This is Not A Hero!

There has been a “rash” of vandalism in Cape Town lately, declaring that certain colonial European/settler leaders (all of whom are still memorialized by large statues, nearly 20 years after “democracy” has taken root in South Africa) are not heroes. One would think that such a statement is unnecessary given the three decades of warfare here to end white minority rule. But somehow it still needs to be said that white people that aspire to dominate this nation are not now, and should never have been, considered heroes. With the rate at which the vandalism is cleaned up, one would get the impression that the Black government of “liberation” is somehow opposed to desecrating the memory of men that once proclaimed that Africans are worse than dogs, fit only to be enslaved, degraded and robbed from in every which way. I, for one, hope that this “rash” of vandalism continues, and even gains popularity…

Walking down the street one day after picking up my laundry, i found that Louis Botha, the first Prime minister of the Union of South Africa, a fierce fighter in the Boer War on the side of the Boers, and a strong advocate (even going to the extent of suppressing an Afrikaner rebellion against such a decision) for the colonization of “South-West Africa” (now Namibia) had been vandalized. I arrived only at the point when the dirty deed was being cleaned up by the workers of the city…

I was able to capture more clearly the desecration of Jan Henrik Hofmeyr. As Hofmeyr is dedicated a whole square, near my house, and I didn’t know who he was, I had to look up information about him. Turns out he was a prominent Cape Dutch (now Afrikaans) Politician, a leader in a brotherhood of Afrikaners, who eventually made a formal alliance with our man Cecil Rhodes. Despite the fact that others in his brotherhood refused to work with him because they were disgusted by the imperialistic attitude of Cecil Rhodes (see below), Hofmeyr persisted in his attitude of “reconciliation” towards the British, and traveled to Europe, on behalf of the Cape Dutch community, to advocate for the Act of Union, just before his death in 1909. Strike another one up for the alliance of all white people against all others!

(interestingly, Hofmeyr’s son, who had exactly the same name, was marginalised within the Afrikaans community for advocating, even if mildly, for nonracialism…)

Someone also attacked good ole’ Cecil Rhodes’ statue in the Company Gardens. To remember what a totally indefensible asshole Rhodes was, one needs only to remember some of his quotes:

Exhibit A:

“We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labor that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories.”

Exhibit B:

“Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life”

Should I go on? Alright, one more should suffice.

Exhibit C:

“I contend that we are the first race in the world,
and that the more of the world we inhabit
the better it is for the human race”

To Be People, Not Races.

To Be People, Not Races
Notions of White (In)Humanity in Mtutuzeli Matshoba’s Short Stories

“However, regardless of all these likelihoods,
to know that we once tried when everybody else was not trying
would give us reason to say we once lived;
we were not stillborn in the struggle for a truly human life.”
Mtutuzeli Matshoba

After more than five centuries of race-making within Europe and the portions of the globe colonized by Europe, there is little room left to dispute the fact that the origins of racial ideologies lie firmly amongst the so-called superior race, the whites. That is to say, while the complicity and resistance of the other, of the non-white populations of the world, have always been essential ingredients of racialism, race is and always has been produced and sustained by and for those people who claim to be white. Therefore, the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) which developed in South Africa can – at the very least (or at worst) – be described, as Chabani Manganyi has, as “a medium for positive, creative and defensive racialism which is opposed to the traditional negative racism practised by whites.”1 Black people, with BCM, insist on defining for themselves what the significance and ‘use’ of being ‘Black,’ is, will, or can be. This in opposition to a ruling order that “despises him [the black person] and his descriptions. They manage to create, deliberately, in every generation, the nigger they want to see. We, the blacks, can be described by others, but we are forbidden to describe ourselves.”2 But the point is not so simple, or crass, as ‘defensive racialism’ would make one think. For just as whites were unable to create themselves as a distinct ‘race,’ with clearly defined qualities, values, and privileges without simultaneously naming (and constraining) Black people, so too are Blacks unable to define themselves without simultaneously speaking to the nature of white people. Given the intrinsically dynamic nature of racial (self-)definition, if Black Consciousness is read only in terms of its descriptions of Blackness, crucial lessons regarding Whiteness are overlooked. In this paper, I intend to read the short stories of BCM writer Mtutuzeli Matshoba with a constant eye to what Matshoba is saying about who white people are, and what they are or are not capable of doing in order to supersede a society ‘obsessed with race,’ such as apartheid South Africa (and racial framings of humanity in general).

