6.3 Qaba-tshu [deep darkness in people of ochre] versus white-black (diversity in
6.3.2.5 Rural versus urban blackness
191 versions of blackness continues. However, this time the difference is marked by place therefore one becomes a certain kind of black on the basis of where you live.
192 together so during holidays when I would go to the villages and visit my people I mean you know spiritually nourished just (yes) to be among your own people unlike the cold environment of what the existential philosophers normally refer to as the lonely crowd you know (ja) in the urban centres you are a crowd but lonely (yes) you are not talking to each other you have to get an appointment to talk to your neighbour and then going back to the villages I mean as a little boy I knew that going to where I‟m going to find the meaning of life (yes) a meaning in life that experience you know of being with relatives and that group environment where people respect you which is inherent in the black people‟s way of doing things (yes) black people do respect and being respected and then with my praise poem being read out to me I mean I felt spiritually enlarged (yes) I felt that I was growing too (yes) ja so those were some of my great moments that I still love it every time I go on a journey to the villages I know it‟s a spiritual journey (yes) yes reconnect with my people and the land and the like you know that environment in itself is spiritually uplifting and you feel fulfilled.
In extract 27 (above) Kasong constructs the meaning of blackness in rural roots and authenticity.
Kasong also shows pride in the construction of rural blackness, but she seems to struggle with the stereotypes associated with rural blacks as uneducated and unable to speak English. She talks about how some rural university students are embedded in their culture, are educated but do not escape the meaning of black identity.
Similarly, Njinga in extract 28 discovers and affirms his black identity as a collective and confirms that his identity offers him a source of knowledge and pride in rural blackness. Njinga resists marginalisation within white society by vigorously asserting his blackness of origin. He discovers and affirms his blackness as a collective identity only when he is in the rural environment as he says “reconnect with my people and the land and the like you know that environment in itself is spiritually uplifting and you feel fulfilled”. In constructing blackness he makes reference to the tradition and history of race in South Africa where black people were allocated rural living spaces and urban spaces were for whites only. In a desegregated society Njinga is replacing the negative stereotypes associated with blackness by giving rural life
193 positive characteristics whilst associating urban life with negativity. He marks rural life with warmth, spiritual nourishment and self-fulfilment.
Njinga expresses his experience of urban life as being “the lonely crowd”. In a way, he constructs rural blackness as relating to a sense of connection, commitment and neighbourliness.
He criticises urban black people for being trapped in a lonely, cold, private individualism of whiteness. This is similar to the view of “false identity” as proposed by Manganyi (1973). Like Njinga, Manganyi sees the assimilation of white culture as providing a black person with a false identity because it requires the substitution of his/her African culture for a white culture.
According to Manganyi (1973) the substitution is unequal because black people become trapped in the white culture and in return the white culture assigns blackness an inferior status. Njinga, in constructing black identity as trapped as well as rejected by whiteness in urban areas, uses terms like “cold environment” in contrast to the “warm that is in rural areas”. The affirmation of his identity offers him a source of knowledge and pride in the tradition of being communal. By using totalising and essentialising concepts such as “black people‟s way of doing things” he seeks to award blackness a place of origin through cultural exclusivity. By constructing a conflict between rural and urban he seems to be desperate to produce a unified, homogenous black culture that corresponds with place, that is, the black territory or homeland.
The forgoing construction and criticism of an urban black identity is what Bulhan (1980) terms
“Moving Away Identification”. This view of black identity positions black identity as dilemmatic because the respondents are staying in urban areas and are criticising the white culture as alienating, corrupting and capable of losing black identity, whilst rural blackness is perceived as a place of reproducing a black identity. It seems that the respondents have come to realise the white frame as inappropriate and now want to turn to what would make black identity different, hence bringing the rural identity as an identity that is far from whiteness. Njinga in the following extract shows why and how the rural space is the best environment to shape his son‟s identity.
