Elaine Bing: Unmaking of the Torturer

Elaine Bing: Unmaking of the Torturer, Lapa, Pretoria 2014

I am not a quick reader.  I never have been. I am always shocked by those who can get through a book with ease in an afternoon - and even more shocked by those who can do so and still remember the plot or the tack.  But even I have to admit, that it has taken me an inordinately long time to finish this book.

And the reason is not that it is badly written - far from it, (even though there are some edits which the work would have benefitted from).  No, it is the subject matter. I had the same kind of experience, in my early University days, when I encountered the Marquis de Sade for the first time. The fact is, this is all extraordinarily uncomfortable territory.

It is far easier to read a book about human suffering, for instance.  In a book about human suffering, you have the advantage of being able to plunge deep into the well of human empathy.  The other side of it all, perched comfortably upon the summit of Mount Compassion, one is able to survey all that is beneath one - and pronounce in a manner which is difficult to contradict.  And tut tut about it.  And shake one's head about it. But in this book, there is no such easy refuge.  Victims are easy to sympathise with.  That is the hard-wiring we are (mostly) all fitted with.

Several years ago, I had a discussion with the author while she was doing the research which forms the basis of this work.  I was more than curious.  I asked her how she managed to cope with it all. I wondered how she managed to disengage from it. How she remained objective and dispassionate.  How do you do it?  I asked her.

Her answer was both surprising and at the same time so extraordinary, that it has stuck with me ever since. She said these words:  She said "I constantly think, this could be me".

Now, let me describe Elaine Bing to you, for those of you who might not know her, or ever have seen her.  She is a middle aged, white woman. She grew up in an ordinary family, which lived an ordinary kind of life, in an ordinary kind of place.  Her background is that of a fairly typically Afrikaner.  Now, true enough, she has a rebellious streak in her.  She caused some eyebrows to be raised by her choice of partner.  She had the kind of liberal views, which I am sure, many would not have approved of in the day.  She never accepted the expected role of a housewife and a mother - which most women of her generation and her ilk would have resigned themselves to.  But to consider her in the role of a torturer would certainly be pushing the boundaries of one's imagination.

And that, succinctly, is her point.  That, in all its strangeness and in all its ridiculousness, is the point her book is making.  The point is a simple and deeply profound one.  Any of us are capable of extraordinarily evil things.  When you understand that, you will get a glimpse into the mind of the torturer.

Bing records the therapy sessions of three white South African men who became perpetrators of torture, pain, suffering and death.  The times were mad.  The government was rogue and the security forces were completely out of control.  These men were, to all intents and purposes, allowed to do whatever they wanted to do, in the name of maintaining order and security. 

All three men came from fairly typical religious and Afrikaner cultural backgrounds.  Each of them was swallowed into a chaotic vortex of blood and destruction, in the period prior to democratic elections in South Africa.  Each of them was fed an unwholesome diet of propaganda to enable them to believe that what they were doing was right and just.  Each of them lived dual lives - that of state agent and that of family man - and the two were kept more or less separate from each other.

Each person has an individual story to tell.  From the perspective of the reader, I found it very difficult indeed to tell one apart from the other - especially because I was only reading the book on weekly aeroplane trips - with consequent gaps between readings.  That said, it made little difference, because the stories are indeed very similar.  There are context variations. There are degrees of religious belief etcetera, but the story is essentially the same story.  The three voices give one three vantage points of the same phenomenon.

I found myself both repulsed and fascinated - tremens et fascinens.  I felt like I was being taken unwillingly on a journey I would far rather avoid.  It is undoubtedly a rough ride and it is not for the feint-hearted.  But it is a really important journey.  It is all too easy to dismiss men like this as evil and despicable and vile.  It is much more difficult - much, much more difficult, to see them as damaged human beings, in need of help.  That insight - that imperative is the most difficult and at the same time, the most compelling feature of this book.

Bing examines her own reactions to the stories these men are telling, constantly.  And, in doing so, she articulates many of the reactions of the ordinary reader.  Because it is not possible, I would argue, to read this book dispassionately, whoever you are and wherever you are.  The stories are too graphic, too raw, too violent to leave one feeling anything but bewildered and horrified. And if one happens to be South African, one's reaction will be different in texture, depending if one is black or one is white - perhaps also if one is male or one is female.  Perhaps even one's age will mark one out for particular reaction.  But whoever you are, you cannot be unmoved. There is just too much.

My disappointment with the book is that it seemed to me to end too soon.  I did not find the last chapters detailed enough, or focussed enough.  What one is left with is a very detailed journey into the minds of the three torturers, with some insight into the observations of the therapist on the effects the sessions had on the therapist - but little insight into the actual journey towards healing (assuming there was one!) The sessions with the perpetrators are so profoundly devastating, that it is extremely difficult for the reader to disengage from these and, in the space of a few pages to move to analysis and general observation. 

