Durban beachfront at dusk
A plaintive question from my cousin’s children, “Do houses in England have
security walls?” gets me thinking about the sorry lot of many white South
Africans, particularly those who live in the urban areas that, like Durban,
have become more violent and unpredictable over the last twenty years. What must it be like to live always in
fear? To be ever watchful and
suspicious? To be on the beachfront in
Durban on a beautiful, warm July night and look around the bar and not see – as
I do – a cosmopolitan crowd enjoying Friday evening drinks, but an
invasion. My cousin turns to me and
comments, “when we were growing up, this was a white hangout,” apparently blind
to the fact that in the 80s, when she was growing up, there were nothing but white hangouts here in the centre of
Durban, it being illegal for black people to live or work in the city (apart
from as servants).
I’m
reading a book I picked up at Ike’s in Durban, Midlands by Jonny Steinberg, author of one of my favourite non-fiction
books of recent years, Three Letter
Plague. It’s a book I struggled to
find in the UK and was pleased to get hold of, but it’s a bleak read. Dealing with the tension of the years immediately
post-apartheid, it focuses on the story of the murder of a young white South
African farmer. What is even more bleak
is the realisation that KwaZulu-Natal is still riven with tension, even 18 years after the first democratic elections; and if there is
not exactly loathing here, there is plenty of fear.
Contrast this to my sister growing up in 80s Britain: showing my dad a class photo, she comments that her friend Christopher is there. My dad asks "Which one is he?" and Clair replies "He's the one in the blue jumper".
ReplyDeleteOnly black child in the class. She was as any 5 year old should be - completely oblivious to the fact his skin was a different colour.