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Both sides now

The loss follows me everywhere these days. It's been 20 years since I've lived in South Africa. Initially, I pretended as if I would go home, but I knew the moment I arrived in Dublin that I would never call South Africa home again. I've always accepted that one day I might not be able to go home. I imagined the crime would become too hard to ignore. Or maybe the country would break out into a civil war. Even so, the loss of country, culture, and family follows me everywhere. 

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"There's Mr Mandela, Mr Nelson Mandela, a free man, taking his first steps into a new South Africa." I'm ten years old, sitting on the floor of our living room, watching the evening news with my family. Riaan Cruywagen's voice was saying that Nelson Mandela had been released from Victor Verster prison. I had no idea who he was talking about. 

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Soon after, the terms New South Africa and Rainbow Nation came to carry deep significance for me. They were equal parts a promise and a call to arms.  I am a child of the New South Africa, but I still have roots that stretch deep into the old.  I am ethnically an Afrikaner. This means that I belong to a group, that was made up of the early Dutch, French Huguenots, and German settlers to the Western Cape.  After years of cohabitating, we formed our own culture and language and called ourselves Afrikaners.

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For four years after Mandela's release, the National Party government readied themselves to hand power to the people – all the people. During this time, I noticed a lot about my country that I had never seen before. I noticed that the blacks and coloureds never seemed to have as much money as the whites. It was only their children who were homeless and roaming the streets at night. South Africa was a rich country, why were these people so downtrodden? I also noticed how people started to speak differently. The racial slurs which had previously punctuated sentences were now said under people's breath. I also sensed a lot of fear. I lived in a small town in the heart of the Great Karoo.  An Afrikaans town, a town that relied on farming and the traffic that drove through on the national highway. The news started reporting retaliatory attacks. Farmers killed by staff. Surely people that they had mistreated through years of low wages and humiliation?

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And then came the St. James Church massacre. I was thirteen years old, when four members of APLA, the Azanian People's Liberation Army, walked into a church in Kenilworth and opened fire. 11 people were killed, and 58 were wounded. It would have been many more, had it not been for Charl van Wyk, an armed member of the congregation, who shot back at the APLA members. Apparently, there were two Molotov cocktails that remained undelivered. I had spent many a Christmas morning in a similar church one suburb over. The St. James Massacre happened on the 25th of July.  Would the next massacre take place on the 25th of December? Would a group of men come into my church? Everywhere I looked it seemed as if South Africa was growing more violent. The news started describing Johannesburg as the most dangerous place to live outside of a war zone. And yet, the violence was only starting to affect the whites, the blacks had been living with it for years.

 I started feeling unsafe at night. The more I began to understand our past, the more I worried for the safety of my friends and family. Living in a small-town means though means living close to your neighbours, even when a system of government has tried to keep you apart.  On the weekends I worked in my father's video rental shop alongside Prince. Prince was a stately Xhosa gentleman, as dignified as Mandela if not more so. I have known him my entire life. Prince worked in my father's clothing shop during the week and his video shop every second weekend.  Prince was always strict, he wasn't afraid to get angry with me, but I always felt loved by him. Prince taught me my first Xhosa phrases and his face would break out into a huge smile whenever we exchanged greetings in Xhosa. I've known many Prince, but I've never met a member of APLA.

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As Afrikaners, we had all been taught to fear. Fear is the primary tool with which oppressive regimes maintain control. Die Swart gevaar (the black danger), as the National government reminded us, was always just around the corner, waiting to tear down our civilisation. In an address to the Study Committee of the British Parliamentary Association, Jan Smuts, the then Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, said:

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"A small white community on a black continent trying to establish and maintain Western civilisation.  Very often you may think that we are narrow-minded; that we do not take large and wide enough views.  But I would always remind you of this; that it is quite easy for you in your position of security and aloofness to be very large-minded and very generous.  People in South Africa who actually are face to face with this problem of maintaining their standards and maintaining their civilization in an environment that is forever tending to pull them down must naturally view the situation differently."

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Statesmen have a way with words. One of the many problems with Smut's sentiment was how evil the execution of his beliefs was. White drivers sped up so that the black pedestrians would break into a run. Growing up white in Apartheid South Africa, afforded you many privileges that the blacks and coloureds were not given. We lived in better neighbourhoods, attended better schools, and the best jobs in the Government departments were saved for the whites. We were quite literally set up for success. By comparison, blacks South Africans were given the worst beaches to swim at; their children drowned in the dangerous currents. They were taught nothing in their schools but how to clean and garden. They had to take jobs far from their families and leave their children with elderly grandparents. The cruelty of enforcing this system of separation was visible in every segment of our society. The black's bitterness grew. The whites were given all this privilege with the understanding that we did not rock the boat. And we were taught that it was our God-given right to live this privileged life.

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"No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."

Nelson Mandela, Long walk to freedom.

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When I was in primary school, my history books were filled with stories of Piet Retief and the Great Trek of 1837. The British retook the Cape Colony from the Dutch, and the Afrikaners grew dissatisfied with life in the colony. They wanted to live beyond the reach of British colonial rule. Groups of Afrikaner men set off to explore the province of Natal and found a region abundant in fertile farmland.

