The end of apartheid brought about a new order and a new lexicon, in which some commonplace words have become swear words.
People no longer say things, they “indicate” or “allude to” them. They do not talk about things or concepts; rather they discuss “the whole question of …”
I personally mourn the death of words such as “intellectual”, “ambitious” and “elite”. Alas, such passing is a sign of the times.
The other day, on the Soweto Express, I dared suggest to the Metrorail representative that the train was meant for the elite. He denied it outright. It does not matter that the Express costs just over R300 a month, about R200 higher than the ordinary monthly tariff from Naledi to Johannesburg by train.
He is not unique in eschewing the very thought of being associated with things elite. SACP leader Blade Nzimande has also lashed out at the elite, despite his own rather opulent circumstances.
I have friends who, if I were to mention their names here and refer to them as part of the elite on the strength of the fact that they pay about R5 000 a month for car repayments, would sue me for character defamation. They somehow believe that they stand with the “masses of our people” (another special phrase).
Of course, the elite have rankings: there is the routine elite and the really elite.
Those who are ashamed to be elite seem to confuse equality of opportunity with equality of all. Perhaps they still believe stories about how people in the Soviet Union who did not own cars would simply drive one parked next to a road, and once they got to their destinations, leave them there for the next driver to take.
Some cannot believe that they have actually won the rights the likes of Elijah Barayi fought for — that of a living wage. They are the polar opposite of the so-called “black diamond” elite — intent on living as far below their means as they can, if only to prove that they have not forgotten the teachings of Marx for Beginners, now rotting somewhere with the rest of their university textbooks.
Then there is the sidelining of comrades who tend to think outside the organisational box. Party bosses gag dissenting voices early on using all forms of convoluted sophistry, including that old standby, “bringing the party into disrepute”. The message is clear, though the words will never escape their lips: the long-standing intellectual traditions of the liberation movement have no place if they interfere with today’s prejudices.
No matter the number of times some of these formerly sharp and intellectual student leaders and trade unionists attribute their freezing in front of authority to organisational discipline, they know in their heart of hearts that they are consumed by fear of their principals. They will not speak out when their parties return contenders for the Prime Pervert award to the same space they say is committed to the liberation of women.
It is strange that those who were willing to stand up to the superior firepower of apartheid soldiers now shake in their lizard-skin boots in front of the party secretary or chief whip, when the worst they can do is drop you from the party list for the next election — not throw you from the 14th floor of a building.
But nothing galls me so much as the soiling of the word “ambition”. Suspecting that Bantu (Bad and Nothing to Understand) Education had once again sold me a dummy, I deferred to the Concise Oxford Dictionary and found that ambition is defined as “a strong desire to do or achieve something; desire and determination to achieve success”.
Not everyone thought that the apartheid state could be defeated, and among those who thought it could, few had the requisite desire and determination to do something about it. Anyone who took on the mightiest army in Africa would therefore necessarily have been ambitious.
Yet a select band of men and women believed that even this system could be defeated. They made huge personal sacrifices. They prepared for their task no matter the number of times those closest to them warned them about “ending up on Robben Island”, or ending up dead.
Today, many of these people, who should be running consultancies on believing in a dream that everyone else thinks is a bridge too far, call the simple thing of wanting to be president of their party “ambitious” and want to steer clear from anyone afflicted with this malady. Wanting a comfortable life for oneself and one’s children is a symptom of counter-revolutionary revisionism.
How could all this have happened in such a short space of time? This cannot be the freedom they fought for.