GROUP DISCOURSES AND IDENTITIES
5.3 BEHAVIOUR ADAPTATION AND IDENTITY RECONSTRUCTION The environment of the University of Natal is new to all categories of students
5.3.4 Modem Zulu Women (MZW)
MC2: I have no problem with anybody. We are all here to be educated, Zulus, South Africans and international students, we are all equal.
MC3:1 have white friends, people I used to sit with back at school, but things are a little different to that of high school; at school we were much closer, like a family. Here you meet lot of other people and you become friends. Whites are just ordinary people like all the others.
MC4: I have lots of white friends because we were at school together, these are made at school based on values, successes, characteristics; it was not based on the colour of skin.
MCI: I don't have a point to prove to anybody, if you don't want to be my friend, fine. I have no problem with that; then you are not my friend.
The Model C group members make their friends across cultural, racial and gender boundaries. As far as they are concerned, as students, all are here to learn and all are equal. All are human: We are all here to be educated - Zulus, South Africans and international students, we are all equal. For them friendship is based on shared values and has no basis in any form of discrimination. In other words, their understanding of friendship transcends the barriers of social categories that exist in the university (Gee 1996).
It is nevertheless the case that Model C guys enter the university environment a little better prepared than other groups, in the sense that they have been culturally prepared by their schools for the university culture. They seem to understand the university culture from their entry into the university, because it is similar to that of the multiracial schools. As a result these men ease into the system more effortlessly than the others, and construct themselves as conversant with the university culture.
MZWl: Modernized Zulu person, I still respect my culture and traditions and I still have the knowledge of westernized ways. I adapt to both, but I am not like white, I may be westernised but I'm still traditional so I'll say I'm a modernized Zulu person.
MZW2: I will say I'm a double person, back at home I tend to live according to my culture although it can be difficult you know, when you are perceived as rude.
MZW3: And there are actually a lot of young people and children who cannot speak their indigenous language, they only speak English. When you speak to them in Zulu they are, like, what is up I don't understand what you are saying.
MZW4: My brother and I are from a typical rural area, when we went back home, I was speaking more English than him. My brother still speaks our language, but I tend to have adapted to English faster than my brother.
MZW5:1 don't know what to say, you can even smoke here while it is a taboo for women to smoke in our culture. Even drinking but here you have women drinking more than men.
MZW6:n I'll say I'm black and Zulu and modern. I do something like hair style which by doing I don't think am too westernised. I try to be the same here and at home and not be too much of anything.
The Zulu women refer to themselves as modernized Zulu women, I'm a modernized Zulu person, and I'm black and Zulu and modern. They explain that they combine two cultures, Zulu culture and the university western culture, and the result is what they refer to as 'modernized Zulu'. In their thinking, to be modern presupposes adopting some aspects of a non-indigenous culture, specifically a western culture. From the above extract, 'modern' seems to mean fashionable and free, in terms of choices. The women stress the fact that they have respect for Zulu culture and traditions. They speak of dual characters and double standards, because they usually feel a different person at home compared who they are at the University: / will say I'm a double person. Another comment:
/ don't know what to say - you can even smoke here, while it is a taboo for women to smoke in our culture. The physical distance from home is taken as offering liberty to live the way they cannot when they are with their family
members. From their discussion, being a modernized Zulu seems to come at a price. A major price noted by the group is the sacrifice of their language for English, which can alienate them from members of their family and community:
actually a lot of young people and children ... cannot speak their indigenous language, they only speak English. The above discussion can be taken as an indication that Zulu female students are using less Zulu language and are speaking and using more English at school and, probably, at home. It is very likely that their behaviour differs too.
The group's description of themselves in a way confirms the fears of the Zulu bradas and the dilute males about the Zulu women student' attitudes towards the Zulu language and customs, and the female preference for campus 'western culture'. The modern Zulu women are not unaware of how their modernized Zulu identity is received, especially by other members of their language community: as one of them puts it, it can be difficult, you know, when you are perceived as rude.
Further probing as to other reasons for their choice to be seen and heard as modern Zulu women rather than Zulu women, suggested a central role of gender-related issues and these will be presented in detail in chapter seven.
However, in this chapter I will analyse this in relation to the construction of identity. In the following extracts the women explain further their reasons for moving into a non-Zulu culture and changing their behaviour.
MZW1: It is because in our culture the male is always more dominant than the female, so the guys want us to be oppressed by them. A guy always expects you to go under him if he says something, you have to be obedient to everything he says, So now when we are here, in varsity we are all equal here there is no one that is more dominant than the other. So if he is telling me something that I don't like I am going to tell him straight to his face that he must never say something like that, I'll give him a piece of my mind back. So he would interpret that as being rude, while I am trying to express myself by telling him I don't like what you are doing or saying to me.
