Ms Fifikins

I have been mulling over a few posts in the last 10 days since I arrived here in South Africa.

Is it what I expected? Yes and no. It is so different to Australia, and yet so similar too that it is hard to put into words.

The drivers are crazy. Speed limits- what speed limits? Freeways/motorways are 120km/h and if there is roadwork and marked down to 80 or 60 it just means you don’t travel at 140 any more, perhaps 130 instead! We drove down past Durban last weekend and saw articulated trucks overtaking smaller trucks going uphill! We saw vans with 100km/h on the backs of them travelling at well over 140km/h. We saw plenty of trucks/utes filled with people sitting and standing in the back, again travelling at fast speeds.

I witnessed the most intense racism towards black people I have ever seen. We went to a motorbike shop to get a battery for MIML™s bike. One biker dude- a middle aged gent basically told a black worker to get him a proper cup of coffee and called him a kaffer. To his face. He spoke in Afrikaans, but I understood most of what he said. Then he turned to me and asked me where I was from (in English!). I told him Australia and he asked me if we “have kaffers in Australia?” I told him we had black people, yes and he replied that “Kaffers would be ok if they weren’t black.” I was pretty disgusted and just didn’t say anything. MIML™ told me it was a typical example of old school Afrikaaners, a Boer.

We have driven past ‘informal settlements’ aka squats or shanty towns. It is hard to look at. Next week we will visit Soweto.

Everywhere we go people are friendly. And smiling- always smiling. There is so much poverty evident from rubbish in the streets and by the road to people selling all manner of goods from flowers and fruit to mag wheels and sunglasses on every street corner.

We have not experienced violence, but have heard stories from others who have. All houses have high fences, most with either razor wire, barbed wire of spikes on them. The windows are barred. Car park attendants at the shopping centres guard your car for you for a few rand- about 50¢.

Plastic shopping bags cost money- they have bar codes on them which are scanned! Clothing comes in all manner of sizes and is cheap compared to Australia. Eating out is relatively inexpensive too.

But something doesn’t sit right. MIML™ is in Australia because he can’t get a job in his home country. His parents get a gun out at night to protect themselves, even though they have never had to use it. The policy of affirmative action means that there are lots of black women working (it goes jobs to black women, then black men, then white women then white men) and the white minority do feel wronged.

But it is so not as simple as righting wrongs. The political past in this country is something that I cannot really understand. Many believe the country has narrowly avoided civil war in recent times, but that after the Football (Soccer) World Cup things may change again. There is a them and us mentality from many sides. As someone said to me get 3 South Africans in a room and you will have 5 religions and 7 political parties!

As a union organiser I cringe when I hear of people working long hours with no overtime and being paid cash under the table. When I hear of what retail workers are paid per week I think of how fortunate Australian workers are to have minimum wages set.

But today we saw Invictus. It is the story of the Rugby World Cup in South Africa in 1995. It showed Mandela the wise statesman. The shrewd politician who strived for a rainbow nation- people of all races living together as one.Interestingly, it does not open in Australia until late January.

It is an emotion charged film that I saw gave some hope seeing people like Mandela and Pienaar looking past colour trying to unite a country through sport. But again this unity has not necessarily been my experience here talking with various people who are wary about the future of South Africa. The past can’t be made right in a few years. It will take several generations and it is my hope that it will not be too late for what I have found to be a beautiful and welcoming country.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley