The English South African, His History, Culture and Achievements
A Distinctive Culture
What is culture? It is “the totality of socially transmitted behaviour patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought” (The American Heritage Dictionary). It is “the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group”, and “the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place and time” (Merriem-Webster’s Online Dictionary). It is language; dress; food; music; art; history; architecture; manners; lifestyle; etc. In a word, it is one’s way of life, and the way of life of one’s community or people group.
We have seen that the collective name of the English South Africans does not in any sense equate to a lack of identity or nationhood. It is mere ignorance that would make such an absurd claim, as demonstrated above. But leaving aside the collective name, there are those, including some Afrikaners, who say that the English South Africans do not have a clearly discernible culture. They claim that in many ways the English culture is merely a “pale reflection or imitation of Afrikaner culture”(to quote one Afrikaner)[4]. Let us see if this is true. Does the English South African lack a distinctive culture?
Absolutely not! There is a distinctive English South African culture. As stated at the beginning, culture consists of the totality of such things as one’s language, dress, food, music, art, history, architecture, manners, and lifestyle. Let us consider just a few aspects of the English South African culture:
There is the English language.
The language of the English South African is of course English. And the fact that English is spoken by people all over the world, so that it is not unique to South Africa, is irrelevant. There are, after all, people who speak Afrikaans in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and many other parts of the world, just as there are people who speak Hindi, or French, or so many other languages, in many parts of the world too; how then is this any different from the fact that there are people who speak English in many parts of the world as well, including South Africa? The English South African speaks English. This does not make him a foreigner, an uitlander, in South Africa, just as speaking Afrikaans in a land to which he has emigrated and become a citizen does not make an Afrikaner a foreigner there either.
With language, a nation has one of three choices: 1) to hold on to the language it spoke in the country from which it came; 2) to develop a new language in its new country; or 3) to adopt a new one in its new country.
The English South Africans held on to the English language; the Dutch South Africans developed a new language – Afrikaans; and the Indian South Africans adopted a new language – English. Are we to say that any of these three people groups are somehow “less” South African because of this?
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Filed under: History without the humbug