My story of my father

Or: Elon Musk and me

As I write this, it’s 2 years since my phone rang very early in the morning. It was early enough that I knew it had to be bad news. Sure enough, it was my brother Grant on the line. “Dad’s dead”, he said.

It was a scramble to get home to Cape Town in peak season. My US citizenship ceremony was in a few days, and I then had to rush to get an emergency passport, as I could no longer leave the US on my South African one.

On the plane home I tried to work out what to say at my father’s memorial.

I’ve been thinking again about my father’s legacy – not only because it’s the anniversary of his passing, but because I recently read an article in South Africa’s Daily Maverick newspaper, titled: How South African Men are Changing the Course of American Democracy.

It sent chills down my spine.

The article is about Elon Musk and five other men who were born in, or spent significant parts of their life in South Africa – and how they are impacting the right-ward trend of politics in the US right now. Aside from Musk, they are tech billionaire Peter Thiel, Senior editor-at-large for Breitbart news Joel Pollack, venture capitalist David Sacks, and Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the LA Times.

The article goes into some detail about Musk’s upbringing in South Africa, in particular talking about what it terms his ‘tormented’ relationship with his father. It got me thinking about the parallels and differences between Musk and me. I’m not a billionaire and I have relatively minuscule political power. But like Elon Musk I’m a white man who grew up in South Africa and who now lives in the US. Like Elon Musk I went to Veldskool – a week long camp during high school where men dressed in khaki, with mustaches and red faces yelled at us and tried to indoctrinate us into Christian Nationalism – the whites-only political ideology of the government at the time. Like Musk, I was a boy growing up in a macho culture, where I was relentlessly bullied in school.

But unlike Musk I did not have an overtly racist, abusive bully for a father. My father was loving and supportive. This, despite the fact that we were very different in many ways.

Malcolm, my father, loved sports of all kinds. After mowing the lawn and doing other chores he’d spend hours on the weekend, watching rugby or cricket or tennis. I really couldn’t have cared less. This became apparent at an early age. I was at a cricket match at 5 years old, and when the entire stadium stood up to cheer I looked up from whatever I was fidgeting with and asked very loudly, “what happened Dad, did someone score a goal?”

My father also loved the Boy Scouts. He often told us of his adventures as a Springbok Scout – the top status you could achieve. I hated scouts. I hated camping – having to construct shelters out of branches and grass, and spending itchy nights with rocks digging into my back. And I didnt see the point in gathering badges. I could cook, I could swim, I could tie knots – why did I need a badge to say so? I dropped out as soon as I could. My father was very involved in the church when we were growing up, and eventually became a minister. I ended up leaving the church in my late teens.

The fact that neither of his two sons shared his love of sport must have felt lonely. And I’m sure he was disappointed with some of my decisions, turning me away from things he held dear. Yet several times over the years, my father told me how proud he was of me.

I had plenty of time to think about all of this, during the 14 hour flight from the US to South Africa, to the memorial. It would be a memorial, and not a funeral, because we did not have a body to bury or cremate. My father had donated his body to science.

In an era when many people are contrasting faith to science and denying established facts – like the existence of germs or the spherical shape of the earth, here was a man of faith, with his last act making a statement about the importance of science and the search for truth.

I thought about this on that flight, and I’m thinking about it now, two years later – in the light of the Daily Maverick article, and of recent gatherings I have been a part of. At one, focused on narratives about democracy, Esther Armah was one of the participants, and we spent some time talking about her concept of emotional justice. We also discussed the impact of traumatized or traumatizing masculinity (as opposed to toxic masculinity).

It had me thinking: to what extent did Elon Musk’s father’s overt racism and bullying impact Elon’s current trajectory on a national and international stage? And to what extent has my father’s legacy impacted the course of my life?

Despite our differences, my father and I also had many things in common. Like him, I’m an introvert in a job that mostly involves connecting with people. Like him, my shyness can make me seem distant, but when I’m in front of a room full of people talking about things I care about, my passion shines through. And while I couldn’t care less about sports or the Boy Scouts and I no longer consider myself a Christian, I think I share several of the values my father held dear: such as the importance of respecting and caring for and including others, and of standing up for what you believe.

I recall my father speaking out against Apartheid during his sermons, even though it was not popular. I recall him respecting and angrily defending the rights and humanity of his LGBTQ parishioners, when other ministers preached fire and brimstone. I recall my father’s admiration of the anti-Nazi dissident, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and his advice to us to always have the courage of our convictions.

I’ve just come from another gathering – this time focused on wellbeing. On the first day, Thomas Allen Harris and Donald Perry from the Family Pictures Institute for Inclusive Storytelling had us all sharing family pictures and talking about our histories. At the closing session I was on a panel with artist and teacher Jana Harper, who shared her project Not the First Nor the Last, and asked all of us to think about our ancestors, as well as those who will come after us, and our responsibility to both the past and the future.

This has me thinking: what is my father’s legacy, and what is my responsibility towards it? How should I think about that in the current context, given that I live in the US and share a South African legacy with Elon Musk, but have a very different vision of what I would like the future to be? What do I want my own legacy to be, and what do I need to be doing now, to honor it? How do I let the stories of the past and my place in it, and the stories yet to come, guide my next steps?