When more churches
start popping up in your community it’s a sign your area is getting poorer. All these
new Christian and Catholic churches, you see them in the townships? Big
fancy buildings towering over all the houses and township shacks, they are
funded by the Americans my brew. You see, the
Americans are clinging desperately to their Christian and Catholic followers because it's their way of preserving their influence on the world. These churches always recruit from poorer, more vulnerable and uneducated people
around the world. They pay the landowners, build the church and the church generates
money by promising local people better lives and good fortunes for their
contributions... it’s all part of the business. Have you ever met
these travelling American's brew? How shocked they be when they realise how hated
they are? – In America they thought themselves as the
envy of the world, haha, America is just the name of a major corporation, a corporation that
is only in business if they are in war. You could say that all countries have been primarily built on war or some kind of conflict - I mean, you're European right!? but I don't think right now there is a country in the world more dependent on war, death and famine than America... Now let's go get a Coke.
Disclaimer: This is a recording of my own personal experience. I know the issues are so much more complicated than I have expressed here (no tribal, religious, sexuality, gender conflicts, employment issues mentioned) but I didn't want to read other theories or essays on South African politics and write a historically accurate thesis - This is more of a report. The writing here came from being present in South Africa between November 2011 - January 2012 and talking to the people living there.
On my first day in South Africa I got into a conversation with a Taxi Driver (not the one I’ve already written about) – this taxi driver would be seen as a black Arab/Asian in the UK.
Me – So, what do you think of South Africa?
Taxi Driver – It’s great but the blacks are fucking it up!
I didn’t know how to respond to this. I’d just arrived. I wondered how he’s labelled me and how he expects me to react. I didn't get offended I just felt confusion and it prepared me for much confusion to come.
I know Londoners aren’t comfortable referring to race. We like to think we’re too educated and civilised to let race define anyone's status or situation but South Africa is a country built on racial politics (i.e. how much Vitamin D your skin can absorb).
Talk Radio is popular in Cape Town and it seems all the discussions centred around race.
"GOOD MORNING! Welcome to Good Hope Radio! A teacher was fired today because she's coloured, a man was arrested today because he's black, a woman was rewarded because she's white"
It's 2012 and white South Africans (Afrikaans/British descended South Africans) make up 12% of the
country and own 90% of the countries businesses.
The gap between rich and poor
is striking.
I walked past speed boats, hummer trucks, quad bikes etc all parked in
driveways and garages behind (mostly white owned) gated mansions. After working
in a primary school with children (all black or coloured) some of whom couldn't afford
school dinner, it's hard not to feel repulsed by this display of excessive wealth.
Apartheid is still a wound that needs tending. The white families
that benefited from, well... being white are of course still going to be rich. They aren’t going to turn around and give reparations to Africans any time soon. Whites feel they've worked for all they have. Being white you
got top education and top assistance from a government who wanted to help its
own and exclude the rest but still, success wasn't handed to them, it was just made easier for them. The whites worked and feel entitled to their privileges.
I heard there is one
white township. I was told about it by a guy from Zimbabwe who lives in Cape
Town.
“The media like to talk about this white township but come on, to get by (during
apartheid) all you had to be was white and they fucked it up! They’re the
lowest of the low for sure!”
There is also this white guilt; history knows what colonial
warmongering history we Europeans have and we inherit that and apologise for it
but I don’t really know how useful that guilt is to anyone. Maybe it has created
a sensitivity that has geared many young middle class white people towards
human rights campaigning and activism which of course is cute.
I did speak to a young white British/South African who said "the blacks were oppressed for a long time by whites in South Africa and now they're getting their own back"
Here's a 15 minute documentary about "Poor Whites" in South Africa from 2006.
There is so much anger in South Africa about its history. You'll often hear people still complain about the white government as if they are still there and then complain about the black government in the same breath.
I went on a tour of the caves in the Devils Peak. The group was made up of mostly Brazilian, Dutch & American students. The tour itself was led by a English/Xhosa speaking guide. After two hours of a guided walk and talk about how the Dutch came and discovered all the caves I managed to speak to him one on one afterwards. He went into this rant about how he has to give all the credit to the Dutch settlers and promote white supremacy to all the people that come here to visit but it's his job and he's got a family to feed.
