Opinion

Malanisms, wanting to stereotype everyone, begging to be black

November 15, 2009 Edition 1

Maureen Isaacson

I accidentally slept through the launch of Rian Malan's Resident Alien, his first published work since My Traitor's Heart, written two decades ago, because I was feeling under the weather. However, I perked up when I read this new collection, packed with Malanisms.

Herein lies all the provocation, and the often-searing perception about the places, the writers and politicians we love and loathe.

“I called it as I saw it,” says Malan in his introduction, and those who have forgiven him for challenging the US Agency for International Development’s mechanism for

ascertaining HIV/Aids stats during the depths of denialism in South Africa and the aims of the aids lobby,

which Malan set out so eagerly to discount, and even those who have not forgiven him for this, will do well to buy this book.

In “Among the Aids Fanatics”, Malan writes that he faced “a global outpouring of ridicule and venom”, but that nobody challenged the important facts of his article – “all that stuff about UNAids’ malfunctioning model, perplexing census outcomes, serial downward revisions

of South Africa’s Aids estimates and embarrassing shortfalls in African teacher mortality. The problem with all these claims is that they were true,” he writes, “...which is why the Aids establishment and its media outriders had no choice other than to shout me down

or dismiss me as a crackpot”.

Malan writes: “By 2007, even UNAids acknowledged that its estimates for Africa were flawed, and the painful process of correcting distorted spending priorities was

under way. I will refrain from crowing, because Aids is a serious problem in Africa. Almost every article I wrote on the subject acknowledged that point, if only in passing.” The italics are my own.

His collection bears testimony to a precocious talent and to the freedom Malan has allowed himself as a

writer. An extract from his book, about possible salvation in the mealie fields, appears on page 15 of

Dispatches.

Another launch I inadvertently missed this week was that of Antjie Krog’s new book, intriguingly titled Begging to Be Black.

It concludes the trilogy that began with Country of My Skull (1998) and was followed by A Change of Tongue (2003).

The blurb reveals that in 1992 a gang leader was shot dead by an ANC member in Kroonstad and the murder weapon was hidden on Krog’s stoep.

The book examines her feelings about this incident and reaches back in time to the days of King Moshoeshoe and “explores questions of change and connectedness” in the present. A review of the book will follow.

A book that will not be launched, if only because the author keeps his identity under wraps, is Ben Trovato’s

Still On the Run.

He self-published the best of his columns because he wanted to skip the middle men, I gathered from our

e-mail conversation.

Trovato writes that he is reluctant to stereotype anyone. Like all good satirists, he takes risks by doing just this.

Even as he stands accused of verging on the edge of racist comment as he holds up a mirror – via an alter ego who goes out on a limb, as a retrograde anti-hero, he says he’d prefer not to give his game away because it may take the fun out of receiving death threats.

In answer to one of my questions, he said: “I think the loons over at Hayibo (the satirical website) are doing a great job. I don’t really understand why South Africans

skip past the humour section in book shops and line up in their thousands to buy gory crime novels.

“South Africans need to laugh more. It’s good for you and a hell of a lot cheaper than emigrating. But, as you so rightly point out, there’s not a whole lot of funny writing out there.”

In the introduction to Still on the Run he writes: “When the column first appeared seven years ago, some readers were quick to describe me as offensive, slanderous and rude. Others said they laughed so much

that their morning coffee spurted from their nose.

“Then there were those who loved the column – until the crosshairs swung in the direction of their own skin colour, their own religion, their own hard-earned prejudices. Suddenly, it wasn’t so funny.”

Speaking of misunderstandings, a Capetonian wrote: “Since so many people are asking who Ben Trovato is, may I be allowed to spill the beans on this impostor? Ben Trovato, of course, is not ‘his’ name and not even ‘his’ sex.

“Ben Trovato is a woman. It becomes clear after reading these columns that Brenda (his partner) is a symbol of oppressed womanhood, especially those married to ginsodden men.

“Only a woman writer could so cleverly get under the skin of this bully, and by doing so make this Trovato creature a thing of scorn and contempt to all women. It is all very cleverly contrived by the feminist lobby.

“How can we be so sure that Ben Trovato is a woman? There is a certain sensitivity about the pieces – notwithstanding the pretence of macho image – that betrays the truth: the deep-seated need to denigrate men.”

Back to the stereotypes.

In July 2007, in the midst of strike season, Trovato took a swipe at all of us – whites, blacks, coloureds, Asians – but he has yet to be lynched for racism because his acidity apparently turns on itself and paints a society in total incapacitation. Whites are so out of rhythm that they may never notice that he has taken the gap and

revealed them in all their crudity and inability to toyi-toyi as he paints a picture of blacks still hanging

on to Shaka’s coat tails.

He writes: “Black people have a rich culture that involves ancestor worship, traditional healing, lobola,

ritual slaughter (cows, sheep, taxi drivers, etc) and settling tribal disputes with machete fights at dawn.”

“White people have a culture that is rooted in sport, beer, fear, litigation and emigration.”

Is Trovato satirising us or is he satirising our own racist attitudes?

The answer deliberately remains unclear as he provides some relief from the prescriptive orders constantly handed down to us by some of our self-appointed moral

guardians.

In November 2006, he announces the day that same-sex marriages become legal is also World Aids Day. Let no one say the Constitutional Court lacks a keen sense of irony, he writes.

“The love that once dared not speak its name is right now shaving its legs, drinking pink champagne and putting fresh batteries into the bullhorns.”

Giving up smoking, in 1997, Trovato writes in 2007: “It was the best thing I ever did. I could taste food again, my skin cleared up, my teeth grew back, I learned to read Braille, appeared on Oprah and won two free tickets to the International Space Station.”

A man of strong opinions, but weak will, he yields to cravings, and a hallucinogenic fit of sorts. The understanding that the box of his beloved Camel Milds has changed makes him crazy.

It is no longer yellow, no longer has his beloved one-humped camel staring vacantly into the distance.

“What is this?” I asked the callow youth behind the counter. “A new box,” he said. “Damn your eyes, RJ Reynolds. How dare you bring out a new box without our permission?

“The top of the good old box used to read: ‘Danger: Smoking Can Kill You.’ I always liked that. It meant I

could lie on the beach and stare death in the face without having to go skydiving or scale some stupid

rock face.

“The top of the new box read: ‘Danger: Tobacco Is Addictive.’ This gave Trovato something to chew on: he was certain that there was a greater erotic charge in the word “addiction” than in “kill”.

Descriptions of a dastardly New Year’s Eve, marooned in the corner at a fancy-dress party with his parents-in-law in the Drakensberg add to the value of this book.

It costs only R120, but its contents are not cheap.