I would have liked the same attention to detail in the process which led to some sense of wholeness.  Instead, one is forced to pick up crumbs in spare sentences - a paragraph here, an observation there, given during the sessions themselves.  I was looking for (and felt seriously deprived of), a much more detailed analysis.

But let none of what I have said here detract from the value of the work as a whole.  This is an area we have generally shied away from in South Africa.  For a range of reasons: because it is unpleasant; because we have no societal mechanisms for dealing with it; because we have been so desperate to build an alternative myth, of a rainbow nation.  But to recognise this level of damage and this kind of unresolved malaise is vital if we are ever to walk the long walk to real freedom as a country.

A friend of mine once said that Nelson Mandela didn't save black people, in South Africa, he saved white people.  Perhaps that is the sad truth and perhaps that is an indicator of the length of the road we still need to travel towards wholeness.  Elaine Bing's book is a critical signpost along that road.  One which we ignore to our collective peril.  

The Bottomless pit

Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Devon

So, I have just had the most wonderful holiday. This makes a change in itself – because usually, I find holidays deeply stressful. Lying on the beach has never presented itself to me as something a sane person would want to do. You either get burnt to a cinder – or the wind blows the sand-dunes into your eyes – or both at the same time.

Similarly, staying in a hotel makes me long for home. I get irritated with the service, the room the lift, the other holiday-makers. I get irritated with being irritated quite soon and make everyone around me miserable. So it is better, I have found, not to go on holiday.

Well, you can imagine, I went, this time, with a tremendous sense of resignation and it did not take very long for me to confirm my worst fears. The 12 hour flight was hell on wings. A baby some four rows from where we were seated, screamed and howled at intervals, throughout the entire night. No amount of volume on the headphones on my part, and seemingly, no amount of attention from its parents would help the matter. She simply screamed on, and on and on. The wailing continued in the immigration queue. She was relentless and determined.

But the holiday, I am very pleased to say, turned out to be a challenge to my many preconceptions. We stayed with friends in the tiny village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor in Devon. I use the word “village” somewhat judiciously, because it is a village with what cannot be more than fifty people living in it. The Old Rectory, where our friend lives, is precisely that. It is a gracious building, with an Aga in the kitchen which never goes off, spacious rooms looking on to a perfect English garden, with ponds and a steam running through it. The landscape is a tapestry of greens and yellows. It is achingly beautiful countryside.

There are scores of wild ponies on the Moor. Our boys fished with nets in the streams and rivers, chased the sheep in the pasture and caught crabs off the pier, in nearby Teignmouth. We were asked to come to talk to a class in a school in another nearby tiny village, called Berry Pomeroy. We had apparently been advertised to the class we were going to address as a “family from Africa” - which is, of course, not incorrect. The thought did cross my mind through, that the class may well end up with a slightly strange idea of what families in Africa looked like, when they met our two black children with their two white dads. But no-one mentioned it on the day, so neither did we!

After our idyllic stay in Devon, we did some of the tourism necessities in London, before returning home. And it was on our return that my partner, Leon, made an observation which seems to me to be so astute, that I would love it to have been mine. He said that what he noticed most about returning to South Africa is that “everyone is so angry”.

Now there is a thing. And I think he is right. Listen to the political debate going on. Read the newspapers. Drive in the traffic. Shop in the Mall. And you will see this thing – it is anger. It is seldom directed at anyone in particular. It is written on the faces of people. It is etched on their foreheads. And it is caused by a truckload of factors. It is caused by our history – of separation, of hatred, of suspicion, of exploitation. It is caused by opportunities, or lack of them. It is caused by crime and recession. It is caused by lack of respect and lack of hope. It is caused by the way we have learned to treat people, whether because of colour, or because of nationality, or because of gender, or because of age.

Anger has been somehow scorched onto our national soul. It is as much part of our identity as is Nelson Mandela or boerewors. And it is a really debilitating thing, because it becomes the way we act, the way we speak, the way we think, the way we behave towards each other on a daily basis.

And the really sinister thing about it is that it has seemingly become normal for us to be angry. That is just the way we are. The question I have to ask – and I ask this of myself – is this: Will we forever remain that way? And what is the damage we are doing, to ourselves and to our children? Because while it remains within us and amongst is, our peace is paper-thin. And what the consequences will be, we can only guess at.

The imperative of Restitution

Yesterday, I had a conversation with an extremely powerful man. It’s not the first time I have spoken to him. And now, as before, I was struck by his ordinariness. He is, to be sure, unprepossessing. He is a grey man outwardly, but far from colourless. You wouldn’t notice him in a crowd. You would be unlikely to strike up a conversation with him in the lift. He dresses plainly but casually and he heads a vast, successful multi-continental commercial empire.

