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  • Leon Lemmer: Oor imperialisme en kolonialisme

    Leon Lemmer: Oor imperialisme en kolonialisme

    Volgens die ANC/SAKP se siening het kolonialisme nie in 1910 plaaslik tot ‘n einde gekom nie. Omdat hierdie kamerade kolonialisme met blanke heerskappy assosieer, was Suid-Afrika van 1910 tot 1994 na bewering onder die juk van ‘n spesiale soort kolonialisme. Dit is, soos so baie van die ANC/SAKP-ideologie, rasgebaseerd; indien nie rassisties nie. Anders as by hierdie kamerade is dit vir my doeleindes belangrik om duidelik tussen die werklike kolonialisme (tot 1910) en die al hoe meer soewereine blanke bewind (vanaf 1910) te onderskei. Daar is aspekte van die werklike kolonialisme wat veral deur Afrikaners veroordeel kan en moet word, bv die Anglo-Boereoorlog en alles wat daarmee saamhang.

    Wat egter ten gunste van sowel die Hollandse as die Britse kolonialisme gesê kan word, is dat dit die grondslag vir Europese beskawing en blanke kultuur in Suidelike Afrika gelê het. Ná 1910 het hierdie beskawing voortreflike wasdom bereik deurdat Suid-Afrika in talle opsigte by verre die uitnemendste Afrikaland geword het. In so ‘n mate dat dit jaloesie en vyandigheid by agterlike en relatief prestasielose Afrikalande gewek het. Anders as die bedenkinge wat ek oor vóór-1910 koester, is daar baie in Suid-Afrika se latere geskiedenis (tot omstreeks 1989) wat my met bewondering en trots vervul. Suid-Afrika was ‘n land waarin ek tuis gevoel het. In 1990/94 het daar weens ongekende dwaasheid ‘n radikale breuk in ons geskiedenis gekom, met katastrofiese gevolge wat heel moontlik onherstelbare skade berokken het. Suid-Afrika het ‘n land geword waarin ek glad nie tuis voel nie.

    Jeremy Black (gebore in 1955) se jongste boek is Imperial legacies: The British empire around the world (New York: Encounter Books, 2019, 216p; Amazon Kindle $17.24). Hy is ‘n deurwinterde historikus wat as dosent aan die University of Exeter verbonde is. Black het dosyne gesaghebbende boeke gepubliseer. Hierdie boek is ‘n distillasie van die beste insigte waartoe hy in staat is. Hy is veral sensitief vir besware wat uit Indië opklink: “The amnesia essentially on the part of the newly independent” (Kindle 446). “‘Amnesia’, however, is a term that is not only employed selectively, but has also been ‘weaponized’ as a term of criticism” (453). Black probeer nie om imperialisme en kolonialisme ten alle koste te verdedig nie. Hy poog eerder om aan te toon dat ander regeringsvorme nie noodwendig (altyd en in alle opsigte) beter is nie. “The intention is not to ignore drives for economic, geopolitical, and military benefit, which are more generally true of imperialism and, indeed, of governmental policy as a whole” (2601).

    Dink aan hoe dikwels blankes tydens die WVK-verrigtinge van gerieflike geheueverlies beskuldig is, maar die ANC/UDF/SAKP-terrorisme is sover moontlik aan die vergetelheid toevertrou. Black gee sy afkeur van politieke byderwetsheid duidelik te kenne. Hy skaar hom aan die kant van nasionalisme en teen globalisme. “The transnational world can be presented as resulting in a new type of empire and new forms of imperialism. This was allegedly the case with the new international order devised in the 1940s, with bodies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations. The order at once offered liberal international values, such as free trade, and reflected what can be seen as an imperial conceptual order on behalf of the United States” (1161).

    Black is opvallend still oor Suid-Afrika. Dit kan wees dat hy nie so sleg van apartheid/rasseskeiding dink as wat van hom verwag word nie. Maar soms noem hy ‘n verskynsel te maklik rassisties. Hy verwys wel na die Rhodes Must Fall/RMF-beweging (616) en die gesindheid van die RMF-voorbokke, naamlik: “We are looking at how to decolonise knowledge and in particular decolonise our literature and pedagogy” (626). “It constituted ‘historical revisionism for what is a crime against humanity’” (642). Hy noem ook dat “the treatment of detainees in the Boer War” soms as ‘n voorbeeld van “Britain’s gulag” opgehaal word (649) – gulag: “Russian term for the system of prisons and labour camps used to silence dissidents and opponents of the Soviet regime.”

    Wanneer aan ‘n imperiale ryk gedink word, is die Britse Ryk meesal op die oog. As na kolonialisme verwys word, word daar gewoonlik aan Britse kolonies gedink. Dit is ten minste in die Engelssprekende wêreld en in Engelstalige tekste die geval. Black is ‘n konserwatiewe gees wat as ‘n versigtige pleitsbesorger vir die Britte optree. “This book considers this imperial legacy from the British perspective, and from those elsewhere” (77). Oordrewe kritiek teen die Weste en die blankes is hoog in die mode. “In practice, ‘decolonization’ is frequently a call for a hostile engagement with the supposed legacy of the past” (3184).

    Black poog om sommige sodanige aantygings met historiese feite te weerlê. Byvoorbeeld: “The habit of blaming the Atlantic slave trade simply on Europeans rather than allocating due agency to enslavement and sale of Africans by Africans” (2038), asook “The British, although earlier the most active of the slave traders, were instrumental in ending the slave trade and slavery” (118). “Furthermore, those who deploy hindsight might be better served directing their energy toward urgent present abuses, which include a continued slave trade and slavery” (129), bv in hedendaagse Mauritanië en die Soedan (2541).

    As leser het ek Black as outeur soms jammer gekry. Apartheid, dus die blankes, kry die skuld vir alles wat in die nuwe Suid-Afrika verkeerd is, al is baie van die huidige plaaslike probleme ongetwyfeld die maaksel van die ANC-regime. Insgelyks word die Britte se imperialisme en kolonialisme dikwels op ‘n uiters vyandige en oordrewe manier die skuld gegee vir wat ná politieke afhanklikheid in die eertydse kolonies verkeerd geloop het. Byvoorbeeld: “The government of Zimbabwe, when under Mugabe from 1980 to 2017, tended to present its difficulties as derived from the legacy of British imperial control and the continuing reality of British economic pressures; rather than addressing serious issues in its government composition, policies, and structures” (2278).

    Dit maak skynbaar glad nie saak hoe baie tyd sedert die beëindiging van kolonialisme verloop het nie. “Many of the works that are published on empire are certainly very politically committed, as are their presentation. This establishes norms within which further works are written, presented, published, and considered” (522). Naas die Britse imperiale gewelddadigheid is daar “the unethical violence of pre- and postclonial governments and societies” waarop die aandag ewewigtigheidshalwe ook gevestig moet word (83).

    In hierdie konteks gaan dit deesdae dikwels om anti-Westerse en anti-blanke retoriek. “It can be an aspect of the ‘virtue signaling’ of conspicuous morality. This signaling is a process that is highly important to individual and political assertion, and notably so given the emphasis on feelings as a way to validate attitudes and to justify policies: ‘I feel’, rather than ‘I think’. The cult of the victum is also pertinent” (144). Onderliggend het ons dus maar weer met die geykte polities byderwetse twak uitgedruk in oorbekende retoriek te make, bv marxisme: “Imperialism serves for many critics as an equivalent to, or surrogate for, capitalism” (709).

    Omdat die gesindheid wesenlik anti-Westers en anti-blank is, word naas Brittanje noodwendig ook die Verenigde State van Amerika betrek. “The transfer of blame to the British Empire and/or to the United States was all to typical of a postcolonial failure to accept responsibility” (396). Black merk tereg op: “Indeed, empire is an aspect of the culture wars” (72). “It is normal to present the energy and power of imperialism as directed against non-Western peoples and thus as racist” (2691).

    In die Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (HAT) word imperialisme (afgelei van empire) beskryf as “politieke beleid van ‘n staat om ander gebiede onder sy mag en invloed te bring” en kolonialisme as “ekonomiese, politieke en maatskaplike beleid waardeur ‘n groot moondheid sy kontrole [beheer] oor ander landstreke en volke handhaaf of uitbrei; beleid waardeur kolonies verkry en behou word.” Aan die woord empire kleef daar ‘n onverkwiklike geurtjie. Die Afrikaanse vertaling, ryk, proe en ruik seker nie so sleg nie. “Notably among the young across the political spectrum, and increasingly so, commitment to empire was perceived as the antithesis of what is meant to be ‘modern’, as an obstacle to economic reform, and emblem of oudated social values, and a view out of kilter with democratic political values” (3012). Die woord empire word (nog) nie as ‘n Afrikaanse woord in die Afrikaanse Woordelys en Spelreëls (AWS, 11de uitgawe, 2017) erken nie. Die progressiewe HAT (6de uitgawe, 2015) lys Empaaier. ‘n Oorverligte gees soos Willie Esterhuyse gebruik empire en ryk afwisselend in sy boek, Oorlog en vrede (Naledi, 2019, 353p).

    Sodra Amerika in hierdie konteks naas Brittanje betrek word, word dit nodig om tussen ‘n formele ryk (soos histories dié van Brittanje), dus egte kolonialisme, en ‘n informele ryk (soos dié van Amerika), dus “neo-colonialism” (396), te onderskei. “‘Informal’ empire fitted the American trajectory more so than that of Britain” (840). “Informal empire can serve, for example, to discuss the speading economic and military power of China, or the interventionist conduct of Russia and India in neighboring states, or the attempts of Brazil, Nigeria and South Africa to act as regional powers” (1207). Aan die woord imperialisme kan dus meerdere betekenisse geheg word. “The range of types of rule described and critized, or described through criticism, as imperial or imperialism is very extensive. It operates as a catchall phrase for the external imposition of power, although external, imposition and power are all subject to varied understandings and usage” (1192).

    Australië is bv al hoe meer deel van die informele Amerikaanse ryk ter vervanging van sy historiese verbintenis met die formele Britse ryk. “Growing cultural affinity between the United States and Australia was an important part of the changing situation. In so far as imperial legacies were concerned, Australia had increasingly to adapt to the informal American empire, rather than the formal British one” (2129). Die Australiese bevolking is oorwegend Westers, maar geografies is hy in die Ooste geleë. Die land is dus op Oosterse handelsbetrekkinge aangewese, maar terselfdertyd het hy, ter behoud van sy tradisionele kultuur, die diplomatieke en militêre ondersteuning van Amerika nodig.

    “The [British] empire was seen as being transformed into the Commonwealth, rather than lost” (2987). Omtrent al wat substansieel van die Britse Ryk oorgebly het, is die Gemenebes (“Commonwealth”) van 16 lande, hoewel daar steeds 14 ander Brits-afhanklike maar minder beduidende geografiese gebiede is. Laasgenoemdes kan “vasalstate” genoem word; ‘n term wat Esterhuyse dikwels gebruik. Die Australiese Aboriginals gebruik die term “Stolenwealth” (1990), asook die frase “Stolen Generations” (2011), as deel van hulle “grievance industry” (2033). Die Gemenebes word nie eens meer die Britse Gemenebes genoem nie. Soos by mense het hier gelykheid ingetree, sodat die leiding nie meer (noodwendig) van die Britte uitgaan nie. Die Britse monarg het darem (voorlopig) haar posisie as die formele hoof van die Gemenebes behou. “The Commonwealth did not meet British hopes that it would serve as a continuation of imperial cohesion. The creation of an equal partnership proved a goal that was incompatible with British leadership” (3060).

    Die Amerikaners is bekend/berug daarvoor dat hulle graag beweer dat hulle geen ryk of kolonies het nie. “As with [the expansionism of] India, Indonesia, and China, it is an irony unappreciated by most Americans and resented by many of them that the United States was itself to be regarded as an imperial power. It certainly took an imperialist course in North America in the nineteenth century at the expense of Native Americans, Spain, and Mexico, and in attempts to conquer Canada and later to limit its expansion” (829).

    Indonesië het soveel moontlik eilande in die omgewing van Java probeer inpalm, bv Oos-Timor (1975-1999). Oor Indië en China skryf Black: “Indians denouce British imperialism and then defend their own conduct in Kashmir; and their Chinese counterparts do the same over Tibet” (922). Van groot aktuele belang is die “‘inchoate [wordende] imperialism’ in modern Islamic geopolitics” (927). Rusland se formele ryk (die eertydse Sowjetunie) en voortgesette informele ryk is algemeen bekend. “Soviet policy in Eastern Europe was definitely imperial” (1079). “Communism … ruthlessly exploited anti-imperialism while suppressing it in the Soviet Union” (1157).

    Maar naas Amerikaanse uitbreiding in aangrensende geografiese gebiede, is daar baie lande wat in meerdere of mindere mate bv ekonomies en/of militêr van Amerika afhanklik is. Insoverre hulle afhanklik is – dus nie werklik onafhanklik is nie – is hulle vasalstate. Dit geld veral vir state in of naby die Amerikas (Noord-, Sentraal en Suid-Amerika). “American policy in Central America and the Caribbean was frequently seen by critics as imperial in character … as with the American invasions of the Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1983, and Panama in 1989, and with American pressure on Cuba from the 1960s and on Nicaragua in the 1980s” (1079).

    Die oorsprong van hierdie Amerikaanse inmenging in die sake van buurlande is die “Monroe Doctrine: declaration by the US president James Monroe [1758-1831, 5th president 1817-1825] in 1823 that the USA would not tolerate any European nation trying to establish a colony in the Americas, and that any attempt to do so would be regarded as a threat to US peace and security … The doctrine, subsequently broadened, has been a recurrent theme in US foreign policy” (Collins World Encyclopedia, 2003, p 622). Die Sowjetunie/Rusland het in 1962 tydens die Kubaanse missielkrisis agtergekom dat hy ingesluit word by die Europese lande wat nie in die VSA se dampkring/invloedsfeer/geografiese omgewing mag inmeng nie. Haïti is sedert 1804 polities onafhanklik ná ‘n geslaagde en dikwels geromantiseerde slawe-opstand teen Frankryk as die koloniale moondheid. Maar agtereenvolgende regerings was so onbekwaam dat Amerika bv van 1915 tot 1934 beheer oor Haïti geneem het.

    Ná die Tweede Wêreldoorlog het Amerika ongetwyfeld die leidende Westerse moondheid geword. Brittanje moes voortaan tweede viool speel. Uitgaande van die (skynheilige) veronderstelling dat hy nie kolonies het nie, het Amerika hom kragdadig vir dekolonisering beywer, asook vir die vestiging van demokrasie in sulke lande. “This process of continuing American hostility to empire, notably to that of Britain, was encouraged by the extent to which many immigrants to the United States fled imperial rule elsewhere … This was the case with Jews leaving Russia … The Irish diaspora in the United States is instructive in this light. The devastating Irish Famine that occurred between 1845 and 1852 and the resulting large-scale emigration … attract lasting attention, and thus characterize the Irish experience of the British Empire in a very hostile light” (Black 810).

    Daar is ‘n Amerikaanse teenhanger vir Jeremy Black se boek, naamlik Daniel Immerwahr se How to hide an empire: A history of the greater United States (2019, 528p; Amazon Kindle $17.24). Aanvanklik was dit my voorneme om Immerwahr se boek saam met dié van Black te bespreek, maar dit is op die oomblik ongewens omdat ‘n hersiene, ietwat verkorte uitgawe (416p, $14.46) op 27 Februarie 2020 gepubliseer gaan word. Intussen kan daar egter kennis geneem word nie net van lof vir hierdie boek nie, maar ook van die substansiële kritiek wat deur bv Howard Hills in die Kindle-katalogus uitgespreek word.

    Black skryf: “Between 1750 and 1900, Britain became the foremost power in the world, both territorially and economically” (101). “Empire was in part supported and defended on the grounds that it provided opportunities for the advance of civilization” (105) – ‘n regverdiging wat hedendaagse kulturele marxiste glad nie wil hoor nie. Polities byderwets mag aan ‘n hiërargie van beskawings, lande, rasse, etnisiteite, individue, ens, eintlik nie gedink word nie. Lank gelede is aanvaar dat die aarde plat is. Deesdae het dit evangelie geword dat alles wat met die mensdom te make het gelyk, dus nie-hiëragies, is. Iets soos ‘n elite, dus meerderwaardige mense – mense wat bv intellektueel of moreel beter as ander mense is – bestaan glo nie meer nie. Gevolglik word die wil by bv die gepeupel om te verbeter, gesaboteer.

    ‘n Belangrike deel was die Westerse imperiale beskawingsinisiatief was om inheemses in die kolonies tot die Christendom te bekeer. Maar die rol wat religie, oftewel sendingywer, in hierdie konteks gespeel het, het met verloop van tyd radikaal verander. “Attitudes toward Christian trusteeship were significant, in Britain, the United States, and elsewhere, in encouraging support, first and foremost, for imperial rule and then for decolonization” (972). Op ‘n soortgelyke manier is die christelike religie voorheen ter regverdiging van rasseskeiding gebruik terwyl dit die afgelope dekades ingespan word om (gedwonge) rasse-integrasie aan te moedig. Insgelyks is die Bybel voorheen gebruik om homoseksualiteit te veroordeel terwyl dit deesdae al hoe meer gebruik word om (feitlik) enige vorm van seksualiteit te regverdig. Tradisionele waardes word dus in hulle teenoorgesteldes omgekeer.

    In die konteks van vermeende Britse meerderwaardigheid gee Black nogal heelwat toe. Afrikaners is immers goed met die hooghartigheid van die Britte bekend. “There was a clear sense, with England (from 1707, Britain) as of other empires, of superiority to lesser societies and of value, both to England and in world-historical terms, of bringing them under control and, through the plantation system of establishing settlers, of using the land in a more fruitful fashion … There was a clear attempt to present Western civilization as not only superior to other civilizations, but also as defining the de-civilized nature of these civilizations” (160). Die benutting van grond, bv vir produktiewe landbou, behoort vir boere ‘n sterker reg op daardie grond te vestig as dié van nomadiese inheemses wat vóór hulle daar rondgetrek het. Dit is ‘n beginsel wat bv in Australiese howe aanvaar is.

    Daar is onder meer twee dinge wat Black bekemtoon. Eerstens dat geskiedkundige gebeure in die konteks van hulle tyd beoordeel moet word. Byvoorbeeld, “The modern criterion of equality is not a terribly helpful one when considering values prior to the twentieth century” (441). Wat om ideologiese redes deesdae gebeur, is dat “the appropriate contextualization is generally absent” (344). In die imperiale/koloniale konteks het ontwikkeling (“development”) iets anders beteken as die hedendaagse klem op “self-determination, democracy, and human rights” (695).

    Tweedens dat geskiedenis glad te dikwels geskep of aangepas word “to serve a modern narrative” (290); dus “to present the past in order to satisfy current mores” (344). Dit is wat die ANC met oorgawe in bv skoolgeskiedenisboeke doen. Die regime vind spreekwoordelike nuttige idiote onder historici, wat in ruil vir geld doen wat polities byderwets van hulle verwag word. Naamsverandering van bv stede, dorpe en strate en die verwydering van standbeelde is van die aanstootlike maniere waarmee die ANC die geskiedenis herskryf.

    Malcolm Turnbull, die Australiese eerste minister (2015-2018), het gesê: “A free country debates its history – it does not deny it. It builds new monuments as it preserves old ones, writes new books, not burns old ones” (1980). In Australië, soos deesdae in Suid-Afrika, is ‘n linkse vertolking van die geskiedenis aan die orde van die dag. Byvoorbeeld, byna ongelooflik: “In 2018, the national airline Qantas issued instructions to its staff that they were to refer not to the settlement of Australia but to its invasion” (2084).

    Die Britte is nie die uitvinders van rykskepping nie. Vóór die Britse Ryk het daar talle ryke bestaan. “Britain generally was not the conqueror of native peoples ruling themselves in a democratic fashion, but, instead, overcame other imperial systems, and that the latter themselves rested on conquests” (300). Met die “generally”-kwalifisering word erken dat daar uitsonderings was.

    Vergelykenderwys het die Britte na bewering (soms) beter as ander veroweraars/besetters gevaar. “Germany, earlier in the 1900s, followed policies in East and South West Africa that were far harsher than those of Britain, as were those of the Congo when King Leopold II of Belgium ruled it. Moreover, the brutality used by the Italians in the 1920s and 1930s to suppress resistance in Libya and to conquer Ethiopia, and that of the Japanese in Korea and, even more, in China, were far worse than that seen with the British Empire in the same period, or possibly any period” (309).

    Daar is hierdie interessante opmerking: “Libyan troops considered themselves white Arabs closer to Italians than to black Ethiopians” (325). Dwarsoor die wêreld behou ‘n ligte vel sy prestige-waarde op grond van hierdie groep se bewese prestasies, ten spyte daarvan dat blankes meer as enige ander kleurgroep veroordeel word. Omgekeerd: “In Brazil, Cuba, and Venezuela … in what have been termed ‘pigmentocrasies’, those with a darker skin found themselves discriminated against, a situation that is still very much the case” (2460).

    “A negative account of British imperialism was necessary not only to give additional meaning to the process of national liberation, but also in order to provide a stronger logic for nation, country, and state” (377). Byvoorbeeld, die ANC se strategie is om die plaaslike blanke bewind in propaganda so sleg moontlik voor te stel, sodat die huidige opset vergelykenderwys nie so sleg daarby afsteek nie.

    Die volgende verskynsel is ook maklik in die nuwe Suid-Afrika herkenbaar: “Independence movements pledge to preserve freedom but then frequently acted to limit it … These movements claimed to reject the imperial state, but in practice sought to take it over and maintain its power” (386). In die nuwe Suid-Afrika word sowel liggaamlike vryheid (bv om veilig in die land te woon) as geestelike vryheid (bv om te dink en sê wat jy wil) al hoe meer aan bande gelê.

    Daar is hierdie waarheid: “Corruption appears to have gotten worse since imperial rule ended in many countries” (417). Dit herinner aan die keer toe Thabo Mbeki die waarheid kwytgeraak het: “Bevryding van ‘n diktatorskap [bedoelende diktatuur; na bewering die “apartheidsregime”] bring noodwendig [!] ook korrupsie mee” (Willie Esterhuyse, Eindstryd, Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2012, p 166); iets wat Suid-Afrika sedert 1994 in buitensporige mate ervaar.

    “Critics sometimes underplay the extent to which the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya in the 1950s and early 1960s involved murderous attacks on other Africans, who indeed made up the bulk of the victims” (458). Plaaslik vind soortgelyke verdraaiing plaas. ANC/UDF/SAKP-terroriste het baie meer swartes as blankes gedood. Dit is gedoen om die swartes te intimideer sodat hulle die “bevrydingsbeweging” steun en vanaf 1994 daarvoor stem. Desnieteenstaande word voorgegee, of ten minste geïmpliseer, dat kamerade se bloed uitsluitlik gevloei het om van die blanke “juk” ontslae te raak. Uiteraard kan hierdie ANC-benadering nie op oorspronklikheid aanspraak maak nie. Byvoorbeeld, op ‘n herdenkingsplakkaat in Indië staan: “This place is saturated with the blood of those Indian patriots who were martyred in a nonviolent struggle to free India from British domination” (1376).

    Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) kon net so min soos Desmond Tutu met reg daarop aanspraak maak dat die “onafhanklikheidstryd” nie-gewelddadig, dus vreedsaam, gevoer is. Byvoorbeeld, as deel van die Indiese “bevrydingstryd het Udham Singh in 1940 vir Michael O’Dwyer vermoor. “The murderer was treated as a hero by many Indian contemporaries … There is a museum dedicated to him … and he has been the subject of films. The day of his death is a public holiday” (1412). Dieselfde gebeur in die nuwe Suid-Afrika. Moord en terrorisme geld nie as diskwalifikasie vir die bekleding van ‘n hoë pos nie. Museums word ingespan, selfs uit die grond uit opgerig, om die ANC-regime se ideologie te propageer, bv die Slawe-, Robbeneiland- en Apartheidsmuseum. Ná 1994 is meerdere openbare vakansiedae ingestel spesifiek met die doel om ANC-mitologie te voed. “Collective grievance thus becomes empowering” (1524).

    Dubbele standaarde is aan die orde van die dag. ‘n Imperiale moondheid soos Brittanje kan kwalik van volksmoord in sy multi-kulturele ryk aangekla word, maar (oorheersend) monokulturele lande kom (grootliks) kritiekloos daarmee weg. “‘Ethnic cleansing’, or, at least, control, is logical from the perspective of ethnically based states, such as Turkey, Serbia, and Myanmar [Burma]; but not from that of polyglot empires, or not to the same extent” (1115). “From the perspective of many groups, such as Copts and Jews, empires such as those ruled by the Ottomans, Habsburgs, and Britain were frequently more benign than the ethnically based nation-states that succeeded them. The harsh plight of the East African Indians once British rule ended, such as life in Uganda [and Kenya]” (1131), het Brittanje verplig laat voel om die instroming van derduisende Indiër immigrante toe te laat.

    Dit verduidelik deels waarom die meeste plaaslike Indiërs nie die ANC-regime steun nie; des te meer omdat daar in vergelyking met swart swartes teen hulle gediskrimineer word. Eintlik word die multi-rassigheid en -kulturaliteit van die Suid-Afrikaanse bevolking in baie opsigte deur die ANC-regime misken. Daar word by voorkeur geregeer asof Suid-Afrika ‘n mono-rassige swart bevolking het. Sommige waarnemers sluit die voorkoms van volksmoord, bv in die geval van plaasaanvalle op blankes, veral Afrikaners, nie uit nie.

    Ras- en etniese kwessies kom opvallend min in die boek voor, behalwe: “Australian-born John Curtin, prime minister from 1941 to 1945, declared: ‘This nation will remain forever the home of sons of Britishness who came here in peace to establish an outpost of the British race. Our laws have proclaimed the standard of a White Australia … We intend to keep it, because we know it to be desirable.’ Also Australian-born, Harold Holt, the immigration minister from 1949 to 1956 (and prime minister in 1966-67), declared in 1950: ‘This is a British community, and we want to keep it a British community living under British standards and by the methods and ideals of British parliamentary democracy.’ Also Australian-born, Robert Menzies, prime minister from 1939 to 1941, and from 1949 to 1966, claimed, ‘A migrant from Britain to Australia is not lost to Britain; he merely serves the true interest of Britain in another part of the British empire’”(2129).

    “Close to 1.5 million Britons immigrated to Australia from 1947 to 1981. However, in contrast to the earlier dominance of immigration by Britons, notably as late as the 1970s, the principle groups of immigrants are now Asian. The same change has occurred with Canada with resulting shifts in notions of nationality and identity accordingly. By die 2010s, the quesion in Australia was rather that of competition between two informal empires, those of the United States and China. The British legacy remained, notably in institutions and in the family connections of many individuals, but was largely individual; there was pressure for an end to the link represented by a shared monarch, and a widespread belief that it would end after the death of Elizabeth II. So also, albeit not to the same extent, with New Zealand. Empire had passed and the imperial legacy has become much weaker” (2139).

    Ras is ook prominent in die hedendaagse vertolking van slawerny. Die blankes word as die skurke en die swartes as die enigste slagoffers voorgestel. In werklikheid was daar iets soos blanke slawerny, bv in Berberse (“Barbary”) Noord-Afrika (van die16de eeu tot die middel van die 18de eeu – kyk “Barbary slave trade” (Wikipedia). Die verslawing van blankes het ook in die Amerikas voorgekom. Byvoorbeeld: “Indentured labor … had been plentifully used in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,” toe baie blanke werkers na Noord-Amerika gestuur is (2475). “Although ‘white slavery’ existed in the British world, notably in the 1650s in Barbados, including for Irish prisoners, slavery, as a condition, was increasingly affected by racial attitudes. This approach served to preserve Englishness at the expense of Africans, who were the key labor supply for plantation agriculture; and, to a far more ambivalent extent, at the expense of Native Americans” (2448).

