A letter to my American friends a week after their elections

Like many of you, I have been devastated by the outcome of your elections. I am trying to make sense of what seems to me to be a giant step backwards for human rights, a blow to tolerance and respect. The whole world seems to be swinging back into a racist and colonialist mentality. First Brexit and now this. Major European countries have upcoming elections soon and I fear that those will follow this same right-wing trend. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be Obama and look back on 8 years of his life and wonder what the hell he achieved. There is no sense to be made.

I try to hide my head in the sand – why should I care about American politics when Americans seem to care only about themselves? But the reality is that when America sneezes, we catch cold. I’ve always tried to console myself with the idea that the American government is not necessarily the American people; that whatever wrongs the government commits it doesn’t mean the ordinary people are racist or islamophobes or … but now it seems that the people have spoken.

How is it possible that someone who openly supports racism and sexism and blatantly spouts hate-speech can have the support of more than 50 million people? Have we learnt nothing from history? Even if, as they say, most Americans are insular and ignorant about global events, have they learned nothing from their history? Nothing of civil rights and segregation and hatred and war and violence from your past?

Yesterday my daughter showed me that a proposed “victory” march by the Ku Klux Klan was trending on Facebook. I read in the Sunday newspaper that your president-elect’s father had been arrested at a rally years ago. He had been wearing the gown of the KKK. It sent shivers down my spine.

My son is in the USA and, like many of his friends, couldn’t wait to get out of his school uniform and grow his hair and beard. And from 12000 kms away, here I am freaking out about him looking like a “terrorist”. He is adamant that he is not going to shave and it goes against everything that I believe in to try and convince him that he should toe the line, lie low and not look a certain way. He probably wonders what I am on about since, even without the beard, he gets stopped at every airport for “random” security checks because of the way he looks. This feels like apartheid happening all over again.

There have been many articles written by experts in the fields, opinion pieces by academics and political commentators, pleas for tolerance and against panic. I’m trying to find comfort in the calls by diverse people for sanity to prevail, for people to take time to reflect and heal, and then to take action by forming community support groups, of becoming involved with NGO’s, of reaching out to their neighbours, to Muslims, Hispanics, Jews. Perhaps that’s all that we can do. To build small circles of compassion and to create ripples until, hopefully, we have concentric circles of goodness to protect and strengthen ourselves.

I was reminded this morning of a quote by Pastor Niemoller, a German who spoke out against the Nazis and was detained at Dachau. This is what he said,

First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist;

then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist;

then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew;

then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

In the dark days of apartheid that quote was pinned to my notice board. I found comfort in it then. I hope that it can still comfort now. And when I have energy perhaps I will heed Toni Morrison’s words:

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilisations heal.

I hope that she’s right.  In the meantime, please take care of my son – underneath his tanned skin and beard is a good, kind man.  

The Keeper of the Kumm

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. 
There is no time for despair, 

no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. 
We speak, we write, we do language. 
That is how civilisations heal. 
Toni Morrison.

Sylvia Vollenhoven has been hard at work helping us to heal. I saw her plays My Word, Redesigning Buckingham Palace and Cold Case at the Baxter a while ago. The former went on to London’s West End, garnering four stars from The Times of London.  

I was excited to see The Keeper of the Kumm, which had played to critical claim at the 2016 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. The Keeper of the Kumm is a multi-media project comprising the play (a dance drama), a novel and a documentary film. Kumm is a story told in the extinct /Xam language which is represented on our coat of arms*.

The play, starring Quanita Adams, Elton Landrew and Dawn Langdown, with original music by Hilton Schilder,  tells the story of Betjie Petersen, a hardened apartheid-era journalist who grapples with her identity. She reluctantly responds to a calling from her ancestor, //Kabbo, a 19th century rain-maker who went on a quest to the Cape to find people who would record the stories of his people.

The deeply autobiographical story crosses boundaries of time and place, and delves into religion, mental illness, tradition and the spiritual. Betjie finds healing for herself when she accepts her calling. 

In one scene which resonated with me, //Kabbo urges her to write the stories of the “prison of Colouredness”. Sylvia’s calling will no doubt help many to find healing. I look forward to experiencing the other aspects of this project. 

For more on The Keeper of the Kumm:

http://www.thejournalist.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-Keeper-of-the-Kumm-Aug-2014.pdf

*South Africa's motto, written on the SA coat of arms is a /Xam phrase: !ke e: /xarra //ke, literally meaning: diverse people unite.  