194 Extract 29
Njinga: even in our own youth like its happening to our kids in the suburbs (yes) I mean they bring more individualistic ways because of their life experiences and the environment in which they are operating in (yes) that I actually dislike (yes) so that‟s why when I travel to the villages I take my son along (yes) and I know he never refuse when I drive there he jumps into the car before I could even say he‟s already herding cattle with the other boys (yes) I want him to imbibe this spirit (yes) of the community and the respect of the elderly and the respect of any elderly person in the village as a parent (yes) so that‟s what I do so I discourage negative energies I‟d rather inculcate positive energy.
Njinga (above) is concerned about the individualistic nature of urban black experiences and the impact of those experiences in shaping young black people. In contrast to this urban-shaped blackness, Njinga uses herding cattle and respect for elderly people as distinctive characteristics of rural black identity. He is shaping his son‟s identity by using the rural experience. He says “I want him to imbibe this spirit”. Njinga is using a strategy to preserve his son‟s identity through rural experiences. This view is similar to the assertions of Sida and Mpongo in extracts 12 and 13 pleading that adults should be the carriers of black identity. In this construction Njinga is constructing a new identity for a young person who is living in an urban area by giving him a glimpse of what it means to be black from the rural experience. This new shape of Njinga‟s son‟s identity becomes neither an urban nor a rural blackness.
The following extract illustrates criticism of rural black identity by urban black people to continue with the process of constructing black identity as dilemmatic.
Extract 30
Zifiki: you know em I‟m gonna be very honest I‟ll give an example I have this friend so we are having a conversation (mhm) and we are talking about this girl you know so then my friend is like, “em is she like one of us, you know?” (mhm) so I‟m like, “huh” she‟s like, “you know what I mean, you know” is she like us, is she speak like us, she speaks
195 like us (mhm) is she us and stuff “oh no, not really you know” because I understand it because in all honesty I hear what you are saying (yes) in different sort of situations you treat things differently you know what I‟m saying (mhm) to your mother to you are different people (yes) to your friends you‟re different person (yes) so therefore I think as well with that if a rural girl had to come I‟d find it very hard to live with her (mhm) like to live properly with her I mean engasazi isiNgesi [not understanding English] you understand a person who does not speak English (mmhm) who does not know how to speak English who cannot or who doesn‟t know English well you know what I‟m saying like a rural qaba-tshu type of thing you know I‟d find it very hard to live with her because we come from different backgrounds so therefore there‟re certain things that we will not agree on there‟re certain things that we will see eye-to-eye about (mhm) you know and sometimes in all honesty sometimes I get moments when I find it very hard to express myself in Zulu and then there are also times when I find it hard to express myself in English you know but now a rural person is totally totally black if you understand what I‟m saying you know (mhm) I don‟t think I‟m putting it the right way but they are totally very deep within the culture and the roots therefore it would be very hard for me I‟m not going to lie to you in all honesty.
The construction of the rural black as culturally rooted and authentic as previously discussed is quite different from Zifiki‟s construction of rural blackness here (extract 30). According to Zifiki a rural identity is associated with an unsophisticated image of naïve blackness. Rural blackness is constructed as a stigmatised identity compared with educated sophisticated urban black identity.
The difference between this „too‟ black rural blackness and the urban „lighter‟ identity is measured against the hierarchy of whites being superior and blacks inferior. In this case being
“very deep with culture and roots” is a less valuable event than being close to whiteness. Black- black then becomes a troubled subject position devalued because of an inability to speak English.
To illustrate this; she uses words like “ qaba-tshu”. Qaba is a term with colonial associations used to denigrate blacks as people of ochre, implying that blacks are uneducated and heathen.
This word has a similar meaning to kaffir. In linking qaba with tshu, she is emphasising the high density of darkness in fixing rural blackness as naïve and stupid compared to urban blacks.
