This is just a short little not-so-well-planned rant. As you all know by now, I have a friend who is really crazy about this Muslim girl. They hooked up once and she told him she liked him but that she didn’t want anything. He was told the reason for this is because the family would not approve and it can’t go anywhere… so what was the point? Fair enough.
I now have another friend, a white girl, who really likes this black guy and we’ve ascertained that he feels the same way to her. Similarly to my first friend though - it’s familial approvement which will result in nothing happening.
I wonder how many South African youth think this is as it should be? I was born into a very different nation to the one my parents were born into and I find myself attracted to girls from across the rainbow. In an increasingly integrated society this is natural and should be encouraged. It seems to me that the problem comes from the elders. I get increasingly irked with the Freedom Front + and it’s notion that integration is not natural. Yes, that is their argument essentially, to justify segregation at UFS. Cornelius Jansen van Rensburg of the FF+ told 3rd degree’s Debra Patta that there should be not forced integration because if it were something that happened naturally, it would happen.
I think the reason it doesn’t happen is because of the attitudes of some older South Africans and the pressure which treackles down from our parents to stick to our ‘own’. I am sad to see that in the new South Africa, the idea that you can be “born the wrong way” for someone still persists.
My first friend was born the wrong way for this Muslim girl. There is nothing he can do to change that no matter how much he cares for her. He has been encouraged to tell her he would convert… which he would for love… which he thinks he has. Still one has to wonder if it’s enough: would he be accepted given a background which has very little similarity to hers? Muslims inter-marry with coloureds all the time in Cape Town, I can think of 3 examples in my proximate family off the top of my head. It has to do with shared history, that they were all assigned places in District Six (for one example) and they shared space.
Today the shared space is wider, we’re all mingling across far larger barriers and bless the very young for not being able to see colour. So we come to my other friend who cannot be with her black beau. Both because of her parents and his. Doesn’t it sound ridiculous to you? They want to be together, they are adults capable of making their own decisions. These are not people who have their parents weigh in what they wear and how late they stay up. Instead the minset of a system we all suppsedly want to see dead pervades and infests minds which would ordinarily not see a problem.
Personally I don’t care about the outer appearance of whomever my children bring home, I will only care about how they treat my child. Surely this should be the primary concern of parents. If we treat each other as different we’re only going to continue to see difference reflected in the next generation. I will notice the outer apprearance of the person my child brings home, my hope is to be the kind of parent who assures that my child doesn’t notice.
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September 19th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Amen brother!! I have a friend whose parents had a HUGE problem with her dating a guy who has a black father and coloured mother…. I couldn’t belive this as I know the parents quite well and while being very very strict, they never came across as being unreasonable or racist. I suppose its easy to be unprejudiced until somthing affects you on a very personal level.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Well yes, sad to hear that these things are still out there and happening, I am glad to say that where I mingle there are very few problems like that, I know at least 5 or more ‘mixed’ couples at my church and they are all blessed from both sides of by their family’s. But yes, people are still prejudiced and racist and feel the need to dictate to their children who is mr/miss right. I my self am in a relationship with a lovely lady that has mixed heritage (white/coloured) but due to her age she was classified in ‘those’ years as white cos her mother was reclassified. Her brother on the other hand had himself reclassified as coloured to marry his coloured girlfriend. It is amazing how much ‘integration’ happened in the 50’s/60’s! When you talk to people you realise how fabricated apartheid really was. Yes, people do like to marry into family’s that closely resemble their own background but if you or your child wants to cross the divide nothing should stop them except common sense, if the guy is a bum he stays a bum no matter what colour he is!