INGE ENGELBRECHT

Ek vind “Kleurling” (mét of sonder hoofletter) ’n nare woord, met plantasie- en koloniale bysmake – en dalk nie eers goeie Afrikaans nie, ’n geïmponeerde woord; en ek verkies die woord “bruinmens” wat ek as kind uit die mond van die bruinmense self leer gebruik het. En bruin self, as kleur, is sekerlik nie iets leliks nie. Anders, waarom sou ons dit só met braai-in-die-son probeer verkry?

N.P. van Wyk Louw, Voorwoord van Die opkoms van ons derde stand (1960:vi).

Van Wyk Louw is of course guilty of hypocrisy here, for while rejecting the one term as being racist, he has no qualms about substituting an equally obnoxious one.

Vernon February, Mind your Colour, The ‘Coloured’ Stereotype in South African Literature (1981:7).

There’s a coloured mindset we can’t deny, repeat Pastor Seekoei se statement weer in my kop. The koortjie is now being used as a means to keep that narrative going, het hy continue. Hierdie mindset statement bly my by. Dis bold. Dis harsh. Dit meen om te offend, dink ek, om te challenge. Dit is clearly ’n issue. En wat van “that narrative”? Pastor imply dat die coloured complicit daarin is om ’n tipe negatiewe narrative wat oor hom exist te perpetuate en niks regtig doen om dit te correct of mitigate nie. Miskien is my interpretation van Pastor se statement ’n leap. Maybe is my reading van sy statement tinged met sy stem vanuit ’n ander setting.

Ek het intussen Pastor se self-published boek Coloured… To be or not to be? “That is the question” (2019) begin lees. Die cover page was vir my curious. Die play op Hamlet se opening frase van die famous soliloquy in die titel van die boek is ietwat bizarre. Ook, die manier hoe die titel op die cover page geskryf is, is unusual: die vraagteken na to be or not to be en die quotation marks rondom that’s the question. Hoekom alleenlik daardie frase? Die unusual leestekens van die cover page sou ek egter deurgaans in die boek oplet. Dit is heel moontlik ’n device vir emphasis, of ’n authorial choice. Die boek deal essentially met wat dit beteken om coloured te wees, uit Pastor se perspective. Met chapter headings soos Who are These Coloureds and Where Have They Come From?, en What Mixed “Race”? en Being Coloured attempt die boek om issues rondom colouredness te address, onder andere, die apartheid assignation van die term, die supposed racial en cultural history van die coloured, die in-between status van coloureds in die historically swart/wit binary van die Suid-Afrikaanse paradigm van ras, die “mixed-ness” van die coloured mense en, natuurlik, die mindset van coloureds vandag. Die way hoe Connie en Mariana hierdie boek aan my promote het, het my laat consider dat die boek ’n interessante aanslag tot colouredness sou hê, veral in terme van hoe colouredness in die koortjie ge-articulate word.

Ek was aanvanklik excited om die boek te lees, veral na my ontmoeting met Pastor by die pre-book launch. Ek was baie impressed met die man, bietjie intimidated deur sy stature en booming stem – sy presence demand attention – maar fascinated deur hoe uitgesproke hy is oor controversial issues wat ek ook interessant vind. Sy reputation as skrywer, musician, producer en pioneer in die local music industry het hom precede, en nou het ek die man in die flesh ontmoet; hy het die hele space van daai sitkamer ge-occupy. Maar daardie boek. Ek onthou nou hoe die boek my actually gevex het. Dit het my ongemaklik gemaak, die goed wat gesê word oor coloureds en colouredness. Die boek het gelees soos ’n certain historical truth wat relay word, maar is ook deurtrek met anger en resentment en soms sarkasme. Dit was vir my ’n moeilike read. Ek kon nie die man met hierdie boek vereenselwig nie, maar tog kon ek ook, in retrospect. Die man by die pre-launch was ’n radical voice, maar controlled, respectful, wise met hoe en wat hy sê, met wat hy uit die forthcoming book share. Die een in hierdie boek is unkind, disrespectul, sarkasties, accusing. Ek was ietwat disenchanted gelaat deur die conflicting personas waarmee ek geconfront is.

Die bladsye lyk soos ’n one-sided dialoog tussen my en Simon Khoi Seekoei (soos sy naam op die cover van die boek verskyn), ’n dialoog wat vanuit die margins van die boek in die vorm van geel highlights en poltood comments en uitroeptekens en vraagtekens emerge. My comments in die boek lyk defensive, cross-questioning pastor Seekoei se soms highly problematic assertions. Ek defend die mense van wie hy in die boek praat fiercely, maar het hulle my defense nodig? Daar is ook ’n distancing in die manier waarop Pastor oor coloured mense skryf en in hoe ek hulle defend, asof ons albei van ’n soort homogenous groep praat waarvan ons nie deel is nie en in wie se tradisies ons nie share nie, maar as outsiders wat uit twee opposing stances kommentaar lewer. Dit is ’n snaakse ding om dit nou op die bladsye te sien uitspeel.