He is not afraid to give you his opinion and when he speaks, it is with the authority of a man who is not used to hearing the word “no”. When he speaks, he uses examples from his personal experience. And the examples he uses are engaging and easy to understand. When he speaks, he demonstrates that he has thought about the subject matter carefully. He has reached a conclusion and he shares his wisdom easily, in an unfussy and unpretentious way.

The myths and legends about him are legion. Barely mention his name in the sphere of his influence and you will hear a story of his genius, his vision, his insight, his commercial courage. People quake visibly at the mere thought of his censure.

We were talking about why I had decided to move back into government, to do the job I will be doing for the foreseeable future – the job of Restitution. Now I noticed, right from the start of our conversation, that his position, (which was entirely negative of the endeavour) was not an uninformed one. This is markedly different from many other white people who have shared their opinions with me on my move, recently. Most white people immediately mistake Restitution for Redistribution. The moment they hear the words “Land Claims” they assume the Mugabe position. Why, they want to know, would I want to have anything to do with taking people’s land away from them and giving it to other people who are ill-equipped to run it?

Their lips curl. They bare their teeth at me and they snarl their disapproval. It matters nothing, when I point out that Apartheid did exactly what Mugabe is doing. It took land away from people who were its legal owners and in most cases did nothing to compensate them. But for these people what Mugube is doing is wrong and it somehow wasn’t wrong when the Nationalist party did the same thing. (Or, if not that, then it is just ignored as a comparison). They simply cannot hear the argument.

Not the man I was speaking to. He knows exactly what Restitution is. He can cite precise examples. Nevertheless, he rejects it. He says it is – (and this is a word I found really extraordinary) – “immoral”.

He says it is about the past, and South Africa should be about the future. He says that most of the people who suffered dispossession are dead. He acknowledges easily that what was done to them was terrible – but he says it is too late to compensate them. Even if one could quantify the damage done to them, it is unproductive to travel the path to Restitution. He cites China and Japan as examples of forward looking nations – where the past was the past and the future is the future. So, they simply started again from scratch. What happened, happened. It is over. It happened long ago.

He gave an example of his own family sitting around the dinner table. His father would refer to a party which was taking place at the nearby farm owned by the Van der Westhuizens. “Now I hope”, his father would say, “that none of MY children will be seen at the Van der Westhuizen’s party”.

Why? Because during the Anglo-Boer War, it was Van der Westhuizen’s grandfather who pointed out to the British where the Boers were hiding.

It was a long time ago – and yet the fires were still burning. The hatred still there. Let it all go! He said. Why would you want to get involved in something like that, which can never be solved?

How convincingly I answered, I do not know, but what I said was this: I said that this was the essence of the settlement. This is the reason why we have peace, rather than blood in our country today. That was the deal. There will be no retribution, because there will be restitution.

If that position gets shifted, for whatever reason, whether it be because the claims are too difficult or to complicated; or because there are competing interests; or because “people should just move on and be done with it”, then in my opinion, the deal will collapse and the capitulation to commercial interests will be complete.

Not to mention the moral imperative. Not to mention the fact that people who were driven from their lands and their homes were raped emotionally and robbed of their dignity. Not to mention the effects it had on the children and their children after them. Restitution is the very least that can be done. And white people in this country, in my opinion, should keep very quiet about Mugabe, when we still have our own tragic history to deal with first.

It is all very well, and not a little disingenuous, to say “forgive and forget”, when the person urging everyone to do so is still reaping the not inconsiderable benefits of our inequitable, distorted past. The past is not the past. The past is still with us. It won’t disappear because we might like it to, or because it would be easier if it were buried or ignored. The past is still with us and it will be for a long time to come.

Being an eternal victim

Every now and again throughout my life, I have found myself bowled over by something said, or read, or reported. Something which is so utterly profound, that my entire perspective, from that moment on, is completely altered. They are moments of enlightenment, of nirvana, of extraordinary understanding. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a single instance of such ingenuity emanating from me! But, I suppose, it is that which separates the geniuses from the mediocre.

There is a wonderful moment in Peter Schaffer’s play “Amadeus”, where Salieri, a somewhat pedantic and altogether boring contemporary, who is hopelessly outshone by Mozart, lament’s his rival’s genius. What galls him most is the fact that Mozart seems to show no appreciation for the tremendous gift he has. All Salieri can do is watch, and listen, and seethe. He rails against the God that created things so unfairly and so maliciously, by enabling Salieri to recognise that genius, but never to produce it.

