Happy Birthday Madiba

1 July 2013, Apartheid & Post-Apartheid South Africa from my unique perspective...

Upon being asked to write a blog on my experiences of South Africa before apartheid ended, I was quite surprised. Mandela was released in 1990 and became president in 1994. That means we’re 2 decades out of the old regime. Have I noticed changes? Absolutely. Are they all for the better? I think they are, for the most part, but I type that in terms of people being more open-minded and integrated as a nation. I type that with the belief that generally there is greatly improved access to things like water, sanitation, education, health care and the like in places where there was no access at all; but I’m also thinking that quantity has reduced quality. There are more electricity outages because main stations haven’t been maintained or upgraded to support the influx. Schools are not being renovated or maintained because the buildings have now been allocated to the Department of Roads and Public Works, not the Department of Education. Water wastage has been reported as phenomenally high, along with the cable-theft across the country, so much so we even have hotlines now to catch the thieves.

Unfortunately, whenever writing a blog such as this, one has to remember, that you can only write from your own perspective and your own experiences. I didn’t go to an ‘all white’ primary school. I was initially educated 1985 – 1989 in a Covent in Zululand where I sat in a classroom with all race groups. Indian, coloured, black and white. I recall getting on very well with one of the coloured boys, he was funny and courteous; and I remember disliking two Indian girls as their personalities and behaviours were so very different to mine. I don’t believe either choice had anything to do with race, and had everything to do with my personal preferences as a human being. There was one quiet black guy who I remember the nuns often ‘talking to’, he seemed sweet, but I don’t recall chatting to him very often. Once again, not because he was black, but because he was quiet, naturally introverted.

From Zululand we moved to the Natal Highway area where I had to attend a soon to become Model-C school. I found it very odd that everyone was white. Then in 1990 Mandela was released and the school governing body voted in ‘change’. So many parents were unhappy with integrating colour into the school. For me, that seems such an odd reaction. But, in retrospect, the government had been separating the races for years and instilling fear in all areas, so those who had never seen a person of a different colour as part of their life can be understood for being fearful. I remember in Zululand, an area near the heart of the history of the Zulu nation, the property we lived on had a house, a garage, a laundry, a workshop and a ‘khaya’ (‘home’ in Zulu) for our ‘maid’. At one point the violence in her township was so bad that the ‘maid’ and her children came to stay on our property in the ‘khaya’ for their own safety. Now, if black people were seeking refuge from their own people’s violence in the non-violent ‘white’ areas, then it is no wonder that the white people feared joining up with the black people in the 1980s.

We had a few ‘maids’. Two I recall from the Zululand era. The one had to be fired. Things were going missing from inside the house, and when my parents went down to the ‘khaya’ the ‘maid’ had been stealing them from us. I was walking behind my Dad when he went into the ‘khaya’. The other ‘maid’ I spent a lot of time with. She taught me to make beds, wash dishes, clean windows and the like. Things I still use 20 years later. It was sad to say good-bye to her when we moved. Still, the idea of violence and theft have always been in the background… two ideas that do motivate fear.

In 1991, my standard 4 year, the new school I was attending became Model-C, and we had one black girl arrive at the school. I didn’t have a problem as I was used to mixed races in the classroom. Looking back now, as an adult, I can only commend her on her courage and having the strength to step out and join us. I’m still in touch with her today, we sat next to each other in 1995 in registration and she really has a lovely soul.

When the voting happened in 1994, I remember people talking about building underground shelters and they were buying all the tinned goods they could and such like. Our family didn’t do anything, the voting day, for us, was just a school holiday; or maybe my parents were simply protecting us from their own fears so that we weren’t affected. Looking back at the photos of the queues, the amazing politicians from all sides, and the unity that my country showed at the voting poles, it was phenomenal, is phenomenal, and I believe a true reflection of the great people South Africans are. I don’t believe that the unity happened overnight. As much as there were many people fighting, neck-lacing and killing (as per the Truth and reconciliation Commission writings – see Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog); there were also the ‘kaffir-boeties’, the convents, the Trevor Huddlestons, Athol Fugard and the like. There was a strong force of goodness that outweighed the minority of white and black extremists. A colleague of mine recalled to me how she was snuck into a ‘black reserve’ with her mother and the church choir where they sang together in a ‘forbidden’ place. Good things were happening too, but the good news doesn’t sell as well as the bad.

