If you’re a regular reader of 2ov you’ll know the name Justin Nurse, he of the Laugh It Off t-shirts and epic Graeme Smith tribute (HERE).

Now we have his latest tale headed our way, Justin sharing his first impressions as an Englishman at Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn…

2016 has been a Dusi of a year for me so far. I thought Dusi was spelt like that, deriving its name from the canoe marathon that was so hardcore it left you wanting to kotch from exertion and contaminated water. It’s not: it’s spelt doozy, and it is American in its etymology.

My bad. Which is the point I’ll be making in as obtuse a manner as I possibly can: what is my culture and who am I in relation to it as I travel the R62 on my way to Oudtshoorn to flog my T shirts and take in some shows that my tjommies are in?

A series of epileptic seizures left me in and out of ICU and neurologist offices for the better part of January. Three white spots have been found on my brain and I don’t know how much longer I have to live. No need for sympathy: if you think about it, none of us know how much longer we have to live.

But my hospital bills are like a pack of wolves at the door and last week I found my uncle living under a bush in Fish Hoek. In this age of Banting, more and more of us are living on the bread line. Forgive my wry sense of wit. Get it? Rye?
Wheat-free bread that Tim Noakes himself would secretly smear Nutella on? Never mind…

I loathe that I find myself here, setting up a ‘t-shirt stelletjie’ at KKNK, pandering to the Afrikaans market as best I can with our own brand of funny Ts (e.g. #RainMustFall and ‘Respek en Eiers’) that the boertjies will buy so that them bills will get paid. The last time I was at KKNK I had an altercation with Steve Hofmeyr over Laugh it Off’s ‘Wies jou Papa?’ (Who’s your Daddy?) T-shirt and I can still feel his iron-clad grip around my neck.

I’m an English-speaking white South African that’s being called ‘my laanie’ (boss) by all the coloured workers helping with setup. It’s uncomfortable, and for the most part I don’t understand a word of what’s being said here. Billy Corgan (lead singer of The Smashing Pumpkins) is drowning out Sting and The Police as the opening lyrics to Thirty-Three ear worm away in my brain: Speak to me in a language I can use / Humour me before I have to go.

I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien, I’m an Englishman in Oudtshoorn. Usually when I don’t dig what’s going on inside of me I start projecting as a way to deflect my feelings. That said, sorry Oudtshoorn, but you had it coming…

The backstory that I’d like to throw into the mix here are that this year sees the abrupt end of another big Afrikaans festival, Aardklop, that was due to happen in September. Their sponsor, Clover, sommer just pulled out one day and they issued a lame press release that the festival had run its course and yadda yadda melktert. The meme doing the rounds was: Aardklop klop. Wie’s daar? Niemand! (Aardklop is knocking. Who’s there? No one.)

ABSA is the sponsor of KKNK, and it is also a member of the Barclays Group. Much has been made of Barclays’ reasons for pulling out of Africa. Maria Ramos assures us that there’s no reason to panic, but in light of these two newsworthy tidbits, is it that much of a stretch to raise an eyebrow and consider the KKNK’s longevity were ABSA to no longer bankroll it? And if so, what is this endangered species that we are trying to protect?

For starters, the name befuddles me. With one too many Ks to spook you right out of your white supremacist fearing socks, it’s an unfortunate acronym any way that you cut it. And as for The National? They’re a great band, sure, but a bit of a stretch in a moniker for an Afrikaans festival.

‘But the South African government recognizes the KKNK as the biggest arts festival in the country’, the PR people proclaim! So what? That same government is still keeping shtum about JZ’s R4 million ‘fire pool’ being a security feature. In our land of the dumb king, we all just turn a blind eye. If we called a smashing pumpkin a ‘platgemoerde pampoen’, we’d throw in the word Afrikaans instead. But then it’d just read KKAK…

The last thing befuddling me as I loop the dusty streets on my way to an ABSA sponsored opening of a collection of Visual Arts exhibitions on festival’s opening night is all the Afrikaans poppies and their outrageously dyed hairdos that look like they’ve been imported from London’s punk scene in the 1970s. How was that culturally imbibed down here in the R of SA, pray tell?

Enough with the shallow circumspection. I’m at the opening of a larny arts show with snacks to be had. I get chatting over frikkadels to a guy called Neil Jonker…

Me: Why are you here and what do you think of KKNK?

Neil: Well, I’m a visual artist, and Oudtshoorn is my hometown. I’m here tonight to tell people about my exhibition, which isn’t even here – it’s further down the road. KKNK has definitely matured into a stale old stinky shirt; which is what I’ve got on. I mean I didn’t even change my shirt for the opening. It’s like so… here we all are… again.

When I returned to Oudtshoorn after art school I was excited to have an arts festival on my doorstep. I was immediately deflated with the heavy Afrikaans tone that it took. The little Karoo that I grew up in was a bilingual place. But I realized that the whole country (and the whole world) is going quite tribal – and that this is a part of that. I was Rainbow Nation naïve, hoping for a forum for diversity in Southern Africa. KKNK has become mediocre for what it can be for an Afrikaans target market.

