People participating in the New Year Carnival usually refer to the organisation they join for the occasion, as well as to the character they embody during the festivities, as “Coon”. They say “I am a Coon”; a troupe captain talks about “his Coon”; and the carnival itself was for a long time called the “Coon Carnival”
when the Afrikaans Nuwe Jaar was not used. There have been, at various periods, objections to the use of the word “coon” because of the meaning it had in the United States. “Coon” reached South Africa with blackface minstrelsy in the second half of the 19th century and carried with it ambiguities that were not clearly perceived, be it in the United States or in South Africa. Probably the most prominent “coon” in blackface minstrelsy was “Zip Coon”: the central character in a song composed by George Washington Dixon, who also played the role on stage. An urban dandy, Zip Coon was generally opposed to Jim Crow, the rural dancer. The lyrics suggested that he had ridiculous pretensions: he was a
“larned skoller” because he could sing “Possum up a gum tree” and some thought he could become “De bery nex President”. Zip Coon apparently embodied an aspiration to socio-economic elevation that made whites nervous. However, a closer look at the music supporting the lyrics and at the persona of their author shows that behind the surface lay more complex meanings. The song could be the vehicle for real ambitions shared by young black and white working class people. George Washington Dixon was an advocate of the working class; he was suspected of being anti-slavery, and accused of being a mulatto himself (Cockrell 1997). Notwithstanding these intricacies – which were probably lost on most patrons of blackface shows – “coon” became in the United States an insulting way of talking about African-Americans, more or less synonymous with “nigger”.
When the word crossed the Atlantic, it was appropriated by revellers celebrating the New Year in Cape Town; they understood it as the symbol of a bright, modern form of entertainment and it lost its racist acceptation. In 1994, a former carnival organiser and troupe captain explained what he understood when hearing the word “coon”: “What is the coon? […] It must be something
the coon […] the coon is a bird in America a black bird with a big eyes […]
that’s a coon.”19 Taliep Petersen, a celebrated composer of songs and musicals who coached many carnival troupes, even became agitated when asked about objections to using the word “coon”: “Now, now people don’t […] the Americans come and they don’t want us to use the word coon because it’s derogatory for the people. Here coon is not derogatory in our sense. For us the minute you talk coon, he sees New Year Day, he sees satin […] and the painted […] white around the eyes, black around the rest.”20 Members, coaches and captains of carnival troupes interviewed by Denis-Constant Martin in 1994 used the word “coon” without any reluctance. In the early 2010s, Channel Oliphant, a student at the University of the Western Cape who investigated the New Year Carnival, similarly noted:
“I have found that those who participate find no derogative connotation to the word ‘coon’, although some do acknowledge the African-American derogative connotation. Furthermore I have found that various participants use the words
‘minstrels’, ‘coons’ and ‘klopse’ interchangeably” (Oliphant 2013: 3). In spite of the general use of the word “coon” in Cape Town without any derogatory or racist connotations, there has been insistent pressure from South Africa and the United States to abandon the word.21 While most people involved in the New Year Carnival continue to use “coon” when discussing between themselves the festivities and the troupes which participate in it, the word has now been replaced in official parlance and in the name of carnival boards. “Minstrels” has been used for some time, but again objections referring to the blackface minstrelsy22 lexicon led to its abandonment. The words now generally used by carnival troupes and organisers and by their counterparts in local government, as well as by scholars, are Klops and Kaapse Klopse (literally “clubs of the Cape”). They come from the English “club” and allude to the first aggregations that sang and danced in the streets on New Year’s Eve, which were frequently formed by members of social and sports clubs; moreover, phonetically it also “plays upon, and evokes the sound of the ghoema beat”23 (Oliphant 2013: 3). In this case, we shall follow the trend and use Klops and Klopse.
Conclusion
To conclude this prologue, we want to reiterate that we treat “racial” and group categories, including “coloured” and “malay”, as socio-historical constructions that have no biological basis; we reject any idea of cultural essence that would imprison individuals in unique, fixed and immutable group “identities” or
“race”; we consider that cultural practices interact and cross-fertilise whatever the barriers that are erected to isolate them, that they evolve thanks to these contacts and the creations they spur; therefore we contend that cultures are never fixed and closed and cannot give birth to pure and unalterable identities. Accordingly,
in this book, after taking cognisance of arguments presented by several authors (in particular, Eldridge & Seekings 1996: 519; Erasmus & Pieterse 1999: 169;
Gqola 2010: 16; Vahed & Jeppie 2005: 281–282), we have elected to adopt the following conventions.
