The guy in front of me is well dressed. Expensive jeans, Hugo Boss cologne, Pringle shirt.
Next to him sits his blonde girlfriend: petite, friendly and sweet. They look harmless where they sit on a leather couch, watching rugby with a group of friends, sipping from glass bottles of Heineken or Brutal Fruit.
It’s 2006 and I’m at a braai with old schoolfriends. About 12 of us are seated in a comfy lounge, eyes glued to the plasma TV screen, watching the Blue Bulls punch holes in the opposition’s defence.
Then Bryan Habana gets the ball. He slips through two tackles, gives a little kick forward, picks up the ball again and scores under the posts. Euphoria erupts. Hugo Boss kisses the blonde and then, in the same tone he would ask for another beer, says: ”Daai boy [derogatory] is so goed, hulle kan hom nou maar wit verklaar [That black boy is so good, they can certify him white now].”
Everyone laughs approvingly. Another braai, another disappointment in another young, white, Afrikaans-speaking brother.
My girlfriend’s hand tightens in mine and I finish my next two beers at speed. I want to escape, but I can’t. I contemplate making a fuss, but over the years I’ve grown tired of arguing with seemingly unchangeable racists.
So I try to understand.
How can a seemingly well-educated, smart-looking man in his 20s in the year 2006 still be so racist? Why did nobody challenge him on his racist uttering? Did they approve or were we all too scared to be the lone sane voice in the room?
It is the year 2008 and Afrikaner ”born frees” are today a scared, disillusioned and confused people. Deep down lots of them still carry racial prejudices about the black people they share public spaces with.
It took one homemade video from a group of Free State students to focus the world’s attention back on the group of people President Thabo Mbeki once called ”colonialists of a special kind” — and particularly on its youth.
How did it go wrong and who is to blame? More importantly: how do we move forward to a situation where the new Afrikaners internalise Nelson Mandela’s words that ”to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others”?
A year or two ago a compilation CD with Afrikaans ”protest” songs titled Genoeg is Genoeg (Enough is Enough) was released. One of the songs on the album is Nie Langer (No Longer) by popular Pretoria rock band Klopjag, of which the Âlyrics read:
I know we were wrong
It was on CNN, BBC and everywhere, everywhere on TV
The facts are now on the table
Can we please move on, sir?!
Because I won’t say sorry any Âlonger
No, I won’t say sorry any longer
I will stand at the back of the queue
Carry our rainbow on my sleeve
But I won’t say sorry any longer
The fact that I don’t always concur
Doesn’t make me a racist
So go and look for the beam in your own eye
We won’t say sorry any longer
I won’t say sorry any longer
No, I won’t say sorry any longer—
At the time of the song’s release I asked younger family and friends whether they could identify with its lyrics and why. ”Yes” was the overwhelming answer. ”We weren’t even part of apartheid, but now we get punished for the things our parents did wrong” was the common explanation.
And how exactly does the Afrikaner youth get ”punished”?
”Affirmative action” is always number one. And then: the ”undue pressures” to transform in every aspect of life. This includes the declining status of Afrikaans as an official language and other forms of social transformation, such as ÂKovsies’ hostel integration policy that led to the making of the vulgar Reitz video.
Although white unemployment is only about 5% and not comparable with the hardship and poverty faced by the country’s black population, there is a strong perception held by young Afrikaners that they’re hard done by because of government’s policy to redress past imbalances.
Examples please? ”Ester wasn’t accepted to study medicine at Stellenbosch University because they had to accommodate blacks. Now she must go to Bloemfontein.” Or: ”Fanie didn’t get a bursary to study engineering because he’s white.”
Attempts to debate these issues and the reasoning behind racially discriminatory policies are often highly emotional and strenuous. Hendrik Verwoerd’s ”us and them” is unfortunately still very much alive and those young Afrikaners who dare break from their ranks are viewed as traitors or ANC lackeys.
I maintain that a fundamental lack of a historical conscience underpins the fears, confusion and disillusionment of young Afrikaners in 2008.
Imagine being an Afrikaner teenager, having absolutely no idea about what apartheid was, yet constantly hearing that you have no future in this country because you’re white? Wouldn’t you be pissed off and revert to ”protest songs” such as the one quoted above?
Although no one can argue that government’s transformation policies — particularly affirmative action — have been entirely successful, rather than criticising the state, I blame our schooling system, parents and the Afrikaner community at large for a lack of personal and psychological transformation.
History as a school subject has, to a large extent, been eroded from the high school curriculum. Social sciences, compulsory in grades eight and nine, include a basic history component, but from grade 10 history is often dropped by learners for subjects such as mathematics or science that are deemed more important for making a successful living in South Africa. Can South Africa afford a generation of ahistorical individuals who are taught to acquire only practical skills and make money?
A large percentage of Afrikaner adults have not yet dealt with their roles in apartheid and the devastating effects of the system. They prefer to concentrate on the mistakes of the ANC government and often display racist behaviour in front of their children.
White Afrikaner society at large, including churches, schools and the media, have not dealt adequately with the ”chains” of apartheid by accepting responsibility for supporting and maintaining an immoral and unjust system. Leadership that might create opportunities for Afrikaners to engage black people on a social level are not forthcoming. Too often democracy is narrowly viewed as ”our” last tool to preserve ”our” traditions and ways against ”their” attacks.
It takes one parent or teacher (and there are lots, but still too few) to change the mindset of a young Afrikaner. We need to acknowledge that we are not superior to black people and, although atrocities were committed in the name of our forebears, our own people were part of the negotiations for a democratic South Africa.
We, as young, white South Africans, in many ways continue to benefit from the consequences of apartheid.
The imbalances of the past cannot be put right in 14 years, but our contributions are helping to build a more equal, non-racial society in which our children and their children will one day live.