Much of the conversations I had with “coloured people”
(political name for people of Mixed-Race, Asian, Cape Malayan, Khoisan) were about this quest for their own identity. I
spoke to a coloured guy from the Eastern Cape about this.
“Black Africans know
about their tribes and their ancient traditions, whites know about their
European roots but we (coloured people) are caught up between the two - We are
lost in having a whole identity”.
A lot of mixed race people go through this “who am I and
where do I belong?” crises. I also came though this tunnel but I think I had an
easier time going through it in London and being British. In London we’re not wholly defined by our skin
colour like it’s our passport, also our multiculturalism is celebrated (because
it’s politically correct to celebrate it).
I met a Kiwi guy in a backpacker hostel and we went to a bar
together. The people there were all white Afrikaans. He got talking to some of
them but they completely ignored me. It was a strange experience and I wanted
to humour it. I thought about my Dad’s stories about being Jamaican in London in
the 50’s. Ultimately though, I got angrier the longer I was there. Somehow I got talking to a young white woman, after only five minutes three white guys
came over and escorted her away from me saying “no, no, no”. It was a strange experience.
There were places where my colour blended me in. I
went to a few coloured townships and wasn't looked at twice. I was welcomed
into people’s family homes, introduced to their children and grandparents. They
cooked for me and showed me around their neighbourhoods.
There was one coloured guy I met who was an ex-ambulance driver who told me things were better during apartheid.
"I had a great team of paramedics but they fired all the white ones and replaced them with these under-qualified black ones. I'll never forget showing up at the scene of a road accident and the new black guy I was with had no idea how to handle any of the equipment. He couldn't even operate the radio. I quit my job after that, I wouldn't be able to save any more lives. Things weren't that bad during apartheid - it just meant we had to live with segregation. We couldn't go in some areas because they were white - whatever! I didn't want to go there anyway! My house has been robbed three times since Apartheid ended and more people from other parts of Africa came in - The last guy to rob my house was a man from Kenya posing as a TV repairman. Came in and ran off with the DVD Player and TV set... stole some plates and cutlery that were in the kitchen too!"
I spent New Years Eve at a party in Cape Town. It was about five minutes into the New Year and a black woman chose to have an intense conversation with me about "how white Cape Town is" and how racist the Afrikaans people are, how the black government are corrupt because they're trying to live like white people etc. The fact she couldn't let it go for one night as we went into a New Year made a sad statement.
Apartheid isn't just a political fight, it's a psychological one.
If Pete The Temp ruled the world it would be squeezed between his chest and arms in a giant metaphysical man hug.
If Pete The Temp ruled the world the C Word would be "Classism".
If Pete The Temp ruled the world he’d sell a lot of CDs.
Every now and then you pick up some roadie stories as a travelling artist and one of my favorites involves the day I met Pete. We were on the same bill at a Festival in Cambridge and Pete had a late set. As festival audiences go the later you’re set the higher chances of a drunken and disorderly audience.
Pete launched into a poem and some disgruntled, pink-eyed drunk woman in the audience barged onto the stage and wrestled Pete. Unable to get Pete on the floor she decided to jump on his back while Pete (without stopping his performance) punched his poem out his panting lungs. He completed his set carrying the woman off stage on piggyback…
Pete The Temp instantly became my hero.
Q. So Pete, you’re a temp?
I graduated with an arts degree and consequently spent my early twenties as a temp. Much of my early work was workplace satire. The Temp part of my name is about solidarity with the underdog. It is for everyone who believes that there is more to life than mindless work that devalues people as human beings, pays them fuck all and channels all their productive time into menial tasks that make a small minority of people rich. You know those vans, that drive up to dusty roadside junctions near the Mexican boarder to pick up men and children desperate for half a days work? That's the same thing as a temp agency. I have spoken to countless people who find an escape from this in writing and performing. By laughing at it and poking fun at it we can make something positive out of something negative.
