At the end of June 2021, 201,930 South African-born people were living in Australia. This makes the South African-born population the seventh largest migrant community in Australia, equivalent to 2.7 per cent of Australia’s overseas-born population and 0.8 per cent of Australia’s total population.
‘Dedrie’ (Gerardina), my wife; Peter, my son; and Hilda, my daughter, joined the growing throng of Afrikaners moving to Australia in 1987.
Ours was a familiar story: Many of our ancestors came to the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th century; others fled persecution in Europe; others came to start a new life. Whatever the reason, they had to rebuild lives in harsh environments marked by conflict with Indigenous peoples: Black people, the Dutch East India Company and the British Empire.
Eventually, after building a country that would become the Republic of South Africa, after three and a half centuries, our White minority government was ousted, and the ‘Rainbow Nation’ emerged like a ‘Phoenix arising from the ashes’. Our ‘place’ now belonged to the entire population.
We saw the writing on the wall in 1987, a few years before Nelson Mandela famously walked to freedom. My wife, Dedrie and I were tertiary qualified professionals with good jobs—living a good life in the Apartheid ‘bubble’, but we knew the edifice could soon come crashing down!
There was talk in 1987 of releasing Mandela—to be followed by free and fair elections. We pondered our futures. What would living in a society dominated by People of colour be like? How would people, dominated for centuries by one group, react?
The apologists of the freedom movement kept reassuring the population that the ‘Phoenix that would arise’ would herald true freedom, liberty and equality. ‘Would that be the case?’ we kept asking ourselves.
Then, a terse letter arrived in the post, informing me that I had to report for military service again – during a time of upheaval and violence in the townships. The letter stated that I had to get my affairs in order and—ominously—get an up-to-date will.
At the same time, I received a job offer from an oil and gas-producing company in Melbourne.
The decision was easy—we were beyond the ‘tipping point’! We applied for migration and were accepted, and shortly after that, we left for Australia in October 1987.
We then saw events unfolding from afar—Nelson Mandela’s powerful march to freedom and the ANC coming to power. Their Phoenix had risen! But ours had risen, too. We were enjoying living in the ‘Lucky Country.’
The enormity of our decision to leave South Africa struck me when boarding a Qantas flight in Harare, Zimbabwe, in October 1987. Tears streamed down my face as my mother bravely attempted to be positive at my farewell in Johannesburg.
Well-meaning friends farewelled me at Jan Smuts (Oliver Tambo) Airport with the standard advice about never looking back, only forward! The rest of the family would follow in December.
The euphoria I experienced since receiving news from the embassy in Pretoria that Australia had accepted us as migrants had vanished and gave way to sadness and a sense of abandonment: abandoning my homeland, our ‘Place’.
As the Flying Kangaroo reached into the sky, heading east, I watched the long shadows creep over my beloved Home, which I knew then that I would probably leave forever. The Flying Kangaroo pierced the interminable night until morning, cautiously crossing the jagged, foaming white line separating land and sea. Finally, we approached the low line of hills that separated Perth from the rest of the Great Southern Land. We landed. I arrived very depressed and anxious.
My connecting flight to Melbourne was in the evening, so I had time on my hands. I decided to leave the main airport building and wander across the carpark to a line of ragged Eucalypts interspersed with Grevilleas that separated the carpark from the main road out of the airport.
All I could hear above the cars leaving the carpark were a magpie’s striking, jarring calls and the strident ‘cookay-co’ of a wattlebird hanging on to a red flowering grevilia. Then, a ‘mad’ kookaburra started to laugh hideously from the branch of a blue gum nearby. My misery was profound, ‘What sort of a place is this, a bloody bird that sounds like a hyena?’ I asked myself. To this day, the ‘cookay-co’ sound of the wattlebird reminds me of trying to restart a running car!
That night, when I boarded the plane to Melbourne, it took several beers to dispel the sense of foreboding and the jet lag that had started to set in.
But that was a long time ago!
One night in 1999, Joan Sutherland sang her final role in the Sydney Opera House as Queen Marguerite de Valois, in Meyerbeer’s ‘Les Huguenots’. She was bidding farewell to her career. When the curtain went up on Act II, the audience burst into the sort of cheers most singers receive after they sing.
As the opera ended, the curtain went down, and the lights went out. When the curtain rose in the darkness, Joan Sutherland stood there in a black, sequin-encrusted gown of thousands of stars. The audience stood and shouted, whooped, cheered, and stamped their feet for a long time. It was spellbinding; it was enthralling!
She just stood there as the ovation went on and on. Then, finally, she smiled and waved, tears rolling down her cheek. Then, the rest of the cast joined her on stage. The ovation slowly died down to a whisper, with a solitary clap here and there.
Then came the evocative sound of a solo oboe!
Joan sang:
Home Sweet Home:
‘Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there
Which seek thro’ the world, is ne’er met elsewhere
Home! Home!
Sweet, sweet home!
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home!’
We wept with the audience in Sydney that night. But we had mixed feelings—which was Home and where was Home?
‘My Homeland’, composed by Czech composer Smetana, tells about longing and great love for the beautiful Bohemian countryside, history, and legends—evocative, nostalgic music of a proud and culturally rich region of Europe. It resonates for most who love Place! When I hear that music, I see my South African Place through the eyes of my youth: pristine and perfect.
Theodore Roosevelt felt the same about the USA. He said, ‘Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, and cherish history and romance as a sacred heritage for your children and your children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests strip your country of its beauty, riches, or romance.’
Wayne Dyer (2001), the author of Your Erroneous Zones, said: ‘If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change’.
And so did we.
We no longer saw an ugly, colourless, and formless Australian landscape. Instead, my eyes opened to see gentleness and subtle beauty in this geologically ancient land and the environment that has successfully adapted to aeons of harsh, hot and unforgiving circumstances. We had learned to love the strangely beautiful animals, the gorgeous birds, the exquisite flowers and the rather malignant creepy crawlies – snakes, spiders, and bull ants. It was that night listening to Joan Sutherland signalled that change.
We live in the great multicultural city of Melbourne, with its interesting colonial history, great sporting, cultural and friendly vibe and the progressive development the city has undergone. It is here that we have made friends that have become family—as dear as those we left behind so many years ago.
As retirees, we are a lot better off than if we had stayed in South Africa. I think back on the struggles we had when we arrived: retrenchment, cancellation of projects, forced to move from Melbourne to Perth and back again, and then—20 years later, a move to Townsville after a sickening retrenchment from Esso Australia. We moved back to Melbourne to start our own consulting business.
The advice I can give to new arrivals is to join in community activities immediately after you arrive. People go out of their way to help—it is the Australian way. We have been members of a wonderful tennis club for nearly 40 years. As a consequence, we have never felt lonely or isolated.