A while ago I was speaking to an African-American friend who was visiting South Africa. He told me that he found it strange that when he is in the United States, he is considered an African-American, but when he is in Africa, he is only an American.
I thought about this comment last week when I presented a lecture to journalism students at Stellenbosch University and one of the students asked me why only certain people could be called “Africans” in South Africa when all of us are Africans and should be allowed to use that title.
I must admit I used an expletive in my response, because the racial categorisation of South African society is driving me crazy, to put it mildly.
I had to agree with the student that the term “African”, as we use it in South Africa, is really confusing, especially to non-South Africans and more especially to people from other African countries.
I have been fortunate to interact with many people on the continent in the past few months and I still don’t know how to explain our racial categories or identities to them.
“So, you mean the term African refers to people who were born in South Africa and who would normally be called black. However, you can’t call them black because legally blacks include coloureds and Indians and now even Chinese? So how do you guys refer to us, people who come from other African countries?” is a response I’ve had a couple of times.
Of course, I had to tell them that some people refer to people from other African countries by the derogatory term “amakwerekwere” but then I also said we sometimes use the term “Africans from other African countries” or “foreign African”. And sometimes we refer to people who would normally be considered black by the term “African black” or “black African”. In the same way we sometimes refer to other people as “coloured black” or “Indian black”.
The term “African” is one that should be urgently reviewed by government or whoever reviews these things. All people born on the African continent can legitimately call themselves Africans, no matter what their colour or complexion.
Maybe there is a need for a commission or a national discussion on how we define our national identities.
Of course, the term “Indian” could also be problematic. How can you attach a foreign national identity to people who have lived in South Africa for generations? Surely, when South Africans of Indian descent visit India, they probably also encounter what my African-American friend discovered: that in India, they are considered to be South Africans.
In fact, I have been amazed when I travel overseas and we are all just considered to be South Africans, because that is where we come from. However, as soon as we return home, we again attach our various identities. So then we become African or African black or black African, coloured or so-called coloured, Indian, Chinese (or black), white or in the minds of some people who would like to perpetuate apartheid, European.
We disintegrate into Xhosas and Zulus, Tswanas and Pedis, Vendas or Sothos. We become Tamils or Hindus, Muslims or Christians or Jews. I am not saying that there is something wrong with all these multiple identities but when we use our identities as a weapon against others, as we tend to do in South Africa, then I think there is a problem.
Apparently, in Namibia, they deal with this issue by saying someone is a Herero-speaking Namibian or a Nama-speaking Namibian. Ultimately, I believe that we need to move to a situation where racial categories no longer apply in South Africa and all of us just become South Africans.
Of course, what then happens to the redress and the reparations that have to happen in our society? That still needs to happen but is essentially a separate issue.
I sincerely believe if we create an environment in which we acknowledge each other as South Africans and not by strange racial categories, we might be able to unite our nation in an unprecedented manner and develop a sense of patriotism that is sorely lacking throughout society.
So black makes you African and white makes you European. I’m stuffed, I guess. Europe won’t take me and it seems Africa won’t either… Heck, when I go to the Netherlands, where, supposedly, I am from, they even mis-spell my name – every time. (I guess four-hundred years has been a long time.)
Actually, this whole argument is leaving me speechless and while I will keep my passport so I can wag it at anyone outside of South Africa that keeps asking “but where are you REALLY from”, if the forms change to ask me to define myself as European, I might chuck even the passport. I am South African, proudly so. And I am African. I am white, not by choice, but similarly proudly so. It makes me no beter nor any worse than anyone else. Really, it is just a skin colour. And while we redress the racial injustices of the past, let’s leave them just there, in the past. Let’s go forward judging each other by no more than the colour of their hearts.
Ryland Fisher is a voice of reason in the wilderness. Perhaps because he has been skelled uit enough times to realise there is nothing to be gained from inculcating a racial identity, whether “coloured”, “black” or “white”. What do people who no longer fit into these neat categories do when confronted with another ethnic laundry list? There is something incredibly diabolical about our nations’ fixation with racial and ethnic classification. I long for the day when I can say, I’m a rugby supporter or music fan and not have anyone preface this with Jew or Muslim, or White or Coloured. I am what I am, not what you perceive me to be.
Hi MuAfrika, my point is that in Britain they no longer feel the need to differentiate between black, white Asian, coloured etc. A black person can be European.
Trust me I think the process of colonialism is nothing to be proud of, I think it was barborous and wrong. But my point is that they are trying and are in the process of moving on from obsessions with race. Something South Africans are nowhere near being ready to do.
Identity like culture is not stagnant, it evolves. Citzenship is bounded like ethnicity and religion are. Yet some of the debates emerging sit in the transcultural discourse where heritage either is mixed with citizenship and tradition meaning South African’s may celebrate Christmas with the traditional Christmas tree, but there is no snow. The other side is African indigneous culture that is also transcultural, as herein the rites of passage are celebrated but necessarily observed and this is beyond tradition.
South African identity is citizenship, yet the African identity is based on geography and belief system where the rites of passage come to life. Africanicity is a culmination of traditions which can be seen in fashion for example South Africa.
