The ‘Great Tsek’: what it means for South Africans

We evoke the reality of co-created belonging through shared humour

- JOY OWEN

IT IS Tuesday evening. I am seated with a friend and my son in our favourite restaurant in Bloemfontein. My son listens to our conversation as I note that ‘the 49’ (or 59 as some reports suggest) Afrikaner migrants, incorrectly and problematically afforded refugee status through executive order by the Trump administration, have landed in the US. Their departure is called the ‘Great Tsek’ on social media. We laugh conspiratorially.

South Africans respond to most situations with a trademark humour that inspires much hilarity. We repeat the in-joke, or reference, in multicultural and multi-classed spaces - taxis, buses, lecture halls, around a Sunday braai, in a coffee shop, between co-workers etc.

We evoke the reality of co-created belonging through shared humour. Our humour, a shared South African-ness irrespective of historicised divisions of race, class, creed or gender, masks our discomfort, or psychological and emotional pain.

Whether we are ‘fighting’ for Tyla’s ‘right’ to self-define as coloured - whilst ridiculing and stereotyping colouredness - and interrogating black Americans’ failure to interrogate the context of coloured in South Africa, or ‘beefing’ with Nigerians through e-hailing apps about which country is the wealthiest African country, or vituperatively disowning Elon Musk, South Africans have a unique, enmeshed and complex affinity and loyalty to each other.

Amorphous and responsive, this loyalty is an organic response to a perceived threat, or a show of appreciation or forgiveness - recall our troetelnaam for our President — cupcake! South African humour and loyalty are revealed on TikTok, Instagram, and X (former Twitter).