Foot In Mouth Disease
In the advent of all that has gone on in this not so new South Africa of ours, some Afrikaner has the audacity to...hold on. Start from the beginning. Firstly he tried to call me "bergie." If you read the Front, you most likely know what I look like. I am not a mountain kaffir. Then, when even his friends won't let that slide, he looks for another box to fit me into. "Rasta. Ok, Rasta." I do not accept. "Chaos Mage" "Polytheist," "PanSexual," "Blank Slate" (at my best I am the reflecting Blackness). If any brands fitted me, those might do. But labels are cumbersome, even when accurate. In my denial, I see him goaded on to seek a new pigeon hole for me. "Ok Metal Singer. Death Metal Singer." I decided to accept this tentative title just to let him get to his point. And perhaps save his face. Bergie is not cool. And in between sips he tries to clarify that he didn't mean it that way. If only I knew, I would have arisen immediately and left the poor listeners to their fate. He spoke to us about xenophobia. Yes.
The spectre that is freshly hanging on our heads. He says Durban would be fine if it wasn't for all "the Nigies"(Nigerians) Apparently he knows 1 upstanding Nigerian but "the rest of them," all drug dealers and prostituters. I remind him Nigerians are here, in Cape Town, and France and New York. Futile. I then took the opportunity to let our table know that this would only go downhill. It did. So. So fast! "If I had it my way...(he takes a mock sniper position. Looks through his imaginary scope. Pulls imaginary trigger) And they would be...(mimics bullet entry into skull. Pretends to fall dead.) Those Nigies, bru." He goes on, licking the bottom of the well, by telling our 21 year old female compatriates to never trust a Nigerian. They will ply them with free drugs and then pimp their innocent flesh to the sex trade. He implores them, repetitively, to get their drugs from a trustworthy, White source. Or me. Because I am a trustworthy Black who wouldn't "do that to them." This whole thing happens and I realise that people arent laughing. The sober, drunk, stoned and tripping balls all seem to agree in the total vaccuuity of this man.
Yes, there are actual living people around you who think like this, spread this homocidal hate speech and then pat me on the back as if I can accept. Because I am a sensible Black. No, man.
Fourie (may be his name). You are an outstanding idiot amongst men. A curse on both your houses and a mild pox upon thy unsavoury loatheful tongue. To think that a person would sit with me, in any level of inebriation and expect hate speech to fly. No siree. So be warned. There is a strong element of White people that own farms, own guns and drink among you or in your town. They want the African dead. No Black life matters. If you're Rasta, true dread or hypocrite, they just want your marijuana. Your truth, liberty and rights, repatriation and such: not their concern. If you're Black, they want your servitude. Or a placative mockery of friendship. There is murder in more than one Afrikaans mind and this simplex simpleton had the sheer dutch courage to get up on his feet and talk seriously about shooting Black people. In the head. He re-inacted it for those who may have missed it. This is not the first tale of this nature I have heard this week. But this is the latest one. And he was so proud of the imaginary Africans he killed.
If they told before then they must tell you again, maAfurika: Uhuru? Not yet.
The spectre that is freshly hanging on our heads. He says Durban would be fine if it wasn't for all "the Nigies"(Nigerians) Apparently he knows 1 upstanding Nigerian but "the rest of them," all drug dealers and prostituters. I remind him Nigerians are here, in Cape Town, and France and New York. Futile. I then took the opportunity to let our table know that this would only go downhill. It did. So. So fast! "If I had it my way...(he takes a mock sniper position. Looks through his imaginary scope. Pulls imaginary trigger) And they would be...(mimics bullet entry into skull. Pretends to fall dead.) Those Nigies, bru." He goes on, licking the bottom of the well, by telling our 21 year old female compatriates to never trust a Nigerian. They will ply them with free drugs and then pimp their innocent flesh to the sex trade. He implores them, repetitively, to get their drugs from a trustworthy, White source. Or me. Because I am a trustworthy Black who wouldn't "do that to them." This whole thing happens and I realise that people arent laughing. The sober, drunk, stoned and tripping balls all seem to agree in the total vaccuuity of this man.
Yes, there are actual living people around you who think like this, spread this homocidal hate speech and then pat me on the back as if I can accept. Because I am a sensible Black. No, man.
