Comments on: Cape Dutch

By: kobus

kobus — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:34:46 +0000

Not quite sure how I stumbled on this, I was actually looking for Cape dutch Interiors(!!!), but…

initially I thought – this person is bitter, but the humor is good and deep – I too lived in the shadow of Lions head and Signal hill but now Sydney, australia – and miss the humor of the Cape Coloured / Slamaaier – long may they live and never lose their colour – good for the veil wearing mama’s!!

By: Neelika

Neelika — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:43:53 +0000

Siddiq,
1. At least it’s not Die Kaap is weer Oranje-Vrijstaat on that banner.
2. I can’t. She’s dead.
3. So you mean that this city’s public transport hub isn’t meant to be inviting those wearing 4-inch Louboutins? How dare Makeka be so exclusionary!

By: Siddiq

Siddiq — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:56:16 +0000

Neelika, your writing is acutely delightful to read as always. A few comments though:

1) I live unfortunately close to the stadium. Dangling from the balcony of a neighbouring flat I spotted a black characters scrawled banner declaring “De Kaap is weer Oranje”

2) When you eat roast beetroot, your pee for the next couple of days comes out rose coloured. It’s one of the few times that the emmition of scarlet hued bodily fluids signifies something good for you. Ask Manto Tshabalala Msimang.

3) The upgraded flooring of the train station is not so much flawless as floorless. Try walking there. You don’t so much walk on the ground but glide across the disintegrating membrane of the present. I don’t want to imagine how it’s like when they wet it. You’d think they were trying their hardest to break as many necks in as short a time as possible.

By: Neelika

Neelika — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:05:04 +0000

@Sophia and Muray Hunter: the comments and links that people provided here are what made this post a proper, informative, nuanced conversation – sadly not so for the NYT article (WTF why are they quoting some Fulbright in KZN? Laziness). I think it’ll be a good idea to give my students the links to these two articles, and have them do the analysis. Hilarious tone in Mhambi’s article, BTW.

By: Murray Hunter

Murray Hunter — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 10:13:35 +0000

As a side issue – a side side issue, really – I’d like to point out that contemporary memories of the Dutch in the Cape often take a pretty simple view. There’s been some coverage in the international press along the lines of what Neelika has written here, but with less insight. Unfortunately that coverage tends to assume a very close association between modern day Netherlands with the events of centuries more or less initiated by van Riebeeck and Co in 1652. My friend Kameraad Mhambi wrote a pretty good blog post complicating the simple picture here: http://bit.ly/axcMxu

By: Sophia

Sophia — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 22:16:44 +0000

As a sometimes-Muslimah/Arab/African/generally mixed brown lady, I’m gonna stay out of this one, but point out NYTimes hilarity:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/sports/soccer/11soccer.html?_r=1&hp

Enjoy the article and the final. I personally will wait till black Americans and Canadians figure out Africa isn’t just a fab locale for their paternalistic research and football fandom to celebrate much else. This debate is not limited to South Africa by any means.

Fun though, inn’it?

By: Mustafa Maluka

Mustafa Maluka — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 09:09:46 +0000

@Sean: There are people who hold those views but I think issues that influenced people’s choice of team back then had more to do with geography and language than race but we can debate that another time. @Neelika: Vuvuzela use had more to do with it not being a Cape Town thing rather than it being a black thing since black Cape Town teams didn’t have them. Like the decorated helmets, they have their roots in Johannesburg football and mining culture.

I agree with what RK has said and what ekapa has followed up with.
South Africans still tend to think of the historical “Dutch” who colonized and did these awful things to our ancestors as these evil white people when in fact the reality is that many of the “Dutch” Governors at the Cape like Simon van der Stel were in fact mixed race or “coloured” as they would be described in contemporary South Africa.

The current Dutch team is captained by a person of Indonesian descent. The right-wing Geert Wilders Tayat speaks of is also of Indonesian descent. Present day Holland is far from the monoracial entity many people imagine.

