On a first-name basis

It was the usual wrangle among a variety of blokes in the American pub Malone’s in Shanghai. (Long Bar has sadly closed down for now.) Alistair was calling me Slim (I’m not) and I was comparing him to a rake (he is).

The motley crowd, assembled and cackling at the ripostes flickering through the air like confetti, was from all over the world. Oh, to use the labels, there were Englishmen, a Pole, a German, an Aussie an me the Sawth Effricen. The topics eventually became, ahem, more profound as the draft glasses emptied and the discussion turned to label names.

Stephen from England was becoming quite heated in his argument with Warwick from Australia over the use of the label name “Paki” in England and Prince William’s recent use of the word which was met with a public uproar.

“Come on mate, the word Paki just means the bloke comes from Pakistan. It’s not insulting,” protested Warwick.

“It is extremely insulting! It has all the suggestions of Pakistanis,” Stephen emphasised, “being beaten up by English thugs in alleyways, their shops broken into and being told to f- off back to Pakistan.”

Warwick refused to see the point. To him an Abo is an Abo, a coon a coon.

I brought up the word Dutchman. “It can be an insult to call someone who is an Afrikaner, a Dutchman in South Africa.”

“Really?” chorused all in surprise.

“Yep, if I walk into a pub and there is a table of Afrikaners and say to them, ‘Ja, you Dutchmen!’ I could end up getting moered.” I wink at Francois, a fellow Sawth Effricen, who has just joined the table. He grins, winks back. He is a Dutchman. Pardon me, an Afrikaner.

“What does ‘moo’ mean?” asks Englishman Alistair, completely mispronouncing moer.

I go into a visceral explanation of the word moer. I explain that it’s OK to call my Afrikaner mates Dutchmen but I am taking a chance if I say that to a stranger. Francois nods.

It got me thinking about label names in general and the recent brouhaha about Jews in various blogs on Thought Leader.

So here’s my take, or takes, on “Jews”.

Take One: It is about 1998 and two doors down from my apartment are a middle-aged couple called Hein and Devora. Hein knocks on the door with a secretive look on his face. He looks over his shoulder. I grin knowingly. “Sure, come on in and have a smoke.”

“Thanks,” he whispers. We sit in the lounge while he gratefully lights up. There is a sacred silence as he takes his first, deep drag.

“So how’s bishnish?” he asks, sighing with relief. We talk “bishnish” while the coal of his cigarette glows.

He stubs out his cigarette, rises to go. He puts a finger to his mouth, a glint of fear and mischief in his eyes. “Don’t tell Devora. She still thinks I have quit.”

I bang my fist on my chest and do the Boy Scout thing.

Ten minutes later, as I have left my front door open to air the lounge, I hear Devora loudly scolding Hein for smoking. She can smell the smoke. I shake my head. I’ve told old Hein before to use the mouthwash in my bathroom, bring a change of shirt or something.

Some months afterwards I have a bicycle accident. Nothing broken but Hein stares at me in horror while a mate helps me climb the stairs to my apartment with a battered bicycle, blood everywhere. I can barely walk. Later there is a knock on the door. Both Hein and Devora are there with a plate of food for my evening meal. Both are very concerned and ask how I’m doing. I am most grateful.

Devora is quite concerned about me being a bachelor still at the age of 37. She tries to match me with her girl friends. Neither of the two she submits for my approval work out. She shakes her head.

When I go on holiday Devora waters the plants in my home. I am asked to look after their cars when they go on leave. They are very sad when I move to Cape Town. “Come visit us when you are back in Jo’burg.”

Take 2: I go with a tour, including many friends, to Israel in 1997. Every day, after the usual touristy things, most of us are grateful to sit in the cool pub of the designated hotel for that night.

The people I get to know on the tour don’t like the attitude of the bartenders. They feel they are arrogant and unfriendly, that the service is poor. I like good service, love to see a regular refill of Carlsberg put in front of me after the scorching heat of Israel’s summer. So I decide, when I walk into the pub, to go up to the bar counter and introduce myself, sticking my hand out. “Hi, I’m Rod.” The remote look on the barman’s face disappears as his mouth splits into a grin of surprise. “My name is David,” he says, shaking my hand. “What can I get you?”

Now that’s my kind of man! I use this amiable method every evening and it works.

David and I get into a conversation later that evening on Kabala, of which I know nothing, and which, as it turns out, he is passionate about. Eventually he gets too deep for me (the Carlsbergs were not helping) and I go to the disco. There are some nice Greek girls who often seemed to be on the same tour route as us. Man, can they dance.

Take 3: 1991: I am living, or trying to live in Cape Town and am jobless. I can’t afford rent. I am known a bit in the literary circles as a young poet with potential, published in all the right poetry magazines, Contrast, New Coin etc, and I go to all the book launches. A literary friend of mine, Gloria, invites me to stay at her home rent-free until I can get back on my feet. I am most grateful. But eventually I can only find work in Jo’burg and move there. It is not easy staying with her because she’s much older than me and has different ways of doing things. But I thank her profusely when I leave.

Take Four: Standard 3. I simply cannot grasp how to do long division sums. The teacher, Mrs Grey, gets sterner and sterner. The hidings don’t help when I fail tests. I remember well sitting with a classmate of mine, Martin Silberbauer. He patiently goes through the long division theory until it makes sense. What helps is that he is not intimidating, like the teacher. Eventually I get the sums right while he watches, and he gives the “everything is great” French sign, the thumb and forefinger forming a circle, the other fingers raised.

I pass the next maths test. I do not do well but I pass and escape punishment. I show Martin my results (about 30% less than his) and he gives the French sign again.

Well, that’s my take on Jews.

Oh! Shucks, I forgot to mention, all of them had that label, “Jews”. But I got to know them as people, not Jews.

As soon as I label someone, I cease to understand that person. Atheist, Catholic, Paki, racist … all just labels with historical baggage. I realise we have to identify groups, but I just cannot emphasise this enough and I am preaching to myself here: As soon as I label someone or a group I cease to understand that person or that entity. I see the label; I do not see the person.

When I stayed with Gloria, I had the privilege of observing a bit of Pesach. I just knew I shouldn’t touch anything unless given permission. The rituals and dos and don’ts were complex. But I loved the reverence with which they were carried out. Many years later I realised strict rituals like that can help take us out of our narrow, ego-centred selves and our need to label and be at the centre of everything. They teach reverence, respect, that sense of sacredness in everything and everyone.

Labelling blinds, reductifies, and almost invariably causes conflict.