Cultural Claimers

There's a lot of conversation around old Johnny The White Zulu at the moment;

 

And with this goes a whole lot of slagging off of folk who claim that they are all culturally-integrated up because they dance & sing to Johnny. But only Johnny.

 

Slagging off in much the same way as people slag off folk who

-          think they're tough for boozing it up as far south as Braamfontein,

-          bought a shirt with an African outline on it in as exotic a location as a certain Rosebank shop and wear it with pride in public,

-          say "I've visited Soweto" by spending a "visit" in a tour-guide bus & only alighting from it at Wandies & beelining it straight back in by the time that beer was warming,

-          loudly say they have "seen the real face of Africa" AND "know how to solve its problems" by cuddling a poor kid in an orphanage in a clean secure Northern Suburbs  institution

-          knows a coupla lines and words of a few "other" South African languages and throws these randomly into any old irrelevant conversation

 

 You get the picture.

 

An Aussie "Cultural-Claimer" would be one who thinks they know Aboriginal culture by

 

-          having paid a visit to Uluru for a few days one winter holiday

-          buying, and loudly wearing, a shirt that says that they chose NOT to climb Uluru

-          only ever hearing didgeridoo music through Xavier Rudd's albums

-          speaking to an Aboriginal guy for 5 minutes in the largest Melbourne market & bought some "original" artwork off him for over $100

 

But, the thing is, these folk at least got on the bridge.

 

It's all about Cultural Bridges.

 

Back in Jo'burg, we even had an actual physical in-your-face cultural bridge. Once Nelson Mandela Bridge went up, a whole lot more cultural diversifying started happening. Friendships moved from Melville, past the Color Bar, to Newtown, with Nicky's Oasis serving up milk stout, and developed into leases in Jeppe Street and daily business meetings in some unknown hovel of an overhauled CBD corner.

 

Now Rea Vaya is going up, the Gautrain has discovered a whole new suburb, and the Bulle got themselves so far south that they forgot to not accept beer from strangers, but got cultural hugged & loved with some rugby thrown in.

 

Few people are as adventurous as to just head into some sprawling mass of an area they have only ever heard would skin them alive to "check it out". Why would you "just take a drive" into Soweto? Let alone veer off the Transkei road and pull up outside a homestead for a chat & some dinner.  

 

But so many people do seem so eager to discover and then claim so many aspects of all other parts of South Africa's diversity. This is a good thing An eagerness that should be strengthened, not ridiculed. And I reckon, what is chomping at this need in people's heads is howhowhow.

 

Many people would venture into the unknown culture or area or language or new food option if they had a bridge, on which to use slow cautious steps.

 

So! We need to opportunise (ha! Can you say Meeting Speak!) these bridges, to stop folk hovering on them, and gentle coax them over into the new worlds.

 

Not to slag them off.

 

Because I have had many people guide me into my best cultural experiences from SA to Oz; and I think Xavier Rudd is damned lovely. And love being told in disdain then that I haven't heard anything yet, at which point, the next bridge gets put on the iPod & I discover... The John Butler Trio...