MZW2: Ja so when he is telling me things I don't want to hear, you just give him a piece of your mind in English, that way he cannot do anything to you.
ALL: Ja, we must protect ourselves.
Here the participant states that the real reason for drawing on western customs and the English languages especially when interacting with men, is to empower women to stand up to Zulu male hegemony. The group presents western culture as giving them the power required to resist male domination, so that it is possible to achieve equity. The women suggest that at the university they are able to stand up to male oppression and speak out against it without being intimidated. In other words, they are able to resist Zulu male domination when they construct themselves as modern Zulu women, which may mean speaking to the men in English. Another participant adds: like for example in the township it is OK for men when you go past to touch your behind or something, but then here it is very impolite for men to just come and touch you anywhere. They want to be seen as people that are stronger than women by sticking to the past and culture. The university culture which is perceived as 'western' is used by these women as a shield against male controlling behaviour which displeases these women, who in their own language feel culturally disempowered. A move away from one language into another empowers them, and they feel able to resist men. The women's approach to the choice of language suggests that their men are culturally encouraged to behave in a manner which they do not approve. These women are engaged in a struggle against oppression using language, in this case with English as their weapon.
As a result, the modern Zulu women look for new ways of talking to the men:
we have seen how our parents have suffered during their time, we don't want to experience the same thing, that is why we have adapted to the western culture.
But then the thing is men have also changed, it's just that some of them will not agree to that... This group of women see 'western culture' as the embodiment of freedom, power, and the force of change. The women resist male domination through their choice of language in communication in English: when he is telling me things I don't want to hear, you just give him a piece of your mind in English.
These women are seeking to reconstruct their identities through a new discourse.
Research into gender socialisation and the construction of gender identities has shown that within every culture, gender relations are usually communicated in interaction (West and Zimmerman 2000; Weatherall 2002). The rules, for the most part unstated, are understood and followed by the majority of the members of the communities unconsciously. The modern Zulu women are challenging some of the existing gender boundaries through communication. The women argue that to prevent has what happened in the past from happening again to them, they have had to change their position from simply Zulu to 'modernized Zulu'. The modern Zulu woman is a Zulu who is empowered to resist male forces of oppression. Consequently, these Zulu women are reconstructing their own identities to specifically put them on a par with their male counterparts.
Other identity markers such as race and ethnicity are less stressed in their discussion; not that these markers are unimportant, but their attention focuses mainly on changing the existing gendered power relations, which are seen as most threatening to their womanhood.
MZW11 think foreign white students are more polite than South African whites.
Because especially female ones, I don't know whether it is because they want to learn more from you as a black South African. But you know South African females are not forthcoming like them, like wanting to be friendly with you something like that. They are reserved; they don't really like actually to talk to us. But the international students they talk about most things, maybe you're dressed up they ask you where did you get, from which shop YK everything and they communicate with you, a black South African, more than people that are here with us.
The group finds foreign white students more interested and friendly than South African whites. Because the foreign students show interest in them, skin colour becomes unimportant, and all that matters are the individuals concerned. This holds especially for female students. They raise concerns about their non- acceptance by white South African females. As they subsequently point out: you hardly find a white exchange student dating white South African students. You find them dating black guys; they want to experience and know more about them.
They are very nice, they come here to learn more about African culture and associate more with black people than with whites even though they hang out with them. These women show, through their discussion of foreign white students, their understanding that recognition and acceptance can bring people of different colour and backgrounds together. At the same time the lack of recognition and acceptance of a group by another group can lead to estrangement, irrespective of race or gender.
MZW1: The foreign African students associate mostly with the whites.
MZW2: And they also keep to themselves a lot, they don't want to learn from others.
MZW3:1 don't know why but they are always around whites.
MZW4: It is easy to identify blacks SA from other blacks of Africans. I have noticed that blacks of a different culture tend to think that they are different and that they are better than us. So I guess that is what makes them stick more to the whites, because the whites is like they want to know more about their country.
MZW1: Also for example when you go to Point Road you find that most North African males living around those areas tend to want to oppress SA blacks. I don't know how that happened but they just don't want to SA blacks to succeed in anything they do, like you '11 find that they are the ones involved in drug smuggling or dealing with drugs, using SA women as prostitutes. They don't want us SA blacks to succeed. That is why we tend also not to like them and we call them names like kwerekwere .
Yet foreign African students are seen as associating more with white, presumably because the latter want to know more about the foreign students' country and culture.
It can be deduced that these women had probably expected the foreign African students to behave as do other foreign, but non-African students. They had expected them to show a level of curiosity about South African cultures and possibly make the first move in terms of exchange of friendship, which is what
the women admire most about the non-African foreign students. Their non- acknowledgement by the foreign students then registers as a threat, a threat to their own home. Hence they put up resistance. In this regard these women seem to feel the same way as the Zulu men.
