I am an Afrikaner

When I was younger I used to be embarrassed to be an Afrikaner, a Boer. I felt dirty, guilty, rotten. When I went to the big city to Jo’burg, I taught myself to speak English with a non-Afrikaans accent. People thought I was English. Few people spoke Afrikaans to me. I felt relieved, proud, free.

But still it wasn’t enough. So I fled. I went to America. Then I went to England. I wanted to brush the dust of Africa off of my feet. I wanted to have nothing to do with it. I shut down all feeling about what was going on. I didn’t want to care who was president. I didn’t want to be interested in the new South Africa.

Even so, I went home every year, to visit my parents, my friends. All the time thinking, I am not part of this anymore. I can remove myself and be a tourist here. The couple of times I tried to speak Afrikaans with people they replied in English. And that was okay. It didn’t bother me.

When foreigners asked me about South Africa I had the standard line: “It’s an amazing country with so much forgiveness, such strong people.” Did I believe my own words? Not really. I couldn’t even forgive myself how can I expect others to forgive me?

So the guilt? It never left me in fact it just got worse. I found this huge hole inside me. Something was missing. I couldn’t fill it with new friends, new countries, new experiences or even a new passport. It became a dark festering sore.

At the beginning of 2010 I decided to go back for an extended visit. I stayed for five weeks under the pretext of research for my novel. In the Eastern Cape I met a woman from Venda. She was the same age as me. She grew up on the other side of the apartheid curtain. But she seemed to have moved on. How did she do that? I asked her. I asked the same question to Xhosa man I met a few days later. How do you forgive? How do you do that? How can you forgive me and my people?

His answer? “We have no choice. If we want to make this country work we have to move on. We have no choice.”

Move on? No Choice? Really? Maybe I’m still stuck in the old days. Maybe I’ve been away for too long. I don’t know. Maybe I’m looking at things from a different point of view. From someone separate from it all.

I was a good child. I listened to adults. I obeyed all the rules. I was a real little patriot. I stood on attention when the flag was raised. I sang with all my might when Die Stem played during assembly. I was scared of black people. I believed that they were bad. They were going to break into our house and kill me in my little bed.

Now I know different. We were the bad ones. We were the ones that did the bad things. How scared must that woman from Venda have been in her little bed in the township at night, waiting for the police to come, to take her daddy away? Our fears? They were the same. We had the same fears.

After we’ve talked around in circles she took me by the arms. She looked into my eyes. She said:

‘You have to move on. This thing is ruling your life. It is not right. You did nothing wrong. You were a child.’

She shook her head at me. She must have seen that I didn’t believe her.

‘I forgive you.’ She said. She pulled me closer and hugged me. I was stunned. That was not what I was looking for. I wasn’t looking for absolution. That’s not what I want. I want to feel bad. I want to beat my chest with my fists. I want to wail. I don’t want to be forgiven. I can’t be forgiven.

I felt my arms hug her. I felt the tears. My tears. Can it be this simple? A few words, a hug. Is that all that lies between my guilt and my freedom?

She wasn’t finished. ‘You can show people over there, overseas people, that not all Afrikaners are bad. You can be an ambassador for your people. You have to finish your book and then people will see how things really were for you.’

When I got on the plane, back to London, I felt strangely less empty. Like the hole is slowly being filled, like one of those egg timers with the grains of sand slowly trickling down.

I had a few Afrikaans CDs and novels in my luggage. I am healing. This is my journey. Everyone has their own journey. Some may never heal. Some people have been damaged, hurt, brainwashed for too long. They won’t heal. They can’t heal. But there are others that can.

One image has stayed with me from my trip. Five students at Barney’s pub in Port Elizabeth. One white Afrikaans girl, one white English boy and three Xhosa boys drinking beer, telling jokes and not talking about the pain, just being students out on a Friday afternoon talking about stuff.

I’ve realised that I have to stop running. I have to face who I am. I need to make peace with the fact that I am a white Afrikaner. A Boer. This is probably coming many years too late, but I think I am slowly starting to realise that I am allowed to listen to Afrikaans music, read Afrikaans books and speak Afrikaans.

I am allowed to do this and enjoy it, because I AM AN AFRIKANER. This is who I am.