In this week’s Slice of Gasant, Gasant Abarder recognises his privilege. It means now being able to buy the toys his folks couldn’t buy him as a kid. And he is unapologetic about it.
Abarder, who recently launched his book, Hack with a Grenade, is among the country’s most influential media voices. Catch his weekly column here, exclusive to Cape {town} Etc.
What is a “privileged urbanite”? That is what I was called recently by someone who supports Cape Independence – a movement that wants the Western Cape to secede from South Africa to create a sovereign state.
I’ve only just stopped believing in Santa, unicorns and the Tooth Fairy and they’re more plausible than a Republic of the Western Cape. But this guy’s jibe, who in his profile pic looks very privileged sitting next to a llama, was part of a thread about how the Cape Flats would supposedly benefit if the province broke away from South Africa.
It got me thinking. Am I privileged now because my working-class truck driver dad and seamstress mom were able to move us out of Mitchells Plain and back to Woodstock when I was ten? The youngest of four kids, I was only three when we moved out of Woodstock.
My dad needed a permit to buy us a fixer upper house in Essex Street in 1988 because we weren’t white – even though everyone else in the street was coloured. We soon discovered it wasn’t exactly a move up.
Our house was flanked by two drug dealing neighbours and one across the road. On the corner was an illegal tavern. Every now and then a police van would stop while I was walking in the street or sitting on the shop corner to frisk my teenage self.
But in both Mitchells Plain and Woodstock streets, I was free to play from sunrise to sunset.
When Wimbledon was in season we drew courts on the tar using a brick and used homemade wooden tennis bats. World Cup football? A mini-tournament of our own. Then, there were the games handed down from generation to generation, like kennetjie and skipping rope challenges. Here, I made lifelong friends spanning more than three decades who I am still in touch with.
While I had what I needed, I didn’t get all I wanted.
A pair of Nike sneakers was a dream. I’d get Hi-Tecs instead. My version of Lego was generic bricks you break your teeth on to take apart. And I had one Masters of the Universe toy: He-Man was a prized possession.
My schools hardly had the basic amenities but we had fantastic teachers who went beyond the prescribed curriculum to school us about the real state of our nation. The content not found in the Jan van Riebeeck textbooks.
I now live in Kenwyn – on the Cape Flats side of the M5 highway. If my municipal account and electricity tariff are anything to go by, it’s an upmarket suburb. But here, I never let my kids out of my sight. They don’t know kennetjie or the hopscotch games I played. There are bad people outside – worse than the guys who sold drugs in Essex Street.
I wanted a safer environment in a safer neighbourhood. A neighbourhood where last week my cousin’s son and his two boys, aged six and seven, were held up at gun point at a shop during an armed robbery.
My life coach asked me why I buy things now that I’ve “moved up as homework for our next session.” My answer was simple: I buy my kids Lego to fill a void for something I never had.
As a lifelong Manchester United fan, I am a kit collector thanks to missing out on all the seasons I couldn’t get the kits. I have a shelf full of sneakers and a walk-in cupboard filled with clothing. (I’m also on the waiting list for recently re-released He-Man and Skeletor action figures.)
But she unexpectedly turned my answer on its head, saying it is a credit to my hard work.
She reminded me of all the train rides on the darkest winter mornings to the then Pentech on carriages where you had to guard your possessions from thugs. Where, if you didn’t run across the line at Langa station, you’d miss the connecting train to campus – a feat only possible by jumping through a window. I worked at a toy store to support my fees. I bought my first car when I got a real job at a newspaper.
She reminded me how I took my opportunities.
So, am I a “privileged urbanite” (whatever that means)? If working hard and improving your lot makes you one, then I wear that badge with honour – unapologetically so. But I have what other privileged folks don’t: street smarts and experiences money can’t buy. Deep down, I’m all Cape Flats!
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Picture: Wikimedia Commons