Time to decolonise South African history

I grew up in South Africa during apartheid. Which means my education has significant gaps, not least of which is the history of my own country. As part of my self-education, and also so as to be able to engage with my father, who is obviously also a product of the Union of South Africa, I started reading a book I bought a while ago, The History of South Africa, by one Frank Welsh.

I purchased the book quite a while ago (as I am wont to do - books need to gather a fair amount of dust in my bookshelves before I embark on reading them). Perhaps before I underwent my own awakening as to the racism and white supremacy of my upbringing and childhood world. (Yes, it was apartheid South Africa, but to the best of their ability raised me to know that all people were equal and that our society was deeply unjust and wrong). Nevertheless, despite already getting rid of Martin Meredith's The state of Africa for its distinct colonial 'whiteness', I decided to give Frank Welsh a shot.

It has been interesting, and not as bad as Meredith's book. It provides a fair amount of information as to the history of black (and brown) South Africans which was exactly what I was after. I realised that I would have to accept that it could not be comprehensive (what exactly is the relationship between the Xhosa and the Thembu? Where did the Griqua's come from?), but it was not bad.

Except for one thing. He is far too comfortable using archaic terms which in this day and age are simply offensive and inappropriate. I am not even convinced that it would be necessary to quote writers who use it, but when he uses a term when not quoting? Why? WHY?? (In case you're wondering I refer to use of the k-word and - the camel that broke the straw's back, as it were - the n-word as well!).

I put the book aside this afternoon, irritated and after a few hours I realise that I simply have no further interest in reading it any further. I feel a mite intolerant, perhaps, but really, it is 2019. It is time for a decolonised historical narrative which breaks from the past. Even if the book was first published twenty years ago, these were not terms which were acceptable even then. It is time for literature and history which explains and creates a new decolonised and respectful narrative. We do not have to use terms which are offensive and hurtful to people. This book is not that. I am not sure such a book even exists.

Perhaps it is up to me to write it in that case. This book, though by far not overtly racist or even particularly biased is nevertheless headed for the bin.

Or maybe not. I have been searching (my whole life) for a writing project. Perhaps I have just found it.

Annoying characters: Angel

Life is too short. Furthermore, I have literally thousands of books in my own library which I have yet to read. Consequently, if I am not sufficiently drawn into the story of a book, or if I simply not enjoying the book, I waste no further time on it.

Nevertheless, I must confess to being somewhat discomfited. Not too long ago it was the Booker award-winning The Sea, the sea by Iris Murdoch which I was not able to finish. The reason: the main character was simply too annoying.

I am therefore additionally perturbed now to give up on Elizabeth Taylor's Angel. (In case you are wondering, this author has absolutely no relation to the much more famous actress by the same name). This is my second book of hers, as an author published by Virago, a publishing house I generally take as a guarantee of a book I am more likely than not to enjoy. Among their authors I have loved include Antonia White, Rosamond Lehmann, Margaret Atwood and Nina Bawden. I collect what I for some reason call the "greenback" editions (see the picture).

I thoroughly enjoyed the first Elizabeth Taylor I read: Hester Lilly. In this one however the character whose name also serves as the title, Angel, or Angelica Deverell, is simply too annoying. I managed a whole 52 pages before she behaved exactly as I feared. Nicely summed up by the line:

"No," said Angel. 

So did I.

The character is the most selfish and egotistical character I have come across in a while. No redeeming charms within those pages at any rate.  I even tried to like her as I harbour secret dreams of becoming an author myself. In some respects it reminds me of The curious incident of the dog at night time by Mark Haddon. Also a widely acclaimed book. The emotionally sterile character (who is autistic) was a stretch too much for me though. Perhaps it is precisely the emotion I connect with. I shall consider this further. 

In stressing times I am acutely aware of my propensity to prefer crime or speculative theory, as they are more engrossing. It concerns me however if I am losing my ability to enjoy well written literature. This will need to be tested.

Moenie vrees nie

van Mathews Phosa

(Excerpt from Deur die oog van 'n naald; Tafelberg, Cape Town, 1996)

Hoekom moet jy vrees
as jy niks het om te vrees nie?
Jou gewete is mos skoon,
moenie vrees nie.

Hoekom moet jy vrees
as jy niks het om te verloor nie?
Jy het mos niks nie,
moenie vrees nie.

Hoekom moet jeg vrees
as jy weeb jy's geen onderdrukker nie?
Jy het niemand onderdruk nie,
moenie vrees nie.

(Translation:
Why must you fear
if you have nothing to be afraid of?
You say your conscience is clean,
do not fear. 

Why must you fear, 
if you have nothing left to lose?
You say you have nothing, 
do not fear. 

