit, we don’t have the money and we have nowhere to go”. We have inherited a culture of fear and intimidation that is happily being extended into our future by the Mal Emmas and the Terror Blanches. Again, shame on them, and shame on those who are encouraging and supporting their particular brand of insanity.
See also:
As selfs die kranse nie antwoord gee nie… by Rustum Kozain
Strange Days Indeed by Mike Freedman
How many black intellectuals would it take to change the light bulb in Steve’s head? by Koos Kombuis
It’s not so black and white: Terre Blanche and Malema both destructive aberrations by Justice Malala
The ramifications of the killing of Eugène Terre’Blanche by the South African Institute of Race Relations
