world
Mail & Guardian reporters
Apartheid: The big A, institutionalised after 1948 under the National Party government, ensured the separation of South Africans. Under this idiotic system whites, blacks, Asians and coloured people were sorted in an extraordinary array of slots. Rights and privileges were assigned on a sliding scale, with whites on top, blacks at the bottom and everyone else – including people falling into any of a number of categories of “coloureds” – in between.
Sara Baartman:Lured from South Africa in 1810, Baartman led a tragic life in England and France where she was continually exhibited as a freak – the “Hottentot Venus” – by a succession of entrepreneurs who bought and sold her. She continues to be degraded to this day, her private parts and brain having remained preserved in bottles and her skeleton stored in the dusty back rooms of the Musee de l’Homme in Paris. Meanwhile, her real, African name has been lost in the mists of time.
Bantustans: The separation of the races was furthered by the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 – basically an extension of the 1913 Land Act, according to which only 13% of the country was set aside for the majority of the population. From 1971 those bantustans which asked for it were given conditional independence.
Boerbul: This cross between a Dobermann, a Rottweiler and a bloodhound resulted in an 80kg creature so ferocious that even foreign pitbull fan clubs are baying for a ban on the beast. Boerbuls were engineered to satisfy conservative whites’ mania for vicious and racist dogs, the population of which to this day eliminates scores of (mainly black) South Africans every year.
CAT scan: Computed axial tomography scanning was independently developed in 1972 by South African-born physicist Allan Cormack of Tufts University in Massachusetts and by British engineer Godfrey Hounsfield of EMI laboratories, who won a Nobel Prize and a knighthood. The CAT scan, which shows soft tissue, bones and blood vessels, is now available in 30 000 locations worldwide.
Celebrities: Richard E Grant, manic star of Withnail and I and How to Get a Head in Advertising; Margaret Gardner, former Miss South Africa who became Miss Universe; Sidney James, comedian best remembered for his roles in the Carry On films; Sir Sydney Kentridge, lawyer who took on the security police at the inquest into the death of Steve Biko and sued Britain’s Lord Chancellor; Sol Kerzner, founder of Sun International and the man who gave the world the Lost City; Anneline Kriel-Kerzner-Tucker-Bacon, former Miss South Africa, who was initially the first runner-up to Miss World, but took over the title when it was discovered that the chosen Miss World had had a love child; Anthony Sher, thespian billed as “the greatest Richard III ever”; Charlize Theron, screen siren from Two Days in the Valley, The Devil’s Advocate and Mighty Joe Young, and ardent campaigner against rape and women abuse; Arnold Vosloo, the mummy in The Mummy.
JM Coetzee: Coetzee is the only writer ever to win the Booker Prize twice: in 1983 for The Life and Times of Michael K, and this year for his eighth novel, Disgrace.
Comrades Marathon: Established in 1921 by the League of Comrades of the Great War in conjunction with Vic Clapham, the Comrades Marathon stretches over approximately 90km between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. It has been won nine times by Bruce Fordyce.
De Beers: The diamond giant that coined the catchphrase “a diamond is forever” controls about 70% of the world’s diamonds, regulating prices by restricting the supply of gems to the market. Despite repeated attacks on the cartel – and threats by other diamond producers to quit – De Beers remains the undisputed master of the diamond universe.
Dolos: Breakwater and foreshore protection block designed by engineer Eric Mowbray Merrifield and regarded as the best wave-breaking structure in the world in the early 1960s. First installed at East London, the dolos – which comes in various simple shapes – weighs between one and 20 tonnes and is 40% cheaper than its predecessors. It’s also six times more stable. Nowadays dolosse can be found on the shores of Tristan da Cunha, the United States, Hong Kong and the Arabian Gulf.
