No I haven't fallern off the face of the earth. Although it seems like it. Reading. A lot. Other things going on that are, well best left off. Curently working my war through one of Michener's giant novels, The Covenent. The story of South Africa up until the late seventies. And a couple of related non fictions to be mentioned later. When I work out how in the name of heaven I'm going to present them. Historical note. It's most interesesting how manydictatorships like the the Apartheid regime of South Africa had to change after the Soviet Union, as the Soviet Union, fell. The old "we may be assholes but at least we aren't Communists" excuse.
Two of the main supporters of the Afrikkaner majorit government were Saint Ronnie and that iron lady Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was replaced as Prime Minister in 1990 and congress passed legislation imposeing economic sanctions on South Africa in the mid eighties over a Reagan veto. He called it econimic warfare. Damn straight, sir. That it would just make the situation worse for Black south Africans. I suspect that most of the Black, disenfranchised, under a system of segregation that makes the US south look almost like a paradise the just might have said "what took you so long." Apartheid was pretty much dismantled by 1994.
Does the country have problems? Yes. Are they working to solve those problems? Yes.
I don't know when I discovered Alan Paton's novel Cry The Beloved Country. Probably the early seventies when I was taking Peoples of Africa for an Anthro major. The first paragraphs of the book are some of the most beautiful prose, at least for me. If you have a love of the land it may also be one of the saddest passages you'll ever read.
A note some of the words. Ixopo is the name of a village. The x is pronounced with a ck sound. The veld is an open plain. The pronunciation is almost like fvelt. A kloof is a steep sided gully or small valley. The tithoya is a small bird like a plover and the name sounds like the birds’ call. Ingeli, Umzimkulu and Griqueland are pronounced pretty much as they are spelled. The style in this novel is unlike anything I’ve ever read. It’s almost as if someone is writing down a spoken story. It probably breaks half the rules of conventional writing and that may be why I love it so much. The book is about people, the land, love, loss, forgiveness and acceptance.
So, here goes.
There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there, if there is not mist, you can look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa. About you there is grass and bracken and you may hear the forlorn crying of the tithoya, one of the birds of the veld. Below you is the valley of the Umzimkulu, on its journey from the Drakensberg to the sea: and beyond and behind the river, great hill after great hill; and beyond and behind them, the mountains of Ingeli and East Griqueland.
The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof. It is well-tended, and not too many cattle feed upon it; not too many fires burn it, laying bare the soil. Stand unshod upon it, for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.
Where you stand the grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. But the rich green hills break down. They fall to the valley below, and falling, change their nature. For they grow red and bare; they cannot hold the rain and mist, and the streams are dry in the kloofs. Too many cattle feed upon the grass, and too many fires have burned it. Stand shod upon it, for it is coarse and sharp, and the stones cut under the feet. It is not kept, or guarded, or cared for, it no longer keeps men, guards men, cares for men. The titihoya does not cry here any more.
The great red hills stand desolate, and the earth has torn away like flesh. The lighting flashes over them, the clouds pour down upon them, the dead streams come to life, full of the soil that is left, and the maize hardly reaches the height of a man. They are valleys of old men and old women, of mothers and children. The men are away; the young men and the girls are away. The soil cannot keep them any more.
So I'm not sure sure where this is going or how I'm going to get there. I'm assuming that most folks are not familiar with South Africa. It's a crazy quilt nation that well, just sort of happened. Unlike the British Colonies the Dutch didn't start out to colonise anyone or anything. The Dutch East Indiia Company was looking for profits in the spice trade and the little settlement on the tip of the Cape of Good Hope was meant to be a supply station and only a supply station.
