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1. Identity and heritage
Ghetto-dagboek
Die laaste goodbye, September 1986. Herskryf in 1997.
Windverwaaide godverlate vlaktes van swaarkry.
Soesie onkryd oppie Cape Flats, soe staan ôs oek nou hie vasgegroei.
Kinnes met snotniese haloep, speel innie sand.
Jy hoo hoe hulle tanies skree, moeg, afgetam;
Twinnag jaa al wêk hulle vi Rex Truform, Nylon Spinners en Maxmore,
En al wat hulle ytkry isse goue watch offi deep freeze:
"In recognition of twenty years loyal service."
Jy loep soe starag vibyrie smokkelhyse,
Vibyrie ryk van drank en dagga.
Vrydag ryk jy vis, Sarag ryk jy Sheen Straightener
En Sondag ryk jy gebakte brood en braaihoene.
Die ouense hang nog altyd op bai se winkelstoep.
Die stoeka* tienie miere gedruk met bloed:
"Welcome to Ugly Valley 27 HO$H!"
Die gang fight ore broe wat geraak was.
Sy bloed moet opgetel wôt.
Jy loep starag.
Hulle determine hulle sukses annie kiste ennie borrels wat hulle
drink.
Annie kinnes wat hulle stoot.
Jy loep voort en jy wôt sienende blind.
Gesigte dwaal orie godverlate vlaktes.
Geraamtes vannie verlede kraak onne jou.
But djy loep nog altyd an
Ennie son sak nog altyd oppie selle spot.
* stoeka: verwysingsterm vir 'n bende - bv YAG = Young America
Gigolo
Ek het besluit om hierdie stukkie akademiese teks te open met 'n
gedig, wat ek dink grotendeels beskryf wie en wat 'n gedeelte van
my is. Ek het ook besluit om hierdie voorlegging in beide Engels
en Afrikaans te doen. Dit is tog grotendeels wie ek is: die taal
wat ek praat en hoe ek dit gebruik. Dit bepaal wie ek is en bepaal
wat dit vir my sal wees en doen.
So who am I?
My name is George Alexander Hill. George after my great-grandfather,
grandfather and father. That would make me George the 4th. Alexander,
I could not say. I do not know. But Hill, the almost noble surname,
comes from the great Scottish soldier that came to the Cape of Good
Hope at the turn of the 19th century seeking his fortune, but instead
fell in love with a slave girl and the Hill clan prospered in the
Western Cape.
It is funny how much of this history of my family I know. Up until
recently we were still held in the dark about the other component
which made up the Hill clan. That being the Xhosa and Khoi-San part
of my heritage. The Khoi-San part we only celebrated a few years
back when we discovered that we were descendants of the Nonna-Ams,
a Khoi-San clan which moved to the hinterlands of Namaqualand.
And than there is the story of the Malgas part of the family, who
were in fact Xhosa but applied for reclassification as coloured.
This part of the family was never spoken of, until my mom and dad
one day opened the closet as we were sitting on my stoep on Jozi.
I remember we were talking about the skeletons families have in
their closets. We spoke of siblings lost, grandchildren given up
for adoption, and the shame of the dark complexion in our family.
I have long since dealt with my family's racial prejudice, like
I had to deal with certain prejudices within me.
It took me back to many a living-room in coloured homes across
the beautiful, naive country of ours. I now stare up at those walls
in my mind's eye and see only those ancient portraits of the fairer
side of the family. I now understand why lighter-skinned, straight-haired
kids were preferred. Are still preferred. There is no real resentment,
for now I know, as an adult, that black is beautiful, being coloured
is beautiful, being African is beautiful. There is a soft symphony
of harmonic sense that plays in my heart, knowing there is beauty
in this diversity embodied inside of me.
This also brings me back to my opening. As much as race plays an
important role in shaping our beings and determining our destinies,
class struggle is as defining. If you grow up on the proverbial
wrong side of the tracks you are seen by those who so easily assimilate
as not fit to socialise in their realm.
