SURREAL

Surreal

It must have been sometime in May 2008. I had a telephonic conversation with Anna du Bois, fundraiser at the university. She had just experienced the wave of people making their way into the city as a result of xenophobic violence. There she was in central Rondebosch seeing people of various other African nationalities wandering into the previously white area of Rondebosch bringing all their goods with them, everything that they could carry. Witnessing this mass of people coming in from the various black township areas she exclaimed: this is surreal.

I thought to myself that this seemed to be quite an apt description of something to most of us completely unexpected. What could have been said to be ‘surreal’ was this: whites in South Africa have an in-built fear since many years that blacks one day literally will march into the white areas and take over. Demonstrations and marches initiated by blacks from various townships have always carried with them this overtone of such a threat. All in all, this time about 20 000 people fled from where they used to live, mostly in various black, poor townships, towards the town centres, not knowing where to go. Eventually schools, churches, police stations, community centres accommodated all these people for the first few weeks, most of them in formerly white areas. This was the surreal element: blacks running away from other blacks into what were white areas, without having any particular aversion towards whites; on the contrary; they would perhaps be the last resort to provide some kind of help and assistance. What Anna saw was not only unexpected; it was unreal and irrational. It had no bearing whatsoever on the still pervasive white stereotyping of blacks. That is why it was perhaps more than irrational; perhaps it was even sur-real.

A not so dissimilar sense of the surreal came to me not so long ago when we had thrown a party at our house. It was a beautiful evening and we could sit outside. The small swimming-pool mirrored the evening light casting its spell from over the Table Mountain close to us; a happy group of people seemingly; a lot of talking and laughing and eating. And yet, I got an intense sense of the unreal. Here were people of all kinds: you could say it was a fair cross-section of Cape Town, and even a few overseas people present. But I got this intense sense of what is nothing less than surreal. Again, those present would normally not come together at all. In the same party people who had nothing against each other, but still would not meet out of their own; those from the townships and those recent immigrants/refugees from down town Cape Town, who since the xenophobic outbursts in 2008 would not go near any township, those from overseas, happy to see the people coming together and yet bewildered by it all. To put everyone on the edge, one young woman, who was not even invited, and whose guardian did not have a check on her but apparently being manic-depressive, in no time became drunk and managed to consume large parts of the meat prepared. The party was not a real party; it had become sur-real.

Some years ago, at another party, I experienced something expected on one level, and yet so beyond what you would have wished for. One aim at any party could be to bring together people who previously did not meet. So at one table for four there I saw now only two people, one young, black lady from the township side and one recently retired white, English speaking South African, of British decent, from the southern suburbs, at the same table. And they were both absolutely uncommunicative and stiff, said nothing, apparently feeling utterly awkward about not knowing how to get away from that table without losing face.

Surrealism is an avant-garde movement in visual art and literature of the 20^th century. Those trying to perform their art from such philosophical premises may think that the above exemplifications of what may appear surreal are simply amateurish. I am myself drawn to this philosophy without being able to understand it fully. What appeals to me is the sense of the irrational, which I mean forms a big part of our lives, whether we like it or not. French philosophical traditions have been far better at speaking in such terms than for example the German or the British. I am equally drawn to and fascinated by French philosophers like Jacques Derrida, who have traits in his thinking that are clearly surreal. What this movement has tried to do is among other things, “to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images” (Concise Oxford English Dictionary). The last part clearly suits my purposes, for what we are about is trying to juxtapose various images, examples, people, experiences etc and in the process we find, more often than we care to admit, that the exercise is irrational.

Lady Day was on 25 March, perhaps better known as the Annunciation of Mary, the day Mary received the announcement from the angel Gabriel that she was going to bear a son, who was of God, not of man. If anything is surreal it is this; God here juxtaposes that of God with that of the Human and it is surely very irrational! The picture does not fit and like the party that was so inviting and even seemingly fulfilling, there is something that simply does not make sense. But perhaps God’s ways are like that, they are something that makes sense to God, but clearly not to us. In that sense we have a faith that is out of this world, that does not fit, that does not even make sense. The only sign that is real, but which makes all other signs and phenomena come on their edge so to speak, is Jesus Christ, juxtaposing the godly and the humanly next to each other. This is surreal.

Going to church could also be seen to be surreal. There are times when I feel like not going to church. Why? Here I come with the best intentions, myself being a part of this church on earth through baptism, a church that is catholic as one of its true natures, that is to say, completely open to all humans, regardless of differences, all categories. And what do I find? A church that is racially defined, culturally embedded in a tribal self-understanding (and I am not just pinpointing churches in Africa, but just as much all the main line churches in Europe for example, most of them locked into various tribal or ethnic confinements, excluding others, not least the stranger, the immigrant) and proud of its clear cut denominationalism. Well, going to church under such circumstances is truly a surreal experience, but for the wrong reasons. Having experienced the party we recently had, you see also the hopes and wishes and aspirations of people, all God’s people, but the reality is hard and ruthlessly different; so having appreciated how it could be, if everyone pulled his or her weight, the ordinary experience of life now becomes surreal. We say one thing, we dream one thing, but reality is actually not real but surreal. My claim is that in order to live the surrealism of the Christian faith, more is required than the sign of the Son of Man, the coming of whom Gabriel announced to Mary. This very sign also has to be seen to be lived in the church, at least at some points. That is why the church is there. Otherwise it merely fulfils the role of any social club, network, in-group. The church is called to be anything but such a group. It is called to be a sign, in this world apparently with a surreal twist to it, of the new humanity, already signalled in this incredible announcement to Mary, celebrated by us on 25 March.