Mr. Moody’s Mood

BaldOpinion 10
02 July 2012

I wish that I was not going to write this piece. I have to though. The subject matter is painfully close to me, maybe too emotional for me, maybe unnecessarily emotional.  You be the judge.

Nonetheless, the situation I depict is real, sad, but real, particularly as I witness the degradation setting in, the reinforcement, the acceptance… and the decline of the people from whose loins I come.

I no longer live with my disparate people, but I shall never deny who I think I am and where I come from.

The mule is an interesting animal.  It is the offspring of a donkey stallion, a jack, and a horse mare. Hinnies, however, is the opposite in that this breed is the result of a cross between a stallion horse and a donkey jennet. For ease of reference, both are described as mules.

Folklore has it that when asking the mule about its parentage it, the mule, shall refer to the horse and to the donkey only under duress. 

Stereotypes inform norms.  In this instance the norm is accepted.  The donkey is stupid and stubborn.  The horse is elegant and intelligent.  The science people write that the average donkey is more intelligent when compared to the average horse.

Cape Town is a city in South Africa – often mistakenly referred to as the Mother City. 

We were driving, and the talk was on the radio. For good reason I was extra attentive. A diuretic sounding voice told about the need to change the name from Cape Town to //Hui !Gaeb. 

The would be proposed new name has properties reminiscent of a modern day email address, yet, the name seeks to establish what, according to the diuretic speech, is the original name.

That woman was being serious.

The South African, like any other national, is a very interesting person. It is often said how complex the South African political situation is.  I can’t see the complexity, can you?

Here’s my brief interpretation of the history:

The dark-skinned people moved into the country from the North of the continent. Where was the mother city?

The fair-skinned people moved into the country mainly from the North, but via the sea and landed at one of the many capes in South Africa.

Once upon a time, a long, long… long time ago, the fair-skinned people had dark skins and lived in Africa. They left to seek whatever turned them on at the time. The result is that their skins, amongst other features, changed; because of the climate. They developed fair skins, but it took a long time.  Methuselah’s mother was probably not born, let alone pregnant, so long ago it was.  Ooh, but we ignore this because someone must have decided that the latter migration took place too long ago to matter.  I ask again, “How long is long ago?”

Okay, so, the dark-skinned folk arrived from across the land and the fair-skinned people arrived mainly from across the sea.

On arriving the fair-skinned folk met two groups who refer to themselves as Khoikhoi and Khoisan respectively. They were either hunter-gatherers, pastoralists or they were part of a nomadic group, the original farmers.

The fair-skinned people, mainly men, saw these yellow-skinned folk and traded. Over time they also exchanged bad habits, language, sex and religion.

The dark-skinned people came down from the north, across the land.  When they met the yellow skinned Khoi similar relationships to those the Khoi had with the Europeans developed. These relations included a few wars. In fact, a few wars between the Khoikhoi and the Khoisan are also recorded. 

The iconic, Nelson Mandela, is genealogically proven to be of Khoikhoi ancestry.

Over the past four centuries one group always sought to dominate, or rule another; much to the chagrin of the often small in number and therefore less powerful Khoi peoples.

Later, the fair-skinned people also fought with each other.  There were two such wars between mainly the English and the off-spring of the Dutch.  These two separate wars lasted a total of FOUR (4) years, but there were many other warring groups too. 

Due to various liaisons between the dark-skinned, yellow-skinned and fair-skinned people, a community came to be that were neither Khoi, fair-skinned, or dark skinned.  They were the left–over people, the as a result of people, the half breeds, the bastards.  All of this in a fast becoming skin-tone obsessed society where the fair skin was king.  Many groups moved closer to the big City, Cape Town.  Once there, relations between persons originating from South East Asia, Mauritius and Madagascar also influenced the emerging populace who were not strictly defined by culture and religion, but who increasingly became sub-sets of their masters, the fair-skinned persons of European decent.

Labeling continued. The only group who retained their first names were the Muslim slaves.  These people brought their own religion to the Cape, Islam. They originated from the aforesaid countries, countries that included Malaysia, hence the colloquial term referring to slaves from Malaysia, Slams(e), or Cape Malay people.

The urbanised Khoi, the left-over group, traded their identity and took on European names and surnames and mainly strove to emulate those values and the lifestyle which they observed from their masters, the European people. 

It may be near heretic for me to allege that the mule syndrome has from that time affected how this disparate group assesses itself. In my experience, when asked about his European surname the answer would often be about the German, Dutch, or English grandfather, but never about the Khoi, dark-skinned, St Helena, or slave grandmother.  It is known that the European Governments often sent errant officials to Cape Town – as a form of punishment when they were naughty. It stands to reason that these officials were errant in the Cape, far away from their bosses’ gaze.

The labeling never stopped.  The disparate group of left-over / as a result of people needed a name.  Many were embarrassed about their Khoi ancestry.  The Europeans named the Khoikhoi, “Hottentots” and the Khoisan was called “Bushman”.  The dark-skinned groups have their own derogatory name for the Khoi (Batwa, Abatwa – small person). How does “Men of Men” and “True People” compare to small person?