I used to do human rights work in Colombia where standing up for yourself as a worker can lead to assassination at the hands of a death squad. Workers there are at the sharp end of the same system – one that values profit over people and seeks to trivialise and casualise employees. The temp thing is also an expression of solidarity with them. But no, I’m not a temp, I haven't been for years. I'm now a corporate lawyer.
Q. I thoroughly enjoy the social commentary in your poems but does poetry and politics have a good relationship?
My big mouth is my gift. It is my duty to channel my creative energies into making a song and dance about what I believe to be important. Historically poets have always been a bit subversive. Poetry engages you intellectually and creates arenas of public discussion and critical thinking. It could be about sexual politics, relationship politics or politics politics. People who prefer to spend their evenings in these environments rather than watching TV are less likely to accept what 'The Man' tells them.
I am currently working on a spoken word stage show: 'Pete the Temp verses Climate Change! We are in the process of finding people and venues interested in hosting it. The aim of the show is to get people talking about climate change and laughing at the same time. While the mouths are open you can throw in some food for thought. Q. You teach performance poetry. How do you teach someone to become a good Spoken Word poet?
Games are an important part of the creative process and are missing from the school curriculum. De-constructing the text of John Hegley and Benjamin Zephaniah from books is not enough to spark young imaginations to engage with 'spoken word'. A large proportion of the workshops we carry out at Hammer & Tongue are warm up games, improvisation games, rap battles and mini – competitions. Games are fun. They engage your body and get blood pumping to the brain which releases endorphins and sparks creativity. I believe this is how we can bring the words to life, get people performing and resurrect the oral tradition.
Q. You sing and play guitar and you have a lot of call and response material in your performance catalogue. Do you feel poetry on its own is never enough to engage your audiences? You can do anything on a spoken word stage – satire, music, character acting, audience participation. I’ve even got away with doing sketch comedy once. The call and response stuff creates a nice dialogue between audience and performer. For every ego on stage there are another twenty in the audience. When it comes to the guitar, stand up poetry has masses of musicality in it already – even without an instrument. Imagery and metaphor is important but that is not to say that it cannot be brought to life! I don’t think that there is any less 'content' or 'writing' in heavily performative poetry – it is just that the pieces are designed to have different effects on the listener.
Q. You were born and bred in Oxford right? When I think of Oxford I think of the place that isn’t Eton or Cambridge University but it might as well be. How the hell did you become the public menace you are?
I exist in the badlands of Oxford. I eat rats in tunnels below the colleges and periodically jump out to eat rich people with my fingernails and teeth.
Q. You’ve performed all over the country how do your audiences vary and what does this teach you as an artist?
Being a performer has given me the great privilege of backpacking round my own country and experiencing new places and people. Poetry is about community as much as it is about words and spoken word audiences are unlike any other – open minded, attentive, aware and friendly. Each venue, night and point in time has its own demographic and its own vibe. The challenge for me is to tap into this and to orchestrate the right set for that particular audience.
Q. Are the rumors true? Do poets die poor?
Someone once said “there is no money in poetry, but then again, there is no poetry in money.” Bollocks! There are too many fantastic performers out there who are not getting paid for the professional work they do. This is not the case in other branches of spoken word like stand up. It doesn't have to be this way. In France and Germany poets regularly perform to audiences of 400 plus. Not all nights have a budget to pay performers and that's fine. Poets in the UK do after all operate in a small artistic economy but this is changing all the time. People are waking up to the fact that poetry can move you, inspire you and even get you singing along. How many poetry gigs have you been to where people are like “Wow! I never knew poetry could be like that!”?. I don't know any poets who want to be rich but they do want to be able pay their rent. Valuing our work as poets is part of the task of changing public perceptions of poetry. If you are a poet and someone asks you to do “a reading during the interval” - decline the offer!
Q. Pete, I love your work and you’re a top bloke... I’d give you a permanent contract any day!
I'd be your office bitch any day my friend. Keep up the good work.
