KAROO ARTSFESTIVAL: Gustav Thiel
AN overweight twentysomething turned around and asked whether I would mind if he “killed the fucking kaffir with the beer can”. This was moments before cans were thrown at Miriam Makeba during the now infamous concert at the Klein Karoo Arts Festival.
Ton Vosloo, managing director of Nasionale Pers, the main sponsor of the festival, tried to play down the racist connotations of the incident by saying: “There is a wonderful spirit of inclusion for the sake of Afrikaans in Oudtshoorn and anyone wishing to attend next year will experience this. We regret the fact that a minority tried to spoil a beautiful attempt to keep Afrikaans as broad as possible .”
Makeba, however, seemed unconvinced, and said that although she may attend the festival in future she is reluctant to perform there ever again. This reaction could dent Vosloo’s dream of broadening the artistic appeal of Afrikaans.
Another black artist who had to bear the brunt of racist slurs was comedian Johnny Campher. Although, as an artist, Campher will probably never reach Makeba’s heights, what happened to him is certainly no less significant. During his show Lag ‘n Slag [Laugh a While], three burly men with several empty beer cans decorating their table shouted at Campher to “fuck off from stage otherwise the beer cans will start raining.”
They called him a “bloody Hotnot who could never be funny”. The festival organisers didn’t hear of the incident because it was not reported, but it was clearly inspired by racist attitudes.
Vosloo, however, remains convinced that Afrikaners over a broad spectrum could accommodate people of all backgrounds at the festival. He was not asked to answer why a black friend who shared bathroom facilities at a camping site outside Oudtshoorn was nearly removed from his shower because, as one man put it,”he is always dirty”.
My friend will never return to the festival and he feels Vosloo should take note of this. He was not the only black person who felt this way. The premier of Mpumalanga, Mathews Phosa, was due to appear to discuss his Afrikaans book, Deur die Oog van ‘n Naald [Through the Eye of a Needle]. According to Phosa’s editor at Tafelberg, Riana Scheepers, he decided not to attend as a gesture of support for Makeba.