Pathetic Apathy.
Age 13.
So many whites knew this system was atrocious, yet only a tiny percentage dared to fight it.
Where were my parents?
Why didn’t they speak up?
What were they thinking?

Princess Airhead.
Age 17.
By the age of 14 Nadine Gordimer had figured out that something was badly wrong with the system. What took me so long to figure it out?
Why didn’t I wake up?
What was I thinking?

Privileged African.
Age 20.
Matriculated from prestigious school and obtained degree from prominent university.
I benefited directly from the system.
Why was I completely unaware of what was still going on?
Why didn’t I wake up?
What was I thinking?

Party Animal.
Age 23.
Clubs, booze and parties.
Why was I so self-absorbed?
Why didn’t I wake up?
What was I thinking?

Political Anaesthesia.
Age 27.
Awake now, but head still firmly buried in Gucci-scented sand.
Still tolerated racist, sexist South Africans.
Where was my mind?
Why didn’t I speak up?
WHAT WAS I THINKING!?

Profound Apology.
Age 35.
I’m sorry, South Africa. I let you down.
The light is now on. My head is out of the sand.
I AM NOW THINKING.
It won’t happen again.

The mere mention of the word conjures up images of my school classmates wincing in dismay as our Afrikaans teacher announced that the following week’s homework was to prepare a “mondeling” on some relevant topic. Kids would go to truly staggering lengths to get out of those classes. Even more remarkable was the number of suburban dogs that were partial to the taste of Afrikaans homework…
Personally, my allegiance falls on the love side of things. But then, I did get a lucky break when it comes to being “tweetalig”.

In the December of 1981, my family emigrated from Zimbabwe to South Africa. I was seven years old and had never heard a single word of Afrikaans. As fate would have it, we moved directly to Sasolburg in the Orange Free State. Afrikaans heaven, ne?.

My very first memory of the language sees me weeding the garden on our first Saturday in South Africa and the woman across the road (sixty-ish, buxom and an original Afrikaner) calling me repeatedly.
“Meisie! Meisie!” she trilled from across the street.

Of course, I had never heard the word before and so ignored her, assuming she must be suffering from dementia and talking to someone else. Eventually, she pushed open her garden gate and hurried across the road to our fence, all the while calling me “Meisie! Meisie!” She was holding a tart of some sort (turned out to be my first exposure to “melktert”: god, I love the Afrikaners) and she broke into a full speed account of what I now suspect may have been “Welcome to the neighbourhood! Etcetera, etcetera.”

Peering up at her from my crouching position in the flower bed, her looming figure and incomprehensible language seemed downright terrifying. So I did what any self-respecting seven year old would. I burst into tears and ran into the house, crying for my mom.

Needless to say, once our well-intentioned neighbour had figured out that none of us spoke Afrikaans, she immediately switched to English and all was well.

Luckily for me, things got a little easier after that. My entire family, parents included, embarked on a journey of extra Afrikaans lessons. My brother and I were also enrolled in a dual-medium school (two Afrikaans and one English class for each standard) and I think this must have been the crux for us, because we then made quite a few Afrikaans-speaking friends. And once you are happily playing with friends, learning a language is a natural byproduct.

As we had moved directly from a different country to a strongly Afrikaans part of South Africa, I was never exposed to the cultural differences between English and Afrikaans speaking South Africans. My parents never scorned the Afrikaans community, we were never made to feel like outsiders as English-speakers and so everyone was the same in my world.

It was only when we left Sasolburg for Johannesburg, three years later, that I became aware of the stigma that was attached to Afrikaans in the English-speaking community. When people heard that I’d lived in the Orange Free State for three years, their response was often a sarcastic “shame!”

Not being particularly street-smart at age ten, it took me a long time to work out why they felt sorry for me. I could see no difference between living in Sasolburg and living in Johannesburg. Well, except that in the Free State we were allowed to go to school barefoot (do you know how liberating it is to walk around without shoes on ALL the time?). Unfortunately, this was a fact that, when mentioned by me, served as the ultimate proof to my English schoolmates of just how backward the Free State was.

As my school career progressed, I started to cotton on to the fact that the Afrikaans community was viewed, certainly by the British-English community, as inferior (then again, and I say this with a strong British influence in my upbringing, to whom have the Brits ever not felt superior?). However, when I watched my teenage schoolmates sit in an Afrikaans lesson, trying their hardest to translate a sentence, or a poem, it was not derision or sarcasm that I saw on their faces: it was fear.

I subscribe to the widely promoted view that a lack of understanding produces fear, and fear in turn produces loathing.

