I apologise

Since my previous apology, it has been impressed upon me by various authorities that I was inurbane in tendering my apologies in Afrikaans.

I apologise. I apologise for being born. I apologise for being an Afrikaner. I apologise for being a white male. I apologise for being a white male Afrikaner.

I am sorry. I am deeply, immeasurably sorry. I am sorry I benefited from apartheid. I am sorry that I am able to read and write. I am sorry that I am not an illiterate. I am sorry that I am a perpetrator of the written word and not of the oral tradition.

I apologise. I apologise for not having bombed any apartheid military installations like Mr. Hein Grosskopf, that great hero of the struggle. I apologise for not leaving the country to undergo military training and training in revolutionary warfare and subversive techniques that could have been used against the enemy. I apologise for my inaction. My inaction made me a member of the enemy, for which I beg forgiveness.

I apologise for being a white person. I apologise for my father and my mother, and for my grandfather and grandmother and all who have gone before me for they are white settlers that have brought violence to this land.

I apologise for not being a believer. I apologise for my decadent rationalism that prevents me from believing in truth and forgiveness and redemption.

I further apologise for having learnt the wrong history at school. I apologise for having known the names of Piet Retief and Andries Pretorius and Christiaan de Wet and Paul Kruger and Smuts and Hertzog and all the others. I am sorry that I did not question the reason for my learning these names. I would like to go for treatment so as to forget that they existed. I would like to forget that I once was taught that they existed. I would like to start with a blank memory again so that I may learn the right things and the right names. I am prepared to burn my two-volume set of Paul Kruger’s biography, bound in linen, and other books that perpetuate our undesirable history.

I apologise for not having been a communist and for not having believed in the great beauty of revolution and of liberation. When I was a student I sat opposite Ms. Barbara Hogan at a table and I did not follow her lead in becoming a communist and joining the liberation struggle of the masses and the working people. I wish to record my sincerest contrition here and now.

I am sorry that I have read the wrong books. I am sorry that I did not read books that may have placed me on the right path sooner. I am sorry that I was so sceptical about WEB Dubois and Kwame Nkrumah and all the others that may have rehabilitated me. I would like to be rehabilitated although I realise it is very difficult. I am prepared to make amends. I am prepared to debase myself, to follow the lead of ones who are purer than me.

I am sorry for having read poetry. I am sorry for having read poetry in Afrikaans. I am sorry for having had my mind polluted with the words of white Afrikaners who may have supported apartheid. I am sorry for having succumbed to the beauty of the language of the oppressors. I am sorry for having oppressed others in my language. I am sorry for having oppressed others with my language. I am sorry for still speaking my oppressive language. I shall try to forget. I wish to be helped to forget these vile words of my forefathers who were supporters of apartheid one and all.

I apologise for having lived in a white group area. I apologise for not having voluntarily moved to a black group area where I may have been subjected to the discipline of the masses and the working people.

I apologise for having swum in a swimming pool when others did not have that privilege. I apologise for having learnt to swim. I apologise for learning the high jump and the long jump and tennis and rowing. I apologise for watching all white sports teams at play.

I apologise for my existence, at present and in the past. I apologise for not having destroyed photographs of myself as a child because my existence has been thus recorded for posterity. I am prepared to have all evidence of my previous existence destroyed. I am prepared to erase my footsteps as a child on the beach, if at all any have remained. I merely demand some time, a reprieve, to hunt down all signs of my previous existence and to destroy them. I beg you humbly to grant me this reprieve. I shall destroy all photographs and all notes I have made and even pencil annotations in volumes I have read. I shall consign to the scrapheap all signs of literary or artistic activity.

I apologise for having been a child. I apologise for having been a child with blue eyes. I apologise for having had children. I can only plead in mitigation that they do not have blue eyes but I realise this will not save me nor them. I apologise for bringing them into this world and perpetuating my lineage, a lineage that can only be apologised for.

