How (not) to write about South Africa

By Phakamisa Mayaba

A satirical piece by the late Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina titled ‘How to Write about Africa’ and a recent one by the award-winning South African expat and author Sisonke Msimang titled ‘How to Write About Palestine’ inspired my two-bit attempt. On the best of days, any foray into political writing is a challenge, the more so if, like me, you lack the scalpel of aptitude, and dawdle around words.

Add to these personal limitations an inherently polarised climate with figures like an Andile Mngxitama here and a Kallie Kriel there and your chance of ever getting it quite right are down to almost zero.

Lean too much to the right, and expect the firestorm of socialist Makarovs; go left, and the ire of big money and suburban lingo looms large. Try to find the moderate centre, and realise South Africa doesn’t really have one, or it’s too inconsequential to register on the Richter scale of social topography, because old beliefs have long shaken the foundations of ideology.

The one reliable barometer, the raw measure of the nation’s conscience, are the comment sections that follow every online newspaper article and every socio-political post. So linear, so monotonous as to be a predictably dreadful read. It is these attitudes, mostly behind verified accounts rather than faceless trolls, that have spawned Black Twitter and the Roman Cabanacs of this nation.

Some may naively dismiss them as fringe headbangers who don’t reflect the mindset of ordinary South Africans. But Black Twitter is many millions strong, Cabanac has a loyal following, and the more centrist Penuel Mlotshwa often finds himself dragged from both ends of the cybersphere spectrum. These then offer some clues on how to write about politics in South Africa and foster an acceptance that no matter how you go about it, you’re bound to piss a lot of people off. So here goes.

Walking Left

For maximum effect, always start the story with a ‘party of the people;’ code for ‘black,’ ‘anti-colonial’, ‘anti-white capital,’ ‘revolutionary,’ ‘liberator,’ never forgetting to Africanise it with a distinctly ethnic character — just to remind the reader that this is indeed Africa, not Europe.

Doesn’t matter that most of the nation’s leaders have anglicized first names which you might use only in the opening. Thereafter, stick to the home-grown surnames: Ramaphosa, Mantashe, Holomisa … you get the point, nhe?

And, please don’t get it twisted — black is always marginalised, and white is privileged. Never mind the cars, Louis Vuitton man-bags or the proliferation of white beggars, black can only really dabble in the ranks of privilege in 400 years. For now, it’s called levelling the playing field. From this premise, the connected black billionaires aren’t privileged, nor are they beneficiaries of corporate benevolence; they are the poster children of economic freedom in our lifetime.

They’ve earned every billion, the handful of them. So too their kids, side chics and cousins who’ve risen to great things because of their familial linkage to the trough. The country owes them tremendously, from the kickbacks and shoddy tenders, they’ve paid their dues. Sure, some of them were actually lying low and getting fat on donor money in exile, ruling out any possibility that they so much as hurled a single stone at the previous system, but it’s the thought that counts. If they were home, they’d have hurled a thousand. Remember that.

Coloureds and Indians for who? They are very useful in government group photos to depict the message of diversity, but in this story, things are always black and white.

‘People of colour,’ is really an American dingus anyway, so don’t get too bogged down on the browner side of the complexion test. They will wail about not being black enough in the current administration, but they forget that they were in a better stead than the darkies during the days of white supremacy. The sjambok years. And they never got nearly as many butt-souring lashings.

Black leads the pecking order, the rest are just mentioned in rhetoric, otherwise they belong at the back of the bus.

The ANC is a revolutionary party, engendered to righting the wrongs of colonialism and apartheid. The DA are a white establishment that seeks to go back to the bad old days. All the other black parties are a mimicry of the former and the white ones of the latter. No exceptions, no nice guys. Especially the liberals: they’ll stab you in the back in the middle of the last verse of the national anthem.

As for the media: they can’t be trusted, the lot of them. They’re deep in the pockets of the mining and wine estate magnates, so when they write about a corrupt government, ignore the evidence, and simply call them out as tools of big money. Something along the lines of them ‘driving a neo-colonial narrative to destabilise the revolution’ always garners capitalised YESes on social media.

So too a judge presiding over the probing inquiry should be considered with a pinch of salt. He may be black, but he’s really the sort of black around whose neck a tyre doused with petrol might’ve been strapped back in the day: a clever black. The worst kind of black. Prince Mashele and Moeletsi Mbeki are paragons of this variant, so burn their books and turn off the TV when they’re on.

Can’t trust those. Not a bit. They’re forever lamenting the sad state of affairs from capacious homes in the northern suburbs of Joburg, and forgetting to thank the ANC for the swimming pool or the sedans in the garage. Yes, the derogatory ‘privilege’ only applies to those darkies who speak with fake American accents and write elaborate diatribes in broadsheets owned by white men who hate them.

Walking Right

There is of course an alternative style. Remember those history lessons in primary school about men docking at the Cape of Good Hope to find scantily clad tribespeople, marvelling at these tall men with sticks that breathed fire? Forget those.

The place was actually unpopulated save for wildlife and barren land. The rivers and hills were unnamed. The houses were primitive, and the few ‘discovered’ tribesmen smoked dope and were so backward as to be without a God. And what could a Bible-spooning Christian do except to put a whip over the back of these foolish heathens?

The land was not all theirs,and the patches they had were surely up for the taking, especially if the guns prevailed over the spears. With all the subsequent wars, repression, concerted efforts to keep the savages down forever and ever, the new tribe would civilize the native, build bridges, roads, dams, bring medicine, hope and biltong.

It was all going to plan until that bald man with initialled names caved in. Sold out. Decided to talk with the dark enemy. Ever since, it’s been a downward spiral. Nothing but regression, stupid policies, dilapidating buildings and sloth. Despite three decades of rule, these guys know very little about anything except stealing. And despite the obvious failures, they still keep getting the lion’s share of the vote. Less for their efforts than the grants and free education that keep the ‘thirty percent pass mark’ generation lulled.

Best thing to do is leave, but if you can’t bear being away from the weather or the braai, then do what has worked well for at least one country in the Middle East: the assistance of a marauding bully across the pond.

Social media: the birth of live truths

Given the recent events around genocide, both domestic and abroad, a new world is seemingly fighting to be born. As it was becoming abundantly clear to the old establishment that apartheid could not be sustained forever, the world is also learning that old ways of doing – marred by cover-ups and getting away with murdering innocent people – can no longer conceal lies and hypocrisy.

The issue of Palestine, long shrouded in mystery to everyone but invested academics, has in many ways been the catalyst. In the aftermath of October 7, the image of the suicide-bomber Arab is no longer bought by everybody. In its place, a new narrative around a displaced people being oppressed by a supremacist nation is growing. As far as South Africa is concerned, a global perception of white people being butchered by their black neighbours almost took, but thanks to the immediacy of social media soon fell flat.

In time, perhaps this is the medium that will most succinctly depict the lived experiences of those on the other side of the tracks. And if we are able to empathise with them, maybe we’ll be able to find a necessary change of tongue and thought. What a joy it would be to write in such unprejudiced times.