The South African is an online news source for the immigrant South African community. They offer news for the general South African community but they also offer specialized news for SAs in the UK. This particular article focused on the effects Brexit could have on their lives.
Taking a stroll down London's Brick Lane area in its street art covered walls, churches of revolving faiths, and a variety of ethnic foods gives you a sense of how accustom to change London truly is. French style homes that use to belong to the Huguenots are situated across the street from a synagogue turned Christian church turned mosque, providing a place of worship for the eras current immigrant community. Nestled in this ethnic patchwork neighborhood is Dark Sugar. Heaven on earth for chocolate lovers. The shop sales an assortment chocolate and truffles all made from cocoa sourced from West Africa.
Taking the 430 bus from Kensington for 40 minutes into Putney puts you in the heart of the South African community in London. Hints of the neighborhood's cultural make-up are visible the second you step off the bus at the Gipsy stop. Outside the local South African butcher stop stands a statue. The approximately 7-foot tall figure of a male butcher dressed in a red and white striped apron has his arms up in a welcoming gesture. Almost as if he is there to personally greet you into the area. Unfortunately, once inside the shop the welcoming sense disappeared. When I asked the workers about their experiences in London and how they felt about the media's depiction of them they all ushered me off to the shop's owner. The female owner seemed distracted and uninterested in being interviewed. Ultimately, she declined to answer any of my questions.
In defeat, I boarded the 430 bus back to Kensington with one photo and no insight into the life of a Londoner from South Africa. Then I took the tube to Embankment, where I found Jumbo's. The women working there seemed eager to talk when I last visited and invited me to come back if I had any further questions.
So I went back and sure enough, the two women immediately recognized me. I told them about my experience at Snoggy's and it seemed to be like mentioning the Eagles to a Giants fan.
When asked about how the women felt British media portrayed the South African community they seem to be quite pleased with what is out there. Of course, there are stereotypes that get played up like how candid SA's can be.
"They like to say that we're brutally honest. Like bluntly and brutally honest and that we have no, as we say in South Africa, 'scome' which is we are not embarrassed." Taryn, 37, said with a laugh as her coworker noddingly agreed
Aside from that Taryn said the media mainly focuses on the politics of South Africa. for example their president Jacob Zuma. Whom the women did not seem too fond of, Taryn sarcastically described him as a great president.
Zanele Muholi, a South African photographer, utilized the power of the self-portrait to illustrate her emotional response to situations when she felt 'othered'. Muholi currently has an exhibition of her work on display in London. She created a photographic souvenir of all the moments in a year that she or someone she knows had an experience that stemmed from their black skin color. The Guardian makes a point to illustrate the fact that outside of South Africa Zanele Muholi has been able to express her true self through photography. although she has been made to feel like an "other" in her home country, in a New York City hotel lobby, and any airport security line living in the UK has given her the opportunity to share how those experiences affected her. Muholi's life's work, a collection of portraits of black South African lesbians called Faces and Phases. This work was spurred by the lack of anything like it when she was growing up. There is an undertone of savageness attached to the culture of South Africa.
"Attacks, murders and “corrective” rapes of lesbians are a brutal reality. Muholi’s project is vital – several of the women she has photographed have since been killed, such as Busi Sigasa, a writer and poet who inspired it."
Spitting image was a satirical puppet skit television program that played on ITV from 1984 to 1996. The show routinely made jokes addressing political hot topics. This song is one of the singles released by Spitting Image. It was released during Apartheid.
In the video a traveling man is telling a bartender about his wild experiences through song. At the chorus the man says, "but I've never met a nice South African." Then a group of white South African men are seen carrying guns while riding through the desert in a jeep.
It is the South African men who make the derogatory statements. they call themselves "arrogant bastards who hate black people, "talentless murderers who smell like baboons", and "ignorant loudmouth". As the song progresses and the scene goes back to those men the pile of dead animals on their car gets bigger.
The only nice South African turns out to be a Breyten Breytenbach who after speaking out against apartheid was exiled to France only to come back to South Africa and be imprisoned. He was in prison at the time of this song's release.
Due to the nature of this song it almost has to be overtly stereotypical but it still perpetrates the misconceptions that people in the UK have towards South Africans. Whether that
can be ignored since the song was attempting to tackle a bigger issue is debatable.
9,410 miles from South Africa, down a narrow street lined with British pubs, inside the Arches shopping center, just a walk from Trafalgar Square, sits a store stocked with South African meats, like Biltong and Boerewors, crisps, wines, and household cleaners. They even have South African made animal figurines for decoration and a little reminder of home. As well as curtains with proclamations of the Christian faith. Christianity is the most prominent religion in South Africa.
According to the two SA working in Jumbo's the store offers a sense of community to SAs (as they called themselves) feeling homesick in London. SAs come in regularly to get food from home and chat about South Africa but they also get Londoners and tourists curious about South Africa.
They have three other shops in the UK and offer ordering services online.
This article from Taylor and Francis Online discusses the negative perception British media created on the safety of South Africa. Ticket sales for the 2010 FIFA world cup in South Africa were a fraction of the projected ticket sales. Further investigation found that British media outlet such as, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Mail, and The Daily Star,were releasing material that convinced their audience the safety and security in South Africa was lacking.
This is the South African High Commission, located in Trafalgar Square, it has been open since 1933. During World War II South Africa used the building as its diplomatic headquarters.
The building was design by Herbert Baker an Englishman with a talent for South African architecture. You can see aspects of the country's culture in the designs, an elephant on the side of the wall (or not pictured, a gazelle).
Today it is used the South African consulate as well as housing the office of the commonwealth's South African ambassador.
