The importance of being here
The following article was published originally in Afrikaans and German.
Yesterday, it appeared in The Sunday Independent’s DISPATCHES with this magnificent illustration by one of South Africa’s most remarkable illustrators, François Smit.
He is awakened by his wife just before three in the morning. There’s somebody in the house, she tells him.
Nonsense, he replies, befuddled with sleep. I’m sure it’s only a mouse.
That isn’t a mouse, she insists. It’s much bigger.
Then it’s a rat, he mumbles.
And then the rat shoots him in the face. He dies in the presence of his wife and small daughter, and they are forced at gunpoint to accompany the intruders as they ransack the house, leaving the dead body on the floor.
He is – was – the eldest son of my sister Elsabe. One of the gentlest people I have ever met in my life. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Or, for that matter, a rat. They lived on a plot just north of Pretoria – or Tshwane, in the new parlance, which came into vogue when the regime decided that only the ANC has a history in this country. (No-one in his right mind would wish to perpetuate insulting, race-determined, narrow-minded names from the past; but the present spree of name-changes which smacks of historical myopia, if not paranoia, is becoming an insult to the very mindset that made our new dispensation possible.) Their life had been peaceful until very recently. Then, in a single month, sixteen armed attacks on plots within less than a kilometre of the young family’s home, made them jittery. Elsabe’s son Adri was the seventeenth.
Before the end of that weekend, another person was killed in the same street. It would seem that the police in the area had finally sensed that something was not altogether well. Within days of the eighteenth attack they actually managed to arrest a gang of six and found the articles stolen from Adri’s home in their possession. Two cellphones and a laptop. Life is not terribly expensive these days.
Unfortunately, the police have now mislaid the evidence, as well as the fingerprints taken during their no doubt thorough investigations. Perhaps they are missing the strong and exemplary leadership of their suspended commissioner, the spotless Mr Selebi, on (fully paid) leave in anticipation of his on court case on charges of corruption. As a result, the six suspects arrested after Adri’s murder, have been graciously allowed to go home, and another open file has been added to the Everest of unsolved crime statistics in the country.
But at least we have the assurance of the minister of Safety and Security, Charles Nqakula, that fewer murders and rapes and armed robberies are committed these days compared to the previous year (only 11,5 murders per day over the past year, only 16 rapes and indecent assaults per day, and only 40 violent home robberies). He may even arrange a debate in parliament at some stage. The problem is that not too many honourable members of parliament may find space in their crammed schedules to attend such a session. There are too many competing obligations: another trip to Dubai to stock up on groceries and jewellery, an appointment at the bank to deposit the latest bribe of half a million or a million, a visit to the travel agent for a new round of tickets for the family now that the stupid idea of prosecuting parliamentary perpetrators has been dropped, a quick dash to Harare to express solidarity with Uncle Robert, even a call at the prison to show solidarity with some high official spending his few weeks of a lengthy gaol sentence languishing in terrible comfort at the mercy of pedicurists and manicurists and masseuses.
It is not that everything in the South Africa of today is darkness and death. If our general euphoria following the first free elections of 1994 were undoubtedly unrealistic, it was not entirely misplaced. Even in the midst of the aggravating circumstances we re facing today, it is possible to take a step or two back to compare our actual situation with that of a mere fourteen years ago – and what is fourteen years in the life of a nation? – one cannot but deny that we have come a surprisingly long way. And I know of no-one (except the die-hard troglodytes from the apartheid past) who would even for a moment prefer to exchange the country we live in today for the atrocities and the misery of a mere two decades ago. But that does not mean that we have ‘arrived’ anywhere yet. At the very best we are only still en route – and no-one can be entirely sure of where we will get to. Still, the very uncertainty of such a situation can be stimulating: and it is not for nothing that in many situations in which South Africans of the past might have spoken of ‘problems’ would now prefer to talk of ‘challenges’ instead – which is a measure of how far we have travelled.
