Legacies we inherit and leave our children

LIONEL SLIER

At a United Zionist Luncheon Club meeting recently, he juxtaposed the legacy he inherited from his parents, and they from their parents before them, and a visit to a white squatter camp the other side of Pretoria, where people were “invisible” – to what they call “outsiders” – those preferring not to see them.

“I come from a generation that brought up their children in a certain fashion. My dad left school after standard six, but for ages I never knew this. He had the same job for 36 years. For my barmitzvah he gave me a bicycle – but shortly afterwards he sold it.

“He lived by a certain set of ethics which he passed on to me – neither a borrower nor a lender be.

“We always had shoes on our feet, bread on the table and a roof over our heads. I lived by his ethics. I have a daughter in Cape Town who lives by the ethics I have passed on to her.”

He asked: “How do we stop our children doing the same and do we want to? Is that a legacy? Or are we all wired internally and genetically? This is how things are always done?”

He told the story of a mother who always broke the legs of a chicken before she cooked it. When asked why, she replied that her own mother had always done that. When the granny was asked why she had always broken the legs of a chicken before cooking it, she replied that her pot was small so she had to do that.

Batzofin spoke how, after 1948 and the arrival of the National Party apartheid government, people still voted for them. When asked why, the reply: “Better the devil you know…”

He told of an interview he did with internationally acclaimed playwright Athol Fugard. When Fugard’s anti-government play “Sizwe Banzi is Dead” opened, Batzofin’s parents would not allow him to go to the first night as the “political police” (the feared Special Branch) would be there taking names and photos.

Years later, when he was with Fugard, he asked him why he had left South Africa. Fugard replied that he wanted to earn money so that he could go fishing!

Batzofin said that Fugard’s legacy should be a statue – but there is none (because he ran)!

Then Batzofin switched tack: “I was at a white squatter camp outside Pretoria.

“White squatter camp? Indeed! There are a few thousand Afrikaners living in squatter camps around South Africa today, with several near Pretoria. I spoke to many of the people living in this camp, which does not even have a name. It is simply Plot 111.

“We conversed in English, Afrikaans and a mixture of both. They all wanted to share their stories and spoke freely, except one woman who had suffered from alcohol abuse and did not want her children to know her whereabouts. This was her legacy to them?

“Many of the people there had suffered from some form of abuse – physical, sexual, alcohol, bullying and more.

“None of the children in the camps had had any sort of education. What would the legacy left to them by their parents be? What legacy would they in turn leave? There was a 12-year-old boy who lived in a chicken coop.

“These squatter camp residents spoke of ‘outsiders’ – those people for whom the squatters camp inhabitants were invisible.

“Compare these people, especially children, and especially those who are lucky enough to know their grandparents and can share their legacies. We are leaving these people behind – an outsider group as I said, ‘invisible’.”

Batzofin said this visit had been “one of the best things I have ever done. I am humbled.”

He is writing a book “about them, for them”. It was the toughest thing he ever had to do. “It will be a positive story and also a legacy to them and for them.

“We are all children and grandchildren who have received legacies and who will in turn leave legacies for our children and grandchildren down the generations.”