Barriers to communication

During my bedroom hiatus, I read Barry Ronge’s collection of best “Spit ‘n Polish” columns which he has been writing for the past 25 years or so. It was a delightful read and I found some good topics which I could sometime elaborate on.

One of them was a piece he did called “Flood Victims Need Your Money Not Your Ego” where he recalled the time he manned one of the telephones for Good Morning South Africa to raise funds for flood victims in the Free State. He told some funny stories about some of the characters that he spoke to on the phone while on duty, who didn’t necessarily have the flood victims’ best interest at heart.

The one that particularly grabbed me was the Afrikaans man who insisted that Mr Ronge, after answering the phone in English, speak to him in Afrikaans. This man said, and I quote, “as jy nie behoorlik in ‘n mens se eie taal kan praat nie dan sal ek dit sterk oorweeg om my geld aan ‘n ander fonds te skenk”. Mr Ronge politely invited him to do so and then hung up the phone.

Now excuse me for saying (or don’t, I don’t really care) but this is a prime example of a typical Afrikaans-Boer mentality. I am not saying that all Afrikaans people are like this but there are sure a lot of them out there that think that every living creature in South Africa, can speak the damned “taal”. And how egocentric of them to think so.

I had a similar incident when I used to be in charge of manning one of the bank’s advisory lines. I used to hate answering it, as most of the callers were actually looking for another division of the bank. One such caller was an old Afrikaans man. I answered in English, as it is the language I am most fluent in. Now while my Afrikaans is not too bad, I can normally only speak the basics, and avoid technical jargon and business terms completely, simply because my understanding of the language is not that advanced. So anyway, this man asked if I could speak Afrikaans. I said no, for the reasons stated above.

Lo and behold! What a travesty that I could not speak the taal. I was then lectured and criticized for it and asked why is it that a South African bank employs someone that does not speak Afrikaans? Since when was that a criteria? With 11 official languages and diverse people from all walks of life, how can everyone possibly speak Afrikaans?? I was tempted to put the phone down on him, but instead let him have his say until he put the phone down in frustration. Good riddance. Now go learn some FUCKING English, you idiot!