This is largely due to the inspiration of a few iconic figures If one looks at those figures we have lost along the way – Steve Biko many years ago, Chris Hani much more recently, Beyers Naudé, Joe Slovo, Dullah Omar… – one can only be grateful that the most remarkable among them, Mandela, has survived to celebrate his ninetieth birthday. How sad that there could not have been anyone of stature to follow in his footsteps and that the country was forced to make do with Thabo Mbeki People of huge talent and vision were sidelined at an early stage by the ambition and the machiavellian plotting of Mbeki, who started with such glowing promise and then smothered it all in his grotesque mismanagement of the situation in Zimbabwe, his approach to AIDS, and his increasing use of state apparatus to settle personal scores and problems.
But at least we did have – and still have – Mandela, whose light continues to show the way through an ominously murky future. And there are also a few others, people of integrity and enthusiasm and vision, notably Desmond Tutu whose contribution through the TRC has helped to change despair into hope for countless South Africans. This does not mean that the Commission was an unqualified success. In many, many respects it fell short of what one might legitimately have expected. But where would we have been without the Commission? It gave an opportunity to innumerable victims from the darkest years of South African history to tell their own stories – and to find people ready to listen to them. At the very least this has ushered South Africa forward to a position where many things have become possible which would have been unthinkable before.
But in most other respects the country has not been so lucky. Admittedly, we have moved away from the injustices and atrocities and the anomalies and absurdities of the apartheid era.
Schools have been opened up to pupils of all races, which goes a long way towards creating the possibility for all South Africans to grow up together; but there are still huge inequities between the privileged and the poor, and bad planning, misspending, nepotism and blatant theft are hampering the proper evolution of a fair and equal system which is still staggering from the loss of thousands of the best-qualified teachers in the country because of obtuse implementation and blind discrimination.
Poverty remains a crucial problem in a country with stark divisions between rich and poor, and stockpiled funds contributed by governments and organisations all over the world to address the problem, are still pilfered by individuals and groups with easy access to money they have never learned to handle. Even an exemplary leader from the Liberation Struggle like Allan Boesak was sent to prison for stealing money contributed to alleviate the suffering of children in impoverished communities.
The judicial system is hampered by bad management and corruption in the police services and prison authorities. The way in which a convicted criminal rat like Tony Yengeni was escorted to prison by colleagues including the speaker of parliament and, welcomed upon his early release as a hero was indicative of something rotten in the state of South Africa. The way in which the Scorpions are threatened with being closed down is another curtain closing on a once successful performance. The upheaval in and around Judge President Hlope and the judiciary is an indication that the moral heath of the entire community is now at risk.
When the man elected as our likely future president is a person of dubious morals, a demagogue and a rabble-rouser who spends most of his time eluding prosecution for corruption, a shadow settles, not only his personal future but on that of the country as a whole. And among his most influential supporters are vociferous leaders like Julius Melema of the ANC Youth League, and Zwelinzima Vavi of COSATU – from the generation that coined the slogan, First liberation, then education, and who now publicly announce themselves ready to murder and kill for Zuma (although Comrade Melema tries ingenuously to explain that ‘kill’ does not necessary mean ‘kill’). Once again the abdication of morality and a basic sense of responsibility cannot inspire much hope for the future. There are rats, rats everywhere.
Ridiculous extremes in the application of affirmative action have driven into exile numerous of the most qualified and skilled people in the country, as the government and its agencies steadily replace real achievement with mediocrity and inferiority – often laudable attempts to remedy past inequity, but wretched business practice.
Over everything happening in South Africa at the moment, there still hovers the cloud of the infamous and largely unnecessary arms deal at a cost of billions upon billions, much of which ended up in the pockets of political leaders, exacerbating the lot of the poor and deprived masses in the country. Among many other things, the whole backlog in the provision of housing, electricity and running water to the poorest of the poor could have been wiped out several times with the money recklessly wasted on this ill-conceived enterprise. And still the government tries its damnedest to prevent any effective enquiry into the deal, as its ramifications continue to spread at ever-escalating cost.
