Poor white South Africans

An acquaintance of mine had seen a television program that clearly was based on Finbarr O’Reilly's photos. The program had apparently been biased in a way to tell the story of the current horrible situation of the poor whites in South Africa, ignoring the situation of poor blacks.

What the program did not mention was that there always have been some poor white people in SA, just like one of the comments says below the NYT article: "The emergence of Afrikaner nationalism, over 100 years ago, was tied, in part, to a desire to lift poor white Afrikaners out of poverty." There have of course been many other poor Europeans in Africa, notably Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique.

The implicit statement of the television program, that black majority rule makes loads of white poor for the first time in Southern Africa's history, is clearly wrong.

But as a white European, it is not easy to find any acceptable reaction to O'Reilly's pictures. One has to sympathise with the poor whites, of course, as one should sympathise with poor people of all colours in all countries. On the other hand, it feels very awkward to pick out this particular group, when there are plenty of poor blacks in South Africa and plenty of other poor people in Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola and so on all the way to the United States and Zimbabwe.


Food is handed out to residents in Coronation Park. Photo: Finbarr O’Reilly

Karlfeldt vs Dickens vs Eliot - three learned men

In the poem Sång efter skördeanden the Swedish poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt, describes how Fridolin "talar med bönder på böndernas sätt men med lärde män på latin" - "speaks with peasants in peasants' ways but with learned men in Latin".

It is a very useful expression in Swedish. The problem is to find an equivalent English saying that describes the ability to change language and style according to whom you speak with.

The best thing I found so far is originally from Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend:

‘For I aint, you must know,’ said Betty, ‘much of a hand at reading writing-hand, though I can read my Bible and most print. And I do love a newspaper. You mightn’t think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different voices.’

The last sentence, He do the Police in different voices, was taken up by T. S. Eliot, who used it as the working title of The Waste Land.

Unfortunately, that phrase is a far cry from Karlfeldt's lines, at least for my purpose to describe someone who is able to adapt his language to the situation. If anyone has any better proposal, feel free to post it.