Native NostalgiaChallenging the stereotype that black people who lived under South African apartheid have no happy memories of the past, this examination into nostalgia carves out a path away from the archetypical musings. Even though apartheid itself had no virtue, the author, himself a young black man who spent his childhood under apartheid, insists that it was not a vast moral desert in the lives of those living in townships. In this deep meditation on the experiences of those who lived through apartheid, it points out that despite the poverty and crime, there was still art, literature, music, and morals that, when combined, determined the shape of black life during that era of repression. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Sounds on the Air | 25 |
Township in Sight | 43 |
Strangers from Underground | 65 |
The Texture of Money | 95 |
The Sense of Township Life | 115 |
The Language of Nostalgia | 135 |
Conclusion | 151 |
References | 165 |
Common terms and phrases
adults Afrikaans apartheid apartheid planners Bantu bereaved family black South Africans Boksburg Boym called childhood Coetzee coloured corruption cultural death Dokes economy elite ethnic fact Gauteng Germiston grew Gunner Hoor net daar human isicathamiya Johannesburg Kaizer Chiefs Katlehong kids knew language listen lived look Mamasela Matshoba mbaqanga Mbembe means memory mother Mpho municipal names native neighbourhood neighbours Ngcobo Nhlapo Nkabinde Nkosi nostalgia nostalgic Ntswayi one’s owls parents past Piet Retief play political primary school problems protests radio dramas Radio Zulu rats reflective nostalgia remember rituals rodents SABC sense shebeen smell social order someone Sotho Soweto speak station story street struggle taxi teachers television tell Thandukukhanya things Thokoza township township residents tsotsitaal Ukhozi FM urban African Vosloorus vuilpop Waar was jy women word working-class yard