Central to Matshoba’s articulations of race in South Africa is the notion of humanity, the tricky question of how one can somehow not be understood – either by themselves or as perceived by others – as human. In Matshoba’s narrative, the category ‘black,’3 is sub-human, is not regarded4 as deserving the basic dignities of life in human societies. This creation of sub-human status is not just metaphorical, not simply a provocative claim on matshoba’s part, but meant, in a number of cases, to be taken as objective fact, as literal. For example, Matshoba’s story A Glimpse of Slavery depicts the brutal degradation – to the point of slavery – of convict labor in South Africa. In this economic arrangement, the extent of exploitation carried out requires a level of constant, vicious, and completely ugly violence; humanity must be literally beaten out of the worker, in order for them to submit to their conditions. One instance of such violence is described as follows: “Koos asked no questions but started flogging us with brutish enthusiasm. I covered my face and felt the lashes cutting my skin and setting it on fire. Two or three of us were crying out loud.” Later in the story, the convicts sit together and try to analyse the motivations for such brutality on the part of the whites. One prisoner offers: “’In order to satisfy their greed they have no choice but to insulate themselves against the sufferings of those they exploit by convincing themselves that the latter are not really human beings but something less than that. They liken us to beasts of labor that they can force to do anything they will upon us.’” Another prisoner chimes in to agree, and clarify that, “’if it had been that way [that we are simply beasts], there would have been no need to keep us in subjugation with guns…’” As spectacular as such instances of debasement are, the gnawing question of inhumanity lies in the constancy of it, the subtle repetitions of daily life. In Three Days in the Land of a Dying Illusion Matshoba asserts that, “The black man knows that he has been divested of his natural heritage of human dignity. He feels it on his way to and from work in the crowded trains, buses and taxis; in the crowded and sub-economic habitat, be it a hostel room or a dog-kennel… just about everywhere and at every moment of his life.”

In the process of degrading (black) people to a sub-human status, in defense of whiteness – a category which also needs to be created – whites themselves become sub-human. When, in Another Glimpse of Slavery, Matshoba describes Koos De Wet’s farm as “the place where I would learn the extent to which cruelty and hatred can turn man into something less than a wild beast,” it is Koos De Wet that is being named as “something less than a wild beast,” not his prisoners. White people lack the moral grounding that makes human beings basically decent, or at least makes one turn against acts of cruelty. Instead, whites seem to delight in causing suffering on others, or at least to delight in the material benefits of causing widespread suffering. Matshoba’s convict laborers describe white people as, “suffer[ing] from such a callousness as earn[s] the condemnation of the whole nation of humanity on the planet earth.” As moral condemnation this is all clear enough, and roughly sufficient, but in terms of political and social analysis – towards social change – more needs said; and perhaps Matshoba misses the possible insights and conclusions of his own formulations of white inhumanity.

Matshoba, in A Pilgrimage to the Isle of Makana goes as far as to say that, “Normally, if I see a white I see a white and not another human being. I see an image of the man who plunders my humanity.” There is here, potentially, an implication that compliance with the codes and behaviors of whiteness places one ‘beyond the pale’ of humanity. However, in this same section, Matshoba explains “seeing… a white and not another human being” as evidence of “how this racism smears all those exposed to it. I have been smeared, for my whole life. My very existence is determined along racial lines.” Fair enough. But Matshoba stops short of asking himself – and us – to answer the deeper and more significant questions about the nature and function of racial identity. The question that must be asked is whether or not whiteness – in specific, but by implication, also racial categories more generally – is in any way a ‘human’ identity? That is, can a person be fully human and also – incidentally or simultaneously – white? Failing to ask and answer these questions leads to weaknesses and dead-ends in trying to imagine anti-racial activity on the part of whites and a nonracial society yet to come.

A Pilgrimmage to the Isle of Makana discusses the dynamic between blacks in the struggle for liberation and white liberals in extensive detail. Matshoba portrays a black protagonist that is quite firmly rooted in his conviction that whites are irredeemable and yet has that conviction shaken somewhat through interacting with a small handful of liberals. Upon first introduction to his (black) friend Nomonde’s ‘good’ white friends, the protagonist tells the reader that, “I was not ready to part company before I had proved to Nomonde that whites could never be good, even if god was apparently on their side. They would hate the black man even in heaven. Why did she think they had separate graveyards?” However, after a bit of conversation about the political situation in the country, he decides, “These were human beings with a conscience and everything, like me!… Racism was crumbling fast before my eyes without a single bomb or life being wasted.” Remembering Nat Nakasa’s advice that “’the best way to live with apartheid is to ignore it,’” our narrator spends a number of hours enjoying a mixed-race party atmosphere and delighting in the ease and humanity of the interactions that feel possible there. But Matshoba doesn’t leave his characterisation of mixed-race interactions on such a sanguine note; the story is full of internal conflict and questioning.

