Has the world gone mad? For goodness sake, why has this made front page news and why the big fuss?! I am a coloured woman, proudly so I might add, but I have found nothing in the article to spark ire or take offense at. All I saw was someone, who having grown up in a coloured community, cleverly using satire to take the p*ss at some of our cultural quirks. And they are quirks that are unique to the coloured community, more so the 'gam' coloureds of the Western Cape.
'Gam' in itself could be viewed by some as a derogatory term as it usually refers to lower class coloureds. What is delightful about the 'gam' I have met in my time, is their ability to be self deprecating, their sense of the ridiculous and that crazy way of finding humour in the weirdest and sometimes most macabre of circumstances. They're generally a happy bunch who more often see the glass as half full no matter how reduced or horrendous their existences are. Yes, there is a language that is exclusively there's. It is commonly referred to as 'gam taal'. This is where I take my hat off to Khuli as she brings this 'gam taal' to the reader in a rather eloquent, albeit witty (some might say malicious) way.
Whatever happened to freedom of the press/speech? Come on South Africa, lighten up. We have enough serious crap that the world is throwing our way to deal with, let's not add the one common thread that has run so strongly through the fabric of our society to that poo heap. Humour has seen the numerous facets of our uniquely multi-cultural society finding common ground. Let's not lose it to some political agenda, my brothers and sisters. I beg you, don't lose the ha ha man.
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