Then Europeans decided that the growing disparate group should be labeled differently. Plurals, mixed and then finally, the Cape Coloured became the preferred label. Fair-skinned people of European ancestry allocated the label, Coloured, and the mainly brown-skinned people accepted this definition. 

Today many of these people refer to themselves by the imposed and derogatory term, Coloured. As a person of mixed parentage I find the label Coloured to be a bastard term. It is a term used to describe those in South Africa who are in excess, as a result of people.  It is a term created by the Verwoerd Administration.  Verwoerd was the creator of apartheid, a social, political and economic system that set out to legitimize superiority amongst people as determined by the colour of their skins, shape of their noses and texture of their hair.  It is this term, “Coloured”, this bastard term that was further legitimized by the Nelson Mandela Administration and the ANC ruling party in South Africa.

South Africa continues to claim that it subscribes to the principle of non-racism. I put it to you, South Africa is more racist today than it was during the Apartheid era. In South Africa I continue to be defined by the colour of my skin. Therefore, my skin tone continues to give me discrimination in South Africa.

Meanwhile, the same practice of labeling dark-skinned groups “kaffirs” and “bantu” was dropped in favour of self-determined names like Zulu, Xhosa, Venda, Ndebele, Shangaan-Tsonga, Sotho and many more.  To use the term “kaffir” in reference to a dark-skinned person is a criminal offense in South Africa.

It is fine, even correct and legitimate to refer to people with no consistent common heritage by the derogatory mongrel term, “Coloured”.  

My view is that those who label themselves Xhosa, Zulu, Indian, Griekwa, Baster and whatever else, they should be free to do so. Those who wish not to be labeled, or who cannot be labeled, because of the disparate nature of who we are, those people should be free to be people, South African people, because we live here. Why make the blood that courses through my veins the curse of my life?

The above is reason too, why Cape Town is Cape Town, viz. it is a geographical description of the town which situate is a land formation alongside the sea described as a cape.

A long while back, whilst visiting, for inspiration (served in a bottle), I met an elderly gentleman.  He introduced himself, “I am James Edwin Moody”.  Mr. Moody was visiting the pub long before I arrived. We slowly played pool, sipped on the inspiration and then sat to enjoy more – others told their spouses of the “book club meeting” they were attending, so the discussions were varied.  Mr. Moody and I, a few others, we sat aside and spoke about that, this, music of course and other world problems that as the evening grew a beard we became more inspired to define.

My name was asked, the genealogy questioned and I answered. 

Said Mr. Moody,   “St Helena, your Mum is St Helenian?”; …he wore a wry smile and gently said “Once I had a girlfriend from that West Coast Island, Saint Helena; they look similar to Indian folk, those people, islanders…”. “Not my mother”, I thought. My mother would be too old for this Moody, but age assessed against an indigenous skin is often deceptive. (At 90, my mother only has a small clutch of grey hairs.)

The discussion roamed from this, to that, the music, always the music, and back to the meaning of being classified “Coloured”; or “so-called Coloured”, said Mr. Moody as he readies to tell about his great grandfather who worked for an English gentleman in Constantia, “up where they grow a fine vine, near Cape Town”. This landlord wore the last name, Moody.  Later the workers each took this name to define where they lived, worked and in some instances, because that person owned them. It is with pride that Mr. Moody’s Dad named him after the English farmer… “You see, that is how I got my name”.

With reference to the Jamie Uys film, The Gods Must Be Crazy, Mr. Moody said, “Today I may look like Dawid Kruiper (http://www.google.co.za/#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=dawid+kruiper+pictures&oq=dawid+kruiper+pictures&gs_l=hp.3...4349.11362.0.12096.22.22.0.0.0.0.576.6009.3-1j5j6.12.0...0.0.7IMpeDo8Gw8&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=ef3e47e2b0254e7b&biw=1093&bih=521) though my name represents nothing of where I come from. I wonder whether Dawid Kruiper’s name resonates with where he comes from…” I remember the sudden somber turn of that discussion.

 I sat, listening, and the moment clouded me too. I know that change is permanent; that a better tomorrow is not possible if we hanker after a near past - a past that is riddled with dispossession, displacement, robbery, rape, pillaging and so-called philanthropy. What merit is there should Mr. Moody have changed his name to //Xegwi, or if the vexed woman of the radio talk too, changes her name?

“Oh what the hell”, said Mr. Johnson (another of the long time visitors who had joined us earlier),”let’s have another round of inspiration boys - and James, play that piece, the one,…. the one with you, where you sound like a murder of crows being helped along by that most beautiful woman…, what is the piece called?”

 We each had a stab at guessing, but all were wrong.

“Moody’s Mood!” shouted Mr. Ngcukana whilst leaning over to take aim on the pool table.  He had been listening to the discussion all the while, said “If there’s a cloud up above us now, go on and let it rain…” I sensed he too was a tad sad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ4xFBs08mQ&feature=fvwrel

Mr. James Moody died in December 2010 – he was 85.