In fact, it is quite telling that Matshoba’s investigation of the role of white liberals remains solely within the confines of a black man’s private questioning. Matshoba is admitting to us that he cannot explain or justify the motivations, goals and limitations of white people who attempt to rise out of racialism – he just simply doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, and he refuses to ask. “I ask myself these questions now, yet I know I cannot answer them. Only they could answer them. Why did I not ask them that day? I hate embarassing other people unless they are out to do it to me.” So, to save white liberals the embarassment of having to answer for themselves, Matshoba must either be content to simply raise questions or to offer only partial answers of his own.

Once again Matshoba resorts to the crisp language of moral indignation. “They live like human beings ought to live – no, that’s not right – they live in unfair abundance, while most of us just manage to survive. Look at their homes and think of our dog kennels! But would you say they enjoyed human rights when among their people it was regarded as shameful, even sinful, to exercise their right to love indiscriminately?” There is more than a bit of compassion here, as a motivating factor for white transgressions against racism is named not as guilt but as a basic lack of something so simple, beautiful and necessary as the capacity to “love indiscriminately.” Further, in speaking to the need for blacks to play a leading role in the struggle, rather than relying on white leadership, Matshoba again refers to a basic absence of essential human needs amongst whites. “We cannot expect Phil, Rachel and Shirley and those of their people who still have a conscience to give it [happiness] to us, because they haven’t got it themselves. Our unhappiness tarnishes any happiness they might have derived from their own existences.” Such statements jump off the page with their crisp, ethical clarity and their aspiration for the attainment of universal human values. And yet, in the end, Matshoba’s final characterisation of the white liberal ends clumsily, limply.

When speculating on the implications of a death of a black man held on Robben Island for the relationship of the protagonist to the ‘good’ whites, Matshoba resorts to a shallow and unproductive dichotomy. “Yes, I still saw them as friends and would not condemn them simply because they wore white skins. I knew very well that there was a special kind of white, the racist, who killed people.” Here a full retreat is made from the realization that whiteness debases its subjects to the point of inhumanity. In this passage, whiteness becomes not a destructive social construct – a dynamic that cuts both ways19 – but rather a question of skin, a question of the inherent malevolence of a small handful of those with a certain skin-tone, the ‘racists.’ Such an analysis does a disservice both to the ‘beasts’ of white supremacist systems and also to those – both ‘white’ and ‘black’ – who attempt to lay seige to those systems. Where is the striving for a mutual recovering of human dignity denied and debased if all that must be done is that ‘the racists’ are done away with?

Matshoba shines best when describing the limits, not the potential, of egalitarian collaboration between whites and blacks. Just as we are settling in to the joyful mixed-race party environment, Matshoba shakes us awake with the question, “Where were the haters then? Doubtlessly barricaded in their hatred and waiting, shotguns in readiness, for a swart gevaar onslaught on their identity and civilization.” He is not just being glib or cynical here, but rather pointing to the real, structural barriers which inevitably creep into the well-intentioned efforts of black and white ‘anti-racists.’ Matshoba continues to explain that, “Tomorrow hostilities would resume and intensify. Events would take place which would compel me to evoke again the only effective means of defence against hate and contempt: hate and contempt. Tomorrow he would go to the army and learn that the enemy he was being trained to defend himself against was the black man in the backyard who was stalking his household and abundance, day and night.” Those whites who aspire – in spite of their whiteness – to have human interactions with black people and thus simultaneously assert the humanity of black people cannot be fully human on account of the structural barriers of the racist system that they themselves have created. Humanity then becomes something whites can only catch for themselves in glimpses, something they can only share with blacks in fleeting, ’stolen’ moments. The only explicit offer of how whiteness (and therefore blackness) can be surpassed is in moments when it is “forgotten.” All the same, Matshoba stresses, finally, with a healthy dose of genuine gratitude that, “Regardless of all these likelihoods, to know that we once tried when everybody else was not trying would give us reason to say we once lived; we were not stillborn in the struggle for a truly human life.”

