For the last fifteen years we’ve heard all about Apartheid. In fact, I’d be willing to wager a small amount that in the last decade and a half, people have used every possible medium to spout the varied evils of the previous administration. From the Newspaper headlines screaming “Third Force at work!” to flowery speeches on the television assuring us that the new administration is diametrically opposed to every single nuance of governance that came before, a lot has been shoved in our faces about how evil Apartheid was.

Even the rest of the world has been brought into the inner huddle to whisper in darkened rooms about how racist South Africans are (most of them with bloodstained hands from their own very recent racist romps) and it’s often the first thing someone asks me if they find out I’m from South Africa; “Why did you hate the blacks so much?” “Did you support Apard-hide?”

Even my United States born-and-raised word processor recognises the word without a hitch. That tells me something, it really does. Whichever poor schmuck it is within the monolithic Microsoft that handles Spell Checking had to at some point make a judgement call over whether to include Apartheid as a viable word. Because of the widespread knowledge, I imagine the call was an easy one. Score one for the liberals I suppose.

In many ways, Apartheid is and was more evil than the other regime it’s often compared with – Nazism. Before I’m lynched by the new age boeremag I suppose I should probably explain.

As ideologies go, Nazism was at least constant and unbending. Hardly any of the SS troopers would have said “Some of my best friends are Jews but…” or “Yes, some Jews are ok but it’s those damned kykes you have to watch out for.” No. They were unbending and unrelenting in their hatred and although evil, at least it wasn’t petty.

That’s at the root of the evil of Apartheid for me; the sheer pettiness of it all. It’s not the grand things like segregation, “dom pas” or even the no-mixed marriages thing. It’s the “Some of my best friends are black but…” and “Yes, some blacks are OK but it’s those damned k****s you have to watch out for.”

And that includes the senseless and utterly petty things that we as kids were bombarded with and never even realised.

You’re a South African – you remember buying a ton of those little sweets from a tuck-shop don’t you? You know the ones. Those ones you suck and they turn different colours? What were they called again?

These days they’ve fallen under the purview of the PC crowd and they’re called “black balls” but you remember them being called “nigger balls” don’t you?

What about eenie, meenie, mienie mo? How does that one go? Catch a what by his toe? Oh tiger you say? Really? Always?

Don’t think I’m unfairly dumping all of this on South Africa. The reason I mentioned the other side of things at the beginning was that it’s not just our side of Apartheid that’s petty; it’s the others as well.

Every American that hears South Africa and wonders about Apartheid while not caring about “Indian Casinos” or the British guy with the stiff upper lip who asks me why I hate blacks (while forgetting his own fairly recent colonial past) supplies the mindfield with more than enough explosive for the whole damned thing to come full circle one day.

I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade but petty apartheid is still out there – mostly alive and well in the minds of the over 20s around the world. To pretend anything else is just naive. I’m sure over the next twenty or thirty years it will die down just like every other stupidity that mankind comes up with but for now the small things live on and on and on.

I probably shouldn’t forget to mention that perennial South African favourite “Ag pleez daddy” with the charming chorus belted out by almost every South African boy of a certain age:

“Popcorn, chewing gum, peanuts an’ bubble gum
Ice cream, candy floss an’ Eskimo Pie
Ag Deddy how we miss
Nigger balls an’ licorice
Pepsi Cola, ginger beer
And Canada Dry”

Like I said, it’s the little things.

It’s not that I have anything particular against Afrikaans – I’m just glad I no longer have to speak it. I simply wasn’t built to get around all the difficult sounds. I can’t brrrei – it comes out all flat and horrible sounding. Although I can fully understand quite a lot, pronouncing the title of this piece sounds like I’m trying to speak with marbles in my mouth. In fact, I firmly believe that the whole language was created as a weapon against the British.

Stay with me for a moment – it does actually make sense. If you think about it, South Africa as we know it was colonised by various people at various times with the most well known being the Dutch and the British. If you’ve ever heard someone speaking Dutch or tried reading a book in Dutch, you’ll know how similar the two languages are.

If you imagine for a moment that the people in South Africa at the time may have been mildly annoyed at suddenly having to sing “God save the Queen”, you can imagine how they’d have felt about speaking English.

