Cape Town - If there’s any writer who has displayed an honest and candid approach to the conversation about the complexities of racial struggles in this country, it has to be Haji Mohamed Dawjee.
In her new book, Here’s the Thing, she offers a collection of thought-provoking essays. Filled with stories and insights that are at turns contemplative, comedic and controversial, there is a touching letter to her father, a piece on the honest truth about the pain in the arse that is parenting, as well as ponderings over struggles with the vicissitudes of a modern world filled with cancel culture.
There is also a serving of the many lessons the game of tennis has to offer, as well as hilarious insights into and observations about dustbins – yes, dustbins – and ageing that ring true.
The book is relatable, relevant, entertaining, soothingly self-deprecating and, at times, morally challenging.
Speaking about working on the book, Dawjee said this one was the hardest she’d written, compared with her first work Sorry, Not Sorry: Experiences of a Brown Woman in a White South Africa, published in 2018. “I don’t think you’d be able to tell that from the content, because some of it is lighter, a lot funnier and less politically heavy than Sorry, Not Sorry. I wrote three drafts.
“It’s a book that took two to three years to write, which is not normal for me, because I’m usually quite a fast writer.
“I’m glad that it took that time, because it developed into the piece of work that it is now. At its core, it is a piece of sincere, honest, unburdened, and unboxed writing for me and for women of colour.”
In some instances in the essays she refers to herself as a woman of colour or a brown woman, and in some cases she refers to herself as a black woman.
She does this because “as black women in South Africa, constitutionally speaking, we’re all on level ground, but for me, interpersonally, I can’t say that I am a black woman the same way the next black woman can say they are, because I’m not African black and so, therefore, I’ve been privy to some advantages and some privileges that someone else perhaps has not been privy to”.
She said it then seemed unfair to say she was a black woman because it seemed she was riding on the wings of someone else’s struggle.
“I’ve come to be conscious about defining that intersectionality and saying: ‘I am a feminist, I’m gay, and I’m in an interracial relationship. I’m a black woman, but I’m also not an African black woman, and I have to respect that those are two very different struggles,” she said.
On growing up, she said there was never an opportunity for her to explain herself.
“You are who you’re told to be, and most of what you’re told to be is quiet. As black women, we don’t have to tell people who we are because they already tell us who we are as soon as we walk out of the door.
“When you walk into a workplace, people tell you who you are. They already have assumptions and stereotypes about you, whether it comes to your work ethic, how you dress, or what you’re capable of.
“The book is a revelation to say: ‘I’m here. My ancestors and my slave ancestors are the reason I’m able to express my identity with all its variables’,” she said.
Here’s the Thing is a book for everyone who is interested in stories and truths, even if they differ from your own.
Here’s the Thing by Haji Mohamed Dawjee is available on loot.co.za (R229)
Cape Times