Memories of a trip to Madiba's village

After flying to East London from Cape Town, we drove north along the N2 for three hours, through the Wild Coast, formerly the Transkei, a homeland during the apartheid years and the Xhosa heartland. It rained steadily, the heavy grey skies contrasting sharply with bright green foliage and ochre-coloured earth. To our right was a rugged coastline pock-marked with secluded beaches, to the left forests, mountains and rivers. The national road cut straight through the CBD of small towns. In Butterworth, pedestrians, hawkers, obnoxious taxis and speeding traffic clashed in the chaotic main road. It was two days before Christmas and queues of people snaked around corners, waiting to withdraw hard-earned cash. 

I was surprised by how undeveloped the area was. In his autobiography, A Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela speaks fondly of his childhood in Qunu – swimming in the river, stick-fighting with his friends, tending sheep and drinking milk straight from cows’ udders. I was sure not much had changed since then. Qunu, where the family took refuge after Mandela’s father was deposed as chief, is right next door to his birthplace, Mvezo. 

The number of potholes in the road seemed to be in direct proportion to how rural the surrounding countryside was. Cows grazed along the roadside while goats risked their lives, and ours, by running across the tarmac with little regard for traffic. Our driver was forced to slow down to negotiate the obstacle course, and pointed to scatterings of thatch-roofed mud huts, sprinkled on the slopes of hills. Small cultivated patches of soil produced the vegetables to be cooked in black pots hung over open fires. Women, their faces and bodies decorated with white clay, collected water in pots from the river and carried them home, balanced on turbaned heads.

 

A few rondavels with stable doors were strung out in a semi-circle and a number of white and brown cows were enclosed in a low-walled kraal. A fire was spluttering in a clearing where black three-legged pots stood next to a stack of wood protected from the rain with plastic. Mongrels, perhaps anticipating a feast, sniffed at the pots.

Old men, wearing gumboots, blue and orange overalls and battered felt hats, were sitting on the wall of the kraal. 

As we traversed the treacherous terrain, we imagined what a difficult journey it must’ve been for Madiba from herd-boy to president. Little wonder he advocated education as the single most powerful weapon to change the world. The site for the planned Nelson Mandela School of Science and Technology, sponsored by Siemens, had been marked out. It struck me as almost more important a landmark than the small open-air museum nearby. It would serve many future generations of leaders. 

[The Nelson Mandela School of Science and Technology opened in July 2014]

You may also like Tea with Madiba in this blog and Thank you, Madiba, and Happy Birthday

Che Guevara of Bonteheuwel

http://actionkommandant.co.za/tag/nadine-cloete/

Nadine Cloete is a young South African film-maker on a mission to balance the stories about gangsters, drugs and crime, emanating from the Cape Flats. Judging by the sold out premiere at the V& A’s Cinema Nouveau theatre last night, with people begging to be let in to sit on the steps for the showing of her latest documentary, people want to hear what she has to say.

Her latest movie tells the story of anti-apartheid activist Ashley Kriel who was murdered by the South African security police in 1987, after he returned from Angola. His murderer, Jefrey Benzien, admitted to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he had shot the 20 year old who was handcuffed, in the back. Despite pleas to the opposite, Benzien was granted amnesty in 1999.

Kriel was from a working class neighbourhood, raised by a single mother, his father had been stabbed to death. He was conscientised from a young age to fight for what he believed was right. Nicknamed the "Che Guevara of Bonteheuwel", he influenced a generation of youth activists in his short life.

The film which debuted at the Seattle Film Festival earlier this year, tells a multi-faceted story of the young leader and is powerfully framed by discussions among contemporary students at the school Kriel attended.

The audible sobbing of Kriel’s sisters sitting a few seats from where I was, brought back with full force the trauma and wounds we have suffered and which have not been allowed to heal.

The Encounters International Documentary Film Festival is currently on in Cape Town at The Labia and Cinema Nouveau.

 http://www.encounters.co.za/ 

Identity Crisis in Perthfontein?

“We call it Perthfontein,” said the son of a friend. “And don’t think that you can use Afrikaans to talk behind anyone’s back in the mall,” he added, “they might well understand you!” So I was warned. All the “South Africanisms” still came as a surprise though.  The huge South African flag above the SA Essentials shop which greeted me every time we went to the yoga studio, the Nando’s chicken outlet, the wine farm down south which had been replicated from Groote Constantia (including the slave bell) and of course all the South Africans who I met, eager to switch into at least a few phrases of Afrikaans and to tell me that they have to do without house help. And like many a South African dorpie which ends in –fontein, the malls have only recently been allowed to trade on Sundays. 

                       

There’s something oddly familiar about Australia. Of course there’s the obvious British influence – driving on the left hand side of the road, the almost-recognisable school uniforms, images of the Queen. Added to that is more than a smattering of America in the chain stores and restaurants, from K-Mart to McDonald’s and KFC. 

The landscape was recognisable; I knew the vegetation. I could be travelling to Beaufort West in the Great Karoo, if not for the black and yellow signs warning of kangaroos bounding across the highway. “Proudly-South-African-in-Perth” websites and Facebook pages bear testimony to the 155 000 South Africans who live mostly here and in Sydney. Little wonder then that the Australian identity eluded me.