Now if there’s one thing our society can do without, it’s more fear and loathing. So, if you’re afraid of Afrikaans (or Afrikaners, for that matter) why not take a fresh look? Having studied one or two more languages since my school days, I can now say with confidence that Afrikaans is beautifully expressive and often hilariously easy going. Where else would you find a word like “vleispaleis” to describe a gorgeously muscled guy? Where else do you find the powerful storytelling of Herman Charles Bosman and Andre Brink? Or the comic brilliance of Evita Bezuidenhout?

There is so much more out there that you’ll miss if you cling to your misconceptions.

Stop the fear.
En begin nou weer.

I should probably level with you and admit that at that point in time I had not experienced a “moment of realisation” , as such, with regard to my South African identity. However, I had so many reasons why I felt I was South African, I was smugness itself.

I typed furiously all evening and laid down all sorts of heartfelt, passionate claims. It was a great article, sure to render the cynics weak with emotion. Heck, upon rereading I even made my callous self cry.
Until I realised it was all bollocks.

That moment came when, article finished, I had collapsed on the couch to contemplate my genius. It occurred to me that the things I had so energetically listed as South African-flavoured, and thus the making of who I am today, are actually not unique to South Africa at all.

I had talked, complete with grand poetic gestures, about being part of a nation that is capable of developing tolerance and understanding between different cultures. How we, modern South Africans, have had the good fortune to witness the power and grace of a peaceful transformation from an oppressive regime to democracy. How we should be (and often are) world leaders in dealing with peaceful change.

I had rambled on about a nation so accustomed to violent crime that we have evolved and now project a supreme confidence in dealing with the effects of hi-jacking and armed robbery. Your average Joburger is so tough these days, we make the famously hardened New Yorkers look positively tame. Having had my jewellery (and my sanity) unceremoniously removed from my person at gunpoint qualifies me to write this bit. The jewellery was gone forever; the sanity eventually crawled back home.

Naturally, my article had covered the notion that South Africans are so partial to warm climates that we miserably wither and fade in colder climes. Or freeze solid, as was my experience in -25 degrees Celsius during the unforgiving Norwegian winter. Do you know that at that temperature your nostril hairs freeze instantly? For a South African, this is an entirely bizarre experience. Shove a spoonful of beach sand up your nose and walk around like that for the day: that’s roughly how it feels.

Having expressed all that and more, my smugness turned to biting disappointment as my couch-time-reflection suggested that while all these attributes are certainly a feature of South African life, they are also a feature of the lives of other nations. Thus, they are not the ingredients that make me uniquely South African. It was a rather sorry moment of un-realisation, if you like.

Before the fierce patriots among you start loading your weapons, let me explain. My travels of the last few years have taken me all over the world. In each place I have tested my sense of identity against the cultures I encountered, trying to see where I might fit in (a luxury afforded to self-aware, spoiled brats like me). I harbored a great deal of misplaced anger towards South Africa at the time and I wanted to see whether I felt more at home amongst other nations.

What I learned was that there are other countries in the world that also have a history of peaceful political transformation; that crime is certainly not unique to South Africa; and that there are many other nations who have, and appreciate, a warm climate. So, pertinent as these points are to my overall identity, they do not provide me with a sense of South African distinctiveness.

Needless to say, this sudden awareness of the dangerously thin ice on which my identity as a South African rested, made me feel decidedly uneasy. For a few long moments, still lying prostrate on the couch, I reasoned that perhaps I was just a citizen of the world. A nomad of sorts who did not need a nationality to feel okay about myself. What a bummer. I had so badly wanted to write something noble and brilliant about being South African, but I was determined to stick to the brief of writing “the truth”. In that vein, my integrity would not allow me to fabricate something just for the sake of an article.

I spent the next few days going about my business, rather sullenly mulling over the fact that I didn’t feel especially South African. The lack of identity made me quite grumpy, actually. And then, as life often has it, something tiny happened that changed everything…

At a social gathering on a warm summer day, while surrounded mostly by French and Norwegian friends, I discovered (with laugh-out-loud delight) what it really is that makes me South African. It is a minute thing that is so unique to South Africans, it’s undeniable: no matter where I travel to or who I happen to be with, I am completely and utterly incapable of saying the word barbeque. My brain cannot process it, nor can my mouth form the word.

Enter my magical moment of realisation! The joys and sorrows of daily life in South Africa are mirrored in many countries of the world, but our language is unique. Nowhere else on the planet will people understand me when I call something makulu or refer to the boerewors as lekker. South African language runs only in the blood of its people, regardless of colour, creed or geographical location. That is arguably the most refreshing, comforting thought I’ve had in a moerse long time.

Who would have thought that the 5 simple letters in the word braai could make the difference between identity crisis and a sense of complete belonging?

Ja well no fine.