When Mandela Goes

Cavendish Mall is one of the key meeting places of complacent, white, southern suburb Capetonians. They have Lattes there, skinny and otherwise, topped with the lightest hint of chocolate powder. They can wander around shops sporting expensive jewellery, overpriced nik naks and the latest fashion accessories. They can meander through the bookshop and shop at a leisurely pace for their necessities at a Woolworths, where even the next available till announcements are delivered in slightly hushed tones.

It is a wealthy environment. But you would not know that if you were not awake to the signs, because they are not entirely obvious. At any restaurant in the complex, you will battle to find a black patron. It is a safe haven for white people. They can see their art movies there on a Saturday evening. They can be at home with each other and relaxed. As they look around them, it is as if democracy never arrived with all its uncomfortable side effects, like taxis on the roads, and riff-raff being given too much freedom, and black people being allowed to do what they want. Cavendish Mall is a safe and pleasant environment. It is tasteful, without being loud. In it you can be assured that standards will be aggressively maintained and everyone will have the same expectations.

You will notice that most people have an attitude. It comes with a particular angle of the nose on the face – as though it has only recently sniffed the unpleasantness of lower forms of life. As I have said, you will notice that wealth is not flashy, nor brash, nor worn on the sleeve. No. The cars are usually ordinary, sun-blasted and with dents that have never been attended to. Even the clothes are not flashy, or loud. Hairstyles are usually the simplest. Makeup is not much in evidence. Things are tasteful and understated.

But it is an environment where like recognises and affirms like. This crowd of people have a set of rules which they all know from birth and follow rigourously until they die. Nothing changes. This is Cairp Tahn. This is the Southern Suburbs.

So I was interested to see some graffiti on one of the walls on a toilet in Cavendish Mall. It read this, in an unsteady hand – “I AM WAITING MANDELA DIE.” I am sure it is already attended to and has been removed – because graffiti is a very rare thing in Cavendish Mall, you underestand – (and we don’t want any of that, do we?)

But it made me think. Something about the sentence made me think, immediately (maybe it was the lack of correct English grammar), that it had been written by someone who was black. Not because I think blacks can’t write correct English, nor because I think only a black would write on a toilet wall – no. It was because I am white and I grew up under apartheid and because those are the kind of assumptions I am bound to make. But let us assume, just for the sake of argument, that my prejudices and my instinct are correct in this instance, and that it was written by a black person – what could it possibly mean?
Is it simply a statement of fact? Does it mean nothing more than what is being said? Someone was sitting on the toilet in Cavendish Mall and decided to write those words on the wall, because that is what he was thinking. He is waiting for Mandela to die. It would be odd indeed. Of the same ilk as “The sky is blue”, “I am bored” and “John loves Mary”. Except it isn’t.

The context of Cavendish Mall inevitably makes this some kind of a political statement. It is intended to be read in that context. It has a meaning more like “Troops out of Iran” or “Nationalise the mines”. It is not a bland or a neutral statement. And it is meant to feed into the deepest fears of the majority of the patrons of the Cavendish Mall. When Mandela dies, all hell will break loose. The black hoards are sitting around waiting for the day. It is only out of respect for the old man that they have kept their pangas under their beds, but when he dies! Then we will all be braaivleis.

And I expect, if it hasn’t happened yet, that there is going to be much buying of tinned sardines, stockpiling of water and matches – just as was the case during the first democratic elections. Why? Because it is a real possibility? No. It won’t happen.

Then why? Why the subliminal fear? Why the mounting hysteria? Why the bewailing of certain doom and racial misfortune? I will tell you why. Because deep down, in the recesses of their consciousness, white people in this country know just how big a compromise was made in the interests of peace. When they lie in their beds at night, they know that the poor cannot be fooled forever and the lid has got to blow on the sham at some point. That is why, this simple, ungrammatically correct sentence, written on a toilet wall in Cavendish Mall, has profound resonance.

Getting the thing I wished for

So, being Easter, I went to hear the Messiah last night at the beautiful Cairp Tahn City Hall. It is a really magical building, with frosted decoration on the ceiling and booths, and grand chandeliers which have a thousand light bulbs. The stage is backed by a massive organ. The woodwork is wonderful and the seats suitably uncomfortable for a building of that age.

Now, I always have mixed feelings about going to the Messiah. I mean, apart from the fact that one has heard it a gazillion times, you never know what you are going to get. I have sat through Messiah’s with a “cast of thousands” – which sounded like Messiah for the very hard of hearing. Then, on the other hand, I have had Messiah on authentic instruments played and sung by males only, wearing wigs. That was an equally strange experience.

I have wept in the Messiah. I have fallen asleep in the Messiah. I have regretted going because I was bored out of my mind and I have wondered why I thought, even momentarily, that I wouldn’t go, because the experience was so wonderful.

