Making Rhinos out of Fiction: for Ronny and Willie and Addy*

*my childhood nickname


“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster” Nietzsche

Fiction on Long Street and the Rhino pub in Tarkastad have little in common. Fiction at first appears genuinely alternative, but a second glance confirms its place in the ideological mainstream. It simmers with Cape Town’s homogenous, post-punk trendoids, who place the city’s ‘underground’ scene firmly at ground level. Fiction’s women’s day posters of tomb-raideresque, bikini girls, illustrate its support of the general status quo.

By contrast, the Rhino pub of Tarkastad (between Queenstown and Cradock) opts for art-deco retro fascism: its pub theme not being Irish cosiness or sporting heroism, but Apartheid. Pictures of pin-up boys Paul Kruger and Hendrik Verwoerd line the walls, poets can enjoy the flowing libretto of ‘Die Stem’ displayed behind the bar, while those with a keen eye for aesthetic panache can scan the ceiling’s South African Sistine 5m X 5m Vierkleur old South African flag.

For me, these contrasting watering holes are connected due to consecutive week ends in August, when I succeeded, at 27 years of age, in making my fisticuffs debut at these two venues. First, with Ronald Suresh Roberts at Fiction and then with Willie Liebenberg, owner of the Rhino.

I (Addy), confronted Monsieur Roberts (Ronny), telling him that his ‘native intelligence of Thabo Mbeki’ and support for the dismissal of the Deputy minister of health offended my left leaning sensibilities. He unexpectedly punched me, I rugby tackled him. I was escorted from Fiction. Monsieur Liebenberg (Willie), initially suspicious when myself and 5 friends entered the Rhino, then conceded that he would add Mandela to his wall of pinups if we donated the portrait. But when Addy in drunken bravado, tore down 1 of the 5 or so old South African flags, Willie went to retrieve his baseball bat, from when, I assume, the Tarkastad Tornados had major league status. I survived, this is the tale.

I had hoped this piece (an attempt to resolve my little quarter life duelling crisis) would unpack the ‘who exists for whom’ in the uncanny smorgasbord that is South African multi-culturalism: Is Ronny the product of Willie’s racism? Are Willie and his bar the result of Afrikaner alienation due to Addy and Ronny’s self-righteousness? Is Addy the middle-class, DSTV watching pseudo-Lefty, authenticated by Willie’s conservativism and Ronny’s new black elitism?

Let’s rather twist the Rubik’s to expose one of its shadowed facades. Addy and Ronny and Willie represent certain forms of brittle South African masculinities whose honour is uncertain and shame easily aggravated. Cross-cultural masculinity’s most common characteristic is honour or respect, something which is never attained and is always contested and desired. To add to this notion of honour, violent exchanges almost always involve the threat of shame. These issues of honour and shame are pertinent in the South African context. Afrikaners are too easily branded the only villains of Apartheid. Black intellectuals supporting Mbeki are often called sycophants and elitists, while white middle-class lefties are left tenuously disorientated in a world of multi-national capitalism and affirmative action.

This elusive ‘honour’ and lurking shame produces defensiveness and paradox amongst men in general and South African men in particular: the more they assert themselves the more they call themselves into question. Addy and Ronny and Willie attempt to claim recognition and legitimacy through the different masculine South African narratives they contrastingly position themselves within. But these narratives are tentative because of the history of this country and the way it has divided groups of people and because the future seems hazy. Threatening these uncertain masculinities can easily lead to conflict and violence when honour is at stake.

But the coliseums for settling these disputes should not be Fiction or the Rhino and the means of engagement should not be fisticuffs. Despite our high Gini co-efficient, ethnic heterogeneity, colonial history, lax alcohol laws, prison system and rates of single parenthood, South Africa still has higher rates of crime and violence than countries with similar structural conditions. Perhaps this is because we have certain forms of socially learned, volatile and uncertain masculinities, produced by our collective history and the way it has divided groups of people. These forms of being men negate dialogue and compromise in political circles, social settings, schools and homes. Social change does not come about through mindless violence. It requires a combination of brave action and intelligent consciousness expanding. It also requires reflection, asking questions and the ability to be self-critical. If Addy and Ronny and Willie want to become heroes, they need to learn to listen, think before they act, breathe deeply, accept criticism and reinvent forms of South African masculinities that serve as peaceful and empathetic role-models for the next generation of South African men.