Unexpectedly, begin die eerste hoofstuk getiteld From Africa With Love met ’n quote deur die Amerikaanse aktrise Halle Berry. “I have decided early in my life not to be mulatto”, en hier add Pastor self in die middel van haar quote in hakies (Coloured) by, “and I do not want to be caught in the middle, not knowing whether I am black or white … I am black”.^{[1]Die dialoog vir hierdie gedeelte is gebaseer op die hoofstuk getiteld From Africa With Love, (Seekoei, 2019:19-57).}

Ek het dalk die comment meer vir Halle as vir Pastor geskryf.

Pastor clarify sy gebruik van die term coloured wat dwarsdeur die boek gesien sal word, ’n term wat hy “a very contentious one” noem.

Hy maak die reader daarop attent dat elke keer wanneer hulle die term coloured lees, “please know that I actually mean – those who were made Coloureds by apartheid and are for one or the other inexplicable reason still being kept Coloured by the-powers-that-be”.

Ek blaai na bladsy 214. My potloodsterretjie in die margin is langs die sin “We need to create a new system driven by ourselves, a system that makes Coloured people first nation people, and makes them think like modern indigenous people should […], not a so-called ethnic black one of which there is no trace in history”.

Ek onthou al hoe meer hoekom die boek my so ge-exasperate het. Ek blaai terug na die begin van die eerste hoofstuk. Pastor clarify dan verder sy view oor coloureds en colouredness.

I must put it on record though for those who may not know, that so-called Colouredness was never something that was gladly embraced by all Coloureds.

It was a yoke grudgingly tolerated by many Coloureds who understood its underlying nuances just too well, especially its apartheid term of reference, i.e. “lesser than white but different than black”.

Grudgingly tolerated. I get that. Die racial en cultural history van coloured Suid-Afrikaners is ’n complicated een. Dit is moeilik om te praat van ’n spesifieke history van die coloured mense in Suid-Afrika juis omdat die coloured population uit ’n diverse groep mense met origins in verskillende dele van die wêreld bestaan (Nilsson, 2016:28). Pastor glo vas in die Africanness van coloureds, though. “I firmly believe that having been birthed on African soil from its very origin, Coloureds are just as African as all the other Africans, and also indigenous. I repeat Coloureds are African and indigenous, and I’ll tell you why”.

Pastor verskaf ’n definisie van die term indigenous. “Indigenous peoples, also known as first peoples, aboriginal peoples or native peoples, are ethnic groups who are the original settlers of a given region, in contrast to groups that have settled, occupied or colonised the area more recently”. En dan skryf hy: “Now let’s look at the definition of an African”. Pastor define African deur Wikipedia te quote: “Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: People who are native to Africa, descendants or native of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa. (Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia)”, gevolg deur “Need I say more?”.

Soos pastor Seekoei (2019:88), contend verskeie historici en navorsers dat groot dele van die population van coloured mense uit kontak en interaction tussen die Khoi- en San-mense, die European settlers en slawe wat deur die VOC (Verenigde Oos-Indiese Kompanjie) vanaf Oos-Afrika en Indonesië ingevoer is, stam (Johnson, 2004:33; Thompson, 2014:6). Historian Mohamed Adhikari (2005:1) contextualise die complex origin van die coloured groep as volg:

The Coloured people are descended largely from Cape slaves, the indigenous Khoisan population and other people of African and Asian origin who had been assimilated to Cape colonial society by the late nineteenth century. Being also partly descended from European settlers, coloureds are popularly regarded as being of “mixed race” and have held an intermediate status in the South African racial hierarchy, distinct from the historically dominant white minority and the numerically preponderent African population.

In die magistertesis getiteld Borderline (2004) maak William Dicey van die vroeë description van die coloured persoon wat in die Pensioenwet van 1928 gevind kan word. Hier word die coloured persoon define as iemand wat: nie (a) ’n Turk of member van ’n ras of tribe in Asië is nie, en ook nie (b) ’n lid van ’n aboriginal ras of tribe in Afrika is nie, en ook nie (c) ’n Hottentot, Boesman of Koranna nie, en ook nie (d) ’n persoon wat in ’n indigenous setting woon nie, en ook nie ’n Amerikaanse neger is nie (Dicey, 2004:93). Volgens die Bevolkingsregistrasiewet no. 30 van 1950 is ’n coloured persoon (letterlik in die Afrikaanse version van die wet as “gekleurde” record) eenvoudig ’n persoon wat nie wit of swart is nie (Die Unie van Suid-Afrika Staatskoerant, 1950:3). Die term coloured en die notion van wat ’n coloured persoon werklik is, kan dus gesien word as constructed uit “conceptual or discursive elements that have crystalized through the genealogies of competing religious, scientific, and political ideologies and projects” (Blum, 2015:300), keeping in mind Suid-Afrika se history met slawerny, apartheid en missionary influences. Politikus en predikant Allan Hendrickse bespreek die term coloured as volg (Venter, 1974:5):

The term Coloured is not of our own thinking, and if we look at the circumstances of the South African situation then you must ask why. We have no peculiar colour, we have no peculiar language and if other people see these peculiarities they see them not because they see them but because they want other people to see them … I do not want to be labelled Coloured … all I want to be known as is South African.

