People & Culture
Cape Town’s racial mix is different from the rest of South Africa. Of its population of 3.1 million, more than half are coloured; blacks account for about a third of the total, while whites and others comprise the balance. However, this is the just the starting point for the rich mix of cultures that coexists here.
Racial Groups
Although there are many people who find the old apartheid racial terms 'white', 'black', 'coloured' and 'Indian' distasteful and want to break away from the stereotypes they imply, it’s a fact that in South Africa the words are used by everyone, quite often without any rancour or ill feeling.
Coloureds
Coloureds, sometimes known as Cape coloureds or Cape Malays, are South Africans of long standing. Although many of their ancestors were brought to the early Cape Colony as slaves, others were political prisoners and exiles from the Dutch East Indies. Slaves also came from India and other parts of Africa, but their lingua franca was Malay (at the time an important trading language), hence the term Cape Malays.
Many coloureds practise Islam, and Cape Muslim culture has survived intact over the centuries, resisting some of the worst abuses of apartheid. The slaves who moved out with the Dutch to the hinterland, many losing their religion and cultural roots in the process, had a much worse time of it. And yet practically all of the coloured population of the Western Cape and Northern Cape provinces today are bound by Afrikaans, the unique language that began to develop from the interaction between the slaves and the Dutch over three centuries ago.
Cape Town Minstrel Carnival
The most public secular expression of coloured culture today is the riotous Cape Town Minstrel Carnival. This parade, also known in Afrikaans as the Kaapse Klopse, is a noisy, joyous and disorganised affair, with practically every colour of satin, sequin and glitter used in the costumes of the marching troupes, which can number over a thousand members.
Although the festival dates back to the early colonial times when slaves enjoyed a day of freedom on the day after New Year, the look of today’s carnival was inspired by visiting American minstrels in the late 19th century – hence the face make-up, colourful costumes and ribald song-and-dance routines. The vast majority of participants come from the coloured community.
Despite the carnival being a permanent fixture on Cape Town’s calendar, it has had a controversial history with problems over funding, clashes between rival carnival organisations and allegations of gangster involvement. It has also always been something of a demonstration of coloured people power: whites who came to watch the parade in apartheid times would risk having their faces blacked-up with boot polish. Today it still feels like the communities of the Cape Flats coming to take over the city.
Dealing with Racism
Cultural apartheid still exists in South Africa. To an extent, discrimination based on wealth is replacing that based on race; most visitors will automatically gain high status. There are, however, still plenty of people who think that a particular skin colour means a particular mindset. A few believe it means inferiority.
The constant awareness of race, even if it doesn’t lead to problems, is an annoying feature of travel in South Africa, whatever your skin colour. Racial discrimination is illegal, but it’s unlikely that the overworked and under-resourced police force will be interested in most complaints. Tourism authorities are likely to be more sensitive. If you encounter racism in any of the places mentioned by us, please let us know.
African
If you are of African descent, you may well encounter racism from some white and coloured people. Do not assume a special bond with black South Africans either. The various indigenous peoples of South Africa form distinct and sometimes antagonistic cultural groups.
Indian
Although Indians were discriminated against by whites during apartheid, blacks saw them as collaborating with the whites. If you are of Indian descent this could mean some low-level antagonism from both blacks and whites.
Asian
East Asians were a problem for apartheid – Japanese were granted ‘honorary white’ status, but Chinese were considered coloured. Grossly inaccurate stereotyping and cultural ignorance will probably be the main annoyances you will face.
Blacks
Although most blacks in Cape Town are Xhosa, hailing from Eastern Cape Province, they are not the only group in the city. Cape Town’s economy has attracted people from all over Southern Africa, including many immigrants from the rest of the continent – a lot of the car-parking marshals, traders at the city’s various craft markets and waiters in restaurants are from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Mozambique and the like.
Xhosa culture is diverse, with many clan systems and subgroups. Within the black community there are also economic divisions and subgroups based on culture, such as the Rastafarian community in the Marcus Garvey district of the township of Philippi.
Whites
There are distinct cultural differences in the white community here, depending on whether people are descendants of the Boers or the British and other later European immigrants to South African. The Boers’ history of geographical isolation and often deliberate cultural seclusion has created a unique people who are often called ‘the white tribe of Africa’.
Afrikaans, the only Germanic language to have evolved outside Europe, is central to the Afrikaner identity, but it has also served to reinforce their isolation from the outside world. You’ll find Afrikaans to be a much stronger presence in the northern suburbs of Cape Town and in the country towns of the Cape, especially around Stellenbosch, which has a prominent Afrikaans university.
Most other white Capetonians are of British extraction. Cape Town, as the seat of British power for so long, is somewhat less Afrikaner in outlook than other parts of the country. White liberal Capetonians were regarded with suspicion by more-conservative whites during the apartheid years.
