W is for Who am I?

I was born during the last decade of the Apartheid era, was eight years old when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and was twelve when we had our first democratic elections. I did not feel the effects of this dark time the way my older siblings and parents did, and therefore feel that I cannot claim to be a child of the struggle.

South Africa is in its twenty-first year of freedom, but unfortunately there is still lingering effects of Apartheid, mostly in the form of racism. Law does not dictate it anymore but you still find people grouping together based on race and ethnicity, and you still find quite a lot of intolerance.

Now this may spark outrage and controversy, but for me, the worst thing that has happened in the last twenty years is that the indigenous people of my country have confused their identities.

I find it very disconcerting when I walk past a Zulu person speaking English with a British accent to a fellow Zulu, instead of their own language, or when I talk to Xhosa and Muslim learners at school and they do not know their own culture. It’s almost as if they are afraid to outwardly express the uniqueness of their cultures and faiths, and are all striving to become the same thing.

I was like that too. And there came a time when I had to ask myself who I was – a question I can now answer:

I am a Muslim, Indian-Cape Malay hybrid, South African woman.

And I am so grateful that time, circumstance and experience have steered me to where I sit comfortably in my skin and wear my identity proudly.