Ruminations on a Family Reunion

Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies

This week Nerine and I have travelled to Cape Town for a family reunion tomorrow evening. The featured image shows the family tree for my mother’s side of the family. My maternal grandparents had three daughters, Rene, Jean, and Nina (my mother). Arising from these 3 sisters there are 12 offspring shown in orange.

When I was at an English high school in the 70’s we looked down our noses at Afrikaners and Afrikaans speakers. We were much better than them. However, I had a dirty little secret my grandfather was an Afrikaner, Johannes Hendrik van Wyk, one of ten children whose father fought in the Anglo-Boer war against the English. He married the English-speaking Leila Bell and had three mongrel daughters. Fortunately, he spoke impeccable English and we never spoke Afrikaans.

Growing up in Pretoria and in apartheid South Africa, I had no choice but to learn Afrikaans. However, as a young man, I did my very best to expunge the language from my consciousness. It was the language of the oppressor, and I preferred the much-admired language of the coloniser, reflecting refinement and good taste. Rule Britannia. However, as apartheid receded into the dustbin of history, colonialism became responsible for all our problems, and colonialism became very uncool. For those of you who know me well, I have always been a fickle follower of fashion, so I embraced my inner Afrikaner and resuscitated my rusty Afrikaans.

When I was growing up in the seventies all my cousins lived in South Africa, and I saw all of them regularly. The Human’s lived in Ladysmith in Kwazulu Natal which was appropriately and shamefully named after Sir Harry Smith’s wife who was the governor of the Cape colony from 1847 to 1852. As the decolonisation movement gathers steam renaming must surely be on the agenda. These cousins are Afrikaans speaking but luckily, they speak excellent English.

My Venter cousins, despite their Afrikaans surname, are English-speaking so all was well with them. They lived in Pretoria (now Tshwane), Mooiriver, and then Cape Town. All of us were educated in South Africa. We are all graduates and include two PhDs and two doctors, an accountant, and other lesser degrees. We are the very definition of privileged white monopoly capital. Some of us deal with this by feeling very guilty.

 I have not seen some of my cousins since my childhood. Tomorrow I will see half of them (ticked in green on the image) together with my mother and my aunt. An occurrence possibly never to be repeated.

It is worthwhile reflecting on where my cousins are now. Less than half of them live in South Africa having left many years ago. Their destinations are England, Australia, Austria, and the Netherlands. They and their children are possibly permanently lost to South Africa. An advantage of living in the first world is that you can feel less guilty about being white and privileged and live happily ever after amongst fellow white monopoly capitalists. There is the pesky problem of these countries having allowed in too many immigrants (from the wrong places) messing up things. Fortunately, this folly is being addressed by things like Brexit and a return to populism and ethno-nationalism where one can blame all of society’s problems on foreigners. Send the buggers home and make your country great again. (This paragraph violated ChatGPT’s policy).

Here in South Africa, we are also not very keen on foreigners. They cause crime and all of society’s problems. If only we could send them home everything would be solved. We need to learn from America and build a big wall paid for by our neighbours.

If one looks at our cohort of cousins one can see that half of them have left. Extrapolate the trend for a couple more generations and South Africa’s white monopoly capital problems will be solved. There will be very few left and everyone will be empowered.

The global resurgence rise of ethno-nationalism and identity politics has a very happy final destination. Everyone will live in their rightful homeland and will be forced to stay there. Separate but equal. This all seems vaguely familiar.

What is the homeland of my cohort of cousins? How do you define your homeland? How do you define foreigners? Although, at first, these may seem like very difficult questions they can very easily be answered by politicians and bureaucrats. Leave it to them. Although you may be uncertain about what category you belong to help is at hand. They will create rules and regulations and devise useful tests to eliminate any uncertainty. They will categorise you wisely and appropriately. They will also help you if you face any uncertainty about your identity. There will be no mongrels in the future. Dealing with where you may travel, where you may live, and what visas are required can create a lot of very meaningful and satisfying jobs. What could be more gratifying than stopping people travelling to where they don’t belong?

Before Nirvana arrives, our small group will eat drink, and be merry tomorrow before we are classified as foreigners and assigned to different homelands and travel is further restricted.

I want to express my gratitude for all the ideas and comments received. I genuinely appreciate them, and please continue to share your thoughts.

Regards

Bruce