I would caution against the generalization that “Coloureds are supporting the Dutch team due to historical ties while the blacks are avenging Ghana’s defeat”. It assumes too much and speaks towards a one dimensional “coloured” identity. One only has to look at recent Xenophobic attacks to be reminded of the problematic relationship black South Africans have towards the rest of Africa. What Desiree also touches on relates to survival strategies that young “coloured” and black South African employ and is something I’ve commented on before: “my generation of black people in this country are immigrants into South Africa. We are the new South Africans. South Africa is a country that already existed, but it was a white country from which we were excluded. We have been entering this space … and in this process there is a lot of negotiation and renegotiation that is taking place and what you find is that people need to switch accents in order to fit in with the dominant group which is white people in this society”.

I support Holland because I’ve actually lived there. It’s ironic that I am treated better in Amsterdam than I am in Cape Town. The colour of my skin does not determine the kind of service I will receive in restaurants over there. Also, like many Capetonians my age, I also grew up being a fan of Gullit, van Basten and Rijkaard.

By: Neelika

Neelika — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 08:45:44 +0000

RK: you hit it.
And @ Tayat: oooh, I can’t say that I’d agree that the two joyful, energetic, and perfectly “together” women in the image are any more oppressed than any of us – they shouldn’t have to remove a veil or any article of clothing in order to prevent lunatic levels of hatred towards Muslims; no one is asking my NY university students to stop wearing blue jeans, after all. And I say that knowing the politics of veil wearing is too huge to get into here, and that blue jeans have a different cultural resonance – just attempting to illustrate that we should be mindful of not allowing someone like Geert Wilders to use a culturally relevant piece of clothing to incite division and hate (or submit to that rhetoric by complying).

I didn’t include the image of these sparkly ladies to shame them/show them as an example of mindless oppression and enslavement to a former colonial power, but to actually capture the bewildering complexity of the situation.

By: Tayat

Tayat — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 22:50:26 +0000

I can’t really understand why these women on the picture would root for Holland.

Does Gert Wilders ring a bell?

Please, at least, take the veil off. You are embarrassing your fellow faith Sisters in Holland, who are having hard time to practice their faith, and not to mention 24 hours Islamophobia in the media.

For me, the World Cup ended when Cameroon lost to Denmark.

BTW, how tragic it is for South Africa if Holland wins the Cup
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/07/07/hsfbilliafrica-com/settlers-way/

Must feel like rubbing salt into wound.

Of course, China would never allow Japan to win the Cup, if China was the host nation. First, they would prepare very well, or at least, they would not host the tournament if they can not see any beneficial outcome; whether economic growth or nationhood pride, which neither can be concluded South Africa gained.
All in all, a fiasco tournament.

By: Desiree

Desiree — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:38:48 +0000

Thank you for the interesting article Neelika. I recently studied abroad in Cape Town and after reading a friend’s facebook status (something along the lines of the Dutch team making her Dutch great grandfather proud) I began to think about the complex situation of Coloureds rooting for the Netherlands.From what I can discern from my South African friends, it seems as though many Coloureds are supporting the Dutch team due to historical ties while the blacks are avenging Ghana’s defeat. I’m sure it doesn’t play out quite neatly along those lines though. As a black West Indian who lives in the states, I am very much aware of the relationship to one’s colonizer/oppressor.While in CT I noticed that some people, both black and Coloured, had a strange admiration for aspects of white identity. This happens all across the world. For example, many blacks throughout the diaspora despise their natural hair and opt to straighten or otherwise hide it in order make it appear a bit closer to a white person’s hair texture. It seems as though the support of the Dutch is yet another manifestation of this syndrome.Or perhaps some Coloureds prefer to accept and love all parts of their identity, regardless of how it came to be. I’m not entirely sure. This article was an interesting and relevant read. I’m also happy that it raised so many questions. I enjoyed reading the comments as well.

Also Sean, how can I access the article that you wrote for the journal? I would love to read it.