Pastor Seekoei skryf oor hoe ridiculous dit is om hierdie tag van coloured nog steeds in post-apartheid Suid-Afrika te dra en verstaan nie die redes hoekom die huidige government nie hierdie “apartheid accessory” van ‘ons’ wil remove nie. “As far as I am concerned”, meen Pastor,

Colouredness itself was but an illusion anyway – and I give my reasons in this book. It was but a concoction of the former National Party and colonisation that is currently falling apart at the seams, and it should.

Its web of hallucinations are being undone by the incontestable truth that there is only one “race” on earth – the human “race”. So how can anyone be mixed thus Coloured?

Illusion. Concoction. Web of hallucinations. Dit is ’n compelling beskrywing van hoe colouredness amper ’n air van artificiality aanneem, iets wat nooit exist het nie, wat ’n figment van ons imaginations was en steeds is. Die standpunt wat Pastor inneem dat colouredness ’n illusion is, of dalk meer spesifiek die rejection van coloured identity, is die standpunt wat deur non-racialists al in die vroeë 60s adopted is (Adhikari, 2008:79). Mohamed Adhikari vertel in From Narratives of Miscegenation to Post-Modernist Re-Imagining: Toward a Historiography of Coloured Identity in South Africa (2008) van sy eie ervaringe met die issues rondom coloured identity in die tagtigerjare en later. Adhikari trace die changing interpretations van die nature van coloured identity en die history van die coloured community in Suid-Afrika in beide popular thinking asook die akademie (Adhikari, 2008:77): “Ever since its emergence in the late nineteenth century Coloured identity, its nature and the implications it holds for South African society, have nevertheless been subject of ideological and political contestation” (Adhikari, 2008:78). Die aard van coloured identity het intensify in die afgelope dekades, noem Adhikari, veral na die popularisation van coloured rejectionism in die wake van die Soweto uprising in 1976, en teen die mid-1980s het issues rondom coloured identity acutely politicised geword (Adhikari, 2008:78).

By the end of the decade any recognition of Coloured identity as social reality, especially if done publicly, was likely to be condemned as a concession to apartheid thinking, if not rejected outright as racist. Given the inflamed emotions of the time and the passionate idealism of many that a non-racial, egalitarian society was attainable, the line that Coloured identity did not really exist except as a fiction created and nurtured by white supremacists was an understandable reaction both to apartheid and to the stigma historically attached to Colouredness.

Adhikari voer later ook aan dat die nature van coloured identity vanaf sy inception in die laat 19de eeu ’n emotive issue was en die politiek daar rondom acutely contested was (Adhikari, 2013:xxii).

Also, controversy around coloured identity has tended to escalate through the 20th century, especially from the late 1970s onwards, because new understandings of the identity were not compatible with more conservative and accommodationist political and ideological agendas within the community.

Dit is daarom dat colouredness ’n “site of struggle” geword het, meen Adhikari, en “interpretations of the identity and its history a weapon in the battle for people’s hearts and minds in the fight against apartheid” (Adhikari, 2013:xxii). Pastor Seekoei se impassioned stance in hierdie boek is ’n refleksie van wat Adhikari bespreek. Dit voel egter vir my of die boek behind the times is since hierdie spesifieke issues oor colouredness alreeds in die 90s en vroeë 2000s geaddresseer is (sien Adhikari, 1991, 2005, 2008, 2013; Erasmus, 2001, 2020; Hendricks, 2005; Wicomb, 1998). Pastor noem egter in die boek dat nie alle coloureds die term offensive vind nie. Ek het eers gedink dis ’n tipe concession of rethinking aan Pastor se kant, maar ek was verkeerd (Seekoei, 2019:20).

There are others for who it always was, still is, and I guess may always be, very important to continue to be Coloured for whatever their reasons may be. And that is their right of course. But it must be very “private” reasons indeed, because Colouredness is definitely not serving the best interests of us as a collective across the nation.

Pastor clarify nooit regtig wat hierdie best interests entail nie. Wat van die AfriKaaps movement, en die kletsrym genre, en Nathan Trantaal, Chase Rhys en Ronelda Kamfer, wonder ek. Maar Pastor is tog reg, nie alle coloureds het ’n probleem met die term coloured nie. Cecilia Jacobs bespreek in Fault Lines: a primer on race, science and society (2020) hierdie issue op ’n intergenerational vlak. In ‘Race’ by Any Other Name Would Smell (nog ’n Shakespeare reference) skryf Jacobs hoe sy immersed was in haar dogter, wat in die laat 80s gebore is, se process van die reclaiming van die term coloured (Jacobs, 2020:229). “She pointed out”, vertel Jacobs van haar dogter, that of the four apartheid racial categories, the label “coloured” was the only one that has been consistently challenged as unacceptable. This she ascribed, in part, to imperialism and the discomfort felt in the United States with the term because of its associations there, which is quite unrelated to the South African context. Rejecting the term, in her opinion, had two consequences: a second erasure of a culture built in spite of colonialism and racial subjugation, and the denial of even the possibility of reclamation.

