Is fear a reason for apartheid? Or ignorance? Or is it rooted in intolerance and hatred?

While chatting about this subject a couple of weeks ago on a forum, someone suggested that going to an exclusive (read: all white) school was actually a good thing, because how could you become a racist if you’ve never had interaction with a black person… How could you hate something you know nothing about? That doesn’t sound right to me, in fact, I know it’s wrong, but yet…. But yet… there seems to be something there.
None of the people I went to school with are racists. At least I don’t think so, but at the same time they live in small secluded little worlds that don’t allow them to interact with people of different colour or ethnicity. It’s not hatred… it might be fear… I simply think its ignorance. Is that the same thing as racism?

I don’t know.

I do know this: I don’t like segregation. I don’t think it’s good for the country, or the community or the individual.

And yet I still see it all the time. My nephews go to an all Jewish school – and they have little to no interaction with kids of different faiths or class or colour. To them life is all about keeping up with the Jankolowitz’s.

How sad I think, in a time when it’s cool to diversify, to be a part of something bigger, to be exposed to a larger world.

I love my childhood friends, we’ve grown up together, been through so many of life’s important moments, and I see the same traits in them. And it bugs the hell out of me.

Is this the legacy of segregation? Not hatred, but simply apathetic ignorance.
Shit, I hope not. It’s gonna take a long time to sort out this country, any country, if it is.

First, the love part:

I love how expressive it can be. There are certain words and phrases that just can’t be translated. Words like padkos, dagga, soutie, even borewors. But my all time favorite word is; kak.
I love it. Short, sweet and expressively to the point. It’s kak! Fuck, it’s great I’m smiling to myself as I write it. KAK. LOL.

Unfortunately the love part of my relationship with Afrikaans is pretty short compared to the hate part.

I dunno when I first started to hate it, sometime in my early youth I presume. I don’t remember disliking it with such vehemence during primary school, this sour relationship really only blossomed in high school. I suppose one reason is that I associated Afrikaans with the government. The fact that I seemed to fail it every single term didn’t help either.

In fact, my Afrikaans was so bad that my evil stepfather decided to do something rather drastic. The bastard put an advert in the Farmers Weekly, asking if any family would look after two city boys for a week. In return, their children could come spend a week with us in the big bad city afterwards.

I was horrified that he could do such a thing, not that I expected anything less from him.
And so it was my step boet and I were shipped to a farm somewhere in the Free State. Apart from the resentment and the obvious learning I was supposed to be under going, a week’s holiday on a farm ain’t all bad. I got to see how milk was made, saw a sheep getting skinned, went hunting and did all kinds of farm-type stuff. I must add that I was a better shot with every caliber rifle than the entire family. This skill earned me a small token of respect from the boers. I would have been touched, but I was too busy listening to Duran Duran on my ever-so-cool city-boy-only Walkman.

Anyway, one night while sitting on the floor in front of the TV watching the news I completely forgot where I was and who I was with. A piece came on about Eugene Terblanche and the AWB, and without thinking I blurted out, “My God, these people are a bunch of idiots.” Instantly I could feel ice-hot rays of death boring into my back. I turned around to see the farmer and his kids glaring evilly down at me from the couch.
I honestly thought I was going to die that night. Seriously. I fucking kakked (shat) myself. So much so that I locked our bedroom door that night, and put a chair under the door handle like you see in the movies.
I don’t remember learning much Afrikaans that week, cause by the end of it the family were speaking to us in English. I guess we were mangling their language so badly they couldn’t bear it.

My second great opportunity to get to grips with Afrikaans happened when I went into the army. This is a time when most English speaking boys learn to praat die taal. However, because of a simple little lie (one I’ve been telling ever since) I never got the opportunity.
You see, one day shortly after basic training when I’d been transferred to a camp just outside of Soweto, one of the Sergeant Majors was barking orders to me.
It was a scene straight out of a movie. Red faced. Spittle flying everywhere. “Ek moet doen dis, en gaan hier, maar doen dat….”
On and on he went, shouting at me. I just stood there stiffly at attention nodding slightly every so often, waiting for him to finish.
Finally he did, with a questioning look on his face.
“Pardon?” I said meekly.

My God, I thought he was gonna pop a fuse. The lie came quickly and easily. I told him I’d been schooled in the UK, and had only just returned to South Africa to do my national service. The poor dude was stuck between been horrified that I couldn’t speak Afrikaans and totally impressed that this soutie would come back to do his national service.

I have no proof that he went to the officer’s mess and told them, but it seems likely, because after that day none of the officers spoke to me in Afrikaans again. It was all English baby!
I still tell that story about getting schooled in England to explain my pathetic grasp of the language. I’ve told it so many times, it’s almost become the truth.

Another truth is this: I no longer have an issue with Afrikaans, and sometimes wish I could speak it better, but truth be told there are far more useful languages for me to learn in SA. And I haven’t really bothered with those either.

When I did I first realize I was living in SA?

I haven’t a clue.

A better question to ask is; when did I realize I was not living in America?

My first inkling that I was a world away from the home of the free, land of the brave was because of Afrikaans.

How come my TV displayed images in an incomprehensible language every second night? Why did the SABC logo keep changing to the SAUK logo?

I learnt from an early age to hate Afrikaans for ruining my entertainment, for devaluing our prized TV, for sounding so guttural, and dare I say it… for sounding so kak. (Which is kinda ironic cause ‘kak’ is now one of my favorite words ever.)

Another clue that I was not living in DALLAS was that our cops looked nothing as cool as Ponch and Jon from CHiPs and that I had to wear a fucking school uniform, unlike the lucky Afrikaans-free kids on TV. And not just any school uniform! Our school uniform was a bloody safari suit that made me feel Afrikaans even though I couldn’t understand a bloody word of that language. Can you imagine the horror of a hip happening Jewish kid having to dress like Boer? Oh the humility!

Looking back, though, a safari suit was a great school uniform. I didn’t have to wear a tie or tuck in my shirt. But at the time I absolutely hated it.

I only started becoming aware of a wider world in my early teens when I started reading the newspaper. It was only then I realized that my country was like no other country in the world – and that there was something seriously wrong. And it was a little thing that brought it to my attention, a tiny thing really.

Small.

Kinda like those retractions newspapers print when they’ve made an error. A small apology tucked away on the second or third page. Hardly noticeable at all amongst the horror stories and advertising.

It was those small notices informing us the newspaper had been censored by the government, that told me I was living in a very odd country, and that there was something happening I couldn’t yet comprehend. This little censorship notice was usually tucked away between two articles, or hidden somewhere on the second page.

It was a small thing, a couple of lines, but it spoke volumes to me. They told me I wasn’t getting the whole story. They told me some Afrikaans official was determining what I could and couldn’t read. And that pissed me off. Still does, I suppose. I’ve been wary of governments ever since.

Yup, a small censorship notice was all it took to open my eyes, to finally reveal that the country I was living in was not one where you could call the A-Team if you had a problem. And for a long time I hated living here, and I fucked off as soon as I could. But all that did change… I returned. I love it here. However that’s a story for another time.