"Ghetto-dagboek" is in essence an ode to the township, Elsies
River, I grew up in. A reflection of my childhood. A reclaiming
of a language and a heritage many frown upon and see as uncouth.
It says you have a heritage and don't let anyone tell you that heritage
and culture should be stagnant and not dynamic. Let it be interpretive
to you the individual. This is the reality of many black South Africans.
Be you coloured or Indian. We go through life at times choosing
the path of least resistance and non-introspection and no self-realisation.
For many it is just too painful, for some it is a luxury. But it
is important to reflect and understand where you come from, so that
you can understand where you are going to. So that we can tell our
children a story of who we are, so that they can use that as a basis
to build strong and proud personalities.
Roots are important. It is what keeps us together as a people.
And a further understanding of the commonalities we share through
our struggles is even more important to bring unity and solidarity
in the face of adversity.
En so, na baie jare, moet ek erken en vrede maak met wie ek is.
Baie sê ons is 'n mense met geen geskiedenis, 'n mense met geen
erfenis, die agtergeblewenes. Die mengelmoes van geeste wat uit
sonde gebore is. En tog is dit ons almal se sonde. 'n Sonde gebore
uit liefde, maar 'n sonde ook grotendeels gebore uit angs en weemoed.
En ons moes maar leef met die melaatsheid. Maar trots het ons voorouers
bly staan. En vandag laat ons eer bring aan hulle. En hulle harte
vul met blydskap. En ons hartensverstand vul met trots en blydskap.
gemixstes
in my is geslagte van
khoi-san,
xhosa,
malei,
ingelsman,
nederlander
slaaf
ek is
slams en kris
arm en ryk
bevoorreg en verontreg
ek weet van
haat en liefde
stilswye en opstand
ek weet waar is
wetton en louw se bos
ek ken vannie
stirvie mense
ennie boeijongings
ek wiet van eeste en tweede niewejaa
wanni die klopse en nagtroepe loep
en ek wiet hoeki hulle loep.
2. Guilt
I belong to a generation of two peoples. A generation who fought
and tasted liberation and a generation who longed for the fight
and taste of liberation. Unlike many of my older contemporaries
who were stuck in the thick of the struggle, we were the young lions
who stepped to the fore in the late eighties. We heard of Operation
Vula and sniffed the last remnants of an old order crumbling. Not
many of us were detained and tortured. Not many of us held a dying
comrade in our arms. Not many of us were banned or placed under
house arrest. We never really danced with the devil, but instead
waltzed with the devil's son.
So we were there. I often ask if our contribution was any less
than that of those that came before us. And what is the purpose
of struggle? How do we comprehend the stages of struggle and what
are the variables used in analysing input into that struggle? Would
I have given my life and not tasted the fruits of freedom? Would
my soul have been satisfied looking down on this freedom and smiling,
saying a job well done? Or would it weep for those still disempowered,
not understanding that now we are no longer a liberation movement
but a government at times void of compassion? Why is it that my
generation has this guilty feeling? Like we could have and should
have done more. Or maybe all of this is in my writer's mind and
it all has to do with my guilt and me wanting to use collective
guilt to purge myself.
What are we as humans if not guilty and not standing there asking
for forgiveness? So many had the opportunity under the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission to ask for forgiveness and purge themselves
of their guilt, but chose not to. As much as we must praise the
TRC process, and while many others believe it was just a political
trade-off, that process has come and gone. The guilty still roam
in their manicured suburbs, while victims and survivors wallow in
their misery. Souls drift, many far from home as they wonder if
the gates of eternal rest will ever be opened to them. For many
families who still some days wait up in hope that their sons and
daughters will return, justice is but a figment of their imagination.
For some the word justice does not exist and it never has.
How do we move forward as a society if we can't even say we are
sorry? Say sorry to injustices perpetrated on both sides. Both the
oppressors and the liberators.
People's truth
silent landscapes
captured emotions
impatient vengeance
my truth and reconciliation
day no longer exist
laughter forces insanity to
sprout from my soul
the only rainbow I see,
are the crimson strokes of your hatred against a threatening sky
words often evade the healing powers of retribution
and sorries float away like burned ashes
my testimony needs no translation
listen to the silent cries
of a million tortured souls.