Om haar argument te bolster, het die dogter verwysing gemaak na wat sy consider deel van die coloured experience is, soos ’n sense of pride in die kos, die mense, die intergenerational overcoming, die taal, die rituals, die rites of passage, en heritage, “both erased and rebuilt, often in the margins of society” (Jacobs, 2020:230). Deur die validity van die term te refuse, het haar dogter ge-argue, word ’n vorm van healing vir die coloured groep prevent. “I will not deprive myself of all this because the word does not sit lekker in some intellectuals’ mouths”, het sy insist (Jacobs, 2020:230). Sy beskou haarself coloured.

Because I AM a coloured woman. Because I am comfortable with it, fortified by it and driven for it. It isn’t a dirty word for me. It isn’t an imposed word for me. It is a word of immense power and narrative substance. My mother, my grandmother were denied basic human rights for being coloured women, and tossing it aside when my family and people rise despite it and fall because of it, is an insult to my history.

Ek verstaan deels die reticence wat pastor Seekoei en Cecilia Jacobs en ander oor die aanvaarding van die term coloured het. Dit het vir diegene wat vir dekades daarmee onder apartheid moes saamleef ’n violent en degrading connotation. Maar ek sal dit ook nooit volkome begryp nie, want soos Jacobs se dogter wat in die 80s gebore is, is ek ook van ’n ander generasie wat anders dink oor colouredness, oor coloured identity, waar dit nou meer oor representation en self-definition en reclamation gaan as ’n forced designation van ’n dominant oppressive hand. Dit is dus vir my wat Zimitri Erasmus ’n vorm van ’n “making and remaking” (Erasmus, 2001:16) van coloured identity noem wat ons as ’n collective en individue vir onsself kies. Erasmus examine hierdie complicated en uncomfortable meanings wat rondom coloured identities bestaan in die boek Coloured by history, shaped by place: new perspectives on coloured identities in Cape Town (2001). Hierin endeavour Erasmus om die idee van wat dit beteken om coloured in post-apartheid Suid-Afrika te wees, te rethink. Sy state dat “Blackness, whiteness, and colouredness exist, but they are cultural, historical, and political identities” (Erasmus, 2001:14). Erasmus state ook dat die formation van coloured identities nie oor race mixture gaan nie en aangesien cultural formations die borrowing van verskeie cultural forms behels, alle identities as “culturally hybrid” gesien of gelees kan word (Erasmus, 2001:16). Daarom kan coloured identities as culturally hybrid conceive word, eerder as bloot in terme van “race mixture” of “miscegenation” (Erasmus, 2001:16).

Ek onthou nou Connie (2022) se take op die term coloured en colouredness.

… elke generation, omdat ôs debate elke kee… is ôs nou coloureds of nie… die reality vannie saak is die: ôs is wat ôs is. Dis wat ôs is. Ma elke generation wil ôs define van een angle af. En selfs die Khoisan wamien ek grootgewôd het, kan nie die enigste definition issie want ôs moet honest is in die gesprek. Vestaan. Da issie mee net dai nie. Tog is dai die primary… ma da is ’n klomp secondary. En dis, dis vi my complexity wanne ’n klomp simple goed bymekaar kom. […] Ma ôs kan ôssie mee van dai angle (Khoisan) af define nie, want colouredness happened.

Pastor Seekoei address die issue van race mixture in die hoofstuk What Mixed “Race”?.^{[2]Die dialoog vir hierdie gedeelte is gebaseer op die hoofstuk getiteld What Mixed “Race”?, (Seekoei, 2019:88-111).} Hy vertel hoe hy oor die jare die land getravel het “to get a national perspective on this Coloured issue”. Op sy pad het hy mense uit “other black communities” ontmoet wie hy gedink het coloureds was, “but to my surprise and amazement, were not. However, they were at peace with themselves living as normal functioning members of those communities”.

“It sure didn’t look like they were missing out on whatever it is that supposedly makes Coloured people ‘different’ from other blacks”. Pastor klink amper flummoxed deur hierdie ostensible anomaly. “Clearly, whatever has happened to make some Coloureds feel so out of place in Africa has not happened to them”. Apartheid happened to them!, wil ek interject.

Pastor gaan voort met sy besware oor die “mixed-race” issue: hoe kan ‘coloureds’ bestaan as daar dan so baie ‘mixed’ groepe in ander Afrikalande ook is? Die coloureds van Suid-Afrika is dan net bloot African, nie coloured nie. Dit voel ek lees heeltyd dieselfde stellings oor en oor.

So how can so-called “mixed-race” people in other African countries simply be Africans if “mixed-ness” automatically takes your indigenousity “out of the game”? If that were true, those people so obviously “mixed” should automatically have been Coloured in every sense that Colouredness can be defined, not so? Clearly Colouredness must’ve been “custom-made” for apartheid purposes.