    Ná 1994 is die Maleisiese voorbeeld van rassediskriminasie telkens vir Suid-Afrika aanbeveel. “It is the Malaysian government, in its consistent affirmative action policies (in effect, positive discrimination [?]) towards the Muslim Malays, that has very much disadvantaged the native Chinese and Indian populations, both of whom did well under British rule” (2165). Van Suid-Afrika kan gesê word dat die blankes en Indiërs beter as die bruines en veral die swartes onder die Britse en latere blanke bewind gevaar het. Deesdae word veral die swartes deur die ANC-regime bevoordeel en veral die blankes, maar in toenemende mate ook die Asiate, brutaal benadeel. Rassediskriminasie was glo die groot euwel vóór 1994. Waarom is rassediskriminasie dan nie in die nuwe Suid-Afrika absoluut verbode nie? Dit is maar net nog ‘n opsig waarin die NP se grondwetlike onderhandelaars klaaglik misluk het. Die resultaat is ‘n mislukte staat met rommelstatus.

    Soos in Suid-Afrika word die koloniale verlede in polities onafhanklike lande sleg voorgestel of gerieflikheidshalwe aan die vergetelheid oorgelaat, sodat die era ná onafhanklikwording vergelykenderwys nie so sleg daaruit moet sien nie. “To visit … national museums is … instructive. Indeed, this is very much a case of amnesia. The impact of empire, and certainly of the British Empire, is underplayed, and notably so if the impact was in practice positive. The major extent of accommodation to empire also tends to be ignored. The theme, instead, is one of opposition and liberation. History, thereby, becomes both one-dimensional and adversarial” (2184).

    Die konstruksie van ‘n nuwe gedekoloniseerde nasie “inevitably come with nationalistic conceits” (2189). Dit is waarom die ANC-regime die aanvang van die geskiedenis van “ons nasie” op 1994 stel. Die gebeure vóór 1994 wat beklemtoon word, is hoe die swartes glo hulle kosbare bloed in hulle stryd teen die bose blankes opgeoffer het. Die bloed wat in swart-op-swart geweld gevloei het en steeds vloei, word doelbewus buite rekening gelaat. “The strength and villainy of [the imperial/colonial/white power] have to be inflated in order to enhance the value of overcoming it, and thus the inheritable and inherited virtue of this achievement” (2248). In hierdie proses word skurke, bv moordenaars en terroriste, as helde opgehemel. Suid-Afrika het talle voorbeelde hiervan opgelewer.

    Teen die einde van die boek kom Black by die weerslag van imperialisme en kolonialisme uit. “There is also major change in Britain as a consequence of demographic transformation” (3168). Pleks van sy tradisioneel redelik kultureel-homogene bevolking sit die Britte deesdae met snel goeiende etniese minderheidsgroepe. “The rise in ‘New’ Commonwealth immigration, from the arrival of West Indians on the Empire Windrush in 1948, meant empire ‘coming home’ in ways which certain politicians (and some of their constituents) found distinctly troubling. The British Nationality Act of 1948 gave citizenship of the UK and Colonies to all people living in either, and the right of entry and settlement in the UK” (3018).

    Die probleme wat vir Brittanje hieruit voortgespruit het, is aanvanklik deur die meeste Britte en veral die politici en joernaliste ontken of verswyg. Mettertyd is al hoe meer tot die besef gekom dat die tradisionele Britse kultuur groot skade ly; skade wat voorkombaar was. Baie politici is steeds lugtig om die situasie openlik aan te spreek. Daar is darem bv ‘n 2009-verhoogstuk van Richard Bean (gebore in 1956), England People Very Nice (3023), wat uitgesproke oor die inkommers is, bv “accusing the Bangladeshis of being ‘curried monkeys’” (3028). Dit is duidelik dat daar groter uitdrukkingsvryheid in Brittanje as in die nuwe Suid-Afrika is. “The prospect of the Thames running ‘with blood’ is frequently mentioned in the play. The ability of England to cope with its diversity is left unclear, but room for optimism is limited” (3028). Die verwysing is na Enoch Powell (1912-1998) se beroemde/berugte 1968 “Rivers of Blood”-toespraak.

  • Leon Lemmer: ‘n Swart Amerikaner oor swart Afrika

    Leon Lemmer: ‘n Swart Amerikaner oor swart Afrika

    Keith B Richburg (gebore in 1958) het ‘n boek oor swart Afrika geskryf: Out of America: A black man confronts Africa (New York: Basic Books, 1997, 272p; Amazon Kindle $9.44). In een van die kommentare staan: “What sets the book apart is Richburg’s bitter repudiation of Afrocentrism” (Kindle 23). Wat hy teen mekaar opweeg, is enersyds sy slawe- en ras-oorsprong as swart Afrikaan en andersyds sy kulturele identiteit as swart Amerikaner. Hy was ‘n bietjie langer as drie jaar, vanaf die einde van 1991 tot die einde van 1994, as joernalis in Nairobi, Kenia, gestasioneer as die Afrika-korrespondent van The Washington Post. Hierdie koerant en The New York Times is berug vir hulle uiters linkse verslagdoening, bv deesdae oor Donald Trump. Plaaslik doen die Daily Maverick dieselfde. Voordat Richburg na Afrika is, was hy van 1986 tot 1990 die Post se korrespondent in Suidoos-Asië. Hy was veel meer beïndruk met Asië as met swart Afrika. “Like Africa, most Asian countries only achieved true independence in the postwar years; unlike the Africans, the Asians knew what to do with it” (3163). “Almost all of the Southeastern Asian countries had risen from poverty to relative prosperity” (3129). Sy boek handel by uitstek oor swart Afrika; nie Moslem Noord-Afrika nie. In 2013 het Richburg uit die diens van die Post getree en hom in 2016 as dosent in Hong Kong gevestig.

    Richburg het in Detroit in ‘n rasgemengde woonbuurt grootgeword (369) maar met die voordeel dat hy skole bygewoon het wat oorwegend blank was (375). Hy was van vroeg in sy lewe af bewus van die verskil in lewenswyse van blankes en swartes.

    “One-third of all young black men in their twenties are in prison, on probation, or on parole. Drugs are ravaging the black community” (219).

    In 1967 was daar swart gewelddadigheid in Detroit “with more than forty people killed and much of the inner city, the shops and stores I knew, burned to the ground” (399). Pleks van skaam te wees oor hulle skandalige en misdadige gedrag, “Negroes began referring to themselves as black, not as a term of derision but with pride” (423). Hulle het hardegat en uittartend demonstratief geword. “There was the Black Power clenched-fist salute” (430), wat plaaslik deur die groot versoener en vredesikoon, Nelson Mandela, aan almal opgedring is, terwyl PW Botha nie eens sy wysvinger mag gebruik nie. “The new hair trend was called the ‘Natural’ or the ‘Afro’” (430). “All of this was part of Detroit changing rapidly from a white city to a black one” (436). Richburg se woonbuurt het ‘n “rundown neighborhood” geword (454). Hierop volg “the declining state of the city schools” (442), insluitende die Katolieke laerskool wat Richburg bygewoon het. Richburg se ouers “knew what was best” (442), gevolglik het hulle hom by ‘n oorwegend blanke hoërskool in een van die voorstede ingeskryf (448). Nie dat hy swart gewelddadigheid daarmee heeltemal ontwyk het nie, bv “Here’s a bunch of black kids smashing the windows of their school bus. This is how black folks in the ghetto behaved” (473).

    Hierna was Richburg ‘n student aan die University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (473) waar hy met swart mag kennis gemaak het, bv “divestiture of school [university] stocks and holdings from companies that continued to do business with the racist regime in South Africa” (478). Pleks van rasse-integrasie, wat destyds deur die Amerikaanse owerheid opgedring is, het die polities aktivistiese swartes “voluntary resegregation” verkies. “We want to be equal, but separate” (483). “My view is that separation is the wrong approach, that we need instead to go back to the original idea of America as a melting pot and create a society that’s truly color-blind, not carved up into racial and ethnic duchies” (4265). Richburg was aktief by die kampuskoerant, die Michigan Daily, betrokke (489). Blanke politici soos John Vorster en Ian Smith is veroordeel (494). “I remember writing editorials … denouncing the racist regime in Pretoria and demanding the university divest itself of stocks in companies that failed to adopt the Sullivan Principles. From the time I had first developed a political consciousness, South Africa had loomed as the world’s last great morality play, a noble struggle between good and evil, black and white” (3718).

    In 2009 het Richburg ‘n nuwe voorwoord by sy boek gevoeg. Hy het Afrika in 2006 vir ‘n kort tydjie herbesoek. Die vernaamste verandering sedert 1994 wat opgemerk het, is van tegnolgiese aard, naamlik die rol wat selfone en die internet deesdae in Afrika speel (76). Ook “China’s growing footprint” (81). Maar “there is still too much that is sadly similar” (81), bv “the grinding poverty” (87). Daar is steeds die hemelhoë geboortesyfers, droogte, hongersnood (93) en epidemies (133), asook MIV-vigs en buitensporig baie kindersterftes (98). “Democracy seems to have to take two steps backward for every step forward … Of the forty-eight countries south of the Sahara, only a dozen ranked as free” (98). Hy verwys bv na die tienduisende wat in Darfur, in die Soedan, gedood is en “Somalia remains a lawless place” (115). “Of course Zimbabwe today has fallen down the abyss” (126). Dit is nie dat daar niks goeds in swart Afrika is nie, “but even with all the good I’ve found here, my perceptions have been hopelessly shewed by the bad” (230).

    Rwanda

    Richburg begin sy vertelling oor Afrika met hoe hy gesien het hoe lyke in die Kagera-rivier uit Rwanda na Tanzanië en die Victoria-meer spoel. Dit was Tutsi’s wat deur Hutu’s vermoor is. Die Tutsi’s het hulle oorsprong in die Nyl-gebied en het smal neuse. Die Hutu’s is Bantoes met breë, plat neuse (159). Die derde en kleinste etniese groep, die Twa, is pigmeë, wat die oorspronklike inwoners is. Die Tutsi’s is ‘n minderheidsgroep wat hulle in die 15de eeu, ná die Hutu’s, in Rwanda gevestig het (1940). Hulle het die Hutu’s, met die ondersteuning van België as die koloniale moondheid, baie lank gedomineer. Die Hutu’s “were reduced to little more than feudal servants” (1946), totdat politieke onafhanklikheid in 1962 verkry is.

    België het ná die Eerste Wêreldoorlog die koloniale beheer van Rwanda en Burundi by Duitsland oorgeneem. “The Belgian colonizers were never very interested in the area now comprising Rwanda and Burundi; their main interest was the mineral-rich Belgian Congo to the West. So they decided to rule indirectly, using the Tutsi as their local administrators to collect taxes, settle disputes, and otherwise act as enforcers of the Belgian king’s sovereignty. And the missionaries came, too, similarly relying on the Tutsi as the area’s natural rulers, providing them with education and training that was denied the Hutu” (1946).

    In Burundi het die Tutsi’s (14% van die bevolking) die Hutu’s langer bly oorheers (1962). Ná die volksmoord in Rwanda het daar minder as 10% Tutsi’s in die bevolking oorgebly. ‘n Sendeling het gesê: “There are no devils left in Hell. They are all in Rwanda” (1721). “The country has reverted to prehistoric times … Could these be fully evolved humans carrying clubs and machetes and panga knives and smashing in their neighbors’ skulls and chopping off their limbs, and piling up the legs in one pile, and the arms in another, and lumping the bodies all together and sometimes forcing new victims to sit atop the heap while they clubbed them to death too?” (1743). “They would carve off your arm first and watch you bleed and scream in pain. Then, if you didn’t pass out, they would chop off one of your legs, or maybe just a foot. If you were lucky, they might finish you off with a machete blow to the back of the head. Otherwise, they might carve off your ears, your nose, and toss your limbless torso atop the pile of dead bodies, where you could slowly bleed to death” (1827). “I realized, fully evolved human beings in the twentieth century don’t do things like that. Not for any reason, not tribe, not religion, not territory. These must be cavemen” (1743). “I … found it hard at first to believe the scope of the horror” (1832).

    “The violence, the death, was up close and personal, and unprecedented on the scale of savagery” (1827). “Estimates range as high as a million people killed; at the very least … there were hundreds of thousands, Tutsi mainly, but also an untold number of Hutu ‘sympathizers’. The Khmer Rouge [Pol Pot, Cambodia, 1975-1979] killed more perhaps, but it took them three and a half years, and most of their victims died from starvation, disease, and forced labor. The Hutu militia accomplished as much in three months, using decidedly more low-tech methods of extermination” (1872). Toe die Tutsi’s terugslaan, het 250 000 Hutu’s binne 24 uur oor ‘n smal brug na Tanzanië gevlug. “One of the largest mass movements on a single day in recorded history” (1918). “This truly is, at this moment, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” (1923). “These are the Hutu, forced to flee Rwanda as the Tutsi rebels advanced and as the evidence of the Hutu’s atrocities was revealed” (1929).

    Swart Afrika

    Oor sy verblyf in Afrika skryf Richburg: “Three years of watching pretty much the worst that human beings can do to one another. And three years of watching bodies, if not floating down the river in Tanzania, then stacked up like firewood in the refugee camps of Zaire, waiting to be dumped into a mass pit” (165). Wat Richburg onder meer hinder, is die naamloosheid van hierdie proses. Anders as in Westerse lande word daar geen poging aangewend om vas te stel wie dood is nie. “This is what I find the most difficult to accept and comprehend. It’s not the death itself, although that is bad enough. It’s the anonymity of death in Africa, the anonymity of mass death” (1900). Daar is selfs nie eens belangstelling in hoeveel mense dood is nie. “When the bodies were black and African, no one would bother trying to count” (1552).

    “Is life so tenuous here that death scarcely matters?” (1900). “This is Africa. These are just bodies dumped into a river. Hundreds. Thousands. No one will ever count. No one will ever try to check an identity, contact a family, find out which limb was severed. Because this is Africa, and they don’t count the bodies in Africa” (1895). Hulle “died senselessly on this senseless continent” (2824). Dit geld ook “the bodies lying unburied along the roadsides in Somalia, people dropping dead of starvation as they tried to make it just a few more miles into town where the foreign-aid agencies were handling out free food” (170). Dit is seker ook waarom die plaaslike amptelike statistiek oor plaasmoorde so onbetroubaar is. Dit is glo maar net nog gewone misdaad waarvoor die ANC-regime nie die vermoë (en wil) het om doeltreffend teen op te tree nie.

    Ten spyte van al die bravade by polities onafhanklike Afrika-lande is baie van hulle diep afhanklik van die humanitêre hulp wat Westerse lande in die vorm van bv kos, gesondheidsdienste en geld verleen, al word daar amptelik weinig erkenning hieraan gegee, om van dankbaarheid nie te praat nie. By Richburg is daar “pity at the monumental waste of human life” (176), maar hy besef mettertyd in sy gemoed, namate “the insanity of Africa deepened” (176), dat hy met ‘n bodemlose put* van ellende te make het, onder meer weens “the countless ongoing civil wars or tribal clashes on this brutal continent” (194). Dit is nie dat ‘n mens Afrikane onmenslik benader nie. Dit is dat die tydsduur, diepte en omvang van die ellende jou op moedverloor se vlakte laat. Politieke onafhanklikheid het glad nie ekonomiese onafhanklikheid vir die lande in swart Afrika meegebring nie; eerder ekonomiese agteruitgang en groter afhanklikheid van blanke lande se barmhartigheid/goedertierenheid.

    [* Genoem “hellhole” (1116, 2184, 3873) of “shithole” (853) – dit is nie net Donald Trump se woord nie.]

    Kenia

    Oor Kenia skryf Richburg van die “new Mercedes and BMW’s, the symbol of Kenya’s corrupt class” (325), “their turn at the trough” (645) – dus soortgelyk aan die nuwe Suid-Afrika. “Corruption is the cancer eating at the heart of the African state” (3174). Soos sommige swart Afrikane is hy agterdogtig ingestel teenoor die “shady-looking Indian shopkeepers” (331). Hy skryf van “the handful of sleazy bars where reporters rubbed elbows with aid workers and UN bureaucrats and crazy white expat pilots and assorted adventurers out here for the cold Tusker beers and the easy African women … For reporters, Nairobi was the perfect ringside seat to Africa’s chaos” (347).

    “Race was never far from the surface of any discussion in Kenya” (671), bv “tribal massacres” (695). “If there was one thing I learned traveling around Africa, it was that the tribe remains the defining feature of almost every African society … Even in the supposedly more sophisticated or developed countries like Kenya, thirty years of independence and ‘nation building’ had still failed to create any real sense of national identity that could transcend the tribe” (1978). “In Africa, you belong to a tribe; without a tribe, you don’t belong” (2089). Maar dan is daar ‘n oorverligte studeerkamer-ideoloog soos Herman Wasserman wat beweer dat ‘n mens nie meer van stam mag praat nie. Dit is glo verouderd en onvanpas (Praag 5.10.2019). Na diesulkes verwys Richburg as “the Africanists and Western academics for whom the very term ‘tribe’ is anathema. The preferred term is ‘ethnic group’” (1990). “Pluralism encourages people to seek protective refuge in their familiar tribal units” (1996). Hoekom nie? Wanneer Afrikaners ter wille van hulle selfbehoud hulle etnisiteit as iets waardevols/heilig probeer verskans, word hulle uitgekryt omdat hulle glo laer trek. Is dit nie juis laer trek wat histories die behoud van baie Afrikanerlewens verseker het nie?

    “Another thing I learned from traveling around Africa is that the notion of skin colour, facial features, and the sense of attractiveness and identity are also very real, and in many ways closely related to tribe” (2002). Dit is bv nie moontlik om die volksmoord in Rwanda te verstaan sonder verwysing na die verskil in voorkoms van die Tutsi’s and Hutu’s nie. “With their narrow noses and sharp features, the Tutsi were considered the more physically attractive tribe, even long after they had lost political power in Hutu-controlled Rwanda. Even with growing wealth and power, what the Hutu really aspired to was to look like a Tutsi, to actually become a Tutsi. There were even earlier provisions for it in law; a Hutu with enough wealth could literally go to the local government office and apply to be reclassified as a Tutsi. The modern version of the same was for a Hutu who had obtained a measure of wealth and status to immediately marry a Tutsi woman” (2026).

    Maar ook hier speel skynheiligheid ‘n groot rol. Donald Trump se hare word by menige bespreking van hom aan die hare bygesleep. Maar Barack Obama se hare mog nooit ‘n onderwerp van bespreking wees nie; om van spot nie te praat nie. “I know men who will go out with a woman just because she’s light-skinned” (2020). Vóór 1994 wou Suid-Afrikaanse bruin mense graag blank wees. Ter eie bevoordeling noem baie van hulle hulleself deesdae (generies) swart. Maar diegene met ‘n ligte vel was (en is waarskynlik steeds) meer gewild as huweliksmaats as diegene met ‘n donker vel. Jonathan Jansen het met ‘n vrou met ‘n ligte vel, wat as bruin geklassifiseer is, getrou. Vir sy skoonpa was die donker Jansen egter glad nie as skoonseun aanvaarbaar nie (Praag 31.03.2018). Gaan gerus na hoeveel van die plaaslike nie-blanke politici met blankes getroud is. Blankes word deesdae, bv in ANC-geledere, as absoluut sleg verguis, maar hulle voortreflikheid word in die praktyk, ten minste in die huwelikskonteks, sonder meer aanvaar. Wat by implikasie erken word, is dat blankes die norm is waarna swart en bruin mense streef, al hoor ‘n mens dikwels ‘n slagspreuk soos “Black is beautiful” maar nooit “Blank is bakgat” nie.

    In Kenia het Richburg by sy werk ‘n swart assistent, George, gehad. “I realized that George and I were talking across a great cultural divide. I could never understand his world. I was thirty-four years old, never married, and had no children. George, a couple years younger than I, had three wives and at least eight kids … He … felt that since I was the boss, I had an obligation to help him” (778). “When a family member got sick, the patron, the boss, was expected to pay the medical bill. At school time, the boss helped out for the school fees, the books, the new clothes for the kids. When a parent died, the boss pitched in to help pay for the funeral. That’s just the way it was in Africa” (785). “This gap was too wide between the Africans and myself, and I found that no matter how hard I tried, I could never cross it” (1427).

    Richburg het vir sy huurhuis ‘n swart huishouer en kok, Hezekiah, in diens gehad. “Hezekiah lived in a little one-room shack behind the kitchen … I never set foot inside Hesekiah’s little cabin” (790). As blankes dieselfde as Richburg doen, word hulle gekritiseer. Hy het ook ‘n swart tuinhulp, Reuben, “who walked to work each morning” (795), gehad. “He also substituted as my messenger and all-round helper” (795). Misdaad is endemies in Nairobi/Kenia, bv inbrake en motorskakings. “I … was living sheltered and shielded from Africa and from Africans because I couldn’t see them across the great cultural divide. I was also afraid of them. My house was protected by an alarm system connected to a security company, two large dogs … and a rotating group of security guards who stood by the gate, sleeping mostly it seemed, every evening and all day on weekends” (829).

    Oor ‘n (blanke) amptenaar in die Amerikaanse ambassade in Nairobi skryf Richburg: “Her house in Nairobi had been burglarized five times, so she had an electric fence installed. ‘When they put up the electric fence, I told them to put in enough volts to barbecue anybody who came over,’ she said. But the fence didn’t help – the break-ins continued. So she went to the local police station, and the police agreed to post two guards on her property. And then the police guards posted there began demanding she pay them extra money for their services. ‘I’ve gotten to the point where I’m more afraid not to give them money,’ she said. ‘They’re sitting outside with automatic weapons.’ Finally, she had a higher fence, ten feet high, built around her grounds. And when I met her, she had become so exasperated that she told me, ‘I’m ready to sit outside myself with an AK-47′” (2840).

    Somalië

    Mogadishu was eens Somalië se pragtige hoofstad aan die see, “the White Pearl of the Indian Ocean”, maar groot dele daarvan is tydens die burgeroorlog (1991-2012) in puin gelê. Hierdie oorlog is aanvanklik deur Ethiopië opgestook. Toe Richburg daar was, was Somalië “a nation in melt-down” (1053). Vroeg in 1992 is daar reeds 5000 in Mogadishu gedood. “Hospitals … were reporting hundreds of casualities each day” (1059). Dit was moeilik om noodvoorraad in te bring “because the airport and port were under regular bombardment” (1065). “Food was becoming scarce. The rival armies had crisscrossed Somalia’s heartland and pretty much destroyed everything in their wake. Livestock was either looted or killed. Crops were burned” (1092) – soos die Britte se beleid van verskroeide aarde tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog. Hongersnood het uitgebreek en Somalië het een van die “hellholes of human suffering” geword (1116). Dit is waarom so baie Somaliese inkommers hulle in die naburige Kenia maar ook in Suid-Afrika, met sy vrot grensbeheer, gevestig het. “Dumping food into a country without a government or police force was only heightening the lawlessness” (1167). “That was Somalia – no demand too outrageous, no situation too absurd. Famine and starvation had become a growth industry, and relief agencies, including the UN, were the money tree” (1178). Mogadishu had degenerated to an urban jungle” (1183). “No one ever calculated what you do next if the people you come to help have no interest in being saved” (1512).

    “Not a section of the city was untouched by the devastation of the civil war” (892); eintlik ‘n “un-civil war”. “The old downtown section of the city was largely reduced to rubble … What was left untouched by the shells and the bullets usually got ripped apart by the successive waves of looters and scavengers, for whom anything – a piece of scrap metal, a pipe, electrical cable – might eventually be bartered for a piece of meat or a handful of rice” (896). “When you stepped off a plane in Mogadishu, a horde of young kids … instantly surrounded you and the plane, leveling their AK-47 assault weapons and grenade launchers at your chest … They demanded what often amounted to hundreds of dollars in bribes – landing fee, airport tax, baggage handling fee, security for the plane, even ‘entry’ fee into the country. And you paid, willingly” (915). “A hundred-dollar bill pulled out at the right time could keep you from getting killed when a dispute over costs turned heated. But display too much cash all at once, and you could get killed anyway” (920). “With little in the city left to loot, the militia gunmen discovered a new occupation, which might best be called ‘escort duty’, or security service for visiting foreigners like me. To leave the gates of the airport, you needed armed protection or you probably wouldn’t make it more than a block – particularly if you were carrying a backpack laden with water and food in a city with basically nothing. So I hired my own armed guards, and I learned how to negotiate the daily fee with gunmen holding assault weapons at my head. Typically, the fee was a hundred-dollar bill for a car and a couple of gunmen for the day” (920). “Stealing cameras and then ransoming them back to TV camera crews became something of a cottage industry in Mogadishu” (953).

    Black Americans

    “Weird things seem to happen to a lot of American black leaders when they venture into Africa. They go through a bizarre kind of metamorphosis when they set foot on the continent of their ancestors. Some of the most prominent veterans of America’s civil rights wars – articulate advocates for human rights and basic freedoms for black people in America – seem to enter a kind of moral and intellectual black box when they get to Africa. Dictators are hailed as statesmen, unrepresentative governments are deemed democratic, corrupt regimes are praised for having fought off colonialism and brought about ‘development’. Black Americans were most vocally at the forefront of calls for immediate democratic reform in South Africa, but when the subject turns to the lack of democracy and human rights elsewhere in Africa, those same black Americans become defensive, nervous, and inarticulate. They offer tortured explanation as to why America shouldn’t criticize Africa, why America shouldn’t impose its standards [and boycotts], and why reform must not be immediate but gradual, step by step. It’s as if repression comes only in white” (2590). Die kern van die saak is dat ons hier met dubbele standaarde gegrond op swart rassisme te make het; dat ‘n swart regering nie aan dieselfde hoë standaarde as ‘n blanke regering hoef te voldoen nie.

    Ook: “There is a sensitivity about publicly criticizing the black leadership of independent black countries. There is a sense, rightly or wrongly, that a measure of our self-esteem as a black race in America is somehow tied to the success or failure of independent black governments running their own shows in Africa” (2636). “There was an element of not attacking your own brothers” (2641). Die ANC sou byvoeg: “and sisters”. Maar wat ook afkeurenswaardig is, is met hoeveel oorgawe linkse blankes mede-blankes oor allerhande dinge kritiseer, veral die “(ver) regses”, maar in gebreke bly om swartes te kritiseer. Van swartes mag daar sekerlik verwag word dat ook hulle op standaard moet wees. “Blacks who assume prominent leadership positions in America [and elsewhere] should expect a closer kind of scrutiny; they should pay their taxes on time, they should keep their pants zipped, they should keep their hands out of the public treasury, and they shouldn’t smoke crack, precisely because they are role models for the black community. White politicians are held to these standards” (2675). Van swartes kan en moet dieselfde verwag word. As dit nie gedoen word nie, is dit op die gevaar af dat ‘n geweldenaar/terroris tot ‘n rolmodel verhef word, bv asof hy ‘n vredesikoon en versoener is. “Africa has consistently been held to a double standard, an ‘African standard’” (3270).

    “It’s what really hit me about Africa, not the Somalias or the Rwandas or the Liberias, because in many ways, those are the exceptions, the basket cases, the places where somebody flipped the switch. No, the real story occurs in the places you never really read much about, but where I spent a lot of time – Zaire and Kenya, Cameroon and Gabon, and the gaint of them all, Nigeria. These are the places where every day, with each new interview, I found a new and disheartening tale of some brave and anonymous African … who was trying his best and paying the price. I saw their courage and their self-sacrifice and it ripped my heart out, I mean it really touched my soul. But in the end it was just plain depressing, because deep down I knew that in Africa it’s all too rare for such struggles to end in victory. In Africa, the good guys don’t win” (3039), bv die Afrikaners. Of: “But this is Africa, and the good guys rarely win in Africa” (3480). Maar dan beweer Richburg waaragtig oor die nuwe Suid-Afrika: “For once, the good guys finally did win” (3497). Maar selfs Richburg behoort twyfel te hê oor hoe lank die goeie ANC goed gaan bly. “I knew already that Africa has a way of brutally burying almost all optimistic predictions and scenarios” (4020). Ek het swak moed vir Richburg se kennis en insig gekry, toe hy oor Nelson Mandela skryf: “unjustly tried and convicted” (3468). Daarmee spreek hy nie sy ontevredenheid uit omdat Mandela nie ter dood veroordeel is nie. Hy wou eerder hê dat Mandela toegelaat moes word om skotvry met sy terrorisme voort te gaan.

    Suid-Afrika

    Dit lyk asof Richburg in baie opsigte ‘n gesonde insig het in hoedanig swart Afrika is. Die lakmoestoets is egter sy siening van Suid-Afrika, omdat ons daarvan beter eerstehandse kennis as hy as besoekende joernalis dra. In die voorlaaste hoofstuk kom Suid-Afrika aan die beurt. “I traveled to South Africa four times – twice before the 1994 elections … and twice afterward” (3575). “On one level, South Africa was the one place on the continent that looked and smelled most like home, like America” (3575). Dít is natuurlik aan die blankes te danke, maar met sodanige erkenning kom Richburg nooit vorendag nie.

    In Suid-Afrika sal toestande vorentoe ook nie so gunstig bly nie: “As much as white South Africa has tried to insulate itself, it doesn’t take long for Africa to intrude” (3585). Die land was toe reeds besig om van ‘n welvarende, Westers-georiënteerde land tot ‘n tipiese vervalle Afrikaland te transformeer. Vir die blankes se verset hierteen en vir hulle regverdigbare vrese toon Richburg geen begrip nie. Maar hy het groot begrip vir sy mede-swartes se woede: “Black rage was understandable enough – it was the rage of being subjected to humiliating repression in their own country, a rage built up after decades of enduring a codified, legalized system of racial segregation” (4729). En die blankes se griewe en woede oor blatante rassediskriminasie in die nuwe Suid-Afrika? Dit word nie eens êrens deur Richburg genoem nie.

    Die buitensporige misdadigheid van swartes word goedgepraat. “Crime against whites was just retribution” (3792). Pleks van die misdadigers te veroordeel, kry apartheid, “one of history’s greatest evils” (3844), die skuld vir misdaad. “There were, of course, lots of reasons for this sudden surge of crime into white neighborhoods, most of them rooted in the legacy of apartheid and the aftermath of the evil system’s collapse” (3786). “I also came to see the rising tide of black crime as a kind of expression of rage, a righting of the past wrong of apartheid. In fact, what I found difficult to understand was how such justifiable rage had been contained as well as it had, why hordes of blacks were not swarming over the northern suburbs [of Johannesburg] meting out bloody vengeance against every white family with a swimming pool and an electric fence” (3735). Richburg is glad nie verontrus oor plaasmoorde nie. Die naaste wat hy aan ‘n verwysing hierna kom, is hierdie eienaardige sin: “There were a spate of home killings, white farmers going home at the end of the day, killing their entire families, then turning their guns on themselves” (3825).

    “The ‘real’ Africa, the Africa I had seen further north, was closing in fast on their [whites’] insulated little world” (3631). Richburg openbaar ‘n mislike houding teenoor die plaaslike blankes, wat met groot opoffering en toewyding voorspoed vir baie inwoners (insluitende nieblankes) gebring het. Almal kon bv baat by die uitstekende en dikwels gratis gesondheidsdienste. Maar Richburg borduur bevooroordeeld voort: “In South Africa, they still tried to retain some pretense of Western sensibilities and values; in South Africa, they were still counting the bodies” (3631). By die plaaslike blankes is Europese/Westerse beskawing in werklikheid nie pretensie nie. Dit is ingebed in die weefsel van die blankes se gees. Dit is waarom hulle gepoog het om hulle van die afgryslikhede van Afrika te isoleer.

    Hy vertel dat hy eerder ‘n “good reporter” as ‘n “black reporter” wil wees (3563). “As a reporter, of course, we’re supposed to be neutral” (3569). “Was there any doubt, really, which side I would be on [in South Africa]?” (3575). Nee. Richburg se solidariteit met die plaaslike swartes is deurlopend duidelik. Hy is deurweek met die swart mag propaganda wat hy van vroeg af in Amerika ingekry het en met die ANC-propaganda wat die Amerikaanse inligtingsmedia, soos sy koerant, The Washington Post, deurlopend uitdra. Die swartes se (relatief) prestasielose verlede (en hede) word aan apartheid toegeskryf: Vóór 1994 aan die toepassing van apartheid en ná 1994 aan die nalatenskap van apartheid; presies soos die ANC ook doen. Die vraag kan egter gestel word: Waarom het veral die Asiate, bv Indiërs, wat in dieselfde mate as die swartes aan apartheid onderhewig was, soveel beter as hulle presteer, bv finansieel/ekonomies? Die Asiate doen dit steeds; dermate dat daar al hoe meer oproepe opklink dat daar teen Asiate in dieselfde mate as teen blankes gediskrimineer moet word. Dui dit op die eendersheid of die verskillendheid/andersheid van mense, individueel en groepsgewys?

    Richburg aanvaar bv sonder meer dat daar ‘n derde mag was (die NP-regering se veiligheidsmagte, dus die polisie en weermag), wat saam met Inkatha geweld teen ANC-ondersteuners gepleeg het (3596). Die blankes “covertly ochestrating a decade-long dirty war between Inkatha and the ANC” (3697, ook 3792). “There was already ample evidence that the police involvement was more direct than simple funding, like actually planning attacks, providing the weapons, even using official vehicles to shuttle IFP attackers to the site of their attacks. Thousands were being killed in the campaign of violence, and the country appeared for a while to be sliding into a civil war – and all [!] because of the crazy white extremists who’d just as soon see the place collapse as turn over power to Nelson Mandela” (3702).

    Die gedagte kom skynbaar nooit by Richburg op nie dat die ANC geweier het om geweld af te sweer en dat die ANC onder die leiding van Mandela deurlopend en op groot skaal intimidasie en geweld pleeg ten einde die meerderheid swart kiesers te dwing om in die 1994-verkiesing vir hom te stem. Mandela en sy kornuite wou ten alle koste die 1994-verkiesing wen. Dit het vir hulle nie saak gemaak as die land met die oog hierop tot in die grond afgebreek word of hoeveel mense gedood word nie. Maar Richburg beweer: “The ANC with Mandela at the helm was [morally] head and shoulders above the rest” (4004).

    Wat Richburg begeer, is solidariteit/eensgesindheid by sy swart broers en susters. “Hating the Inkatha party and its leader, Buthelezi, for allowing himself to become a willing stooge of the evil regime” (3856). “Could they [the blacks] not unite behind a common enemy [the whites], at least bury their differences for the short term, until the ultimate goal – the end of white minority rule – was fully realized?” (3713). “In South Africa, blacks killing blacks became the sideshow to the main event: the epic struggle of good [blacks] against evil [whites]” (3850). “A black country falling apart under a black government is still better than blacks in Africa living under white repression” (3901). Is dit nie rassisme in sy suiwerste vorm nie?

    Richburg se uiters bevooroordeelde siening van die polisiediens, wat toe onder blanke leiding was, is: “The South African Police … had to be one of the world’s most incompetent when it came to detective work or rudimentry crime-solving. For years, the SAP was mainly a tool of antiblack repression, and as a result, the officers and recruits had little training in even the basics of police work” (3613). “Under the white minority regime, crime, as long as it was confined to black townships, was rarely, if ever[!], investigated” (3770).

    My maak asof die polisie hulle voorheen met bv die bekamping van pasboekoortredings besig gehou het en noudat hierdie stelsel afgeskaf is, is die polisie nie toegerus om misdaad te bestry nie (3613). In werklikheid het die ou Suid-Afrika ‘n doeltreffende polisiediens en uitstekend opgeleide polisiemanne gehad. Daarom was misdaad goed onder beheer. Richman kan gerus nagaan in hoe ‘n mate polisiepersoneel deesdae behoorlik opgelei word, in hoeverre hulle doeltreffend funksioneer, hoe hoog die misdaadvlakke is en hoe ANC-kamerade, selfs sonder basiese formele polisiëringsopleiding, in topposte aangestel word.

    Richburg vestig die aandag op ‘n belangrike verskil tussen Amerika en Suid-Afrika: Die meerderheid kiesers in Amerika is blank, gevolglik kan regte, soos stemreg, aan die swartes toegestaan word sonder dat die blankes politieke beheer oor die land verloor. In die geval van Suid-Afrika is die blankes ‘n minderheid en beteken een mens, een stem, dat politieke beheer aan die swartes afgestaan word (3636). Dit is uiteraard iets waartoe die meeste blankes nooit sou instem nie, maar hulle is deur FW de Klerk, Roelf Meyer en diesulkes uit hulle toekoms verneuk. Maar dit word uiteraard deur Richburg verswyg.

    Sy tipiese swart perspektief is: “The two countries shared a similar history of white racial oppression and legal discrimination against blacks” (3636) en “Trying to understand white attitudes, to really discern the roots of the racism – maybe to find some parallels to the United States – became a matter of intense interest to me … How could a white person living in Africa hate black people? And if he did hate black people, why the hell would he live on a black continent?” (3642). Van die feit dat stemreg aanvanklik nie aan swartes toegeken is nie, maak Richburg die sprong na haat. Dit is soortgelyk aan die dwase veronderstelling dat almal wat teen onwettige inkommers gekant is, hulle noodwendig haat. Albei gevalle kan as bloot ongewens deur blankes beskou word, sonder dat daar noodwendig enige haat by betrokke is.

    Myns insiens was die meeste plaaslike blankes in 1990/94 teen swart meerderheidsregering gekant. Ná verloop van ‘n kwarteeu van ondoeltreffende, korrupte swart regering is die blankes meer as ooit oortuig dat in belang van die land en al sy inwoners hulle eerder die politieke beheer moes behou het. Dan sou daar geen sprake van bv rommelstatus en Suid-Afrika as die onveiligste en misdadigste land op die aardbol gewees het nie. Pleks van hieroor te besin, verwys Richburg na die blanke bewind as “a system as brutal as apartheid” (3647) en wei hy uit oor blanke rassisme. Hy gee nooit enige aanduiding dat daar iets soos swart rassisme is nie; iets waarvan hy baie gou bewus sou word as hy die wetgewing nagaan wat die ANC-regime sedert 1994 deurgevoer het.

    Richburg hou van die swart bewind in die nuwe Suid-Afrika. Hy lewer hoegenaamd geen kritiek daarop nie. Hy verwys ook met genoegdoening na die blanke Rhodesiërs wat die Mugabe-bewind in Zimbabwe ontvlug het: “The white killers were Rhodesian transplants who had moved to this frontier holdout of white racism [the old South Africa] as their own country joined the ranks of black-run states. South Africa had become the final bastion for all the white racists of the world, the supremacist scum who had descended here from points farther north on the map as country after country underwent the change from white colonial domination to black rule” (3658). Die ironie is dat Richburg op grond van eerstehandse waarneming weet dat ‘n swart politieke bewind in baie (moontlik die meeste) gevalle nie ‘n goeie ding is nie.

    Richburg se strategie is duidelik. Hy het die tekortkominge van en ellende in swart Afrika uitgewys. Hy weet dat sy gevolgtrekkings hom veral onder die swartes in Amerika ongewild sal maak. Om te toon dat hy homself nie aan bewondering vir blanke prestasies uitverkoop het nie, sorg hy dat die blanke Suid-Afrikaners dit moet ontgeld deur hulle vir ongebreidelde slegsê uit te sonder. Hy vertel met smaak hoe die wit rassiste uit Rhodesië gevlug het, bv na Australië en Nieu-Seeland; maar ook na Suid-Afrika, “where their backs were now to the ocean and where they decided to stake out what must truly be the final stand of the white man in Africa” (3664). Dan oortref hy homself met hierdie verbeeldingsvlug: “And there they were joined by an unsavory collection of Eastern European fascists, racists, Nazis and skinheads all huddled there together on the southernmost tip of the world’s black continent, with Africa encroaching on their protected white universe more and more each day” (3664). Richburg is voorouers was slawe, maar hy was nog nie in staat om homself te bevry van die kettings van vooroordeel nie.

    Die skrywer van so iets kan nie ‘n goeie joernalis wees nie. Hy is onmiskenbaar ‘n swart joernalis. Hy is, in sy woorde: “A black American in the last bastion of white supremacy [in Africa]. These are the world’s craziest white people” (3669). “I really did think South Africans were all [?] crazy. Here they had built the most modern, best developed country on the continent, and now the white extremists seemed pretty hell-bent on destroying the whole thing, simply because in their blind racism they couldn’t stomach the inevitability of black majority rule” (3697). “And now those same simpleminded racists were smugly pointing to the black-on-black violence as proof-positive of their self-fullfilling prophecy that black rule would mean a slide to violence and anarchy” (3702). Die vraag wat eerlikheidshalwe gestel moet word, is: Het daardie voorspelling die kol (heeltemal) gemis? Richburg besef darem dat sy emosies sy rasionaliteit verdring. “Perhaps much of my anger grew from my own perspective, and my view of the anti-apartheid struggle as not just for South Africa’s black population but a struggle for the dignity of black people everywhere” (3713). Dit is die geykte retoriek van ‘n swart politieke aktivis. Die veronderstelling dat alle mense ‘n geldige aanspraak op waardigheid het, is misplaas (Praag 2.11.2019).

    Slot

    In die laaste hoofstuk neem Richburg afskeid van Afrika. “More than three years here have left me bitter and largely devoid of hope, and largely drained of compassion” (4094). “While I know that ‘Afrocentrism’ has become fashionable for many black Americans seaching for identity, I know it cannot work for me. I have been here, I have lived here and seen Africa in all its horror. I know now that I am a stranger here. I am an American, a black American, and I feel no connection to this strange and violent place. You see? I just wrote ‘black American’. I couldn’t even bring myself to write ‘African American’” (4106). “Why would we, as Americans, want to embrace a continent so riven by tribal, ethnic, and religious hatreds?” (4276).

    “I have come to the only continent where I blend in with the crowds around me. If I belong anywhere – if there is one place on earth where I am not alien – it ought to be here, in Africa. And I am hating it” (4180).”I feel more lonely here in Africa than I have ever felt in America. In America, I may feel like an alien, but in Africa, I am an alien … I am ashamed to admit: I am terrified of Africa. I don’t want to be form this place … I am quietly celebrating the passage of my ancestor who made it out” (4209). “[America] is the only place I truly belong. It’s home” (4248). Richburg sluit die inleiding tot sy boek soos volg af: “Most of all I think: Thank God my ancestor got out [of (black) Africa], because, now, I am not one of them. In short, thank God that I am an American” (236).

    Aan die einde van sy boek vra hy: “So what future do I see for Africa, this strange and forbidding place?” (4282). “What future is there in a place where the poets are hanged by the soldiers? … All I can see is more darkness” (4287). “I know better than to hope” (4378). “There are more coups, more elections, more riots, and more refugees. That’s how it was when I arrived, and that’s how it’s likely to be years from now. In Africa [“that dark spot on the globe” – 4450] things stay the same until they fall apart” (4394).

    Richburg het nie altyd verkeerd as ‘n mens aan Afrikaner-selfbeskikking dink nie. Hy skryf bv: “Countries can indeed split up and nationalist claims to self-determination can be recognized without the sky falling in” (4322). “Africa could do with a healthy dose of federalism to defuse tribalism; a tribe that can vote for its own kind, to control a regional or local government, is less likely to feel oppressed by a central government controlled by another tribe” (4361).

    Hy voel meer tuis in Amerika as in Afrika. As Richburg, wat geneties in Afrika hoort, op hierdie kontinent nie gelukkig is nie, hoe kan daar van blankes verwag word om in die omstandighede van swart Afrika te berus? Oorsprongsgewys is die plaaslike blankes Europeërs, gevolglik behoort hulle hulle in Amerika en natuurlik ook in Europa kultureel meer tuis as Richburg te voel.

     

  • Leon Lemmer: Swart Afrika as vertreksaal vir emigrante

    Leon Lemmer: Swart Afrika as vertreksaal vir emigrante

    Ek het al by verskeie geleenthede oor die massa-intog van inkommers in die Europese vasteland (bv Praag 3.02.2018) en Brittanje (bv Praag 15.05.2016) geskryf. In 2015 het hierdie verskynsel ‘n hoogtepunt bereik toe 1.256 miljoen migrante Europa binnegesypel het – 200 000 hiervan uit Afrika (Stephen Smith, bron hier onder, Kindle 405, 2992). Die meeste van hierdie inkommers was afkomstig uit Sirië, Irak en Afganistan (2041). Hulle het die oorlogstoestande in daardie lande as voorwendsel vir aanspraakmaking op vlugtelingstatus gebruik.

    “Between the early 1970s and the late 1990s the number of asylum applications in the countries that now comprise the European Union increased twenty-fold – from about 15 000 per annum to more than 300 000. Since 2000, this three-decade-long upward trend has continued unabated: in 2014, the year before the ‘migration crisis’, the number of first-time asylum seekers in the EU was 562 700; in 2017, after the migratory peak, Eurostat put it at 650 000” (3364). “The right of asylum in the EU has become a game of chance … But … that right … has [also] become a fig leaf for economic migration” (3376).

    In Brittanje word dikwels voorgegee dat die invloeiing van blanke hande-arbeiders uit Oos-Europa – ná hierdie lande se toetrede tot die Europese Unie – die rede vir die toenemende weerstand teen inkommers is. Dit is glo deels die rede waarom die meeste Britse kiesers ten gunste van EU-uittrede gestem het. “Polish migrants were the referendum’s target of choice: more than a million had moved to Great Britain in the five years following Poland’s entry into the EU in 2004” (229). Die Britse inwoners se onvergenoegdheid met die baie nieblanke migrante uit bv die Indiese subkontinent en die Karibiese eilande word skynheiligheidshalwe liefs verswyg.

    Die verwagting is dat migrasiedruk uit die Midde-Ooste en Asië op Westerse lande gaan toeneem. Natuurlik ook uit veral Sentraal- en Suid-Amerika op die Verenigde State van Amerika. Maar daar is ook die Afrika-faktor. In 2016 was daar reeds 9 miljoen Afrikane in Europa, teenoor 900 000 in 1960 (417). Afrika word as die mees dinamiese kontinent beskryf; nie wat bv vindingrykheid en werkgierigheid betref nie, maar met verwysing na bevolkingsaanwas. Demografies gesproke kan Afrika op biljoenêrstatus aanspraak maak (3303), al is ekonomiese ellende een van sy prominentste kenmerke. Geografies is Afrika en Europa naby mekaar. Daar word veronderstel dat migrasie uit Afrika die volgende massavloed gaan wees wat Europa tref. Afrika sal op hierdie manier “the Mexico of Europe” word (276).

    “Between 1975 and 2010, 10 million Mexicans migrated to America both legally and illegally. In all, including their children born in the United States, Mexican-Americans now form a community of some 30 million people, about 10 per cent of the US population. If Africans followed that example between now and 2050, the Afro-optimistic leitmotiv of ‘Africa Rising’ would, quite literally, become a reality … At the end of a sustained African migratory wave, Europe’s population would include some 150 to 200 million African-Europeans – counting immigrants and their children – compared with just 9 million today. In a little more than thirty years, between one-fifth and one-quarter of the population in Europe would be of African descent” (310). Dit is verbasend dat Donald Trump sulke kwaai teenstand ondervind as hy in werklikheid bloot die beleid van sy voorgangers voortsit – al is dit meer energiek – om Amerika se suidgrens (3 145 km – 2850) in groter mate teen inkommers te beveilig. “Only fifteen countries had built walls or wiremesh fences on their borders in 1990; by 2016 that number had jumped to seventy” (3221).

    “In 1975, the population of America was three and a half times Mexico’s then 60 million inhabitants, while today it is still two and a half times larger, although the Mexican population has doubled. Even if we take into account all of Latin America, with its 600 million or so inhabitants, the migratory pressures on the United States are much weaker than those facing Europe. Today, the European Union (including the United Kingdom) has some 510 million inhabitants, while there are 1.3 billion people in neighbouring Africa. In thirty-five years, that asymmetry will have grown enormously – there will be an estimated 450 million Europeans and some 2.5 billion Africans. As the population of Europe continues to age, Africa’s demographic will continue to trend in the opposite direction. By 2050, two-thirds of Africans will be less than thirty years old. Put another way, for every European in their fifties, there will be three Africans, two of whom will be in the prime of life” (322).

    Dit gaan ‘n suid-noord beweging van mense wees, dus die teenoorgestelde van die destydse “scramble for Africa” (275). Die ironiese verwagting is dat swart Afrikane op groot skaal hulle polities onafhanklike lande gaan verlaat om “n beter lewe” onder blanke politieke bewind te soek. Daar kan kwalik ‘n beter bewys wees dat blankes ‘n land beter tot voordeel van al sy inwoners regeer as ‘n swart politieke bewind, wat dikwels deur bv ondoeltreffendheid en korrupsie gekenmerk word. “In leaving their homelands by any means possible, rather than staying and expressing their dissatisfaction and trying to make things better, they [migrants] are saying something [important] about their societies: … that they are dysfunctional, and not only in terms of per capita GDP, employment opportunities or a social safety net. They also lack the capacity to generate hope … Are African immigrants qualified for life in the West? It seems to me they bring the problems of their own societies, but also the will to solve them in a more enabling environment” (2472). “I don’t exclude the possibility that this ‘better life’ that migrants so readily invoke may only be, in the words of the French demographer Michèle Tribalat, ‘a third-world lifestyle with a European standard of living’” (2489). Dalk is dit waarna gestreef word wanneer die ANC-regime nuwe huise aan mede-swartes oorhandig.

    Ek skryf na aanleiding van Stephen Smith (gebore in 1956) se boek, The scramble for Europe: Young Africa on its way to the Old Continent (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2019, 200p; Amazon Kindle $13.79). Die teks is “an entirely updated and reworked version” (187) van die oorspronklike Franse uitgawe wat in 2018 gepubliseer is. Die outeur het in Europa grootgeword en Duits met sy ma gepraat. Daarna het hy as joernalis dekades in Afrika deurgebring, insluitende Frans-Afrika. Hy gebruik die frase “bush taxis” (1549, 1679), wat ‘n beter benaming as “minibustaxi’s” kan wees. Tans is hy ‘n dosent aan Duke University in Durham, Noord-Carolina. Wat die outeur beoog, is “to provide a factual basis on which others can come to an informed view” (253).

    “I have made no a priori assumptions in favour of homogeneity or diversity as ideals, least of all as moral imperatives … Nor do I question whether the African migrants who feature in this book are fleeing violence and lawlessness, poverty or lack of opportunity, for a better life. Nor do I insist on a distinction between legal and unauthorized migration, or between economic migrants and people seeking asylum” (247). “Opponents of diversity are often accused of xenophobia and even racism, while its supporters are often suspected of wanting to dilute national identity” (2639). Hy onderskei tussen “‘upstream’ issues like entry requirements and border controls and ‘downstream’ concerns involving numerous, sometimes conflicting, models of social integration” (434). Stroomaf kan in hierdie konteks moeiliker as stroomop wees weens die “unbridgeable otherness” van die inkommers (1579). “The melting-pot theory of assimilation is outdated” (2925). ‘n Land wat hom vir migrasie oopstel, “will be defined by a multi-ethnic and multicultural mosaic” (2926).

    “I endeavour to assess Africa’s importance as a reservoir of migrants, and as far as possible to predict both the magnitude and timing of this human flow from Africa to Europe” (253). “Africa, the island-continent of youth, is also the ‘lost land’ of failed adulthood where hundreds of millions of castaways are waiting for a life of fulfilment beyond their reach” (1568). Dit is waarom Afrika dikwels met ellende geassosieer word; ook “miserabilism” genoem (2093). Smith voorspel: “More than 100 million Africans are likely to cross the Mediterranean Sea over the next two generations” (259). Sy fokus is op swart Afrika, dus Afrika suid van die Sahara (275), en nie op Noord-Afrika met sy Arabiese bevolking nie. Hy beklemtoon veral drie sake: Die eksponensiële bevolkingsaanwas, die groot persentasie swart jeugdiges en die buitengewoon groot migrasiebegeerte. Migrasie in die wêreld in sy geheel “has increased from 92 million in 1960 to 258 million in 2017” (2003). “The United Nations … expects that between 2015 and 2050 some 91 million people from the world’s developing [poor] nations will move to the world’s wealthiest [white] countries” (2023). Die aanleiding hiertoe is “profound disbelief in the prospect of things taking a turn for the better within one’s lifetime … Large-scale migrations tend to originate from places where there is no hope” (2105).

    In die boek word Suid-Afrika net sydelings betrek, waarskynlik omdat die nagloed van wat die blankes oor eeue hier tot stand gebring het, nog nie (heeltemal) uitgedoof is nie. Byvoorbeeld, Afrikalande se amptelike bevolkingstatistiek is hoogs onakkuraat, met Suid-Afrika wat darem die beste vaar (514) – ook wat die voorkoming van kindersterftes betref (811). Morten Jerven het ‘n hele boek, Poor numbers (2013, 208p), oor Afrika se onbetroubare (amptelike) statistiek geskryf (525). In hierdie beperkte sin is Suid-Afrika darem nog nie in alle opsigte ‘n tipiese Afrika-land nie, al is hy sedert 1994 ywerig op pad daarheen. Die grootskaalse emigrasie van die plaaslike blankes word glad nie in die boek genoem nie. Die “wêreldmening” is selde begaan oor die lot van blankes in Afrika. Veral sedert 1994 is daar Afrikanerdiaspora in bv Amerika, Brittanje, Australië en Nieu-Seeland. “To call yourself a member of a diaspora is to lay claim to the status of a castaway of history, a victim: you have ended up somewhere as a result of misfortune, if not worse – in any event against your will” (2135).

    In Europa is daar sterk verskille van mening oor migrasie. “Poland, … propounds the concept of ‘ethnic homogeneity’. The threshold of tolerance was crossed long ago and a ‘Fortress Europe’ mentality is seen as the sine qua non for survival. For others, notably Germany, ‘welcoming’ people in need is a categorical imperative, and any attempt to question the unqualified acceptance of migrants is viewed as Fremdenfeindlichkeit or xenophobia” (440). Daar word gespekuleer “about the extent to which the warm welcome of migrants in Germany had anything to do with clearing the debts of the Nazi past” (3478). Maar Angela Merkel het spoedig tot beter insigte gekom. “Germany took in almost 1 million asylum seekers in 2015, but the following year rejected 91 per cent of the requests for protection” (559). “Merkel has since refrained from repeating her previous call that there should be no Obergrenze or ‘cap’ on immigration” (597). Sy het weens haar dwase uitlatings heelwat kiesers van haar politieke party vervreem (589).

    Volgens Smith behoort migrante uit Afrika nie maklik weg te kom met ‘n pleidooi vir vlugtelingstatus nie, dus “to claim victimization as their permanent condition” (2161). “Only African migrants are locked up in their past, a perpetual ‘return to pain’” (2167). Daar word gepraat van swartes se “grievance identity … blacks who view life through the lens of victimization” (3159). “The worst response that one can foist on African migrants is what Hannah Arendt [1906-1975] called the ‘politics of pity’” (2495, 3182). “Europe should not consider ‘the’ African migrant and potential fellow citizen as someone who stands vaguely for an abstract humanity” (2674). “‘Pan-Africanists’ have a tendency to mark as racist any opposition outside of Africa to the arrival of African migrants” (2356), terwyl iedere sovereine land die reg het om te besluit of hy immigrante wil toelaat en, indien wel, hoeveel van hulle en aan watter vereistes hulle moet voldoen. “One doesn’t join a club by relaxing the rules” (2727).

    Globalisering het “the free circulation of goods and capital” meegebring (2810), maar dit volg nie dat mense daarom ook vry is om hulle in enige land van hulle keuse te vestig nie. Die eerste deel van die volgende sin (toegepas op Afrikane) is myns insiens minder omstrede as die tweede deel (toegepas op Afrikaners): “When trying to formulate a ‘good’ immigration policy, irenic universalism inspired by a vague brotherhood of men is as prejudicial as nasionalistic or nativist egoism, or any cult of blood and soil” (2680). “In Nigeria, at the end of the oil boom, the overnight expulsion of several hundred thousand foreigners in two large waves – in 1983 and 1985 – was a brutal way of bringing down immigration levels” (2361). Dit het gebeur sonder dat daar sterk protes was. As ‘n Westerse land iets soortgelyks vir swart inkommers aandoen, sou daar ‘n helse bohaai gewees het.

