Book Launch in a Township: the Return of Steven Otter!

October 29th, 2007 by Tracey

Cape Town’s iKhaya Restaurant hosted one of the more unusual events in an always unpredictable city last week: the launch of Steven Otter’s book about the time he spent living on “the other side”, Khayelitsha: Umlungu in a Township.

The choice of venue matched the book and author well. iKhaya is itself in Khayelitsha, owned by a local entrepreneur. But surely the restaurant staff didn’t expect such a turnout: two coachloads with several cars in tow.

The restaurant – a single room – offered a cozy fit, but the mood was festive – almost surreal. Otter was introduced by the Western Cape’s MEC for education, Cameron Dugmore, who rallied the Xhosa-speakers in the crowd with his command of the language. Dugmore gave fascinating if oblique insights into Yoruba courtship rituals – then offered a rosy vision of South Africa, invoking cooperation between blacks and whites.

Singer John Pretorius, dressed in a local variant of a mariachi outfit, then sang a song paving the way for Mr. Otter to approach the podium.

One couldn’t help but admire the courage it must have taken for a young white man to go and live in a black township. Otter, who now handles media for Patricia de Lille, joked that it was a shame that he’d had to live in a shack for a year just to get the (white) masses to visit. Agreed, especially as said masses seemed very comfortable, despite the certainty that it was, for an overwhelming majority, a first trip.

Otter has a loose way, an instinctive rapport with an audience that could signal a future career in politics. Referring to his current life in Claremont, he joked that passersby seemed terrified by his attempts to strike up conversations.

So far, so good. But any in the audience who found themselves getting too comfortable received something of a wake-up when Otter called his “brother by a different mother and father,” a Kenyan who goes by the name of “Nigger”, to the microphone. Wearing an Osama Bin Laden t-shirt, perhaps the irony he espoused was a step or two too far for South Africa, certainly for Cape Town. For a few minutes, “Nigger”’s name rang through the air – an effect bordering on the glib.

But in the end everyone’s irony sensors coped just fine. Otter’s easy manner and a well-chosen quote from Steve Biko defused the fact that most were sipping beer in the townships listening to a speaker because he was white.

What the author seems to have is what is sorely needed in this complex, divided city: courage and curiosity. Judging by interest in his book on the night, he’s set to inspire more to look beyond the “invisible borders” they were born with.