Friday, 16 May 1986: A Pork-Barrel Theater & the Grim Legacy of the Boer War

May 21, Home of Melvin (Jack) & Eileen, Kimberly, Cape Province 

Last Friday, while I was Bloemfontein, Vissie Zietsman, the head of the local office of SATOUR drove me around to see some of the highlights of the city.  First, we visited a military fort which had been built by the British in 1848.  The Old Fort is now a military museum.  It has more than 100 different rifles and pistols on display, dating all the way back to muzzle-loaders.  We saw the padded cell in which Dimitri Tsafendas (an immigrant from Mozambique of Greek descent) was kept after he stabbed Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd to death in 1966.  There was a covered wagon on display which was used by the Boer trekkers in the 19^th Century.  Vissie noted similarities of these wagons to those used by American pioneers.  However, there was a notable difference.  The Boers used oxen to pull their wagons.

Next, we had a guided tour of the ultramodern Sand Du Plessis Theatre.  Our bubbly guide, Hetta Erasmus, was filled with enthusiasm and boring details about the place.  Nonetheless, it was an impressive edifice, costing R55,000,000+ to build (about US$27,000,000 at the current rate of exchange).  They have several stages in the main theater which move around on tracks using sophisticated high-tech equipment.  Thus, they can change scenes by pushing some buttons moving one stage out and another in.  The theater has an elevator that will handle more than 15,000 kilograms (the weight of several adult elephants or a large truck).  There are dressing/sleeping rooms with baths for about 400 artists.  The main theater seats 700, and there is an experimental theater in another part of the building which holds 300+. 

Hetta said that their operas usually sell out.  Attendance is about 80% of capacity for plays.  The average seat for an opera costs only R10.00 and seats for plays are even less.  I did some mental calculations and figured out that a capacity audience for an opera performance would only bring in about R7,000.  La Traviata, currently playing, is scheduled for 9 performances.  That’s a total of only R63,000.  Since they only put on a few operas per year, where is the money coming from to keep this large facility going and pay the performers?   In fact, the budget for the complex is about R1,000,000/month.  And who picked up the R55 million tab to build this facility?  According to Hetta, half the cost for construction came from the national government in Pretoria.  The Orange Free State provincial government is still trying to come up with the balance.  Why build such an elaborate opera house for a city of 225,000 which stages performances directed at an educated white audience? Although the opera house is open to all races, it’s doubtful that more than a handful of blacks and coloureds would have the money or interest to attend.  Hetta said that Sand DuPlessis, a former Orange Free State Administrator [governor] had been influential in convincing the government to locate the theater in Bloemfontein.  The central location of the city within South Africa was apparently also a factor.  

Woolfie Joffa (my host here in Bloemfontein) later shed some additional light on the theater.  Mr. Sand Du Plessis is involved in the construction and truck transport business in here in Bloem.  Woolfie alleged that Du Plessis made millions from this pork-barrel project.  Betty, with whom we were having dinner during this discussion, disputed the 80% attendance rate for plays.  She had been to a play recently with only a handful of people present.  She felt that the theater was losing its ass financially.  Woolfie and I pondered the wisdom of spending R55 million on this project and wondered if the money could have been better used for education and roads in black townships.  Sure, “You gotta have art,” but isn’t this a bit of overkill?  I flashed back to the poor black university campus I visited a few days ago.  Where are the priorities?

Hetta did her best to give me a snow job about the theater which is admittedly stunning.  However, I found her patronizing attitude to be a fucking pain in the ass.  She took us into the workshop where a number of carpenters (mostly black) were building sets.  She had to be a Boer, I mean bore (pun intended), and tell me how happy the people were working here.  She had to be a double bore by introducing me to the stage manager saying, “This is Mr. Mahoney who is going to write nice things about our theater and our country.”

Hetta wanted to take me to meet the theater manager who could better answer my questions about the financing of the theater.  I was getting bored shitless and was glad that Vissie had other things for us to see before lunch. 

Our next stop was the Women’s Monument erected in memory of the 26,370 Boer women and children who had died in British concentration camps during the Second Boer War, 1899-1902.  Vissie’s wife’s grandmother had been interned in one of the camps and never forgave the British for this grim chapter of their imperial history.  She would never have allowed any of her children or grandchildren to date an English-speaking South African.  I asked Vissie if he and his wife feel the same way about their children.  Not at all, he replied.  His family has a number of English-speaking friends.

Next to the Women’s Monument was the War Museum of the Boer Republics (Orange Free State and Transvaal – prior to the Second Boer War).  The museum contains a huge collection of memorabilia from that war.  Displays include depictions of battles, the concentration camps, destruction of Boer farms, and other nastiness.  I didn’t find the displays themselves all that interesting but they did get me thinking about the stupidity of the Second Boer War.  How could the British have justified this little adventure on grounds other than pure greed – greed for the mineral wealth of the Boer republics and the insatiable desire of megalomaniacs like Cecil John Rhodes to paint the map of Africa pink for the honor and glory of Queen Vicky back in London?  The British won the war but ultimately, they lost the country.  This cruel war left deep scars of resentment which remain to this day among the Afrikaner people.  Is there any wonder that the Afrikaner now guards his position in this society with such inflexible suspicion?  Thus, the legacy of that war is a deeply troubled society in which 85% of the population doesn’t get a fair shake.  

Bloemfontein has a number of provincial and city buildings done in interesting architectural styles.  Vissie drove me past a few buildings which I photographed before our lunch break.  After lunch, he had a young Afrikaner woman from the tourist bureau accompany me to the National Museum.  Oh, not more stuffed lions and black tribesman mannequins, please!  The SATOUR people keep wanting to show me museums and monuments and I’m getting sick of them.  Nevertheless, I smile, keep my guard up, and manage not to show any irritation or nastiness.

The following morning was much more fun than the museum circuit.  I ran a 6 km race which was held at a local military base.  My time was about 26:30.  I’ve been running and walking regularly since I arrived in South Africa, so I feel in reasonably good shape.  One night a few weeks ago, I ran with my tape recorder and listened to some Denver jazz (Images and Rob Mullins).  When I closed my eyes, I was back in Denver having a beer and digging jazz with good friends at the Oxford Hotel or Josephina’s.  When I opened them, my feet were pounding the dusty road as the red African sun cast its final light of the day over the veld.  I decided that the memory and the present reality were close to being perfect.  Life, it seems, has generally been pretty good to me.