With respect to “population groups”, we shall use the terminology found in censuses conducted by Statistics South Africa:24 black African, coloured, Indian or Asian, white and other.25 It seems legitimate and relevant to use these categories since they are no longer arbitrarily imposed upon individuals: people who are enumerated are now asked to choose under which one they want to be classified.26 We shall write African and Indian or Asian with a capital initial, since they denote a geographic origin; black, coloured, malay, griqua and white with a lower case initial to avoid essentialising groups without single geographical roots.
In addition to these five basic categories, we shall, whenever needed, distinguish people speaking languages of the Khoisan family: Khoikhoi and San. “Black”
(with a lower case b), following the Black Consciousness definition, will refer to all people oppressed under segregationist and apartheid regimes, treated as a single aggregation: black Africans, coloureds and Indians or Asians. Finally, we decided to write “race” between inverted comas to emphasise that we consider that it is a social construction that should be studied as such, but that it does not cover a biological reality, except when used to talk about the “human race”.
Regarding musical and carnival groups, as stated above, we will call carnival troupes Klopse (singular Klops) and choirs Malay Choirs.
Since this book is being published in South Africa, we have adopted the South African English spelling. However, when quoting other works, we have obviously retained the original spelling. Unless otherwise indicated, texts in French have been translated by Denis-Constant Martin. In cases where the French text is particularly intricate, the original has been reproduced in endnotes.
Notes
1. See also: Taguieff 2001.
2. “A conception based on a hierarchical classification of human ‘races’ according to which
‘races’ determines culture, history and social evolution” (Taguieff 2010: 115-116).
3. A conception which considers that “differences existing between human groups are caused by biological factors as defined or supposed in racial doctrines” (Taguieff 2010: 115).
4. On the use of capital initials, see: p. xxv.
5. Contemporary griquas are the descendants of children born in the 17th and 18th centuries of unions between white settlers who ventured into the interior of the Cape Colony and indigenous people, mostly Khoikhoi, but also San and Tswana. They speak Afrikaans and have for a long time been classified in the coloured category. During the 20th century, various movements such as the Griqua National Conference of South Africa and the Griqua National Council emerged, claiming an independent identity. They are represented in the National Khoisan Consultative Conference launched in 2001.
6. Statistics South Africa (1998) The People of South Africa: Population Census 1996, the Count and How it was Done (Report No. 03-01-17(1996)). Pretoria: Statistics South Africa.
Available at https://apps.statssa.gov.za/census01/Census96/HTML/Metadata/Docs/count/
chapter_1.htm [accessed 21 December 2015].
7. The conception of blackness developed within the Black Consciousness Movement was largely inspired by the writings and actions of African-American activists in the United States and their slogan “Black Power”. Bantu Stephen Biko clarified its meaning for South Africa in a paper produced for a SASO Leadership Training Course in December 1971: “We have defined blacks as those who are by law or tradition politically, economically and socially discriminated against as a group in the South African society and identifying themselves as a unit in the struggle towards the realization of their aspirations.” Available at http://www.
sahistory.org.za/archive/definition-black-consciousness-bantu-stephen-biko-december-1971-south-africa [accessed 25 May 2015].
8. During the Parliamentary debate on the proposed Population Registration Act in 1950, WH Stewart, MP for the opposition United Party, stated that the Act was an “attempt to solve the unsolvable problem, the absolutely unsolvable problem as to what is actually a pure white person, what is a pure Coloured person (if you can get a pure Coloured person) and what is the subtle mixture between the two, and which is which and which is the other”
(quoted in Ebr.-Vally 2001: 46–47).
9. The South African Coloured People’s Organisation (SACPO) was launched in 1953; it fought against the attempt to remove coloured voters from the common voters’ roll.
