We don’t know her as you do. An essay on the sea.
Rocklands Beach
On a hot summer Sunday afternoon I lie upon this little beach. Children and parents dip in and out the sea, other enjoy a picnic tea. Yachts and speedboats passing by, gulls awheeling in the sky. I should be thankful and serene, enjoying the beauty of this scene. But my mind is a turmoil of despair — why me down here those up there? Where well-dressed dark people line the rails and longingly upon us gaze. You men who enact our laws — pause. How would it be if your children and you lined those walls? And they ask, “why can’t we go down, Daddy?” What would your answer be?
Published in, The Black Sash, in February 1976, this small piece speaks of the sea as a segregated space and as “slegs vir blankes’. During apartheid, segregation explicitly took place, banning those of colour from the nice, calm-tide beaches and relegating people of colour to more dangerous beaches, where the tides are wild and breaks are killer. The beaches of Cape Town especially still have this aura of the past, in lingering undertones of racism by the beach in 2018 Cape Town society.
This essay will look at how the past has affected ideas and representation of the beach today. How the beach represents itself, and who or what represents the beach? Firstly, this essay will look at texts on how the beach was written during apartheid. Additionally analysing the above extract, Rocklands Beach. Secondly, I will review the answers from an interview I conducted with five coloured individuals. This interview explored what the beach meant for each individual at the time, although the interview review will very briefly discuss one or two points it still carries much weight to the discussion at hand. Lastly, I will show how this segregation still takes place today, largely due to socio-economic factors and geographic location of the various peoples of Cape Town.
Many works of literature on the beach, during apartheid, speaks of the beach always tied to the political state of the country at the time. The beach stands as one of the explicit and notorious examples of the “institutionalisation of segregated spaced throughout the apartheid era” (Rogerson, 2016:97). And I am afraid I will follow suit. The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act №49 of 1953, legislated for the segregation by the race of all public amenities. This by far is one of the most synonymous Acts of the apartheid era. This act enforced segregation of all public facilities, which included buildings, transport, public spaces like beaches, public toilets. This act aimed to limit the physical contact between different races. In practice and common knowledge, all the best facilities were reserved for white individuals, while those for other races, like coloured, black and Indian were inferior and not as equipped. It was a ‘petty’ law and ensured inequality, and made no effort to create the legal fiction of “sperate but equal” public facilities. Even the educational material and curriculum was separated for blacks that suited “the nature and requirements of the black people” (Rogerson,2016:98).
The beach concentrates attention onto the larger tragedies of race and politics in the continent of Africa. It is more than just a physical space. It is a commonplace of reference for the injustices of apartheid. The beach can be referred to as, what Richard Marback states, a rhetorical space. “A rhetorical space is the geography of a communicative event … which may include both the cultural and material arrangement” (2004:7) of a country. In other words, the beach can be regarded as a communicative device, physically communicating the land on which it lays, political situation. The physical space of any beach in South Africa may not have slegs vir blankes signs up but they do still hold meanings and memories that haul up the past of this country.
The text I will be analysing is called Rocklands Beach, the author is not mentioned and the only sign of one is quoted merely, “RSB”. It starts off light and jolly, with the writer setting the scene of a “hot summer Sunday afternoon I lie upon this little beach.”. Everyone is enjoying themselves, not only with basic beach activities but with “yachts and speedboats”. Then suddenly the tone changes as the mind of the writer are “a turmoil of despair” … “why me down here those up there?”. It goes on saying that people of colour, well-dressed, are “lining the rails and longingly upon us gaze”. Explicitly stripping the people of colour, the opportunity to understand what leisure means and how to live it. The reason many people of colour still today, make such a big thing about going to the beach is that it was only recently that we had such unprecedented access to the beach. My family, for instance, do not have the same access as me to go to the beach.
Firstly, the majority of my family live in the inner parts of Cape Town, in a small town called Mamre. The other in Strandfontein. The beaches from where they live are about a 30-minute drive out. In Cape Town CBD, yes, the beaches are about the same time outside of the city itself, but the access to the beach is very accessible. Secondly, the beaches are amazing. They are not dangerous, not only in its nature but also in human nature. There have been many people killed at the beaches close to Mamre, oh I forgot there is only one, Silverstream. In Cape Town, we can go to the most beaches and even dabble in some skinny dipping, at 3 AM and we will be fine. I understand that anything can happen to anyone at any time and anywhere, but the probability is all I ask for you to consider here.
