Born A Crime Book Review — By Daniel Oyeleye
The Author
Trevor Noah is a south African comedian born during apartheid. (I’ve kept this short because the story tell more about the author.)
Style and Introduction
The novel has a fragmental structure. The author, rather than presenting the events as a progressive one, flowing from childhood to the end, wrote it like several short stories. At the core of each story was apartheid/ racism and its effects. Born a crime is written as an autobiography. The author further imbued each story with salient themes such as: parenting, failure of the institutional systems, feminism, injustice and domestic violence.
The Review
Born a crime is set in South Africa during apartheid. It is the story of a young man who resulted from his parents’ law-breaching action. The author described it as being ‘born a crime’. At that time, the law prohibited any form of sexual relations between people of different race. Beyond this, the government’s classification of the people based on their color equally influenced their living standards, education, employment and opportunities.
“For starters, despite the fact that black people made up over 80 percent of South Africa’s population, the territory allocated for the homelands was about 13 percent of the country’s land. There was no running water,no electricity. People lived in huts. While South Africa’s white countryside was lush and irrigated and green, the black lands were over populated and over grazed, the soil depleted and eroded.”
So, the natives were the slaves, farmers, and the gold miners. The government further turned the people against one another to achieve her selfish agenda. The colored fought the black, the black stole from the whites. On one occasion, Trevor was invited for a stage performance in a Jewish school. However, because the way the ‘lower races’, according to the government, were educated, the details of history were hid from them. What was supposed to be a stage performance ended up in racial insults as Trevor didn't know how much the Jews hates the name Hitler, which one of Trevor’s dancers bears.
Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah, is an eccentric young woman. Mbuyi, as she is fondly called, is one of the few natives that got education despite the fact that the Bantu schools were falling off.
“But my mother was blessed that her village was one of the places where a mission school had contrived to stay open in spite of the government’s Bantu education policies.”
Mbuyi, Trevor’s mom, is a deeply religious and a strict parent. A disciplinarian. She parented Trevor with little contribution from from Trevor’s dad as they had agreed.
“You do know,” she replied, “that I could sleep with you and go away and you would never know if you had a child or not. But I don’t want that. Honor me with your yes so that I can live peacefully. I want a child of my own, and I want it from you. You will be able to see it as much as you like, but you will have no obligations. You don’t have to talk to it. You don’t have to pay for it. Just make this child for me.”
Robert caved in to Mbuyi’s incessant pressure; and Trevor was born.
Mbuyi grew up with her mother but later left because her meager pay was used to finance the family. This is an emphasis of the meaning of her name “Nombuyiselo”, which means ‘the one who gives, gives and gives’. This was the case with most other natives as their names have meanings their life was to depict. In fact, one of Trevor’s cousins was named ‘the fixer’ and that was all he did through out his life. However, Mbuyi, in a bid to raise a child free from people’s preconceptions, named his son Trevor, a word that has no meaning at all. Or at least, in the native languages.
Trevor’s mom had this old Volkswagen which always had one problem or the other. So Abel, an auto mechanic was always there to fix it for her. As time went by, Mbuyi got closer to Abel; then they got married. On one of Trevor’s visit to his step-father’s place, he made a gruesome mistake and Abel’s room along side his boss’ house was burnt down. Consequently, Abel had to move in with Mbuyi.
Abel’s arrival brought with it new rules which Mbuyi and Trevor became uncomfortable with. While Trevor had to leave his Mum’s house, she sought to divorce Abel because she suffered abuse from him.
Years after Trevor left his mum’s place, he ended with Bogani, his friend who lives in the Hood. Meanwhile, prior to that time Trevor had learnt Disk jockey and he equally knew how to produce pirated C.Ds. The hood presented him a great opportunity which he took advantage of. He kept making money until a police was called on him for making noise in one of his stage performances; the policeman destroyed his computer. So, he had to get by, by hustling in the hood. His dreams of going to the university to become a computer programmer began to shatter.
Mbuyi, on the other hand, endured the violations Abel threw at her. She was waiting, for the children she had for Abel to get old enough to choose who they want to live with. She subsequently divorced Abel, and moved on with her life. Mbuyi got another husband and everything went on fine until Trevor got a call that his Mum had been shot. Trevor rushed to the hospital. At this time, Trevor had become a rich south African comedian. It was Abel, her ex-husband that shot her. Mbuyi, with the help of the doctors and God, miraculously escaped death. Abel reported himself at the police station after his cousin told him suicide isn't the best option. At the law court, he pleaded guilty for attempted murder; he was pardoned and his cousin got his bail. For me, this is a turnoff because Abel wasn't punished.
Some of the Themes in the Novel
Parenting: This is shown almost through out the book. It is shown in Trevor’s relation with his mum. Mbuyi took extra care in raising Trevor. As much as she was corrective and reprimanding, she showed Trevor so much support. In fact on one occasion, she told Trevor that they are a team against the world. She also taught Trevor how to use language to influence peoples’ view.
“I learned to use language like my mother did.” He wrote.
Secondly,
Failure of institutional systems: In born a crime, the author depicted how much the political, economic, and educational systems has failed. He said these system failed to get down to people at the grass root. So many learned people were without job; aspiring students didn't get finance. So, the hood was these people’s life jacket in their spate of problems. The hood did what the institutions didn't. It got down to peoples’ level, and didn't discriminate.
Thirdly,
Domestic Violence, Feminism and Injustice: These themes ended the novel. These themes were expressed after Abel got married to Mbuyi. Abel battered his wife severally; she would run to the police for help only to find out that they are Abel’s cronies. So, Abel’s character showed domestic violence while the police’s character depicted injustice.
Finally,
Feminism: Abel’s view of a woman’s role is deeply shaped by his Zulu tradition. He forcefully wanted his Xhosa wife to be submissive. As a result, he pierced himself with so many sorrows. At a point, his wife was able to bring life back to his dying business and people began to give credit to her. He got angry and stopped his wife from helping him manage the business. Then the business crashed. Personally, I feel those that fight against feminism are not different from racists. In that, they just believe a woman shouldn't occupy a post, for instance, because of her gender, the same way a racist believes the blacks shouldn't be more than slaves because of their color.
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