Zukiswa Wanner

After last year’s Cape Town Book Fair, author of Six fangs and a tetanus Shot, Richard de Nooy wrote a review of my last book, The Madams, and in it he mentioned how ‘unrealistic’ the book is (forget the irony of the need to write realism in fiction for a moment). Now I can take criticism as well as the next person but I quickly rushed to look for Richard’s email and got in touch with him. I explained to Richard that though I may not be the best wordsmith and he could be allowed to criticize the prose, the reality was, the popularity of the book was largely because a lot of women residing in South Africa could relate to it – in some way we are all affected by HIV/AIDS; we have been/or know someone in a physically abusive relationship; we know women who have been cheated on by their partners and yet returned to them; we are all stuck in our apartheid-era racial labellings etc etc During our discourse, Richard suggested that I post my explanation on a website but I refused to do this preferring rather to explain to him, one writer to another and not wanting to seem like a writer incapable of taking criticism. Yesterday I started rethinking my position, not so much because of similar criticism received from expats in UK and Oz, but because I was editing the proofs of my next book, Behind Every Successful Man, with my editor, Nicola Menne.

In the book, there is a part where the male protagonist is sitting in his study drinking cognac. He starts thinking about his late friend and his wife’s cousin and in memory pours the cognac on the ground as he muses, ‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ before shrugging his shoulders and remembering that he has two maids and a wife to supervise them.

Clear enough, I thought.

But then Nicola had a suggestion. ‘Zooks, I think this would sound better if we say accidentally spilt cognac on the expensive rug because when you say pours you make it sound like it’s deliberate.’

Now those who know Nicola will tell you that she is one of the coolest people ever – of whatever race. She genuinely tries to cross the boundaries and understand what is happening on the other side. That Nicola, who truly has black friends – excuse the cliché – did not know of this cultural habit where black people will pour alcohol on the ground in memory of the deceased, came as a surprise to me. And then I started thinking of Richard. If Nicola, who stays in South Africa (assuming that y’all still insist that Cape Town is part of South Africa) did not know this information that I thought obvious, it would explain how Richard can think that some of my realities are surreal – likewise me and the tens of other South African cultures and sub-cultures that I do not belong to.

Thus the importance of literature.  It makes us travel worlds we may never have traveled, cross borders we did not know existed, and emphathise with those we may never have thought of.

Now more than ever, I do not regret being a writer as I know that in my own little way, I am being a cultural ambassador of my contemporary South African world (though I never set out to be). So, dear reader, cross the border and get Behind Every Successful Man at a good bookstore near you after June 1 (come on. You knew that was coming!)

And Nicola, I am taking you to a funeral next time you are in Joburg!

So I wake up this morning to hear one of my more open-minded (or so I thought) neighbours and countrymen yelling to someone on the phone, ‘I don’t give a s*&^ about that. Just bring my stuff otherwise I will kick your a@# you bloody Cameroonian. That’s what’s wrong with you fu%$# people!’ Now I have absolutely no beef with my neighbour wanting to kick someone’s behind for whatever transgressions they may have committed against him but a rant and rave by an otherwise logical person based on someone’s nationality and moreover, ‘You f&*^% people?!’ come on now, how different is this guy from the boy who murdered black people in Skielik because they were ‘kaffirs kaffirs’ or the American rednecks post 9/11 who shot some Sikh 7/11 workers because they were ‘towel heads’?

There were tons of insults my neighbour could have used – ‘you idiot, imbecile etc’ but methinks its just plain ass stupid -there is another phrase he could have used- to insult someone for their nationality. May be many of us so-called rationale people have done it in our moments of anger but that is no excuse. To me, this is the very height of intolerance. How can one rant and rave at someone for their nationality, race, gender or anything else when these are not something that we select? Ditto the whole Proudly South African shit. Sure it sounds great and it is a great marketing tool for local companies to locals but being South African is not an achievement. I am as patriotic as the next person, may be even more so but, proud? Isn’t that misusing words? I thought I was supposed to be proud of something that I have achieved and since being South African is an accident of birth, should I not perhaps just talk of a privilege of belonging?

And of course we all know what he meant by ‘you people’. And yet we deny being xenophobic?

Due to the rather unfortunate recent firing of David Bullard (yes unfortunate. Bullard has written more annoying satire than the piece that got him fired and it was Mr. Makhanya’s job as editor of Sunday Times to read copy before it went to print rather than to ask David for a retraction!), and the occurrences at UFS, race has been on the national discourse in the last couple of months but may be it is time we consider placing xenophobia on that national platform as well while we are at it.

Within the last year alone, we have had refugees from an unstable Somalia begging the government to repatriate them back to Somalia because they are being killed for their entrepreneurial skills. We know of, though the mainstream press in Cape Town never reported it, the abduction of a UCT professor seen driving with Zimbabwean number plates and his two week disappearance while the police held him illegally; and finally, we know from the news of the evictions of Mozambicans and Zimbabweans in Soshanguve. Where is our much spoken of spirit of ubuntu?