No matter, I enjoyed the long stretches of beaches, the towns with musical names like Bunberry, Yallingup and Dunsborough, the architectural marvel that is the Sydney Opera House, the bakery in the middle of nowhere which operated on an honesty system, the kangaroos who looked like they’d skipped upper limb exercises at the gym and the lethargic koala bears. I ate good food, went on long walks and enjoyed being able to cross the road without thinking; I reconnected with old friends. I returned home to find myself.   

Down Under

The Great Barrier Reef
[[File:Great Barrier Reef 015 (5390533959).jpg|Great Barrier Reef 015 (5390533959)]]

As I prepare for an upcoming trip Down Under, I have been reflecting on how much (or little) I know about Australia. Like Bill Bryson, I can’t seem to remember the name of the Prime Minister. I have never had a strong desire to visit, since in my mind it seems like half of South Africa must be living there, surrounded by shark-infested waters, there's the abominable treatment of the aborigines and it's not the easiest country to get to from here. 

Much of my knowledge seems to come from local television in the mid-70s…like programmes on the marvels of The Great Barrier Reef, and does anyone remember The Rolf Harris Show? That popped up from my subconscious when I woke up this morning. I could clearly recall the woolly bespectacled man with his wobble board, didgeridoo and accordion, introducing us to Waltzing Mathilda and Tie Me Kangaroo Down. And, of course, there was Crocodile Dundee.

According to a friend who has moved here from Adelaide, most of the cities are on the coast and except for Sydney, are “like Port Elizabeth with a little more going on”. As often happens, once you turn your focus onto a place, you start to gather all sorts of information, like it takes five and a half hours to fly from Sydney to Perth, there are multiple time zones and, according to another friend who heard me complain about the heat a while ago, if it’s 30 degrees she thinks it’s a cool day. That’s the other thing, I realise I have friends in at least four cities. At the end of the day, that’s really why I am going – to connect with people. 

Since, thanks to globalisation, I have more than a few items of clothing with Australian labels in my cupboard and even my hair products carry the .com.au logo, coupled with the Nicole Kidmans and Hugh Jackmans, I suspect that I may have absorbed more than a little of the culture. I am travelling to the largest island and the only continent to occupy an island, with an open mind. Will keep you informed, mate. 

P.S. Just in case I lose my sense of humour, I have packed a copy of Bill Bryson's Down Under. 

District Six - We will Remember

Family and Friends Woodstock/District Six circa 1940s
My grandmother holding my mother on the right

Thursday 11 February 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the declaration of District Six as an area for Whites only. District Six is now unrecognisable from what it was before its destruction but I have fond memories of the area where my grandparents lived and my father was born.

My father in his rugby-playing days circa 1950

One hundred years ago there was a vibrant community there of Indians, coloureds, Portuguese, Greeks and Jews. Freed slaves, merchants, immigrants, artisans and labourers all worked and lived peacefully side by side. They were an eclectic mix of cultures, religions and ethnicities in a melting pot typical of a port city like Cape Town … apparently a threat to the apartheid government. It would take about 15 years to move the 60 000 people out, to the Cape Flats, to areas like Manenberg, Hanover Park and Mitchell’s Plain.

My life revolved around Hanover Street, the main artery which ran all the way up from the city centre, into Walmer Estate where I grew up.  My grandfather’s tailor shop, later to be taken over by my uncle, was a hive of activity there; the doctor who delivered me in my grandparents’ home, had his surgery there where we would queue for hours to be seen, and Majiet’s barbershop was filled with people not necessarily having their hair cut, but playing dominoes and catching up on the news. A trip into town would inevitably involve a stop for roti and curry from the Crescent Café. My father says that you could buy anything in Hanover Street except petrol.

Central to the area was the spirit of kanala – a Malay word for “if you please”. Before it became District Six , the area was called Kanaladorp, a mixture of Malay and Dutch, referring to the way people assisted each other, or did favours for each other – a version of Ubuntu.

Malay choir
photo courtesy Ismail Lagardien

Tied up with my memories is the music which was played in the streets by minstrels, Malay choirs and Christmas bands, and the food with names like bredie, bobotie, denningvleis, frikkadels and oumens onder die kombers. One dish that, for me, represents the Cape with Malay, Dutch and Christian influences blended together with fragrant spices was pickled fish. I remember my maternal grandmother making it in the last week of Lent, to eat on Good Friday. She would make it well in advance to give the spices a chance to penetrate the fish, and also to free up her Friday when she would spend many hours in church. The best fish to use was geelbek, kabeljou or yellow tail which would have been bought either from the fish market on the corner of Hanover and Clifton Street, opposite the Star bioscope, or from the fish cart which did the rounds in the neighbourhood. The hawker would sound his horn to alert housewives that he had arrived with the catch of the day and they would come out to the street to haggle.

