Blimey, limey: balancing the “

Blimey, limey: balancing the “k-line”

The kaffir lime is a key ingredient central to many Southeast Asian recipes, carrying several properties that set it apart from other citrus fruits limes. It comes with a rather bumpy surface and dry, fragrant leaves, but has been noted lately for its name, which in South Africa is considered highly offensive. A Twitter campaign to rename the unassuming citrus fruit is now gaining ground and getting people talking (#KaffirNoMore)

Blimey, limey: balancing the “

Lime

In its native Southeast Asian culture, thousands of miles away from post-apartheid South Africa, there is a little lime that is simply known as the makrut lime. This fruit, however, has become known the world over as the kaffir lime.

If there is one word in South African English that creates more outrage, controversy and legal upset than any other word, it most certainly is “the k-word”. But what can an innocent, green citrus fruit do about its unattractive, even offensive name? The debate among linguists about what to do with our unfortunate little green friend has now been raging for well over a decade, sparking a recent Twitter campaign to rename the lime.

Yet when you look into the origins of why the makrut started to be called the kaffir lime, the main school-of-thought behind the process says that the name reflects a tribe of people in Sri Lanka, which refer to themselves as the “kaffir culture”. This is the legitimate name of this small tribe, and changing that name could be akin to changing the name of Wales to “East Shropshire”.

Linguistically inclined lime enthusiasts also claim that it was in fact there, in Sri Lanka, that the lime may have been first introduced to Western taste buds around 1910, making it likely that the linguistic journey of the citrus fruit may have originated in this part of Southeast Asia without having any influences on its name stemming from South Africa. Yet there are voices that want the name changed at all costs and regardless of its etymology, and perhaps rightfully so. After all, there are still those who harbour dark feelings in their hearts, using the hateful term in bigoted ways every day.

But if we were to do away with the lime’s offensive name, we would also have to ask ourselves what it would actually serve to accomplish but to feed into the weaknesses of these kinds of hatemongers. And where would you stop with this kind of forced neologism? What about another popular food product, which is spelled slightly differently, but depending on your speech and culture is often pronounced the very same way: kefir, a fermented milk product, which is actually not too dissimilar to the South African inkomazi? Should we change the name of kefir next?

Kaffir Lime

The momentous political statement behind the name change campaign seems to somehow have managed to virtually reduce the original meaning of the word “kaffir lime” from the involuntary transgression of a little culinary lime in the depths of the Sri Lankan jungle into the spiritual burden of the killing fields of Sharpeville and the mass evacuations of Sophiatown, which continue to write much of the South African narrative today.

But if we were to go around the world changing names of all terms with problematic histories, we’d have to start with renaming the word “jewellery” (among many others), as it was considered uncouth in the middle ages for anyone but Jews to handle large amounts of gemstones – hence the name jewellery. We would also have to change the term “Slavic languages”, as the name comes from the word “slave” and reflects the reality that most slaves to the Romans came from Eastern Europe. And what about the feelings of  Turkish people about Christmas turkey? Do you think they enjoy the fact that you devour their country every December?

It is perhaps here, in Turkey, where we should conduct our next line of enquiry into the kaffir lime. For it was here, in the erstwhile Ottoman Empire, that the word “kaffir” itself can claim its origins. The controversial “k-word” is proven to stem from the Arabic term used to describe unbelievers in Islam, kāfir (in Arabic: ÙƒØ§ÙØ±â€Ž), or kuffār in plural. It has been used for centuries within this religious context to identify enemies of the religion, who actively offend God and break the holiest of Muslim beliefs.

But even the Arabic term kāfir doesn’t go without controversy these days anymore, as it is often used in the jihadist context at the present moment. At the height of the Iraq invasion less than ten years ago, a young British Muslim had caused a stir by creating a rap music video called “Dirty Kuffār”, in which he referred to many world leaders, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as such “kuffārs” – and he wasn’t talking about unwashed limes. Needless to say, MI5 weren’t too pleased with him when he implied that these politicians were to face the full brunt of jihad.

The term “kaffir” is therefore a controversial Islamic concept in origin, which has managed over centuries to seep into the South African context without any of the racist connotations it carries today. The linguistic journey of this Arabic term to South Africa took place by way of Malay slaves arriving in the Cape in the 17th century, who went on to build their mosques and communities there. The word was later adopted by white Afrikaaners and used to describe their own brand of “unbelievers”. Yet the majority of the English speaking world thinks of nothing but a little lime used in Thai Green Curry dishes whenever they hear the term.

If there was a prize for the saddest fruit on earth, the kaffir lime would be a deserving winner by a long stretch. Long live the makrut!

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