Regardless of our unprecedented current realities, April 2020 is host to a number of conveniently round-numbered anniversaries. Precisely because of our unprecedented current realities, we can do nothing much about them other than watch them move sedately past our windows like parade floats. Responsibly distanced from one another, of course. Here are a few of them:

April 2020 is the 25th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing (1995, for those of you as mathematically-impaired as I am), the 60th anniversary of Brasilia’s replacement of Rio do Janeiro as capital of Brazil (1960), the 30th anniversary of the 1990 launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the 50th anniversary of the formal dissolution of the Beatles (1970), the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook’s ‘discovery’ of Australia (1770), and the 75th anniversary of the deaths of two of the most justifiably abhorred men in history, Benito ‘Il Duce’ Mussolini in Italy, and Adolf Hitler in Germany (1945).

If that’s not enough, there’s a few birthdays too: Vladimir Lenin (150 years), William Wordsworth (250 years), and Dr. Martens boots (60 years). Aside from the happy and far-too-tardy deaths celebrated above, we also remember the passing of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1945), the invincible Eddie Cochran (1960), and the immortal Albert Einstein (1955). 

As far as South Africa goes, April 2020 is the 70th anniversary of a particularly grim moment in the ominous advance of apartheid, the formal ratification of the Group Areas Act, which took place on the 27th April 1950. An extreme, and extremely evil, example of government-sanctioned social-distancing, if ever there was one. So, nothing to celebrate there, then.

The other notable South African April anniversary is a rather significant one, albeit one that most South Africans are hardly even aware of or interested in: the 200th anniversary of the arrival in South Africa of the 1820 Settlers. Anyone? That gives our country a legitimate Bicentennial to celebrate! Anyone?

The 4000 English, Irish, Welsh and Scots settlers sent out from Britain in late 1819 to ostensibly form a human shield between the Empire and The Natives began landing in what is now Port Elizabeth from April 1820, and parties of settlers kept arriving up until June, after over three arduous months at sea.

The rest, literally, is history, and you can read about it all over the interweb if you’re interested. Which I hope you are, because like it or not, the story of the 1820 Settlers is a fascinating part of the history of our strange, beleaguered, tragically-beloved country. 

The point of this particular piece is to acknowledge that 2020, life-rearranging pandemic aside, marks a South African Bicentennial, and what that really means is, the 200th anniversary of the addition of some of the colours to our rainbow. In that regard, shouldn’t we also celebrate the arrival of Indians to South Africa, which began in 1860? That would make 2020 the 160th anniversary of Indian life in this country, although the conditions under which the Indians were brought here doesn’t provide much for the Indian community to celebrate. Still, as sociologist professor Ashwin Desai has rightly argued, the story of the arrival and continued presence of Indians in South Africa deserves to be told.

These are provocative suggestions, because South Africa is a country that still enjoys arguing with itself over ‘who got here first’. When we finally learn to celebrate rather than denigrate each other, we will perhaps be able to acknowledge the gradual arrival of all the players in this human experiment we call “South Africa”: the Bantu, the Dutch, the Malays, the French Huguenots, the English, the Indians, the Chinese, the Muslims, the Christians, the traders, the prospectors, the writers, the musicians… As for the First People? Well, Nando’s already taught us that.

We’re not there yet. The arrival of the 1820 Settlers signified “more white people” to black South Africans, and “more British” to those white Africans, the migrant boers (later to style themselves “Afrikaners”) who had already been in southern Africa since the middle of the seventeenth century. The British government resettled Her Majesty’s 4000 impoverished unemployables in the wilds of what is now the near-eastern Cape to give themselves a bit of post-Napoleon breathing room, but what they ended up doing in the long term seems to have been creating farther-flung pockets of Empire that would eventually require defending.

Will modern democratic South Africa celebrate this notable Bicentennial? Without doubt, the historic pandemic of 2020 and all its attendant Great Lockdown has pretty much put paid to all the Bicentennial celebrations that were due to be undertaken by descendants of the original Settler parties. Beyond those, what I’m really wondering is whether modern South Africans are even aware of this anniversary. 

Earlier this year, in the blithe freedom of those pre-lockdown days, Athol Trollip, a former mayor of Port Elizabeth and a direct descendant of one of the original 1820 settlers, suggested the Bicentennial’s news-worthiness by tweeting: “I wonder whether this important anniversary will be celebrated or derided by our Government? I’m a proud descendant of the 1820 settlers and the legacy that their descendants have contributed to our country. History is history, it is what it is.”

Teacup: cue storm. EFF firebrand and noted intellectual Floyd Shivambu, one of the jerkiest-kneed politicians in South African history, was quick off his outraged mark: “Hebanna!! So this guy wants Government to celebrate the arrival of Settlers? We did very well to remove him as Mayor because he was found to be celebrating the nonsensical invasion of our land now. The further they stay away from political power the better!”

Other South Africans said things like: “History is history. We are reminded the generosity of indegenious people resulted in the loss of ancesteral land and 300 years of oppression and exclusion. So thank you for your continued  contribution but forgive me for not celebrating the arrival of your ancestors [sic]”.

And this: “Your tweet has mobilized white and black apartheid apologists into excitement. Nothing to celebrate about the arrival of people who subjugated and enslaved those they found on the land.” Ngwako Maphakela tweeted: “My problem with the descendants of the settlers is that you want to pick and choose what is to be associated with you from your forefathers. Don’t only celebrate the good legacy, acknowledge also the dispossession of the natives, and returned to them what belongs to them.”

Some valid points, for sure, but not much progress on the national reconciliation front. 200 years since the last notable ‘colonial invasion’, 26 years (another April anniversary, by the way) of democracy, and we’re still shouting at each other across frontiers, rustling each others’ cattle and blaming colonisation for everything. 

“Thank you for your continued contribution” indeed. Happy anniversary, Settlers. Celebrate if you dare.