This post will be all text and no photos, a slight change from the usual since Sophie has been doing an excellent job at posting photos so far…
For those readers who are not aware of the fact, I was born in South Africa in 1973 to British parents. As a coincidence, this was about the apogee of the apartheid regime. I spent the first 6 years of my existence in Johannesburg, and then moved to a small mining town called Welkom, along with my mum and older brother, following my parent’s divorce. So for me, going to a school for whites only, and living in an area where only whites lived was just the way things were and perfectly normal. We lived a very bare-bones existence, with my mum working as an accounts clerk and struggling to make ends meet every month. But we didn’t want for anything really, compared to the black majority that we barely knew existed, since they were not allowed to travel outside the townships without permission from the authorities.
Like most whites at that time, we employed a live-in maid. We called her Emily, but that was not her real name. We didn’t know it. What we did know was that she had two daughters, who we had never seen before. They lived in a township (similar to a native reserve in Canada, but more restrictive) about 100 km from our town, and Emily would travel to see them every month or so. We didn’t know if she was married or separated. So normal and ingrained was this way of life that we never even thought to ask the question: If you are raising my kids, then who is raising yours? So it went in 80’s South Africa.
Emily lived in a tiny hut at the back of our garden. She had a flushing toilet, but only a sink, no bath or shower. And come to think of it, I don’t even think she had electricity because her room always smelt of paraffin from an oil lamp. This was, however, most likely a higher standard of accommodation than her kids had back in the township. At least she had brick walls and a tin roof over her head.
Despite the fact that my mum didn’t know her real name, she trusted this woman to basically raise her two kids while she went to work every day. School began early, around 7:30 am, and also ended early, around 1 pm. Some days we would have extra-curricular activities, usually sports, but some days we would be home by 1:30 pm. We would make ourselves a sandwich, and then basically be a nuisance to Emily for the rest of the day. She looked after us and cared for us like we were her own children, god bless her. She put up with all sorts of mischief on our part, since being boys, we loved to play pranks on her and generally annoy her. If we had been particularly annoying, the furthest she would go was to tell my mum that we had been bad. Suffice it to say that my mum did not really enforce any discipline in the house – we pretty much had a free reign.
On top of keeping her eye on us, Emily did all the cooking and cleaning, except for the weekends, when my mum would do spaghetti bolognese, or we would have a braai (SA slang for barbecue). Emily’s only friends were the other maids that lived in the surrounding houses, and the occasional gardener. Apartheid laws forbade any gatherings of blacks outside the townships, and the people making up any such groups were liable to end up in jail.
One evening, when I was about 9 or 10, Emily invited a few friends around and they were having a bit of a party in her room. There was alcohol involved, and that was another no-no for blacks working in white areas. They were having a good time, laughing and joking, but nothing too wild. We had no problem with them at all, but I guess one of our (mostly Afrikaner) neighbours was not quite so benevolent, and must have called the SAPS (South African Police Force). The cops subsequently arrived in several pick-up trucks, at least 5 of them, armed with shamboks (long flexible sticks for whipping). I remember standing by our front door, watching horrified as these poor souls were kicked, beaten and whipped into the back of the pickups, and driven off to god-knows-where, just because they were sharing a few beers together.
I never forgot the way I felt afterwards, that although they had technically broken the “law”, maybe this “law” was unjust. But not only that, also that the way the police acted was way more than an overreaction, it was just plain brutality. From that moment on, I began to feel less and less at ease with the way things were run by the authorities. But being a child, there was not really an awful lot I could do to change the system…
We left South Africa in December 1986, a few years after this incident. Although I was sad to leave my school and friends, I was also happy to no longer be a part of that system.
So, fast-forward now some 35 years, here I find myself back in the country I had once called home. It is always such a pleasure to come back to such a beautiful place, especially Cape Town in December. The country still has serious issues with wealth inequality, a form of economic racism which lingers on, and prevents a majority of the population from going to certain places, doing certain things, not because of the colour of their skin, but because they simply don’t have the means. We went to the Cavendish Square shopping mall in Cape Town last week, and had lunch in the Woolworths Cafe. This is not an overly expensive restaurant, but I saw only one table with blacks sitting down for a meal. Same thing for the cinema – exclusively whites.
While my generation and older are probably a lost cause, I see a lot more reason for optimism from the younger generations, born after the end of apartheid. Yesterday we went to the beach. It was a lovely warm sunny Sunday, so it was packed. We found a place to sit where we could, and afterwards Sophie remarked that the group to one side were a bunch of youngsters, two black girls and a white boy. They were later joined by some other white friends, and then a black family with small kids. It was quite something for me to watch, having experienced the bad old days. Then on the other side of us, a couple of ladies, possibly lesbians, one white and one black, were enjoying the sunshine together without any fear, and that was even more mind-blowing for me to see! Another promising sign is the growing popularity of the public transport system with whites. I was a bit nervous before our first trip into Cape Town by train, not quite knowing what to expect, or whether it was a good idea to take my kids with me. But it was fine and nobody even cared what colour our skin was. If they were more reliable, I would happily recommend them to anyone.
Despite all this, it is still hard for me not to feel a sense of shame when going shopping in a “black” clothing store. It was as if I could feel the people around me asking themselves – “what’s a white family doing shopping in our store?”. These prejudices are deeply ingrained into even me, so imagine the generation of my parents, how difficult it must be for them to accept the changes. But accept them we must.
In summary, I feel that South Africa is slowly moving in the right direction, but it will probably take a few more generations to completely rid itself of it’s ugly apartheid past. Once the older generations die off, the younger ones can really get stuck into working together to build a wonderful country into a great nation. In the meantime, I’m glad to be here right now, to witness the beginnings of this transformation, content in the knowledge that the ugly scene I witnessed all those years ago will never be repeated here.
A Light Year Family 