Quite unsurprisingly, many people flat refused to speak English – labeling it the language of the oppressors (how’s that for irony?). It’s not a great logical leap to say that they began constructing the Afrikaans language in earnest not because they needed a new way of communicating but rather as a result of a quiet rebellion and a lingering of Dutch. I can imagine all the khaki-clad mense sitting around their kitchen table having a good chuckle about the Rooinek in town who just tried to say “Hoe gaan did met u?” (How are you?) or trying to buy a dress for his lady and hesitantly stuttering out “rooi rok”. No wonder there was so little love lost between the nations.

Of course, I’m being a little unfair on Afrikaans. To many people it’s a language that conveys a ton of meaning and has subtleties that make it very special to them. There are many redeeming factors – one of which is swearing. Even a predominantly English speaking person like myself can make use of Afrikaans swear words. There’s something about them that just releases tension like no other language (with the possible exception of the German Scheiße at high volume). The wonderful “only-possible-on-the-internet” SwearSaurus has some excellent examples for everyday use from the fairly tame “poephol” (asshole) to the quite rude “eet kak en vrek” (eat shit and die) – I suggest you take a look at it, just Google “Swearsaurus” and you’ll find examples to sate even the dirtiest mouth.

Despite what it may seem like though, one day when I have kids I’ll be teaching them Afrikaans and making sure they give it as much attention as they can at school. I do honestly believe that it’s a useful language to have under your belt both for when you’re living in South Africa and when you’d like to say something that nobody understands on foreign shores. The language is an integral part of our culture and I don’t think there’s anything that will ever shift that – not the mispronunciations of a young man or the historical links to the sadder parts of South Africa’s past.

Plus, it’s a lot of fun to sing in.

Bobbejaan klim die berg, so haastig en so lastig; bobbejaan klim die berg, so haastig en so lastig; bobbejaan klim die berg om die boere te vererg.
Hoera vir die jollie bobbejaan!
O moenie huil nie, o moenie treur nie, die Stellenbosse boys kom weer.
O moenie huil nie, o moenie treur nie, die Stellenbosse boys kom weer.

I don’t have a good memory. By my reckoning, I remember roughly half of my life. That’s not to say I don’t have a timeline fixed in my head – it’s just that the memories are more of a thin veneer and kind of like those infomercial products that look so good but really don’t stand up to close scrutiny.

There are two vivid memories that fit this category and coincidentally are the two events that proved to me, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was a South African.

The first took place in front of a small TV set in 1990 in a small Eastern Cape town.

I remember seeing an old but vital man walking at the head of a crowd of people. Dressed in a quite plain gray suit, he carried himself with a strange dignity. Even so, there are many dignified people in the world and surely it takes more than that to get on TV? I’m a naturally curious person so of course I asked and I distinctly remember having the whole thing explained to me. I knew to some degree about Apartheid and the tragedies that had beset the country but it had always seemed so distant to me, almost unreal. The last thing I remember about that day was the small, quiet feeling of pride I had, an inclusion in something so much bigger than myself, and the fading lyrics of a song.

Time passed and South Africans went to the polls to give democracy a chance. I grew up a little and learned more about the country and how we got to where we were. By the time my second memory was being made wherever it is that memories are created, Nelson had moved quite far from his plain gray suit. As President of a country that seemed to have no limit, he had risen into the world spotlight and broken open a stillness that had encased South Africa for far too long.

The world had finally recognized us as a sports playing nation and boy, we were glad. I’ve never been a sports fan but this impressed even me. Five years after Nelson had been freed, I sat with millions of South Africans as the world took our measure. We waited, eyes fixed on the television, barely breathing, to see if we’d be found worthy.

I think it’s quite possible that the collective concentration of South Africa has never been as galvanised, so centred as it was on that day. I often wonder what would have happened if the ball had gone the other way. If New Zealand had scored one more time or if Joel Stransky’s foot had slipped on his approach. Would South Africa be as collected as it is now? Would we be in the same position, would so much have been expected of us? Would I and countless others feel like we were part of something bigger – even just for a day?

Because man, when Joel Stransky’s magic foot landed that final drop goal, I all but exploded with pride. I’m sure millions of South Africans agree that on that day, in that hour we were untouchable. South Africa’s future spread out bright and golden into the horizon and for the first time ever, I really felt like I belonged here.

I may not have a good memory and I may be missing half my life but I’ll be damned if I ever forget that.