Rock 'n Roll in the shadows of apartheid: A tribute to a gentle rebel and all South Africans who have the courage to love

17 Jan 2025

It is moments like this that make me so proud to be a South African. We know our imperfections, our horrible past and our fractured present, but we are open to change, and most important of all, to learn, listen and find a way of working ourselves back to love.

Dear DM168 Readers

Here’s to 2025. May it be bountiful with hope and the joy of simple things. And may we always turn to our higher angels of compassion, forgiveness, love and reason rather than the demons of acquisitiveness, self-righteousness, selfishness and prejudice.

Last week I was reminded of the power of these higher angels while attending a memorial service at the NG Kerk in Stella Rd, Waterkloof. The service commemorated Joubert Malherbe, the husband of Fay, a dear friend of mine who I met through our mutual love of hiking in the nature reserves, koppies and parks around Pretoria.

I knew Joubs was a former sub-editor and columnist at The Pretoria News, a husband and father, brother and friend, but I did not realise what a rebel he was in the Afrikaans community in which he was raised. A community which I grew up loathing as a child for imposing the cruelty of apartheid and separate development, but which I have grown to cherish after meeting so many “sout van die aarde” (salt of the earth) kindred spirits and friends since migrating to Pretoria from the Eastern Cape in 2017.

Speaker after speaker at Joubs’ memorial spoke of his love of music, well more accurately his self-confessed religion of rock ’n’ roll, the music of The Beatles, Led Zepellin, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones…

They spoke of his eccentricities, how he always grew his hair long and would don a colourful kaftan, beaded necklaces draped around his neck, copper bangles on his wrist and how he would spontaneously dance whenever the mood took him. I can imagine how this would outrage the conservative members of the volk.

Something poetically unexpected

But, at the service something poetically unexpected happened. The dominee, Anton Pienaar, took us back 2025 years ago when the elite Jewish high priests and the Roman rulers crucified Jesus because he threatened their authority, fearing that his popularity among the poor and downtrodden might cause an insurrection against their rule.

Pienaar likened what the Romans and Jews did to Jesus and his followers to what Afrikaners did for 350 years in South Africa, by protecting their wealth, creating ox wagons of separatism and treating black people as inferior.

The dominee then turned to my friend Fay and her and Joubs’ three sons, and said he was deeply sorry for what he and his fellow Afrikaners did to her and Joubs. Forcing them to abandon their country, friends and family because their love across the colour and culture line had broken the Immorality Act.

After this another Afrikaans woman stood up and said “I am sorry we were bigots”. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I have never heard such personal apologies for the immense harm that shaped us. And still shapes us. I was overwhelmed by a sense of great relief, respect and love. Hate is such a hideous, corrosive burden to bear. Love is so liberating.

Joubert Malherbe, a gentle rebel who during the height of apartheid found a spiritual home not in the separatist strictures of the volk en vaderland, but in the free-wheeling multicoloured open tent of rock ’n’ roll, was embraced, accepted and commemorated in the church of his childhood in the presence of a bunch of us from all hues, beliefs, predilections and persuasions.

The church that justified apartheid and closed doors to difference became an open tent, embracing us all. It is moments like this that make me so proud to be a South African. We know our imperfections, our horrible past and our fractured present, but we are open to change, and most important of all, to learn, listen and find a way of working ourselves back to love.

In his last column at the Pretoria News, published on 29 January 2021, titled Time To Sign up for The Sounds of Silence, Joubs wrote about the spiritual essence of what was once viewed as rebel devil’s music.

“Ah, rock ’n’ roll… I thank you for being my religion. And, yes, if you listen closely, you’ll hear that many songs propagate the message of love which all Scriptures subscribe to… that plain and simple bit about ‘all you need is love’, as John Lennon once sang.”

RIP Joubs. May your spirit live on in rock ’n’ roll! DM

PS. DM168 is back on the shelves this Saturday at most retail outlets. If you would like to read the newspaper e-edition online click here. Our lead story is an antidote to bad news. A team of Daily Maverick reporters delved deep behind South Africa’s highest recorded matric pass rate to find the stories of incredible teachers, principals, parents, learners, education officials and NGOs who made it all happen.

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Something poetically unexpected