These ‘Natives of Nowhere’ can always come back

Contemplating life in exile, the inimitable Nat Nakasa wrote a sardonic yet poignant piece about the hopeless options open to him as a stateless person. Having been refused a passport to take up a fellowship at Harvard University in the US, Nakasa opted for an exit permit, which meant he would never be allowed to return to SA.

“Some time next week”, he wrote in an article titled “A Native of Nowhere”, “with my exit permit in my bag, I shall cross the borders of the Republic and immediately part company with my South African citizenship.”

His friends said he was “taking a grave step” but at 27 years old he didn’t think there was anything brave about it. “It is enough to be young, reckless and ready to squander and gamble your youth away. You may, I dare say, even find the whole business exciting.

“According to reliable sources, I will be classed as a prohibited immigrant if I ever try to return to SA. What this means is that self-confessed Europeans are in a position to declare me, an African, a prohibited immigrant, bang on African soil. Nothing intrigues me more.”

The fact that Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, was born in Europe also did not escape him.

He then speculates about several countries which could offer him citizenship, but finds them all unacceptable as, at the height of the Cold War, to belong to one would be to antagonise the other. In his fertile imaginings, he then hits on an idea, and almost seems to make light of his predicament. “There’s some hope, however, that my problems may be solved by the good old Scandinavian countries. I may become the first Scandinavian Pondo in history. A black Viking! Imagine it!”

Unable to return home after the conclusion of his fellowship, Nakasa jumped from the seventh floor of an apartment block in Harlem, New York, and died in July 1965, aged 28 — a tragic story of a prodigious talent denied the sustenance of his native land who saw no other option than to kill himself. Nakasa’s body lay in a New York grave for almost 50 years until it was discovered by an Afrikaans journalist and was then exhumed and returned to SA by the government. He was reburied in his hometown of Chesterville, outside Durban, in September 2014.

It’s up to us to sort out the mess, not some foreign scumbag who, for his personal gratification, wants to dip his ugly tentacles into our affairs, thus poisoning the well for everybody.

I found myself thinking about Nakasa’s tragic life this week as we try to make sense of the ridiculous spectacle of the 59 privileged refugees — the 60th must have bailed out at the last moment — who were ferried to the US this week at the behest of Donald Trump. If you were to say there’s no connection between the two, you’d be dead right. Except perhaps that they all got to the US through different means and under different circumstances.

Nakasa occupied my mind and refused to let go and demanded to be told and retold in his own words. It should not be forgotten, because his story is emblematic of the experiences of so many people who left the country under difficult circumstances, never to return. The flat earthers, meanwhile, have the best of both worlds — the patronage of the most powerful man on earth, and can always come back home if the US doesn’t turn out to be the promised land they had hoped it would be. Even if they became US citizens, as seems likely, they won’t run the risk of losing their South African citizenship, thanks to a recent brainless judgment by the Constitutional Court.

There’s an effort by some to justify or sugarcoat this nauseating affair. Yes, but things are bad here, they say. Yes, they are, and we keep pointing that out all the time. It’s up to us to sort out the mess, not some foreign scumbag who, for his personal gratification, wants to dip his ugly tentacles into our affairs, thus poisoning the well for everybody.

Every South African, irrespective of politics, should find this manufactured crisis totally unacceptable, especially as the whole thing is based on a pack of lies. It’s a sick joke, and it stinks. In the inverted universe of these Neanderthals, equality is oppression.

SA has no quarrel with the US — differences, yes — and has done nothing to harm American interests. But Trump was this week still spewing the outrageous canard that there was a genocide taking place in SA, this from a man who’s eagerly funding and replenishing a genocide of biblical proportions in Gaza where around 53,000 innocent civilians have already been mercilessly and needlessly slaughtered — 143 people were killed in one day this week.

Now President Cyril Ramaphosa, ever so keen to turn the other cheek, is rushing to Washington this week to grovel and kiss the ring. One wonders what he thinks he stands to gain by toadying up to Trump. If he had nothing more important to do, he’d be better off spending the time feeding his animals at Phala Phala. And it’s a bit unbecoming for the leader of a sovereign nation to prostrate himself in front of a foreign head of state.

That will be manna to Trump’s ego. He likes nothing more than people dancing to his tune. But he’s impervious to being convinced otherwise as he regards changing his mind on anything as a sign of weakness. He knows what he’s saying is a pack of lies but he’s saying it — and acting on it — because he can.

The actor Robert de Niro in an interview described Trump as a bully who should not be tolerated. “If a bully comes for your lunch money on Monday, he’s going to ask for more on Tuesday. You have to stand up [to him].”

By scurrying to Washington, Ramaphosa is simply feeding the monster’s ego; he’s bending a knee to a bully. He’s likely to be mauled and humiliated, and he won’t leave empty-handed. He will be sent away with a flea in his ear.

Trump is a so-called transactional leader who does not do anything for anybody unless he gets something in return — like the $400m plane he’s received from the Qataris. Unfortunately, our mining industry has somewhat gone to the wall; otherwise we’d favour him with a gold mine to get him off our backs.