Gentrification.
The interview took place on 25th May 2018. It was held in my partner's lounge. The discussion took on with a very relaxed tone and we had some beers (not to make it seem too formal). The main questions I asked were; When and how often do you go to the beach; With who do you go to the beach; Is it easy to travel to the beach. The demographics of the interviewees are coloured and most between the ages of 20–24. Two of them were students and the other three were employed. They all decided to remain anonymous. They were all female. It was interesting to see and experience others view on the sea. I started off by asking what the sea meant to them. The common underlying note was that the beach is a social space. However, what differs from that of, heading out to Llandudno for a beautiful sunset on a Wednesday, is unheard of. The answers and physical responses I got to that statement was in a way ‘awe’, and ‘surprise-ment’. They did not really consider the beach as a space for individuality or intimacy. “The only time I go to the beach is when it’s a holiday, like boxing-day or something.” Another aspect of the beach is that it is only ‘do-able’ when it is summer and sun shining. In my experience, this is not the case, my white friends and still, go to the beach in 16 degrees, raining weather to catch some waves because the surf is that good. The beach is seen as a mass social event. The fact that many experiences are different within the coloured culture, who dominates the Western Cape, is very interesting and should be explored further.
Segregation.
Today, Cape Town beaches are still mainly segregated. Most people still gather at beaches ‘assigned’ to them during apartheid. In an article posted on a website praag.org, “self-segregation has become the norm and whites, especially, carefully select their swimming spots so as to avoid other races. “I just don’t enjoy it when there are blacks or coloureds around”. This was said by a Cape Townian beachgoer, “too much noise, no manner, and even hygiene issues.” (2015). Reading this article I immediately thought of the Penny Sparrow Facebook scandal. In January of 2016, Penny Sparrow posted on her Facebook, “these monkeys [black people] are allowed to be released on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day on to public beaches towns etc obviously have no education what so ever so to allow them loose is inviting huge dirt and troubles and discomfort to others.” (Evans, 2016). I underlined, some of the words mentioned by Sparrow to highlight the kind of language used to describe people of colour. Monkeys … to be released. Do the word animals come to mind? The reality of South Africa is that its beaches are still, as mentioned before, laden with horrible remnants from the past. Will it ever change or become inclusive? How do I, as a person of colour myself, change these notions of the beach; the way in which people of colour think of it and the way in which white people think of it?
The first step to changing the minds of people who do not regard the beach as an everyday accessible space, I think is to educate them on what the beach represents. Not only does it represent holidays and sunshine, but a living thing that keeps us alive. That supports especially coloured communities and upholds communities. By exploring the ways in which beaches were experienced during apartheid, gave way to the way in which the beaches are experienced today. This is evident in the brief discussion of the interview(s) I conducted. The beach is a rhetorical space, still burdened with the discourse of apartheid. However, today it seems as if thought apartheid has morphed into a more subtle and unnoticed way of taking over, consumerism, gentrification and segregation.
The reason for me leaving the words gentrification and segregation alone with their own space of an empty paragraph is because these words speak for themselves. And are reverberated in each paragraph of this essay. It would be redundant if I were to mention them in every second sentence in every paragraph. And, I am afraid I would have lost the weight if they were to be accompanied by sweet nothings. The beach, she had nothing to do with the way she is represented and experienced throughout the history of our country. I feel if we all can understand why some people are the way they are in her presence, is because they do not get to experience or become fully accustomed to her prowess and to her presence. If I am not used to something I will act in ways I cannot articulate because I don’t know-how. It truly is that simple.
So if I see a fellow person of the colour act in a certain way different to that of the “norm” I will smile and think, “I know right she is breath-taking and awesome”. You do you and experience this in your own way.
Reference List:
Evans, J. 2016. Penny Sparrow back in court on criminal charges for racist comments. News24. 12 September. Available: https://city-press.news24.com/News/penny-sparrow-back-in-court-on-criminal-charges-for-racist-comments-20160912 [2018, May 26]
Marback, R. 2004. The Rhetorical Space of Robben Island. Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 34(2). 7–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40232409 [2018, May 27]
Rogerson J.M., 2017: ‘Kicking Sand in the Face of Apartheid’: Segregated Beaches in South Africa. In: Rogatka, K. and Szymańska, D. editors, Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, №35, Toruń: Nicolaus Copernicus University, pp. 93–109. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/bog-2017-0007