Durban Poison: Dagga is illegal in South Africa, despite the sterling work of organisations lobbying to legalise the substance. However, it is one of the commodities most in demand in many parts of the world. It’s illegal to germinate the seeds in the United Kingdom, but 10 seeds of the weed can sell for as much as R75. In South Africa an average bankie (a plastic coin bag filled with majat) will set you back between R10 and R20. Cannabis has the reputation of alleviating asthma attacks, suppressing nausea, increasing appetite and easing the pain of chemotherapy and Aids patients.
Food (packaged): Mrs Ball’s chutney, Ouma rusks and Black Cat peanut butter are but a few of the South African foods that have gained popularity in Britain. At least 13 stores specialising in these foods have been opened in the United Kingdom, and some of these products can even be found in New York. This export market can probably be attributed to the large number of South African expatriates scattered all over the world.
Food (traditional): Biltong, boerewors, bobotie and the ultimate South African food event, a braai, with the ultimate South African meal: pap, boerewors and chakalaka.
G-5: The G-5 long-range artillery weapon was invented in South Africa and used by the South African Defence Force in Angola.
Nadine Gordimer: Gordimer has published 10 novels and seven collections of short stories, and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1991, almost two decades after winning the Booker Prize for The Conservationist.
Heart transplants: The world’s first heart transplant was performed by Dr Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town on December 3 1967. By April 1999, 48E541 heart transplants had been performed worldwide.
Kreepy Krauly: The Kreepy Krauly is the classic pool maintenance gadget meant to collect leaves and dirt from the bottom of the pool and prevent them from blocking the pump filter. When it sucks up something too large to swallow, it invariably utters long, loud slurping noises that wake irate neighbours in the middle of the night.
Krugerrands: The South African gold coin, first minted on July 3 1967, is reputed to be the most sought-after in the world, with more than 50-million produced so far.
Kwaito: This form of local music, pioneered by DJ and CD producer Oscar wa Rona, has a steady, easy-to-dance-to rhythm and has spawned styles such as d’gong, guz and swaito. Following the example of an older generation of exports – Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Bayete, Miriam Makeba and others – kwaito is set to spread its wings to international markets. Skeem recently performed in Paris and Bongo Maffin have a trip on the cards to the Latin Music Festival in New York, after this year’s London gig. TK Zee has also done well overseas, selling more than 170E000 copies of its CDs.
Madam & Eve: The wacky cartoon escapades of a South African madam and her insane household as they come to terms with each other and post-apartheid South Africa. In the household of Madam, aka Gwen Anderson, her eccentric gin and tonic- guzzling mother and their long-suffering, forever scheming domestic servant Eve Sisulu struggle for the upper hand. Somewhat controversial in the earnest pre-1994 era, Madam & Eve reflects the ability of many of us in the new South Africa to laugh at our foibles. It is printed in 11 publications and has approximately four million readers daily, many of those on the Internet.
Mampoer or witblits: Made from fruits such as apples, apricots, pears or plums in a similar process used to distill brandy from grapes. In the North-West, the drink is referred to as mampoer. The process was learned from the Bapedi under Chief Mampuru, who distilled it from marula fruit when the settlers arrived in the north from the Cape region. The potent drink, sometimes called witblits (white lightning), has an average alcohol content of 63%. It is also referred to as firewater because if it does not catch fire, it is not the real thing.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela: Released on February 11 1990 after 27 years and six months in prison, Madiba led South Africa to a peaceful democratic transition which saw him at the helm of a new South Africa after the first democratic elections in 1994. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former president FW de Klerk. Now out of office, the 81-year-old statesman has embarked on a new career as a world peacemaker.
Ndebele art: With well-known artists such as Esther Mahlangu and Francine Ndimande, Ndebele traditional art has gained popularity in various parts of the world. These colourful geometric designs were originally painted with natural dyes, but the broad colour scheme of modern paints and availability of many different coloured beads have contributed to its wide variety of colours. BMW has had Mahlangu paint one of its models with a Ndebele design.
Necklace: A vile method of killing a person involving putting a tyre round the neck, dousing the person with petrol and lighting a match. Nearly always fatal. Not so much used since a measure of peace broke out in the early 1990s.
