A Layered Identity

A Layered Identity

Pictures are from my Keynote presentation

The story I have to tell today is of a journey that led from the ethnic identity to which I was born to a civic identity consciously chosen and cultivated. And though the map of this journey is unique to my own circumstances, I am sure many of you here could identify with its roundabout route.
My citizenship comes as a three-layered costume: The outer layer is a star spangled banner, acquired only in February of this year. The middle maple leaf layer I have worn since 1979. And closest to my chest is a worn garment made of an old flag that represented a nation that no longer exists.

So, let me strip in reverse and tell you how this triple citizenship came about in a life of amazing opportunities.
My Father’s church in Rustenburg - Our family circa 1949 - I’m on the left

In 1942 I was born into an Afrikaans family in the Transvaal, a northern province of the old South Africa where church and state were inseparable. As a Dutch Reformed minister in a small country town, my father had considerable influence in civic affairs. My father’s family took part in the Great Trek north and fought against the British in the Boer War from 1899 - 1902. This past, fraught with sadness cast a shadow over my youth. Every time she visited, my grandmother told us tales of the concentration camp and the death of her two small sons.
Our history lessons reinforced the victimology of the struggle against the British and glamorized the victories of the Great Trekkers against the black tribes.

Two national holidays celebrated these: Kruger Day celebrating the Boer heroes and Dingaan’s Day, commemorating the Trekker victory over the Zulu at Blood River.
Images like this frieze were powerful tools in our indoctrination. White superiority was ideologically rationalized and biblically sanctioned.  Government propaganda was blatantly pushed in so-called anthropology classes where the emphasis was on our European ancestry. ‘Studies’, they said, had found only 1% of non-white blood among the Afrikaner. And this ‘contamination’, of course happened long ago before the laws of Apartheid controlled cross-racial sex.
All emotional and intellectual energy was directed towards forging an Afrikaner Christian Nationalist identity. The school curriculum was specially designed for this purpose.  The poisonous pedagogy flourished, bearing fruits of low self-esteem, anxiety and terror. 

Voortrekker badges

We were made to join the Voortrekkers, a youth movement, where patriotic songs and poetry matched the hymns and Bible verses memorized for Sunday school. The Voortrekker motto commanded us to stay on track for the nation, while my mother urged us every day to guard against spiritual impurity.
Afrikaans was used exclusively in all of these activities. The struggle for Afrikaans was revisited at every opportunity and speaking English was frowned upon. The Afrikaans Bible was a source of pride. That it was ‘sanitized’ in places to fit the racist ideology would only be revealed by reading the Bible in another language. And no one did that – we all knew that Afrikaans was God’s mother tongue.
The mixed race, Afrikaans-speaking descendants from slaves and white colonists, went largely unrecognized as part of the Afrikaner family - the Islamic community at the Cape goes back to the 17th century. The Kor’an was read in Arabic Afrikaans as early as 1845, ironically nurturing a parallel religious/linguistic identity.

Kramat of Sayed Mahmud in Constantia with panels recounting history in English and Afrikaans

On a recent stay in Cape Town we visited several Kramats, where the Muslim saints of the Cape are buried. In the shrine to Sayed Mahmud there are columns describing the history of this holy man. As I read the inscriptions I imagined Cape Malay children brought here on a field trip, reading in Afrikaans about the wealth, influence and martyrdom of this hero. I imagined them feeling the same proud sense of self as we did when we were taken to the shrines of Afrikanerdom: the Voortrekker and Huguenot Monuments. A parallel process on either side of the racial divide.

Huguenot Monument, Franschhoek & Voortrekker Monument, Pretoria

So, why did I turn out differently? It was a simple collision of nature and nurture.  I naturally recoil from cruelty and have an inherent sense of fairness. Where I lived racism was a way of life.  As you would expect, I had some questions. Why did grown people have to have a curfew and carry passes? Why did my mother feel free to rant and rave at domestics? Why did my father keep a length of rubber hose in the garage? Why did educated Black preachers have to go to the back door and drink from enamel mugs? Why did we not learn Tswana? And why was it dangerous to touch Black people? Answers to these questions were patronizing and meant to instill fear.
Natural curiosity and friendliness made me receptive to human connections normally frowned upon. Once our maid’s daughter came to stay for the holidays and we played and played. She was smart and funny and full of imagination but deemed ‘too precocious’ by my parents. She was never invited back. The sounds of kwela music coming from the wind-up gramophone in the servants’ quarters, was my first exposure to world music. I once saw a performance of ‘Julius Caesar’ in Tswana. It made a profound impression on me and I found myself doubting the accepted view of the intellectual inferiority of Blacks.
Expressing such doubts, however, was not encouraged. I remember my father saying: ‘I forbid you to say or think such things in this house!’ So, I kept my own counsel until I was at university, a thousand miles away from home. Only then could I begin to rid myself of Afrikaner Christian Nationalism: my church attendance dropped and I did not join any of the religious or secular student organizations. In stead I cultivated a veneer of cynicism and wrote poems with titles like Carpe Diem and Semper Desperandum. I applied Practical Criticism, not only to English Literature but to every person, institution, dogma or ideology around me. With improved English skills and a working knowledge of French I began to imagine a life outside South Africa.
In 1964 I started working in Pretoria for the Department of Information hoping for an overseas posting. It was the year of the Rivonia Trial.

