Shame and Respectability

SHAME AND RESPECTABILITY: A NARRATIVE INQUIRY INTO CAPE TOWN’S ‘COLOURED’ FAMILIES THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHS, CULTURAL PRACTICES AND ORAL HISTORIES (C. 1950 TO 2016) By Nadia Kamies (17405361) Submitted to the University of Pretoria in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Department of Historical and Heritage Studies Date of submission: 31 August 2018 Supervisor: Dr Siona O’Connell, University of Pretoria DECLARATION I, Nadia Kamies, hereby declare that the work on which this thesis is based is my original work (except where acknowledgements indicate otherwise) and that neither the whole work nor any part of it has been, is being, or is to be submitted for another degree in this or any other university. I authorise the University of Pretoria to reproduce, for the purpose of research, either the whole or any portion of the contents in any manner whatsoever. Signature: Date: MY GRANDMOTHER’S DREAM CATCHERS Mama made these doilies for me, my mother says, as green and blue tightly crocheted works of art fall softly out of the plastic packet she’s kept them in. I see my grandmother sitting in her chair, grey hair escaping from under a white cotton scarf wrapped around her head; her fingers hold the thin steel hook wrapping cotton thread in elaborate patterns, making poor man’s lace, creating circles in the air to catch bad dreams. Her hands are never idle, weaving and spinning a livelihood to keep her family together, her work good enough for even white people, my father says, the patterns out of a secret book in her head dipped in starch and ironed to attention. Round and round she goes weaving circles of where she came from, each stitch a link to the past, a chain from Arab trade routes to Africa, interlocking loops of yarn, tiny stitches helping to feed her family. I wish I had followed that thread of journeys across oceans, wish that I had asked her to teach me how to catch dreams. Nadia Kamies, November 2017 ABSTRACT This study investigates the notion of ‘colouredness’ in South Africa by thinking through representation and attendant ideas of shame and respectability. The family photograph offers a lens through which we may view what it meant to live through apartheid, occupying an intermediate space in terms of race, colour, language, religion and social and cultural status, and how these impact on a sense of belonging in a post-apartheid South Africa, in particular, Cape Town. As such, the study responds to a need to understand what it means to be part of this diverse group of South Africans who continue to occupy peripheral spaces in the larger South African landscape and is an attempt to provide insight into the long reach of an oppressive past. The issue of representation and history is central to the research and the thesis suggests that the very act of dressing up – performance – and sitting for photographs was a site of resistance against the way ‘coloured’ people were portrayed through the continuum of slavery, colonialism and apartheid. Family photographs serve as memory aids and help us to access stories, revealing a way of life that disturbs the conventional representation that oppression dictated (Hirsch, 1999). The question of self-representation, cultural and social practices is understood to be deeply political and has particular meaning in a contemporary South Africa that still bears the scars of a past where ‘black’ bodies were legislated as being less than human. As a creative writer, I frame my research in terms of narrative in order to better understand how the stories are structured, who produces them, and how they are consumed. Narrative research focuses on the lives of individuals as told through their own stories, giving them the opportunity to define who they are and where they come from. The stories of those who have been marginalised or oppressed bear witness to a life under apartheid. I acknowledge the difficulty of being an objective researcher while examining these photographs, stories, and memories which I filter through the lens which I am using. This is therefore, in part, an auto-eth- nographic study; my own attempt to find meaning for what it means to be named and understood as ‘coloured’ in a democratic South Africa. Shame is a principal source of identity for minorities, and the idea of respectability is a historically import- ant mode of structuring unequal social relations in the African and ‘coloured’ worlds (Kaufman, 1996; Ross, 2015). The desire to prove respectability, I argue, is central to the experience of ‘colouredness’, tightly bound to a legacy of slavery and the ‘civilising’ mission of the church and Christian National Education. This study therefore starts with an examination of the genealogy of ‘coloured’ and examines the lived experiences of or- dinary people against a background of dehumanising legislation and narratives of subjugation. The thesis re-presents the lives of ‘coloured’ people by offering a platform for the expression of multiple narratives through which the past may be acknowledged and legitimised, leading to the dismantling of racial identities. I hope that it may serve both a cathartic and a