Some years ago now, I was reading Albert Luthuli’s autobiography Let my People Go – and words leapt at me from the page. Luthuli was reminiscing about his teaching days at Adam’s college and recalling a white member of staff – a Mr de Villiers, who was later to become Secretary for Bantu Education. Luthuli remarks that this man made him understand something of the way in which Afrikaners understand themselves as being victims of their past. And then. Almost in passing, Luthuli makes a remark which changed my perspective forever. He says this, “The tendency to see oneself perpetually as a victim will lead to the evasion of responsibility and the condoning of evil…”.

I was standing in a queue which was, apparently, going nowhere this week. I was born in June and therefore I needed to take myself off to the licencing department to get a new driver’s licence. I thought it might probably take about half an hour. I was wrong. Hopelessly wrong. It actually took four hours!

But standing in that queue gave me a chance to not only hear some curious conversations, but to reflect on one or two things as well. The sojourn didn’t begin well. Three of Cape Town’s finest members of the master race decided that they didn’t really need to worry too much about the curious, but terribly reasonable etiquette which one follows when standing in queues. Had they been black and jumped the queue, there would have been hell to pay, I can promise you. But they were white. So people behind them just sort of pretended that it wasn’t happening.

I felt my blood pressure peak and said loudly, clearly and in my most indignant and assertive English voice, “Excuse me, but that is not your place”. Now, one would expect some measure of embarrassment. One would expect some sign of contrition.. One might even expect them to move. None of the above happened.

The woman in the group – let me describe her. Shortish, lycra longs, pulled over her stick-insect legs, feet forced into medium high heeled shoes (one heel a bit worn), brightly coloured top with badly dyed hair, blue make-up on her eyes. Anyway, this blommetjie van die veld rounded on me like a snake. Who did I think I was? she asked, not requiring an answer. How long had I been standing there? she wanted to know. Did I have any idea how long she had been standing in the queue? She had been there longer than anyone, and she was sick of it. I looked like the kind of person that was just looking to cause trouble. Why don’t I just grow up!?

I have to say, words, for once, failed me dramatically. I looked around me for support. There wasn’t much, I can tell you. Two blacks who were unfortunate enough to be behind this woman and her cronies looked like they wanted the ground to swallow them up. The people I was with looked supportive, in a non-involved sort of way, but said nothing.
I tried saying something else, I forget what. She with the blue-eye make-up rounded upon me again. “Oh shaddup!” she said between clenched teeth. “I’ll give you a bladdy slap!”

I realised that she wouldn’t be moving. The two men she was with looked minimally more contrite than she did, but they were clearly onto a good wicket, so they just stood around, bodily disengaged in some mysterious way from the real action – parasitic on the ferocious one.

Standing in the queue for the next few hours, listening to their inane chatter, enabled me to ponder the situation in some considerable depth. What I realised was that this woman’s real gripe with the world was that she was somehow owed something. Due to what, in particular, I did not know. But that was the reason behind this patently unfair behaviour of hers. She could justify the clearly unjustifiable, by resorting to the “I am owed” reality in her mind.

I have written often on the issue of black entitlement. Of course, the entitlement is not and never has been a black preserve. There is good reason to argue that the whole edifice of apartheid was built on the belief that whites were entitled. And behind all of this, lurking in the shadows, gnawing at the vitals, is the concept of victim. I am a victim, therefore I am owed.

I was talking, the other night, to someone whose life is spent dealing with victims. Real victims, that is, not the imaginary ones who just believe themselves to be victims. These are people who have been tortured, raped, abused, hijacked and so on. He said that he often holds workshops for victims and in them, there often comes a point when a victim is faced with his or her own ability to victimise. That is the turning point. That is when a person stops being a victim and has the courage to face their own inadequacy – their own evasion of responsibility and condoning of evil. Often they find themselves facing their own much more active victimisation of others. And then – and perhaps only then – they are free.

Robben Island - a pilgrimage by a struggle hero

In the 1980's Pietermaritzburg was a cauldron of warfare between Inkatha and the African National Congress. They were terrifying times. Aided and abetted by the apartheid state, Inkatha rampaged everywhere, killing and intimidating. Priests and ministers of the church who were actively engaged were few and far between. Many of them just battoned down the church hatches and hoped it would all go away. Not the Revd Ben Nsimbi - a humble and remarkable Methodist, who was there for the people who were suffering - who stood out in any crowd, despite his slight stature.

He expressed the hope, some time ago, that he wanted to see Robben Island before he dies. I, together with a struggle lawyer in Durban, have been privileged to be a part in enabling this dream to come to fruition. He and his wife Thoko have been staying with us for the past few days, during which they went to the Island.

