I’ve been between two thoughts about going and being home for the vac: on the one hand was dreading the confrontation with my mother since discovering my involvement with #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall. This trepidation has since been heightened in the wake of interdicts, suspensions and expulsions and the frequent calls not only asking if I’m one of those affected, but also asking when exams will end and when I’ll be home. On the other was needing a change in perspective and a different way of looking at things and my particular ‘situation’.

My mother will be graduating tomorrow, on the 4^th of July and will be getting an Honours degree in Education. She’s a high school English, History and Life Orientation teacher at St. Matthews Catholic High in Soweto.

On the last Friday of June we went to the University of the Witwatersrand to order her gown for the graduation ceremony. The entrance at Wits has a list of the interdicted students on campus pasted on several boards and glass doorways for people to see. She wanted me to come with so that she’d order a gown my size, so I can use it for my graduation too. Next week she’ll be submitting her proposal for a research project for her Masters’ degree. Low key she’s of course been hinting at my own graduation and how that now needs to happen.

I’ve been home for just over a week, and I have decided I’ll stay for exactly a week longer. Whilst so far I’ve dodged some of the questions, much of the discourse that has surrounded me so far has left me feeling somewhat resolute in the need to metaphorically give the middle finger to my elders. Whilst ironically I’m usually a fan of bridging the ‘generation gap’ and happily engage with some of these difficult conversations with our elders, it’s a different situation altogether when it’s with your own parents. I don’t know maybe the trick is to have someone else to act as an intermediary (a role I’ve taken in many situations), because honestly these confrontations can be painful when meant to be frank and sincere.

Perhaps it’s because of whatever set of expectations which exist. What it means telling someone who raised you that you’re negating the hard work, preparation they put in, what they had to endure and the sacrifices made to set you on this path of success and a better future only to stray from it. Whatever it is I’m left feeling angry, rebellious and somewhat afflicted with a mother’s love.

Degrees, Hair and Rebellion

It began with my hair. I was told, it is fine not to conform to societal standards. That it’s alright to not accept standards of beauty. However, that there’s nothing wrong with looking good, looking nice. Effectively looking like someone’s child.

There’s often the joke about how whenever we need to appear in court we now look like we’re somebody’s children. But having that relayed to me in real time by my mother actually made for a convincing argument and for me to take seriously the worry that comes with appearances and the importance of impression. Having appeared before court in front of a judge wearing all but a t-shirt and jeans last year, I took in this worry of being seen as a terrorist and what that means. Later on in the same ‘conversation’ because I only just listen and can hardly respond, there was a remark that if I don’t shave that beard I’ll be called “the African Bin Laden.”

This conversation happened on the Thursday before the Monday of the graduation, and naturally I of course will be going so the argument of ‘looking like someone’s child’ couldn’t have been made at a better time. Last year we already reached the point of ‘I know you’re fine with looking like this, but do it for me’, this time around the guilt weighs heavier because aside the trivialities of going to church for Christmas and looking like someone’s child, graduation IS a whole different ball game and whilst I can dismiss the meaning of church, I may never understand what this moment means for her and its importance.

It was roughly 4 pm and I was getting swayed by all this. We were meant to go to a friend’s salon, shampoo my hair nicely trim the edges etc. etc. and get a nice shave.

Then the clincher came: afterwards we would go get me a new phone.

Now the phone I’m using I’ve had for almost the last 3 years which I bought in my first year. I don’t know if all Samsung phones are meant to do this thing where you can’t use it if it’s not connected to a charger. The thing couldn’t last 2 minutes before switching off whilst at a charged level of over 90% for the last 6 months.

The plan for the next day was to go and buy me new clothes after ordering the gown from the University.

I now saw the full circle of the ploy. A moment ago I was ready to capitulate, however I could always decline offers of buying new clothes as I’ve never been a fan of consumerism. And whilst I may be obscure on many things, my disdain for going to malls isn’t new.

But I really wanted a new phone.

So she said, you know what, its fine. Other parents worry about kids using drugs and doing all sorts of things like being in gangs, bunking school, and being a nightmare to their parents. I see this every day. On a comparison, my problems are much better. I only have a child who doesn’t want to fix his hair. That’s your problem, if you want to look like that then it’s your business. But come let’s go get you a new phone, and tomorrow we’ll buy you some winter clothes.

An Overgrowing Path

As I type this next to me sits a brand new Samsung Galaxy J5, it cost a little over R3 000 and was purchased at Foschini using one of the member club cards.

After going to Wits, we visited a clothes retailer downtown Joburg. The kind of shop with cheap clothing which you’d pay a fortune for in stores like Exact, Foschini and even the moderately conservative Mr Price. Its Arab owned and part of the booming Aram and Muslim economy in Joburg.

I walked out with almost 10 scarfs which were selling for R5-R35. I’ve become a fan of scarfs – I think part of it may have to do with a documentary film about the Arab Spring and the pragmatic use of using scarfs as gas masks. And how that’s become part of some sort of revolutionary swag. But I just like scarfs. I was allowed to go semi-wild: so I also walked out with a handful of hipster-looking jerseys, a winter jacket, and two suede-type summer/casual jackets. And even new shoes.

Despite my constant raves about materialism and what I call ‘suffocating consumerism’ particularly in Joburg, one of the reasons why I avoid shopping centres in addition to the above is probably because once started I go all the way and I am a sucker for refined taste and nice things.

Today is Sunday a day before the graduation. This afternoon, one of my aunts arrived for the graduation tomorrow, and first remarked by asking when I’d decided to become a ‘Rastafarian’ and that if she saw me on the street I’d have been hard to recognise, then went on to ask whether chartered accountants are allowed to work with that hair. I said I don’t know. My mom chimed and said something about scaring the clients. They later talked about Thomas Mapfumo who had to cut his own hair when he needed to go to the States.

And now I sit and type this, much of the anger I felt 2 hours ago after my aunt’s arrival has subsided lightly.

I feel there’s an overgrowing path of sorts at this point in my life.

Whilst trying to link white supremacist capitalist patriarchy to this exact moment in time, I find as my aunt talks about her children who’ve went to Britain and are now doing ‘big things’, how neoliberalism is perhaps conceptually more ameliorative in explaining the present black condition. Of course neoliberalism is but a manifestation of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, but it may be the ugliest and sickest representation, and indicative of the battle we are faced with now.

I’m forced to confront my own petit bourgeoisie status. Think carefully about the road that leads to the next few years of my life and the choices I need to make.

My aunt is one of those revered family relatives, who when growing up were always associated with an image of ‘success’ and always arrived in driveways in whatever house we lived in then with cars. Much as I admired her then, and feel whatever one feels for relatives, I was particularly revolted today after seeing her and didn’t feel any of those things you’re supposed to when seeing someone especially a relative you haven’t seen in a while.

It’s one thing reading Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God and No Longer At Ease, Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, or Binyavanga Wainaina’s One Day I’ll Write About This Place and many other African Literature texts I’ve read to try understand the experiences unfolding in my life. But living out these distant prophecies makes for an uneasy reality.

An overgrowing path which becomes more uncertain.