1 – Matshoba, M. (1979). Call me not a man. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.
2 – Baldwin, J. (1985). Price of the ticket, the. New York: St. Martin’s Press. pg. 58
3 – Need it be said: ‘created by whites’?
4 – Again, is it essential to say: ‘regarded by whites’? Or is this known, and therefore redundant?

all other quotes drawn from source #1… except…
19 – Or, one might say, in multiple, or all directions.

Budapest Calling: Craziest Table Mountain Climb Ever!

There were many reasons why the climb of table mountain that evi and i planned was crazy. You might say, with hindsight, that our climb was destined to lead in the insane direction that it led. Maybe. We certainly decided to take the “maximum risk” route, and we got a rush of exhileration out of that, and also paid a steep price.

First off, we didn’t leave our house to start the climb until about 2:30 in the afternoon, and with the climb being 1.5 hours (at least) each way, and the sun setting around 6:30, we were really pushing the limits of possibilities. Then, we had to get some things to help protect evi’s blistered ankles against hurting horribly from the four hours of hiking. Doing that meant that we didn’t make it to the start of the trail till 3:30.

Aware of the time constraints facing us, we decided to take the path that leads towards Devil’s Peak – and not the recommended route up to the top of tabel mountain – because, as i’ve said before, we were looking for “maximum risk,” an adventure, if you will. We had looked on the map, and it seemed like it might be possible to turn off of the Devil’s Peak path at some point, onto a new trail up to the top of table mountain. As we started climbing, we met a man coming down and asked him about this idea. He assured us that it would work and that (and here’s the for sure “quote of the day”) “it’s really well signposted up there,” so we’d surely find our way without any difficulty. Furthermore, being reasonable for a moment, we told ourselves that if we just climbed up Devil’s Peak and back down the same path, that wouldn’t really be so bad.

After an hour of climbing we were near what they call the “saddle,” a piece of rocky earth that bends down, inbetween Devil’s Peak and Table Mountain. As the clouds were covering the whole sky and down to us, so we were literally “in the clouds,” we tried to decide whether to keep going up to Devil’s Peak, or to try and turn off towards the top of Table Mountain.

Convinced that we could see a clear path up Table Mountain, we decided to turn away from Devil’s Peak and head again towards “maximum risk.” If we could make it to the top in a little while, we could still walk down the “recommended route” down into the setting sun. Not a totally crazy idea, eh?

I guess the reality of our insanity didn’t really sink in until we reached, for the first time, an actual sign:

From that point on, things got really quite crazy. First we got crazy happy. The clouds cleared as we stood on the saddle, and it was wonderful to see the city centre and the suburbs spread out beneath the mountain on the other side, all at once. We were convinced that we had definitely made the right choice, doing the more interesting, fun and beautiful thing.

As the maybe-a-path turned into clearly-not-a-path, first gradually and then radically, we started to feel a little different. For a while there was an adrenaline rush, making us think that we could scramble our way to the top and triumph in an amazing way. There kept being little piles of rocks as we went along, that looked intentional and gave us the idea that even though we were scrambling we were clearly headed in a possible direction towards the top. Then, as it neared 6:00, we realized that we were increasingly having to turn back around and try again, increasingly looking up at shear rock and looking down at sharp cliff edges, prickly bush and unstable footing, etc. In another flash of reasonable behavior, we decided to “start heading down.” Brilliant.

We decided not to head straight down, as in backwards, because our last half an hour up had been so harsh and steep. So, we kept going, scrambling all the way, around the mountain. We thought we’d walk along the mountain and downwards, till we reached a viable path. As it turned out, we didn’t reach any clear path (the “recommended route”) until 9:00 – three hours later! Those three hours were some of the scariest, gruelling, tiring – and therefore fully alive – hours of my life. Each of us reached multiple periods of full panic. Luckily Evi’s panic mode frequently made her want to keep charging ahead (only once did her panic tell her to sit down and smoke a cigarette!) whereas my panicked mind kept telling me to totally stop moving my body, to give up. But our moments of panic and hope luckily alternated, so we were able to keep each other calm, hopeful and focused, each taking turns leading the way down.

As the last bits of sunlight gave way to darkness we found ourselves walking and sliding and crawling through bushes, shrubs, rocks, trees and mountain streams in the shadow of the moonlight shining down onto the mountain. Our standards for what was a safe place to place our hands or our feet steadily declined, till we were almost always sliding on our asses, almost always stepping onto things that couldn’t hold our weight for very long, and many of the things we couldn’t even really see that clearly.

