| Time | Summary | |
| 29:00 | Our next piece has nothing to do with murder or massacres or torture or forced removals. It still breaks your heart. During the apartheid years many African people living in the so-called Coloured preferential areas gave up their ethnic identities and became ‘Coloured’. In the Karoo they called this ‘om jou baadjie om te draai,’ to turn your jacket inside out. There were many advantages to pass as a Coloured. Coloured people did not have to carry pass books and there were more jobs available. Coloureds were better paid and their schools were superior. But with freedom comes dignity. Many of the Xhosa’s, Sotho’s and Zulu’s of the Karoo now want to go back to their roots. ‘Hulle wil weer hulle baadjies omdraai’ [they again want to turn their jackets inside out]. | Full Transcript |
| 29:44 | The beauty of the Karoo’s wide open spaces belies a cruel apartheid past in which black people were made to survive by passing themselves off as Coloureds. During the apartheid years the Karoo became by law an official Coloured area. For black people it became a hostile place to live and work. // ‘n Kleurling [a Coloured] … in those years of apartheid they were the most privileged because to my thinking they were the most privileged because of the colour of their skin, and the language they were talking. // In certain places you could not find work because you carried a pass book. You had to first go to the magistrate to get a pass to go into certain towns if you were a black person. Whereas the Coloured could go anywhere with his green ID card. | Full Transcript |
| 30:44 | Even speaking Afrikaans was also another priority, because if you go to the ‘baas’ and say you can’t speak Afrikaans, then he’ll say ‘ek het nie tyd vir kaffirs nie,’ I have no time to waste on you, gaan man [get lost!]. So those were all attempts, as I see them to make a black man feel that he’s nothing if he’s not a Coloured. So he must rather change. | Full Transcript |
| 31:13 | And this is exactly what many black people did. The passport out of the hardship of being black was trying to be Coloured. Many took on a Coloured identity or an Afrikaans sounding surname, usually both. // Yes, they called it turning your jacket inside out. You put the inside outside and the outside inside. | Full Transcript |
| 31:37 | In this way ‘Mtimkulu’ became ‘Grootboom,’ ‘Ndlovu’ became ‘Olifant,’ ‘Boesakwe’ became ‘Boesak.’ For others it was as simple as changing a letter or two. ‘Makapela’ became ‘Kapel,’ ‘Zali’ became ‘Salie,’ ‘Manele’ became ‘Manel.’ But it was a risky road to take, a road full of potholes. // You know for an example I am Malgas, but Malgas I could translate it easily to Malgas so that I can register me as a Coloured person so that I can get an ID. When I’ve got an ID I’m a Coloured person. In those days it was so crowded, when the police were getting you here and they suspect you to be a Xhosa or a Zulu or an African person, if I may put it in that way, they had a tactic they used. You know there are those words; they call it ‘jakkals.’ Now they will ask you to say ‘jakkals.’ The moment you can say ‘jakalase,’ they will take you and throw you into the van because they can see you are a chance taker. | Full Transcript |
| 32:45 | And we had to think of a trick for me to attend school. And that is why we had to change my surname … just a few letters of my surname. We spell it as Masimela but we had to make it Misimila to be approved for the Coloured school. | Full Transcript |
| 33:06 | I was registered at the hospital as Amelia Dawn Ann Mswazi. But with time I went to a Coloured school called St Theresa. An Afrikaans school. And my name then changed to Saais. | Full Transcript |
| 33:25 | My brother is Namane, but he changed to Dames and he’s living in Cape Town as Dames. He’s living in Tiervlei right now, he’s a Coloured. Since then, even before, he’s far older than I am, so he changed long ago and he became Coloured. He’s a Coloured now. His kids don’t even know a single Xhosa word. | Full Transcript |
| 33:51 | Many people took surnames when you knew the man is black because you went to school together. We grew up together. But now the man is a Pietersen or a Hugo or he simply made himself Coloured. | Full Transcript |
| 34:09 | Till standard 6 I was Isaac Mosotho. And all my friends still know me as Isaac Mosotho. Many still address me like that. I am proud of being Isaac Mosotho. But late in the eighties – in 1984 I officially became Isaac Dokter. At various times I looked for work as a young man. And then the first question is who are you? Mosotho says clearly that you are a kaffir. | Full Transcript |
| 34:43 | And when I started working outside and I saw how the men were being caught for Pass books, how black men struggled I decided to play Coloured to be able to live. | Full Transcript |
| 34:56 | Taking on a Coloured identity meant far more than just a change of name. To be a convincing Coloured meant giving up all vestiges of a former black identity. // The only thing that you had in mind now in order to get away from these claws that are haunting you as an African people, you had to give up your traditions, you had to give up everything – your customs – just for you and your family to survive. | Full Transcript |
| 35:25 | Now, many of those who gave up their identities want to go back to their roots. For some this means getting back their original surnames, for others it’s moving back to the townships they left when they took on Coloured identities. Some simply want to embrace lost traditions. // There is no opportunistics in. Why am I saying so? You as you sit there, you are proud of your nationality. I was forced to take the Coloured nationalism, through circumstances under the apartheid laws. Now as democracy is here, equal rights for all, I must get back to my roots. The point here is my origin, my roots, my ancestors’ roots. I can say what I can say but my origin remains my origin. | Full Transcript |
| 36:24 | The last thing which I think is just for somebody himself to stop feeling inferior when he is maybe amongst blacks or when somebody says to you, ‘you kaffir,’ that word will never die easily. But he must just say. Although I’m not a kaffir I’m a black man and I’m proud of it. He mustn’t be afraid to say that. | Full Transcript |
