This culture is evident in the very young already, which strongly suggests it’s a culturally transmitted and perpetuated holdover, quite possible from as far back as the times of feudal tribalism when the average Sipho and Thandi had virtually no personal autonomy, and they did what they were told when they were told to do it by the tribal chief and the elders. Now the chiefs and elders are largely gone, at least in urban settings. That particular social arrangement may have been an optimal one in the prevailing southern African conditions (semi-arid subtropical habitat; predators; relatively easy gathering of food), but it’s obviously antithetical to a modern urban existence.
Yes, traditional cultures tend to be collectivist, with a chieftain deciding who gets what and when. To some extent, the Afrikaner colonists exploited this by taking the place of the chieftain. I grew up in the countryside, and out there the black workers never did anything at all without the white baas telling them. If they needed anything, they went to the baas to ask for it. And thus, to some extent we ourselves helped to create this culture of dependence.
But we now have a problem that runs far deeper. Let me illustrate by once again referring back to the inner city school where I taught (I think I
learned far more there than I manage to teach!). One of the things that struck me after a while: when I listened to the kids talking among themselves, it did not sound to me like they were speaking any of South Africa's official languages. They spoke a weird hodgepodge of Sotho, Nguni, English, Afrikaans and other bits and pieces thrown in there, snatches of Americanisms no doubt seen on TV and in movies and who knows what else. A sort of amorphous Tsotsitaal that linguists have yet to study.
It struck me: these kids do not actually have a mother tongue. And along with it, while they may have cultural holdovers like learned helplessness, they actually lack any clearly defined cultural identity. Which in turn means this: they have no values. Their entire attitude spoke of nihilism, and this explains both their aimlessness and the extreme violence of crime in South Africa.
Thabo Mbeki's Pan-Africanist nationalism is one more of his fantasy projects that is now colliding with reality. There's no such thing as "African culture." Those who claim to be "Black Africans" in fact have no culture at all.
I have come to see that a cultural identity is important. Also, "white South African" is an actual culture to a larger extent than "Black South African", because we are descended from Europeans, and European culture, throughout Europe, displays commonalities that vastly outweigh the differences (it seems to have taken them centuries of warfare to realize this!). Yes, there are differences, particularly perhaps between north and south, but for centuries in the past, they had Latin as common lingua franca, they were all some brand of Christian (and even the atheists were "cultural Christians"), they share a science and technology, shared all the major yearly feast days, and in large areas of Europe kids grew up with variations of the same folk and fairy tales.
Now ask those inner city kids: what do you believe in? What language do you speak? What stories did you grow up with? They have no answers to such questions. Once again, the poverty of spirit that I talked about before.
Paradoxically, from what I read, the worst crime in South Africa does not happen in the poorest areas, because these areas are mostly the rural areas where there are still traditional family and tribal structures: young folks there know full well that if you do wrong, dad and grandma will rip your arm off and stuff it down your throat. Our worst crimes, and serial killers, and perpetual political agitators with no clear policy statements, are all found in the cities. They have no real goals, no culture, no values, not even a frickin' actual language. No wonder things go the way they go.
I have long thought it might actually be a good idea for, say, Zulus to start something like Voortrekkers or Scouts, but for Zulu-speaking kids, in which they learn something of their own cultural traditions and values, and how to speak their language properly. Same with other ethnic groups. Of course, ethnic pride is a double-edged sword, because it can easily morph into jingoism and supremacist ideology, which can end in disaster. Still, there does not seem to be such a thing as an "ethnic South African," or a general South African culture, shared by everyone. How can kids be expected to become responsible adults when they grow up without identity or values?
Anyway, it's not like they'll listen to me; what I say here perhaps sounds too much like apartheid. But for my fellow white South Africans, my advice is this: stop pretending to be an African, and embrace your European roots. This is in fact what white South Africans do, by and large, and the results are clearly visible for all to see (it is noteworthy that in those cases where white kids grow up without culture or values, they rapidly descend into exactly the same uselessness and nihilism as we see among so many blacks).
Sociologists will no doubt decry any ideas that intimate there’s something wrong with the attitudes and mindsets of the people in such situations, and instead wax lyrical about the “poverty trap”—which oddly enough, people elsewhere across the globe manage to work their way out of with perhaps surprising frequency (the proportion of the world’s poorest is steadily declining). And at the risk of having the misshapen “white privilege” finger pointed my way, when my parents first arrived in SA as European immigrants, three very young kids in tow, they had a total living space of about 25 m² and cooked on a cheap iron held upside-down between two bricks. My parents not only didn’t just wait for stuff to fall in their laps, they actively sought out opportunities and even created a few from scratch along the way. I’m sure other forum members have similar stories to tell, and I mention it purely as a possible reason why the prevalent lethargy and apathy seems such an impenetrable, incomprehensible, baffling mystery to us: We simply cannot relate to it at all because it lies entirely outside of our experiential range. And this cultural chasm can do little else besides breed feelings of alienation and frustration on both sides of the divide.
Indeed. I saw some stats the other day that made my jaw drop: around 1970,
the majority of African countries had larger economies than that of China. Yes, places like Kenya. Had a larger frickin economy than China. China was one of the poorest, least developed, most downtrodden hell holes on earth.
Now look at where we are now. How did the Chinese do this? What is it that they did differently? Clearly, whatever they did, they did something right. And clearly, national culture plays a huge role. In the case of China, of course, their sheer work ethic played a big role, as well as what one might call national discipline: they simply do not tolerate people running amok and causing mayhem. And I can bet you my front teeth, in Chinese schools there is discipline. (One of the things we need in this country to turn the thing around is not just discipline at schools, but absolutely monstrous, draconian, military-style discipline. Of course, that is also politically incorrect, so it's not going to happen.)
Of course, one saw the same thing in post-war Japan and Germany, both countries with a strong sense of national identity. In principle, we should have been able to pull off the same trick. After all, the current bunch did not actually inherit from apartheid South Africa. They inherited from Mandela, and he handed them a stable country with a growing economy and falling crime rates. Now they want to blame apartheid, and White Monopoly Capital, and colonialism, and who knows what else - in short, anything and anyone but themselves.
But once again, I have come to see that there is no point to me solving this problem, because it's not like Black South Africa is going to pay any attention to what an unwelcome immigrant has to say. They're going to have to bump their heads and learn. The problem is of course that I cannot really escape the big bumping process, though I am currently trying to devise ways to divorce my personal finances from the South African economy; that might help in the event of a big meltdown.
