On board the MSC Volkstaat

With the blatant racial discrimination that has hit our beloved rainbow nation lately, I feel compelled to explore possible solutions to this age-old racial-superiority point of contention where some feel that it is their right to be held in a higher status than other racial groups.

Plainly, it sickens me to know that there are those among us who believe wholeheartedly that they are the one superior race to which all other races should bow down, and that failing their acceptance of this directive, the inferior should either be incarcerated in the most foulest of prisons or put to death in the most inhumane and degrading manner. I speak here of Robert Sobukwe, of John Langalibalele Dube, and later and of less fame, I speak of Mafika Gwala — all of them heroes who suffered for the cause of dignity and human equality.

Therefore, as a responsible and patriotic citizen of the potentially great nation of South Africa, I have been pondering which avenues can be explored to maintain the freedom that we now abuse, disregarding the sacrifices in blood and personal freedom and life by those who fought for it so bravely, never shaken and never losing sight of the dream of the emancipation of the African child.

As a child of Africa who now enjoys and occasionally abuses the freedoms bestowed upon me by those valiant souls who traded their all to secure my rightful, kingly place at the throne of Africa, I have been mulling possible solutions to the great question of racial intolerance.

It is thus that in the barren and vast desert that is my psyche that I discovered what I believed to be an oasis of knowledge from which we could all take a sip of the emancipating source and free ourselves of the yearning for segregation and intolerance of one by another based on the concentration of the latter’s melanin content.

What follows is what I found at the banks of that oasis, what I had much hope for and what I finally had to cast away as counter to the revolution for which many have suffered — the dream of one being equal to any other and all being treated with the dignity that should be bestowed upon the kings and queens that we all are.

The Sumo has never been averse to hard work — believe me when I say the Sumo was brought up on a set of values that strongly entrenched the value of hard work — but the last weeks of February were just extraordinarily difficult. Therefore I looked forward to a cruise to the Portuguese islands just off the coast of Mozambique, which was where our annual conference was to be held, with much anticipation.

I had never been on any sea-going vessel for any long stretch of time, so this was in many ways my maiden voyage if you discount the many booze cruises on which the Sumo has embarked off Durban harbour for the duration of a liver-punishing afternoon. Oh, if only what happened on a booze cruise made it back to shore … I would elaborate, but alas I am bound to a brotherhood vow of secrecy which has death as the only acceptable repayment for repentance, a price too high for the Sumo.

But you can be sure of one thing: if livers could leave our bodies while we slept and meet for a couple of detox drinks at their weekly support-group session, my liver and that of one of our most beloved bourbon-guzzling minister would have the most harrowing tales to share of repeated unrelenting abuse, which would have the other livers either shaking in their boots with fear or smiling in awe and admiration for the soldiering livers of the Sumo and the bourbon-guzzling minister.

So it was that I had absolutely no idea what would go down on this cruise; not only as it was my first long voyage, but also because the organising committee of our celebratory cruise made sure that we were all kept in the dark over where we were going, how we would get there and what we would do when we got there.

It was a pleasant surprise to learn that we would be sailing to the Portuguese islands for a weekend of very little actual conferencing and lots of liver punishing and general merriment with activities such as snorkelling off an uninhabited island; frolicking on the beach, in the customary swimwear, of course; and taking in copious amounts of supposedly cooling alcoholic beverages to counter the effect of the insane heat.

I was warned not to pack my own stash of amber nectar for the voyage for none of it would be allowed on board. This was troubling, but I soon got over it after learning of every individual’s entertainment budget allocated for the four-day cruise.

We all hopped on board with much excitement. I don’t know what anyone else on the cruise was thinking, but in my mind, I wished to forget about all the ills of our country and our society. I wished to let go of all the social and racial issues and just chill for a weekend with my colleagues and a bunch of hopefully liberal strangers who were down for whatever.

Indeed, I wished to forget about the constant blaming of the black government by some counter-revolutionary sectors of our society and to immerse myself in the experience of a near-utopia.

But it would seem that the Sumo had been too optimistic and naive, and my blissful hope of a near-utopia dissipated soon after boarding the vessel.