Mandela and co-accused arriving at Pretoria courthouse - Police keeping supporters at bay

On several occasions I slipped away from my desk and walked up to the court to see Mandela in the dock. The events of the day Mandela was sentenced made me decide to find a way to leave South Africa. I married a fellow Afrikaner rebel who shared my desire to escape the imperatives of Apartheid. His profession allowed him to work anywhere in the English speaking world. After two years in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), we moved to England. 

Now began a five-year period of cultural, intellectual and emotional growth. I imagine two little trademarks stamped on my invisible self, one saying ‘Made in South Africa’, the other ‘Civilized in England’! For the first time I was actually able to say what I thought. Informed debate was a way of life among our friends. Our Northumbrian neighbours generously welcomed us as our ears became attuned to the Geordie dialect. Opportunities for cross-racial contact presented themselves: At school I got to cuddle a little Indian boy along with his classmates and when I had a miscarriage, the nursing sister who consoled me was West Indian. Touching coloured skin was not dangerous after all! A black South African pediatrician visited my husband’s clinic and we hugged and drank wine, free from the dictates of our home country.
Every summer we traveled: down to Greece and across to Scandinavia. We even went to Prague in 1967! The more I saw of other cultures and customs the more my love of people grew. Gradually I envisioned another identity for myself, an identity fueled by poetry rather than politics. It would mean abandoning my South African citizenship but family pressure recalled us to South Africa before we could become British.

View of Table Mountain and suburbs

I remember the time back in Cape Town as one of terrible tension between the half-discarded old and the half-formed new identity. I felt like a chrysalis unable to develop its wings. We were back to separate everything: doors, benches, beaches, neighbourhoods, friends, restaurants, schools, churches and concert halls. Men still talked about politics while women discussed servants. Biting my tongue again became a painful necessity. Family pressure mounted, urging us to conform. I despaired of raising my two small children in a social and educational climate little different from the one in which I grew up. But now I knew there were other societies more in tune with my nature where I could raise my children without constant inner and outer conflict. I had experienced institutions where imagination and creativity were valued and critical thinking encouraged.  In 1976 we emigrated to Canada.
Let us rewind the chronology and return to 1971 when I made a discovery that would completely change my sense of identity. It came when I was introduced to Die Herkoms van die Afrikaner (Afrikaner Origins) by J.A.Heese, a genealogist. The book detailed a study that found a six-fold increase of non-white blood among Afrikaners. Remember, we were always told 1%, now there was 7%! Heese also recorded cross-racial marriages between 1657 and 1867.

One such marriage was that of the Swede, Olof Bergh, my well-known maternal ancestor, to Anna de Koning the illegitimate daughter of a Bengali slave, Angela. I remembered an enigmatic reference to ‘skeleton’s in the family cupboard’ once made by a venerable Bergh aunt. Now I knew why the origin of my middle name, Anna, had remained a mystery!

Angela of Bengal’s life is well documented. She came to the Cape as a slave in 1655. She worked in the household of Commander Jan van Riebeeck as nanny to his children. Her second owner manumitted her in 1666 ‘uijt pure genegentheijt’ – from pure affection. In 1667 she was given a piece of land. She hired a slave, Scipio, and set about growing and selling vegetables to passing ships. Her marriage in 1669 to the free burgher, Basson, completed her rehabilitation to become a respected member of the small community at the Cape. Thus she found her place as founding matriarch on the family tree of a number of prominent Afrikaner families.

This upbeat story about her bloodline did not please my lilywhite mother at all. And what was wrong with it? Not the rags, not the riches but the race. How dare I take such nonsense seriously? Not nonsense, archival facts. Says who? Dr. Heese. Oh, yes, there are people like that who will write books for people like you to read and believe! The battle raged for a whole weekend. On Sunday night, exhausted, we agreed to disagree.

It was only after both my parents had passed away that I seriously returned to the subject, did my own primary source research and wrote a novel about Angela of Bengal and Anna de Koning. Kites of Good Fortune was published in Cape Town in 2004. The following year it appeared in Afrikaans with the title: Anna, dogter van Angela van Bengale. Kites has made its way into university libraries and conference papers as a serious post-Apartheid story.
The fact of my Bengali blood adds a pleasing tone of multi-ethnicity to my identity. It gives me a right to solidarity with those who suffered the humiliations of Apartheid.