I wonder if people at times sit down and think why it is that we
are such a violent society. Why it has become so easy for people
to rape and maim our young and old. Living beings roam this land
with souls dispossessed. We are a hurt people, who have not healed,
a people who have felt pain and sorrow so long that our new democracy
and freedom is a but thinly-veiled shadow in a barren desert needing
an oasis. Such is our need.
But we are still a people with endless hope and an endless capacity
to forgive those guilty. If only they would come forth and ask for
forgiveness and remember. I cannot begin to comprehend the demons
in their dreams.
Drome is veronderstel om soet te wees. Wanneer jy jou
oë oop maak, moet jy glimlag. Maar vir hoeveel van ons landsgenote
is dit onhanteerbaar wanneer nag val en hulle alleenheid word hulle
tronk? Soos Daniël in die leeukuil. Net hierdie keer
het hulle geen geloof en God wat wag staan oor hulle nie. Net hulle
dade wat hulle najaag.
Herinneringsbrief
Graag wil ek oor berge en dale skrywe
Maar my gedagtes is net van fletse en boere
Boere ja,
Maar nie die tipe wat mielies plant nie
Meer die tipe wat ingevoer is van die Transvaal met oranje sjambokke
Die tipe wat genot put uit velle flek in die naam van wet en orde
Fletse ja,
'n Herinnering van wette ontwerp om ons in ons plek te hou
Vaal fletse, pienk fletse
Pienk boere
My gedagtes is steeds my realiteit
Die kleure nog steeds dieselfde, net 'n bietjie verkleur
Maar steeds smag ek na berge en dale
Maar dit is ons heel eerste ontneem
Daar waar orde was het chaos kom verkrag
En almal jaag om die nasie tot rus te lê
Die eerste opstandings
Die eerste struggle
Exile na die eiland
Vandag 'n poort van herinnering
'n Altaar van geheueverlies.
My guilt consumes me daily. I can only write from my own perspective.
I am a writer. I live my life by experience. I write and peddle
my tales and lace them with fiction. But mostly it is the truth.
We can, however, not go back in time and change what has been done.
The universe will not allow us to play god, even though as human
beings we believe we can and we should. We are no one's master.
We cannot enslave the human spirit. Bondage can last only as long
as these bodies we have allow our captors to keep us captive. And
even in captivity we can free our minds. In our time we have seen
so much injustice and so many justifications for that injustice.
So little guilt displayed. But the universe is funny. For it will
set out to teach lessons to the unjust and liberate the oppressed.
All in its own time though.
Through The Eye Of The Mirror
African skies thundering in silence,
Peaceful till the call from the ancestor
provokes the defiance long longest in many,
Mountain slopes once soaked with living
generations,
Torn apart by the insurance of evil,
But still it stands amidst the
yearning of a thousand souls,
This cave,
This sanctuary who has sheltered so many from,
the endless darkness, cries out, in silence ...
Through the eyes of the mirror all is not seen.
Souls rising out of the gallows of uncertainty,
Feeding one another - roaming the African soil proudly,
With fear that has been felt through the ages,
Through the eyes of the mirror all is not seen ...
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George A Hill was born in Elsies River on the Cape
Flats some 29 years ago. His formative years were spent in
Elsies River, but the family later decided to move because
of the social conditions in the township. They moved to Kuils
River, the northern part of the Cape Flats. George studied
Journalism at Peninsula Technikon. During this time he got
involved with the community radio station, Bush Radio. He
worked as a producer and later trainer at Bush. He has worked
at various media institutions, including YFM, the country's
first ever youth radio station. There he went on to become
the youngest head of news in the country and was also responsible
for web content co-ordination and the production of an hour-long
youth talk show called Youth Crossfire. He is a commentator
on youth politics and culture and has participated in many
forums. George is also a columnist and a published and performance
poet. He is currently senior producer for AM and Midday
Live on SAFM, based in Johannesburg.
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