Many things drift in and out of thought. The roots, branches and newborn leaves of my mind are touched by many breezes from many places. The recently deceased writer Yoram Kaniuk said that one is alive when writing. Writing is the legitimization of the absurd (his daughter Aya said this). Of all the art forms, it emerged last - after dance, song, drawing - and according to Kaniuk, it does not require technique, or knowledge, or skill. "Every one can do with it as he sees fit." And so, every person necessarily writes themselves into the text. It does not mask. It reveals bigotry, ignorance, bias, passion, meditation, imagination.
Therefore I feel compelled to write this: I am a young white woman, reluctant to call herself an Afrikaner from South Africa. The all-too-recent history of South Africa of intolerance and racial persecution has created in those young Afrikaans-speaking white people a complicated feeling of compelled guilt and indignation. Although we were infants and toddlers at the end of Apartheid, we speak the same language as those who violently and cruelly headed the persecution of black people in South Africa. We now face the consequences of the decisions made by 'our' ancestors. We are caught in the intersection between the historical ideologies of white patriarchy and the new ideologies which displaces white patriarchy - either saying "I hate my ancestors and my culture" or "I hate the 'new SA' and I will fight for my culture".
Where do I stand? Where can I really stand? I have moved to South Korea because the positions I was fully qualified for, were not available to me because I am white and Afrikaans. I have a deep love for my country and its people - all of its people - but at the present moment I do not feel welcome there. Let's not go into the crime statistics of South Africa, which has been elaborated upon endlessly (SA is apparently called the 'rape capital' of the world). There are so many negative things about South Africa, which is the reason why there has been a substantial exodus of especially young white people, in order to find work.
So I find myself in a first-world country in which I have been almost shocked at the low level of crime and even civil disobedience. They do not question the system, they only follow it. This is the biggest difference between my country and my host country. In SA, we question everything, distrust everything when it comes to the system. Which one is better? One might argue that the circumstances in both countries argue for themselves: first-world versus third-world. I see things differently from this side of the world. My home country suddenly looks so violent, savage and unfair. At the moment our beloved former president Nelson Mandela is in critical condition, and it looks like he might not live much longer. Some people think his death might trigger a worsened condition for white people, the white extremists believe a genocide is imminent.
Almost daily I find my social network feeds flooded with anger at racism from both sides. Young South Africans are angry. Angry that change is happening so slowly. Angry that racism is still tolerated, and angry that everything is taken as racism these days. Both sides are so right. A quotation from Yoram Kaniuk which inspired this post is his answer to the cause of cultural conflict: "Each side wants to feel that they are suffering more than the other side".
I don't know where I stand. I don't even know where I am supposed to stand. However, I cannot bring myself to hate my country, or my culture. It is too rich, too wonderful. I choose instead to use my writing to explore the thoughts coloured by my experiences as a young white Afrikaans South African woman, so as to legitimize things that are so absurd about my country, while I am looking at it from far away in South Korea.
No comments:
Post a Comment