Rex and Kirstie at 7 and 4 flanked by Rex with sitar, Kirstie with Mats

Let me return now to my Canadian years: this country did prove to be everything I wished for as an immigrant. I found all the resources to raise my children to be free to be themselves. Educated in Hamilton Public Schools and at York and Ryerson Universities they both have creative careers. U of T afforded me a Bachelor of Education when I needed to earn a living as a single mom. I loved teaching in this multi-cultural society though teaching French in Southern Ontario sometimes challenged my powers of persuasion. But it gave me the chance to be a bridge builder seeking to widen horizons and deepen understanding. I could have lived here forever but, then, love made me change course and a new adventure began.

View from our apartment in Rio – watercolour by Rex, my son

In 1992 I married an American working in Rio de Janeiro. Living in a country offers opportunities denied to the tourist: one has time to absorb the peripheral occurrences that enhance cultural understanding, digest the everyday happenings that foster communication, indulge the natural revisiting that creates familiarity and affection. My functional Portuguese gave me access to some subtleties of the culture; I even understood some irony and jokes as well as the cursing on the school bus. Living in Brazil added a relaxed layer to my changing identity. My ears still hear the sounds of samba and firecrackers in the favela. When I close my eyes I can see the sun rising over Guanabara Bay and clouds hugging the Corcovado. I am different because I have tasted the tart salt-sprinkled cashew fruit and drank many a head-spinning caipirinha.

View of our house in Islamabad – watercolour by Conrad, Jim’s son

In 1995 another posting came. This time it was to Pakistan, land of the pure. Pakistan, where life happens within the walls of the compound not on the street, where the shalwar kameez replaces the bikini. From the moment of entry I noticed a familiar sullen seriousness from officialdom and in the bazaar. The presence of prayer and the unvarying piousness brought back the Puritanism of my youth. Over the next six years I was struck by the number of similarities between Pakistan and the South Africa of my youth: There was the same interweaving of church and state as laws sought to impose puritanical behaviour on the population. A small élite ran the country, exploiting the impoverished and ignorant masses in an unrelenting feudalism. Servants were treated with the same disregard as they were back when. There was a gender Apartheid driven by male chauvinism already noticeable in the small boys I taught.  The imperatives of male superiority pervaded the female world as it insisted on ‘modest’ behaviour and dress. I remember only too well the indignity of being shunted to the ‘woman line’ in the bank and the ‘woman frisk’ at the airport. Once I waited in a sweltering overcrowded ‘woman waiting room’ at a clinic while the male minders sat in air-conditioned comfort. This supervision extended to all single women regardless of age or status. Once a forty year-old female professor asked me to chaperone her on a date! She was living with her parents, of course, no single woman would dare to live by herself. I’m leaving out the stories about phantom schools, Afghan refugees and the hypocrisy resulting from all the repression. Suffice it to say that I came away from Pakistan with a sense of foreboding about what might happen when the zealots take over. Fundamentalism is a state of mind regardless of religion. Calvinism is to Christianity what Wahabism is to Islam but while the former has been contained, the latter seems rampant. The Pakistan experience taught me that there are parts of the global village where many are still shackled to the kind of identity I managed to escape.

Three stages of batik ‘sampler’ I made in Yogjakarta

Now to Indonesia, our last residency abroad before retiring to the US. Here we saw Islam-lite, practiced by a people who have seen the tidal waves of religions and ideologies wash over them for centuries. Their language is larded with words of former conquerors, their rituals go back to the beginning. In Indonesia prayers filled with yearning spirituality rise five times a day like curling smoke. The elaborate plots of the Wayang Theatre reveal an almost genetic ambiguity. A complexity of perception is ever present in the intricate techniques of batik and the perpetual motion of the gamelan. I was lucky enough to spend a week at a batik studio making the piece you see here. I also played in a gamelan orchestra for six months.  These activities surprisingly filled me with an inner calm and honed my intuition, adding an unexpected spiritual layer to my identity.

Mithila painting of tree of life

I now live in Ipswich, MA. I have had three official names and, as you know, have two prestigious passports. But my unofficial self is a collage of global belonging. Finally I feel I have escaped the confines of the identity of my birth. In 68 years that identity has evolved from ethnic to civic. The customs, languages, landscapes, art and music of other cultures not only enhance my original Afrikaner identity but allow me to view it from an ironic distance. And in the process all identity, in fact, becomes relative. No longer need I be limited by the imperatives of politics; I am free to reflect on humanity and contemplate the tree of life that connects us all.