    Smith beskryf swart Afrika as ‘n vertreksaal vir migrante (2634). Sedert die verraad wat ‘n klein groepie Afrikaanssprekende blankes in 1990/94 gepleeg het, weet ons dat baie van ons plaaslike blankes (meer as ‘n miljoen), soos miljoene swartes, reeds deur daardie vertreksaal beweeg het. Namate ‘n mate van voorspoed in swart Afrika geskep word – sodat daar ‘n (middel)klas ontstaan wat nie bloot om oorlewing stry nie – ontstaan die begeerte na “‘n beter lewe” by hulle. “‘Bare life’, to use the term coined by the Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben [born in 1942], doesn’t allow for adventure” (2110), maar matige voorspoed wel. Buitelandse finansiële hulp lewer ‘n bydrae hiertoe “by helping poor countries attain the threshold of prosperity, at which point their citizens have the means to leave and live elsewhere” (2172), dus, “development aid subsidizes migration” (2178).

    Hedendaagse telekommunikasiemedia (veral televisie en die internet, dus televisietoestelle, rekenaars en veral slimselfone) maak dit vir Afrikane moontlik om via ‘n skerm ‘n idee te vorm van hoe mense in ‘n ontwikkelde samelewing lewe. Hulle doen “screen-shopping” (3309) met die oog op migrasie. “The ubiquity of satellite television and increasing internet access sharpens the contrast on the world’s poorest continent between lived experience and what is ‘seen on the screen’” (2035). Hierdie soort “globalization favours the ‘Americanization’ of the continent, even in its non-English-speaking parts. America soft power – in particular its youth culture and Black America’s protest culture – is in tune with African modernity” (2082). Dit wek by Afrikane die begeerte om deel van die Weste te wees. Hulle voorsien nie die moontlikheid dat lande in swart Afrika (gou of ooit) die Westerse ontwikkelingsvlak gaan bereik nie, gevolglik verkies hulle die migrasie-opsie. Telekommunikasie stimuleer migrasie ook in ‘n ander opsig. Nadat die migrant in ‘n vreemde land aangekom het, kan hy danksy telekommunikasie (bv ‘n slimfoon) goeie kontak met sy agtergeblewe familie en vriende in sy geboorteland behou (2167). Sodanige virtuele geborgenheid bring mee dat die migrant groter weerstand kan bied teen assimilasie en integrasie in sy nuwe omgewing.

    Om die invloei van inkommers aan bande te lê, bestee Europese lande deesdae baie geld om toestande in Afrikalande te verbeter. Weens ondoeltreffendheid en korrupsie bereik buitelandse hulp slegs in geringe mate sy doel in Afrika. Maar die ironie is dat hoe doeltreffender Europese geld in Afrika aangewend word, hoe meer die getal vermoënde Afrikane wat uit Afrika wil ontsnap. Dit gebeur bv op groot skaal met swart studente wat met studiebeurse in Westerse lande studeer. Ná 1994 het die nuwe Suid-Afrika ruim hiertoe bygedra deurdat suiwer rassisties eerder geleerde swart Afrikane as blanke Suid-Afrikaners bv as dosente aan die plaaslike universiteite en as staatsamptenare aanstel is. Jonathan Jansen het omtrent gevrek van die lekkerkry toe hy as dekaan van die fakulteit opvoedkunde aan die Universiteit Pretoria (UP) ‘n Nigeriër as dosent in “chemistry education” aangestel het; nie omdat hy akademies die beste kandidaat was nie – die Nigeriër was bv nie Afrikaans magtig nie – maar om politieke redes, want Jansen wou die institusionele kultuur (dus historiese blankheid) van UP vernietig (Knowledge in the blood, 2009, p 223).

    Daar is ‘n opsig waarin buitelandse geld wel die intog van migrante in Europa aan bande lê. “In 2010 [Muammar] Gaddafi [Libya’s head of state, 1969-2011] demanded the EU pay an annual rent of 5 billion euros to prevent migrants from crossing the Mediterranean. Without it, he treatened, ‘tomorrow, Europe will no longer be European’. On 18 March 2016, following the record influx of migrants the previous year, the EU agreed to pay Turkey some 6 billion euros in two tranches to close the routes in the Aegean, a move that should keep an estimated 3 million Syrians stranded on Turkish soil. Based on this ‘model’ of cash for kettling, the EU has, since 2016, negotiated ‘immigration conventions’ with five African countries – Ethiopia, Nigeria, Niger, Mali and Senegal – to stand to gain from containing would-be migrants in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel” (2536). Sulke ooreenkomste met verskillende Afrikalande is nodig omdat “African migration resembles a fountain with multiple overflow basins” (2645). Anders as die Amerikaanse mure en heinings aan sy grens met Meksiko, het Europa nou hierdie “wall of money” (2541). Eintlik is dit ‘n geval van “blackmailing Europe” (3339).

    Slegs ‘n klein persentasie van die onwettige immigrante word gedeporteer. “Their repatriation is a major logistical and financial challenge, and even an impossibility when their home countries refuse to readmit them” (3381). “Great Britain alone would have to spend 9 billion euros to repatriate all its illegal immigrants in a process that would last anywhere from fifteen to thirty years. By comparison, the 6 billion euros paid to Turkey in 2016 and 2018 to prevent some 3 million migrants from reaching European soil seems like a good deal, a bargain price in fact, especially given that there is no bad press of human rights violations” (2832). “More than 90 million euros were approved in April [2017] to help Libya deal with its migratory problems. But we know there is no oversight to safeguard how this money is spent. At the end of July, 46 million euros were disbursed to create a Libyan coast guard. Yet they are trained to bring migrants back to Libya” (2844).

    Die manier waarop die foto van die stokkiesdraaier Hector Pieterson sedert 1976 in propaganda teen die NP-regering en Afrikaans misbruik word, is goed bekend. Op ‘n soortgelyke manier is die foto van die 3-jarige Siriër, Alan Kurdi, misbruik om stemming ten gunste van die migrasie van vlugtelinge te bevorder. Die foto toon sy lyk op ‘n Turkse strand op 2 September 2015. Die boot waarin sy gesin die Middellandse See wou oorsteek, het omgeslaan en hy het verdrink. Andersins is die konteks van die gebeure doelbewus verswyg. Alan se pa het ‘n gevestigde betrekking gehad sedert sy gesin hulle in Turkye hervestig het. Hulle was nie na Europa oppad nie, maar na Kanada. Die gevaar van verdrinking van migrante in die Middellandse See word ook oordryf. In 2015 “the risk of dying for a migrant crossing the Mediterranean was 0.37% … The likelihood of dying in childbirth for a woman in South Sudan … was 1.7 per cent. In other word, South Sudanese mothers giving birth were four and a half times more likely to die than a migrant crossing the Mediterranean, which has been variously described as an ‘open-air cemetery’, ‘the shame of Europe’, even the locus of ‘a silent genocide’” (2553).

    Teen 2017 “the likelihood of a migrant perishing had risen to 1.88 per cent – five times higher than it was [in 2015]” (2566). “The risk became higher because the humanitarian response became more efficient. Rescue boats were getting closer and closer to Libyan territorial water, and if there was a danger of drowning, they didn’t hesitate to enter to help those in trouble. Smugglers exploited this window by packing growing numbers of migrants onto ever more precarious craft – especially the 9-metre long inflatable boats from China, which at times held up to 130 persons, a number several times their capacity. In exchange for a reduction in the cost of the journey, one of the passengers would be put in charge of ‘navigating’ and making the emergency call to rescue authorities once the craft reached international waters. To accomplish this, the navigator was provided with a compass and a mobile satellite telephone. In the past, another passenger would also have travelled at a reduced rate by acting as ‘Captain’, and would be in charge of running the outboard motor. However, as the price of outboard motors began to climb sharply (in the summer of 2017, it was more than 8 000 euros in Libya), ensuring that the motor did not disappear once the rescuers arrived became an issue. The smugglers were then likely to take the motor with them in another boat once the craft carrying the migrants reached the edge of territorial waters, leaving its occupants helpless and adift – pending the arrival of a rescue ship” (2571).

    “In the first six months of 2017, humanitarian aid workers rescued and transported to Italy almost three-quarters of all migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean – some 93 000 people. In fact, they became so efficient that the smugglers began purchasing even less seaworthy craft than before and an increasing number of Italians and other Europeans started blaming the aid workers for running a kind of Mediterranean Uber, on call to ferry new migrants to Europe” (2577). “In 2018, Italy had struck a deal with Libyan warlords and equipped the country’s coast guard, in a bid to curb the rate of migrant departures. Since then, the new government has prohibited humanitarian rescue ships from entering Italian ports” (2589). Die migrasiedruk het toe na Malta en Spanje verskuif.

    Hierdie soort mensverskuiwings geskied in drie stadia:

    (a) Voor die vertrek (emigrasie): Dit behels dikwels ‘n trek uit die platteland na ‘n stad. “Between 1960 and 2000, Africa’s urban population surged by 8.7 times, by 2050 it will have quadrupled again” (904). Geld vir die uittog word bymekaar gemaak, bv met behulp van familielede. “The initial sum ranges between 2 000 and 3 000 US dollars” (2116). Daar word ook gekies tussen wettige en onwettige emigrasie.

    (b) Die tog (migrasie): Die roete kan deur verskeie lande gaan. Die migrante is uitgelewer aan die genade van tussengangers, bv agente; eintlik menssmokkelaars. Migrasie het ‘n groot en lonende bedryf in Afrika (en elders) geword. As die migrant se geld opraak, kan dit, totdat familielede nog geld stuur, aanhouding of selfs slawerny meebring. “The criminal logistics of the trans-Saharan migration are rarely brought to the attention of the European public” (2518). Daar is bv “bribing the police at various check-points so the human cargo can pass” (2518). In Libië is daar “torture centres for migrants who have run out of money … to extort ransom from family members to secure their release” (2523). As ‘n alternatief is daar “slave markets” waar die migrante wat nie geld het nie, opgeveil word (2523).

    (c) Die aankoms (immigrasie): Die eindroete uit Afrika wat die meeste gebruik word, is van Libië na Italië, bv die eiland Lampedusa, wat slegs 113 km van die Tunisiese kus is. Daarna volg die stryd om uit te kom by die land wat as bestemming begeer word, bv Duitsland. “The presence of ‘relatives’ in the broadest sense greatly reduces the uncertainty and cost of settling in a European country” (2133). Die inkommers vorm “foreign enclaves” (2150). Byvoorbeeld: “In northwestern Germany, Eschweiler, a small town with 55 000 inhabitants, has become a rallying point for several hundred Togolese” (2138). Dit is hier waar Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) se “narcissism of minor differences” ‘n rol speel (2698), veral as die (kulturele) verskille heelwat groter blyk te wees as wat aanvanklik veronderstel is. Maar Smith skryf: “Small discrepancies might be even more troublesome than the stark differences. In any event, the hosts’ quality of life is changed, because more and more foreigners – strangers, indeed – have become their neighbours. Some of them – usually in the poor neighbourhoods that are mostly effected – might inveigh against having been ‘invaded’. … The arrival of foreigners can be destalilizing, their presence unsettling” (2703).

    Dayo Olopade beweer in sy boek, The bright continent (2014), dat ‘today, African diaspora maps are reverse models of colonialism” (2727). Smith skryf egter: “Yet colonialism lasted only about eighty years [1885-1960s – South Africa excluded] south of the Sahara. The ‘colonial imprint’ cannot overwrite the longer history of the continent before and since colonialism” (2733). Eintlik kan daar nie geredeneer word dat Europa weens migrasie uit Afrika nou (presies) dieselfde aangedoen word as wat Afrika tydens imperialisme en kolonialisme ondervind het nie. Kolonialisme “was driven by a small, influential minority who inspired a new imperial imaginary fostered by a revolution in communications – ‘high-speed rotary presses, automatic paper folders, linotype machines, news photography, railroads, and telephones’ … The poor and disenfranchised European masses read the ‘penny papers’ but left in droves for the Americas, and not for Africa” (282). Veral sedert 1994 besef baie blanke Suid-Afrikaners dat die Amerikas ‘n beter opsie sou gewees het. “In 1930, the number of European citizens from the major colonial powers – Great Britain, France, Portugal and Belgium – living in Africa was fewer than 2 million, about 2 per cent of their total population and less than 1 per cent of Africa’s population at the time” (282). Daar was nooit enige sprake van blankes wat met hulle getalle die swartes verswelg het nie.

    Die stormloop van Afrika deur koloniale moondhede word soos volg verduidelik. “In 1885, at the conclusion of the Conference of Berlin, which established the rules for the colonial partition of sub-Saharan Africa, Europe’s scientific prowess, industrialization and modern armies made it the most developed continent in the world. It counted some 275 million inhabitants, not including Russia. Africa, with six and a half times the surface area, had only 100 million inhabitants, and was the least developed continent in the world” (288). Hieruit kan twee gevolgtrekkings gemaak word. Eerstens het die Europeërs substansiële redes gehad om hulleself meerderwaardig in vergelyking met Afrikane te ag. Tweedens kon die inheemses oneindig baie tot hulle eie voordeel leer uit die positiewe voorbeeld wat die Europeërs in woord en daad gestel het. Deesdae word egter by voorkeur geredeneer dat geen ras of etnisiteit/kultuur meerderwaardig bo ‘n ander is nie en dat imperialisme en kolonialisme eerder vreeslik sleg as enigsins goed was; insluitende die “spesiale soort” kolonialisme waaraan Suid-Afrika, volgens die ANC, glo van 1910 tot 1990/94 onderhewig was.

    Die bevolking van Afrika suid van die Sahara het van 230 miljoen in 1960 – dus aan die begin van die era van politieke onafhanklikheid – tot 1 biljoen in 2015 gestyg (305). Hierdie demografiese versnelling is grootliks moontlik gemaak deur bv die intensiewe, wetenskaplike landboubedrywighede (dus verbeterde voedselproduksie) en gesondheidsdienste wat tydens kolonialisme daargestel is. “The … emphasis on development and public health would prompt the greatest demographic boom in human history” (622). “If current trends continue, it [Africa’s population] will have increased by a factor of 17 between 1930 and 2050. By comparison, the equivalent multiplier for the United Kingdom, whose population was about 45 million in 1930 and will be an estimated 77 million in 2050, is a mere 1.7, or ten times less” (628). Maar as ‘n mens die hedendaagse propaganda (bv van die ANC) glo, sou jy dink dat swartes tydens kolonialisme op groot skaal deur blanke “koloniste/setlaars” uitgeroei is.

    Die buitensporige bevolkingsaanwas in Afrika het ongetwyfeld die volgende tot gevolg: “There will never be enough for everyone” (737). “The sheer number of people makes the well-being of each one impossible given the available resources” (922). In Suid-Afrika voer geen politieke party ‘n veldtog ten gunste van geboortebeperking nie omdat dit glo nie polities korrek sou wees nie. Dit is gebaseer op “the myth in Africa that persistently high fertility rates are a form of wealth rather than a guarantee of poverty for all” (3316). “The continent has only itself to blame for its pertinacious indifference to large-scale family planning. National campaigns to promote birth control, as in Bangladesh (‘A small family is a happy family’) or Jamaica (‘Two is better than too many’), have barely been tried in any country south of the Sahara” (2815).

    Daar is ook die instroming van miljoene (onwettige) immigrante wat die demografiese situasie vererger. Verder is dit die ANC se ideaal om die landsgrense vir hulle broers en susters, asook hulle kleingoed, heeltemal oop te stel. Volgens ‘n VN-projeksie: “3.36 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa in 2100” (1030). “Between now and 2100, three out of every four newborns in the world will be born in sub-Saharan Africa” (816). “Africa’s population has increased at a rate never before seen in human history, and without a ‘Green Revolution’ to accompany it and offer [of] a measure of food security” (1004).

    Die wêreld se voedselbehoeftes “are set to increase by 70 per cent between now and 2050 … Africa will need to have quintupled its agricultural production to quarantee its food security” (1122). Desnieteenstaande beoog die dwase ANC-regering waaragtig om die produktiefste plase, dié van blankes, sonder vergoeding te onteien. Dink aan die gemors waarin Zimbabwe is weens die sogenaamde herbeslaglegging/”repossession” (1167) van blankes se plase. “Zimbabwe has jumped from 700 000 inhabitants in 1900 to more than 16 million in 2017” (1180), terwyl Suid-Afrika ongeërg – so koel soos ‘n Coke – baie van die verhongerde en werklose Zimbabwiërs absorbeer. Weens die eksponensiële bevolksaanwas sal daar nooit genoeg behuising, skole, hospitale, ens, in Suid-frika wees nie; dus waarskynlik ook nooit die stabiliteit van rus en vrede nie.

    Op hierdie manier sal voorspoed in Suid-Afrika ná 1994 ‘n ontwykende ideaal bly. Onrealistiese verwagtinge word doelbewus deur die ANC by die gepeupel geskep, bv dat alle inwoners geregtig op lopende water en spoeltoilette is. Dít is swart Afrika-vreemd: “In 2006, Lagos had some 15 million inhabitants, but just 0.4 per cent of the city’s toilets were connected to a central sewage system” (881). In Niger “80 per cent of state schools do not have drinking water and three-quarters have no toilets” (2226). “Only 18 per cent of the world’s population has access to safe drinking water and to a proper sewage system” (2243). Daar word van te min Suid-Afrikaners verwag om te veel vir te baie (ondankbare) armlastiges/parasiterendes te doen.

    Ons moet deesdae dikwels aanhoor hoe wonderlik dit is dat Suid-Afrika sedert 1994 ‘n demokrasie is, bv een mens, een stem. Waarmee eintlik gespog word, is dat ons nou ‘n swart pleks van ‘n blanke regering het. In werklikheid het ons in vele opsigte ‘n skyndemokrasie (bv Praag 2.11.2019). In ‘n land soos Suid-Afrika, soos in die res van Afrika, hou demokrasie, in die sin van algemene stemreg, wesenlike gevare in – “the democratic handicap” (1462) – bv: “In low-income societies democracy is dangerous” (1456). Dink aan die vrygewigheid waarmee die ANC-regering, in ruil vir stemme, bv staatstoelaes en huise uitdeel. Maar Smith verskaf op ‘n vindingryke manier ‘n rede waarom daar in swart Afrika eintlik nie iets soos meerderheidsregering (kan) bestaan nie.

    “For Africa as a whole, 41 per cent of the population is under fifteen,” maar dit sluit Noord-Afrika in waar die bevolkingsgroei heelwat laer is as in swart Afrika (566). “With the voting age at eighteen or older in fifty-three of fifty-four African countries, the continent’s collective future will scarcely be determined by the majority of its citizens: at any moment you choose to look at it, half the continent’s population is too young to vote. And by the time this half op the population accedes to voting age, another half of the population without the right to vote has been born. The upshot is that democracy appears more an age-based privilege than a majoritarian right” (351). Africa’s exceptionally young demographic profile lessens the chances of sustainable democracy” (1456).

    “A ‘youth bulge’ more than doubled the likelihood that a country would experience a civil war” (1422). “The likelihood that Africa’s frustrated youth will fill the ranks of armed ‘anti-system’ groups is … high” (1486). “The tension between old and young is the mother not of all conflict, but of instability. It is this tension that actualizes itself across the ‘politics of resentment’” (1958). Soos Auguste Comte (1798-1857) dit gestel het: “Demography is destiny” (1450). Dit ondersteun my hipotese dat ‘n verdere revolusie, ná die “onderhandelde” een van 1990/94, Suid-Afrika se voorland kan wees. Hierdie keer kan dit ‘n revolusie deur die jeugdige, werklose gepeupel, met die moontlike bystand van inkommers, wees. “The young yearn for equality and – propelled by constant disappointment and mounting frustration – threaten to bring the old order down on the heads of their elders” (369). Inkommers sonder lojaliteit teenoor Suid-Afrika kan die land se ondergang (help) bewerkstellig as hulle ‘n substansiële massa word. Byvoorbeeld, die Ivoorkus het toegelaat dat 1.3 miljoen migrante hulle van 1976 tot 1980 in daardie land vestig terwyl daar net 7 miljoen inheemse inwoners was. “In 1998, there were 16 million people living in the Ivory Coast, of which 26 per cent were officially classified as ‘foreigners’” (2372). Die latere “venomous quarrel about the concept of ‘Ivority’ … led to civil war” (2378).

    Daar is al gespekuleer dat Europa voorheen nie so ‘n groot probleem met inkomende swart migrante gehad het nie omdat hulle ná 1994 eerder op Suid-Afrika toegesak het. “In 2000, Jeremy Harding wondered whether ‘the power of attraction’ that South Africa exercised on the rest of the continent was not the reason ‘why, finally, there are so few sub-Saharan hands clinging to the portcullis’ of fortress Europe. Since then, the post-apartheid ‘rainbow nation’ has lost much of its attactiveness” (2391), onder meer weens inheemse swartes se sporadiese, bykans deurlopende, geweld teen inkommers. Die rede waarom die nuwe Suid-Afrika aanvanklik ‘n aantreklike opsie vir swart inkommers was, is omdat onder die leiding van blankes oor eeue die mees ontwikkelde land in Afrika opgebou is. Daar was dus baie om te geniet, te aas en af te breek. Smith stel hierdie getal inkommers op tussen 2 en 3 miljoen (2402).

    Hoe graag Afrikane uit Afrika wil ontsnap, blyk uit die volgende. Volgens Gallup-opnames (2013 tot 2016) “overall 31 per cent of Sub-Saharan Africans intend to migrate, against a worldwide average of 14 per cent” (579). “In Togo, which has almost 8 million inhabitants, one adult in three entered the US goverment lottery for a residence permit – even though the ‘visa lottery’ contains just 55 000 green cards for the entire world, offered to ‘diversity candidates’ from countries with low immigration rates to the United States. In neighbouring Ghana, 6 per cent of the population – 1.7 million people out of 28 million – applied for the programme in 2015 alone, and that proportion was even surpassed in Liberia (8 per cent), Sierra Leone (8 per cent) and the Republic of Congo (10 per cent). Across the whole continent, according to a 2016 Gallup Institute survey, 42 per cent of all Africans aged fifteen to twenty-four, and 32 per cent of university graduates, said they wanted to emigrate” (386). “It is estimated that between one-third and one-half of all African university degree holders have either left their country or did not return after studying abroad, prefering to work instead in a developed country” (3125).

    Met verwysing na Nigerië, Senegal, Ghana en Kenia is bevind: “At least four in ten respondents in each country declared their intention to migrate, if they had the means and the opportunity, including a staggering three-quarters of those surveyed in Ghana (75 per cent) and Nigeria (74 per cent)” (399). ‘n Mens sou dink die meeste swartes in hierdie lande verwelkom dit steeds dat hulle van die “koloniale juk”, dus blanke politieke beheer, ontslae geraak het. “Africa needs to realize that the massive departure of its most dynamic citizens – often its best-educated – represents a net loss for the continent” (2668). Maar “the educated elite does not believe in Africa’s future. They are running away” (3136).

    “In 1997, the then Washington Post Africa correspondent, Keith Richburg, in his book, Out of America: A black man confronts Africa [Kindle $9.44], raised a hue and cry when he congratulated himself on the deportation of his African ancestors to the New World, where, despite discrimination and other hardships, they managed to succeed. To greater consternation, he wondered how quickly an African slave ship docked in a West African port would fill up with volunteers for a voyage to America. Twenty years later, Africans are routinely piling into frail skiffs at their own risk to cross the Mediterranean” (399). Geweld is een van die dinge wat endemies aan swart Afrika is. Richburg kon nie verstaan waarom die panga-seisoen/”machete season” (1082) nie tot ‘n einde kom nie.

    Wat slawerny betref, word die rol wat Amerika en blankes daarin gespeel het, in propaganda meesal erg skeefgetrek. “It is estimated that about 12 million Africans were taken to the New World [the Americas] [but] … the … United States received fewer than 5 per cent of those sold into slavery” (645). Die ongevalle tydens die reise van slawe oor die Altantiese Oseaan, dus onder blanke beheer, was ook aansienlik minder as by slawerny onder die beheer van swartes en Arabiere. “The long-term death rate during the Middle Passage [ie between Africa and the Americas] was around 10 per cent, while the trek across the Sahara and towards the Mediterranean was the deadliest, costing the lives of one-fifth of those in captivity” (650). In die eerste dekade van hierdie eeu “‘more black Africans arrived in this country [USA] on their own than were imported directly to North America during the more than three centuries of the slave trade’, or around 400 000 Africans” (3236). Dit lyk dus nie asof Amerikaanse swartes werklik sleg daaraan toe is nie.

    Hoe die tradisionele Britse aard weens massa-immigrasie verander het, blyk bv duidelik uit die verkiesing van ‘n Moslem, Sadiq Khan, as burgemeester van Londen in 2016. “More than half of the city’s inhabitants are either first or second-generation immigrants” (218). In 1950 het Brittanje 25 000 nieblanke immigrante gehad (236). “By 2001, nearly 8 per cent of the UK’s population were immigrants, some 4.6 million people, a figure that had risen to 13.6 per cent by 2015” (241).

    Multikulturaliteit weens massa-immigrasie is nie net kenmerkend van Londen en Brittanje, veral Engeland, nie. “Spain had few immigrants until the end of the twentieth century: in 1990, they accounted for 0.9 per cent of its population. Twenty years later, 14 per cent of its population … were born outside the country, a number that included some 800 000 Moroccans” (3440). “From 2000 onwards, half of the children born in Brussels had immigrant parents, and Muslims represented one out of four inhabitants under the age of twenty-five” (477). “Genoa, Italy, has become more ‘African’ than many French or British port cities” (2757). In 2015 “40 per cent of the children born in France had one parent or grandparent of foreign origin” (3478). In Jean Raspail se roman, The camp of the saints (1973) en Michel Houellebecq se roman, Submission (2015 – Praag 20.10.2019), “the reader is plunged into a world where Charles Martel [688-741] will have been roundly defeated in the battle of Tours [732]” (2792); verwysende na die veldslag waarin die intog van Moslems uit die Iberiese Skiereiland na die res van Europa gestuit is. Renaud Camus, in sy boek, The great replacement (2011), “believes that Muslim immigrants are about to colonize France” (2998).

    In Japan, anders as in baie Westerse land, word die klem geplaas op “national cohesion and ethnic and cultural uniformity” (2938). In 2015 was slegs 1.5% van die Japannese bevolking in die buiteland gebore (247, 2938). Die land is dus ‘n “monochromatic country” (3165) met ‘n “policy of isolation – sakoku” wat demografie betref (3245). “In that same year, refugee status was granted to just twenty-seven people in Japan … In 2017, the African diaspora in Japan accounted for 0.01 per cent of the total population” (2945). Soos in Europa word die getal en persentasie Japannese bejaardes al hoe meer, maar anders as sommige meningsvormers in Europa word daar nie geredeneer dat die invloei van veral jeugdige inkommers noodsaaklik is om die werk te doen nie. Daar word gereken dat outomatisering, veral robotika (3286), asook kunsmatige intelligensie, dit moontlik sal maak om al die nodige werk met al hoe minder werkers te doen.

    Ten slotte: Waar bevind Afrikaners hulle in hierdie verswelgende migrasie van swartes? “This is an Africa that rejects ‘white material’ in the manner of a body rejecting a hostile organism: Europeans, that is to say, and the complicated objects they have introduced on the continent … The anti-white sentiment … is suffocating” (1662). “Like Africa itself … whites in Africa have changed – from colonials to expatriates to foreign residents, though they seldom see themselves as immigrants: ‘parasites in paradise’, as the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o bluntly characterized the Europeans in [Karen Blixen’s] Out of Africa [1937, Kindle $5.64]. In the 1920s, Kenya, one of a handful of so-called ‘settlement colonies’ in sub-Saharan Africa, had around 2.5 million people and some 40 000 whites, or 1.6 per cent of the population. Today, Kenya has almost 50 million people, and about 70 000 whites, or 0.14 per cent. What is striking is how marginal the numbers of Eurpeans were and are, more than ever, today. Has the continent finally become the ‘Africa of Africans’? The paradox is this: during the course of the last century, which has seen the presence of Europeans go from marginal to insignificant, the other ‘white material’ – not persons but the objects that represent their modernity – has multiplied and has been widely adopted. Whether these are industrial commodities or the new-fangled objects of a twenty-first-century digital lifestyle, what matters is that they are not locally produced. They come from outside, nourishing the ‘cargo-cult’ of Africa’s modernity – the local belief that salvation will arrive in the hold of a ship [or aeroplane]” (1679).

