As a bearded, over-50 white Afrikaans-speaking male, I have to conclude your discomfort at a literary festival had nothing to do with race, but what you represent, writes Deon Maas.
Johannesburg - If there was ever any doubt as to Malaika wa Azania’s country of origin, she dispelled it quickly during last Sunday’s "White violence of literary festivals” piece.
She played the race card, cried “because no one loved her and wanted government involvement”, all the while sounding like a whiny little chihauau waiting for her handout of boerewors.
I don’t know if this is going to come as good or bad news, but I’m a bearded, white Afrikaans-speaking male of over 50 and I’m scared of those people.
So I can imagine how you felt. But then, perhaps you went looking for it.
Seeing how much you hated your audience, perhaps they were just reciprocating.
If you hate them that much, is it not their right to hate you back?
Maybe it wasn’t a white issue, maybe they just weren’t your kind of people.
Or as I said: Maybe you went looking for it.
I mean, after all, you did go to church without a hat. First, let’s look at your general audience (and here I am going to exclude your five token blacks).
Your audience is inevitably moneyed and older.
The culture that I come from respects its older people and also understands that older people are not as cool, informed or able to change that quickly.
Advertising agencies hardly ever aim any advertising at people older than 35.
There is a reason for that.
They have already made up their minds about what they want and will have in life. The fact that they have the money and time to travel also means that they come from a privileged background.
This almost certainly means that they are opinionated and educated.
And I find snobbery a common characteristic in people like that, not just whites.
Judging all whites by a few hundred literary festival attendees is an insult to real khaki-wearing racists.
Franschhoek may be the kind of place where you find a lot of gas stoves, but calling it a white supremacist town is taking it too far. A lot of the money in Franschhoek is not even South African.
It is our government that is allowing “uitlanders” to buy up our property and force the locals out.
Sound familiar?
Franschhoek reflects a growing Cape platteland social issue.
A lot of the poor black people (another buzz phrase you love so much) cannot afford to buy their groceries in the town and have to travel to Stellenbosch.
As an Afrikaans-speaking person, even I feel uncomfortable there.
But Franschhoek is a direct result of the policies of the post-1994 government.
It doesn’t look like you like it very much. So, how do we change it? I hate this latest buzz phrase, “white privilege”.
Perhaps I hate it because I am a result of it. I had a decent education, my parents can look after themselves and my grandparents were in an old age home.
Don’t worry, Malaika, you’ll still get there.
It’s called progress.
But what upsets me most, though, is that nowhere am I reading about Yoruba privilege, Tutsi privilege or Kikuyu privilege.
All of these groups of people benefited when their guy was in power.
That’s how it works in the Third World – the leader’s tribe always benefits.
There is too much shouting about white privilege and too little effort to change the situation.
So stop finding someone to blame and start instituting change.
Your pleading for government involvement is laughable.
You are sounding exactly like the poor black tannie who is saying on SABC TV’s news that the government must give her a house.
You are using the same entitlement argument as anybody who wants something for free from the government – be it your own literary festival, RDP house or even free lunch.
I don’t think that literary festivals are very high on the agenda of the government.
You only have to check who our Minister of Arts and Culture is to realise how seriously this portfolio is being taken.
As a writer I expect better research from you.
Now, its time to address the issue of Jonathan Jansen.
Jonathan, like Elana Afrika and Philicity Reeken, is a black person who can speak Afrikaans.
This means that they are finding themselves in a lucky position that they can play both sides of the fence.
They are not being hired for their political or social stand, they are being hired because they can speak Afrikaans.
Just because you do not agree with someone’s politics does not mean they are wrong.
It means they are different. Isn’t democracy a wonderful invention?
But here’s what bothers me most about your piece: you consider this to be “an assault on the majority”.
Who is the majority here?
I thought you said there were only five black people in the audience. A literary festival is also a financial concern.
The income needs to exceed the expenses. Utopian ideals only travel that far. You should rather be looking at changing what you don’t like.
But it’s nice to sit and bitch and moan behind a laptop while other people are running real financial risks to promote reading.
Reading should be encouraged in schools and this is the job of the government, not a bunch of lefty trendies who want to make a few bucks by hanging out with writers.
And then you start getting real petty.
You talk about the black cleaning staff. Uhhhm, all cleaning staff are black.
Have you not noticed that at every restaurant and pub that you hang out in? Perhaps even at some friends’ houses.
Really! I have had lots of people walking out while I was speaking, I have had boycotts against my newspaper columns and radio shows, I have even been taken to the Human Rights Commission and the Broadcast Authority.
I have been threatened, my children have been threatened and my wife has been threatened, yet I am a white Afrikaner.
If you want to run around propagating progressive/racist ideas, expect to be cockblocked.
It has nothing to do with your colour. It has to do with what you represent.
So if you want to be one tough mama, stop crying in the paper and start your revolution.
Otherwise start writing cookbooks and drink tea with the tannies.
* Maas is the author of Witboy in Afrika and the co-director of Punk in Afrika.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Sunday Independent