The word Voortrekker means pioneer.  Piet Retief, a famous Voortrekker leader, arrived in the Tugela region. There he met King Dingane and petitioned him for land to settle on.  Dingane agreed, but only in exchange for cattle, stolen by a rival tribe, being returned to the Zulu people. The history is unclear as to Dingane's motives with what followed. Perhaps he had a hunch that one day 80% of South Africa would be owned by whites. Perhaps Dingane understood that one day these Afrikaners would make his descendants carry passbooks so that they may move through their ancestral home. As a child, I learnt only about Dingane's deceit. We were not supposed to ask why. The Voortrekkers succeeded in retrieving the stolen cattle. Dingane granted them land between the Tugela river and Port. St. Johns. Weeks later, Dingane requested the Voortrekkers' presence at his Kraal (village). His warriors performed a war dance and at the end of the dance, Dingane ordered the Voortrekkers seized. Retief and his party were marched to a hillside where everyone was clubbed to death. Retief was saved till last so that he could watch his companions die.

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After the death of Piet Retief, came the battle of Bloodrivier (Blood river). A battle which as Afrikaners, we commemorate yearly. I remember sitting outside the front of our school watching the cadets perform their drills. The entire school would watch as the South African flag was raised and sing the stirring words of C.J. Langenhoven:

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Never do your children,

who are true,

 have to ask,

what does your flag stand for South Africa?

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The story of Bloedrivier would then be told to us. A handful of Afrikaners were surrounded by thousands of Zulu warriors. They had drawn their ox wagon into a circle, pushed thorn bushes in all the gaps and waited to be attacked. Before the attack, the Afrikaner Voortrekkers prayed to God. They prayed that their lives would be spared and in return, we would commemorate this day, Geloftedag (the day of the promise), every year. The Zulus descended upon them, but the Voortrekkers prevailed and the water of the Ncome river ran red with the blood of Zulus killed that day. The Afrikaners were spared. And in this way, the government augmented their right to rule through the word of God. The Afrikaners' divine right to rule over the blacks was founded. I sat submissively and listened. I never thought of the other side.

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On my grandmother's side of the family, I am related to Piet Retief. I have ancestors who owned wine farms, and no doubt slaves whose labour was stolen to work these farms. I have ancestors who were imprisoned in British concentration camps. 10% of the Afrikaner population died in those camps, during the war fought between the British and the newly formed Union of South Africa. Does this make me culpable? Or were my people also just fighting for survival?

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I have always loved history, but it was only after Nelson Mandela was freed, that I realised my history had been told from one perspective. Four years after Mandela's release, the National Party finally stepped down and allowed all South Africans to vote in our first free election. I was 14 years old and had just started my first year of high school. 4-years later, despite everything, I would still vote for the National Party.

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One day my History teacher handed out a book chapter titled Apartheid. As he was handing out the photocopied pages, he told us that the text would be included in our exams. I understood then that the new government had not had time to rewrite the history books. I understood then that history was written by the ruling government. What I didn't understand at the time, was that Mandela freed me too. His release exposed the lie that my society was built upon and gave me the freedom to see the world for what it was.

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To be born into ideology is like a fish not knowing what wetness feels like. My whole world was constructed by the Apartheid ideology. I was born white during Apartheid in South Africa, and I was born privileged. The apartheid ending didn't erase my white privilege. In the Apartheid ideology, we were told that we were superior to other races. Once Apartheid ended, this way of thinking didn't change overnight. But it wasn't just the whites who believed it. 30-years on and South Africa is still a country deeply divided by race. There have been incremental shifts. Generation by generation we have become more integrated. Nowadays we are divided more by class than race – the new racism perhaps.

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 However, I have never been able to reconcile myself with corruption. After so many years of The Struggle I feel immensely betrayed by the African National Congress (ANC). The political party that so nobly stood up against the inhumanity of the Apartheid government chose a man like Jakob Zuma to be their president.

 

On a visit back to South Africa, I entered a conversation with my brother: 'He's a crook!' I say. We're at my sister's house in a gated community in Stellenbosch. The crime in the country is so out of control and the only way to feel safe is within high walls. We're getting ready to have a braai (Barbecue), my brother is seasoning the meat as we are discussing the recently elected leader of the ANC – Jakob Zuma. 'He's on trial for raping a woman.' Zuma denied the rape and was infamous for taking a shower after he had raped her. The woman was HIV positive and he believed he could wash clean. "He's so dumb, he thinks he can wash away the AIDS! What kind of leader will this man make?' My brother gives me a sorrowful look: 'The people love him. He's one of them. They never trusted Mbeki. He was educated in London and the blacks think he doesn't understand their struggle.' Exasperated I ask him, 'But surely we can do better? He's accused of rape, believes taking a shower will prevent AIDS, and he's buddies with the Guptas! They're the most notorious of all the crooks!' My brother looks at me irritated, 'Don't be one of those South Africans who go overseas and just bad mouths the country. Give him a chance. The blacks love him.' I suppose, what else could he say? He's knee-deep in the new South Africa with a wife, child, and mortgage. This is his country, his home.  He loves animals, the mountains the oceans. I'm touched by his patriotism, shamed by it even. Many of my siblings are older than me and belong more to the old South Africa than the new. Even so, we are all patriots. I feel a pang of eternal guilt that I left when I was 21 years old. Isn't my generation who are supposed to shepherd in the new era?  Instead, I like so many, moved overseas. I took a job in an Irish supermarket and never looked back.

 

I wish my brother had been right. Zuma was an incredibly rotten leader. And once you have a rotten leader, he starts putting rotten people around himself and feathers their nests alongside his own.

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I have never been able to understand how the ANC evolved from the party of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, into this corrupt parasite feeding off its own kind, an Ouroboros. Why is the New South African government not looking after their own people?  It is one thing to punish the whites for Apartheid, but the black people are not being uplifted either. The Bible says: "The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sins of the father to the third and fourth generation." I guess by that estimation, we South Africans have a generation or two left to go.

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