The Hindu Business Line : Bitter memories of apartheid years

The tour guide Conroy Gabriels can almost pass off for a white man… almost because if you look closely you can see the wave of his hair inherited from the partial black blood in his family a couple of generations ago. But like any other non-white South African he is bitter about the apartheid years too.

According to figures given out by Statistics South Africa in 2001, the average white household income in the country between 1995 and 2000 was likely to be four to six times higher than that of an average black household.

We are told how during the apartheid years the black could not own estates or businesses and even if the larger chunk of the money was their own, they had to have white partners and keep a minority share in the business. As we drive around the scenic coast of Cape Town and Cape Bay and pass Gordon’s Bay and the Bikini Beach, Gabriels says, “During those (apartheid) years, the black/coloured were not allowed to swim in these waters. If you were caught you were imprisoned and severely punished.”

Imprisonment and torture are strong underlying themes of a tourist’s route in and around Cape Town. Whether it is the famous Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for long years or the Parliamentary building and the adjoining Castle which was the home of the Dutch Governor centuries back, the prison is omnipresent.

In the Castle, there are two rooms where prisoners were kept. One with a little opening where some light comes in and the other where political prisoners were kept in total darkness. “When they came out after a couple of years, they were totally blind and lunatic.”

The European influence in and around Cape Town is omnipresent, particularly in the names of the various localities and roads, and the more you drive along the place, the more you are struck by the quality of the roads… the place is so clean, green and picturesque, the weather so balmy, the roads so good and totally devoid of honking that you’d think you are driving in Europe or the US.

“Oh yes, a lot of my American guests tell me that… they keep raving about the roads and that surprises me,” says a very happy Gabriels, as he cruises at a comfortable 120 km on our way to the winelands in the Stellenbosch region, about 60 km from Cape Town. The previous day we have visited a quaint little town called Hermanus, about 120 km from Cape Town and its amazing to find we’ve made the distance in 100 minutes!

Wine, cheese tasting

As we go through several rounds of wine and cheese tasting, speedily going through Cabernet Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonny and Chardonny and Merlot Reserve wines – they cost a pittance; good wines beginning around Rs 150 — Gabriels has to content himself with coffee and cheese as he has to drive us back.

It is surprising to find that even today the 30-year-old man cannot sit down to share a bottle of wine with his father. “Oh no, in our culture that would be disrespectful. You see we are raised not to consume alcohol as youngsters, and sometimes this causes problems, because when you become adults and suddenly have freedom to drink, many people can’t handle it and lose control.”

Gabriels also gives us – two Indian journalists invited by South African Tourism – some gyan on courtship and marriage. Obviously, South Africans have embraced a lot of western culture so courtship and living together before marriage is accepted among the upper middle classes.

Commenting on the high divorce rate in the country, and admiring Indian customs, he says, “In your country, when marriages are arranged your parents can obviously see what you can’t; they do a thorough background check, and hence, there is more chance of the marriage working. But here, sometimes, women choose boyfriends, who are often not good men, and opt to get married at 21, often because they just want to escape the oppressive atmosphere at home. And after a couple of years that marriage ends in divorce.”

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