People are people, even in postcolonial discourse
MY Russian friend, Nickolay — at whose invitation I travelled to Moscow last week — responds like a mystic philosopher to tentative enquiries about conflict in or linked to his country. “People are people,” he says. Russia-Ukraine military action? State censorship, both overt and covert (a recent example the cancellation of the contemporary art fair, Art Moscow)? US sanctions and the nascent return of Cold War rhetoric? “People are people,” he says.
On the one hand, this could be interpreted as misanthropic cynicism: “What do you expect from politicians? The powerful have always acted like this.” On the other hand, it could be a bold humanist declaration — equivalent to Sting and Billy Joel in the 1980s singing how Russian and American citizens are basically the same.
This is an ancient theme; we all bleed, we all fall in love, etc. But notions of “universal humanity” are problematic in colonial and postcolonial contexts. Historically, celebrating shared humanity has meant identifying the ways in which colonised people integrate themselves with the beliefs, habits and tastes of their colonisers. Here, “we are all the same” often implied “we can all have recognisably western or European characteristics”.
Nonetheless, it seems to me that seeking to affirm similarities is generally an important principle. It is dangerous to dismiss material, geographical, historical and (as an accumulation of all these) cultural differences. Yet it is equally dangerous to commit the error of essentialising culture, of generalising about ethnicity — of, in a word, stereotyping. In the aftermath of the Lagos tragedy, we must resist easy anti-Nigerian sentiment. Greed and neglect, pseudo-religious charlatanism: TB Joshua has no monopoly on these. People are people. Citizens of many nations died along with 84 South Africans. People are people.
I’ll admit, however, that spending a week in Moscow challenged my confidence in Nickolay’s mantra. Muscovites will candidly tell you: we Russians are grumpy, curt, impulsive and inclined toward bouts of melancholy or madness. If these are self-defined national characteristics, who am I to disagree? And there is so much else that may seem, to the outsider, particular to this country or to its capital.
The physical and psychological remnants of communism, in stark contrast to the consumerism that is everywhere to be seen; the “East meets West” architectural clash that is part of the urban experience in Moscow, no less than the subterranean grandeur of the city’s metro stations, or its grit and grime and bleak apartment buildings; the pageantry and ritual of the Orthodox Church, along with that venerable institution’s more clandestine dealings and political influence; the Russian language itself, a uniting and dividing force across what used to be the USSR. For the tourist and amateur anthropologist, each of these things might be an indication of Russia’s uniqueness.
But any assertion of this kind leads down a slippery slope to cliché and caricature — to prejudice, exoticising and alienation. And, at any rate, such assertions are only possible if you ignore other phenomena that even a vaguely observant visitor can perceive. People are people. Returning to SA, I was reminded that Nickolay’s wise platitude is not only useful for international relations, but also has value in correcting the way we think about our compatriots and fellow citizens.
Difference is entrenched in our thinking, to the point of reification. A place such as Alexandra is often described in opposition to the opulence of nearby Sandton: it is defined in terms of deprivation. But Dark City Dreams, a collaboration between the photographer Michael Meyersfeld and the poet Mongane Wally Serote, undermines those terms.
The exhibition, which opened at the Phutaditjaba Community Centre in Alex and has moved to In Toto Gallery (66 St Andrew Street, Birdhaven, until September 29), affirms quite simply that “people are people”.
In these images, the residents of Alex play music and games, titivate, woo, relax at home; they have, to quote from one of Serote’s poems, “acquired life here”.