    “In 2014, Africans spent 10 per cent of their income on their cellular phones … Africa, the continent of oral tradition” (1835). “Africans are more than ever submerged by ‘white material’, but still have only limited access to its trade secrets. As long as this situation lasts, modernity to them will remain ‘Western’, and indeed a white condition” (1697). Dit is ‘n voorbeeld van Afrika se “notness”; ook van sy “lack of institutional capacity” (1704). Sulke lande word deur bv die Verenigde Nasies as onafhanklik erken, maar dit word genoem “‘negative sovereignty’, as opposed to the actual ‘positive’ capacity of the state to administer its territory. A colourful piece of bunting, a few rhyming phrases set to music, a few embassies abroad and a national football team have often been enough to constitute a state” (1717). “The euphoria of independence has long since abated, as has the ability of most sub-Saharan states to hasten the pace of their countries’ development” (1722).

    Weens owerheidsondoeltreffendheid is die privatisering van bv onderwys en hospitaaldienste Afrika se voorland. “In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 71 per cent of schools are private institutions; in Uganda, out of 5 600 secondary schools, nearly 4 000 are private; in Lagos State in Nigeria, three students out of four are enrolled in private schools; and even in the shanty towns around Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, four out of ten students attend private schools, despite the endemic poverty of the slums” (1750). Die daarstelling en instandhouding van ‘n funksionele staatskoolstelsel vereis doeltreffende regering, soos vóór 1994 in Suid-Afrika. Sedertdien het die meeste plaaslike openbare skole disfunksioneel geword en neem private skole al hoe meer hulle plek in. Die plaaslike staatsuniversiteite is besig om dieselfde gang te gaan. Hulle wend geen poging aan om akademies en ideologies onafhanklik van die ANC-regime te funksioneer nie, selfs al is daar ‘n voortgesette reële inkrimping van hulle regeringsubsidies.

    In Suid-Afrika se Grondwet (1996, artikel 18) staan: “Everyone has the right of freedom of association.” Christopher Heath Wellman en Phillip Cole skryf (in Debating the ethics of immigration: Is there a right to exclude, 2011): “Freedom of association must also imply the freedom not to associate” (2715). Dit is presies wat die ANC-regime en sy howe ontken, gevolglik mag Afrikaans bv nie die enigste of selfs hoofonderrigtaal aan ‘n universiteit wees nie en word so iets al hoe minder in die plaaslike skole toegelaat; om van uitsluiting op grond van ras en etnisiteit/kultuur nie te praat nie.

    Gestel daar word gepoog om ongelykheid in die wêreld te verminder of uit te skakel, dan kan in die konteks van migrasie gesê word: “A concern for greater international equality should not be confused with a vision of open borders as the royal road to achieving that goal. It is not inconsistent to favour worldwide social justice and oppose the free movement of persons” (2715). Maar die verderflike ANC-regime het dit al herhaaldelik gestel dat sy ideaal is om Suid-Afrika se grense af te skaf en die land vir veral die swartes in die res van Afrika oop te gooi. Dan sal die ANC ongetwyfeld slaag in die ideaal wat hy in sy era van terrorisme gekoester het, naamlik om Suid-Afrika tot in die grond af te breek.

    Iets wat die ANC-kamerade nie besef nie, is dat “a welfare state without borders is unsustainable” (3339). “It is one thing to invite foreigners into a society to share its riches; but it is an entirely different thing to share with them the capacity of a society to create those riches – if that were easy, development aid would not be the failure it is, and African migrants would not be fleeing their countries in the first place. A developed state with a reliable social safety net cannot practise an open-door policy” (3346).

    Die plaaslike blankes, veral die Afrikaners, is dalk nader aan hierdie eindstadium as wat (algemeen) besef word. Dit herinner aan die behoudende Franse nasionalis, Maurice Barrès (1862-1923), wat in sy boek, Under the eyes of the barbarians (1888), geskryf het: “I defend my cemetery. I have abandoned all other positions” (2727), wat ‘n mens laat dink aan die toegewings wat FW de Klerk en sy onderhandelaars in 1990/94 gemaak het, wat op die lange duur die uitwissing van die Afrikanerdom en Afrikaans tot gevolg kan hê.

    “In 1900, one quarter of the world’s population was European; today, Europeans make up 7 per cent; in 2050, they will account for 4.5 per cent of the global population, and nearly one-third of them will be more than sixty-five years old” (2971). As die toekoms van blankes in Europa en elders buite Afrika, bv Amerika, demografies duister lyk, hoe groot is die duisternis dan nie vir blankes in Afrika nie?

    Tog moet Afrikaners poog om onuitroeibaar te wees. Die beste manier om dit te doen, is om jou ongetransformeerde identiteit te behou, bv om nie te hibridiseer nie – nie wat kultuur of taal of jouself betref nie – en selfbeskikking in ‘n eie tuisland as ideaal te bly koester. Hiervoor is kompromislose nasionalisme nodig. Hierdie dinge moet eerder in ons hart en gees en die werklikheid as in die kuberruimte gegrondves wees.

  • Dan Roodt: Gestel ons herower Suid-Afrika?

    Dan Roodt: Gestel ons herower Suid-Afrika?

    Annette Kennealy, in memoriam

    Hoe later, hoe kwater, soos hulle sê. As ek daagliks waarneem hoe die radikalisering van Suid-Afrika sedert die De Klerk-Meyer-oorgawe van 1994 verloop, dan wonder ‘n mens waar dit alles gaan eindig (of juis nie). Want op ‘n manier was dit alles só voorspelbaar; ons ouers en grootouers het presies geweet hoe die Bantoesamelewing lyk en selfs binne die naïewe geledere van die Nasionale Party was daar plek-plek genoegsame kennis van marxisme en afromarxisme sedert 1960 in Afrika om te kon voorspel hoe die “Volksrepubliek van Azanië” uiteindelik daar sou uitsien. Immers was die ANC-SAKP se sogenaamde “Vryheidsmanifes” niks anders as ‘n kommunistiese visie vir ons land met ‘n liberaal-demokratiese sousie bo-oor nie. “Die grond sal aan diegene behoort wat dit bewerk,” staan mos daarin.

    Of juis nie bewerk nie, want volgens beskikbare statistieke het 90% van plase wat onteien of aan Bantoeboere oorgedra is, misluk.

    Die hele debat oor die ANC se huidige grondgrypplanne is egter al oor en oor in die media en op sosiale media gevoer. Soos Breyten Breytenbach met die spraakvryheid van die vorige bedeling in 1973 egter kon sê:

    “Ek is partydig. Ek kies kant. Omdat dit vir my gaan om die totstandkoming van leefbare omstandighede in ons gemeenskap. Omdat dit vir my gaan om ’n soeke na, ’n óópmaak na ’n samelewing waarin elkeen van ons en almal van ons sy regmatige aandeel kan hê, waarbinne ons op gelyke voet verantwoordelikheid vir mekaar kan aanvaar.”

    Vergeet vir ‘n oomblik van die res van Breytenbach se stel linkse idees. Waarvan hy hier praat, is “om kant te kies” en “leefbare omstandighede in ons gemeenskap”. Waarskynlik het hy hier aan die multikulturele samelewing gedink, wat op daardie stadium — soos sosialisme in die negentiende eeu — nog grotendeels ‘n verre droom op die horison was. Vandag het ons egter daaglikse ervaring van die onreg, wreedheid en verontmensliking van so ‘n “multikulturele utopie”. Eintlik “distopie”. Veral dan ook onder onverbiddelike Bantoe-oorheersing, waaroor hier onder meer.

    Soos Fransi Phillips dit onlangs op Facebook gestel het:

    SA is ‘n simbool van die grootsheid van multikulturalisme. Nou moet die res volg. So, ons het eintlik nogal ‘n belangrike plek in die hele opset. Maar dis lekker dat hulle nou eerstehands begin voel wat dit is waaraan ons blootgestel is. Ons moenie die kans laat verbygaan nie.

    Ons multikulturele distopie is presies die teenoorgestelde as die “leefbare omstandighede” waarna Breytenbach in 1973 verwys het. Eerder verstaan ons nou sy woorde as “leefbare omstandighede binne ‘n volksgemeenskap of volkstaat”, want solank as wat ons aan die chaos, wanorde, diefstal, korrupsie, geweld en volksmoord – ja, volkmoord – van die huidige Suid-Afrika blootgestel is, sal ons omstandighede nooit “leefbaar” wees nie. Oral om ons word dood en verwoesting gesaai, soos die moord op my vriendin Anette Kennealy onlangs. Terloops, en ‘n mens moet dit seker nie te hard sê nie, maar Annette was in weerwil van haar liberale en dikwels Engelssprekende vriendekring, self ‘n soort “rasrealis” in die Amerikaanse sin. Sy was op ‘n stadium ‘n DA-stadsraadslid op Louis Trichardt en in haar openbare uitsprake het sy nooit, sover ek onthou, enigiets omstrede kwytgeraak nie. Sy het my egter aangemoedig om Robert Ardrey se boeke oor die “territoriale imperatief” te lees en op ‘n keer veelseggend aan my gefluister: “Hulle is ‘n ander spesie.”

    Suid-Afrikaanse Bantoes maak nie bloot blankes dood nie, maar ook die res van hul “broers” uit Afrika. Ons kan boeke skryf oor die redes daarvoor, of dit nature is of bloot nurture, maar dis ‘n futiele oefening. Ons moet die werklikheid in die oë kyk, asook die territoriale imperatief erken waarvan Annette gepraat het. Robert Ardrey se boek is hier iewers op my rak, maar vir die doeleindes van dié artikel haal ek kortliks die opsomming op die Engelse Wikipedia aan:

    The Territorial Imperative develops the theses originally introduced in African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man, which was published five years earlier. In African Genesis, Ardrey posited that man originated in Africa instead of Asia, that he is driven by inherited instincts to acquire land and defend territory, and that the development of weapons was a fundamental turning point in his evolution. The Territorial Imperative further explores these ideas with a special emphasis on man’s distinct preoccupation with the concept of territory. It goes on to elucidate the role that inherited evolutionary instinct, particularly the so-called “territorial imperative”, plays in modern human society in phenomena such as property ownership and nation building. (My kursivering.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Territorial_Imperative

    In vandag se Rapport, die koerant wat jare lank die lofsanger van elke uitgediende liberale leuen en cliché was, skryf die motorjoernalis Jaco Kirsten so ewe hoe lekker hy in Amerika leef nadat hy finaal geëmigreer het. Maar hy is darem nog “hartseer”. Op ‘n manier erken diegene wat emigreer dat blankes aan die verkeerde kant van die territoriale imperatief in ons land verkeer; die land is deur die “ander ras” of die “ander spesie” (die onderskeid tussen die twee is arbitrêr, biologies gesproke) verower en daarom moet ons nou padgee.

    In een van die Disqus-kommentare by die Jaco Kirsten-artikel skryf ‘n leseres, Katrien H, die skroeiende woorde:

    “Ek huil net om van die afskeid te lees. Daar is geen manier hoe ek sal (kan) weggaan nie maar net die gedagte breek my hart in stukke. Ons is vasgegroei aan Afrika. Dit sit in ons bloed. Tog word die wit mense hier deur meeste ander stamme gehaat. Daar is geen werklike oplossing nie. Ons moes nooit hier gewees het in die eerste plek nie. Maar nou is ons.”

    Julius Malema se EFF verteenwoordig die meer radikale faksie van die ANC. Die twee partye se grondbeleid (hul territoriale imperatief) stem egter ooreen en hulle werk saam om blanke boere van hul grond te verdryf, onder meer deur die beplande grondonteiening sonder vergoeding. Hierdie beleid het reeds wêreldwyd opslae gemaak, veral in Westerse lande soos ons stamland, Nederland, waar die Tweede Kamer dit onlangs as ‘n menseregtevergryping veroordeel het.

    Geen swart Afrikaland het hom tot dusver teen grondonteiening sonder vergoeding in Suid-Afrika uitgespreek nie, waarskynlik omdat soortgelyke beleide in Afrika sedert onafhanklikwording male sonder tal op ons vasteland toegepas is. In elk geval is die hele Suider-Afrika, met die hulp en finansiële ondersteuning van linkse Westerse regerings, deur afromarxistiese terreurbewegings (“bevrydingsbewegings” heet die amptelike eufemisme) oorgeneem, wat in mindere of meerdere mate verwoesting gesaai en die eiendom van blankes met geweld of deur wetgewing of ‘n kombinasie van die twee afgevat het.

    Dit is feite, soos hulle sê. Soos ek egter gister getwiet het,

    Die hoofstroommedia hou heeltyd die ANC aan ons voor as ‘n “politieke party” wat eintlik “redelik” en “sakevriendelik” sou wees. Sy radikale leier, Ramaphosa, wat self tot die beleid van grondonteiening besluit het, word voortdurend op sy voornaam in berigte vermeld: “Cyril dit, Cyril dat,” ens. Dit herinner sterk aan die persoonlikheidskultus rondom Stalin wat ewe seer as ‘n “vriendelike omie” en “Oom Joe” aangebied is. Intussen ken ons die geskiedenis van Stalin se massa- en volksmoorde, maar ook die radikale ideologie van die ANC en Suid-Afrikaanse Kommunisteparty haarfyn.

    Kortom, verwoord Katrien H. hier bo die ANC-SAKP se siening van ons baie goed: Ons is “indringers”, “gronddiewe”, “kolonialiste van ‘n spesiale tipe” wat “nooit hier moes gewees het in die eerste plek nie”.

    Swartes, selfs in die VSA, hou graag die gedagte van “Afrika vir die swartman” voor, wat natuurlik ‘n bevestiging van hul territoriale imperatief sou wees. Al hoe meer Europeërs begin ook die idee propageer dat Europa eintlik ‘n vasteland vir Europeërs behoort te wees en nie deur Moslems en swartes oorgeneem behoort te word nie. ‘n Agt-en-sestigerjarige dame in Swede wat op Facebook geskryf het dat alle Afrikane uit haar land gesit behoort te word – iets wat Malema en vele ander byna daagliks by ons betreffende blankes verwoord – is egter deur ‘n Sweedse aanklaer vervolg en sy is tot ‘n boete en gemeenskapsdiens gevonnis.

    In Afrika heers daar geen taboe op die verwoording van die territoriale imperatief nie, dog in Europa wel, blyk dit. Soos wat die mengkultuur egter op ‘n breukspul afstuur, voorspel ek dat daar nie meer genoeg howe en tronke in Europa gaan oorbly om die sensuur teen massa-immigrasie op Europeërs te bly handhaaf nie.

    Genoeg is al gesê oor die hopeloosheid en agterbaksheid van ‘n vorige geslag sogenaamde “Afrikanerleiers” wat dít bloot in naam was en geensins ons belange op die hart gedra het nie. Roelf Meyer is bloot gevlei deur die aandag van Britse joernaliste uit Londen en het geen flenter omgegee om ons hele volk se toekoms op die altaar te plaas nie. Aldus oorlede Chris Louw, wat dit alles destyds gevolg het.

    Dog ‘n veel groter probleem is ons gebrek aan ‘n antwoord op radikale afromarxisme en anti-blanke rassehaat wat die grondslag van amptelike beleid in Suid-Afrika verteenwoordig. Soos die Nederlander en die Vlaming, is die Afrikaner as Dietser minder ideologies en meer pragmaties ingestel. Insgelyks oor die afgelope week het die oorblywende Afrikaanse dagblaaie in die Naspersstal, Beeld, Burger en Volksblad, ‘n patetiese pleidooi gelewer dat die DA met die ANC moet “saamwerk” om ‘n bestuurskrisis in die groot “metropole” af te weer.

    Die onderskeid tussen pragmatisme, enersyds, en verraad of meelopery andersyds is dikwels baie vaag. Hierdie soort nihilistiese pragmatisme bied egter vir ons géén oplossing nie en moet met die minagting verwerp word wat dit verdien.

    “Afrika vir die swartman,” is ‘n radikale idee, sowel vanuit ‘n ideologiese as ‘n biologiese oogpunt. Die ANC en EFF het reeds besluit dat Suid-Afrika aan die swartman (sal) behoort; vandaar hul meedoënlose plundering van ons staatsbates wat oor vier eeue opgebou is, asook ons universiteite, ons skole, ons grond en ons eiendom.

    Die ANC-SAKP se beleid is naakte Bantoe-imperialisme. Niks minder nie. Vanuit hul voormalige tuislande en van oorkant ons grense is die suidelike Bantoe besig om ons land stukkie vir stukkie te verower met die doel om uiteindelik ‘n Suid-Afrika sónder blankes en veral sónder Afrikaners tot stand te bring.

    In die aangesig van dié groteske territoriale imperatief, word duisende van ons mense tereg met vrees vervul. Ons is ontwapen deur die De Klerk-Meyer-oorgawe, demografies oorspoel, ontredderd en veral sonder enige visie of teenplan.

    In ‘n essay wat ek jare gelede aangehaal het, het Carel Boshoff IV op ‘n keer gesê: “Een revolusie roep ‘n ander op.” Dit is baie waar. Maar ook: “Een radikalisme roep ‘n ander op.”

    Daar is geen pragmatiese of selfs demokratiese — wat dit in ons tyd ook al mag beteken — antwoord op naakte Bantoe-imperialisme, anti-blanke en anti-Westerse haat nie. In elk geval stel die Bantoe-imperialis kwalik belang in dialoog met die Afrikaner, wie se taal, kultuur, identiteit en geskiedenis hy verafsku en sonder omhaal wil vernietig. Panyaza Lesufi, die ANC se onderwysminister in Gauteng, is onomwonde daaroor dat daar nóg vir Afrikaans nóg vir die Afrikaner enige plek in “sy skole” is. Eens “ons skole”, deur ons gebou en met ons belastinggeld betaal, maar nou, ná die revolusie en Afrikaneroorgawe: “Bantoe-eiendom”.

    Die ANC en sy bondgenoot, die EFF, se slagspreuk is wesentlik: “Suid-Afrika vir die swartman!” Daar is al vele kere parallelle getref tussen Zimbabwe en Suid-Afrika en dit is tog helder dat dieselfde beleid gegrond op haat vir die blanke, asook die Bantoe-territoriale-imperatief, hier by ons ontplooi word.

    Die kreet dat Suid-Afrika uitsluitlik Bantoe-eiendom is, is ‘n rasbiologiese kreet. Soos Jaco Kirsten wat besluit het om “pad te gee”, betrek dit die primitiewe dele van die brein, ‘n oorblyfsel uit die reptieltydperk, soos die breinstam en die amigdala. Dis ‘n geval van: “veg of vlug”! Sommige “vlug” of het reeds gevlug, maar ander van ons “veg” of probeer, sy dit dan op ‘n geringe manier en met die karige middele tot ons beskikking, weerstand bied.

    By elke begrafnis, soos dié van Annette Kennealy onlangs, waar ons van iemand afskeid moet neem wat deur die rasende swartman neergevel is, word ons daaraan herinner dat ons in ‘n oorlog verkeer. Dis ‘n ander tipe oorlog as dié waaroor ons in Westerse geskiedenisboeke lees; dit is nooit behoorlik verklaar nie (hoewel die ANC in die tyd vóór 1994 herhaaldelik teenoor ons oorlog verklaar het en terreur op ons burgerlikes op allerlei maniere gepropageer en selfs uitgevoer het), maar dit maak dit nie minder uitmergelend en vernietigend nie. Dit stem ooreen met die tegria-oorloë wat die eerste Europese reisigers, soos byvoorbeeld Mungo Park, in Afrika ontdek het. Park skryf in Travels in the interior districts of Africa:

    The wars of Africa are of two kinds, which are distinguished by different appellations ; that species which bears the greatest resemblance to our European contests, is denominated killi, a word signifying “to call out,” because such wars are openly avowed and previously declared. Wars of this description in Africa commonly terminate, however, in the course of a single campaign. A battle is fought, the vanquished seldom think of rallying again the whole inhabitants become panic-struck, and the conquerors have only to bind the slaves, and carry off their plunder and their victims. Such of the prisoners as, through age or infirmity, are unable to endure fatigue, or are found unfit for sale, are considered as useless, and I have no doubt are frequently put to death…

    The other species of African warfare is distinguished by the appellation of tegria, “plundering or stealing.” It arises from a sort of hereditary feud which the inhabitants of one nation or district bear towards another. No immediate cause of hostility is assigned, or notice of attack given; but the inhabitants of each watch every opportunity to plunder and distress the objects of their animosity by predatory excursions. These are very common, particularly about the beginning of the dry season, when the labour of the harvest is over, and provisions are plentiful. Schemes of vengeance are then meditated. The chief man surveys the number and activity of his vassals, as they brandish their spears at festivals, and, elated with his own importance, turns his whole thoughts towards revenging some depredation or insult, which either he or his ancestors may have received from a neighbouring state.

    Wars of this description are generally conducted with great secrecy. A few resolute individuals, headed by some person of enterprise and courage, march quietly through the woods, surprise in the night some unprotected village, and carry off the inhabitants and their effects before their neighbours can come to their assistance.

    Dit is helder dat die tipe oorlog waarin Suid-Afrika tans verkeer van Mungo Park se tegria-tipe is. Die hoofman, “elated with his own importance”, dink aan al die “onregte van die verlede” en moedig dan sy onderdane aan om te gaan roof en plunder, asook die vyand in onverwagse aanvalle uit te moor, soos tydens plaasmoorde byvoorbeeld.

    Maar hoe troef ons die radikale visie van die Bantoe-imperialis, met ons eie, ewe radikale siening vir die toekoms? Op die vooraand van die eerste vryheidsoorlog, kon Paul Kruger begeesterd uitroep:

    “Met vertroue lê ons ons saak oop vir die hele wêreld. Hetsy ons oorwin, hetsy ons sterf: die vryheid sal in Afrika rys soos die son uit die môrewolke, soos die vryheid verrys het in die Verenigde State van Noord-Amerika. Dan sal dit wees van Zambezi tot aan Simonsbaai: Afrika vir die Afrikaner.”

    Lees ook: Dan Roodt: Die politieke lesse van Paul Kruger

    Of dalk in ons tyd: Suid-Afrika vir die Afrikaner? Op die oog af lyk dit onmoontlik, om die land te herower, daar waar ons in die aanloop tot die ’94-oorgawe, “oorwin” is en vandag telkens daaraan herinner word dat ons ‘n “magtelose minderheid”, “ongewenste setlaars” of “sommer niks” is nie. Maar toe die Litaus-gebore Joe Slovo en sy medekamarade sonder enige openbare steun in die 1940’s en 1950’s daarvan begin droom het om ons land met hul frontorganisasie, die ANC, te verower, was dit ewe vergesog en “belaglik”. Nietemin het hulle, weliswaar met die geluk en FW de Klerk aan hul kant, daarin geslaag!

    Die geskiedenis is vol vreemde wendings, iets wat die meeste van ons in ons leeftyd ervaar het. Ek het in Oktober 1989 nog die Berlynse Muur op ‘n besoek gesien. In die 1980’s het die meeste gewone Afrikaners nie eens van die ANC se bestaan geweet nie, wat nog te sê die idee dat hulle die land kon inpalm… ‘n Klein groepie radikale onder aanvoering van die bysiende kommunis, Joe Slovo, het dit egter reggekry.

    Winnie en Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo

    Niks is ontmoontlik nie! Maar ‘n mens kort ‘n doelwit, ‘n teiken. In vorige eeue en selfs in die twintigste eeu, is groot ryke oor geslagte heen opgebou. ‘n Prins of vorstehuis het ‘n visie verwoord en daarna het die hele volk saamgewerk om dit te verwesenlik. Vandag kan ons steeds dieselfde doen.

    In meer praktiese terme sien ek dit só ontvou:

    • Al is ons ‘n klein groepie “ware Afrikaners” of “Boere”, sweer ons trou aan ons volk en sy toekoms. Ons aanvaar dat dit ‘n lang en swaar stryd gaan wees om weer vryheid te verkry, met die juk van Bantoe-imperialisme wat swaar op ons druk, swaarder nog as die eertydse Britse imperialisme.
    • Ons skep enklawes in Suid-Afrika, “kastele” waar ons vroue, kinders en oumense veilig kan wees. Dit gebeur reeds: Orania, Kleinfontein, veiligheidsbuurte met Afrikanermeerderhede.
    • Ons skep die Wolkstaat waarvan ons voorheen gepraat het: eie virtuele ekonomie, eie handel met onsself en met die buiteland, finansiële bates in die buiteland waar die Bantoe-imperium hulle nie kan plunder nie.
    • Ons skakel virtueel by ons stamlande in Europa in en begin waar doenlik die euro as betaalmiddel tussen Afrikaners gebruik. Elke Afrikaner moet oor ‘n buitelandse rekening beskik en glad geen kontant of spaargeld in die “getransformeerde” Suid-Afrikaanse banke laat rondlê nie.
    • Ons sien om na mekaar. Alle armes, werkloses, siekes, ens., moet op ‘n sentrale register geplaas word soos dit in Europa gedoen word en planne moet gemaak word om na elkeen om te sien, werk te skep, hier of in samewerking met Europeërs, Amerikaners en Afrikaneremigrante wat steeds ons saak goedgesind is.
    • Ons verdedig ons teen die alledaagse aanvalle, rooftogte, plundering en plaasmoorde kragtens die selfverdedigingsbeginsel in Romeins-Hollandse reg: se defendendo.
    • Ons bestee minder aan selfone en motors, en meer aan veiligheid. Elke Afrikanergesin moet oor handwapens, jaggewere (die “long guns” waarvan die Amerikaners praat) en selfs, waar moontlik, semi-outomatiese wapens beskik. Alles binne die wet, natuurlik.
    • Ons versterk die Afrikaanse kultuur, veg waar moontlik hofsake oor verengelsing en internasionaliseer die taalstryd. Voortdurend moet ons dit duidelik maak dat die onderdrukking van Afrikaans net ‘n onderdeel van die groter volksmoord is wat die geradikaliseerde Bantoe-marxis tans op ons uitvoer. Verder skep ons verwoed in Afrikaans: boeke, toneelstukke, films, video’s, musiek… ‘n hele Afrikanerrenaissance soos laas in die 1930’s gebeur het!
    • Ons troef die ANC-SAKP se propaganda dat “Suid-Afrika wel Bantoegebied is” met argumente, boeke en artikels wat die teendeel bewys. Ons ontken dat die Bantoestamme op enige grondgebied buite die ou tuislande of die omringende “nasionale state” soos Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, ens. geregtig is. Alle vorme van “grondhervorming” en grondgryp moet met hand en tand beveg word. Ons was éérste hier, in 1652. Laat hulle die teendeel bewys. Op skrif.
    • Ons boikot selektief anti-Afrikaanse of anti-blanke maatskappye soos Spur, Toyota, DSTV en die res, asook die kleiner munisipaliteite waar dienste in elk geval nie meer gelewer word nie.
    • Soos wat die stryd tussen ons en die Bantoe-imperium voortwoed, sal ons wel punte begin aanteken. In elk geval is die openbare maatskappye soos Eskom, Transnet, SAL, Denel, ens., asook die munisipaliteite, reeds bankrot gesteel en sal die ekonomie al swaarder begin trek.
    • Ons moedig ‘n toeristeboikot deur buitelanders, tesame met verbruikersboikotte van Suid-Afrikaanse goedere in die buiteland aan. Dít alles sal die ekonomiese druk op die Bantoeryk verhoog en hy sal minder belastings in, asook weens sy beperkter staatsmiddele minder van ons bates kan plunder.
    • Soos wat die druk toeneem, kan ons begin om bepaalde gebiede in die land waar ons in die meerderheid verkeer, onafhanklik te verklaar en die vlae van volkstate te hys. Al word sulke state nie aanvanklik universeel erken nie, sal hulle nie meer belastings aan die Bantoeryk hoef te betaal nie en kan ons sodoende groter beheer oor ons eie finansiële en ander hulpbronne verkry. Gebiede moet ook gekonsolideer word in een of twee groter Afrikanerrepublieke wat soortgelyk aan die ou Boererepublieke sal saamwerk en ‘n gemeenskaplike verdedigingstelsel sal instel.