Coming on to the deck for the first time was a shocking experience. I expected to see exotic tourists from all walks of life, but instead what I got was a sight I had often heard of in myths and legends … I walked on to the deck and saw Parys.

It was incredible. My mind didn’t wish to believe what my eyes were conveying to it, but when I walked out on to the pool deck, I could have sworn I was back in the mainland, outnumbered by our Afrikaans-speaking brothers and sisters and … tannies.

It was crazy! Brandy and Coke were already flowing relentlessly everywhere and it seemed that these folk had found pleasant spots on the deck and demarcated them for their exclusive use.

The whole situation shocked me into thinking back to the crazy, maybe ill-advised, “requests” for a land for Afrikaans people exclusively — a volkstaat, if I remember the term correctly. This is what had apparently happened; everyone had arrived on board and settled into their cabins; after that they came out and explored the ship, and then everyone just seemed to gravitate to those who looked, spoke and behaved like they did.

Us, the darkies, were grossly outnumbered so we got the less opulent spots on the deck or at dinner or at breakfast; even when we were just walking down the passages. I remember thinking that this is how Cetshwayo must have felt after being bundled into a war and stripped of all his land by those wily British. I felt out of place and homeless.

It is amazing how to this day, and probably for as long as I live, I will never comfortably be the minority in any setting. Seeing black faces, many black faces, in a setting where there are different race groups gives me a misconception of comfort. I do not have to know those faces, but their mere presence comforts me in the knowledge that there are others like me who will have my back, naturally, should conflict erupt.

Isn’t that just a crazy thought that should not make sense, but unfortunately does? I didn’t have that backing on the ship, just to be clear, so I had to tread a fair distance away from the Benoni brigade, especially after they had consumed a few more of their traditional brandy and Coke.

There were so many Afrikaans people on that ship that you even had enough of them to form sub-groups within their mass. So you had the traditional okes with the khaki shorts, long socks and velskoene. You had the way too fashionably misunderstood, the quiet “It” bunch and the gay Afrikaans people too. I didn’t even know you could get gay Afrikaners; I sort of always suspected it, but it was proven to me on that weekend. There were many of them and I must say that they were way friendlier than the traditional and straight people, but I still questioned their friendliness and steered clear nonetheless.

If I had wanted an adventure, I was sure to get one on this three-day stay in the old South Africa. The only difference between the old country and the ship was that there were no signs that outlawed certain race groups from certain areas; rather, the law of segregation was clearly implied. These okes had the nerve to make me feel as unwelcome as I am in some parts of my motherland such as Parys and the University of the Free State on a ship that my employer had paid money for me to board. We were all guests on that ship, but it seemed that in these okes’ minds, some guests were more equal than others. What balls!

With the no-go areas (the Group Areas Act) clearly demarcated, I felt the urge to explore the ship further and further away from the guys who wanted to relive the past on a ship to a remote and uninhabited island. Fearing that I would be lost at sea if I persisted with the land reform on board, I moved away from Benoni into the outskirts, hoping to find a kassie-esque set-up somewhere close to the bar. I was out of luck, it would seem, because those were already taken as well.

The whole experience got me thinking, though. If there are individuals who feel so strongly about being removed from others whom they deem inferior, should these individuals not be granted the opportunity to go out and form their own private states?

Please hear me out before you go on a rampage and call me an unpatriotic and unthankful little fat coconut brat.

If there were to be put in place a programme where people were allowed to form their own floating states, out at sea, which would be ships or a whole bunch of them that would operate as independent states which would affiliate themselves with the countries of origin of the majority of the inhabitants of those ships, would that not relieve racial tensions?

If this were thought out carefully, it would be the perfect solution for all. Think about it.

The ships would have themes. For example, all Kaiser Chiefs supporters would be banded together on one ship. There would be a screening programme to make sure that no disgruntled Sundowns supporters get through. All the people would have jobs on board. There would be doctors, nurses, engineers, navigators and others, and their families — only one family member would need to be employed on the ship for a family to be accepted, with a limited number of persons per family.

Would this not work?

I rest
The Sumo