Contrary to this view of rural blackness, urban blackness is constructed as white-black; blackness
196 that has managed to shun the ochre. This kind of blackness is portrayed as superior, moving towards whiteness; as she says, “moments where I find it very hard to express myself in Zulu then there are also times when I find it hard to express myself in English but now a rural person is totally, totally black”. Zifiki seems to have distorted her own historical and communal values and standards and the imposition of white standards. She feels that if she can speak English well enough, there is a chance of being white. Her rural cousin, who cannot speak English, is positioned as a „black black‟, an embarrassing subject position.
The following two extracts take the difference between rural blackness and urban blackness even further
Extract 31
Zifiki: … we‟re just that but that‟s the truth and reality of it I honestly do believe that I don‟t think that I really be able to live with that person (mhhm) [rural] but as I said because we different people in different situations … but if you had to take me now and take me home you know I‟ve got aunts and cousins who live a rural life (yes) but when I‟m with them I‟m very comfortable it is fine for me to be there (mhm) because I‟m within that environment you know but if you take them out of that and bring them into this environment it can be very hard but it‟s fine for me to go to that environment (yes) or whatever its just basically em if I‟m within city if I‟m within city in city whatsoever you know and I‟m living a normal life of a teenager (mhhm) because a lot of teenagers in the cities know English and are like English (yeah) and stuff within the city you going to shopping malls you going for lunch you going coffee and all that its fine for me to do (mhm) but I don‟t think that a rural person would not take that in well and therefore and the way view relationships as well you know we also different in that you know which is fine because everybody has different beliefs and therefore we must learn from each other (yes, yes) but its more difficult because now its not just the em conversational difference its actually a whole cultural difference because in all honesty rural people are truly black in culture (mhm) us yes we are black in culture but we also have the spice of wisdom within us therefore its fine for me if ngintshile [I have changed] you know with my cousins my rural cousins (mhm) you know ngale [there] and stuff like in Natal its fine I
197 can sort of adapt in there but then I also get like you know I don‟t wanna go back to what I‟m used to be.
Extract 32
Yonda: mhm what would been difficult about living with rural person maybe the communication (mhm) I know my rural Zulu speaking has definitely deteriorated (mhm) I speak the township or I don‟t know but you know I don‟t know and maybe their living conditions as well (mhm) because I mean rural people do things much more differently because of lack of resources (ja) and I do things more differently as well because of my amount of resources (mhm) you know so I don‟t know like things they wear (yes) ehm how they look after themselves (mhm) you know like they could be happy using a sunlight washing dingy (yes) and I want my Lux soap and my Dove soap and you know my whatever (yes) you know and ehm and just maybe their social life (mhhm) the way they do things are different maybe they prefer going to someone‟s house and just drinking I don‟t know (yes) and maybe I prefer to go to club scenes and I have a celllphone and I put on make-up and you know (mhhm) looking good and poshy whatever (yes yes) you know so something like that.
In extracts 31 and 32 above, Zifiki and Yonda make further claims of difference between urban and rural blackness by creating a hierarchy of blackness based on three grounds: moral, economic and cultural differences. Zifiki claims to be comfortable with both urban and rural life;
however she raises the concern that a rural person could experience hardship with urban life. She embraces the economic life and city sophistication associated with whiteness, like going to shopping malls, going out for lunch and so on, as she distances herself from the rural as blackness associated with economic deprivation. She also makes claims of cultural differences between her urban self and rural self. She criticises her rural cousins for being naïve and “truly black”. Yonda defends her position of being a coconut. For her, the variable that separates her from the black rural group is a lack of black knowledge experience. She says “my rural Zulu speaking has definitely deteriorated”. She highlights cultural and economic discourses to defend her claim to a white-black position. She adopts white culture as a life style, like she uses Lux and Dove, she goes to clubs and put on make-up. Accordingly to her, rural blacks are “lacking
198 resources”, are naïve and backward. She thus positions herself as white-black and as superior to them. The same stereotypes used to separate white-blacks from black-blacks in constructing an authentic blackness have been used to make urban blackness different in relation to rural blackness. Cultural and economic discourses are used to contrast rural and urban blackness.