What follows below are his impressions of the visit. I will comment, at the end of them, on what I see to be really significant insights - put in a really simple way:

Visit to Robben Island
31 December 2010
Revd Ben Nsimbi

As our feet touched the ground, Cde Madiba’s words during the Rivonia trial came to mind -

“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

My soul, my mind, my body – yes, my whole being felt revitalised and rejuvenated. I am not a politician, but all of my life has been unfortunately negatively affected by the notorious apartheid system. I could write volumes about this, but God forbid!

This Robben Island was a curse to our black community and foolishness to the whites. It was foolishness because they thought the size of their army; the huge machinery of their security forces and; (worst of all), the myth of their having been ordained by God to rule over us, could never be challenged.

Like the lepers of the ancient days, political prisoners were dumped here, lest they contaminated the rest of their fellow human beings with their ideology. Today, the Island has become an international attraction for tourists of all walks of life, young and old.

Our minds were challenged and our hearts moved when we met a boy of 10, who had travelled with his father from Australia to see the place whose name is now synonymous with Madiba. In his hand this boy carried a book entitled “Viva Mandela!” On the ferry he was enthusiastically paging through it. The question went through our minds, how many South African children of that age would take an interest in the liberation struggle of their own country? For me, this is a crucial question, because if we forget where we come from, the gains that have been made will vanish into thin air. There are many battlefields inside and outside South Africa, against the apartheid regime, but Robben Island, surely, remains unique.

The young man who was our tour guide in the bus spent time showing us where the PAC leader, Mr Robert Sobukwe was placed in solitary confinement. He briefly outlined his biography. His telling of the story was extremely impressive and reminded me of the special parliamentary session which was called at the time to pass the so-called “Sobukwe Bill” (The General Laws Amendment Bill) This Bill would permit the detention in solitary confinement without trial for 90 days. One particular clause was directed at Robert Sobukwe. He had been due for release, but instead was transported to Robben Island, where he stayed in 24-hour solitary confinement for six years.)

From the bus, a middle-aged ex-convict, Mr Msomi, took us through the different sections and cells in the prison. I did wish that we could have been divided into smaller groups at this stage, because the group we were in numbered more than 100 people. This meant that we could not hear some of his comments or explanations. It was very much a rushed process and we could not ask some of the questions we had on our mind.

To Thoko, my wife, who has never been imprisoned, it was horrifying. To me it was less so (of course, I was not imprisoned on Robben Island).

Ideally, we would have liked to spend more time on the Island. We would have liked time to digest and to reflect on what we had seen. We would have liked to hear what some of the other convicts had to say. In a word, there was not sufficient time for contemplation.

We went to the Island expecting something educational and spiritual. This could have been better achieved if there was more time, less rush, and more interaction with the guides. Instead what we experienced was a commercial one, rather than an educational one. Despite that, however, it was an extraordinary experience and has fulfilled one of my life-time ambitions.

Revd Nsimbi raises several interesting observations which, I would think, need much more further discussion. Firstly, there is the issue of the interest which South African children have in history. He wonders whether a South African child be as interested as was the young Australian boy he encountered, in his/her own history - let alone someone else's history? There can be no doubt that South African learners of today are very much less engaged with the struggle against apartheid. In many ways that is a good thing – something one would want. But it soon becomes clear, when one engages in discussion with many young people, that there is just a simple ignorance about the most basic facts of South African history. Equally because of the way the present curriculum is structured, there is equal ignorance on other struggles, both present and past, in other countries. This has been an issue which has been widely debated and acknowledged – but it remains a blight on our educational system and will have profound effects on the way the future generation understands and interprets itself.

The second observation he makes is that Robben Island needs to be celebrated as a primary site of black consciousness. A visit to the Island does highlight the importance of certain people such as Robert Sobukwe, but somehow the contribution of Black Consciousness, in particular, seems to have got lost in the "rainbow nation" dream. It was (and to my mind, remains) a hugely important contribution to our struggle and I don’t think there is nearly enough focus on it.

Finally, Revd Nsimbi expected (not unnaturally) the experience of visiting the Island to be spiritual one. In some rather limited senses, it was. But there was not enough opportunity to pause, to reflect, to be contemplative. I would say that that must be a grave flaw in the tourism design of the place. Robben Island is not an ordinary museum. It is much more like a Cathedral, a Mosque, a Temple. It is a World Heritage Site and it was chosen to be that, because it is entirely unique. That, in itself, should be a limiting factor on the commercial opportunity – and a pointer to the design of an experience that enables the visitor to engage with it and be changed by it. It has not achieved that, unfortunately.

Markers of change

The daughter of a friend of mine - a beautiful, lithe Lesbian aged 20 – recently went on that mandatory trip to Europe, which every student is supposed to do. You are supposed to visit every art gallery you possibly can. You are supposed to party till dawn in a foreign city. You are supposed to starve, because you don’t have enough money over there. You are supposed to hitch rides, because you can’t afford the train. You are supposed to be wild. You are supposed to be free. That is all part of being a student.