Why must you fear
if you know that you are no oppressor?
You haven't oppressed anyone, 
do not fear. )

Why I like this poem?  It is a poem for wbiteness. For our need to justify and excuse. And yet how fragile and afraid we are. This has become particularly relevant as in recent days social media have indicated the white fear of becoming a minority in the US is a major driver of their current policies. I have long believed that deep in our hearts we know what we and our kind have been up to the world. A people who fear justice are afraid.

To-read-list: Hva visste hjemmefronten?

Perhaps in a while I will be brave enough to write in Norwegian, but not quite yet.

As the first installment in what may perhaps become a regular "column" - a book which I would like to read.

I have just listened to a podcast about a book which was released in Norway last autumn. What a debate it created. The book posits that the Norwegian resistance was aware about plans to round up Norwegian Jews and chose not to do a thing about it. Part of her criticism rests on the historians who have subsequently not addressed this issue at all. She refers, among other things, to a recording of the greatest second world war hero in Norway, Gunnar Sønsteby. Where he appears to admit that he knew about the round up some weeks before it took place, but did nothing. According to the podcast (Aftenpostens Forklart podcast - 10 December 2018), historians seem to assume that Sønsteby was mistaken. Which seems a fairly spectacular assumption to make. (Question: what other "mistakes" did he make already then? The recording was made in 1970 and he continued working right until the new millennia, before his death in 2012.)

With the journey in whiteness which my life has taken me on - my feeling is that one consistent characteristic of we whites is that we always underestimate our own propensity to tolerate the egregious acts. Just look at the so-called liberals in South Africa. So whether partly by naiveté or our inability to see the depravity within the heart of the white person, I bet you that they did not value the lives of Norwegians Jews highly enough to take action. Once the full extent of the industrial genocide became known after the war, Norway was by far not the only country who struggled to accept our own complicity and so have undertaken extreme efforts to whitewash history.

The challenge is however with such a book, an idea which I picked up, of all places in a autobiography of Sidney Poitier, consider the actions within the time they took place. Not to excuse. Not at all. But if one does not face the abyss, one is at greater risk to repeat the mistakes. Looking at what is happening today globally when it comes to immigrants and Muslims and other "brown" people in particular. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, as the saying goes.

So definitely on my to-read-list. 

"Dit is 'n rots waarop ons huisie staan"

Compliments of twelve years of schooling in apartheid South Africa, I have twelve years of Afrikaans as a second language. Although, it was in fact my third. Nothing to compare to the nine languages which Mathews Phosa speaks. So all the more interesting that he introduces this book of Afrikaans poetry by stating that he considers Afrikaans to be a mother tongue of sorts ("Die feit dat ek in Afrikaans skryf, is 'n uitvloeisel daarvan dat ek my skoolopvoeding feitlik eksklusief in Afrikaans ontvang het en dat ek Afrikaans as 'n soort modertaal in my lewe beskou"). I find myself strangely moved that he enjoys the language sufficiently to write poetry in it.

It is almost three decades since I left school, and without a doubt my Afrikaans is extremely rusty. Now that I live in a country where another Germanic language is spoken, I am amazed I was not more confused as a child, given that my mother tongue, in the sense of being the language one learns from one's mother knee is Norwegian.

I can see the connections much more clearly than I did before. I am surprised I was not more confused, considering how much I mix my English and Norwegian, I would certainly have more problems now. It has, nevertheless, been an interesting exercise to try out my Afrikaans now, and I am not dissatisfied with the results. Back to the book itself.

His intention is fairly shameless: versoening. Reconciliation. I am not exactly the target audience, but I must admit to being simply touched to read a black South African, who has every reason to hate the language nevertheless to use it to write, of all things, poetry. Given the instrument of oppression which the language cannot but signify in lights of how it was wielded, especially in 1976, it is not pretty amazing in my book. While I identify as "English South African", there is no avoiding the fact that I am simply a Euro-South African. My father, who has an interest in genealogy, informs me that in addition to English (from Lancashire), we also enjoy a French, Dutch and German  ancestry. Now that is about as South African as one can get as a Euro-African. My great-grandmother was a small child in a British concentration camp in the South African war (1899-1902) - something I consider give me impeccable (white) South African credentials. So reading poetry in that language is a pleasing experience.

Did Mathews Phosa succeed in his attempts? Who knows. I made the decision not to know when I left the country almost a decade ago, overwhelmed as I felt, by the general white attitudes as I perceived them around me. I must have bought this book around that time. In many respects South Africa has come far. In others, it has not. In some respects, even though I am only just starting the poetry itself, the title itself seems quite prophetic. The title surely refers to the occasion in the gospels of the Bible where Jesus says that it would easier for a camel to go through the eye of a (the) needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. The point being that it would be difficult. Likewise I suspect the poet also knew that achieving his intention to stretch a hand of reconciliation ('n versoeningshand as it were) would be as hard.

Then again, nothing ventured, nothing gained. This little book of poetry will be a treasured part of my library irrespective.

Mathews Phosa - Deur die oog van 'n naald
1996
Tafelberg - Kaapstad.