Muhammad Ali said “Hating people because of their colour is wrong. And it doesn't matter which colour does the hating. It's just plain wrong“. It makes my heart sad that this is a reality in such a beautiful country. We can all account for stories where we experienced racial discrimination at one stage in our lives.
I had a very unfortunate incident recently. I was visiting my sister and the complex where she stays has an electronic security system. You dial into the complex and it goes through to her phone and she opens the gate through pressing a button on her phone. She was not home so we agreed I would let myself in while I wait for her to return. As I tried to dial into her complex, there was a bit of a network cross line problem as the call went through to someone else. A vehicle parked behind me and hooted and I wondered what this vehicle would have me to do since I couldn't move. I also did not understand why they would hoot because there was more than enough space on my left for another vehicle to fit. The driver of that vehicle seemed quite impatient, drove next to me and asked if I could please reverse, wait, there was no please, just “can you reverse” – so it was more of an order. I thought to myself that this driver must have had a bad day so I went ahead and reversed. The driver got out of the car, he was a white man, about 1.72m tall and he had an Afrikaans accent. He stood at the gate and called out to his friend (let me assume they are friends) because the friend’s complex is closer to the gate. This irritated me a bit because I do not understand why he asked me to reverse. The gate opened and he drove in and the gate closed by the time I wanted to squeeze my car through.
He didn’t take long at his friend's place because he drove out in no time, he still found me where I was, this time he drove right in front of my car, I just don’t know why he didn’t make use of the space next to my car. He hooted for me to move out of the way and I did not budge. He got out of the car, came to my window and said “are you stupid huh? Why are you so TOOOOOOOT stupid, no wonder the government is like this, you are so stupid?” I was in such shock that i literally felt a sweet potatoe in my throat and hence I couldn’t respond, my eyes popped out as I looked at him, and all I saw was anger and hatred in his eyes. I was not thinking straight so I closed my window and reversed, I think I was not in the mood to fight, as soon as he drove away – my eyes started watering and my heart shattered into little pieces like a delicate glass that had just been dropped from the 12th floor. I broke down and cried. It was so painful.
I was definitely having a delayed reaction to the whole thing because I could not believe that I did not answer him back being the Pan_afrikanist that I am. If I was feeling like this over such a small silly incident, how must the people who fought for our country have felt during apartheid? How did they overcome all of the deeply rooted pain and anger? I cannot imagine this man talking to my father like this or my grandfather for that matter. My mind started getting carried away, imagine a man travelling with his entire household and he gets humiliated in front of his family, imagine him having to take his pants off and bark like a dog, in front of his family. I tried to comprehend the extend of the psychological damage this system had on black people, damage that possibly got passed on from generation to generation. Perhaps that is why fatherhood is such a problem on this continent. We have fathers whose integrity and pride has been dragged into the gutters and the only way they can respond to anyone is through violence because of the deeply rooted anger and bitterness which has not being dealt with. I don't even think the word "anger" even begins to define what they must be manifesting. My mind was definitely going into overdrive and I needed something to balnce out all the enotions I was experiencing so I immediately got one of my mentors on the phone, he was very key during the 1976 uprising so he'd hear me out just fine. I related what had happened and tried to find out how they dealt with such incidences during the oppression era.
He took a while before he answered me; he used that opportunity to tell me stories of the old, stories of how they used books, theater, sports, music etc... to push hope, hope that one day they will rise above all that was happening. “How did you rise above that?” I asked
“We fought it tooth and nail with everything we got until we defeated the system” he responded. Could this mean we also have to fight? How do we fight in Post-apartheid era? “Education” he said, education is key. The enemy has a new face and if you look in the mirror, that's the new face of the enemy. My thoughts are still in process...
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