Weddings were communal affairs

Weddings and funerals were community affairs. When I was about six or seven I was a flower girl twice in the same year, once for my aunt, a Christian wedding and then for a Muslim neighbour, a dressmaker who sewed all the dresses for the wedding herself. The whole street turned out to see the bride when the wedding cars hooted to announce her arrival, and the neighbours followed behind to the reception in the Princess Street Hall. Funerals were another occasion when everyone would just turn up to pay their respects and support the family in any way they could. Christian men would borrow fezzes and take their turns carrying the bier of their Muslim neighbours. 

As the bulldozers moved in and the walls came tumbling around her, my paternal grandmother was banished to Mitchells Plain, far from the city centre where she had lived her whole life. She had been a fiercely independent woman, who had to earn a living after her husband died and left her to raise four children on her own. She made koeksisters and konfyt to sell door-to-door on Sunday mornings in District Six, and sewed and crocheted. She used public transport or walked wherever she had to go. What I remember most was her loss of independence. Suddenly she found herself in a foreign area without any infrastructure and no public transport to fetch her pension from the General Post Office in Cape Town. For the first time she had to ask for help.

My grandaunt and friend snapped by street
photographer while walking past the GPO

Central to my motivation for going back to university, was to equip myself with skills to tell the stories of growing up, not only my stories but the stories of those who cannot tell their own. We’re a deeply divided society, still trying to recover from a brutal past. We cannot sweep it under the carpet, sooner or later the bump will trip us up. When you strip away a people’s history you take away their pride. Telling these stories helps to restore dignity and help us to move forward. We need to know that someone sees our pain and understands.

Wall in District 6 Museum bearing names of former residents

I urge you to visit the District Six Museum. However painful the memories of apartheid may be, the exhibition there humanises the experiences while celebrating the rich diversity of people who once lived here. For me, it’s like settling into an old armchair and turning the pages of a well-worn family photo album. When I see the barber’s corner, the display case with the games we once played in the road, the photographs of the Peninsula Maternity Home where my sister was born or the wall-hanging with the name of the rugby club my father played for, I feel that our lives mattered. And when I walk up the stairs to the wall that bears the names of families who lived here, and I scroll down to find mine, I feel that our experiences have been validated and dignified. 

Memorial Plaque at the District Six Museum

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/District-Six-Memory-Plaque.jpg

Discovering Stories of Slavery

I finished reading Andre Brink’s Philida a while ago and it’s taken a long time to process the violence of the relationship between slave and master in the Cape during the 19^th century. I remember hearing that the slaves in South Africa never had it has bad as their counterparts in America.  Of course, I knew that this was propaganda along with other things we were told about the benign nature of our history. However reading the details of rape, whipping, impaling on top of the humiliation of being sold/auctioned, objectification, and the cruelty the slaves were subjected to, was nothing short of distressing.

Brink was inspired by the story of a relative who had owned the farm, Zandvliet, which is now Solms-Delta*.  Francois Brink had fathered four children with his father’s slave, Philida. He had promised that he would marry Philida but the farm is in trouble and his father orders him to marry a white woman from an important family in Cape Town. It wouldn’t do to have reminders of his former transgressions. So Philida is sold and separated from Ouma Nella, the only mother she has known.

The story unfolds in 1830s just before emancipation. Brink, the writer, skilfully juggles with religion, the tensions between the English and Dutch, and relationship between the landowners and the slaves. There were places in the book, though, where I wasn’t sure that a woman would say something quite in the voice that he uses.

There’s a poignant scene in the book which has stuck with me. Slaves were not allowed to wear shoes and one of the slaves on Philida’s new farm secretly makes a pair for each of them so that they can celebrate the emancipation with shoes. And celebrate they do, “…running up and down the street…singing and dancing and kicking up the dust...from now on everything will be different.” Of course they weren’t really free as they were forced to spend a further four years serving an “apprenticeship” on the farm.

Andre Brink was the first Afrikaans writer to have a book banned by the South African government during the apartheid era. He challenged the policies of the Nationalist Party through his writing in books such as A Dry White Season and A Chain of Voices. He died almost a year ago today, aged 79. Philida was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2012.

Philida reflects near the end of the book that “Ouma Nella’s stories… are all that remain now. Perhaps, when the end comes, they are all that can go on living.”

*When Mark Solms bought the farm in 2002, he set about uncovering its history, revealing not only the foundations of the first house built there, but also the remnants of a Stone Age site dating back about 5 000 years ago, and the story of Philida. A museum has been established to preserve the history of the farm as well as the musical heritage of the Cape.