Adhikari noem dat omdat coloureds historically as ’n “mixed race” regarded was, hulle ’n “intermediate status” in die Suid-Afrikaanse racial hierarchy beklee het (Adhikari, 2005:1). Edouard Glissant refer na hierdie phenomenon as ’n voorbeeld van ’n “cornered community” (Glissant, 1989:103).^{[3]“Where the absence of a preexisting cultural hinterland does not allow a people to take cover in a cultural underground and where an autonomous system of production has no longer been maintained, the tragedy begins. The maternal oral language is repressed or crushed by the official language, even and especially when the latter tends to become the natural language. That is a case of what I call a ‘cornered’ community” (Glissant, 1989:103).} Hierdie idee van ’n cornered community het bygedra tot die notion van die “in-betweenness” van not belonging binne Suid-Afrika se swart/wit binary paradigma van ras. Homi Bhabha state dat “the coloured South African subject represents hybridity, a difference ‘within’, a subject that inhabits the rim of an ‘in-between’ reality” (Bhabha, 1994:2). Soos reeds genoem, word coloured mense se origins historically gelink met die shame van miscegenation (Van der Ross, 1979; February, 1981, 1988; Goldin, 1987; Adhikari, 1992, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2017; Wicomb, 1998, 2001; Erasmus, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2010; 2020; Martin, 1999), en is die groep gesien as “produced and re-produced in the place of the margin” (Erasmus, 2001:23), wat gecontribute het tot “dominant powers [designating] coloured people throughout South African history as peripheral” (Jorritsma, 2011:12). In Shame and identity; the case of the coloured in South Africa skryf Zoe Wicomb (1998:100):

…shame for our origins of slavery, shame for the miscegenation, and shame, as colonial racism became institutionalized, for being black, so that with the help of our European names we have lost all knowledge of our Xhosa, Indonesian, East African, or Khoi origins.

Pastor se view oor hierdie onderwerp concur ietwat met Wicomb s’n.

And it is a shame that some Coloureds are quite fine being “lesser” than white, as long as they are considered or rather consider themselves “better” than black. To be “lesser” than white doesn’t bother them at all. In fact, in their weird world they actually see it as a compliment; as long as they can be “better” than black. What an illogical and sad state to be in.

Bhabha meen dat die in-between spaces waar coloureds hulself historically bevind “provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood – singular or communal – that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself” (Bhabha, 1994:2). Dit sluit aan by Erasmus se idee van die rethinking, making en remaking van colouredness (Erasmus, 2001:16), en praat teen Pastor se eendimensionele view dat colouredness nie die “best interests of us as a collective across the nation” serve nie. Erasmus argue dan ook dat coloured identities “cultural formations born of appropriation, dispossession and translation in the colonial encounter” is en insist dat coloured identity is “made and remade by Coloured people themselves to give meaning to their everyday lives” (Erasmus, 2001:16). Dit bevestig essentially dat daar agentskap by hierdie kultuurgroep is om hul eie culture en identity te define en uit te lewe. Dit is dus ’n process van “the primacy of Coloured agency in the making of their own identity” (Adhikari, 2008:14).

“Coloured waters anyway run so ‘deep’”, meen pastor Seekoei, “you cannot become a Coloured just because you ‘look’ like a Coloured; however a Coloured must ‘look’ for you (hoe ‘n Coloured ookal vir jou moet lyk). In the end, Colouredness may all actually come down to a matter of ‘personal definition’”.

Toe ek laas met Connie en Mariana gesels het, het hulle my vertel van hul unieke vorm van ethnic awareness en die realiteit waarin hulle grootgeword het wat daarin result het dat hulle colouredness vir hulself moes en kon define. … ôs het consciously grootgewôd met die Khoisan philosophy, het Mariana gesê, en ôs is deel vannie Khoisan. Ma ek het vroeg oek bewus, was ek bewus dat ôs is amal coloureds ma ôs is different. Connie (2022) se ervaring met colouredness was seemingly meer problematies. Ek het vi jare gebattle met die colouredness (issue), was sy take, because ek mean ôs is met ’n consciousness van Khoisan grootgemaak. […] en die hele ding van ons is ie First Nation. Ôs het ’n bestaansreg nog voor ôs nog enigiets gedoen het. Ôs is vannie grond. Mariana (2022) het conclude:

My oupa en my ouma was baie swart, nuh… my ouma is ’n Mosambieker se nageslag. […] And we also knew my oupa […] is ’n Tswana en ’n Khoi-vrou se kind… […] so when it comes to colouredness, I cannot relate wanting to come from a wit antie en goed because my oupa was voluit baie dominant in sy household.

In die hoofstuk Some Offshoots of Colouredness skryf pastor Seekoei oor die issue van ‘wannabeism’, ostensibly ’n issue van “general colouredness”.^{[4]Die dialoog vir hierdie gedeelte is gebaseer op die hoofstuk getiteld Some Offshoots of Colouredness (Seekoei, 2019:192-210).} “I’m not sure if it is still around though – will be real unwise if it is – although I guess there must still be some offshoots of it floating around here and there in the Coloured milieu”. Pastor define wannabeism uit een of ander dictionary wat hy nie reference nie as “Trying to fit in with a particular group of people”. Hy continue dan onmiddellik met ’n clarification. “In this case, we’re talking about Coloureds who’ve always tried their darndest best to be accepted by whites in the white world”. In 1981 het Vernon February die term “play whites” gebruik om hierdie phenomenon te beskryf en verduidelik die complex implication van hierdie act (February, 1981:11).