Against the background of the scourge of rats that has settled over the country, and following Adri’s murder, a surprising number of people, both friends and total strangers, have expressed their assumption that I would now consider leaving the country. Many of them are already living in various degrees of comfort in New Zealand or Australia, the UK or Canada. They seem perplexed when I reply that I am staying right where I am. ‘But surely you can afford it?’ they ask. And if it were just a matter of money, who knows, I might. Perhaps if I were forty or fifty years younger, with my career still ahead and with small children in my house, I might yet have given it some serious thought. Certainly, I do not blame anyone who has already emigrated or who is contemplating such a move. But it is not for me. One can never say never. Yet it will take much more to dislodge me.
There was a time, after the political changeover in 1994, when I would have argued that after a half-century of apartheid and Nationalist rule I had enough faith in the ANC to want to stay here and be part of a tremendous historical transition towards freedom and justice. The myopia and greed of the country’s new regime of rats have eroded my faith in the specific future I had once believed in and for which I had been willing to pay my own price. I do not foresee, today, any significant decrease in crime and violence in South Africa; I have serious doubts that our rulers can even guarantee a safe and successful Soccer World Cup in 2010; I do not believe that the levels of corruption and nepotism and racketeering and incompetence and injustice and unacceptable practices of ‘affirmative action’ in the country will decrease in the near future. On the contrary, I see only the endless proliferation of the ills in that ‘sea of troubles’ so passionately evoked by Hamlet – ‘the oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, the pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay, the insolence of office …’
And yet I wish to stay.
It is not that I believe, for one moment, that my family or I deserve it, or merit it, or that we are in any way entitled to it. Over the nearly four hundred years that we have survived in South Africa, we have always, regrettably, because of the colour of our skin, been on the side of the privileged. Even though many of my ancestors were poor and struggling, in one way or another they have always formed part of the haves rather than the have-nots. They have been slave owners, not slaves. On at least one occasion, an ancestor had several children with a slave woman, and sold those children on an auction. No, we are not entitled to special consideration.
But we have been here. In Rilke’s wonderful words: O not because happiness really exists …/ but because being-here is much and because everything/ that is here, so fleeting, seems to require us and strangely/ concerns us…
What does it mean to be here, to have been here?
Surely, it means that I share with others, black and brown and white, this part of the earth where my mother and my father lie buried, and my grandparents, and their ancestors, for generations and generations. It means that we have been assimilated by nearly four centuries of life on this continent, and have in turn assimilated those centuries within our bones and blood: the rhythms of drought and flood, the famines and abundance, the inhuman cruelties and killings and deprivations, the laughter and love and mercy and generosity. All of this has come at a price, and we have paid it, sometimes reluctantly or even resentfully, often gladly and willingly. We have been here, not anywhere else; and we wish to be here. It concerns us, and I believe that simply by being here, and remaining here, I have something to offer in return. I know I am not indispensable: but I can be here, and in so doing I can affirm that being-here may mean something: part of a meaning that only our togetherness in this place can bring into being. Because in the key proverb that holds this nation together, umntu ngumntu mgabantu: a person is a person through other persons.
There is no society in the world without challenges, trouble, or danger; but there is an urgency and an immediacy about living in South Africa that lends it a sense of involvement and relevance and significance I cannot readily imagine elsewhere. It is this urgency that makes it important and even necessary for me to want to write and live here rather than anywhere else. The only thing that is truly worth while, said Goethe, is that for which you have to battle every day.
I am not offering this as an explanation for my choice. A love that can be explained is not love. But the fact that it cannot be rationally explained does not invalidate it. It is as valid and as true as the composition of my DNA. Neither the obtuseness nor the bullying or the seductive tactics of the present regime can impose a decision on me. The choice is mine, and I exercise it freely. It is more than mere belonging, it is a commitment and a responsibility I assume. For myself, for my children and my grandchildren, for my friends, for the women and men and children I love and without whom I cannot be me.
- André Brink
(The Sunday Independent, 20 July 2008, p. 13)
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