Religion
The Rites of Initiation
Male initiation ceremonies, which can take place from around age 16 to the early 20s, are a consistent part of traditional black African life (and coloured Muslim life, where teenage boys are also circumcised, albeit with much less ritual). Initiations typically take place around the end of the year and in June to coincide with school and public holidays.
In the Eastern Cape, young Xhosa men once would go into a remote area in the mountains to attend the Ukwaluka, the initiation school where they would be circumcised, live in tents and learn what it is to be a man in tribal society. Some still do return to the Eastern Cape for the ceremony, but others cannot afford to or choose not to do so, so similar initiation sites are created in makeshift tents erected amid the wastelands around the townships.
Initiations used to take several months, but these days they’re likely to last a month or less. Initiates shave off all their hair, shed their clothes and wear just a blanket, and daub their faces in white clay before being circumcised. They receive a stick that symbolises the traditional hunting stick; they use it instead of their hands for shaking hands during the initiation period. For about a week immediately after the circumcision, while the wound heals, initiates eat very little and drink nothing. No women are allowed to go near the initiation ground.
Initiations are expensive – around R6000 to R8000, mainly for the cost of the animals (typically sheep or goats) that have to be slaughtered for the various feasts that are part of the ceremony. At the end of the initiation all the items used, including the initiate’s old clothes, are burned together with the hut in which he stayed, and the boy emerges as a man. You can spot recent initiates in the townships and Cape Town’s city centre by the smart clothes they are wearing, often a sports jacket and a cap.
Islam
Islam first came to the Cape with the slaves brought by the Dutch from the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. Although the religion could not be practised openly in the colony until 1804, the presence of influential and charismatic political and religious figures among the slaves helped a cohesive Cape Muslim community to develop. One such political dissident was Imam Abdullah Ibn Qadi Abdus Salaam, commonly known as Tuan Guru, from Tidore (now in Indonesia), who was exiled to Robben Island in 1780 and released 13 years later in Cape Town. Four years later he helped establish the city's first mosque, the Auwal Mosque, in the Bo-Kaap, thus making this area the heart of the Islamic community in Cape Town – as it still is today.
Tuan Guru’s grave is one of the 20 or so karamats (tombs of Muslim saints) encircling Cape Town and visited by the faithful on mini pilgrimages. Other karamats are found on Robben Island (that of Sayed Abdurahman Matura); on Signal Hill, which has two (for Sheikh Mohammed Hassen Ghaibie Shah and Tuan Kaape-ti-low); at the gate to the Klein Constantia wine estate (for Sheik Abdurahman Matebe Shah); and at Oudekraal, where there are another two (that of Sheikh Noorul Mubeen and possibly his wife or one of his followers). For a full list see www.capemazaarsociety.com.
Cape Town has managed to avoid becoming embroiled in violent Islamic fundamentalism, an outcome that had seemed unlikely in the early 1990s. You’ll encounter many friendly faces while wandering around the Bo-Kaap, where you can drop by the local museum to find out more about the community. A sizeable Muslim community also lived in Simon’s Town before the Group Areas Act evictions of the late 1960s; its history can be traced at Simon’s Town’s Heritage Museum.
Christianity
The Afrikaners are a religious people and the group’s brand of Christian fundamentalism, based on 17th-century Calvinism, is still a powerful influence. Urbanised middle-class Afrikaners tend to be considerably more moderate. Whites of British descent tend to be Anglican and this faith, along with other forms of Christianity, are also popular among sections of the black and coloured communities.
Spirit Worship
Few blacks in Cape Town maintain a fully traditional lifestyle on a daily basis, but elements of traditional culture do persist, lending a distinctively African air to the townships. At important junctions in life, such as birth, coming of age and marriage, various old rites and customs are followed as well.
Herbal medicine shops are regularly used, and sangomas (traditional medicine practitioners, usually women) are consulted for all kinds of illnesses. Certain sangomas can also help people get in touch with their ancestors, who play a crucial role in the lives of many black Capetonians. Ancestors are believed to watch over their kin and act as intermediaries between this world and that of the spirits. People turn to their ancestors if they have problems or requests – an animal may be slaughtered in their honour and roasted on an open fire, as it’s believed the ancestors eat the smoke.
Judaism
South Africa’s oldest Jewish community is in Cape Town. Even though the rules of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie; VOC) allowed only for Protestant settlers at the Cape, there are records of Jews converting to Christianity in Cape Town as early as 1669. Jewish immigration picked up speed after the British took charge, with settlers coming mainly from England and Germany. The first congregation was established in 1841, while the first synagogue (now part of the South African Jewish Museum) opened in 1863.
Jewish immigration boomed between 1880 and 1930, when an estimated 15,000 families arrived in South Africa, mainly from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Belarus. During this period Jews began to make a large contribution to the city’s civic and cultural life. Max Michaelis donated his art collection to the city and Hyman Lieberman became the first Jewish mayor of Cape Town in 1905, the same year the Great Synagogue was consecrated.