So last night, I went, with this “lucky-dip” mentality. Last year, there was a counter-tenor singing the Alto part that was spectacular. This year a mezzo that I had heard before and has a harsh edge to her voice and a tendency to have so much vibrato, that she frequently quavers right off the note – so I wasn’t expecting very much. Nicholas Cleobury was conducting, though – so it stood some chance of being, at least tolerable.

Curiously, there was a row of empty seats in front of me. I looked around the Cairp Tahn audience. Predictably white. A dot, here and there, of another colour but mostly, blindingly, depressingly white.

It started. Cleobury was taking it at quite a cracking pace. The tenor was lyrical and sweet – “Comfort ye, my people”. Suddenly, one of the side doors burst open and in walked a row of young , hip, gum- chewing, black, (I would say) 20 year olds. One of them had a T-shirt which read “Reaching your full potential IN GOD”.
They had the extensions; the dreds; the shiny African-American relaxed and gelled look. They carried bottles of Coke and they seemed intent on sitting in the row in front of me. They showed no sign of guilt or embarrassment at their lateness. They sat down. They giggled at the irritation of the people around them. They whispered loudly to each other, then they settled down to enjoy the performance. They conducted the air. They twiddled their fingers at the string sections. They lip-synced the words, (when they knew the words). If there was the slightest hint of a beat, such as in “Why do the nations rage”, for instance – they jived along with the music, while mercifully still seated in their seats.

Sometimes, with some of the less well-known recitatives and choruses, they started sending and receiving text messages on their phones and passing them to each other to read. They opened their coke bottles with a loud hissing sound. In a word, it was profoundly disturbing. At the end of part one, there was a moment’s indecision on the part of the conductor. They clapped. There was some lacklustre support for them from one or two others in the audience. They complained to each other loudly, that “these people are scared to clap!”

During the interval, I thought about what I was witnessing here. On the one hand, I have long complained about the complexion of Cape Town Symphony Concert audiences. On the other, here I was complaining where black youngsters sitting in front of me didn’t know how to behave!

On the one hand, it is a question of them simply not understanding the conventions. On the other, it is precisely the conventions which have kept people like them outside the concert halls and attending hip-hop events instead.

The point I reached, eventually, was that it was infinitely better for them to be there – visibly enjoying the music of a European composer who died 251 years ago, to them not being there at all. I am not saying that they shouldn’t shut up and sit still during the performance. What I am saying, is that all that kind of stuff can follow.

Racism in Claremont

Photo: Jeffrey Abrahams, Cape Argus

I heard an interesting interview on the radio, while driving from George to Knysna. It was with a woman who posted a “For Sale” sign up in her restaurant window, in Claremont, Cape Town. But the sign added, “White buyers Only”. Then underneath the printed sign, she added in hand-written print “Order of the inspector”.

Now, besides the fact that this, in itself, is rather strange in supposedly free, democratic South Africa, the woman who owns the business (whose name is Zikusooka Wamono), is black.

Her story goes as follows: First, she rented a place in a less than desirable area. Business was bad, because of the fact that passing vagrants, would urinate in the alley leading to her restaurant and loiter there. She tried putting up a fence to make the alley impassable. The barrier she had erected got taken down by the council. Business went from bad to worse and eventually she decided to close it down and look for other premises.

She chose upmarket Claremont. She found a suitable site. She designed it, equipped it and furnished it, at considerable expense. However, at every stage, she was pestered and harassed by the police. They visited her at odd hours, demanding changes to this and changes to that. They have opposed her application for a liquor licence. It was clearly harassment. But she soldiered on.

Eventually, after unbearable frustration and constant intimidation, she put the “For Sale” sign up. The police officer had told her that “over his dead body” was she going to open her restaurant, because a black-owned businesses would bring “indecent black people”. His advice to her was to sell her business to a white. And that is the reason she put up the sign in her window.

I called Zikusooka, just to express support and solidarity with her. And to say to her unsurprised I was that she had been subjected to this treatment and how unbearably racist my own experience of Cape Town has been, as well.

She told me that the policeman concerned was, in fact, not white – but “coloured”, or mixed race. That didn’t surprise me either, because the racism of this place is not the preserve of the whites alone. It is something which is the common vocabulary of everyone who lives here. It is largely unchallenged. It is considered acceptable. It is constant. It is widespread and it is encountered right across the board and it is completely debilitating.

Although I was warned about it, when we decided to move here some years ago, I have to say, I had no idea how serious and how widespread a thing it is in this City. I had no idea that it would be everywhere. In the supermarket; in the school; on every road; and in every suburb. Naked, unashamed and unapologetic racism. There is a thin veneer of integration, but it is a sham. You can see it is a sham when you go shopping. You can see it is a sham when you visit a restaurant or the beach or the gardens at Kirstenbosch. Or when you drive down a road. You can see it is a sham when you examine who teaches what, in which schools. As I say, it is across the board. White, coloured and black. Everyone.

So, I salute the courage of Ms Wamono. She told me that she is on anti-depressants and she did this out of complete desperation. But she remains unbowed. She is going to fight, until she has no breath left in her. I salute her and I have told her that when and if she finally opens her doors, that I will be amongst her first enthusiastic customers.