10. Alex la Guma and Peter Abrahams are two of the most famous coloured writers.
Peter Abrahams (1919–2017) was one of the first South African writers to be internationally recognised. Abrahams left South Africa for England in 1939 and eventually settled in Jamaica in 1956; a novelist and journalist, the struggle against racism runs like a red thread through his works. Alex la Guma (1925–1985) was both a novelist and an activist who dedicated his life to fighting racism and apartheid. La Guma, a celebrated writer, was a member of the South African Communist Party, participated in drawing up the 1955 Freedom Charter and was one of the anti-apartheid militants accused at the 1956 Treason Trial.
11. The African People’s Organisation (APO) was, from its foundation in 1902 until the early 1940s, the main coloured political force. Led by Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, it gathered together an intellectual and economic elite of educated and rather well-off coloureds and endeavoured to mobilise coloured voters to: “promote unity between the coloured races […]
obtain better and higher education for our children [and] defend the Coloured people’s social, political and civil rights” (quoted in Lewis 1987: 20).
12. Manenberg is a coloured township located about 18 km from the centre of Cape Town.
Established by apartheid authorities in 1966, it accommodates mostly low-income coloured people and is rife with gang-related violence; it has been made famous by Abdullah Ibrahim/
Dollar Brand’s composition “Mannenberg”, recorded in 1974.
13. See p. 6.
14. In a survey of visitors of the “300 years: The making of Cape Muslim culture” exhibition held at the Cape Town Castle in 1994, Kerry Ward came to similar conclusions (Ward 1995).
15. As in the Tafelberg Mannekoor Raad, which is no longer active.
16. Anwar Gambeno, interview with Denis-Constant Martin, Mitchells Plain, 13 April 2015.
17. The Keep the Dream Malay Choir Board was initially named the Cape Male Choir Board, but following a Western Cape High Court interdict judging that this name was “confusing similar” to that of the Cape Malay Choir Board, it had to change it.
18. Also spelt kufija or koefia, from the Arabic kūfiyyah (ةيفوك, from the city of Kufa) and Kiswahili kofia; it usually designates a small cap, frequently embroidered, worn by Muslim men. In this instance it is used to speak of the red felt cap, the fez, worn by Malay Choir members.
19. Achmat Hadji Levy, interview with Denis-Constant Martin, Lentegeur, 28 January 1994.
20. Taliep Petersen, interview with Denis-Constant Martin, Athlone, 15 January 1994.
21. Those who advocate the rejection of words such as “coons” or “minstrels” seem to adhere to a cosmetic conception of political correctness, which leads them to condemn ways of speaking that are common in countries or social milieus other than their own. They behave as if they want to impose upon speakers the only acceptations with which they are familiar. They seem to ignore the well-known fact that when words travel, in space or time, their meaning is often altered or changed. The word “dame” provides an illustration of how words are given various, sometimes opposing, meanings at different times and in different places. Originally, in French, dame referred to an adult woman and connoted elegance, distinction and high social status. In American movies of the 1940s and 1950s, “dame” was most often used colloquially to refer to women of ill repute, considered to be of easy virtue. In Otto Preminger’s Laura (1944), for instance, Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) takes exception to Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney) being taken for a “dame”. In French, she would indeed appear as a dame and not as a poule (“dame”). The meaning of “dame”, whether in French or in English, has over at least two centuries alternated between respectful-honourable, and derogatory-offensive.
22. The origin of “minstrel” goes back to the Middle Ages. Minstrels were musicians, poets, storytellers who entertained feudal lords. Although treated as servants, they were legitimate artists in their own right. It was only much later, in the 19th century, that the word became used to talk about comedians in blackface and entered into the names of troupes, such as the Virginia Minstrels.
23. See pp. 98–99.
24. Statistics South Africa is an official body “responsible for the collection, production and dissemination of official and other statistics, including the conducting of a census of the population, and for co-ordination among producers of statistics”. About the Statistics Act:
online. Available at http://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=830 [accessed 23 December 2015].
25. See for instance: Census in Brief: online. Available at http://www.statssa.gov.za/census/
census_2011/census_products/Census_2011_Census_in_brief.pdf [accessed 23 December 2015].
26. See: Question P 05, Household Questionnaire (Questionnaire A): 2: online. Available at http://
www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=3852 [accessed 23 December 2015].
1 The present volume represents the outcome of many years of investigation into Cape Town’s New Year festival, and in particular into the musical repertoires performed by the two most important organisations that enliven them: the Kaapse Klopse and the Malay Choirs.