“Where are you from?’ people have asked me.
“Zimbabwe.”
“Oh! South Africa!”
Well, no. That’s a different country. It’s far more industrialized than Zimbabwe and has a rather different history and an altogether different set of ethnic groups in it.
The tendency to assume Zimbabwe is part of a totally different state seems to have had to do with ideological warfare, which also had a psychological warfare component. Since South Africa was more prominent in the world media during the 70s, those who fought the war against colonialism in Zimbabwe also altered their language to make it seem as if this was part of the resistance to apartheid in South Africa. When asked who they were fighting, they said, “the Boers”. Except they weren’t fighting “the Boers” (Afrikaaaners, who live in the more southern State). They were fighting the English colonialists. Nonetheless, it made it almost impossible for those in Australia to differentiate between somewhat different states in Southern Africa. Also, the manipulation of image, so that ‘the Boers” appeared to be the most vicious colonialists, led to people subscribing to a kind of mythology rather than fact. There are, for instance, many very left wing “Boers” who resisted colonialism, but those in Australia who have a rather hackneyed and moralistic view of “identity” are likely to attack on sight — or upon hearing a particular accent.
No comments:
Post a Comment