Fourie (may be his name). You are an outstanding idiot amongst men. A curse on both your houses and a mild pox upon thy unsavoury loatheful tongue. To think that a person would sit with me, in any level of inebriation and expect hate speech to fly. No siree. So be warned. There is a strong element of White people that own farms, own guns and drink among you or in your town. They want the African dead. No Black life matters. If you're Rasta, true dread or hypocrite, they just want your marijuana. Your truth, liberty and rights, repatriation and such: not their concern. If you're Black, they want your servitude. Or a placative mockery of friendship. There is murder in more than one Afrikaans mind and this simplex simpleton had the sheer dutch courage to get up on his feet and talk seriously about shooting Black people. In the head. He re-inacted it for those who may have missed it. This is not the first tale of this nature I have heard this week. But this is the latest one. And he was so proud of the imaginary Africans he killed.
If they told before then they must tell you again, maAfurika: Uhuru? Not yet.
Khaya, I find your use of irony interesting.
ReplyDeleteOne: in this post you claim that you struggle to accept labels. Why then do you use the label of the Racist Afrikaner? Are labels fine as long as they are used on one's opposition? I concede that what the individual had to say was racist. However, suggesting a link between that and his home language and/or his culture is a cheap, rhetorical shot, and a dangerous one at that. I am assuming that you are not referring to all the speakers of Afrikaans who are of Griekwa, San and Malay descent because that would make your argument rather unstable.
Also, what exactly are you insinuating when you say: "There is murder in more than one Afrikaans mind and this simplex simpleton had the sheer dutch courage to get up on his feet and talk seriously about shooting Black people."? Are you suggesting that the Afrikaans language predisposes people to racist ideas or that the culture is somehow inherently discriminatory? If so, I should like some evidence, more than one intoxicated man’s opinion.
As Hitchens said: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." I am also reminded of the notion that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. Violent crime statistics, for example, paint a picture that is rather different to the one in your post. Not that I am wanting to turn the table. I just think that you will have a hard time proving that Afrikaners (white speakers of the language, as you suggest) are as guilty of violence as you mean to claim.
Two: you say that you cannot abide hate speech and other discrimination, yet you seem to be generalising your idea, as demonstrated in the ‘murder in the mind’ quotation above, in a dismissive and discriminatory way. Also, you use Dutch courage, a state of drunken bravado, to link your ideas to his cultural background – an interesting trick. Moreover, you chose to render “dutch” in lower case whilst writing “Black” with capitalisation. Can I make some more rhetorical inferences from this rendition?
The irony should be apparent but just in case: you are using the very machinery that you are denouncing in your own criticism of the machine.
Chris. Your opinions and comments are well noted.
ReplyDeleteI will tackle your points in no particular order.
I happened to meet the leader of what is 100% Afrikaans militia which is training to protect farms and fight any land requisition plans that may arise. As you may know, repatriation is a very long-lived and tenacious topic when discussing the land question. These people happened to tell me much about their plans and why they formed a militia in the first place. There is surely murder in mind, for their metaphorical cross-hairs are aimed at Blacks, not any other race group. Mr Fourie, though uncouth, was an independent speaker, talking in his capacity. But the guns are there and people are waiting for chaos to kick in so they have excuses to retaliate. It is scary, Chris.
About Fourie. He is Afrikaans. He is also a racist waiting for a reason to shoot Nigerians in the head. The stupidity he displayed happened to have a large violent element to it. It was not alright. And there are no other terms of description for a racist who is also Afrikaans. I do not sing "dubul'ÃBhunu" songs and I do not condone racial violence. But the issue was racial. Race and isms had to be discussed.
My question is just this: why did you not render your post in such a way that you made it clear that you were talking about specific pockets of Afrikaner culture? Also, what about white, racist English people? The way you presented your ideas made it seem as if though the majority of Afrikaans speakers are gearing up for civil war or are bunch of violent bigots.
ReplyDelete"Race and isms" do not excuse the derogatory way in which you depicted Afrikaans people. Your remarks were sweeping and generalised. These kinds of renditions cast fuel over the fire that is racial hatred.
Land redistribution is indeed a sensitive topic. However, once one looks at the inefficacy of the SAPS in dealing with farm attacks, how can you blame the farmers for banding together for their own protection? Would you blame them if they defended themselves against violent land requisition? Since I have spoken to more than one commando leader, I can assure you that the only people they want dead are those who storm into farm houses to rob and rape and kill the inhabitants. Even that is an exaggeration - if said robbers, rapists and murderers were to flee, it is highly unlikely that the commandos would ride out to murder them. Apprehend, perhaps, but murder, no.
Could you please respond to my other points and questions in this regard - like the latent racism that permeates your post (e.g. the suggestion of a link between Dutch courage and being Afrikaans, "dutch" vs "Black", etc.)?
I hope that you understand that I am not defending Fourie or people like him. I am criticising the methodology that you employed in your criticism.