The modern Zulu women find their new environment empowering and liberating. They embrace the opportunities created for them, as the university culture helps to free them from unwanted traditional cultural expectations. They therefore use this opportunity maximally by constructing new identities for themselves, by embracing new norms while retaining some old ones. The result, according to the women, is a stronger and freer individual. The modern Zulu women have new levels of energy and experiment with the new culture: I am a modernized Zulu person, I still respect my culture and traditions and I still have the knowledge of westernized ways. Their new identity as modern Zulu women has increased their performance and confidence especially in gender-related issues: A guy always expects you to go under him if he says something ...So now when we are here in varsity we are all equal here; there is no one that is more dominant than the other. These modern Zulu women have integrated their old and new-found cultures to create new identities for themselves, to develop new skills to acquire and articulate their new identity and to use it to protect themselves.
5.3.5 Diverse Males (DM)
Turning now to the non-South African respondents, I consider first the diverse males. This group consists of foreign African students from eight different African countries. It is a very diverse group, though it barely begins to represent the enormous diversity in Africa: in addition to the different countries represented here, within each country, too, are people of different cultures and languages yet sharing the same nationality. The students in this group are from Kenya (KENY), Nigeria (NIG), Cameroon (CAM), Rwanda (RWD), Eritrea (ERT), Uganda (UGD), Zimbabwe (ZIM) and Mozambique (MOZ). In spite of the diversity that exists within this group, as mentioned previously it did appear appropriate to place them together under the umbrella of foreign students. The participants identify strongly with each other not only as foreign students, but in
particular as foreign African students. It appears that, in this university environment, a sense of themselves as 'foreign African students' has become a primary identity marker for all the students in this group. As members of the postgraduate student community at the University of Natal, students in this group tend to define themselves largely by what they are not; they are not South African and still more so, not Zulu.
Yet ethnicity9 remains an important identity marker for this group, as it is for their South African counterparts, but in a rather different way, and especially so for students from the north, east and west of Africa.
CAM: Before now I was not conscious of my skin colour; until I came here, I never had to talk about myself in terms of my colour.
RWD: In fact it meant very little before, but now I am more conscious of it, although it does not change the way I see people still.
UGD: Because people are people even though where I come from we are all the same colour.
KENY: When there are whites and others the number is small.
MOZ: South Africa is more racial than any other African country.
NG: Here I have to say I am from so and so.
Skin colour was of no great importance, until now, in multiracial South Africa.
The students are clearly from less race-conscious contexts. The extent to which race functions as an identity marker is determined by the context in which these diverse males find themselves. As one of the speakers puts it: before now I was not conscious of my skin colour until I came here, never had to talk about myself in terms of my colour. In their home contexts, the dynamics of diversity differ from those in the university and South Africa more broadly. In Nigeria for instance, with its over 200 languages, race is not salient, but in South Africa, racial consciousness is activated. Things are a little different for students from southern Africa countries. They point out that although members of other racial groups are present in their home country, they are few in number, and it is not the
9 See Evaldsson (2005); Billig (2001) and Gotsbachner (2001) on race and ethnicity as identity markers.
diversity that is important in South Africa, it is the awareness of race: When there are whites and others, the number is small. The sudden emergence of racial identities as experienced by the diverse males does not necessarily become dominant: it does not change the way I see people still. This sudden consciousness is brought about by the presence of people, students and staff from different countries of the world with different languages and cultural practices, or possibly through the after-effects of apartheid, the perpetuation of race-thinking, for example through South African equity laws: people are people even though where I come from we are all the same colour. This means that being conscious of one's race is not necessarily a bad thing, because it is a mirror through which we see what we look like on the outside. The diverse males show that it is quite possible to get along with person of different races, sometimes even more than with people of our own race. This is supported by a recent report on the Nigerian Diaspora in South Africa, where respondents were shown to face identity challenges different from their already constructed identities (de Kadt and Ige 2005; Ige 2003).
RWD: They (Zulu speaking students) don't make comments or show interest in you and that is frustrating you know. You feel like rejected, but when you are talking to a white person, he goes like oh what is happening now in your country and things like that and that. Such are interesting interlocutors because they are making you to talk about yourself and about your culture and country.
ERT and KENY: yes [in agreement]
NG: Automatically you are drawn to the more hospitable group.
UGD: We tend to have more white friends ...
According to this group of foreign students, what tends to matter most is not skin colour but recognition and acceptance, which fosters closeness between the foreign student and his hosts. In the case of foreign respondents, acceptance comes before racial issues. Recognition and acceptance gives them the opportunity to educate their host about their home country: they are making you talk about yourself and about your culture and country. Irrespective of race, acknowledgment and acceptance by other students draws them to make friends and probably choose allies in an unfamiliar context, especially when faced by