Since colour plays such an important role in South Africa, some ‘coloureds’ often try to cross the colour line and pass themselves off as whites. They are generally referred to as ‘play-whites’ or people who are ‘trying for white’. There is a term known as ‘venstertjies kyk’ (lit. looking in the windows, pretending to window shop). This happens when coloured friends or relatives see other ‘coloureds’ approaching who are ‘play-whites’. They pretend to do window-shopping in order not to embarrass the person(s) or relative(s) in question.

Pastor verduidelik hoe slawe en later coloureds onder apartheid wat ligter velkleure gehad het, destyds beter as dié met donker velle getreat is. Hierdie act het soms na wannabeism gelei, meen hy. “And some of those who ‘qualified’ eventually created almost a subclass in Colouredness, and might perhaps have instigated what used to be called the notorious right-hair-and-complexion syndrome that sporadically raised its ugly head…”^{[5]Kyk Erasmus (1997) en Walker (2013).}

Zimitri Erasmus brei uit oor die velkleur issue wat “at the heart of coloured identity formation” is (Erasmus, 2001:24), en antwoord partly my vraag.

… dark skin and kinky hair are the markings of coloureds constructed as ‘other coloured’, inferior or lower class. These excluding relations are reflections of unresolved internal contradictions at the heart of coloured identity formation. Living with these contradictions is part of the pain of being coloured.

“Ultimately”, gaan pastor Seekoei verder met hierdie issue, “they went to such lengths in the hope that one day the whites were finally going to ‘come to their senses’, and accept that those ‘wannabes’ should not have been counted as Coloureds in the first place because they were actually just like whites”.

Pastor gaan voort.

Some “wannabes” even spoke Afrikaans or English with a distinctive white accent. And when a Coloured from “lower down” the ranks perhaps married a “wannabe”, you’d probably hear his or her mother say: “Hmmmh, my son/daughter is now mos” also “In the rankings and I just have to watch my step. I don’t want him/her to be ashamed of me”. Meaning that in a general Coloured way of thinking, those children have moved “higher up” in whatever it was they’ve thought they were moving “higher up” in at the time.

Mohamed Adhikari omskryf Pastor se wannabeism as ’n “white-mindedness” en elucidate hierdie issue (2005:11).

Their assimilationism, together with the insecurities engendered by their intermediate status, meant that in daily life the most consistent – and insistent – element in the expression of Coloured identity was an association with whiteness and a concomitant distancing from Africanness, whether in the value placed on fair skin and straight hair, in the prizing of white ancestors in the family lineage, or in taking pride in the degree to which they were able to conform to the standards of Western bourgeois culture. This ‘white-mindedness’, as one commentator referred to it, could give rise to a sense of shame with regard to any personal associations with blackness or an aggressive bigotry towards Africans.

Pastor allude deurgaans in die hoofstuk na die complicity van die coloureds in hul eie fate deur die act van embracing die futility van wannabeism. Hy appraise die ostensibly ludicrous behaviour van die so-called wannabes.

Thus regardless of the fact that “wannabes” suffered just as severely under the brutal boot of oppression as the other blacks, “wannabes” always had an attitude of supposed superiority that I’ve always considered rather comical and meaningless, for all practical intents and purposes, and actually embarrassing.

In Eoan, Assimilation, and the Charge of ‘Coloured Culture’ (2018) skryf Mia Pistorius onder andere oor die biological traits wat coloured mense unsuitable gerender het vir Westerse cultural practice. “A product of apartheid thinking, it sought racial essence where none could be found: colouredness as a construct precluded the reductive mapping of culture onto skin” (Pistorius, 2018:407). Pastor sou later in ’n interview noem dat dit donker gesigte soos dié van Sidney Poitier en Mohamed Ali was wat hom gehelp het om vrede te maak met sy eie donker complexion, of sy swartgeid, soos hy gesê het. Ek was ie swatste in ie klas, ma ek was ie slimste, het hy strained gegiggel (Seekoei, 2021).

Dit is clearly ’n moeilike topic vir Pastor. Dit is ’n moeilike topic vir elke persoon wat hom-/haarself as coloured beskou, net op verskillende vlakke, depending op die shade van jou velkleur, die texture van jou hare en jou level of acceptance van jou voorkoms. Erasmus (2001:25) verskaf ’n panacea-esque response oor die pyn wat met hierdie issues gepaardgaan met verwysing na Paul Gilroy se boek The Black Atlantic (Gilroy, 1993:120-145).

The decision to acknowledge the act of living with complicity means that all black South Africans have to forgo certain claims, for example, the moral authority based on blackness, Africanness or indigenous-ness. It calls for a new kind of politics premised not on “who we are” but on “what we do” with “who we are”. This means a shift of focus from “who you are” in terms of fixed categories, and “what you look like” in terms of skin colour to “what you do”, more specifically, “what you do” with your identities, and “where you’re at”.

