As daar mense is waarmee ek 'n groot probleem het, dan is dit oorverligte oud-Suid-Afrikaners wat nou in die buiteland bly en vertel hoe hard hulle gewerk het om die nuwe Suid-Afrika 'n werklikheid te maak. Een van hulle is oud-regter Richard Goldstone, wat beweer dat hy nou in die VSA bly omdat sy kinders en kleinkinders daar is. Hoekom ervaar en geniet hulle almal nie liewer die nuwe Suid-Afrika eerstehands op 'n volgehoue, daaglikse grondslag nie?
Ek het baie begrip vir Suid-Afrikaners wat erken dat hulle emigreer omdat hulle nie in die nuwe Suid-Afrika kan aanpas nie. Hulle ly geestelik en dikwels materieel groot skade. Maar ek trek die bona fides van hiperverligte emigrante in twyfel.
Anne Landsman het reeds in 1981 uit Suid-Afrika na die VSA geëmigreer. Sy het met haar tweede roman, The rowing lesson (Kaapstad, Kwela Boeke, 2007), vanjaar sowel die Sunday Times- as die M-Net-prys gewen. In 'n onlangse artikel (Rapport Boeke, 4 Okt, p 12) het sy die geleentheid gekry om haar beeld te poets en publisiteit aan haar skryfwerk te gee. Sy is nie met kritiese vrae gekonfronteer nie.
Literêr het ek nie beswaar teen die twee boekpryse wat Landsman ontvang het nie. Die roman is 'n mengsel van biografiese inligting en fiksie. Die teks toon dat sy eerstehandse ervaring van Suid-Afrika het; veral soos hy was. Maar die motorhandelaar op Worcester is steeds Frank Vos en nie Frank de Vos (p 41) nie. Dit is ook onwaarskynlik dat 'n rugby-skrumskakel "six foot four" sal wees (p 46); hy is dikwels die kleinste speler in die span. Daar kom verbasend baie Afrikaanse woorde in dié Engelse teks voor. Hulle word funksioneel gebruik, anders as bv Jackie Nagtegaal se afstootlike misbruik van Engelse woorde in Daar's vis in die punch.
Landsman se politiek is onbesproke politiek-korrek. Oor Distrik Ses se sloping: "Those bastards bulldozed the life out of Cape Town" (p 32); "God was punishing them for their stupid laws" (p 34); "You better ask God to forgive you for Sharpeville four years ago, for pass laws, for your rotten divide and conquer, separate but equal, your rubbishing apartheid laws" (p 43); "The big oak tree with the long, long chain, where they used to tie up the slaves" (p 56); "The Sharpeville massacre when I was still a baby" (p 59). Mense het toe landuit gevlug: "fleeing the pictures in the papers of black bodies strewn in the road, shot in the back by the police" (p 60); "This comes from when the slaves were freed [...] the tree outside the library in George" (p 92); "District Six [...] tearing the heart out of Cape Town" (p 141). Met wie word geëksperimenteer in die Hospitaal Groote Schuur?: "These are the people we get to practice on, the poor people of Africa. The Strandlopers, the Hottentots, the Xhosa and the descendants of Malay slaves [...] You might as well have pulled your wagon into the laager at the Battle of Blood River and shot your own Zulu" (p 155). "A boy who could almost have a bright future if he wasn't Malay and it wasn't South Africa" (p 196).
Landsman se uitbeelding van blanke Afrikaanssprekendes is myns insiens aanstootlik: "A deaf Afrikaans woman whose five children I've delivered" (p 31). Die dokter "makes you feel better, and you go back to beating your dog, or your wife or your klonkie" (p 43). "The hoity-toity farmers' wives" (p 51). "Mrs van der Vyver, the librarian (p 54) [...] doesn't speak the King's English either" (p 55).
Blanke Afrikaanssprekendes word met die Nazi's geassosieer: "Here there are greyshirts, special South African Nazis [...] a band of Afrikaans boys furious about the Boer War and the Depression and English money and Jewish shops" (p 57). "Petrus is a member of the Ossewabrandwag [...] he wants most of the Jews to jump off Cape Point and drown in the sea [...] he and his pals came to Men's Residence filled up with liquor" (p 104). "The Ossewabrandwag boys will be happy tonight. They'll break what's left of your father's shop. They'll break you" (p 121). "One of the Ossewabrandwag boys says that his pa shot the Bushmen on his farm like monkeys [...] it was Adam and the apple in the beginning, not hotnots" (p 132).
Slanghoek naby Worcester is "a crisscrossing of wine farms, of veld, of twisting snakes and whatever else wasn't shot and killed by die farmers years ago [...] Hennie is a drinker and you never like to go out on a night like this to someone who has been drinking the way Hennie drinks" (p 43). "That animal Hennie le Roux [...] Hennie slurred on the phone. There was drunken shame in his voice" (p 45). Hennie beskerm hom en sy gesin op die plaas met honde en 'n geweer: "He's scared of the impis, the swart gevaar" (p 46). "Hennie thought you were one of the volkies drunk in the night" (p 47).
Oor die Bolandse wynboere word onvleiende opmerkings gemaak: "Paying their Coloured workers in drink" (p 79); "You can tell which farmers still use the dop system, paying their workers in alcohol at the end of the week, which winemaker killed one of his workers" (p 171).
Blanke Afrikaanssprekendes op 'n trein word as "rude giants" met "weeping sores" beskryf (p 75). "The other older man must be a schoolteacher or a deacon in the church but wait, he's the one with the brandy bottle and now he's pouring everyone a dop [...] Poor white. His pa was a bywoner and then he got a job with the railways. A salary of ten pounds a week, not twelve shillings like the Natives. Maybe he's riding for free on the train and doesn't even have a proper ticket. Maybe he has ringworm [...] The plaasjapies start singing something dirty about poes and wine" (p 76). "The outoppie [...] likes Germans and German beer and German everything" (p 77). "The outoppie with the runny eyes" (p 78).
Die indruk wat Landsman by die leser laat, is dat blanke Afrikaanssprekendes rassisties, moorddadig, dranksugtig, onbeskaafd, ens is. Die Afrikaner verdien myns insiens nie die versterking van so 'n kwaadwillig-eensydige, stereotipe beeld in 'n bekroonde roman in 'n internasionale taal nie.
Johannes Comestor