The Nigerian actor, the Kenyan lecturer, the Zimbabwean actuary, the Ugandan doctor, the South African everything– we all form part of what makes this country work so may be it is time we embrace, rather than denigrate the differences. It is true that not all the people from all over the world in South Africa (South Africans inclusive) have noble intentions but rather let us insult each other based on the evil that humans do and not based on something as arbitrary as nationality. And to my neighbour Bheki, I hope you read this and reconsider how hurtful your statement could be to another Cameroonian who may have been within hearing.

For lack of inspiration, it’s been ages since I posted on these pages. Yesterday something worth writing about finally occurred. No, I am not talking about having the satirical writer of a collection entitled Some of my Best Friends are White as guest lecturer for my students (although fellow writers do sometimes serve as inspiration); nor the great conversation I had with him and another fellow scribe Niq Mhlongo afterwards – and yes mom, it was just lunch. No. What inspired me was the affirmative action attempted robbery afterwards.

Did I hear you say affirmative action what?!?! Yeah, you read right. And no, I am not about to talk of some former politicians who are now in business and have fraudulently won a thousand and one tenders. Nope. I am instead talking about what happened to me on the streets of Jozi yesterday evening.

After the rather late lunch as Niq, another friend Wonderboy (yes, it’s his real name!), and myself were driving down towards my house around rush hour on Simmonds Street, a young man came by Wonder’s expensive BEE car and offered to liberate us of our goods. Now, although many may be shocked at this, in my five year stay in Johannesburg I have had friends who’ve been victims of crime but I personally have never experienced it – which may or may not explain my actions when this chap asked for our cellphones and wallets.

The criminal was one of a pair and when he arrived leaving his partner behind, I was talking to my uncle on the phone directly behind Wonderboy who was in the driver’s seat. Wonderboy, who had been smoking, had his window rolled down so there was no way he could escape the menace who put his face in his face yelling, ‘Sifun’amacellphones namawallets. Khawuleza.’

Wonderboy duly handed him the cellphone while from the passenger seat Niq took out an empty wallet and said, ‘There’s no money in here my friend, look.’

I meanwhile, told my uncle Andrew that I had to go because the guy persistently told us he wanted all our phones because he had a gun. Stupidly yet confidently I asked, ‘so where’s the gun, ha, where’s the gun?’

I am not going to sermonize about how I thought that no-one had a right to take anything from me or some such stuff and this therefore gave me courage to question the crook. I just did not think when I responded the way I did. Full stop.

I wouldn’t have lost anything by giving him my phone – in fact I am not sure he would have taken it as it’s an old Nokia 1100 that taxi drivers have even reversed to return to me when I have left it in their vehicles. In retrospect if the guy had a gun he really could have shot me for being a smartass but what happened when his partner came is what makes this story a gem – and therefore worth posting on this blog. His partner arrives, looks at all three of us, grabs Wonderboy’s phone and hands it back to Wonderboy while saying, ‘Asibayekele. These are black people!’

I am yet to pick my jaw from the ground because of this bit of affirmative action from the criminals as I think that if all criminals are like this may be there is something to be said of the migration of my fellow citizens of the paler hue Down Under.

But before y’all consider packing your bags and leaving, I must let my fellow pale-hued South Africans know that they could be in danger of another type of criminal Down Under. The white criminal from South Africa who may also have emigrated. And no I am not talking white collar crime here but straight up petty crime similar to what Wonder, Niq and I experienced yesterday.

Many weeks ago, a day after those horrendous University of Free State were aired to the world, one of my neighbours was the victim of a bag snatcher while waiting for her husband to come and open the door for her. Her loud screams got a lot of the young men out to give chase. Meanwhile another neighbour had had the presence of mind to call the police.

Close to my flat down the street is a hockey club (Go figure, although the black kids in my neighbourhood have now colonised it for soccer). Well our criminal decided to hide somewhere within the precinct of the hockey club and the young men who had followed him could not figure out where he had gone to – that is, until the cops’ sirens were heard (Yep. Contrary to popular belief, there are gems of efficiency in Booysens Police Station). The young man ran out and the mob, baying for blood, fell on him. By the time the cops arrived, the poor guy was all bloodied and nobody was arrested for stepping on the rights of the poor criminal, if anything, the cops just said, ‘o.k. guys, I think he’s had enough’ then arrested the guy.

  The reason I recounted this story for any people who may be considering migrating is that in this instance, the victim of crime was black and the criminal was a white guy. Because of the mob justice that the poor guy received from the bunch of young black men from all over the continent who were letting out their frustrations, I am pretty certain that as soon as this guy can collect enough money, he will leave the country – to be a criminal elsewhere.

Given that you might end up being neighbours with this guy in Australia, isn’t it better to stay home and be a victim of crime from the black man that you already suspect? Food for thought.