    Afhangend van die omstandighede by daardie punt, behoort ons egter nie op te hou nie. Onthou: “Een radikalisme roep ‘n ander op.” Net soos wat die ANC-SAKP ons almal by ons werkplekke, aan die universiteite en in skole wil vervang – die “Groot Vervanging” waarvan daar insgelyks in Europa sprake is – moet ons op die duur alle swartes laat vervang met ‘n beleid van BEB, oftewel “blanke ekonomiese bemagtiging”. Ons sal blankes invoer uit ander wêrelddele om arbeid hier te kom verrig en geen enkele Bantoe meer in diens neem nie, iets wat reeds met welslae in Orania toegepas word.

    Sodoende sal die twee onversoenbares, die Afrikanerkultuur en die Bantoekultuur, op ‘n natuurlike wyse uitmekaar groei en elkeen in sy eie gebied teregkom. Anders as in Verwoerd se tyd, sal dit nie by wyse van patriargale blanke staatsbeleid gebeur nie, maar meer organies en in reaksie op ‘n radikale kultuurkonflik wat reeds deur die Bantoe-imperialiste ontketen is — en voortaan onstuitbaar is. Dit is ‘n proses wat by wyse van aantrekking en afstoting sal gebeur: die verwerping van Afrikaans en die Europese wêreldbeskouing deur die afrosentriese, geradikaliseerde Bantoe veroorsaak dat hy sy rug op ons keer, terwyl ons op ons beurt ons rug op die Bantoe en sy imperiale gebiedsuitbreiding, asook sy sug na oorheersing keer en selfbeskikking nastreef.

    Dis nie nodig om ‘n lykskouing by die NP-beleid van destyds onder Malan, Strijdom en Verwoerd te hou nie. Maar in die 1960’s was die wêreld nog nie reg vir gebiedskeiding en die “afsonderlike ontwikkeling” van kulture nie. Tans is veral die Westerse wêreld, sowel die Noord-Amerikaners as die Europeërs, uiters ontvanklik daarvoor. Europa se vrees vir Islamisering en die Amerikaanse weerstand om deur immigrasie vanoor die Mexikaanse grens — waaronder ook swartes uit Afrika! — oorspoel te word, skep ‘n natuurlike bondgenootskap tussen ons en die res van die Weste.

    In die aangesig van korrupsie, geweld, volksmoord op boere, asook die uiterste vorme van Bantoevermetelheid tans, beskik ons reeds oor die “morele hoëgrond”, soos dit genoem word.

    Die herowering van Suid-Afrika, dít wat op Spaans die reconquista genoem word, moet met ongekende ywer nagestreef word, totdat die rug van die Bantoebesetting finaal gebreek is. Selfs dán moet dit nog nie ophou nie, en moet Suid-Afrika as ‘n integrale deel van die Westerse en Europese stelsel herstel word – soos dit tot onlangs toe was!

    Tydens die klassieke reconquista, het dit die Spanjaarde 780 jaar geneem om van die Arabiere in hul land ontslae te raak. Vir seker gaan dit nie so lank neem om die oorheersing van die suidelike Bantoe in ons land vir goed te beëindig nie.

    Ek verstout my om te sê: Ons kan nie anders as om te oorwin nie.

    Om die leuse van Hoërskool Linden in Johannesburg, een van die skole wat Lesufi die Bantoe-imperialis van Gauteng, tot niet wil maak, lui:

    Volhard!

  • Leon Lemmer: Heart of darkness: Deel 1: As koloniale literatuur

    Leon Lemmer: Heart of darkness: Deel 1: As koloniale literatuur

    Heart of darkness (1899) is ‘n novelle van Joseph Conrad (1857-1924). Meer as ‘n halfeeu gelede was dit een van my voorgeskrewe boeke. As ‘n Rose Classic is die teks gratis in ‘n Kindle-weergawe beskikbaar. Conrad is ‘n Pool wat in die Oekraïne gebore is, maar as Engelse romanskrywer roem verwerf het, al was Engels naas Pools en Frans sy derde taal. Vyf van Conrad se werke is in Harold Bloom se “Western canon” opgeneem, maar nie Heart of darkness nie; moontlik vanweë die prominente “moral element” daarin (Harold Bloom, The Western canon: The books and school of the ages, London: Macmillan, 1995, p 473); ook “paterian”/paternalisties genoem (434). Bloom bestempel die frase “heart of darkness” as “an obscurantist metaphor” (121). In die huidige era van bv afrikanisering word Bloom se uitsprake dikwels teengespreek. Vir my is dit duidelik dat swart Afrika hier met donkerte/duisternis geassosieer word, wat deesdae as polities inkorrek beskou word; selfs wanneer, soos geformuleer deur Conrad, daardie donkerte deels aan blankes se koloniale motiewe en dade toegeskryf word. Heart of darkness is wel as ‘n meesterwerk ingesluit by FR Leavis se The great tradition (1948).

    John Stape

    Oor Conrad en sy skryfwerk is daar baie gepubliseer. Ek kan John Stape se boek, The several lives of Joseph Conrad (New York: Pantheon Books, 2007, 369p; Amazon Kindle $16,20), aanbeveel. “Conrad spoke of himself as having three lives – as Pole, as seaman, and as writer” (p xxiv). Hy was van 1874 tot 1894 ‘n seevaarder, as matroos of passasier. “He was striking out for ‘the dark places of the earth full of habitations of cruelty’” (62). Conrad was onder meer in Kaapstad en Port Elizabeth. Later het hy geld in die Suid-Afrikaanse mynbedryf belê (95). In 1890 het hy op in die Kongo-rivier tot by Boma gevaar en vandaar na Matadi, “the first step into what he would memorably call the ‘Heart of Darkness’… he kept a dairy for the first and only time in his life … Delayed for a fortnight by the station chief, he had the unexpected compensation of meeting Roger Casement [1864-1916], the [Irish] human rights activist” (63) wat later deur bv die Anglo-Boere-oorlog (1899-1902) beïnvloed is om standpunt teen imperialisme in te neem. “Conrad followed the [Boer War] conflict closely, deeply distrusting both the motives behind it and its conduct” (115). Hy was immers sterk teen die Russiese besetting van Pole gekant. Casement “saw in Conrad a potential ally in his tireless efforts to mobilise public opinion against atrocities in the Congo” (133).

    Van Matadi is Conrad oor land na Leopoldville/Kinshasa. Van hier af het hy verder in die binneland in op die Kongo-rivier gevaar. “The diary covers more than half of the thousand-mile trip and then breaks off” (65). “Conrad himself witnessed and heard of cruelty and barbarism, resulting partly from sheer incompetence and stupidity … He now thoroughly regretted his decision to come to Africa” (65). Hy is per boot terug na Leopoldville, waarvan hy sê: “Everything here is repugnant” (66). Daarna terug na Matadi en uiteindelik Londen, “emotionally exhausted by the Congo” (67). Dit is die werklike gebeure waarop die novelle, Heart of darkness, gegrond is. Die reis na die hart van die Kongo is egter ook ‘n simboliese reis na die duisternis wat in die kern, die hart of siel, van die mens geleë is.

    Gedrukte uitgawes van Conrad se dagboek is gepubliseer en uittreksels daarvan is in Kindle-formaat beskikbaar. Toe dit nog uitsonderlik was, was Conrad al gekant teen kolonialisme en imperialisme. As genaturaliseerde Brit het hy egter verkies om nie openlik polities aktivisties te wees nie. “He subsequently replied to a direct enquiry from Casement that he had not himself witnessed the cutting off of hands [of black workers] that figures so appallingly in Casement’s exposé and begged off becoming involved in the protest. ‘I would help him but it is not in me. I am only a wretched novelist inventing wretched stories and not even up to that miserable game’” (133). Hoewel hy politieke voorkeure gehad het, wou Conrad nie as ‘n polities betrokke skrywer bekend staan nie.

    Heart of darkness

    Ek gee eers ‘n oorsig van die storie voordat ek tot die gebruik van veral aanhalings oorgaan. Vyf mans wat by seevaart betrokke is, sit op die dek van ‘n boot by Gravesend aan die Teems-rivier naby Londen. Een van hulle, Charlie Marlow, is die ek-verteller en die outeur se spreekbuis. Hy begin mymer oor hoe die Teems-gebied, toe die Romeine dit binnegeval het, een van die donker en barbaarse streke van die aarde was. “They were men enough to face the darkness ” (Rose classic edition, Kindle 83). Marlow brei op hierdie tema uit en begin die verhaal vertel van die donkerste, mees barbaarse gebied op aarde wat hy ervaar het.

    Marlow was die bevelvoerder van ‘n rivierboot vir ‘n Belgiese handelsmaatskappy. Toe hy hierdie werk kry, het hy in Brussel gehoor van Kurtz, wat rekord-besendings ivoor lewer: “Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together” (358). “Hadn’t I been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration that he had collected, bartered, swindled or stolen more ivory than all the other agents together?” (949). “He raided the country” (1137). Kurtz se naam duik ook op in gesprekke wat Marlow voer terwyl hy rivierlangs dieper die Kongo indring; “a God-forsaken wilderness” (242). Kurtz het vir ‘n geruime tyd nie berigte aan die distriksbestuurder in Leopoldville (“the Central Station”) gestuur nie en daar is gerugte dat Kurtz siek is. Die distriksbestuurder staan onverskillig teenoor die lot van die inboorlinge en hy hoop eintlik dat Kurtz dood is.

    Hulle vaar met die rivierboot op die Kongo-rivier na Kurtz se binnestasie by Stanley Falls/Stanleyville/Kisangani. Inboorlinge val die boot aan en die stuurman word deur ‘n spies gedood. By die binnestasie hoor hulle dat Kurtz ernstig siek is. Kurtz het glo pleks van die swartes te verander, dus op te voed, al hoe meer barbaars geword. Marlow ontmoet vir Kurtz en vind dat die man inderdaad verdorwe is deur die boosheid wat hy in Afrika ervaar het. Kurtz besef hoe onbeskaafd hy geword het, hoe sy planne om die inboorlinge op te voed, geboemerang het. Hy weet ook dat hy sterwend is. Hy gee aan Marlow ‘n pak briewe aan sy verloofde in België en die manuskrip van ‘n verslag wat hy geskryf het.

    Die distriksbestuurder en Marlow neem Kurtz op ‘n draagbaar na die boot. Op die terugreis na Leopoldville sterf Kurtz op die boot met die besef dat verterende boosheid die kern van alles is. Marlow gaan later na België om Kurtz se verloofde te besoek en die briewe te oorhandig. Sy dink nog aan Kurtz as die wonderlike en magtige man in Afrika. Wanneer sy Marlow vra wat Kurtz se laaste woorde was, lieg hy en vertel vir haar dat Kurtz met sy laaste asem na haar gevra het. In werklikheid het Kurtz met sy laaste woorde oor die afgryslikheid van alles getuig: “The horror! The horror!”

    Die aanhalings wat volg, toon hoe simpatiek Conrad teenoor die swartes was; hoe afkerig hy van slawerny, uitbuiting en kolonialisme was. In hierdie opsigte was hy sy tyd ver vooruit. Andersins dui sy novelle op sy fyn waarnemingsvermoë van bv die swartes. (‘n Reeks verdere aanhalings volg heelwat later in hierdie rubriek.)

    Die barbaarsheid van die Engelse tydens die Romeinse besetting (van 43 tot die vroeë 5de eeu) word erken. “In some inland post [the Roman] feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him – all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination – you know. Imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate” (89). Die Romeinse besetting word voorgestel as soortgelyk aan latere kolonisasie: “They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and the men going at it blind – as is very proper for those who tacle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much” (97).

    Marlow is as bevelvoerder van die rivierboot aangestel omdat sy voorganger vermoor is. “The original quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens … A Dane thought himself wronged somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with a stick” (149). “He had been a couple of years already out there engaged in the noble cause, you know, and he probably felt the need at last of asserting his selfrespect in some way. Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched him, thunderstruck, till some man – I was told the chief’s son – in desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear at the white man – and of course it went quite easy between the shoulderblades” (156).

    Terwyl Marlow op in die mond van die Kongo-rivier vaar: “Now and then a boat from the shore gave one a momentary contact with reality. It was paddled by black fellows. You could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistering. They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks – these chaps; but they had bone, muscle, wild vitality, an intense energy of movement, that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast. They wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfort to look at” (248). Later vertel ‘n Sweed aan Marlow van ‘n ander Sweed wat selfdood gepleeg het. “‘Hanged himself! Why, in God’s name?’ I cried. He kept on looking out watchfully. ‘Who knows? The sun too much for him, or the country perhaps’” (277).

    Hulle was besig om ‘n spoorlyn om stroomversnellings te bou sodat vervoergeriewe die twee dele van die rivier kon verbind; van Matadi tot by Stanley Pool/Leopoldville. “A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends behind wagged to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking … All their meager breasts panted together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily uphill. They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages” (285). Hy vervolg sinies: “I … was a part of the great cause of these high and just proceedings” (299).

    Sommige van die swart werkers word soos volg beskryf: “They were dying – it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now – nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. These moribund shapes were free as air – and nearly as thin” (321). Die handelsbedrywighede word soos volg verwoord: “Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass-wire sent into the depths of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory” (351).

    “I left that station [Matadi] at last, with a caravan of sixty men, for a two-hundred-mile tramp” (373). Terwyl hulle na Leopoldville loop, kom hulle ‘n blanke man in uniform teë: “Was looking after the upkeep of the road, he declared. Can’t say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles farther on, may be considered as a permanent improvement” (389). “Out there there were no external checks … ‘Men who come out here should have no entrails’” (430). Terwyl Marlow in Leopoldville is: “A nigger was being beaten near by. They said he had caused the fire in some way; be that as it may, he was screeching most horribly. I saw him, later on, for several days, sitting in a bit of shade looking very sick and trying to recover himself: afterwards he arose and went out – and the wilderness without a sound took him into its bosom again” (458).

    By die binnestasie, Stanleyville, ‘n soortgelyke voorval: “The beaten nigger groaned somewhere … ‘Serve him right. Transgression – punishment – bang! Pitiless, pitiless. That’s the only way. This will prevent all conflagrations for the future” (508). Die moontlikheid word genoem dat ‘n mededinger om ivoor gehang kan word om hom uit die pad te kry. “Why not? Anything – anything can be done in this country” (652). Van Kurtz word gesê: “There was nothing on earth to prevent him killing whom he jolly well pleased” (1143). Rivier-op kon die stoomboot nie altyd vlot gehou word nie. “More than once she had to wade for a bit, with twenty cannibals splasing around and pushing. We had enlisted some of these chaps on the way for a crew. Fine fellows – cannibals – in their place. They were men one could work with, and I am grateful to them. And, after all, they did not eat each other before my face: they had brought along a provision of hippo-meat which went rotten, and made the mystery of the wilderness stink in my nostrils” (695).

    “We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness” (708). “[A] headman, a young, broad-chested black, severely draped in dark-blue fringed cloths, with fierce nostrils and his hair all done up artfully in oily ringlets, stood near me. ‘Aha!’ I said, just for good fellowship’s sake. ‘Catch ‘im,’ he snapped, with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth – ‘catch ‘im. Give ‘im to us.’ ‘To you, eh?’ I asked; ‘what would you do with them?’ ‘Eat him!’ he said curtly” (812). “I don’t think a single one of them [blacks] had any clear idea of time, as we at the end of countless ages have. They still belonged to the beginnings of time – had no inherited experience to teach them as it were, and of course, as long as there was a piece of paper written over in accordance with some farcical law or other made down the river, it didn’t enter anybody’s head to trouble how they would live” (818).

    “All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz; and by-and-by I learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had intrusted him with the making of a report, for its future guidance … Seventeen pages of close writing he had found time for! But this must have been before his – let us say – nerves, went wrong … The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous. He began with the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, ‘must necessarily appear to them (savages) in the nature of supernatural beings – we approach them with the might as of a deity’ … [The report] gave me the notion of an exotic Immersity ruled by an august Benevolence” (1006). Later het Kurtz die volgende sin by sy verslag gevoeg: “Exterminate all the brutes” (1019). “It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core” (1176). “Kurtz’s methods had ruined the district” (1169).

    Toe die boot van die wal af deur swartes aangeval word, gee ‘n blanke die volgende raad wat uitstekend gewerk het. Al wat Marlow moet doen, is om die fluit/toeter van die boot te blaas: “One good screech will do more for you than all your rifles. They are simple people” (1074). “I looked around, and I don’t know why, but I assure you that never, never before, did this land, this river, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness” (1121). Dit kon net so wel ‘n gepaste beskrywing van die nuwe Suid-Afrika wees.

    Daar is mensskedels rondom Kurtz se woonplek. “After all, that was only a savage sight, while I seemed at on[c]e bound to have been transported into some lightless region of subtle horrors, where pure, uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief, being something that had a right to exist – obviously – in the sunshine … Kurtz was no idol of mine” (1184). “His soul was mad” (1356) en daar is “the barren darkness of his heart” (1394). “His was an impenetrable darkness” (1415). “There is no disguising the fact, Mr Kurtz has done more harm than good to the Company” (1256). “Nevertheless I think Mr Kurtz is a remarkable man” (1264). Kurtz het ‘n swart vriendin gehad. “She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent” (1234).

    Die dodelik siek Kurtz word op die boot gelaai maar sy vriendin word agtergelaat. “Only the barbarous and superb woman did not so much as flinch, and stretched tragically her bare arms after us over the somber and glittering river” (1386). Rivier-af sterf Kurtz binne enkele dae op die boot met die woorde: “The horror! The horror!” (1430). “I went no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth … Droll thing life is – that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself – that comes too late – a crop of unextinguisable regrets” (1439). “I remembered his abject pleading, his abject threats, the colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul” (1515). Marlow besoek later Kurtz se vriendin in België, wat groot waardering vir Kurtz bly koester. Marlow verswyg Kurtz se werklike laaste woorde. Hy vertel eerder ‘n wit leuen: “The last word he pronouced was – your name” (1603).

    Adam Hochschild

    Adam Hochschild (gebore in 1942) het ‘n boek oor ‘n era in die geskiedenis van die Kongo geskryf: King Leopold’s ghost: A story of greed, terror, and heroism in colonial Africa (London: Pan Macmillan, 1999/2006, 376p; Amazon Kindle $14,74). Die Kongo was toe (1885-1908) die persoonlike besitting van Koning Leopold II (1835-1909, Belgiese koning 1865-1909), dus streng gesproke nie ‘n kolonie nie. Eers daarna het die Kongo ‘n Belgiese kolonie geword (1908-1960). Op ‘n soortgelyke manier: Die Kaap is van 1652 tot 1795 deur ‘n maatskappy, die Vereenighde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) besit. Eers tydens die Bataafse bewind (1803-1806) het dit ‘n Hollandse kolonie geword. Die Kaap was ‘n Britse kolonie van 1795 tot 1803 en van 1806 tot 1910, maar amptelik eintlik eers van 1814 af. Dit is onder meer aan ‘n boek soos dié van Hochschild te wyte dat kolonialisme deesdae sonder meer as wreedaardige uitbuiting voorgestel word, terwyl die Leopold-Kongo in werklikheid dié uiterste geval van uitbuiting van Afrikane deur ‘n Europeër was. “What happened in the Congo could reasonably be called the most murderous part of the European Scramble for Africa” (p 280). Konrad stem hiermee saam: Die Leopold-Kongo was “the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience” (4). John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) het in sy boek, On liberty (1859), geskryf: “Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement” (84). Daar kan kwalik beweer word dat Leopold die omstandighede van die Kongolese verbeter het. ‘n Belgiese eerste minister het gesê: Leopold “treats men as we use lemons, when he has squeezed them dry, he throws away the peel” (95).

    Hochschild is uiters linksgesind. Hy was ‘n joernalistiekdosent en sy vrou, Arlie Russell Hochschild (gebore in 1940), ‘n sosiologiedosent. Hierdie egpaar het in die jare sestig tydens die burgerregtebeweging na die suidelike Amerikaanse state gegaan om solidariteit met die opstandige swartes te betoon en hulle te help om as kiesers te registreer. Maar selfs Adam Hochschild erken: “Despite the thievery of Leopold and his successors, it is wrong to blame the problems of today’s Africa entirely on colonialism” (318). “In health, life expectancy, schooling and income the Congolese people were far worse off at the end of Mobutu’s [Sese Seko, 1930-1997, president 1965-1997] reign than they had been at the end of eighty years of colonialism in 1960” (315).

    Op ‘n soortgelyke manier kan beweer word dat Suid-Afrika tydens die Afrikanerbewind, verguis as die era van apartheid (1948-1994), in (seker) die meeste opsigte beter daaraan toe was as sedertdien tydens die ANC-bewind. Adam het ‘n boek, The mirror at midnight: a journey to the heart of South Africa (1990/2007) oor “the 150-year-old national myth of Afrikaners-as-victims” geskryf ná ‘n besoek aan Suid-Afrika in 1988. Reeds in 1961 het hy ‘n kort tyd as joernalis in Suid-Afrika gewerk en ook ‘n besoek aan Leopoldville gebring. Oor Arlie Hochschild se linkse taksering van Amerikaanse blanke suiderlinge het ek reeds geskryf (Praag 4.02.2017). Haar man sluit hierby aan: “What was slavery in the American South, after all, but a system for transforming the labor of black bodies, via cotton plantations, into cloth?” (King Leopold’s ghost, 16). Voortaan verwys Hochschild na Adam.

    Edmund Dene Morel (1873-1924) was in diens van ‘n skeepsmaatskappy met sy hoofkantoor in Liverpool. Sy werk was om toesig te hou oor die op- en aflaai van skepe wat met die Kongo handel dryf. In 1897 of 1898 het hy in Antwerpen opgemerk dat die inkomende skepe ivoor en rubber bring maar dat daar nie handelsartikels uitgevoer word nie. Wat die skepe na die Kongo vervoer “is mostly army officers, firearms, and ammunition” (2). Sy afleiding was dat die ivoor en rubber die produkte van gedwonge of slawe-arbeid was, terwyl slawerny sedert 1838 in Britse gebiede verbode was. Morel het veral in Brittanje en Amerika mense bewus van die misdrywe in die Kongo gemaak. “Slave labor in the Congo … had taken eight to ten million lives” (3). Dit is as massa- of volksmoord beskou. Wat vir my interessant is, is dat Leopold II Frans, Duits en Engels magtig was, maar “he never bothered to learn Flemish, spoken by more than half his subjects” (33). Die Duitse keiser, Wilhelm II, het Leopold gekarakteriseer as “Satan and Mammon in one person” (240).

    Ná die voltooiing van Conrad se Heart of darkness in 1899 het Morel verskeie boeke gepubliseer, bv King Leopold’s rule in Africa (1904), Great Britain and the Congo: The pillage of the Congo basin (1909) en Red rubber: The story of the rubber slave trade which flourished on the Congo for twenty years, 1890-1910 (1906/1919). In 1908 het Morel se inisiatiewe tot die anneksasie van die Kongo deur die Belgiese regering gelei. “The picture Morel gives in his writings of Africans in the Congo before whites arrived is that of Rousseau’s idealized Noble Savage” (210). Morel is in sy propaganda voorafgegaan deur bv twee Amerikaanse swartes, die joernalis en historikus, George Washington Williams (1849-1891),* wat die Kongo in 1890 besoek het, en die sendeling, William H Sheppard (1865-1927),** wat in die vroeë jare negentig (1890’s) twee jaar in die Kongo deurgebring het en later weer daarheen gegaan het.

    [* “Williams studied briefly at Howard University [a university of blacks], which, when he mentioned it in later years, sometimes came out sounding like Harvard University. Later in his life, he also claimed a doctoral degree he had never earned” (103). Williams “used a phrase that seems plucked from the Nuremberg trials [1945-1946] of more than half a century later. Leopold’s Congo state, Williams wrote, was guilty of ‘crimes against humanity’” (111-112).

    ** Sheppard was nie ‘n engel nie. “He was forced to resign his post as a missionary because he had been caught having extramarital affairs with African women” (283).]

    Tydgenote soos Morel, Williams en Sheppard, asook Casement (hier bo), se onvergenoegdheid met toestande in die destydse Kongo word in Heart of darkness weerspieël. Casement “have darkened Conrad’s vision of colonialism in Africa” (197). Leopold “claimed that ‘it was impossible to have always the best men in Africa; and indeed the African climate seemed frequently to cause deterioration in the character’” (198). Conrad “was so horrified by the greed and brutality among white men he saw in the Congo, that his view of human nature was permanently changed … After brooding about his Congo experience for eight years, Conrad transformed it into Heart of darkness” (142). “Conrad himself wrote, ‘Heart of darkness is experience … pushed a little (and only very little) beyond the actual facts of the case’” (143). “Heart of darkness is one of the most scathing indictments of imperialism in all literature, but its author, curiously, thought himself an ardent imperialist where England was concerned” (146). “However laden it is with Victorian racism, Heart of darkness remains the greatest portrait in fiction of Europeans in the Scramble for Africa … Conrad’s white men go about their rape of the continent in the belief that they are uplifting the natives, bringing civilization, serving ‘the noble cause.’ All these illusions are embodied in the character of Kurtz” (147). Maar dit is juis van Kurtz wat Marlow/Conrad hom distansieer.

    Die Kurtz-karakter is ‘n samevoeging van die eienskappe van meer as een blanke wat Conrad in die Kongo teëgekom het. Een van hulle is Léon Rom, wat die hoof van die binnelandse stasie by Stanley Falls was en in 1899 ‘n boek, Le nègre du Congo, gepubliseer het. Daarin skryf Rom: “The product of a mindless state, its feelings are coarse, its passions rough, its instincts brutish, and, in addition, it is proud and vain. The black man’s principal occupation, and that to which he dedicates the greatest part of his existence, consists of stretching out on a mat in the warm rays of the sun, like a crocodile on the sand … The black man has no idea of time, and, questioned on that subject by a European, he generally responds with something stupid” (148). Jules Jacques, ‘n distrikskommissaris, het volgens Morel oor die swartes geskryf: “We must fight them until their absolute submission has been obtained, or their complete extermination” (229).

    Hochschild noem die gebeure in die Kongo “the first major international atrocity scandal in the age of the telegraph and the camera” (4). “The worst of the bloodshed in the Congo took place between 1890 and 1910” (5). Minder oortuigend is die volgende stelling: “Europe has long forgotten the victims of Leopold’s Congo” (4). Europese koloniale moondhede word deurlopend van wandade beskuldig en die uiterste geval van die Leopold-Kongo word dan dikwels as voorbeeld gebruik. Met telegrafie kon inligting vinniger en oor ‘n wyer gebied, selfs wêreldwyd, versprei word. Fotografie het ook ‘n beduidende uitwerking gehad. In Hochschild se boek is daar drie foto’s van afgekapte hande wat op ‘n ontstellende en weersinwekkende manier die destydse vergrype bevestig.

    Leopold het geredeneer: “Forced labor was ‘the only way to civilize and uplift these indolent … peoples’” (37). Onder dwang is van die inboorlinge verwag om kwotas rubber binne bepaalde tye te lewer. Versuim om dit te doen, was met die dood strafbaar. ‘n Afgekapte regterhand het as bewysstuk by die owerheid gedien dat ‘n persoon gedood is.* Soms is die persoon se lewe gespaar (onder meer sodat ammunisie bespaar kon word wat dan vir jag gebruik is), maar sy/haar regterhand is as bewysstuk ingelewer (226). Daar was ook die gebruik om woongebiede van huisvesting en inwoners te stroop sodat rubberbome in daardie ooptes geplant kon word eerder as om ooptes te skep deur woude moeisaam oop te kap. Aanvanklik is die sap van wilde rubberbome versamel, maar spoedig is aanvullend oorgegaan tot die aanplant van plantasies (278). Die groot aanvraag vir rubber het saamgehang met bv die uitvinding van motorvoertuie. Conrad se boek handel eintlik oor ivoorhandel. Ná sy besoek in 1890 het rubber pleks van ivoor die hoofuitvoerproduk geword. “By the turn of the century, the État Indépendant du Congo had become, far and away, the most profitable colony in Africa. The profits came swiftly because, transportation costs aside, harvesting wild rubber required no cultivation, no fertilizers, no capital investment in expensive equipment. It required only labor” (160).