So she went. And she had a ball. And she spent her last penny. And she was standing in a long queue at Heathrow airport waiting to catch her flight home. There were mostly South Africans standing in that queue. Behind her was a large-bellied, shorts-wearing, Afrikaner. He had a greying, nicotine-stained moustache. The lithe student had made up her mind that this was not the kind of person she would see herself associating with. She was fairly certain about that.

Some way in front of them, also standing in the queue was a woman in full Purdah, wearing that suddenly controversial garment which covers the face, the Burka. She was called out of the line by the security officials. In full view of the other people in the queue, she was ordered to take off her head-dress. At first she resisted, but then complied, when it became clear that if she did not, she would not be allowed to board the plane home. There she stood. To her, she could have been stark naked. She tried to hide her face. She squirmed in shame and embarrassment.

My friend’s daughter felt the blood rise to her head. She felt utterly powerless and utterly outraged. And then she heard the man behind her, muttering under his breath these few words: He said “Dis nie reg nie”. (That is not right).

She turned to him and they spoke to each other in Afrikaans. They both agreed that what was happening was outrageous. Why was the woman not taken into a private space, if they were so desperate to search her? Why was she allowed to be so publicly violated, in a so-called liberal country?

So there were these two individuals. A pot-bellied Boer and a young Lesbian student, bonded together in their disgust for what was happening to a Muslim compatriot. And their whispered converse left them both with an extraordinary pride in what they were and how far we as South Africans have journeyed, to become what we are.

During the World Cup, my job took me to every corner of the Western Cape Province. I have had detailed negotiations with virtually every municipality in every District. And this is what I have seen: I have seen white people and black people and coloured people working together, and working hard. I have seen honesty and integrity. I have seen competence and I have seen government officials willing to work overtime, without recompense. (I have seen idiots and crooks as well). But in general, I have to say, that what has impressed me the most are the white officials, mostly Afrikaans speaking, who do their jobs and do them well. And who have changed beyond recognition. They are comfortable in their own skins and the people around them are comfortable with them.

Transformation has happened and it is a wonderful thing to see. And it is things like this that should give us as a nation, real pride in the journey we have taken and the point we have reached. But besides anything else, I would want to say that it is very likely indeed that it is because minority groups like the Muslim community feel not only respected in our society, but integral to it, that we could host a totally safe World Cup.

Mrs Babu's shoe shop

Today, I went to seek out and find some school sandals for my children, prior to the big day of return (thank God and all that is Holy) tomorrow. The school, which runs a branded shop (alongside every other conceivable way of getting money out of my pocket) didn't have sandals. I was told that "they are not very popular". Well, maybe. But in a heatwave of 36 degrees Celsius, I really couldn't be bothered with popularity, and I would hope my children would feel similarly.

So, seeing the school didn't have the right sizes, we asked for the supplier - which led us to Mrs Babu's shop in Wynberg. When I called to ask for directions, I was given them - precisely and without hesitation. The shop was unassuming. As I stepped inside, it felt like I had taken a step into 1960. There were single shoes arranged in an old fashioned way, in the windows and around the walls. There were archaic adverts about which shoe might provide one with the best fit. There was one of those measuring things, to tell exactly what size your foot is.

Mrs Babu opened the security gate for me and beamed in an old fashioned, welcoming way. "May I help you?" she enquired. I told her my needs and she disappeared into the back of the shop for an extraordinarily long time. When she came back, she was full of conversation. How old were my children? Which school did they go to? How was I finding it?

Of course, I was the only customer. When I entered, I noted that another customer was just leaving. There was a place to sit to try on your prospective shoes. There were photographs in frames on the walls, of a husband, perhaps. And a son?

She told me that she had been running the shop for the past 40 years and that she originally came from Johannesburg and that the apartheid authorities had tried to get her removed because she was neither "Cape Coloured" not "Cape Malay" as the apartheid classifications required. She was classified "Asiatic", so they had a special place reserved for her and her family.

"To hell with them!" she told me. "I told them to get lost and to take their papers with them!" And so she stayed, behind the shop she ran. And they couldn't (or at least, they didn't) move her.

I allowed myself to get stung for polish and some sort of leather care follow-up cream, just for the sheer pleasure of her company. How different things are now.

Imbibing Cape Culture

I spent the day today, or most of it anyway, at the end of year staff party. These things are necessary – when else during the year can you get drunk in an office situation and make sexual advances on people you usually pass files to?

