The event was held to the backdrop of increased tensions between a radical ANC government and the productive white part of the nation, the threat of a wide-spread, Mugabe-style land grab policy to be unleashed against white farmers in the country, an unabated campaign of murder and attacks against white farmers and businesses and the danger of seeing unprecedented terrorist attacks during the World Cup. South African police are on high alert to monitor known black gangs, and intelligence suggest a pending wave of attacks on foreigners to commence in June.
Mummsie wasn't fazed by all these perils and made the short trip from Cape Town with 2 friends, fully enjoying the spirited exchanges but, most of all, the wine. Good to see that the Old Lady hasn't lost any of her feisty stamina to debate and for gulping down professionally fermented grape juice.
At the event itself, writer and musician Rian Malan and writer/poet Antjie Krog were involved in a heated discussion at one point. "I’m not disillusioned, I’m fucking furious! All I see is darkness," said Malan after the discussion where Krog tackled him, and other whites in South Africa, "who sit on the sidelines and only complain and don’t get involved in solutions."
Malan, writers Imraan Coovadia and Mandla Langa were panel members of the discussion “Writing on the Wall” on Friday. The discussion was about SA’s future after the perilous 2010 World Cup and it was led by journalist Christi van der Westhuizen. She admitted on Sunday it was quite a heated debate.
Krog was furious after Malan said SA didn’t have the ability to solve its problems. "I said whites have reason to complain. White people have to feel irrelevant and impotent. We complain, but nobody listens. And if we complain, we are called racists; or we have to hear: 'How dare you! You are white!'"
He said he has to pay tax but gets nothing in return. He also said there are many in the ANC who don’t agree with the way the country was run [by the ANC] but they are too scared to openly say so.
Krog added that Malan had said it was problematic if a person had become so entrenched in privilege, as everyone who was present in tranquil Franschhoek was, telling one another how the country was going down the drain, then washing their hands of it and moving on to a nice wine tasting. I could just hear mum giggling and chuckling...
And Krog asked, "It is the height of privilege to enjoy the benefits during apartheid and now, under the new dispensation to still enjoy all the benefits PLUS blame everything that is wrong on other people. If Jacob Zuma had only four years of schooling before he went to Robben Island; whose fault is that?"
NOT MY MUM'S! LMAO!
Van der Westhuizen said it had been a debate about white identity and "about what it means to be white. It was a constructive discussion." To which mum said, "Cheers!" After that she booked her next visit to Franschoek: over the weekend of the 17th and 18th of July, when locals and visitors will be celebrating the Valley's centuries-old French Huguenot heritage at its annual Bastille Festival.
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