So it’s official. South Africa has been greylisted. If you want to know exactly what that means, read Business Times, where my learned colleagues clearly explain all 50 shades of greylisting.
Greylisting is a grisly word, and grey is a somewhat depressing colour, if you ask me. I’ve always found it a bit odd when people say they are “feeling blue”. To my mind, blue — which also comes in at least 50 shades, from cobalt to cerulean to turquoise to sky — is a happy, fresh, hopeful colour.
Grey, not so much. Grey is the colour of gunmetal, of storm clouds, of indecision. Grey is the colour of the ash that has to be swept from power-station chimneys so that it does not weigh on the electricity-generating infrastructure and break it.
A grey area, in today’s parlance, is used in the context of uncertainty, where a rule or law may or may not apply, because in that particular area things are shadowy and undefined.
Some years ago, “grey areas” had a different meaning in South Africa. These were places like Hillbrow and Crown Mines where people of all races were allowed to live alongside each other without much attention being paid by police to this violation of the iniquitous Group Areas Act.
I suppose there is some positivity to be gained from the idea that all of South Africa is now a “grey area” — in that anyone can live anywhere they choose/can afford. But greylisting has no such positive connotations.
Let us not be too blue about this, because there are some bright spots that can help us feel in the pink rather than red-faced with rage and embarrassment.
One of these, which should please even the most ardent antiroyalist and opposer of all things colonial, is the news that South African bel canto soprano Pretty Yende will be singing at the coronation of King Charles III.
Incidentally, knowledge of the first two King Charleses is about as prevalent as total understanding of greylisting.
There are some bright spots that can help us feel in the pink rather than red-faced with rage and embarrassment
In a nutshell, King Charles I (1600-1649) had long brown hair, an upturned moustache and a goatee beard until his head was cut off after a parliamentary edict declaring that: “This Court doth adjudge that he the said Charles Stuart, as a Tyrant, Traitor, Murderer and Public Enemy to the good people of this Nation, shall be put to death, by the severing of his head from his body.”
Those were harsh times. King Charles II (1630-1685) had even longer and much curlier hair but no goatee. After the execution of his dad Charles I, he went into exile until the civil war ended and the monarchy was restored. He also had a type of spaniel named after him.
Whatever legacy might be left by Charles III (hopefully less than a severed head and more than a dog breed), Yende will be lending her soaring voice to his accession to the throne on May 6.
This should make all South Africans proud. Yende grew up in the small town of Piet Retief and is now a regular and much-vaunted leading lady on the stages of the world’s most venerated opera houses.
Almost exactly 10 years ago, Yende made her debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera House as the countess Adèle in Gioachino Rossini's comic opera, Le Comte Ory.
She was given the role when the scheduled singer Nino Machaidze fell ill, and had just a week to learn the songs. On opening night, as she was descending the stairs to deliver her first performance to New York’s most discerning musicerati, Yende tripped and fell.
She got up, dusted herself off, and sang her heart out. At the end, she received an almost unprecedented standing ovation for a debut singer.
The Wall Street Journal wrote: “When an audience at the Metropolitan Opera House wants to make its approval known, its roar is unmatchable. When the crowd is rewarding a new singer, whose career is poised to take off, the explosion of applause becomes a quintessential New York moment.”
South Africans are made of strong stuff, and there is no doubt that one day we will again be singing happy songs.
If Pretty Yende can wow the world after a spectacular fall, so can we, as a nation united in hope and resilience.
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