    [* Toe Noord-Afrika deel van die Ottomanryk was, is meer as ‘n miljoen blanke, Christen Europeërs deur Berbers/Moslems van skepe en kusstreke ontvoer en as slawe in veral Marokko en Algerië, maar ook in die Midde-Ooste, gevange gehou en slegter as die swartes in die Leopold-Kongo behandel, maar hiervan word selde melding gemaak. Pleks daarvan dat die regterhand as bewys van ‘n slaaf se dood gebruik is, is sy/haar kop as bewysmateriaal aangebied; dus dat die slaaf nie ontsnap het of tot eie voordeel deur die bewaarders verkoop is nie. As dit onprakties was om afgesnyde koppe ver in die warm weer te vervoer, het die ore van die slagoffers as bewysmateriaal gedien (Giles Milton, White gold: The extraordinary story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa’s one million European slaves, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2004, p 34, 171). Hierdie slawerny was veral van 1530 tot 1780 aan die orde van die dag (“Barbary pirates,”Wikipedia).]

    Hochschild gee uitdrukking aan sy linkse aktivisme met die volgende samevatting: “History lies heavy on Africa: the long decades of colonialism, several hundred years of the Atlantic and Arab world slave trade, and – all too often ignored – countless centuries of indigenous slavery before that. From the colonial era, the major legacy Europe left to Africa was not democracy as it is practiced today in countries like England, France, and Belgium; it was authoritarian rule and plunder. On the whole continent, perhaps no nation has had a harder time than the Congo in emerging from the shadow of its past” (301).

    Chinua Achebe

    In die voorafgaande uiteensetting is dit duidelik dat Conrad as Westerling polities buitengewoon verlig vir sy tyd was; dat hy krities teenoor kolonialisme ingestel en swart Afrikane simpatiek gesind was. Maar Conrad kon onmoontlik voorsien het dat daar ná die Tweede Wêreldoorlog ‘n gees onder swartes sou posvat wat kommentaar oor swartes deur blankes as ongewens beskou, selfs wanneer dit gunstig is; om van ongunstig nie te praat nie. Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) het dit soos volg geformuleer: “No man can understand another whose language he does not speak (and ‘language’ here does not mean simply words, but a man’s entire world view” (Wikipedia); dus as ‘t ware die beginsel dat ‘n blinde die geskikste persoon is om ‘n mede-blinde te lei.

    Achebe was ‘n Nigeriese romanskrywer wat met sy boek, Things fall apart (1958), bekendheid verwerf het. In die roman word Igbo-stamlewe van binne af belig; nie dat Achebe danig stamgebonde was nie. Sy agtergrond was protestants en hy het sy boeke in Engels geskryf. Hy het ook graag tyd in die buiteland, veral die Weste, deurgebring. Volgens sy boek val dinge uitmekaar as ‘n Europese land ‘n Afrika-land koloniseer. Ons weet dat dinge in nog groter mate uitmekaarval as ‘n swart regering die politieke beheer by ‘n blanke bewind oorneem, met die nuwe Suid-Afrika as ‘n sprekende voorbeeld. As lid van die Igbo-stam het Achebe tydens die burgeroorlog (1967-1970) vir Biafra se afskeidingsbeweging teen die sentrale Nigeriese regering kant gekies. Nadat ‘n motorongeluk hom gestremd en verknog aan ‘n rolstoel gelaat het, was hy ‘n professor aan Bard College (1990-2008) en Brown University (2009-2013) in Amerika, al het hy nie verder as ‘n baccalaureus-graad gevorder nie. Maar hy het talle akademies-waardelose eredoktorsgrade versamel.

    Van 1972 tot 1976 was Achebe ‘n dosent aan die University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Daar het hy in 1975 ‘n lesing gelewer: “An image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of darkness’.” Die teks is in 1977 in die vaktydskrif, Massachusetts Review (vol 18, no 4, p 782-794) gepubliseer en is op die internet beskikbaar. Achebe begin sy artikel op ‘n voorspelbare manier: dat (swart?) skoolkinders in Yonkers, New York City, tot sy genoegdoening sy roman, Things fall apart, lees. Ook dat ‘n ouer (blanke) man van Afrika-literatuur en -geskiedenis as universiteitsvakke gesê het: “He never thought of Africa as having that kind of stuff.” Achebe: “I propose to draw from these rather trivial encounters rather heavy conclusions which at first sight might seem somewhat out of proportion to them. But only, I hope, at first sight.”

    In ‘n poging tot die eendersverklaring van alle swartes (en blankes) sê Achebe dat die inwoners van Yonkers ook gebruike en bygelowe het; dat hulle nie daarvoor na Afrika hoef te gaan nie. Die ouer blanke man se onwetendheid is egter aan meer as ‘n gebrek aan kennis te wyte. “Quite simply it is the desire – one might indeed say the need – in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest.” Dus, Afrika as nie-Europa. Achebe will hierdie verskynsel onemosioneel (“dispassionately”!) benader as ‘n romanskrywer wat reageer op ‘n werk van ‘n ander romanskrywer, Conrad se Heart of darkness, want hierdie novelle “displays that Western desire.” Conrad se boek is deel van die “Western canon” en word dus gereken as deel van die Engelse letterkunde wat permanente waarde het, “read and taught and constantly evaluated by serious academics.”

    “Heart of darkness projects the image of Africa as ‘the other world,’ the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man’s vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant beastiality. The book opens on the River Thames … But the actual story will take place on the River Congo, the very antithesis of the Thames … We are told that ‘going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world.’” Wat vir Conrad glo hinder, is “the lurking hint of kinship, of common ancestry. For the Thames too ‘has been one of the dark places of the earth.’ It conquered its darkness … But if it were to visit its primordial relative, the Congo, it would run the terrible risk of hearing grotesque echoes of its own forgotten darkness.” Waarop Achebe hier sinspeel, is mense se gemeenskaplike mensheid (“humanity”), wat egter nie ras- en etnies-kulturele verskille ophef nie.

    “The most interesting and revealing passages in Heart of darkness are, however, about people.” Achebe haal dan uit Heart of darkness aan: “The men were … No they were not inhuman. Well, you know that was the worst of it – this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped and spun and made horrid faces, but what thrilled you, was just the thought of their humanity – like yours – the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough, but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you – you so remote from the night of first ages – could comprehend.” Wat Conrad doen, is om die Kongolese as mede-mense te erken, maar hy dink dat hulle minder ontwikkeld as Europeërs is.

    In ‘n verdere aanhaling gee Conrad, volgens Achebe, “us one of his rare descriptions of an African who is not just limbs or rolling eyes”: “And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there below me and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat walking on his hind legs. A few months of training had done for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-gauge with an evident effort of intrepidity – and he had filed his teeth too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge.” Achebe se kommentaar is: “As everybody knows, Conrad is a romantic on the side. He might not exactly admire savages clapping their hands and stamping their feet but they have at least the merit of being in their place, unlike this dog in a parody of breeches. For Conrad things being in their place is of the utmost importance.” Maar Conrad toon juis die teenoorgestelde aan: dat hierdie swarte nie op die wal dans nie, maar op ‘n kundige manier op die boot werk.

    Kurtz se swart vriendin in die Kongo is volgens Achebe “a savage counterpart to the refined, European woman who will step forth to end the story … The difference in the attitude of the novelist to these two women is conveyed in too many direct and subtle ways to need elaboration. But perhaps the most significant difference is the one implied in the author’s bestowal of human expression to the one and the withholding of it from the other. It is clearly not part of Conrad’s purpose to confer language on the ‘rudimentary souls’ of Africa. In place of speech they made ‘a violent babble of uncouth sounds.’ They ‘exchange short grunting phrases’ even among themselves. But most of the time they were too busy with their frenzy. There are two occasions in the book, however, when Conrad departs somewhat from his practice and confers speech, even English speech on the savages. The first occurs when cannibalism gets the better of them.” Achebe haal aan (reeds hier bo): “‘Catch ‘im,’ he snapped with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth – ‘catch ‘im. Give ‘im to us.’ ‘To you, eh?’ I asked; ‘what would you do with them?’ ‘Eat ‘im!’ he said curtly.” “The other occasion was the famous announcement: ‘Mistah Kurtz – he dead.’”

    Dus, naas geluide maak, het die swartes in die boek ook gepraat. Die rede waarom Conrad daardie spraak meesal nie weergee nie, is seker om die voor die hand liggende rede dat hy nie hulle taal verstaan het nie. Achebe kom egter met ‘n minder vleiende vertolking: “At first sight these instances might be mistaken for unexpected [?] acts of generosity from Conrad. In reality they constitute some of his best assaults [!]. In the case of the cannibals the incomprehensible grunts that had thus served them for speech suddenly prove inadequate for Conrad’s purpose of letting the European glimpse the unspeakable craving in their hearts. Weighing the necessity for consistency in the portrayal of the dumb brutes against the sensational advantages of securing their conviction by clear, unambiguous evidence issuing out of their own mouth Conrad chose the latter. As for the announcement of Mr Kurtz’s death by the ‘insolent black head in the doorway’ what better or more appropriate finis could be written to the horror story of that wayward child of civilization who willfully had given his soul to the powers of darkness and ‘taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land’ than the proclamation of his physical death by the forces he had joined?”

    “If Conrad’s intention is to draw a cordon sanitaire between himself and the moral and psychological malaise of his narrator his care seems to me totally wasted because he neglects to hint however subtly or tentatively at an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters. It would not have been beyond Conrad’s power to make that provision if he had thought it necessary. Marlow seems to me to enjoy Conrad’s complete confidence – a feeling reinforced by the close similarities between their two careers. Marlow comes through to us not only as a witness of truth, but one holding those advanced and humane views appropriate to the English liberal tradition which required all Englishmen of decency to be deeply shocked by atrocities in Bulgaria or the Congo of King Leopold of the Belgians or wherever.”

    Dit wil-wil lyk asof Achebe hier die lig van Conrad se verligtheid sien, maar dan kom hy met hierdie sarkastiese oordrywing: “Thus Marlow is able to toss out such bleeding-heart sentiments as these.” Daarna volg ‘n aanhaling wat ook hier bo verskyn: “They were dying – it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying confusely in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest.” Dit lyk vir my na opregte simpatie, maar Conrad is blank en wat hy oor swartes skryf, word deur Achebe verdag gemaak.

    Achebe se renons in blanke filantropie strek verder as Conrad. Voorspelbaar kom hy ook vir Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) met sy kritiek by. “The kind of liberalism espoused here by Marlow/Conrad touched all the best minds of the age in England, Europe and America. It took different forms in the minds of different people but almost always managed to sidestep the ultimate question of equality between white people and black people.* That extraordinary missionary, Albert Schweitzer, who sacrificed brilliant careers in music and theology in Europe for a life of service to Africans in much the same area [Gabon] as Conrad writes about, epitomizes the ambivalence. In a comment which has often been quoted Schweitzer says: ‘The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother [by several centuries].’ And so he proceeded to build a hospital appropriate to the needs of junior brothers with standards of hygiene reminiscent of medical practice in the days before the germ theory of disease came into being. Naturally he became a sensation in Europe and America. Pilgrims flocked, and I believe still flock even after he had passed on, to witness the prodigious miracle in Lamberene, on the edge of the primeval forest.” Achebe is snood ondankbaar. Daar is Schweitzer se opofferings om sy lewe tussen vreemdeling in Afrika te slyt, asook sy onbetwisbare eerbied vir (die) lewe.

    [* By blankes en swartes is daar liggaamlike ooreenkomste (en verskille) en daar was en is kulturele verskille en daar was sekerlik (ten minste) in die tyd van Leopold se Kongo groot ontwikkelingsverskille.]

    “Conrad’s liberalism would not take him quite as far as Schweitzer’s, though. He would not use the word brother however qualified; the farthest he would go was kinship. When Marlow’s African helmsman falls down with a sprear in his heart he gives his white master one final disquieting look: ‘And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memory – like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment.” Dit is duidelik dat Conrad emosioneel met sy swart stuurman assosieer; dat hy hom nie distansieer van hierdie swarte as mens nie. Vir Achebe is dit nie goed genoeg nie. “It is important to note that Conrad, careful as ever with his words, is concerned not so much about distant kinship as about someone laying a claim on it. The black man lays a claim on the white man which is well-nigh intolerable. It is the laying of this claim which frightens and at the same time fascinates Conrad” en dan ‘n herhaling van die aanhaling: “the thought of their humanity – like yours … Ugly.”

    Hierna kom Achebe by wat hy eintlik prontuit van Conrad wil sê: “The point of my observations should be quite clear by now, namely that Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist.* That this simple truth is glossed over in criticism of his work is due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go completely unmarked. Students of Heart of darkness will often tell you that Conrad is concerned not so much with Africa as with the deterioration of one European mind caused by solitude and sickness. They will point out to you that Conrad is, if anything, less charitable to the Europeans in the story than he is to the natives, that the point of the story is to ridicule Europe’s civilizing mission in Africa.” Laasgenoemde sin som ook my standpunt op.

    [* Oorspronklik was dit “bloody racist” (Clare Clarke, bron hier onder, Kindle 553, 789).]

    “A Conrad student informed me in Scotland that Africa is merely a setting for the disintegration of the mind of Mr Kurtz. Which is partly the point. Africa as setting and backdrop which eliminates the African as human factor. Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognizable humanity, into which the wandering European enters at his peril. Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind? But that is not even the point. The real question is the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age-long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world. And the question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race, can be called a great work of art. My answer is: No, it cannot.”

    Achebe praat van Conrad se “obvious racism.” “Certainly Conrad had a problem with niggers. His inordinate love of that word itself should be of interest to psychoanalysts. Sometimes his fixation on blackness is equally interesting as when he gives us this brief description: ‘A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms,’ as though we might expect a black figure striding along on black legs to wave white arms! But so unrelenting is Conrad’s obsession.” “Conrad is a dream for psychoanalytic critics.” “Whatever Conrad’s problems were, you might say he is now safely dead. Quite true. Unfortunately his heart of darkness plagues us still. Which is why an offensive and deplorable book can be described by a serious scholar as ‘among the half dozen greatest short novels in the English language.’” “I am talking about a book which parades in the most vulgar fashion prejudices and insults from which a section of mankind has suffered untold agonies and atrocities in the past and continues to do so in many ways and many places today. I am talking about a story in which the very humanity of black people is called in question.”

    “The West seems to suffer deep anxieties about the precariousness of its civilization and to have a need for constant reassurance by comparison with Africa … Africa is to Europe as … a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical and moral deformaties so that he may go forward, erect and immaculate.” “In my original conception of this essay I had thought to conclude it nicely on an appropriately positive note in which I would suggest from my privileged position in African and Western cultures some advantages the West might derive from Africa once it rid its mind of old prejudices and began to look at Africa not through a haze of distortions and cheap mystifications but quite simply as a continent of people – not angels, but not rudimentary souls either – just people, often highly gifted people and often strikingly successful in their enterprise with life and society. But as I thought more about the stereotype image … I realized that no easy optimism was possible. And there was, in any case, something totally wrong in offering bribes to the West in return for its good opinion of Africa. Ultimately the abandonment of unwholesome thoughts must be its own and only reward.”

    “Although the work of redressing which needs to be done may appear too daunting, I believe it is not one day too soon to begin. Conrad saw and condemned the evil of imperial exploitation but was strangely unaware of the racism on which it sharpened its iron tooth. But the victims of racist slander who for centuries have had to live with the inhumanity it makes them heir to have always known better than any casual visitor even when he comes loaded with the gifts of a Conrad.”

    Clare Clarke

    Dit het die gebruik aan sommige inrigtings (skole en universiteite), veral in Amerika, geword om by die studie van Heart of darkness ook die mening van ‘n Afrikaan soos Achebe te betrek. “Achebe’s criticism has become a mainstream perspective on Conrad’s work” (Wikipedia). In hierdie verband is die volgende handleiding gepubliseer: Clare Clarke se An analysis of Chinua Achebe’s ‘An image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of darkness’ (London: Routledge, 2017, 87p; Amazon Kindle $8,28). In hierdie kort handleiding is daar baie herhaling en min addisionele inligting. Die kern van Achebe se betoog word opgesom as: “Conrad fundamentally mispresents his African characters so that they reinforce perceptions of African people, culture, and environment as savage and prehistoric” (Kindle 145). Achebe se artikel “has come to occupy a significant place amongst works of revisionist literary criticism” (168). Voor Achebe se kritiek, Conrad se boek “was regarded as a classic anti-colonial text” (201). Adam Hochschild verwys bv na Conrad se “rare ability to see the arrogance and theft at the heart of imperialism” (Wikipedia).

    Sedertdien word die novelle as eurosentries gebrandmerk en word daar verwag dat Afrikane pleks van Westerlinge uitspraak oor Afrika en Afrikane moet lewer. Maar Cedric Watts “suggests that Achebe’s arguments display the type of racism with which he charges Conrad. Watts’s essay is one of the most famous rebuttals of Achebe’s argument. He contends that Achebe seems to suggest that ‘whites are disqualified on racial grounds from judging the text.’ The implication of Watts’s argument is that Achebe’s position is actively anti-universal, separating people into racial groups rather than emphasizing a shared humanity” (678). Die titel van Watts se artikel is “‘A bloody racist’: About Achebe’s view of Conrad” (Yearbook of English studies, vol 13, 1983, p 196-209). Clarke: “Few critics would go as far as Achebe in their denunciation of Conrad” (758). “On the whole Achebe has been in the minority with his vehement and provocative views on racism in the novel” (813). Selfs die anti-imperialis Edward Said (1935-2003) “contests Achebe’s overly aggressive condemnation, suggesting that it is couched in an unhelpful ‘rhetoric of blame’” (944).

    In die tweede deel van hierdie rubriek skryf ek oor ‘n vindingryke toepassing van Heart of darkness op die nuwe Suid-Afrika.

  • Dan Roodt: Een radikalisme roep ‘n ander op

    Dan Roodt: Een radikalisme roep ‘n ander op

    In die politiek word daar gepraat van die Overton-venster, dít  wat op ‘n gegewe oomblik in ‘n land as polities aanvaarbaar beskou word, aldan nie. In die tagtigerjare onder PW Botha is die ANC as ‘n terreurorganisasie beskou en kommunisme of die nasionalisering van grond of ander eiendom sonder vergoeding was nie deel van die hoofstroompolitiek nie. Die handjie vol mense wat sulke idees gepropageer het, is deur die destydse Veiligheidspolisie dopgehou en is as ‘n gevaar vir die samelewing gesien.

    Sedertdien het die Overton-venster in ons land natuurlik radikaal na links beweeg: voormalige terroriste word as “helde” geloof. Afrikaans word aan universiteite verbied. Swart politieke partye wat openlik geweld of oorlog teen blankes aanhits, word as “hoofstroom” beskou en die media berig oor hulle asof dit die normaalste ding op aarde is.

    Hier is ‘n diagram wat die Overton-venster (vernoem na ‘n Amerikaanse politieke wetenskaplike Joseph P. Overton) voorstel.

    Tot redelik onlangs, was dit in Europa onaanvaarbaar om oor immigrasie te praat; dit is as ‘n “verregse onderwerp” beskou. Die eerste politikus in Nederland wat uitsprake oor immigrasie gemaak het, Hans Janmaat, is allerweë verguis en het heeltemal buite die Overton-venster geval. Sedertdien het die politieke gesprek min of meer oral in Europa na regs verskuif en word daar wel oor immigrasie debat gevoer, selfs deur linkse partye.

    Sowel die EFF as die BLF sou verkies dat daar geen blankes in Suid-Afrika meer woon nie; soms sê hulle dit selfs openlik, maak dreigemente of sing “Kill a Boer, kill a farmer”. In die geval van Julius Malema, sing hy “Kiss a Boer”, maar maak dan geluide asof skote afgaan, sodat almal verstaan dat hy “Kill a Boer” bedoel. So pas hierdie naweek, het Julius Malema met “oorlog” gedreig en sy “vegters” soos hy hulle noem, tot optrede opgeroep.

    Die hoofstroomjoernalis van Naspers en City Press, Ferial Haffajee, het ‘n boek geskryf met die titel What if there were no whites in South Africa? Die titel het geen beroering veroorsaak nie, want eintlik is ‘n Suid-Afrika heeltemal sonder blankes reeds ‘n aanvaarbare idee. Onder die EFF of BLF of ‘n koalisie van die twee, kan dit baie maklik — soos in Zimbabwe — beleid word.

    Wat vandag dus as ekstreem, “ondenkbaar” en radikaal beskou word, kan môre of oormôre as redelik gesien word en selfs as regeringsbeleid aanvaar word. Dit is die punt van die Overton-venster en veral van ‘n verskuiwing in die openbare mening. Sedert 1994 het die ANC, die SAKP en hul meelopers die meeste media in Suid-Afrika oorgeneem en het hul eens radikale, ondenkbare idees die heersende ideologie in ons land geword.

    Kom ons maak ‘n vinnige lysie van enkele sodanige radikale idees wat tans beleid is of wat beleid onder die ANC-bewind bepaal:

    1. Blankes en veral Afrikaners het die swartes se grond gesteel, vandaar Ramaphosa se “onteiening sonder vergoeding”.
    2. Afrikaners het geen reg op eie skole, universiteite of enige ander instellings nie.
    3. Engels is die enigste amptelike taal van Suid-Afrika, hoewel daar in naam “elf amptelike tale bestaan”.
    4. Afrikaners is nie eintlik Suid-Afrikaners nie, synde nie-swart en nie-Engels. Hulle word as “immigrante” of “setlaars” maar net verdra, tot verdere kennisgewing.
    5. Die oranje-blanje-blou en Die Stem deur C.J. Langenhoven, wat eens nasionale simbole was, gee aanstoot en moet selfs verbied word.
    6. In dieselfde asem, gee Afrikaans insgelyks aanstoot, oral waar dit in die openbaar of in instellings gepraat of geskryf word.
    7. Die swart stamme was “voor ons hier”, dus is hulle “inheems” en ons nie.
    8. Enige sweem van rassisme of “haatspraak” jeens swartes is onaanvaarbaar en selfs strafregtelik vervolgbaar. Boerehaat, daarenteen, is heel aanvaarbaar.
    9. Suid-Afrika is “net nog ‘n Afrikaland” wat op die Afrikamanier regeer sal word.
    10. Staatsdepartemente en -ondernemings soos Eskom, SAL, Transnet, ens., “behoort aan swartes” en kan daarom na hartelus geplunder word deur middel van tenders, hoë salarisse, bonusse, ens.
    11. As Afrikaland moet Suid-Afrika van sy Westerse en veral Afrikanererfenis ontslae raak.

    Natuurlik kan die Overton-venster in Suid-Afrika nóg verder na links verskuif sodat die EFF en Malema eintlik die “sentrum” verteenwoordig en die ANC die regtervleuel. Die beleid van etniese suiwering jeens Afrikaans wat die ANC reeds op ‘n verdoeselde wyse voer, sal dan meer openlik geskied en mense sal moontlik uit hul huise gesmyt word om plek te maak vir EFF-ondersteuners, ‘n bietjie soos dit onder kommunisme in Oos-Europa gedoen is.

    Maar gestel die teenoorgestelde gebeur, om een of ander wonderbaarlike rede? ‘n Deus ex machina red ons van gewisse ondergang? Hoe sou die teenbeleid lyk om die ANC, EFF en BLF se radikale idees en beleide ongedaan te maak?

    Anders gestel: Duidelik verteenwoordig ‘n Suid-Afrika sonder blankes vir die swart partye aan die linkerkant van die politieke spektrum ‘n ideaal om na te streef. Vandaar ook die idee van “verafrikanisering” wat op alle gebiede moet geskied, veral by die universiteite, maar ook elders, in die media, die reklamewese, letterkunde, kultuur en mode.

    Op ‘n diplomatieke vlak het Suid-Afrika ook reeds ‘n anti-Westerse land geword. By die Verenigde Nasies het die ANC-bewind net in 18% van gevalle dieselfde stem as die VSA uitgebring; meesal skaar die land hom by die res van Afrika, die Arabiere, China en ander nie-Westerse groeperings.

    Die radikale ideaal van ‘n “afrosentriese” Suid-Afrika is voor ons oë besig om verwesenlik te raak. Maar wat is die ideaal wat óns nastreef? Selfs al lyk dit tans onhaalbaar en ondergaan ons bloot ANC-beleid soos dié van ‘n besettingsmag wat op ons afgedwing word sonder dat ons ooit daartoe ingestem het, moet ons tog weet wat vir ons nastrewenswaardig sou wees?

    Al dring ons bloot op gelyke regte met die swartman (en kultureel met die Engelssprekende) aan, sou dit reeds as uiters vermetel, “ondenkbaar” in Overton se taal, gesien word. Vir elkeen van bogaande radikale idees wat tans regeringsbeleid bepaal, sou ons ‘n ewe radikale teengedagte kon voorstel.

    Tot dusver het ons gesien hoe redelikheid in Suid-Afrika sneuwel; eintlik is daar geen middelgrond nie. Vele ontleders uit die verre verlede, waaronder MTW Arnheim in sy boek South Africa after Vorster, het dit al oor en oor gese: óf die swartman gaan oorheers, óf die blanke. Overgezet synde: óf Suid-Afrika gaan ‘n Afrikaland word, óf ‘n Westerse land. Voorheen was ons ‘n Westerse land wat byna universeel as sodandig erken is; tans is ons op die glybaan na wat al hoe meer na oer-Afrika lyk. Privaat besit sal afgeskaf word en, soos in Zimbabwe, Mosambiek of ander Afrikastate, sal almal ewe arm wees, afgesien van ‘n klein ryk elite in die regering en ‘n verwante sakesektor wat ‘n korrupte, spandabele bestaan sal geniet.

    Natuurlik, is ons reeds halfpad daar, op pad na die Afrika-norm toe.

    Niks word deur kommuniste so verafsku soos ‘n sogenaamde “kontrarevolusionêr” (Engels: counter-revolutionary) nie. Teenrevolusionêr is waarskynlik beter Afrikaans. Enigiets wat die Afrikaner voorstel, al is dit bloot om ons oorlewing te verseker, sal uiteraard as “teenrevolusionêr” gesien word en afgemaak word as “regsheid”, “rassisme” en dergelike meer. Die media, asook die universiteite, ondersteun die revolusie ten volle en sal daarom soos wilde honde enige dissidente geluide uitsnuffel en tronkstraf of erger oor die ketters afroep.

    Omring deur radikalisme en ekstremisme, moet ons egter die waagmoed aan die dag lê om ‘n alternatiewe ideaal na te streef. Of bloot te formuleer, wat op sigself al moeilik genoeg is.

