The White African

[Note: I started writing this entry on Saturday, July 31, 2010.]
[Note: I hope you'll accept that I am writing through many thoughts that I might normally keep to myself or whisper quietly to a select few friends. But it is only by putting these ideas out there and hoping that you will help me process them so that I can grow. HELP ME.]

I just got home from watching 'Mugabe and the White African,' a documentary about a family of white farmers who took Robert Mugabe to court over his racist land reform policy that resulted in the seizures of white-owned farms. The two protagonists were Mike Campbell, owner of Mount Carmel Farm, and his son-in-law Ben Freeth. The documentary put a human face on the land redistribution issue that I've read about for the past several years. It was a heartbreaking story of two people who were not only fighting for their right to their home, but for the right to be citizens within their own country. The policy was about land, but the issue was manipulating race to retain and gain power.

There was one part of the film that lasted only, maybe, 30 seconds, but really hit me. Freeth said a white American wouldn't be questioned about being American; a white Australian wouldn't be questioned about being Australian, so why is a white African questioned about being African? The concept of white Africans is something with which I have a hard time rationalizing/understanding/accepting. This might be a very superficial way of thinking of Africa, that it can only be black (though I don't have an issue accepting the national identity of Indians, Coloureds, etc. who live here; this is another issue that requires further consideration. It either means that I categorize all persons of color, or at least all who live in South Africa, as one group, or I don't have a problem accepting them as South Africans because their historic existence here, as far as I know, was not catastrophic for and traumatizing to the native population). But it also is rooted in looking at what white Africans have done to Africa, to black Africa. It is hard to look at the atrocities that were perpetrated all over the continent and think, 'It was a good thing that Europeans emigrated here and decided to make it their home.'

When Freeth framed the issue as he did, I realized that I have no right to question his national identity, just as I feel no one has the right to question my own. This was a bizarre revelation for me considering how I usually think about issues of identity, or at least how I thought I did. Your identity is your own and all I can, and should, do is respect that. Live and let live. Yet for some reason I look out and feel that I have the authority to judge whether or not the ethnic and national identities of white Africans are valid. Frankly, who the heck do I think I am? If I were having a conversation with me about this, I would be very frustrated, maybe even infuriated. And that's pretty much what is happening in my own head.

Again, I think this relates back to my failure to truly consider and grapple with my own role and place and identity in America. In the U.S., my interaction with Native Americans, the peoples who were originally on the land I claim as my own, is, as my dad put it, invisible. I don't know when I interact with someone who has suffered because of the decision by a few Europeans to make this land their home. I don't have to think about the people whose livelihoods and cultures were decimated by the people on the Mayflower or the Founding Fathers. These people are invisible, in the sense that it is not possible to know who is who of the people I interact with every day at home. In South Africa, at least in Cape Town, it is impossible to walk around and not be confronted by the people who called this place home first. Being in South Africa forces me to consider issues that are present in the U.S., but can be ignored. But with this fresh perspective, what can or should I do upon returning home? I can read some books (Alyssa, what's that book you read about the impact of the colonization of the Americas on the indigenous population? I think it was a one-word title, like 'Plague.') and learn more about the reality of how I came to be where I am and what my resident location means for the descendants of those who were here before my ancestors. But then what? [Comments encouraged.]

Another issue related to the ideas of national identity and national unity is when does the past stop defining how the present is understood. Does this ever stop? Should this ever stop? Is it fair for me to define young Afrikaaners I meet today by the actions of their great-great-great grandparents or even their parents? Because that is essentially what I am doing. The mindset I apply to some current issues in South Africa is old. It was true then, but not necessarily now. But should the old truth be forgotten? Does the new truth negate the old one, even if the impact of the old is still present now? Lots of questions to which I do not have the answers. Yet. I'm working on it.

After the movie, I got a ride home from a friend of K who joined us for the film. I mostly kept quiet in the backseat while K and her friend discussed the message of the movie. I find it difficult to have real conversations with most people here. I think it's a mixture of my lack of trust and keeping myself behind a wall and the fact that most people I fraternize with here are friends of convenience, not substance. But that is neither here nor there. K talked about how she doesn't understand why Campbell, Freeth and their families stayed on the farm in the face of constant threats, including actually being abducted and severely beaten, when they could have just left, they could have given up. In my opinion, K clearly wasn't listening to what these people were saying. They were not fighting for themselves, but for a cause, for their countrymen, for their country. They knew that their case, if the SADC court ruled in their favor, would set a precedent for Zimbabwe and all members of SADC. That the case would set a precedent against policies committed by governments against a certain race. That the case would affirm their right to their home, land, citizenship as white Africans in predominately black Africa. They were fighting for a cause in which they believed. Perhaps this message was compounded by the epic story that is Nelson Mandela's autobiography, which I am still reading, and his never ending commitment to the struggle, even in the face of incarceration and the threat of death. But I also believe in fighting for a cause, fighting for something bigger than yourself, fighting for the good of all, fighting for what's right even when it's not easy. Perhaps I'm an optimist. Perhaps I can romanticize this sentiment because I have sacrificed little to nothing for the causes I care about. I'd like to think that my resolve would stand and remain firm even in the face of obstacles. It was extremely frustrating and disheartening to hear K and her friend support the easy way out, to just give up and move on. It is sentiments like these that hinder the great wheel of progress of moving forward. Wow, I sound self-righteous.

K also mentioned how the ending of the film - SPOILER ALERT: despite Campbell and Freeth winning their court case, Mugabe's thugs burnt their farm to the ground and they lost everything - discouraged her interest in a career in law. It had the opposite effect for me. The fact that the rule of law was upheld and that practicing law can influence and force changes to policy is incredibly attractive to me. I hate how many grad school options there are.