This one was held at a government facility on the beach at Melkbosstrand. It is a strange, unimaginative building, built right on the primary sand dune. It was never legal. Some people in the Department got into a bit of trouble in the 1990s and then the matter was forgotten, apparently. So the building remains – a real blight on the fairly rough landscape.

The theme was “West Coast” so there was lots of sand, and sea and West Coast delicacies – like Snoek (fish) on the braai (Barbecue); tripe curry; potjie kos (stew cooked in a three legged cast iron pot. There was also West Coast culture, which I saw, for the first time in full cry today.

My experience of ‘Coloured” (or mixed race) people of the Western Cape has been that they are fairly formal. “Mr” this and “Mrs” that. They are fairly conservative and fairly underexposed. They stick pretty much to themselves. (Naturally, I am talking in huge generalisations here – but this is just my observation. And of course, all generalisations are false...)

So, to see them “letting their hair down” (as my mother would have said) was an interesting experience. They jived. They danced. They did things which I think are called “party dances” where everyone does what looks like an aerobic exercise to music. Women in scarves cooked Snoek over open fires and stirred massive three legged pots. Inside, the Karaoke was reaching fever pitch as slightly flat vocal chords murdered yet another song. (Or maybe not! Maybe that is what they were supposed to sound like!)

The man managing the dance music seemed to cater for the “African” and the “Coloured” groups, in particular. The African set had lots of Kwaito and what I have come to recognise as Hip-Hop; the Coloured set had beat-y sentimental love-song type numbers. And there was an unfamiliar (to me anyway) unity between the two groups on the dance floor. Off the dance floor, the two groups sat apart from each other, in groups of their own. The whites also formed their own group. This is what life in the work environment is like. This is what Cape Town is like.

It cannot be that language is the issue. Everyone in the department understands English. And whereas not everyone may know how to speak Afrikaans or Xhosa – in the work environment, English is the way people communicate. So language cannot be the reason why people choose to sit together.

The other thing I noticed rather a lot of, was alcohol. Alcohol which appeared to have been brought from home in cooler bags – not bought by the state. It was flowing freely. Even after lunch, it was very much in evidence and I battled to understand how people would be driving in that condition. But obviously, they were going to be.

It was, however, the performer who strummed a guitar and his strange accompaniment on the accordion that gave me a taste of Cape musical culture. It was vibrant, simple and enjoyable. And all of this next to a sea that was the most extraordinary azure colour – “Kabbeljou (Cob) water” said someone. "Haai (shark) water", said another. It was astonishingly beautiful – with Robben Island in front of us and Table Mountain to the left. It was a celebratory day I had, for sure. Just a pity it was, as is usual here, a culturally divided one.

Practical hints for race relations

Living in Cape Town, one has to learn to do things a bit differently. Like, for instance, being constantly aware of where “the Mountain” is. Because all directions to anywhere and everywhere are given in relation to “the Mountain”. The weather, also, seems to be determined by which side of “the Mountain” you are on.

You have to get used to rain in winter. You have to scale everything down in relation to your living requirements, because buying the tiniest little dwelling here, would probably buy a whole street anywhere else. So, in the spirit of all of this, I decided that I needed to get rid of some of my books. To be honest, I don’t know why I had so many of them. It isn’t as though I am constantly referring to them, but somehow, like old friends, and pleasant memories, it felt nice to have them around.

But – given the fact that space is now at something of a premium, I decided to get rid of many in my collection. And in the process – which brings me to my point – a yellowing newspaper article fell out of one of them. It was a clipping from what I think was “The Star”. It is entitled “An Afrikaner’s Diary” and is signed Jan Burger.

The date of the piece is 4 May 1958 and is mostly about an interview which the author did with poet and dramatist Uys Krige, condemning the prudishness of the censors at the time. But it was the last few paragraphs which caught my eye. The author refers to a “recent Sabra congress” (apparently this is short for "Suid-Afrikaanse Buro vir Rasse-Aangeleenthede" which I think means something like the "Bureau for race relations", or something) where some pactical hints were shared about how whites could create a bit more goodwill between themselves and “non-Whites” (sic). I am going to quote the paragraphs in full, because – well you will see why…:

“Mr F.J van Wyk, Assistant Director of the Institute of Race Relations, asked whether the names of Native casualties could not be mentioned in newspapers. Natives feel that the omission of their names is discrimination.

Mrs E.S. Bell of Bloemfontein asked parents to restrain children from mocking Natives in the street. Mr Krynauw of Worcester said that our attitude that Natives must greet us first is wrong. The Bantu’s tradition is that the superior should take the initiative.

Mr B Steyn, senior information officer of the Department of Native Affairs, asked Whites serving behind shop counters not to throw change at Natives. It hurts.”

