Mitchells Plain – Africas Last Colonial Outpost
My Mitchell’s Plain aunty and I are again not on speaking terms.
It’s been happening every four or five years since the elections in 1994!
Before that we had a lovely relationship – my mother took me kicking and screaming to high tea – with a clean dress, fierce curls in my hair and a sullen look (according to my mother)on a Sunday afternoon to that last colonial outpost in Africa, Westridge Mitchell’s Plain.
For this trouble I regaled them with my political opinion on their hero Allan Hendrickse – hey that swim in the ocean was easy pickings.
My aunty saw the merits of the Labour Party, by the way. After all, they said, we must look after our own.
Post 1994, with memories of Sunday’s in Mitchell’s Plain, a vote and an acquired taste for sweet tea, I willingly visited my aunties.
Their stance had changed too. No longer did they care about the long defunct Labour Party. Instead their heart belonged with FW De Klerk, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Pieter Marais and the National Party.
But what about Nelson Mandela, I asked them?
He will only look after his own, they replied.
After lengthy debates over cups of tea and plates of fancy cakes, we argued over the merits of our chosen parties. Neither side giving an inch.
Eventually we would say our goodbyes and not see each other until Christmas, when no one was allowed to speak politics, not even me.
This year of course there is no National Party and the Independent Democratics have not been looking after their own.
The aunties have been eyeing Helen Zille and the DA with delight, because as she likes to remind me: they are not black.
After yesterday’s by-election in Mitchells’ Plain, guess who will not be visiting with the aunty until after 22 April.
She can keep her pickled snoek on Good Friday! I’m doing the Two Oceans anyway!
.jpg)
3 Responses to “Mitchells Plain – Africas Last Colonial Outpost”
By Timothy on Apr 21, 2009 | Reply
Wow, you’re really obsessed with being “black”. Of course, I can respect that since racial identity is a tricky thing, especially amongst marginalized and heterogeneous groups, like the Cape Coloureds.
If those aunties do not consider themselves “black”, who are you to tell them otherwise? Let them be, they have a clear sense of their own identity (be it right or wrong). It’s the same with yourself. You see yourself as black, but what exactly makes you black? Or maybe I should rephrase that, why exactly is it so important to be black?
By Abigail Abrahams on Apr 21, 2009 | Reply
Timothy,
I have no problem being called coloured. A large part of my identity comes from growing up on the Cape Flats and I would never ever deny my heritage. I know as little of my black heritage as I know of my white ancestors.
This particular post is written tongue firmly in cheek about the aunties on the Flats who pretend to be British with high tea on Sunday, even though they were forceably moved to Mitchells Plain by the very people they are emulating.