Viswanathan K's Thoughts

The standup comedian Trevor Noah’s parents (white Swiss father, black African mother) loved each other, yet had to think long and hard before deciding to have a child. It was a criminal act under apartheid for a black and white to have relations, let alone a child. But they decided to have one anyway, with the understanding that they could never be a family (Criminal act, remember?), writes Noah in Born a Crime .   After he was born, the father found himself wanting to be near his son. But he couldn’t do so openly. So they’d all meet up secretly. As a toddler, when Trevor went to play in a park, his dad would follow at a distance, careful never to come too close to draw attention. It was a police state like situation, you never knew who might call the authorities. Inevitably, the kid (Trevor) would sometimes notice his dad in the distance and start shouting, “Daddy! Daddy!” upon which his father would panic and run away…   Much later, Trevor would learn what happened t...

The standup comedian Trevor Noah’s autobiography, Born a Crime , is about his life in South Africa only , so it doesn’t talk of his career as a comedian or life in the West. What it describes about the apartheid regime in South Africa is horrifying. Unlike many evils of the West, this is a recent one that continued till the 1990’s. It is thus not something that can be brushed aside as “It was a different era, you can’t apply today’s standards to older times”.   Apartheid was created after “studying” the institutionalized racism of Australia, America and Netherlands.   America, for example, moved the natives to specific areas called “reservations”, practiced slavery and then moved onto segregation. In South Africa, they did all of the above to the same group (blacks). The outcome? “The most advanced system of racial oppression known to man”.   A system built on the idea that races should not mix has to declare inter-racial relations (romance, marriage, children) i...