That being said, I have one hesitation. The reasons given by the other side, for opposing the granting of a liquor licence need to be listened to quite carefully and assessed. They argue that it is because of her previous business and the negative effect it had on the area, that they are opposing this application. I am not in any position to judge whether those allegations are true or not. But what I am sure of, is that she has been harassed this time. And it looks very likely, given the racially skewed context of Cape Town, that what lies behind the harassment, is racism.

And there is one other thing which may be at play here. Her name and her accent sound Ugandan. And you know how much we love Africans from other parts of Africa, in this neck of the woods!

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.

Return to Gay Eden

For the first time in a very, very, very, long time, I went to what was known in the 1970’s and 1980’s as a “Gay Bar” on Friday night. (I suppose, more correctly, it would be true to say that I went to a Gay Bar on Friday night that fairly closely approximates what I had experienced in the 1970’s and 1980’s). It was the Amsterdam Bar in Cobern Street, in the Cairp Tahn City centre.

Johannesburg in the 1970’s was a fairly difficult place for a Gay teenager to explore sexual orientation. Mostly because there was so little to explore! One heard whisperings of a bar which operated in Hillbrow, called the Butterfly Bar, in the Harrison Reef Hotel (I think by my time, it had been renamed the Skyline Bar). Entering the Amsterdam Bar, the other night made me remember my first experience of the Skyline Bar.

Of course, we are talking here from the hindsight and not inconsiderable experience of some 35 years or so – so I didn’t walk around the block for 15 times, too scared to go in. I wasn’t sweating profusely and wondering whether or not my paisley shirt with fashionably long collar and skin tight light green bellbottoms with a big zip in the front would have the desired impact. No, I just parked outside and went in, taking in the strange drapery on the outside of the building and the gold angel-hair curtain one needed to go through to get inside.

The moment I stepped inside, memories came flooding back to me. Because here, like so many other places I experience in Cairp Tahn, was like walking into a time warp. I remembered the absolute relief I first felt, when entering the Butterfly Bar, all those years ago. To see gay men, in numbers – not just isolated camp queens walking down a street every now again – but clumps of them, gaggles of them sitting around tables, smoking and drinking, laughing carelessly, being at home with themselves. That was a huge and fabulous relief.

The person I went with was a school friend and a regular at the bar. I was jealous of how many people he knew. He waved to this one over there. Told me conspiratorially that that one over on the other side of the bar was trying to “camp him up”. Kissed (dear God, that was a revelation and a half!) another one, who was mincing around in extremely tight pants which showed off every asset he had below his naked belly button.

I was jealous of my friend but extremely relieved for myself. Because at last, after what seemed like years (all 18 of them!) in the wilderness, I had come to a place which I could call my erotic home. And believe me, never a Saturday night would go by, after that, without me being there for at least some portion of it.

The Anaconda Bar, which was, as I remember it, near the Drill Hall, was a far seedier place – and in many ways more outrightly sexual. There was Disco music playing extremely loudly. The place was very dark. The corners all occupied with writhing couples in various states of undress. There was even an outside area where you could get a breath of smokeless air every now and again. It only opened late in the evening, which meant that the crowd would start at the Butterfly Bar and then migrate to the Anaconda.

It was, naturally under Apartheid, a very white world. Yes, it was occasionally raided by the police and these raids were spoken about in hushed tones (as several businessmen blanched and then hastily swallowed their drinks and fled). But generally, it was a fairly safe environment. Or at least, that was my experience of it.

Stepping into the Amsterdam Bar the other night, made me feel like I was back in Hillbrow in the late 1970s for all sorts of reasons. Firstly, the clientele is almost totally white. Secondly, no-one seems to find that fact in any way strange! Thirdly, and this was something I have to say I really enjoyed, there is a real sexual mix of people – I am talking of within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and (possibly even the Intersex community).

There were a good couple of Drag queens there; Lesbians of various shapes and forms; Leather boys; Fems; Butch boys; Muscle boys – you name it, they were there. Missing were the black boys and girls. And the Coloured boys and girls. And that is a strange, but not untypical thing, in this racially divided city in which I live.

I was told by a much younger nephew, many years ago, that I was really out of date, when I asked airily one day, what had happened to all the gay bars. He said that it was almost as though the distinction had fallen away and that no-one cared anymore whether you were gay or straight. So everyone went everywhere and you danced with who you wanted to dance with. And you kissed whoever you wanted to kiss. I was astonished by this and listened in be-wonderment. How the world has changed, I thought!

Well, I am not sure what clubs or bars he went to, but I would think what he was describing has never really become the norm. Homophobia continues everywhere. And there remains a real need for spaces where gay and lesbian people can just get on with what they do naturally, without having to constantly justify themselves to the hetero-dominant universe. I think we need our own spaces, just like the black management forum needs theirs. And what we do in those spaces has bugger–all to do with anyone else.