My late father, Reuben Masilela, can — on the strength of being a farm school headmaster and lay preacher with the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk van Suid-Afrika — claim to have been closer to Afrikanerdom than other blacks.
In the tobacco and pumpkin farmlands of Kleinfontein out side the old Transvaal town of Brits, the “other” blacks were largely farmworkers.
Having said that, my mind continues to travel down memory lane, recalling the untold South African story of people who still continue to vilify each other over especially race matters, perceived or otherwise.
Way back in the 1970’s, the Johannesburg-based grand ol’ lady, Bertha Egnos, composed a popular theatrical muscial titled “Ipi Tombi”.
Those of you who speak Zulu are aware the title should have read “Ipi Intombi”, meaning “where is the girl?”
But for international marketing purposes, “Ipi Tombi” could roll off easily from the tongues of those tight upper-lipped Englishmen and the Yanks.
The nerve centre to the ground-breaking “Ipi Tombi” stage musical was a Soweto singer by the name of Margaret Singana.
When the cast returned home from a successful tour of the United Kingdom and also America’s popular Broadway, Singana was billed for a homecoming performance at Soweto’s DOCC Hall.
“Mama Thembu’s wedding” was the most popular of the soundtracks from “Ipi Tombi”.
While their parents shuffled their feet to the tunes of the boere-orkes” and “tiekiedraai”, younger white South Africans from the Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit and Wits University naughtily had their interest fixed firmly on the great Singana show.
At the time South Africa had in place laws prohibiting white South Africans from entering the townships without a valid reason.
And so the white students came up with creative ways to attend the performance of their favourite singer, such as painting their faces with black shoe polish to be able to pass through the police roadblocks.
This kind of subtle resistance to the racial divide has sadly gone unnoticed.
On the soccer front, there was a whites-only professional soccer team called Arcadia Shepherds, which played in the whites-only national football league.
Playing in a crucial cup game against likewise whites-only opponents — Durban City, if memory serves me well — Arcadia Shepherds fielded the sensational Indian player named Smiley Moosa, under the name of a white player.
Suffice to say, the Arcadia Shepherds management attracted a lot of “moeilikheid” (trouble) for contravening laws prohibiting inter-racial sport.
That reminds me: you know I do not remember ever being called the k-word, perhaps because my dad was the NG Kerk lay preacher who proudly flew a miniature “oranje-blanje-blou” flag, in the headmaster’s office, at Kleinfontein Farm School.