I apologise for my class. I apologise for driving a car. I apologise for being a homeowner. I apologise for having speculated in the stock market. I apologise for once having attended a polo match in the company of people of mainly my own race. I confess to this heinous crime.

I ask forgiveness. I ask forgiveness for being a beneficiary. I ask forgiveness for having been a beneficiary of love. I shall hate all those who have loved me because they were supporters of apartheid one and all. I shall erase my mother’s voice from my memory, her words as she comforted me as a child in times of sickness and injury. I shall forget that she brought me mangoes in the bath or that she told me not to read under the blankets when I was supposed to sleep. I apologise for reading under the blankets. I apologise for my mother having said so. I apologise for my mother. I apologise for her existence and that of my father and that of my close family. I wish they had not existed. I wish that I had not existed.

I apologise for having visited Western countries where there are many white people like myself. I apologise for having looked at paintings in museums and admiring the architecture of buildings. I shall try to erase from my memory the paintings of Boucher and Watteau and Rubens and Rembrandt and Vermeer. I shall never look at another painting again.

I apologise for being a product of Western capitalism, colonialism and apartheid. I apologise for Western capitalism, colonialism and apartheid. I apologise for Jan van Riebeeck and what he did to this country. I apologise for the Trekboers and the Boers and the Afrikaners and what we have done to this country. I apologise for Gerard Moerdyk and for the Voortrekker Monument. I apologise for having visited the Voortrekker Monument as a child with the rest of my class and of having seen the reliefs of Voortrekkers shooting at Zulus. I apologise for every Zulu that was killed by a Voortrekker. I apologise for every Voortrekker that was not killed by a Zulu. May the Voortrekker monument be obliterated from this earth and my memory with it. I apologise for my memory and its capacity to have preserved such unwanted material.

I am sorry about my grandparents on both sides. I am sorry that they have been buried in this earth. I am especially sorry about my maternal grandparents who were buried on their farm in the veld. They were settlers and they may be blamed for having perpetuated the settler line of which I am the result. I am sorry for the sound that the wind makes in winter as it moves the dry grass that has grown over their graves. I express my sincere regret that the wind thus creates the impression that something of their former presence remains, that all trace of them have not disappeared. I shall abolish any recall I have of my grandparents, and of the grass, and of the sighing wind. I shall likewise force an apology from the grass and from the wind, if ever I see that place again.

I apologise for my bourgeois decadence. I apologise for having drunk French champagne on my birthday and for having savoured the bubbles in my mouth. I apologise for buying luxury articles and books and recordings of Western classical music played by white people and appreciated by white people. I apologise for having attended chamber music recitals where only people of my race were present. I apologise for looking at the faces of the concertgoers and being moved by them, for they were white faces. I apologise for the sobriety and the stillness of those faces. I apologise for each and every note played by the violinist and by the pianist. I apologise for listening to racist music. I apologise for all my other habits that put me at a remove from the masses and the working people of this country.

I apologise for not having apologised earlier. I apologise for not apologising more profusely. I apologise for not delivering my apology in tears and on my knees. I apologise for not having acquired the ability to cry in public in front of large audiences.

I am sorry. I am sorry for having learnt the names of towns and cities founded by the Voortrekkers, like Pretoria or Krugersdorp or Bloemfontein. I am sorry for not being able to pronounce the new names properly and for still remembering the old names. I shall try to erase the old names from my memory together with all knowledge of my previous existence.

I apologise for owning books that contain the words “kaffir”, “bantu” and “native”. I shall have those books incinerated and forget that I ever owned them. I shall henceforth screen all books that do not subscribe to the principles of non-racism and non-sexism.

I apologise for not showing due respect. I apologise for not adopting the right tone of voice when delivering my apology. I apologise for not adopting the correct posture and for not averting my gaze in the presence of dignitaries.

I apologise for speaking. I apologise for having to speak when I deliver this apology. I apologise for soiling the air with the sounds of my voice and for not having been able to remain silent earlier. I shall remain silent. I shall be silent.

Dan Roodt

boontoe

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