Post 1994, once again we had ‘maid’s steal from us. One walked out and helped herself to contents from my parents’ safe and the deep freeze. We had to put in a security alarm, which I was grateful for when a group of black men came up to our home while I was a teen looking after my younger siblings. I remember the dogs going mad; in confusion I went to the window near the panic button and caught a glimpse of one of them. I hit the button, the alarm went off and a number of them ran from behind bushes. I was so scared. In the years that have passed most of my family and myself have experienced bad crime, including death, all of which have been connected with black men. I’m aware that there is also white collar crime happening across race and gender too, but our experiences have only crossed one race.

Twenty years down the line it appears that equality has spread. There are now white and black beggars, white and black elite and rich, white and black scholars and academics and so on. It also seems that the ‘white guilt’ is lessening slightly too, and even black people don’t give money to black or white beggars at the traffic lights. Trying to find a job in this country as a young white girl was challenging. Thus it has been the case that the only way I have been able to get employment is through various personal connections; otherwise I would be starving on the streets too, because I am white and jobs are about Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment. Something about the city streets that I seem to recall as well is that they always seem to have so much more litter and filth now than they did before.

Along with lessening ‘white guilt’, I also think there is a lessening of ‘you are entitled because you are black’ acceptance, but unfortunately the philosophy still seems to prevail. At first, when Affirmative Action came into place, Bantu Education had created a wide gap between black and white; but now the next generation has received the same education regardless of race, yet, what I am required to teach in my classroom today is nowhere near the standard or quantity of what I was taught (even the criteria for academic colours and honours have been lessened!). The effort that my learners put into their work today is nowhere near close to the amount of effort I used to put into my work at school. There is an apathy in my classes today that scares me as much as the burglars did in the 1990s. What’s worse for me is having taught in London classrooms and having a solid view of what apathy turns into, what ‘spoil the child’ does, what losing the ‘rod’ and adult given discipline does. In my opinion, it is a horrible picture that both the United Kingdom and America are suffering with. An old teacher of mine has been teaching in the USA for a long while now and he told me that I would have been on academic bursary to the top American Universities if I was there, because my standards and performance well exceeded theirs. That was heart-breaking information for me; I’ve had to find a way to pay my own way through three tertiary qualifications.

I know that reverse apartheid has to happen, each extreme must be visited to find the balance, and I believe that South Africa is going to find that balance where people can be appreciated and awarded for their intrinsic ability and hard work. Where incompetence and apathy because: ‘it’s my right’, will become nonsense; ‘my right’ needs to be expelled.

Regardless of all my experiences, I’ve been called a “white bitch” for asking a noisy ‘black’ tenant not to disturb everyone (on behalf of others!), I’ve watched a man die, I’ve lost friends to other countries who were held at gunpoint here, I’ve been called racist and I hate seeing all the beggars on the road amidst expensive houses and cars. I’ve travelled the world and seen better and worse, BUT I have never come across a people more beautiful, caring, interactive and ubuntu-practising than my South Africans. We have an incredible energy in our country. We are a blessed country. We are a wonderful mix of people. Nowhere else in the world have I come across the life I have found here, at home. In 2013, we have every nation in the world on our land, in our universities and schools, in our businesses and interacting with our culture. We even have ‘South African stores’ in other countries our people love our culture so much. We had the best ranking and feedback ever for the 2010 World Cup. We have been home to Nelson Mandela and Gandhi. I teach black learners and they tell me I’m white on the outside, but I have a black soul. No, I’m white on the outside, but I have an African soul. Everywhere in the world has its problems, but personally, I’d rather be surviving with people I respect, in a place I love, than as an outcast, or a stranger, lonely and surviving in ‘first world’ isolation.