Living in a new South Africa: a dream come true, or not?
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
Here I am, 15 years after the end of apartheid and the commencement of a new democratic dispensation in South Africa. I have been on this farm my whole life, just like my parents have been. My great-grandparents moved onto this farm with the previous owner almost a hundred years ago. My extended family has grown over the years, toiling on the farm, bearing more labourers for this farm. In the worker’s compound we are more of family than colleagues. Some of my uncles and aunties are nearing their 70’s now, past pension point, but they still rise before the sun to work the land and go back home long after the sun is back home, their scrawny backs bent from the heat of the sun and the hard work.
I was born, less than 40 years ago as the only child to my parents who were and who still are farm labourers. My parents couldn’t really afford to send me to school from their meager earnings so I had to take a job on the farm, helping tend for the cattle herds and sheep flocks. Besides baas de Villiers said it was not necessary to send a black kid to school because his role in life was to labour on the farm and therefore does not need education for that. “White people were not created for these tough jobs and living conditions that black people have to live in,” he had said to me one day when I was just about nine years old.
I was raised to believe that, if my life had to have any value beyond what it was now, then I had to be white. But because I couldn’t change who I was, I just accepted it as my allotment for life. I was never going to be good enough and I was never going anywhere beyond what I am now, a farm labourer. I, however, did manage to save enough money from my earnings to take me to school for a couple of years. However, as I got into my teens, as more responsibilities were shifted to me on the farm I had to quit school and work full time on the farm. My father had taken to drinking heavily, spending all his earnings on beer. My mother, who was already fragile from working the long hours couldn’t take it longer and became sickly and was bed-ridden for five months,. At the age of sixteen it felt like I was carrying the whole world on my shoulders.
Two years later I met Eve and we got married. She brought comfort to me and was able to take care of my ill mother as well.
When the news reached us that SA was a new country where the so-called black, coloured and white could live harmoniously as one people, at the same level, we cried tears of joy. Finally that meant an end to oppression. That meant an end to social discrimination. It meant an end to classical discrimination. That meant that we could go to school, get good jobs, drive beautiful cars, own houses and take care of our families. Moreover it meant that my daughter who is now almost ten years old could look up to the future with more hope than I ever had. She could now dream of doing the jobs that only white people did back in our days. She could dream of one day becoming a nurse, a teacher, and accountant, lawyer or even a pilot. I had heard that many women were even becoming pilots in other countries.
However, baas Jan didn’t seem too pleased with the news.
“This country is going down now. Kaffirs are just incapable of running this fuckin’ country. Look at all the progress and development the white man has brought to Africa? Medicines, roads, electricity etc. and these morons in power are just going to bring it all down!”
Indeed he was fuming as he echoed the sentiments of former apartheid strongman P. W. Botha. And he didn’t even have a trace of shame on his face! But this time around I stood up to him. I had been told we are now living in a free country so I told him my piece of mind.
“Baas Jan, it doesn’t matter what you people brought here. You wouldn’t have gotten where you are now if the same black people you now ridicule had not been there.” I fumed, even for a moment forgetting I had resolved to stop referring to him as Baas. ”Who works on the roads? Who labours on the farms and in the industries? Is it not the same black people you treat as shit? This is now a new country and there is no place for racist people like you in our new South Africa. President Mandela spoke about reconciliation and which part of that do you not understand? And if you think black people are forever meant to be your servants and you the bosses, then wake up and smell the coffee. It is a new world and we shall not accept…”
“Hold on there you bloody fuckin monkey.” He cut in, his brow creasing and eyes narrowing fiercely. ”Do you know who you are talking to like that! You want to sow discord into my other workers ha!” he was fuming now. His eyes had narrowed and turned a bloodshot red. His face betrayed betrayed a mixture of anger, disbelief and even more anger. But I refused to be cowed into submission.
“That is the reality of the matter and the sooner you realize and accept it the better for you and indeed for everyone!” I said, turning to go home. I had never done this. I had never spoken up to the boss like that. I had never turned to go without being dismissed. But then everything begins somewhere. Democracy and freedom had begun in South Africa. And I had begun to exercise my right, my freedom of choice and choice of freedom.
I was feeling very triumphant indeed. At last I had told him what he needed to know. Too bad he was too hard headed to understand anything but I had done my part.
“Malan! Malan!”
“Baas!” Damn, I should stop calling him baas now. We are now all equal. That’s what the president said. Black, brown or white; we are all South Africans. So if he won’t call me Baas then I wont call him baas as well. As soon as I turned my head to look back at him he bellowed.
“You are fired!”
“Yes I am!” I quipped back, not understanding what “fired” meant at all. It was the first time I have ever hear anyone saying that and I thought he meant it as a compliment to my courage in standing up to him. My step picked up a bounce as I sauntered towards my house in the compound.
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