Around 8:00 or 8:30 I started to get totally fed up with the whole process. The initial fear-driven hope-adrenaline was all gone, and I was just weary. I began screaming songs at the top of my lungs, and demanding that we walk further across the mountain (and no longer down into the ravine, which was anyway increasingly a stream and we were increasingly wet and cold) to reach a path and be done, once and for all, with this insane scrambling. This “strike” mode led me, at one point, to the moment that was closest to dying that I’ve ever experienced. I ended up standing in and on a waterfall, with water sliding past my feet and arm, standing on a thin piece of wet rock, and my body just totally froze. There was still a few more feet of waterfall to walk through, and i couldn’t conceive of doing it. I was just stuck there, screaming for evi to help me somehow, screaming out my terror, and eva tried to encourage me to turn around, but i just couldn’t. i literally thought to myself that the easiest thing to do would be to just let go of the rock and let myself fall. the whole moment probably lasted about 45 seconds, and then i somehow unfroze and walked across the waterfall to dry land. Normally my emtions feel so cloudy and confusing, but in that moment (and others on this long scramble down) i felt no ambiguity at all, just the pure beauty of fear!

When we finally reached the path we were totally ecstatic. We ate snacks and sang songs and laughed and began marvelling at the feat that we had just accomplished. We had scaled more than a kilometer and a half of a huge mountain, mostly when we were at least 800m up, and then climbed a good 500m of that down through a ravine, with no path, in the dark. Once it was over, it could be funny again, a miraculous, adventurous “success” of some sort.

Furthermore, we had the good luck of doing this whole crazy thing on a night when the moon was full AND being eclipsed by the sun, exactly at the point that we reached the path. Many people had driven up to the roadway along the bottom of table mountain’s path in order to see the eclipse, and there we were, joining them, to see the beautiful sight.

We drove down the hill to the wonderful biesmallah restaurant in bo-kaap, wet and ragged and exhausted, and feasted on curry and sweet drinks – and evi snuck out (and brought me along sometimes) of the restaurant a half dozen times to keep catching glimpses of the eclispsed moon.

It was really a beautiful ending to a totally crazy adventure…

Budapest Calling: Climbing a bit of Chapman’s Peak

our second mountain climbing attempt was up the path towards chapman’s peak, which is a beautiful stretch of land near hout bay. we might have gone all the way, as we were hoping to climb up and watch the sun set, but after about 45 minutes of climbing clouds rolled in and not only spoiled the potentially beautiful sunset, but also threatened to drench us in rain. still, it was an enjoyable walk, and the view back down towards hout bay is amazing. there are a number of paths in and around hout bay and chapman’s peak that i still want to try walking over the coming months…

Budapest Calling: Silly Time

Eva and I had plenty of silly times together, giggling and playing and just enjoying each other. Many of those moments will just have to stay in our minds, the clear imagery and stories held there, safely. A couple silly moments got caught on camera. Here’s a movie of the silliest card game ever (we had a couple fun card playing times, restoring eva’s ‘faith’ in the joy of playing cards):

and here’s the silliest sign that we saw: 

Budapest Calling: Ocean? What Ocean?

Eva and I wanted to go and see the ocean from a different angle, to get a sense of the Milnerton/Tableview section of the city. Going with my friend Arouna, we asked the minibus taxi driver for the taxi to Milnerton to take us somewhere we could see the ocean. He said, “ocean? what ocean?” Arouna tried asking for the sea. No luck. He tried spelling it out for the driver on his mobile phone. Still no luck. Finally asking for “a view of the city,” got us a ride to Tableview, which, incidentally, is the beachfront of the atlantic ocean…

Budapest Calling: Playing at the Botanical Gardens

After a crazy morning sitting for over an hour on a train that moved only 100m out of the Cape Town central station (delays due to ‘cable theft,’) Eva and I finally made it to Observatory, borrowed Doerte’s car, and made our way to the Botanical Gardens. Even with the drizzly, overcast day, and having to pay to enter (for the first time ever) we had a great time playing in the gardens. Eva loved all the new plants, and ran from one to the next, touching them, photographing them, smelling them, and just generally smiling really wide. It was my favorite trip to the botanical gardens ever.

we asked an older woman what her favorite place in the gardens is, and she told us about this dell. it has a bird shaped bathing pool of mountain spring water, and a little waterfall…

personally, eva fell in love most with this tree. hope the picture captures it’s beauty:

and here’s the lovely eva: