Ag nee, Charlize, say sorry!

There has been much gnashing of teeth, disappointment, and possibly equal amounts of joy in South Africa over onse (our) Charlize saying that her home language, Afrikaans, “is a dying language, it’s not a very helpful language” and claiming that only about 44 people still speak it.

Now this is quite a curious set of statements by our golden girl, a much loved and celebrated “meisie” back home. Charlize’s Twitter handle is after all, @CharlizeAfrica, and there are many clips of her speaking in Afrikaans, swearing in Afrikaans as a joke, and when she came back to South Africa after winning her Oscar, she spoke haar moeder taal (her mother language) when being interviewed.

I have spent a few shiny moments in Charlize’s glittering company on set, when I wrote the famous ad for Sun International, magnificently shot by Ian Gabriel. I was the chief operating officer of Ogilvy SA Group at the time, and we were looking to create a truly standout and memorable commercial for the brand.

Charlize had quite recently won her Oscar for Monster, and I thought who better to use as the iconic and emblematic “femme fatale” in the ad than her. Ironically, the script begins, “There is one place I can relax, where I can be myself…”

I’m not sure I could write that same script now?

So why did Charlize say this? Well, in part, I think she was trying to be funny and relatable. She knows well there aren’t 44 Afrikaans speaking South Africans. More than seven million people speak it as their first language daily, and tens of millions more can speak and understand it as their second language.

I speak it pretty well as an entirely English Jewish “boytjie”. Charlize may have even referred to someone like me as a “rooinek” when she grew up in South Africa. My Afrikaans neighbours and close friends certainly did. It’s an insulting term (they used it in an only slightly more endearing way) because us “Englishmen” get red necks (burnt) from the sun as we’re supposedly so used to the cold English weather. It’s an old insult going back to the 1800s. And even if you are from Portuguese, Polish, and Lithuanian blood like me, the language can still earn you that ire.

I raise this because dyed-in-the-wool Afrikaners are usually incredibly proud of their language, culture, and heritage. And by her own admission, Charlize claims to have learnt English only as a late teen. That in itself is hugely questionable, as I don’t know any other Afrikaans people who grew up in South Africa who couldn’t speak English. So, she would have spoken suiwer (pure) Afrikaans, and by all accounts still does, to her mother, Gerda, who moved to America only when she was middle aged.

It’s no secret that Charlize comes from a deeply troubled home with tragic circumstances, so there must be lasting scars in spite of her vast fame and wealth. Reminds me of that famous Peter Sarstedt song, Marie Claire, where he asks, “Where do you go to my lovely, when you’re alone in your bed? Tell me the thoughts that surround you, I want to look inside your head.” Which is, partly, what I’m trying to do here.

Afrikaners are a proud people. Smart and resourceful, many have gone on to achieve the most staggering successes locally and abroad. Many at the very top of the tech industry in Palo Alto today. And they’re usually very loyal to their culture.

Now is Charlize proudly South African? I most definitely think so. Look at her Twitter handle above. And she contributes, meaningfully, as I understand it, to her foundation to change local lives.

Is she a proud Afrikaner though? Perhaps not, given her glib and rather insulting comments.

A few years ago, Wallpaper magazine apparently described Afrikaans as the ugliest language in the world. That allegedly incensed the Afrikaans owner of Richemont, Johann Rupert, who owns global luxury brands like Cartier and Mont Blanc, and he immediately pulled all his advertising from this publication. Little did Wallpaper realise the scale of its faux pas. I wonder what Johann makes of Charlize’s comments. Not much, I imagine.

Afrikaans is a rich, descriptive, and wonderful language. Musicians like Karen Zoid and others have returned it to contemporary popularity, and the books and poems still written in Afrikaans harness prose and emotions like few languages. There’s also no better language to swear in.

The sad thing about actors is they become world famous, rich, and very important, simply for being able to pretend to be other people in front of a camera or on stage. George Clooney isn’t a doctor saving lives because he was in ER. But he earned 100 times more than a real doctor saving lives in an ER. Tom Cruise isn’t a fighter pilot in the American Airforce, but he earned spectacularly more than any of them for pretending to be one, in Top Gun 1 and 2. And award machines like the Oscars are designed to enhance their global fame, power, and desirability. They are called “stars”, and many of them believe it and drink the Kool Aid from behind their high walls in the Hollywood hills and beachfront mansions in Malibu. They are often, at such dizzying heights, like a star, hopelessly out of touch. As was Charlize, who never understood, in spite of being an actress, that words matter.

And hers, intended or not, were deeply hurtful and insulting to the Afrikaans community and many other South Africans. Those who celebrated her comments called Afrikaans the language of the oppressor, and yet the coloured community in South Africa mostly speak Afrikaans, and proudly so. It’s like saying German is the language of the oppressor because of the Nazis. It’s not the whole truth, it lacks context, scrutiny, and is just a blunt and ill-considered statement because of the very real horrors and legacy of apartheid. And yes, those who perpetrated the crimes were mostly Afrikaners and certainly spoke the language, but that doesn’t mean all Afrikaners were racists. Many fought valiantly against the evil system of oppression.

But maybe Charlize is embarrassed? She also has an adopted black son, Jackson, so she may wish to distance herself from her heritage? Who knows. We can only speculate.

I grew up with my grandparents speaking Yiddish. It’s based on German, but with many blends of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Slavic languages. It’s hardly spoken today but has had some popular resurgences lately, spoken and in music. It’s wonderfully rich and descriptive. But I would never dream of calling it “not helpful” because it would be insulting and a betrayal of my culture.

So maybe Charlize, the star, has, like Icarus, flown too close to the sun. On this occasion, maybe her wings melted and she’ll come crashing down to earth and apologise. For as Denzel Washington said to Will Smith after he assaulted Chris Rock at the Academy Awards, “At your highest moment, be careful. That’s when the devil comes for you”.

Charlize, stay humble, en se jammer na jou mense (say sorry to your people).

• Mike Abel is the founding partner and chief executive of M&C Saatchi Abel.