What it means to be a South African

Part 1

I met a girl when I was seventeen. Her name was Natasha. We were at a party and I was drunk and she came over to me, starting up a conversation, talking the way girls talk to boys when they're seventeen, talking about school and music and parents and the drama of a petty suburban non-existance. Ok I lied. We spoke about sex. Her pretty friend Yvonne joined us.

Natasha had a bedroom from hell. I remember it severely. The powder blue coloured paint of the walls sneaking out between A4 sized Hit Parader posters of The Offspring and Green Day and other unmentionables spewed along every perceivable surface, along with photographs and ornamental abominations. Yvonne flopped down lightly on the sta-soft floral duvet as Tasha ruined the photos for me with lengthy explanations. Then we played truth or dare.

It was around this time that the scene degenerated into an inexcusably debaucherous exploration of the infinite universe, delving richly into the essence of causal possibility and the detachment of hedonistic bliss. Well, for me anyway. When we finally drew upon the inevitability of girl on girl action I found that the pair were the most imaginative and artistic young ladies that I had ever had the pleasure of befriending. Then a moment came when I was conscious enough of myself to step outside of the situation, you know, view it from a historical and scientific perspective, and then I decided I was being an idiot and jumped right into the esculent meal of their naked flesh just as a vicious jaguar leaping down from a tree or something onto a bewildered sheep. I believed that I had found my calling in life.

But enough about me.

What it means to be a South African

Part 1

I was born in 1979 to a couple of hippies from one of the poorer sides of town. I was raised with Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple blaring in the background until my little sister grew beyond nappiehood and my parents became hollowed out exhausted shells of themselves. I was a quiet child. I went to school and quickly discovered that something was drastically wrong with everything. I argued that Plato's Utupia was merely a foolish dream, and that for one to achieve any sense of realistic happiness one has to discover true freedom, and that forcing discipline on children, in whom self discipline should be automatically instilled by good-example-setting parents, would only be a means to the redundant end of a lifelong search for freedom from that discipline and thereupon they would resentfully begin their latently hindered search for a true sense of freedom from self consciousness later in life in the form of passive rebellion from the constructed norm that society programs us to be. Then I drew lots of brilliant pictures of Jesus and Noah and his Disciples and had a nap.

Then I started having a whole fuckload of naps. I slept for about 16 hours a day. Nobody understood what it meant to be me. Sigh. But then all of a sudden people were talking about a Referendum to allow black people to take over the country! Holy Crumbs! I didn't know any black people, except for our maid who told on me to my father when I was nine and I discovered his porn collection. I took a stack of about twenty magazines from his cupboard to my bedroom to study them further and greeted her with a grin on the way. Fucking tattle tail. I couldn't find his porn again until I was sixteen.

Black people started becoming a lot more common everywhere that you went, and they no longer stank because they were working in your garden the whole day, they stank just like everyone stank. We started having black kids in school. A common example of a class would be thirty white kids raised on Jungle Oats and National Party dogma and one black kid who generally never said a word the whole year and who always wore school uniform on civvies day. They kept to themselves most of the time, even when the boys and I started throwing stones at each other one day in protest of the fascist nature of a society that didn't accept my then popular philosophy of enlightenment through the infliction of sudden and surprising pain. (Back then I had thought that black people would have been exceptionally talented in the art of throwing stones because the school made us write a weekly article about what was happening in the news.)

Anyway, I grew up.

Part 2

Or did I?

I was burdened with such a profound questioning of my own existence that I inflicted terrible harm on my psychological development throughout my early adolescence, until I discovered cannabis and forgot all about it. For those uninitiated to the wonders of cannabis I will briefly explain its effect on the human mind with this brief example: John was a guy who was burdened with such a profound questioning of his own existence that he inflicted terrible harm on his psychological development throughout his early adolescence. What a dumb shithead. "Don't take life so seriously John, smoke this blunt with Pete and me, we're going to play Nintendo until 4am!"

It was around this time in my life that things started to blur into each other for some unknown reason.

I was released from school with only a few minor cuts and bruises and proceeded to study something or other at a tertiary institution. The facts really aren't that important in this bit. I grew my hair really long and found employment at a professional company in my field, a feat which allowed me the opportunity to earn enough disposable income to flirt with girls in bars on an equal footing. By buying them drinks, I mean.

Part 3

Absolution from a selfishly shallow lifestyle of bitches and booze followed hard upon my discovery of the female mind, when I had my first serious girlfriend obviously, and everything turned to a sour shade of shit. It was soon after my run in with the long arm of the fairer sex that you would find me, head shaven, Buddhist, and vegetarian. Then I became really bored and started smoking pot again and drinking and found another girlfriend and I learnt how to play the guitar.

What it means to be a South African, for fucksakes.

Part 2

As a society drenched in the propaganda of this new ridiculous Rainbow Nation ideal it soon became apparent that we were going nowhere, because, for the most part, the dark skinned people couldn't afford Rainbows. White money didn't want to turn into black money overnight, although it seemed to have no trouble suddenly turning into British money and Canadian money and Australian money, and, in some extremely foolish cases, United States of American Money. The mass exodus had begun. Families were uprooted by fear and neighbours evaporated one by one. Today, the South African Government still appears to have no control over this dire situation. We're now instead burdened with the fallacious concept that we should all be Proudly South African (tm). Fuck that. I could argue for hours against the religion of patriotism but it would get me nowhere because people stupid enough to be patriotic are also stupid enough to resist logic in all its forms. What it means to be South African means nothing to me. Humanity, in all its forms, is manifested by a fruitless pursuit of immortality no matter where you live. Fuck pride, and fuck yourself. We are all going to die and be forgotten.