Down South in the USA

I have visited the USA often over the last 20+ years, but this last trip was the first one that I spent any significant time in the south. An opportunity to present at a conference was the main reason for the visit which of course got extended because “if I was going all the way I should make it worthwhile”. Visiting the south was a very different experience, especially with my daughter beside me, whispering that she felt like she was on the set of the movie, Get Out. Suffice it to say that we had arrived from Mexico where we had blended in with the locals a lot more easily. 

The conference took place in Charleston, South Carolina (there are two Charlestons in the USA). Charleston, SC, was the American capital of the transatlantic slave trade, with 40 percent of enslaved Africans passing through it. The opening shots of the Civil War were fired in April 1861 at Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour. 

Inside Mother Emmanuel Church

The conference, “Transforming Public History from Charleston to the Atlantic World,” was organized by the College of Charleston’s Race and Social Justice Initiative and the Avery Research Centre.  The opening address was given by Dr Lonny Bunch, founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, at the Mother Emmanuel church, where nine worshippers were shot and killed in a racially motivated attack. The church was built in 1816 and has survived natural disasters and burning for its association with slaves; civil rights activists gathered there, Martin Luther King Jr spoke from its pulpit. The church has survived the shootings and has become a site of pilgrimage and a symbol of forgiveness.

That weekend happened to be the second anniversary of the racist shooting at the church in which 9 people were killed. In my experience, places of worship, no matter what faith they celebrate, are imbued with a sense of peace and spirituality. It’s difficult to imagine anyone violating that space. Sitting in the pews with sunlight streaming through stained glass window, reminded me of a visit we had made to Regina Mundi in Soweto, the site of police shootings in 1976. 

People around us were whispering about a noose that had been left at the museum recently and were wondering whether Dr Bunch would mention it in his speech. He didn’t, but spoke instead about the importance of public history, about remembering the history that is omitted from the official narrative and how slavery and race and ethnicity have shaped America. He concluded that it was important for everyone to be exposed to this history since it had shaped everyone. His speech, the venue, the anniversary of the shooting … all added emotional layers to the conference. With topics like, “My Skin – the Costume I’m in”, “Black Lives Matter in the Age of Trump” and “They wore white and prayed to the east”, the conference helped me to place my study in an international context. 

Charleston SC waterfront. Fort Sumter to the right in the distance

Given this history, it was a shock to walk along the waterfront on our last afternoon there and see statues and monuments to the confederacy. Even more so, since the Mother Emmanuel shooter had posted images of himself flying the confederate flag. 

On our last morning we visited the Mcleod Plantation, all “Gone with the Wind” – a long driveway lined with tall trees dripping with Spanish moss, leading to the mansion. A guide who had been on a panel the previous day gave us a more inclusive tour, taking us around the back to tell us stories of the people who had lived in the row of one-roomed wooden houses. It was chilling to think that, Dylan Roof, the Mother Emmanuel shooter had been on this same visit and taken photographs in the same places we did.  

On my entry to the USA, immigration officer, on hearing the purpose of my visit, remarked, I don’t think we’ll ever learn, do you? I’d like to think that everyone at the conference left with a renewed conviction to share the stories, to tell history with a multiplicity of voices.

Mind Your Language

It is doubtful whether there are many people out there who will take advice from gangsters or drunks, even less so if the person advocating caution was a drunk gangster. So I am not sure what the Western Cape Transport and Public Works department was thinking with this advert for their #BoozeFreeRoads campaign. See article by Robin-Lee Francke here:

http://www.dailyvoice.co.za/news/watch-anti-booze-is-an-insult-to-coloureds/

It seems that they don't see anything wrong with their "100% authentic" portrayal of drunk gangsters selected off the streets of Hanover Park on the Cape Flats. 

The stereotypes of drunkenness and violence associated with 'coloured' people is ingrained in the narratives which go way back to the 17th century, when those who were referred to as 'Hottentots' were described thus:  

... they are lazy, they love to drink, they swear and fight at the slightest provocation and are generally immoral... 

In his examination of the portrayal of ‘Hottentot’ characters in early 19th century theatre, Vernon February finds the same basic elements: their love of liquor, their irascibility, their moral looseness, and linguistic incomprehension. He remarks that by the early 20^th century, ‘coloureds’ were limited to certain roles in Afrikaner mythology – the labour syndrome, comic syndrome, Bacchus syndrome, incarceration syndrome, loud-mouthed syndrome, and bellicose syndrome.  The theme of alcohol is a recurring one throughout Afrikaans literature, enshrining the tot system and justifying alcohol as the ‘coloured’s’ greatest cultural heritage, he concludes. 

Questions of race continue to surface in South Africa more than twenty years after democracy, Albie Sachs, anti-apartheid activist and constitutional court judge, comments in his autobiography that we have to acknowledge the catastrophic effects of apartheid in human terms in order to move on. Not only do we need to acknowledge apartheid and repression, but we need to realize the social and emotional impact that it had. 

Unless we destroy the stereotypes which were used to oppress us and define us racially, we cannot move towards a post-apartheid society where 'black' and 'white' believe they are equal to each other. We need to create the optimum conditions on the ground in order for people to feel neither superior nor inferior to each other, but to view each other as human. 

Further reading:

February, V. 2014. Mind Your Colour: The 'Coloured' Stereotype in South African Literature

Reading for Pleasure or Not the Life of a Student

I have been so wrapped up in academia that it seems a lifetime ago that I actually read a book for pure pleasure. Every time I pick up a book a little voice appears urging me to read between the lines to look for hidden themes, symbols and contexts.  

In fact, I was forced to trawl the thousands of photographs on my phone (which I really need to make time to clean up) to find proof that I have done so! Sadly, this is from a holiday two and a half years ago. Pure bliss...

These days, my reading pile looks more like this:

I am having an amazing journey, by times stimulated, fascinated, overwhelmed, depressed, a whole gamut of emotions. And one book leads to another and another, and I fear that I may disappear behind a pile of paper and eventually someone may have to dig me out and I will emerge, clutching the thesis like the holy grail in one hand, the other hand hanging limply by my side with mouse-induced stiffness. 

I do miss immersing myself in a good book, curling up in bed and reading into the night. I also miss writing, keeping up with my blog, writing about issues that have nothing to do with slavery, colonialism or racism. Sitting at the computer feels like work all the time. I sneak onto Facebook and press a few likes, and disappear before I get sucked in. But would I do the studying all over again? Yes, without hesitation. It's given a different meaning to my life. 

So I am going on a trip this week and am most excited about choosing a book to read on the plane! Believe me, I have choices on my bookshelf from months ago when I ventured into bookshops in Australia and America. I even have Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman from almost two years ago, when I very excitedly grabbed it off the shelf in Pawling, happy to read it before it had been released back home. (Well, I haven't yet!). What I have chosen, and it may have something to do with the title more than anything else, is:

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu

and their race to save the 

world's most precious manuscripts

This is a story of a historian who organised a dangerous operation to save 350 000 volumes of ancient Islamic and secular texts out of Timbuktu to the safety of southern Mali. One of the reviews promises that the author, Joshua Hammer, "has pulled off the truly remarkable - a book that is both important and a delight to read. Another, that this book is a must-read if you are feeling despair about the fate of the world (which I am). I'm hoping that is enough to shut up the nagging little voice and that I will be able to simply enjoy the fantastic story! I will keep you posted. 

On race and culture

I am still processing the information that, somewhere out there are 2000 people who bought a book with the good intentions of navigating the diverse cultures of the people of South Africa.  Instead, I shudder to think, they were offered stereotypes of so-called ‘coloured culture. That someone could be bold enough to write a chapter on the subject is wrong on so many levels. Where shall I start?

Firstly, the very notion of a grouping of coloured people is an artificial construct of an apartheid government hell-bent on denying the rights and freedoms to 80% of the population of our country, for more than 40 years. 

Secondly, culture, “the arts, customs, and institutions of a nation, people or group”, by its nature refers to a fairly homogenous group of people to begin with. There is no white culture or black culture or coloured culture.

Gabeba Baderoon in her book, Regarding Muslims, notes that,

… in the racial hierarchy of apartheid, ‘colouredness’ formed the interstitial zone between ‘native’ and ‘white’… defined solely through negatives, imbued with ambiguity … ‘colouredness’ was the fluid middle of the hierarchy in South Africa …

Even the architects of apartheid had trouble deciding who fitted into this group of “leftovers” (as Marike de Klerk so famously referred to coloureds). The fluidity that Baderoon refers to was evident in the seven subgroups of coloured made provision for in the Population Registration Act of 1950:

Cape Coloured/Malay/Griqua/Chinese/Indian/Other Asian/Other Coloured

And as Mrs de Klerk observed, the people who were” left after the nations were sorted out, the negative group, the non-people” were classified coloured.  Conveniently forgotten was the rich diversity of people descended from Indonesian slaves, Europeans, Khoikhoi and San, with diverse art, music, customs, speaking Afrikaans and/or English.  Also ignored by Mrs de Klerk and others like her, were studies that showed that on average 7% of all Afrikaner forefathers were of “coloured” origin. 

The Act required every citizen to be registered according to his/her race group, with race determined by a classification board acting on information from family and friends; a person’s hair, eyeballs and cuticles could be examined for pigmentation if there was any doubt. This fluidity meant, for example, that my grandfather could change his classification from ‘white’ to marry my ‘coloured’ grandmother, even though she was fairer-skinned than he. My aunt, who married a "real" European (as in he really was born there and not as a synonym for "white South African") was not able to live in South Africa with her husband. When she visited with her children, she was not allowed to stay in her mother’s “coloured” home with her “white” children.

My aunt Hilda on her wedding day

Lastly, tough as it may be to comprehend, there is only one human race. We are 99% genetically identical. There is no coloured race, or white or black race for that matter. So let’s refrain from deepening divisions by assigning sweeping characteristics to artificial groups of people. 

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