Segregation

South Africa has 11 national languages, here in the Eastern Cape 3 of those languages are predominately used; English, Xhosa and Afrikaans. Afrikaans, although having the word Africa in it, is not really an African language. It is a kind of offshoot of Dutch made by the white people back in the day and it is now used mostly by white people and by coloured people(half African, half other).

During the World Cup on the day South Africa played Uruguay this country celebrated Youth Day. A day dedicated to the young students who were killed by the police during a peaceful protest. The protest was against the government wanting to make all classes in universities taught in Afrikaans. This would restrict so many from being able to go to university unless they could speak this language. The use of language as a means of segregation is unfortunately something that is occurring in many facets of society here in Port Elizabeth and in most parts of South Africa. It is embedded into every individual from the first moment they begin to think and understand, it starts in school. Many schools are divided into Afrikaans and Xhosa speaking. Children are separated based on their background. When children are taught from such an early age that they are different to one another and that they belong in different groups how can we expect them to feel united or to come together later on in life? Often if the school principal is of Afrikaans background all the formal talks and presentations given to the staff and parents will be done in Afrikaans. If the teacher is of a Xhosa background they will be done in Xhosa. Either way one group misses out every time. Now think about this issue in the work place. I was told a story where there was a work meeting in a company. The meeting was entirely in Afrikaans, there was a Xhosa girl in the meeting who could not understand anything. The next day her work mates approached her about organising her farewell party. She asked them what they meant? Turns out the entire meeting the day before was about them letting her go.

There is so much tension still amongst these two groups. When we were talking about this I could sense the injustice felt but some of the Xhosa people in the group. One said that the Afrikaans people shouldn’t complain if things are done in Xhosa because for so long they tried to control us by using their language and now finally we are taking back control and we want to show them that we have our own language too and we want to use it. English is the only neutral language in this country and almost everyone knows how to speak it at least at a conversational level, so why not just have all formal education taught in English. Why not make it compulsory for English to be spoken in the work place if there are employees of mixed backgrounds? Well for one thing the Xhosa speaking part of the schools are already being taught in English. From what I understand the unwillingness seems to be coming from the Afrikaans side. Aziz who is a Baha’i living in Kuyga was also a teacher at Kuyga school. He does not speak Xhosa or Afrikaans and so was teaching in the Xhosa side of the school. He did however start up a Junior Youth Group in the school and as Baha’is we don’t want to segregate our activities by language. Many of the kids were from Afrikaans background and the jy class was done in English. A lot of the parents were unhappy about this because they don’t want their kids learning English. Let me just repeat myself there, the parents did not want their kids to learn English. Do I need to repeat myself for a third time? No I don’t think I do. But it’s crazy right? The ability to speak Afrikaans is only going to help you in South Africa and maybe to a smaller extent in the Netherlands. No other place in the world uses it. The ability to speak English gives you the opportunity to study overseas and to communicate with so much of the world as it is such a widely spoken language. These kids can barely speak English. Even the universities here are conducted in English. 

Why do these parents want to limit their children? I asked this question, I asked why people wouldn’t want to learn English. I was told that these people aren’t looking outside of South Africa. As long as they are living here they don’t worry about anywhere else. This answer didn’t satisfy me and thinking about it on my own I tried to figure out why this mentality would exist. Maybe it has something to do with separating yourself. Maybe English is seen as a bridge that will unite these two sides and perhaps some people don’t want that. If language can be used for power then a common language would take that power away. I still don’t really get it I just know that it needs to change. The attitudes that the people have towards each other need to change.

I was talking to Aziz, he was telling me how we need Baha’i teachers who can speak Afrikaans because at the moment we have no way of reaching this community. I told him I had no interest in learning Afrikaans, I didn’t want to learn a language that was used to oppress so many people. He looked at me and replied that that was why we needed to learn it. We needed to be the ones to make the first step and be able to communicate with these people and be able to teach them and bridge this gap. I still don’t want to learn it but I wasn’t so resentful any more. What he said made a whole lot of sense. We have to be the agents of change.

