Native tongue Bafana Khumalo
THE SAUK, nice place that is, has received more abuse than a whore on a good night for business. It started with the Nationalist white male going out of his way to make sure that the good aunt was going to prostitute herself for the cause of apartheid. Well, like a good lady of the night, she obliged when the John said to her: “Tell me that you love me.” Sometimes she was forced to say, “Oh honey, you were great, this was the best I have ever had”, even though the John could not perform.
I have been getting more and more acquainted with the good woman, seeing that I am a brother who has sold out: I am now a star of radio and television and I am looking at movie scripts. I can be seen quite often in those hallowed corridors of what we call broadcasting in this country. I suppose that makes me the black nationalist male taking my turn with her. I wonder how I am going to perform. Will I perform at all?
In addition to black nationalist males galavanting around with the poor woman, the corridors of the SAUK are also populated by a motley crew of dubious nationalism and gender. This is all that is varied about the new group of people. They are uniform in their new politically correct derisive attitude about their new employer. It is quite common to meet a former co-toyi-toyiier in the corridor and, after the initial, “Don’t I know you from somewhere? Oh yes, we shared a prison cell once” greeting, there is always the million dollar donor question: “What are you doing here?”
Under normal circumstances, this is an innocent question which requires a normal answer, like: “Well, I am one of the new button pushers on primetime Willie Waalie.” Not in the new lefty SABC. The answer to this question is always invariably the same: a studied roll of the eyes and a glance around to see whether there are any old SAUK types within earshot and the profound words: “I don’t know what I am doing here.”
These people are not token affirmative action morons whose jobs have vague managerial descriptions, but highly qualified people who know very well what they are doing. Their portrayed ignorance of their presence here is merely a refusal to believe that they have become what they have always despised — mainstream, normal, run of the mill … respectable. (You see, not only am I a brilliant columnist but I also am not such a bad do-it-yourself Psych 101 psychoanalyst.)
Although the corridors of my good friend are populated by so many lefties that a “viva!” is no longer considered to be an insult, the past is still present and, contrary to popular lefty belief, it is not all white, male and Afrikaans-speaking.
I made this discovery while I was trying to organise a security access card. The radio building has a security system that would make a Sandton house owner feel that electric fences are a half-hearted attempt at security. I don’t have a problem with security cards, but I was in a catch-22 position, in that for me to enter the monstrous building to get an access card I had to have an access card.
I told the good Afrikaner receptionist that there was no way I was going to waste time going to the television tower across the street to ask one of my colleagues to come and sign me in, because in applying for an access card I was on official business. She looked at me in that time-honoured blank civil servant stare and told me: “Those are the rules.” However, she made a half-hearted attempt at helping by giving me a number at the security department to call. Perhaps, she said, they might be able to sign me in.
The telephone at the security department was answered by a sister who in no uncertain terms told me: “We don’t sign people in, here, we only make cards.” My explanation that for me to trek across the street to the television tower was a patent waste of time was met by Page 63, chapter 15, Clause 102 of the civil servants’ day-to-day operations manual: “Those are the rules.”
I was distraught, for a sister was responsible for my pain, and I wondered what had happened to all those ubuntu sentiments. I had to go back to the Afrikaans woman and explain to her how my problem was being compounded by a daughter of the soil. She, like all good boere, made a plan and I found myself in the lift to the security department.
I was seething with anger, steeling myself for an encounter with a burly, rude white male bureaucrat. I should have dwelt on a darker hue, for when I entered the office I found three drop-dead beautiful sisters, engaged in conversation. Momentarily my spirits were lifted as I beheld mother nature’s black masterpieces. This elation was not to last for too much longer, however — for I stood at the entrance of the office for three minutes, waiting for the women to notice there was a visitor who needed attending to. They, for their part, ignored me and continued their discussion around one of the most pressing, life-threatening concerns of their lives: why one of the sisters did not shave her armpits.
When they had talked the subject out to their satisfaction, one of the sisters finally turned to me and said: “Are you Khumalo?” I nodded and she — just in case I hadn’t heard her on the phone — repeated her mantra: “We don’t sign people in. Here we just do
SAUK, I know that you and I are going to have a whale of a time.