In die slotparagraaf van die hoofstuk maak Pastor ’n final comment directed towards die wannabes as nie great South Africans nie en imply Pastor dat hy hulle nie vriende kan noem nie.

There are of course many Coloureds who have never been plagued by such silly notions and petty nonsense. They were simply great South Africans. And I consider myself blessed that so many people I know, who most probably have all the “right credentials” to have been “wannabes” if they would’ve wanted to be, count amongst people I can call friends.

Pastor se kwellinge in die boek oor die coloured en colouredness loop vir my parallel met die stellings wat hy in ons onderhoud oor die koortjie gemaak het oor hoe die koortjie nou gecaricaturise word, asook die implied complicity van die coloured koortjie community. Hy het imply dat die coloured community altyd gaan vir die cheapest way of getting away with an idea. Die koortjie is nou ’n cheap get-away, het hy gesê. Die mense likes it, ensovoorts, maar dis cheap, there’s no substance to it (Seekoei, 2020). Ek wonder of dit alles one and the same thing is vir Pastor: coloured, colouredness, caricaturised koortjie, cheap, no substance. Ek wonder of hierdie beskrywings vir Pastor die epitome van ‘colouredness’ is.

Pastor Seekoei wy ’n hele hoofstuk in die boek aan die mindset van die coloured persoon in A So-Called Coloured Mentality?.^{[6]Die dialoog vir hierdie gedeelte is gebaseer op die hoofstuk So-Called Coloured Mentality? (Seekoei, 2019:221-239).} Die hoofstuk open met ’n conclusion seemingly deur Pastor – die ascription onderaan die quote lees authoritatively (The Author).

“The Coloured mentality in my view, therefore, is a unique mindset that was most probably instigated by everything that was eventually going to make Coloured people Coloureds”. Die mindset van die coloured is definitief vir Pastor ’n groot issue. Pastor state dat nes, onder andere, Afrikaners, Engelse Suid-Afrikaners, Zulus en Xhosas ’n certain way gewire is, net so is coloureds ook ’n certain way gewire, “Colouredness being custom-made for apartheid…”, whether ons daarvan hou of nie, voeg hy by. Pastor versterk sy argument oor die ostensible problematiese mindset van die coloured persoon met drie anecdotes uit sy eie childhood.

Die eerste anecdote: “… when I was a child and some of us talked about Colouredness, it was never positive. At the time some Coloured people liked to say: ‘Aagh, ons Coloureds is maar soe.’ (We are like that. We can’t help it.) ‘Ons is soe gemaak en laat staan’”.

Die tweede anecdote.

… the story of a Coloured man who was assaulted by his racist white boss. Eventually the boss’s wife intervened and frantically tried to stop her husband from grinding the Coloured man’s face into the ground with his boot, hissing through his teeth: “Hotnot vandag sal ek jou wys wie’s baas.” (Bushie today I’ll show you who’s the boss). But the Coloured man apparently just said: “Leave the boss, madam. The boss knows what he’s doing.” (Los die baas miesies, die baas weet wat hy doen.).

Die derde anecdote.

There was also the story about the nations coming before the throne of God, when God asked the white man, “What do you want”? The white man answered, “I want land, money in the bank, credit cards and chequebooks, etc.” God asked the black man. “What do you want?” The black man said, “I want land, cattle and wives, etc.” Then God asked the Coloured man. “What do you want?” He answered. “Nothing my Lord, I have just accompanied the boss.” (Niks meneer, ek het maar net saam met die baas gekom.).

Die drie anecdotes imply ’n compliance en non-agency wat skynbaar stereotypically by coloured mense bespeur kan word. Pastor provide ’n verduideliking vir hierdie mindset en behaviour van die coloured persoon.

Coloured people were purposefully kept in a particular frame of mind so that Colouredness could work precisely the way apartheid needed it to. And we fool ourselves if we think that all of that – what basically amounted to a deliberate miseducation – has not affected how we have eventually started thinking about ourselves as Coloureds.

Pastor brei verder uit dat die coloured persoon van nature ’n compliant persoonlikheid het wat deur apartheid gevorm is en nog steeds vandag deel van die coloured persoon se geaardheid is. Maar hy is bly, sê hy, dat daar increasingly meer oor die Khoisan se rol in die history van Suid-Afrika begin uncover word want sodoende begin ons besef “we’ve always had great heroes and heroines, and chiefs and warriors”.

“But it is only when we are known as Coloureds that we find ourselves trapped in historical nothingness, and have to look to others for leadership and identification”.

Dit kom voor dat omdat Pastor homself so opwerk oor die coloured persoon se mindset en ander kwellinge, dat hy soms self die stereotypes wat hy probeer teenpraat op coloureds toepas. Hy repeat homself nog so ’n paar keer oor die mindset van die coloured en hoe apartheid daarvoor te blameer is, asook dat die coloured dit nog steeds vandag uitleef. Pastor bring op ’n tyd die Bybel in.

