Suddenly there seems to be a plethora of American moralists attempting to describe the current state of affairs in South Africa: is it because of all the recent movies reflecting the new South Africa: “District 9”; “Invictus”; or, “End Game”? Or is it in support of the 2010 World Cup to be hosted by South Africa? Or, is it something more insidious: something akin to the moral gentry no longer having South Africa as a racist whipping boy?!
Why has the moral fraternity (famous S. African artists included) consistently by-passed American racism and the hegemony practiced by dominant cultures around-the-world (well, I guess Jimmy Carter put the ‘lean’ on China for a bit in the late 70s) in favor of a constant barrage against apartheid S. Africa? Is it because apartheid was a convenient, easy target (like the Nazis) to project the “devil-without protects us from the devil-within”?
But these days, any number of journalists, book critics and even directors (Clint Eastwood for example) – seem to be “rooting” for the South African rainbow experiment to continue in a direction so-as-to-support a successful World Cup soccer tourney in S. Africa – and not, direct the Rainbow Country in the direction of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. But there still seem to be a few pundits and authors who can’t seem to put the apartheid experience in a socio-cultural perspective that demonstrates apartheid as the similar (and logical) attempt by ANY country to maintain THAT country’s wealth for a select few (I remember going round-and-round with old college Roomy, T. Wooders, about this). It took an extended stay in Africa for him to put what I had been talking about — in a different light. He was willing to concede that post-colonial Africa was not the United States of America — but a horse of a very different color.
…I mean, apartheid was a 48-year exercise inspired by America’s Separate But Equal Program – Oh! I’m sorry – most-of-the-pundits still seem to think it was the Nazis who gave the like-minded Afrikaaner their template for apartheid – but no one seems to want to pose the question of where the Nazis got their template from…oh my?! Surely not the Separate But Equal Program.
I wonder…if White America had never exterminated most of the indigenous population, and bred beyond the remaining Native American population – would they have needed slavery? Most American pundits and moralists don’t discuss America’s 300-year-long slavery experience with a 60-plus-year separate but equal policy slapped on-top-of-it to control perhaps 9%-to-10% of the population. But when the South African White attempted to maintain his hegemony over a population outnumbering him 7-to-1 – this was an egregious and odious sin. I’m not sure I get it – as South African White and American Whites were both practicing Christian cultures.
Whoops! Did I just intimate that South African Whites DID NOT practice slavery?! Oh my God! I did!! I mean, how could the South African White institute slavery if the average African could easily escape into a huge “bush”?! But now I’m getting back to that whole devil/without and devil/within thang. I often wonder about the role of gold and diamonds in the whole South African episode…
To me, Nelson Mandela was the Man of the Millennium – and I’m thinking that Clint and Morgan got him right, in “Invictus.” I have to rank Nelson ahead of Jesus and Gandhi in terms of moral turpitude – cuz Jesus wanted the Romans out – as Gandhi wanted the Brits out…but Nelson, why Nelson truly forgave his tormentors – and actually worked with them…and that makes him the Man of the Millineum (to this writer’s eyes).