I write this from the magnificence of Londolozi Game Reserve where I have been temporarily rescued from unemployment for a few guitar and theatre performances in the wondrous wild. It is here, many years ago, that I learned to speak Xitsonga or Shangane – I still speak it like a white man but I can get by. There has been a lot said by various commentators about what it means for a white person to learn an African language. Indeed, no lesser luminary than Julius Malema, pillar of well-considered utterances, extolled black people not make friends with white people who only spoke English or Afrikaans.
Some of the best white African language speakers I have met are also the most abominable racists I have yet to encounter. They speak isiZulu like amaZulu or Xitsonga like Soshangane himself but will drop a K bomb into every English or Afrikaans sentence – often prefaced with a fok or two. In my experience these upstanding citizens are often from the farming and hunting fraternity – young and old. Unfortunately, these relics are doing immeasurable harm to the remote possibility of racial understanding in the Beloved (blighted?) Country.
This is a time when many middle class white people bemoan the fact that black people 'just won't move forward'. For those, I suggest some time in rural South Africa where many white attitudes to 'the other' remain rooted in the 19th century.
Have a marvellous day out there...