restorative function and ultimately contribute to fur- ther dialogue which will assist in the healing and integration of our society so that we may transcend race and view each other as human. CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 2 LIST OF ACRONYMS 3 KEYWORDS 4 LIST OF FIGURES 5 A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY 7 FOREWORD 8 RESEARCH AIM 12 CHAPTER OUTLINE 13 CHAPTER 1: THE GENEALOGY OF ‘COLOURED’: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 15 INTRODUCTION 16 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: SLAVERY AND COLONIALISM 19 SLAVERY IN ANTIQUITY VERSUS NEW WORLD SLAVERY 20 RACIAL SLAVERY 21 INDIAN OCEAN SLAVE TRADE 22 THE OCCUPATION OF THE CAPE 23 MOTHER: CAPE ‘COLOURED’ 24 FATHER: CAPE MALAY 26 SLAVERY AND ISLAM 27 NARRATIVES OF PILGRIMAGE 29 CONTENTS CHAPTER 2: THE ‘COLOURED’ QUESTION: THE RISE OF APARTHEID 33 COLONIALISM, RACIAL SCIENCE AND GENOCIDE 34 EUGENICS 35 CLEANSING THE SOCIAL BODY 35 INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF TRAUMA 37 AFRIKANER NATIONALISM AND THE RISE OF APARTHEID 37 IMPLEMENTING APARTHEID 39 THE ‘COLOURED’ QUESTION 40 THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF ‘COLOUREDS’ 41 LIVING APARTHEID: THE GROUP AREAS ACT 41 LIVING APARTHEID: THE IMMORALITY ACT AND THE PROHIBITION OF MIXED MARRIAGES ACTS 47 CHAPTER 3: NARRATIVES AND MYTHS: REPRESENTATION AND STEREOTYPES 50 BORN A CRIME 51 STEREOTYPES AND REPRESENTATION 53 “DRUNKEN, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY CLOWNS” 54 SO DRONK SOOS ŉ KLEURLING ONDERWYSER 55 “EDUCATE YOURSELF SO THAT YOU CAN BE SOMEBODY” 58 SEPARATE EDUCATION 60 EARLY SCHOOLING 60 GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF SCHOOLS 62 CHRISTIAN NATIONAL EDUCATION 63 ZONNEBLOEM AND THE TRAINING OF ‘COLOURED’ TEACHERS 63 SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHS AS A PERFORMATIVE SPACE 65 PRESENTING NEW IMAGES 67 CHAPTER 4: GOD’S STEPCHILDREN: SCENES OF SHAME 69 INTRODUCTION 70 THE SINS OF THE FATHER 70 ‘BLACK’ BODIES AS SEXUAL OBJECTS 71 ‘BLACK’ BODIES AS A LABOUR SOURCE 71 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COLONIALISM 72 A SLAVE MENTALITY 72 OCCUPYING AN INTERMEDIATE ZONE 74 PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: IDENTITY, CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY 74 AUTONOMY VERSUS SHAME AND DOUBT 75 INDUSTRY VERSUS INFERIORITY 76 INTERNALISED SHAME 77 WOMEN LIVING ‘COLOURED’ LIVES 78 PRIM AND PROPER DOWN UNDER 79 CONTENTS CHAPTER 5: RESPECTABILITY: “ARMOUR AGAINST INFERIORITY” 84 INTRODUCTION 85 A SHRINE TO RESPECTABILITY 85 ORDENTLIKHEID 86 RELIGION AND SLAVERY 88 THE CHURCH AND EMANCIPATION 89 THE BRITISH AT THE CAPE 90 CREATING A CULTURE OF RESPECTABILITY 91 THE DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH AND SEGREGATION 92 SUNDAY BEST: “ARMOUR AGAINST INFERIORITY” 93 CLOTHING AS A MARKER OF STATUS 98 THE ACCUMULATION OF POSSESSIONS 98 CLEAN AND IN GOOD ORDER 101 CHAPTER 6: CONFRONTING OUR PAST: FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY 105 INTRODUCTION 106 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY 106 VOTING FOR THE OPPRESSORS 107 THE POLITICS OF BEING ‘COLOURED’ 109 THE RESURGENCE OF THE ‘COLOURED’ QUESTION 111 NO FUTURE WITHOUT FORGIVENESS? 113 THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION 113 REMEMBERING SLAVERY 115 REMEMBERING DISTRICT SIX 117 HISTORY IN OUR SCHOOLS 118 POST-MEMORY 119 CHAPTER 7: NAVIGATING AMBIGUOUS SPACES: RACE, IDENTITY AND COLOUR 121 INTRODUCTION 122 TRAVELLING TO FIND MYSELF 122 CASPER, VIETNAM AND ME 125 CROSSING THE COLOUR LINE 127 THE ELUSIVE ‘COLOURED’ IDENTITY 131 ROAD TRIPS 133 CONCLUSION 134 A SEARCH FOR ROOTS 134 IMAGINING THE FUTURE 137 HOW MAY WE BE FREE? 137 FOOTNOTE 139 REFERENCES 140 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people to be acknowledged for their role in this thesis. I am indebted to my supervisor, Dr Siona O’Connell, for believing in me and for spurring me on to achieve more than I could imagine. Thank you to the University of Pretoria, for providing me with an academic home. I would like to extend my thanks and gratitude to all those who shared their photographs and memories with me. In this vein too, I would like to thank my parents who over the last three years have fielded many ques- tions about their past, and entrusted me with their precious photographs. My study would have no foundation without you. Thank you to James McDonald for his conscientious reading and invaluable feedback. Thank you to Warren Uytenbogaardt for capturing my vision in his design and layout. A special thank you to my daughter, Saarah, for editing my work and for her patience with her technological- ly-challenged mother. My thanks to Karen Minnaar, archivist at the NGK Archives. In addition, I would like to thank the following: Tracy, Luke, Stephen and Mary-in-Maine – you know what you did. My thanks and love to Iqbal, Saarah and Rayhaan for supporting and cheering me on. I dedicate this work to my grandfather for setting me on this path of learning, to my grandmothers, both strong women in their own ways, and to my children, of whom I am so proud.

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