Young South Africans are a uniquely fascinating group of people. They can boast of living through the creation of new state with a progressive mandate that did away with the way things were in their parents’ time. Many, if not most, of them had opportunities given to them that were denied to their forbearers. And now we are watching them to see what they make of those opportunities, and indeed, of themselves and of their nation. I have a few disparate accounts of my impressions of the young people around me that I want to bring together here. As with many of my blog-posts, one of the themes is that of race and racial identity—it has proven impossible for me to escape that topic in SA, and my own curiosity is partly to blame. In telling these varied stories here, I hope there is at least a semblance of coherence. But I know that in addition to shortcomings in my own writing, the South African experience is so incredibly diverse that it defies any neat nets I may wish to cast over it.
A few nights ago I watched a riveting documentary on TV where a young black woman took a camera along as she spoke to various members of her family and visited the sites of her childhood in an attempt to get closure after her father’s death. Though she lives in Cape Town now, she was born and raised in the Eastern Cape, formerly the semi-independent nation of Transkei. Under Apartheid, Transkei was one of the eight ethnically and linguistically divided homelands, Bantustans, and it was also an independent country for some time (though recognised by SA alone).
From what I can gather, racial relations in the Transkei were quite different from what prevailed in SA then. This filmmaker talks of going to public (private) school with white children. I have written previously of my colleague Tuffy who played with black African children growing up; I believe she grew up in the Transkei as well. The filmmaker’s father was a high-ranking government official, and while this is a source of consternation for her, it was very commonplace in that setting. The reason this lady set out on her journey to Mthatha (main city in Transkei) was because she wanted to know where her father’s loyalties lay—with the ANC or the government he worked for. She spoke of feeling guilt at having a charmed childhood in a period when other black South African youth were marching in streets (and dying for it) against Apartheid policies. The documentary consisted of several fascinating interviews with her family members and friends explaining how things “really were” in those days. Some of her family refused to divulge details of what had been happening/ where they had been in the late 80s, and I don’t blame them. I cannot imagine why anyone would choose to pursue such sensitive and personal topics on camera, and have the gall to feel insulted when others backed down.
Anyway, the most interesting interview in that show was with a group of young, black South Africans who spoke of feeling that they still had to fight harder for things that came easily to their white peers. One of the guys said that white people have managed to make the new system work for their benefit. One of the girls said that she would be open to dating white men, just not white South African men. Echoing something I have read elsewhere, a young man asked to be pointed to a single company in SA that was truly owned by black people (I had read a short story where a black man was employed as a “board-member” by a company so that it could get benefits under the BEE Act—Black Economic Empowerment—even though the company was owned and run by white people). Conversations with my neighbours who have befriended me and my roommates have brought up similar views.
On the other hand, young white South Africans I meet tell me of their sojourns abroad: it seems as though it is a coming-of-age ritual of sorts to spend a few years in London. Many have cousins or siblings who are now settled abroad and that is looked upon quite favourably by parents who think that their children should get away (from SA) if they can. A friend of mine even complained that the best English cricketers are actually South Africans who left home. Once, I came across a sign in Rondebosch, a student-heavy area because of its proximity to Univ. of Cape Town, that asked: Affirmative Action—Redress or Neo-Apartheid?
I recently met a group of young South African Indians in a bizarre but true story to be told another time. Before I go any further, let me say this: I keep coming across pockets of the Indian Diaspora that turn out more traditionally Indian than I will ever be. All the Indians I’ve met in SA have no family left in India and they have been in SA from the late 1800s. Yet, they cook biryani with great gusto and listen to the latest Bollywood hits on their car radios. I must go to Durban, they tell me, and promise to invite me to the upcoming Diwali bash. And they didn’t cheer for South Africa at the cricket game two weekends ago; they cheered for Bangladesh. The South African cricketers are racist, my friend told me. May be so.
I am definitely not passing judgment on any of these experiences. The youth in India are dissatisfied with their country as well. Many of my friends at college in Delhi want to get away and go abroad too. Many of my Indian friends abroad despair that India will never become the superpower it is supposed to become, and don’t want to go back. And I mean, look at me! I certainly “got away”. Perhaps this disillusionment is common to the developing world, or perhaps it has to do with my generation. Either way, I am merely observing, trying to make sense of a society that is, in this incarnation at least, very young.
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