I first sold sourdough bread here, out of real ‘bak oonde’ ovens in front of the museum to prove a point that the old Afrikaans way of baking could work. It was hot, and they were hard work to stoke, but they worked. The hippies loved them, but we made no money. So I bought in a ton of boerewors and sold that on roosterkoek. Then we pumped. Give the people what they want.

I was then told by a foreigner that roosterkoek is our traditional local cuisine, which was news to me as I’d grown up here. But it is our version of Italy’s ciabatta or India’s nan bread – so let’s just go with that.

Me: What relevance does Afrikaans have?

Neil: A great deal. It’s hard to perceive from our perspective, but I’ve just been travelling the States and globally even, it’s very well respected. Plus, a festival like this’ll never die as ABSA has lank Afrikaans-speaking clients here with loads of money. There’s a lot of big boys here, schmoozing. Ton Vosloo is always here, and he started Naspers. There are a couple of billionaires attached to the language.

As for the Afrikaans culture on display here, I think festivals themselves are becoming past tense, shrinking for their target market. Also if you want to have an Afrikaans festival that has the word ‘national’ in its name, you’re going to have trouble defining it. Globally, the concept of ‘nationalism’ has to die.

Me: What do you dig about being here?

Neil: Well, everyone enjoys an opportunity to discuss our culture.

Me: I just seems like those discussions in SA get stifled off the bat these days with cries of ‘that’s racist’.

Neil: We are racist. We have to move beyond that though, instead of just sweeping it under the carpet.

Me: It feels like we need a clearer – perhaps broader – definition of what a racist is. I just found out from my homeless uncle that my great grandmother was coloured. How am I supposed to feel about all of that?

Neil: Sorry, excuse me for a minute… Hi Paul, great snacks!

Neil hits up Paul Bayliss, ABSA’s Visual Arts curator for some schmooze time…

Paul: Well I hope you enjoyed the art more than the food!

Neil’s clumsy silence is thunderous, so I interject.

Me: Hi. Where does the art end up?

Paul: The ABSA exhibit will go back up to Joburg. We don’t own all of this art, so some of it travels.

Me: Does ABSA own a lot of art?

Paul: We’re in the top ten corporate art collections globally. We own over 18 000 pieces of art.

Me: And where does that art live?

Paul: Across all our buildings. Over 800 of them.

Me: In ABSA banks? So that people can see them when they’re standing in a bank queue?

Paul: No. More in our corporate suites and private offices.

Me: And do the ABSA bankers necessarily resonate with the art.

Paul: Some do, some don’t. Why are you asking me all this?

Me: I’m a journalist, writing an article.

Paul: You need to separate what we own as a corporate collection, and what we exhibit. ABSA runs the L’ Atelier art competition that’s been running for 31 years which gives emerging artists the chance to build their brand and get a foothold in the industry.

Me: Is there a healthy demographic in your collection?

Paul: (…Yadda yadda corporate speak fish paste…)

I’m noticing that his breath actually pongs of fish paste. Or maybe it’s the friggin delicious frikkadels we’ve all been chowing. Either way I’m grateful for his stony silence that speaks volumes when I quiz him about Aardklop and the Barclays thing and he defers me to the relevant PR departments.

I bounce and check out the art, which, in the eye of this beholder, is kak expensive and bang average (hey, I do First Thursdays, I know good art when I see it) and overwhelmingly white, and Afrikaans, and navel gazing in its nature. Except for Lehlogonolo Mashaba’s Anatomic which is the ABSAloot business.

Over sorbets served in shot glasses, I parlay with another Neil, a curator here tonight from the Dead Bunny Society, Neil Nieuwoudt.

Me: Have you had to suck a lot of ABSA dick to get involved?
Neil: No… just one of us had to.
Me: Is this a national festival?
Neil: It’s not a national festival, no. It’s for Afrikaans people really.
Me: For or about?
Neil: Maybe about.
Me: What are your expectations this year?
Neil: A lot of drinking and rowdiness.
Me: What relevance does Afrikaans still have?
Neil: Jesus dude. It’s a beautiful language. As a culture, I guess any culture has fucked up elements in it. I don’t believe in patriotism in any form, but it is nice to come to a place that speaks your own language. So if people wanna come here and drink, that’s fine. But the language is something else.
Me: And Steve Hofmeyr?
Neil: Fuck Steve Hofmeyr.

Indeedy. I slip out of the exhibition, housed as it is above a Mr. Price on the main strip, no more certain of who I am and what constitutes my heritage.

And there you have it, Nurse has spoken and it is so.

Whilst always entertaining as a writer we never enjoy hearing tales of sadness from anyone in the 2OV family. That said our thoughts are with Justin this year, as it seems there will be challenges going forward which we know he can overcome.