Identity is identifying and determining the phenomenon of the adjective such as South African, European, African, South Pacific and others identities
Fear plays a huge role as persons thriving on affiliation, but identity affiliation is not a life sentence, but one that may change for example within the rites of passage where marriage occurs, hence the human being exists in personhood mobilised by ego and in agency mobilised by in the South African case: Ethno-linguistic identity which is further intersected by sexual orientation, classism, religion and other behaviourial “antics”. We as humans are all biology, the battle with ourselves begins when we give meaning to that biology and there is nothing wrong with that as it is all about contrast, dialeticism, and drama
Catergorisation will stay for a long while. Those that benefited from racial clasification all of a sudden wants them removed so as to benefit again intersting ain’t it. Identity mostly has to do with the individual and nothing else.
Lets just cut to the chase.Race has no real value in the 21st Century.People are now educated and are less ignorant.We in SA are blessed with the kind of cultural mix and diverse population.
To move away from any race issues its best we simplify the classification of people to : all people born in SA are South Africans-whether born during,before or after APARTHEID.The way people talk,walk,look.interact,eat etc just makes them interesting.
Now if only those WHITE people in Balito can respect all S Africans as people,not walk around as if being white is being above everybody else.
Thanks for the good debate – I was quite frustrated a while back with M&G’s use of the word African and am glad that the topic is raised.
It seems to me that there is a lot more at stake for blacks, concerns about AA, BEE, land reforms, etc., while for us whities it is more of a emotional thing of being politically and socially marginalized and feeling like a stranger in your own country and continent. I have sympathy for both arguments.
When I was in Kenya I found it rewarding to explain to my friends there that my parents and grandparents, up to how many generations back I don’t even know, were all born in South Africa. Yet walking around in the streets of Kenya with not another white face in sight and being called Mzungu (white man) by the children, I was very aware of and comfortable with my white-Africanness.
I don’t mind complex identities. When I visited Europe, something resonated with my own identity, as I suppose Africa does with African-Americans. Complex identities keep us historically aware.
I disagree with all the whities who want to keep the past in the past. And I disagree with the blacks who reject a common South African identity. If I must be a European-South-African, I am okay with it, as long as I am recognized as being part of this country – part of the problem and part of the solution.
Okay — I’m white, I’m English, ‘I’m Jewish, I’m Natalian, I’m South African, I’m African, So now I am out if here!
HI Noko
I never benefitted from Apartheid.I lived with many family on a Sugar Estate-Cornubia near Mt Edgecombe.My parents earned slave wages and we had precious little to keep body and soul together.The school I attended was stae aided and was no better that black or coloured schools. If we were given any books these I shared with my black frien Titus.
So you see I probably had less than you. But still I don’t want you to compensate me now.
Mzungu
That is what we need loss of denial and control and rather to celebrate what resonates with with our heritage whatever we decided that heritage to be. We often fight off exterior stereotypying (by others) yet we are the first to put ourselves in a box. Let the South African identity evolve, it is still too early to talk about nationalism in the South African context. We can start this debate once there is good governance and a better, healthy and stable welfare system. It’s only a shortcut if try to hide behind a South African identity that is still embryonic and now is the time that we will see who is pro-life on the matter.
Seems to me that the very European-ness that was the greatest asset to whites under apartheid, has now become the albatross that they are suddenly trying to shed. I’m no doctor, but I’ll wager that this is the primary cause of the severe amnesia of centuries of white AA, that has now afflicted so many white SAns. We gotta respect the Afrikaners for being brave enough to stick to their Afrikaner identity. Maybe the others will learn from this courage.
Racial categorizations will only disappear once our society reaches a point of stabilization where there is natural intermixing among races – after our apartheid indoctrination wears off and we accept each other as human beings from the same species and tolerant to diversity in all its forms.
when all people in south africa and the world become mixed-race a.k.a coloured this wont be an issue
Ryland Fisher opens up the discourse on identity in a refreshingly non-dogmatic manner. I have some points of convergence with what was said and some of divergence. In terms of the latter I do not think the problems that we have are about words such as ‘African’ or expression of national group sub-cultures, even although I agree that many abuse an array of words dangerously as weapons. Using identity as a political weapon is an extremely dangerous path to tread. Likewise, using notions of identity to create hierarchies of rights in national life establishes a fatal flaw in our quest to build a nation that will never again entertain anything remotely like Apartheid.
….I believe it would serve better to focus discussion on de-racialising our national state- endorsed race-based frameworks, rather than to attempt to socially engineer cultural diversity out of our lives and vocabulary….
…On the one side there was the elevation of race and ethnicity as the cornerstone of identity and as a determinant of human relations, social constructs and destiny. On the other side is the notion that sub-cultures and identities are undesirable and backward, and should be suppressed in favour of us being simply South Africans.
Thankfully in our constitution we rejected both of the kragdadig ideological approaches which lead to social-engineering, in favour of a South African identity that recognises our goal of national unity that nurtures and celebrates diversity. READ MORE @ http://www.cape-slavery-heritage.iblog.co.za