In ninth grade, freshman Mats Jacob Dreyer was told by his American high school history teacher that Afrikaans people were like Nazis.
A Cape Town-born, white Afrikaans South African, Dreyer could only raise his hand awkwardly and inform the teacher that he was an Afrikaner — and so were his parents.
“I went through a phase where it was really difficult, I felt really guilty,” Dreyer said. “It was difficult to handle, everybody at my school thinking I was a horrible person because of my ethnicity.”
Dreyer was born in August 1992, right as the global outrage at the white regime in South Africa reached fever pitch. The Bisho Massacre, in which 28 African National Congress supporters (the outlawed black party in South Africa) were murdered during a peace march, took place only a month after his birth.
The political pressure from the massacre ultimately led to the new negotiations between the ANC and the white government.
Apartheid (the system for empowering whites and restricting the rights of blacks, those of mixed race and Indians) was officially put to rest on May 10, 1994, when Nelson Mandela was sworn in as President. Dreyer was not even two years old.
When he got a little older, he attended a public school in his home district of Tanboerskloos.
“It was an Afrikaans-speaking school, so it was mostly white kids and [mixed race] kids,” he said. “Of course there were black kids, but Afrikaans isn’t a native language for most black people.”
Although the wounds of Apartheid were still fresh, Dreyer did not sense any resentment towards him or his family.
“I didn’t even know Apartheid existed until I was nine, maybe even older,” he said. “If you went to South Africa and you didn’t know its history . . . it would be hard to tell.”
Dreyer enjoyed an upper class upbringing in the city — he attended a good public school and lived in a nice house in the center of the city.
But when he saw glimpses of poor black townships on the way to and from the airport, where the sun glints off of sheet metal roofs and aluminium walls, where malnourished blacks see none of the advantages of the end of the white regime, where there is little or no opportunity for advancement — he looked on.
“You look past it,” he said. “Everybody did. It was very sad, but you looked past it.”
When Dreyer was seven, his family moved to Florida so his father could help an ailing international office. The transition was not seamless for Dreyer, who found the cultural differences between the United States and South Africa greater than he expected.
“People don’t realize that America is so culturally different,” he said. “You get American movies, American music, so people think they know what’s going on with America and they’re going to be able to move there and just fit in, but they don’t realize that there are so many subtle differences.”
“I don’t think Americans even realize that it’s so different, you know? Mannerisms, senses of humor, the way you say things and the way you do things are just totally different — there is a specific way that you do things in this country.”
Dreyer vacationed in South Africa for two months every year during his summer vacation to visit his childhood friends and shadow them through school. His constant trips hammered in the misconceptions carried by both countries about each other.
“I was talking to one of my friends [in South Africa] while we were giving violin lessons together to some primary school kids,” he said. “And he told me: ‘You know, those Americans are so racist.
They always say that we have problems in our country and that we are racist, but those Americans are so racist.’”
“It was just weird — having all this baggage as an Afrikaans person here and then hearing that from the person that I’m supposed to be the worst enemy in the world to, and who everybody here thinks is like the Devil to them.”
While Dreyer was acclimatising to life in the United States, the landscape in post-Apartheid South Africa was rapidly changing.
Many blacks had risen to the middle or the upper class, but overall unemployment was among blacks was actually getting worse.
Nelson Mandela handed over leadership of the country to Thabo Mbeki, and inflation continued to rise.
“The government has put a lot of effort to push wealth from white hands to black hands,” Dreyer said. “Unfortunately, I think it has benefited a select few non-whites — a lot of people with connections with the government. There is a great disparity between these elite people and the general public, which is sad.”
Dreyer’s father’s job took the family to Georgia when he was 13. While attending high school in the States, he was captain of his swim team and played both the violin and the mandolin (which “is basically violin turned sideways”).
He started an Opera Club at his school, which resulted in all members getting free tickets to dress rehearsals at the local theatre.
But when Dreyer sat down to write his common application essay, he didn’t use an experience in the pool or on the concert floor — he chose to write about being a white South African in America.
“My essay went around that idea of there is ignorance in both countries about how the countries think of each other,” he said.
“Having written the essay about being an Afrikaans person, a white South African, and having Johns Hopkins accept me reassured me. I felt like if that was the essay that I gave them they would accept me for who I was.
“I didn’t want to go to University and then feel that there was baggage for being who I am, wherever I went . . . Whether it was the other universities not wanting an Afrikaans person or that I just wasn’t good enough — because I could have left that essay out and not gotten accepted anyway — but getting accepted by Johns Hopkins reassured me.”
Dreyer is a BME major who plans to stick with the program all four years (even though “school is kicking my a** right now”), as well as playing on the Club Water Polo Team and participating in Chamber Orchestra.
He is also aiming to be a model in New York City, having already put together a portfolio of photos and procured an agent.
At the end of the day, Dreyer has accepted that to some parts of the world, he will always be a ‘bad guy.’
“I went through a phase where I really wanted to say something if anyone brought it up, and I wanted to say something, to defend myself,” he said. “And I went through a phase where I felt terrible for being who I was, but you have to forgive yourself.”
But despite some global perspectives, Dreyer maintains that South Africa is a completely different place than it was before the end of the old regime.
“When I went to the Apartheid Museum this year in Johannesburg, it was weird to think that it was only twenty years ago — it was weird to think it was even the same country,” he said. “It was like being in an alternate universe.”
And although Dreyer admits that there are still problems in the country, he is optimistic about the future.
“The mood in the country is very positive, and it seems to be going well,” he said. “When you think of what could have happened, it’s unbelievable to think about what is going on in South Africa — it’s an amazing, amazing transformation.”
His final thoughts about his home country were very positive.
“I’m proud of South Africa for the way things have turned out. I really couldn’t think of a better way.”