Scripture says, for as a man thinketh is(sic) his heart so is he. So, if you think like a Coloured, you should be satisfied with what you’ve got politically, because there is nothing bigger than equal rights for you to aspire to. They are thus trapped, lock, stock, and barrel, in the Colouredness that was so painstakingly conceptualised by and for apartheid in every detail.

Wat Pastor se duidelike frustrasie vir my nog meer troubling maak, is sy harnessing van ’n quote wat ostensibly aan die Duitse Nazi politician en propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, ge-attribute word, om sy punt oor die leuen en invloed van apartheid op die coloured mindset te staaf:

In the words of Joseph Goebbels, German politician and Reich minister of propaganda from 1933 to 1945: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. And everyone say Amen, because that is exactly what apartheid did – it made us know each other in a way that ultimately only served its purposes. That is why it is so stupid for all of us to keep on playing apartheid-apartheid.

Dit is duidelik ’n accusation teenoor die coloured mense, of sekere coloured mense, die wannabes, wat blykbaar nog steeds in die mindset wat op hulle impose is, vasgevang is en nog steeds compliant players in die on-going game van apartheid is. Ek is moeg. Ek scan net die res van die hoofstuk om te kyk of ek nog goed ge-highlight of onderstreep het. Die bladsye is redelik devoid van my stem. Ek dink na die Goebbels-quote was ek klaar met die boek. My oog val op die naam Thomas Pringle, “South Africa’s first journalist”, maar ek scan voort. Daar is iets oor Khoisan enslavement, die VOC, Madagascar, Matthijs Krugel, South African History Online, The Mind of South Africa, Allister Sparks, sucking up to the master, “civilised”. Ek het iets op bladsy 225 ge-highlight.

A deadly mindset that was incompatible with anything else but serving its “superiors” was literally “installed” in many Coloured people. The only problem is for that mindset to operate optimally, the “superior” has to be white. Therefore, with the master no longer in charge, those Coloureds are literally lost, and often try their best to get the master in charge again so that they can just feel normal once more.

Ek skip tot die einde van die hoofstuk. Pastor sluit hierdie hoofstuk af met ’n oplossing vir die probleem.

There has to be non-racist and non-sexist solutions to whatever birth pains we experience at the moment, that won’t let us betray the values and principles we’ve been so committed to in the struggle, since only non-racist and non-sexist solutions will eventually produce a genuine non-racist and non-sexist society.

Ek het so baie van die hoofstuk geskip, ek weet nie mooi wanneer non-racialism en non-sexism deel van Pastor se argument geword het nie. Pastor eindig die boek met ’n aanbeveling (2019:319). “In closing I want to encourage you to live up to the vision of The Great Designer, and finally realise the kind of world God had in mind when He created, from one blood, all of mankind in His image and likeness”. Hier het Pastor ’n contrary tone tot die res van die boek. “Let us, therefore, start to love one another. And as we love each other, together we will hopefully have the privilege to eventually live in the kind of world God as planned for all of us”.

Ek sit die boek neer. Ek dink terug na wat Connie (2022) oor colouredness gesê het, hoe dit my geraak het, en hoe baie dit van pastor Seekoei se comments verskil.

Colouredness is vi my die goddelikheid, die God essence van life. […] Vi my is colouredness die God expression. Want dis multi-faceted expression van ie selle essence. Dit is vi my die prism van truth. Vestaan. Spiritual-wise. Colouredness IS dai. Want as jy (as coloured persoon) in ie white culture is, jy wôd ampe geforce om ’n certain way te wôd, ’n certain way te begin praat, ’n certain way, vestaan, dinge te doen. As jy in ie black culture is, jy is geforce. Ma colouredness het dai ding wat hy rêrag ’n plek is wa jy kan… jy kan is, sônne om te moen deny, man. […] …  vi my is die image van God colouredness.

Miskien is die punt van die boek van Pastor om coloureds oor hul eie thinking oor hulself te challenge, dink ek, om te doen wat dit in my elicit het. Ek weet nie. Ek dink terug na my gesprek met Pastor in 2020. So die koortjie is ’n refleksie op wat eintlik in ons gemeenskap aangaan?, het ek aan hom gevra. Die koortjie is dan actually net ’n church music version van ’n sekere tipe mindset wat by die coloured mense heers? You see, het hy gedink voor hy praat, I can sing a chorus that everybody will know because I will still do it dignified (Seekoei, 2020). Hy het dignified ge-emphasise. So die ander wat deesdae koortjies sing en produce doen dit nie dignified nie? Ek het dit gewonder, nie hardop gevra nie. It’s easier for everybody to tap into our community on that level. Hy het hier weer begin praat oor hoe die koortjie die maklike way in is om coloured mense vir financial gain te exploit en hoe coloureds dit allow. It’s easier, het hy continue. There you’ll find more vulnerable people, there you’ll find more gullible people. Die statements was loaded en ek wou nie dieper probe nie. This narrative will be kept on being fed, het hy dit alles saamgebring.

We should not succumb.