A name to weed out the devil’s works

OCCASIONALLY I receive phonecalls from folk either trying to sell me car insurance or, in some instances and depending where we are in the church’s liturgical calendar, enquiring about the time of the cathedral’s Easter or Christmas Midnight Mass.

What they often get right is the proper pronunciation of my surname.

Recently I spent all of the Second Sunday in Easter at The Alex la Guma International Airport, Frankfurt, Germany.

When I arrived mid-morning on the overnight flight from Vancouver, Canada, it was still known as Frankfurt International Airport. By the time I boarded the 10pm flight to Cape Town things had changed.

The Germans were unaware of the name change and Europeans can be very petty about these notsuch- minor technicalities. So, I kept it close to my heart and now you are privy to that which I cherish, my born-again love of Mein Vaterland. Though I am more comfortable with Mutterland and certainly happy with it being my Heimatland (native land).

I am reflecting on this matter on Freedom Day and in the spirit imbued by this day I wish to touch, ever so slightly, on the Cape Town variation of the National Question.

Please note, my fellow Camissians, that my surname is generally pronounced after the English fashion of Weeder, an apt name for one whose vocation it is to weed out sin and the works of the devil.

Once at a meeting of the Montague-Ashton-Gemeentskap (MAG) held in Montague, a local school principal, Clarence Swanepoel, observed that the Anglican Church clergy always had surnames appropriate to the corebusiness of their calling: There had been Father John Green followed by Chris Ahrends and I had been preceded by Andrew Hunter.

There are the occasional deviations of my surname as when the receptionist at a local surgery, loudly and with warmth, inquired if I was “Father Weed…”

She burst into giggles.

A verse from Peter Tosh’s Legalise It came to mind: “Doctors smoke it, nurses smoke it”. It seemed, given the young lady’s response, that the list of consumers of what Tom Jones sang of as the green, green grass of home was far more extensive than suggested by Tosh’s advocacy song.

My surname is pronounced “Weerder”.

Johannes Hendrik Weeder (Weerder) had been a German mercenary employed by the Dutch East Indian Company. The late Robert Shell, a historian whose academic focus included the study of Cape Slavery, shared this information with me years ago.

My Great-great-great

Oupatjie had been stationed out at Stellenbosch in the 1700s. He was a member of the Lutheran Church and the official records of church and state reveal he had no children. And I, Michael Ian – son of Stanley, son of John Henry Weeder, erstwhile resident at 12 Amsterdam Road, District One, Cape Town – am a descendant of this chap who had no children.

I suppose a visit to the German Embassy would be in order so as to negotiate some variation of a land claim. Or, the euro cash equivalent which would be donated to the Cathedral Roof Restoration Fund.

You will appreciate, given my partial ancestry, that I felt at home at Frankfurt International Airport.

The people who served me Sauerbraten and beer, eintopf and beer, bratwurst and beer looked like variations of myself. They all spoke German and hailed from Peru, Ethiopia, Pakistan, India and China.

I felt welcomed by everybody. And, I thought “Mmmm, it’s Sunday… what would Jesus do?” So, I renamed the airport. It was as easy as that.

No blood was shed and the German people still believe in all the things which they did not believe in before my arrival. Nobody was traumatised and the Germans had their wealth, in its various formats, still intact when I sat down in seat 49-D on the flight to Cape Town.

And did you know that the German word for customs is zoll? Such an interesting contribution to civilisation.