[I was intrigued by the storm in South Africa over David Bullard in 2008. I am an Indian and I am dead against racism; but I was thrilled by a column for which he was accused of racism. So I got interested in how South Africans tackle race. I haven't been to South Africa for 52 years; and even then I spent a day in Johannesburg and one in Cape Town while my ship replenished itself on way to England. At that time, racism was official in South Africa; I remember separate benches and toilets in gardens. Although all that is gone, racism continues to live a clandestine life in South African languages; that is what fascinated me. This column was published in the Telegraph of 6 May 2008]
THE WHITE-WATER RACIST
When Harbhajan Singh was ticked off for racist abuse of Andrew Symonds, most Indians were befuddled. He is supposed to have called Symonds a monkey; in defence, he said he had only said “Maa ki…” at which the match referee laughed and reduced his penalty. Our colonial ancestors used to be quite well versed in the intricacies of racism; they had rigorous lessons from the British. Every schoolchild knows the story of Gandhiji being thrown out of a train in South Africa because he entered a first-class carriage (and he had bought a first-class ticket). But after our independence in 1947, we did pretty thorough racial cleansing. Whites almost disappeared from India – certainly racist whites. So we are somewhat uneducated in racism. We could do with some lessons from South Africa, where race remains a live issue although non-whites have been in power since 1994.
Let me start with David Bullard, who has just been sacked as a columnist by The Sunday Times of Johannesburg. He describes himself as follows: “Bullard’s meteoric rise to fame as a newspaper columnist and media celebrity came after a hugely successful and obscenely profitable twenty-four years in the financial markets trading bonds and derivatives. He is an opinionated sod who is as impervious to criticism as he is to bullets. He’s also old enough and rich enough to not give a damn what other people think. When he’s not driving fast cars, drinking expensive whisky, traveling down the sharp end of planes and eating absurdly expensive meals in swanky restaurants he enjoys the simple things in life such as reading “A Brief History of Time” and making critical pencil notes in the margin. He has had his teeth whitened, doesn’t dye his hair and has it on good authority that the halitosis is curable.”
On 7 April, he wrote a column in Johannesburg Sunday Times. He imagined a South Africa uncolonized by whites: a South Africa without cars, television, internet, cellphones, newspapers, magazines, shopping malls, cigars or wallpaint. The people live an idyllic life. They have enough and want nothing more. They have discovered fire and are developing the wheel. Despite this blissful existence, they miss something: they do not know what. Then one day, the Chinese arrive looking for minerals, land, water and labour. Then the South Africans know what was missing in their lives: someone to blame.
This summary does not capture Bullard’s style, which I found riveting. It was good entertainment – I would have been chuffed to write it. As to content, obviously Bullard was blaming black South Africans for blaming whites. This had local relevance. A local reader may disagree with him, and may think of counterarguments. It is not inevitable that if whites had not exploited Africa, the Chinese would have. Africa might never have been discovered; or it might have been too remote and might have been neglected by the whites, like Japan; or it might not been rich in minerals. There are so many alternative scenarios that can be imagined; none is more probable than another. It was possible to controvert or dismiss Bullard’s argument; but I could not see how it was racist.
Then, after being dismissed, Bullard wrote an apology which listed what his readers found offensive about the column. He called his subjects “simple tribesmen”; that was interpreted to mean they were stupid. He wrote that if a child was eaten up by a lion or a crocodile, its parents would mourn for a while and then have another; that was considered insensitive. He wrote that the huts were built so as to catch most of the day’s sun; that was taken to mean that blacks were lazy.
Bullard’s remarks may have been impolite or unpleasant. But I thought they were well within the kind of discourse that goes on in any democracy. They reminded me of some Indians’ habit of taking umbrage at their opponents’ remarks and asking for an apology. The Hindutwits are particularly good at this; Muslims also indulge in it sometimes. Children do it all the time – picking up fights over real and imagined insults. It is the context that defines racism. In particular, certain epithets from the Apartheid era are taboo as classic racism – boertjie or plank (white Afrikaans – that is, of Dutch descent – generally known as Boer), roeinek, bhulu or soetie (English South African), kaffir, bushcat, groenewald or baboon (black), boesman or bushman (tribesman from South-west Africa), hotnot, baster, gam, ghoffel or geelbek (mixed-race), meid (black or coloured woman, from maid), koelie or coolie (South Asian), skeepfokker (Australian) or kwerekwere (foreigner visiting an African ghetto). Indians had their own terms: for instance, gora for whites, bruin for coloured people, ravan or pekkie for blacks, slum for Muslims, roti for north Indians and porridge for Tamils. It was not only other races for which people had rude descriptions. The police also attracted many epithets: for instance, gatta, boere (because most policemen were Boers), or kerel (the Dutch word for boy).
Boer is a wonderful transplant of Dutch, of special interest to me because of its affinity with German. Take, for instance, boekkie, which means darling or honey. If you are in love with her, you can say you are hard up. Bok means a goat, whence come Springboks – leaping goats – a name for the South African cricket team. Boekkie means a little goat, a kid. That would be the right word for a girl friend; so would tjerrie (cherie) or stukkie (from stuck, Dutch for a small piece). But if it is a non-girl friend, you can greet him, “Howzit, china!” China means a mate: china plate – mate – it is a typical Cockney derivation. On the same lines, “I must get some tom” means I need money; it comes from tomfoolery, which rhymes with jewellery. There are many words for something admirable or cool. For example, kief comes from gif, which means poison, but has come to be used for local marijuana, hence cool. Tit, lekker, befok and kwaai mean the same thing.
The English have their own slang in South Africa, though it is not nearly as colourful as Boer (“Dutch” is South African Englishmen’s slang for Boer.) They use “now” in peculiar ways. “Just now” means some time – not necessarily soon. “Now now” may mean recently or soon. If they say, “I am scheming”, they have nothing sinister in mind; they are only thinking.
I am not familiar with local African slang. But some words have become well known. For instance, an indaba is a conference, while dagga is marijuana. At football matches, one shouts, “Ladooma!” which I think means a goal.
This is a very superficial and amateur introduction to South African lingo. South Africa is known in India only for its lions and elephants. But its people are equally interesting. The mixture of Africans, English and Dutchmen has produced a fascinating mélange. Every community that has gone to Africa has turned into a tribe, and developed a tribal language. India may have been like that at one time, but now it has become too integrated and boring. For the true colours of tribal differentiation, one must go to South Africa.