Razor wire: A few sharp cuts above barbed wire, this is a product commonly found decorating the walls of South African homes. By adorning the aforesaid with enough wire to put a prison to shame, the masses hope to deter criminal elements from entering their property thereby hanging on to those few possessions which haven’t yet been stolen or hijacked.
Rooibos: The leaves of this tea turn red when dry, hence the name, which means “red bush”. Its fans believes it delays the effects of ageing, relieves stomach cramps, reduces stress, cures insomnia, promotes healthy skin, relieves colic in babies and, best of all, cures hangovers. Grown in the Cederberg, rooibos gained popularity when it replaced Ceylon tea during World War II. Since the war, the tea has steadily increased in popularity, so much so that the Queen Mother now imports her own stash.
The Rosenkowitz sextuplets: The three boys and three girls born to Susan Rosenkowitz on January 11 1974 – David, Emma, Nicolette, Grant, Elizabeth and Jason – are the oldest surviving sextuplets in the world.
Sasol: The one-time lynchpin of apartheid South Africa’s oil boycott-busting strategy, Sasol, with the help of massive government subsidies, pioneered a process of converting coal into fuel. It has transformed into one of the stars of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, having developed a lucrative petrochemicals arm and an expanding global network.
Sjambok: A long, stiff whip, originally made from rhinoceros hide, these days from rubber and plastic. More recently used by vigilante group Mapogo a Matamaga to “work on criminals’ buttocks”.
The surrogate grandmother:On October 1 1987 Pat Anthony stunned the world by becoming the first woman to give birth to her daughter’s children – in this case, Karen Ferreira-Jorge’s triplets.
JRR Tolkien: Born in Bloemfontein, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was renowned for his fantasy novels. Most popular was Lord of the Rings (1955), whose characters populated Tolkien’s imaginary Middle Earth, geographically based on the Hogsback area in the Eastern Cape.
Toyi-toyi: This chanting and rhythmic dancing used in South Africa by a collective of people expressing discontent dates back to the mid-1980s, when some local law enforcement officials tried to ban it as inflammatory. It is still used today in protest marches of all kinds by public servants, union members, the landless and other groups with a grievance to demonstrate.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Established in terms of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act of 1995, the TRC was tasked with looking into human rights violations committed between 1960 and 1994 and, where permissible, to grant amnesty for political crimes committed between March 1 1960 and May 11 1994. The five-volume TRC report enraged the African National Congress, which stressed its “preliminary” nature, for not exempting violations committed by members of liberation movements and refusing to accept applications for blanket amnesty. But TRC chair Desmond Tutu has stood firm, while former president Nelson Mandela has backed Tutu and praised the TRC’s work. Delegations from other war-torn lands have studied the commission with a view to setting up similar systems for reconciliation.
Desmond Mpilo Tutu: The former Anglican archbishop received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. He announced his retirement as archbishop when he was persuaded to head the TRC. Allowed a sabbatical at last in 1998, he discovered that he was suffering from prostate cancer, and has since had several bouts of treatment.
Vocabulary: The Afrikaans language has generously given English some words so useful they’ve settled right into the Oxford dictionary. Some of the best- known:
l trek – making one’s way arduously, as in Star Trek;
l veld – open country, grassland or field;
l koppie – especially in Liverpool, where the football ground, one Anfield, used to have a stand called The Kop, after Spioenkop, a particularly bloody battlefield in the Anglo-Boer South African War;
l inspan (also inspanned and inspanning) – to harness people, animals or resources into service;
l stoep – that part of the house built expressly for guzzling sundowners while watching late afternoon thunderstorms across the veld;
l laager – a circular encampment of vehicles, also used metaphorically in the phrase “laager mentality” to mean a defensive, isolationist frame of mind; and
l animal terms – aardvark, eland and wildebeest, among others.
World heritage sites: Three world heritage sites were recognised in South Africa by Unesco on December 2 this year: the St Lucia Wetland Park, Robben Island and the cradle of mankind – the palaeontological sites of Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai and environs.