What does it mean to be a white African?
Friends,
The fastest route from Windhoek to Etosha National Park is fairly straight and (thankfully) all tarred roads. Non-stop the journey takes roughly 5 and 1/2 hours and I’ve settled into a comfy little routine of stopping in my favourite towns along the way. At roughly halfway on the route is Otjiwarongo (pop 28,000) which translates from the Herero language to ‘place of the fat cows’. I love how everything in Southern Africa has a meaning and no doubt there were once chubby cows living here. I spotted a small road sign ‘Books & Coffee’ and found an Afrikaans second-hand bookshop, that served coffee in the garden. Nestled amongst hundreds of Afrikaans books, I found this one.
I opened her randomly and read:
I am English-speaking but not actually English. My Britishness is second-hand, passed down like ill-fitting clothes, worn by others before me with stains that cannot be bleached out or stitched over with a patch.
White.
British.
African.
Half of each and none of all. A cultural half-breed.
Oh, it’s me. Hello new (old) book.
A memoir of the author, Terry Angelos, born in Rhodesia1 (now split into Zambia in the North, and in the South, Zimbabwe.)
Raised during the Rhodesian Bush War and immigrating to South Africa at the age of 11, Terry’s life is shaped by a white culture that is racist, unstable and deeply divided. There are so many parallels between our lives as she writes about her childhood as a white child in Africa. Both of us grew up with alcoholic white supremacist fathers, we both lived in Durban, blissfully unaware that our ‘normal’ white existence in no way mirrored the experiences of Black South Africans. We both decided to escape to London at roughly the same age, Terry at 19 and myself at 22.
Moving to London from a former British colony you’d think would be a pleasant and welcoming experience. Since we were fed a steady diet of white-washed British history throughout our schooling, (Zulu = bad; British = good), I naively thought moving to Britain would feel like ‘home’. What no-one warns you of is that British racism is passive-aggressive and all-pervasive. Foreigners are not welcome, especially those foreigners who return from a former British colony they’d rather never think about again.
“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? You’re so well-spoken.”
The English have for decades used the English language as the primary measure of intelligence. It is not enough to merely speak English, a language widely considered the hardest to learn - you must speak it ‘well’. This means without a trace of your mother tongue accent. Anyone who speaks with a thick or foreign accent is immediately deemed less intelligent, less competent or untrustworthy.
Ironically, English is over 60% borrowed, it’s a bastardised language with words stolen from German, French, Latin and Greek.
“Oh, you still have your accent” <disappointed face> is a constant observation when I converse with British people, followed by ‘and when are you going home?’ because heaven forbid you would be here on their island to stay.
Reading this book felt like spending time with a long-lost cousin. She’s perfect for anyone coming to grips with their own violent and chaotic childhood, and struggling to feel welcome in a country different to that of their birth.
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My favourite Substack right now - Beware of Confident Women with Swords.
Southern Rhodesia was a colonial name, a tribute to the great British colonizer Cecil John Rhodes; and upon independence the country was renamed to Zimbabwe.