I have read and re-read the passage, wondering whether behind it, there might be some attempt at humour, perhaps. Perhaps in the last sentence? But then the other “hints” don’t seem to indicate this. The passage gives one a glimmer of what the majority white mindset of the day was. You will agree with me, even without the considerable benefit of hindsight, it is as extraordinary as it is absurd.

But then, at the same time that I found this piece, I read of a court case where a certain Zanele Magubane was given an apology and R10 000 by her employer, Cameron Forsyth, in settlement for a text message which was about her and mistakenly sent to her, (but intended for his wife), calling the childminder a “kaffir bitch”.

The ongoing tragedy today, besides the fairly substantial mess we are in politically, is that most white people still have no concept of their absolute continued contribution to that mess. By thinking the things they think, by believing the things they do, and by saying, the moment they think they have a sympathetic ear, the sort of crud they say. In Cape Town, (in many ways the last hiding place of the un-reformed), I hear these opinions, beliefs and statements, more than I ever have before elsewhere.

And the most irritating thing of the lot, is that they continue to think that they are somehow superior – even after apartheid!

What about bad heritage?

Picture: Art Harris - Fort Wynyard 2003

There is an interesting piece in today's Cape Times newspaper on the intended actions of Polish mayor Maria Kurowska, who is mayor of a town called Jaslo, in rural south-eastern Poland. Apparently, an oak tree is obstructing progress towards building a traffic circle in a particular area. When plans were submitted to the authorities, it was discovered that the tree had been planted during the Second World War, to mark Adolf Hitler's birthday. "So," said the mayor, "should I try to improve our town's communications, or should I allow a memorial to that criminal to remain standing? The choice is simple!"

Naturally, not everyone agrees. A certain man by the name of Kazimierz Polak, who was at the planting ceremony 67 years ago, said that his father told him that the seedling was brought from Braunau am Inn (in Austria) where Hitler was born. "It's an historic curiosity. What is the oak guilty of? It's not the tree's fault that it was planted here to honour the biggest criminal and enemy of Poland."

Now, to my mind, they both make pretty reasonable points. And I did a bit of mental shifting to place the same thing in our South African context. I have to say that I have been a bit surprised by the reticence and even restraint there has been in relation to dealing with Apartheid, Afrikaner and Colonial history in our country. I bet there are still Hendrick Verwoerd and DF Malan streets all over the place, even though the main ones in the big cities have given way to kinder personalities. The Voortrekker Monument still stands proudly on a hill overlooking the city which is still called Pretoria.

I went to visit, the other day, Fort Wynyard, which is literally within the shadow of the new Greenpoint Stadium, which is being built for the FIFA 2010 World Cup. It was one of the fortifications which has protected Table Bay for a very long time, and whose existence has meant that the Bay itself was never invaded. It is in terrible condition. There are rusted guns lying all over the place, but it is still there and there are intelligent discussions going on at the moment to ensure rehabilitation before 2010.

Now is that a good thing or a bad thing? One could certainly argue that paying for the rehabilitation (or at least preservation) of a fortification, as opposed to feeding babies, or housing people, is a bit difficult to justify. Why not just sell the land to developers (who would be falling over themselves to get at it) and use the money to build clinics and houses?

Well, because it is short sighted - that's why. While I am really not convinced that tourists would flock to see an oak tree planted in honour of Adolf Hitler, to cut it down does have the effect of depriving the town, or village (or country) of some of its heritage - bad as that heritage may be. And where does one stop? After you have cut down the oak tree, should they then get rid of Auschwitz? After we have sold off Fort Wynyard, why not turn the Castle of Good Hope into a boutique themed hotel?

There has been a lot of noise recently, about the changing of street names in Durban - which itself is named after a really evil colonialist, Benjamin d'Urban. There is even an advert on the radio saying that this street is now called that street and then (by strange inference), this car hire company is now called that car hire company. There have been people weeping and wailing in radio talk shows about how difficult it is for tourists to get around with outdated maps and how people who get lost and going to inevitably get led astray and mugged.

Personally, I have very little sympathy for this. I don't know the detail of Durban, but I was overjoyed when places like Pietermaritzburg changed its street names to those of people who are undoubted and unarguable icons of South Africa. (Sadly, it will be a very long time before Cape Town follows suit). But what do we keep? At the moment, we seem to be somewhere betwixt and between. A bit like our political settlement itself. But just as there are issues being raised at the moment, about the viability and the necessity of having the kind of peculiar hybrid anthem which we have, surely other issues of heritage must also be placed on the table for scrutiny and re-examination.

But when we do so, let us be clear. If we choose to make the traffic circle which requires that we cut down the tree, at the very least, we should name it Hitler Birthday Tree Planting traffic circle, or something like that - so that some of that history is retained and not lost forever in the wake of progress and development.