It’s really strange sometimes being in a country with so many cultures. Australia is a very diverse country with many cultures within it but there is still a difference between Australian culture and migrant culture. Those two types still aren’t considered as the culture of the country. Here in SA every culture is South African culture, the white people came and took the land away from the natives, they belittled them, took away their rights, imprisoned them and treated them as second class citizens but when Nelson Mandela brought democracy to South Africa all those cultures were considered South Africa. The white people call themselves South Africans, the black people call themselves South Africans, the coloured people call themselves South Africans. Even the Persian kids who are first generation born here call themselves South Africans. Sometimes in Australia I don’t feel like an Australian. I get told to go back to my own country, but I was born in Aus so what does that mean exactly? When I was growing up and people used to ask me what nationality I was and I would say “I’m Australian” they would say NO, where are you from? After a while you learn, you’re not an Australian or you learn to respond the way they want you to.. “My parents are from Iran but I was born here”.. “My background is Persian but I was born in Sydney”. It’s only now that I’m overseas that I feel Australian because people here don’t say no when I say that’s where I’m from. I guess the reason it’s different here is because the constitution of this country is so young. South Africa as we know it is only about 15-20years old. The foundation of South Africa is what we have now, it’s of different races being equal and no one race being higher than the other. So many people gave their lives for this South Africa and although it is still a baby and it still has so much work to do the essence of unity is there. No one here is told to go back to their own country (except maybe the Nigerians) haha jokes. No one is exempt from being called a South African, everyone owns pride for this country. This is where Australia differs. Australia is still owned by the white people, the ones who came in their boats all those years ago. Aside from the huge injustice that was thrust upon the Aborigines and the blood that was shed by so many of our Indigenous people this country has seen no war, no hardship, no struggle that would bring it’s peoples together. The foundation on Australia is white control and although we sing about it

“We are one, but we are many and from all the lands on Earth we come. We share a dream and sing with one voice, I am you are we are Australian”.

Even our National Anthem proclaims it, in its forgotten second verse

“For those who’ve come across the seas, we’ve boundless plains to share...”

We most definitely don’t live in a country that supports the idea of boundless plains to share for those who’ve come from overseas.. unless you are from England or the U.S. It’s a country where we have it so good that we don’t want anything to ruin it. Australia is a great country, it’s a beautiful country where people are living comfortably, where the government is always there with monetary handouts should anything happen to you, where we get upset when the unemployment rate reaches 5%. Of course people wouldn’t want that to change. The idea of increasing migration scares people. We don’t want things in our wonderful country to change and we’ve been told that more migrants might threaten our perfect lifestyles. We’ve bred a society of people who fear anything different and who resent those who don’t assimilate into the acceptable culture. This leads to racism. If anyone even tries to argue with me that Australia doesn’t have racism embedded in its blood then I’ll just give them the form that you need to fill out as a foreigner from let’s say the middle east to get a visitor’s visa to Australia. It is impossible to fill out, it is only printed in English, it has questions in it that we struggled to understand and the stupid part is that we weren’t the ones that were supposed to fill it in, the person overseas is supposed to do it. If English isn’t your second language then there is no way you would be able to understand it. Now there’s no way that I am saying Aus is more racist than SA, I’m just saying that at least here you don’t have to drink VB and watch the footy to feel like you belong. You don’t have to conform to anything or lose your accent or dress in a certain way. You don’t need to tattoo yourself with Australian flags or the Southern Cross, you don’t have to look a certain way or listen to a certain type of music to be accepted in this country. In Australia a lot of the time that’s how it feels. For someone who was born and bred there it is still so easy for me to feel like I don’t belong which is really saying something about the place. So back to SA, a land of extremes. I’m still furious at the government of this country for abandoning the people now that Phillip is gone (the World Cup). Still so many unfinished projects and who knows when they will be completed. The teachers have been on strike as they are being paid so little for the work they do. There was a great sign held up by one of the teachers on strike, it said “CAN YOU READ THIS SIGN? THANK A TEACHER” absolutely brilliant.

My next blog post will be about the townships and some new things I’ve learnt and I want to talk about District 9. Was going to go in here but I went on a tangent about Australia so I’ll save it for next time.