    As ons nou na bogaande stel genommerde begrippe kyk, kan ons vir elkeen ‘n teenvoorstel (ek sou selfs sê: teëgif) opper:

    1. Die swartes (en die radikale Engelse, soos byvoorbeeld Gavin Watson en sy familie van Bosasa-faam) het ons land gesteel.
    2. Ons het die reg op eie instellings soos universiteite, skole, selfs hospitale waar ons volgens eie standaarde behandeling mag ontvang.
    3. Afrikaans, synde die inheemse Westerse taal, behoort tot die enigste amptelike taal verhef te word (iets waarvoor selfs die ou NP nie kans gesien het nie).
    4. Afrikaners is die ware Suid-Afrikaners; die res is bloot immigrante. Die feit dat ons weens ‘n sameloop van omstandighede in die minderheid verkeer, maak geen verskil aan dié beginsel nie.
    5. Die ANC se stel kommunistiese simbole gee aanstoot en moet verbied word, terwyl die oranje-blanje-blou en Die Stem in ere herstel behoort te word. Elke persoon in uniform, wit of swart, behoort trou aan die Prinsevlag te sweer, anders behoort hy afgedank te word en selfs sy burgerskap te verloor.
    6. Ons verdraagsaamheid teenoor Engels is uitgebuit om die huidige situasie van taalverdrukking en die aanstig van Afrikaanshaat (veral deur die Engelse media) te skep. Daarom moet Engels op sy plek gesit word deur Afrikaans die enigste amptelike taal te maak. Of Engels kan ‘n “amptelike taal” wees in die huidige sin, maar sonder enige gebruik deur die staat, die howe, die universiteite, in die openbaar of wat ook al.
    7. Die punt dat ons Suid-Afrika in 1652 gestig het en ontwikkel het, moet oor en oor beklemtoon word. Die res is bloot immigrante of “migrante” in dieselfde sin as wat die woord in Europa gebruik word. Óns is inheems, nie hulle nie.
    8. Daar moet ‘n einde aan die hele “rassisme”-partytjie gemaak word. Soos in die VSA met sy eerste wysiging aan hul grondwet, moet daar spraakvryheid wees en Afrikaners behoort te kan sê en te kan skryf wat hulle wil, selfs al gee dit aanstoot. Aan die ander kant moet Boerehaat of oproepe tot volksmoord teen Afrikaners strafbaar gemaak word deur sulke persone uit die land te verban.
    9. Suid-Afrika moet herstel word as ‘n Westerse land, met Westerse norme van eerlikheid, orde en wetsgehoorsaamheid. Elke voertuig moet by die rooi lig stilhou, niemand moet op straat urineer sonder ‘n stywe boete nie, ens. Korrupsie en diefstal uit die staatskas moet taboe wees.
    10. Die staat sal verklein moet word en die huidige bankrot staatsondernemings sal óf gelikwideer óf reggeruk moet word. Die staat moenie langer ‘n bron van rykdom vir die swart elite of enige ander elite wees nie.
    11. Suid-Afrika se Westerse identeit, waaronder veral sy Afrikanererfenis, moet in alle opsigte herstel word. Daar moet weer operas in die Staatsteater gehou word. Die ANC se kommunistiese temaparke, Mandela-standbeelde en dergelike meer moet afgebreek word en Engeland toe gestuur word of op die ashoop verbrand word. Vergeet van “Afrika-wetenskap”, “Afrika-filosofie”, ens.; dit kan alles ten noorde van die Limpopo beoefen word.

    Alhoewel dié voorstelle bloot die spieëlbeeld van die huidige ideologie verteenwoordig, kan ons sien dat hulle tans buite die ekstreem-linkse Overton-venster val. Enige sprake van ‘n terugkeer tot Afrikaans, asook Afrikaner- of Westerse norme, sal met ‘n koor van verontwaardiging, hoon en selfs haat begroet word.

    Vele mense, wat die huidige radikale beleid van die ANC as “normaal” ervaar, sal meen dat dié gedagtes “te radikaal” is en dat “die koeël deur die kerk is”, sodat die land nooit meer sal kan terugkeer na sy verlore Afrikaner- en Westerse identiteit nie.

    Dog een radikalisme roep ‘n ander op. Vuur moet met vuur beveg word. Al lyk dit tans na wensdenkery om bloot van ‘n beter toekoms te droom, kan ‘n mens nie vorder as jy nie weet waarheen jy op pad is nie.

    Hoe dit verwesenlik kan word, is ‘n ander saak. Ek troos my egter daaraan dat ‘n mens wel die middele en die metodes sal vind om by jou doelwit uit te kom, solank jy maar oor ‘n doelwit beskik! Tans strompel ons doelloos rond en word volkome deur vyandelike denke beheer.

    Op sigself was die ANC en die SAKP nog nooit ‘n magtige organisasie nie. Was dit nie vir die Skandinawiese lande, die ou Oos-Duitsland en Sowjetunie, asook Afrikanerverraad nie, sou hy nooit die land in 1994 kon verower het nie.

    Indien die Verenigde State van Amerika of sy president in die persoon van mnr. Donald Trump sou besluit dat die ANC afgesit sou moes word, sou die huidige bewind nie ‘n week staande bly nie. Saddam Hoesein, Moeammar Ghaddafi en vele ander het ook rekordgetalle stemme ontvang, maar dit het Amerika nie gekeer om korte mette van hulle te maak nie.

    Een manier om ‘n einde aan die ANC-bewind te maak, sou dus wees om die Amerikaanse openbare mening teen hom te laat draai, iets wat in ‘n mate reeds aan die gebeur is.

    Maar dis sekerlik nie die enigste nie.

    Ons moet besef dat die radikale partye en bewegings in dié land ons ondergang en selfs ons dood soek; ons kan nie anders as om ons eie denke aan te pas om meer doeltreffend weerstand te kan bied nie.

  • Leon Lemmer: Graham Greene se besoek aan Liberië in 1935

    Leon Lemmer: Graham Greene se besoek aan Liberië in 1935

    Graham Greene (1904-1991) is ‘n bekende Britse skrywer. Hy het ‘n graad in geskiedenis aan die Universiteit Oxford verwerf, waar hy volgens eie erkenning meer gedrink as studeer het. Hy was toe ook vir ‘n wyle ‘n kommunis. Mede-skrywer Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) was een van sy mede-studente wat, soos Greene, bekend vir sy alkoholisme en Rooms-Katolisisme was. Volgens Greene is Rooms-Katolisisme nie met (politieke) konserwatisme verenigbaar nie. Greene was geestelik onstabiel en het aan depressie gely en veral in sy jeug verskeie kere selfdood probeer pleeg. Hy het ‘n onderskeid tussen sy romans/”novels” en “entertainments” (minder ernstige werke) getref. Sy skryfwerk is beskryf as “readable, lean, realistic prose.” ‘n Hele aantal van sy boeke is verfilm en het tot sy finansiële welgesteldheid bygedra. Veral in sy latere lewe het Greene na talle lande gereis en dan in koerantberigte daaroor verslag gedoen.

    Greene se briewe

    Die eerste boek van Greene wat ek gelees het, is Richard Greene se Graham Greene: A life in letters (London: Abacus, 2008. 446p). Richard skryf in die inleiding Graham “chronicled the suffering of the world’s most oppressed people” (p xiv) en “[he] wanted to be on the side of victims and that victims change” (xi), soos ons deesdae in Suid-Afrika besef. In 1970 het Graham tereg geskryf: “I have small respect for those who wished to protect themselves by a majority opinion” (308). In Suid-Amerika het Graham met die bevrydingsteoloë geïdentifiseer (xxii). In Mexiko kon hy egter nie die Mexikane verdra toe daar teen die Rooms-Katolieke gediskrimineer is nie (xxiv). Maar dit is die (blanke) Amerikaners wat hy bowenal verpes het (xxviii).

    In hierdie boek blyk Graham se Suidelike Afrika-verband uit sy vrou, Vivien (1904-2003), wat in Rhodesië gebore is (10). Hulle is in 1927 getroud, het twee kinders gehad, maar sedert 1947 nie meer saam gewoon nie. Op 22 November 1934 skryf Graham: “On Jan 5 I leave on the most absurd trip. I’m going to Liberia; Heinemann [publishers] have contracted for a travel book” (65). The Times sou van sy artikels publiseer (68). Hy laat sy Nazi-teenkanting blyk deur na die Duitsers as “that nice, sentimental, abysmally stupid race” te verwys (66). Kommuniste meet hy nie met dieselfde maat as die Duitsers nie. “I liked [Salvador] Allende [Chile’s president, 1970-1973] very much and I liked the type of communists who were around him” (328). In Nicaragua het Graham in 1980 probeer bemiddel met die kommunistiese Sandinista-rebelle wat die Suid-Afrikaanse ambassadeur, Eddie Dunne, gyselaar gehou het, maar dit was tevergeefs (367-368, 378).

    In sy skryfwerk het Graham politieke en morele kwessies aangespreek. “Making the work of the State a degree more difficult – and that is a genuine duty we owe society” (155). “Literature has nothing to do with edification. I am not arguing that literature is amoral, but that it presents a personal moral, and the personal morality of an individual is seldom identical with the morality of the group to which he belongs … As a novelist, I must be allowed to write from the point of view of the black square [of the chess board] as well as of the white” (151-152). Op 8 Desember 1949 skryf Graham in Dakar, Senegal, aan ‘n vriendin: “I have loved no part of the world like this [West Africa] & I love no woman as I love you. You’re my human Africa … I am happy talking nonsense about Africa” (168).

    In 1954 skryf Graham: “I loved Haïti” (212), wat sedert 1804 polities onafhanklik onder ‘n swart bewind is en reeds eeue lank die agterlikste land in die Weste is. Oor Fidel Castro in Kuba skryf Graham: “I like him a lot … Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, gave me a military plane to take me to the Isle of Pines” (286). In 1953 het Graham Kenia besoek: “Although Graham was always sympathetic to rebels, he was struck by the cruelty of the Mau Mau and by the courage of the white settlers” (213). In 1959, toe die volle invloed van Afrika se “bevryding” van kolonialisme al hoe meer aangevoel kon word, skryf Graham terwyl hy op besoek in die Kongo is: “One rather feels the end of European Africa is coming quickly” (242). Tydens die Viëtnam-oorlog (1954-1975) skryf Graham in 1968 aan ‘n Moskouse vriendin: “[I am] on your side if the world has to choose between America and Russia” (296). ‘n Jaar later verander hy sy mening nadat hy kennis van die Russiese strafkampe geneem het: “I am afraid my honeymoon with the Russians is over!” (301).

    In Richard Greene se boek is daar ‘n brief wat Graham in 1972 aan die Afrikaanse skrywer, Etienne Leroux (1922-1989), geskryf het (318-319), “a nice South African writer and friend” (325). In 1973 het Graham vir Leroux op sy plaas by Koffiefontein besoek. Die teks van een van die briewe wat Graham op daardie plaas geskryf het, is in Richard se boek (326). Graham het hierna ‘n boek, The human factor (1978), geskryf waarin hy onder meer apartheid betrek. Dit is die verhaal van ‘n MI6-agent wat voorheen in Suid-Afrika was en weens ‘n verhouding wat hy toe aangeknoop het nou met sy swart vrou in Londen woon. ‘n Kommunis het gehelp dat hierdie vrou uit Suid-Afrika kon ontsnap, gevolglik ondersteun die MI6-agent hierna kommuniste wat swart mag in Suid-Afrika bevorder. Ek het nie hierdie roman gelees nie en wil ook nie, om redes wat ek in die volgende paragraaf verstrek.

    Graham erken: “I am not a literary man” (369). Daarom skryf hy: Charles “Dickens always sooner or later fails” (243) en “I find myself unable to reread Virginia Woolf and [EM] Forster” (369). Hy verkies die skryfwerk van bv mede-Rooms-Katoliek, Muriel Spark (xiii, 206, 281). Oor Joseph Conrad skryf hy: “I would place him faraway above Virginia Woolf” (164). James Joyce se Ulysses word “one of the most overrated classics” genoem (288). Naas sy eiesoortige benadering tot die letterkunde is daar Graham se onvermoë om die natuur te waardeer. “Anyone like myself who doesn’t care for nature” (92) en “Nature doesn’t really interest me” (182). Ek dink Graham het by die kern van die saak gekom toe hy skryf: “He soon came to realise that I was not an intellectual” (338). Hierdie selferkende gebrek aan geestelike en seker ook ideologiese dieptegang moet myns insiens by die beoordeling van Graham se skryfwerk in ag geneem word.

    Journey without maps

    In 1935 het Graham as dertigjarige deur Sierra Leone, Guinee en Liberië gereis en ‘n boek oor sy wedervaringe geskryf. Hy is vergesel deur sy niggie/”cousin”, Barbara Greene (1903-1991). In Guinee en Liberië is sy in ‘n hangmat gedra terwyl Graham die reis te voet afgelê het. Soos Graham het Barbara ‘n boek oor hulle ondervindige gepubliseer: Land benighted (1938), hergepubliseer as: Too late to turn back (1981). Ek het ongelukkig nie toegang tot haar boek nie. ‘n Vergelyking van hierdie twee verslae oor dieselfde avontuur behoort interessante leesstof te wees. Twee mense wat albei boeke gelees het, het tot verskillende gevolgtrekkings gekom. Volgens die een vul die boeke mekaar aan, terwyl die ander een beweer dat die boeke mekaar teenspreek. In Graham se boek word daar bitter min na sy niggie verwys. In 2009 het Tim Butcher die twee Greene’s se roete herreis en ‘n boek daaroor gepubliseer: Chasing the devil (2010). Reeds in 2004 het Butcher dieselfde met Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) se Kongo-roete (1874-1877) gedoen en ‘n boek daaroor geskryf: Blood river (2007). Vir die Amerikaner Stanley het ek baie meer respek as vir sy mede-ontdekkingsreiser, die Skot, David Livingstone (1813-1873). Kindle-weergawes van laasgenoemde twee boeke is beskikbaar. Volgens Amazon woon Butcher in Kaapstad.

    Gedurende die Tweede Wêreldoorlog het Graham Greene na Wes-Afrika teruggekeer toe hy in Freetown, Sierra Leone, vir die Britse Geheimediens, MI6, gewerk het (1941-1943). Die res van hierdie rubriek word gewy aan Graham Greene se boek oor sy 1935-besoek aan Sierra Leone, Guinee en veral Liberië: Journey without maps (London: Vintage, 1936/2010, 256p; Amazon Kindle $14,48). Tim Butcher het die voorwoord by hierdie uitgawe geskryf. Na Graham Greene word voortaan as Greene verwys omdat sy reisgenoot, Barbara Greene, feitlik nooit in hierdie reisboek ter sprake kom nie. Ek het reeds oor Sierra Leone (Praag 11.11.2018) en Liberië (Praag 18.11.2018) geskryf.

    Butcher vestig die aandag op foute wat in Greene se weergawe voorkom en ook dat dit Greene se eerste besoek aan lande buite Europa was (Kindle 78). “I came to see Greene as a man not just of considerable physical toughness, but also of enormous mental strength” (85) – hoewel Greene teen die einde van sy staptog vertel hoe naby hy aan algehele liggaamlik en veral geestelike ineenstorting was. Naas die fisiese of geografiese reis was daar vir Greene ook ‘n “metaphysical trip” (91), wat sy delikate geestesgesteldheid tot die uiterste beproef het. Greene skryf in sy 1946-voorwoord by die 2de uitgawe: “I can look back now with a certain regret at the hard words I used about Freetown” (105). “I have begun to forget what the visitor noticed so clearly – the squalor and the unhappiness and the involuntary injustices of tired men” (112).

    Voordat Greene per skip uit Liverpool, Engeland, vertrek, lees hy die amptelike inligting wat die Britse regering oor Liberië verstrek: die algemene voorkoms van koors weens malaria/tsetsevlieë, die peste weens rotte, die gebrekkige mediese dienste, die afbrand van hutte weens dispute en die moorddadigheid van die inwoners. In die hoofstad, Monrovië, is daar net twee geneeshere en in die res van die land enkele sendelingdokters (179). Greene verstrek die volgende agtergrondsinligting oor Liberië: “The Republic was founded as an example to all Africa of a Christian and self-governing state. An American philanthropic society at the beginning of the nineteenth century (many of its directors, it is said, were slave-owners who found it convenient thus to get rid of their illegitimate children) began to ship released slaves to the Grain Coast of Africa. Land was bought from the native rulers and a settlement established at Monrovia. ‘The love of liberty brought us here,’ but one can hardly blame these first half-caste settlers when they found that love of their own liberty was not consistent with the liberty of the native tribes” (186). Die Liberiese kus was bekend as die plek waar Europese skepe peperkorrels kon koop, vandaar die benaming “Grain Coast”; ook “Windward Coast” genoem..

    Die interessante verskynsel wat ons hier het, is dat die Amerikaanse setlaars swart of basters is en hulle teenwoordigheid nie deur die inheemse Liberiese swartes geduld is nie. Ook, al het die setlaars die grond gekoop wat hulle beset het, hulle eiendomsreg nie deur die inheemses erken is nie. Vergelyk dit met Jan van Riebeeck en sy geselskap se aankoms aan die Kaap en wat daarop gevolg het. In Liberië was daar nie net weerstand by die inheemses teen die Amerikaanse beskawing wat die setlaars gebring het nie, maar ook teen die christelike godsdiens, wat deel van die setlaars se kultuur was. Naas inheemse godsdienste was daar reeds die uitgebreide aanwesigheid van Islam in Liberië. Die grootste bron van wrywing was egter dat die setlaars as oud-slawe sterk teen slawerny gekant was, terwyl die inheemse opperhoofde ten gunste van slawerny was as hulle bron van inkomste uit slawehandel en ook omdat slawe goedkoop arbeid voorsien het. Die huidige propaganda dat dit (uitsluitlik) die blankes was wat slawerny ten koste van swartes bedryf het, word hiermee teengespreek.

    Greene verwys na die volgende voorval: “The black Quakers from Pennsylvania, teetotallers and pacifists, who when they were attacked by Spanish slavers, depended on prayer and were massacred. Only a hundred and twenty escaped and settled in Grand Bassa” (193) – tans bekend as Buchanan, die plek waar Greene se epiese staptog in 1935 geëindig het. Desnieteenstaande het hierdie idealistiese oud-slawe in 1847 hulle grondgebied onafhanklik verklaar (200). “There seemed to be a seediness about the place [Monrovia/Liberia] you couldn’t get to the same extent elsewhere” (206). Hierdie onguurheid het vir Greene ‘n eienaardige bekoring ingehou (of moet ek eerder skryf: Vir die eienaardige Greene …). Die outeur assosieer Liberië dikwels met die “heart of darkness” (206, 2508, 3663), verwysende na die titel van Joseph Conrad se 1899-novelle oor die Kongo. (Ek wil nog oor Chinua Achebe se kritiek op Conrad se boek skryf.) Greene haal Conrad aan en skryf dan: “Today our world seems peculiarly susceptible to brutality” (227), bv “the pleasure of cruelty” (481).

    Behalwe twee hoogs onvolledige landkaarte, die een Brits en die ander een Amerikaans, kon Greene vooraf geen betroubare inligting opspoor om hom met die beplanning van sy staproete te help nie. Op die Amerikaanse kaart staan daar in die leë ruimte: “Cannibals” (625). Greene beskryf die heenreis via Madeira en die Kanariese Eilande. In Bathurst/Banjul, Gambië, is daar ‘n uitbraak van geelkoors en in Dakar, Senegal, is daar pes (283). “In Dakar the young negroes simply die, not of tuberculosis, plague, yellow fever, but of ananition, of hopelessness” (434). Daarna doen die skip aan by Conakry, Guinee, en uiteindelik by “the shabby town”, Freetown, Sierra Leone, waar Greene in “heat and damp” aan land gaan (489). Hy noem die “tin roofs and peeling posters and broken windows” en die baie roofvoëls (496). Die klein groepie blanke inwoners woon “at the hillside [in] smart bungalows” (502), dus apart. In 1935 was Sierra Leone ‘n Britse kolonie (sedert 1808). By die goewerneur-generaal se tuinparty “white and black keeping sedulously apart” (544).

    Die volgende eienaardige beskrywings is deur ‘n outeur wat (aanvanklik) geneig was om hom by die inheemses/onderdruktes te skaar: “They [Europeans] had planted their seedy civilization and then escaped from it as far as they could. Everything ugly in Freetown was European: the stores, the churches, the Government offices, the two hotels; if there was anything beautiful in the place it was native” (502). Hierdie inheemses “had been educated to understand how they had been swindled, how they had been given the worst of two worlds, and they had enough power to express themselves in a soured officious way; they had died, in so far as they had once been men, inside their European clothes” (509). Die swartes “were funny … to the heartless prefect eye of the white man. If they had been slaves they would have had more dignity; there is no shame in being ruled by a stranger, but these men had been given their tin shacks, their cathedral, their votes and city councils, their shadow of self-government; they were expected to play the part like white men and the more they copied white men, the more funny it was to the prefects. They were withered by laughter; the more desperately they tried to regain their dignity the funnier they became” (516). “A few Creoles make money out of their prefects, by deliberately playing the inferior, the lower boy” (557).

    “The … men in the City bar, prospectors, shipping agents, merchants, engineers, had to reproduce English conditions if they were to be happy at all. They weren’t the real rulers; they were simply out to make money; and there was no hypocrisy in their attitude towards ‘the bloody blacks’. The real rulers came out for a few years, had a long leave every eighteen months, gave garden parties, were supposed to be there for the good of the ruled” (585). “This was perhaps the meanest economy among the many mean economies … The economies were nearly all at the expense of the coloured man … there had been only one sanitary inspector for the whole colony and protectorate … he would apply in vain for assistants. Forced labour is illegal in a British Colony, but the sanitary inspector without a staff had to choose between breaking the law or leaving villages as dirty as he found them” (591).

    Greene het per uiters stadige trein dwarsoor Sierra Leone gereis, van Freetown in die noordweste tot by Pendembu in die noordooste (652). In Freetown het hy drie kreole, bv ‘n kok, as reisgenote gewerf (672). Tydens sy treinreis kon hy die landelikheid waarneem van bv “babies rolling in the dust, the men lounging in torn hammocks hung under the thatch” (733). Spoedig was die aanskouing van naakte liggame nie meer vreemd nie: “It was curious how quickly one abandoned the white standard” (740). Kom die afrikanisering van die nuwe Suid-Afrika nie ook wesenlik neer op die versaking van tradisionele Europese lewensstandaarde nie? Die eerste dag se treinrit het in Bo geëindig, waar Greene in ‘n “rest-house” oornag het. “There was a cockroach larger than a black beetle in the bathroom” (760).

    “The Englishmen here didn’t talk about the ‘bloody blacks’ nor did they patronize or laugh at them; they had to deal with the real natives and not the Creole, and the real native was someone to love and admire. One didn’t have to condescend; one knew more about some things, but they knew more about others. And on the whole the things they knew were more important. One couldn’t make lightning like they could, one’s gun was only an improvement on their poisoned spear, and unless one was a doctor, one had less chance of curing a snake-bite than they. The Englishmen here were of a finer, subtler type than on the Coast; they were patriots in the sense that they cared for something in their country other than its externals; they couldn’t build their English corner with a few tin roofs and peeling posters and drinks at the bar” (747).

    Die volgende dag het Greene se treinreis, soos die spoorlyn, by Pendembu geëindig. Met ‘n vragmotor is hy na Kailahun, op die grens van Guinee, waar hy in “the Government rest-house” gebly het (794). Hier het Greene die draers vir sy safari gewerf. “Kailahun, in memory, has become a clean village, one of the cleanest we stayed in, but what impressed me at the time was the dirt and disease, the children with protuberant navels relieving themselves in the dust among the goats and chickens, the pock-marked women smeared about the face and legs and breasts with some white ointment they squeezed from a plant in the bush and used for beauty and for medicine. They used it for smallpox, for fever, for toothache, for indigestion; for every ailment under their bleak sun; when they were young it soothed their headaches; when they were older they smeared it on their big bellies to bring ease in their confinement; when they were dying it lay like a sediment of salt on their dried-up breasts and in their pitted thighs. Here you could measure what civilization was worth; looking back later to Kailahun from the villages of the Republic [Liberia], where civilization stopped within fifty miles of the Coast, I could see no great difference … why should we pretend to talk in terms of the world when we mean only Europe or the white races? … Civilization here remained exploitation; we had hardly, it seemed to me, improved the natives’ lot at all, they were as worn out with fever as before the white man came, we had introduced new diseases and weakened their resistance to the old” (847).

    Gedurende sy staptog het Greene veral gevalle van geslagsiektes en melaatsheid teëgekom. Die inheemses was vir gesondheidsdienste op die beperkte getal sendingstasies aangewese. “One couldn’t help comparing the manner of these nuns living quite outside the limits of European protection with that of the English in Freetown who had electric light and refrigerators and frequent leave, who despised the natives and pitied themselves” (1163).

    Greene het sowat twee dosyn draers afkomstig van Bolahun vir sy safari gewerf (632). Gedurende die staptog het die getal draers gewissel, maar Greene se geselskap het uit sowat dertig mense altesaam bestaan. “I could see the full extent of the luggage we had brought with us: the six boxes of food, the two beds and chairs and mosquito-nets, three suitcases, a tent we were never to use, two boxes of miscellaneous things, a bath, a bundle of blankets, a folding table, a money box, a hammock” (934). “I was able to average more than twelve miles a day over a period of four weeks” (961). Die totale afstand afgelê, was sowat 350 myl (3270). Dit was problematies om die grens tussen Sierra Leone en Liberië met so baie besittings oor steek. “It was impossible to bribe an official who probably took a lion’s share anyway of what he exacted” (1082). “I enjoyed the first day’s trek into the Republic [of Liberia] because everything was new … the smell of the carriers; it wasn’t an unpleasant smell, sweet or sour; it was bitter, and reminded me of a breakfast food I had as a child after pleurisy, something vigorous and body-building which I disliked” (1082).

    In die Liberiese binneland was Greene verplig om in hutte te oornag. Voor sy vertrek uit Freetown het iemand gevra: “Had we ever considered what a native hut meant? The rats, the lice, the bugs” (686). Daar was ook vlieë, muskiete, vlermuise (wat die muskiete jag), motte, miere, kewers, kakkerlakke en spinnekoppe. Op die werf was daar honde, katte, hoenders, bokke en koeie. Die swartes het hulle aan die blankes vergaap omdat hulle sulke mense selfde indien ooit gesien het. “This intent unamused stare got on the nerves. And they were so ugly, so diseased” (1860). “There was nothing you could do without their noticing it; to draw a handkerchief from the pocket caused a craning of necks. It worked a little on the nerves, this constant stare … We were as good as a circus” (2248). Toiletgeriewe het nie bestaan nie. In die riviere kon nie gebad word nie weens die gevaar van infeksie en siektes. Ten einde veral van die rotte te ontsnap, het Greene in ‘n hangmat geslaap. “When [the] lamp went out the rats came. They came all together, falling heavily down the wall like water” (1845). “I would chiefly remember as Africa: cockroaches eating our clothes, rats on the floor, dust in the throat, jiggers under the nails, ants fastening on the flesh” (2104).

    Maar Greene beweer: “I never wearied of the villages in which I spent the night” (1103). “The timelessness, the irresponsibility, the freedom of Africa began to touch us at last” (1942). “I remember wandering round the village listening to the laughter and the music among the little glowing fires and thinking that, after all, the whole journey was worth while: it did reawaken a kind of hope in human nature. If one could get back to this bareness, simplicity, instinctive friendliness, feeling rather than thought, and start again …” (2791). Toe Greene uiteindelik die kus en ‘n mate van beskawing bereik, skryf hy: “Civilization might not have seemed quite so desirable in comparison with what I was leaving: the complete simplicity on the edge of subsistence … But civilization, for the moment, I was ready to swallow whole” (3270).

    Hierdie gehuggies en dorpies “never varied, only their kindness to strangers, the extent of their poverty and the immediacy of their terrors. Their laughter and their happiness seemed the most courageous things in nature … One was aware the whole time of a standard of courtesy to which it was one’s responsibility to conform” (1109). “It was no good protesting later that one had not come across a single example of dishonesty from the boys, from the carriers, from the natives in the interior: only gentleness, kindness, an honesty which one would not have found, or at least dared to assume was there, in Europe. It astonished me that I was able to travel through an unpoliced country with twenty-five men who knew that my money-box contained what to them was a fortune in silver” (1116). Sy pistool was in die geldhouer. “There wasn’t an instance of even the most petty theft, though in every village the natives swarmed into the hut where all day my things were lying about” (1123). “It was as if suddenly one saw what Africa might be if she were left to herself to choose from Europe only what would beautify her” (1497).

    By iedere plek wat hulle aangedoen of oornag het, moes Greene kennis met die hoofman maak. Hy het dikwels ‘n klein fooi aan die manhoof gegee en hulle het saam van Greene se whisky gedrink. Die samewerking van die hoof het dit vir Greene moontlik gemaak om kos aan sy werkers te voorsien.Die inheemses het graag musiek gemaak, gesing en gedans; “a music hard for a European to understand” (1243). Tatoeëring kom algemeen by hierdie swartes voor, maar dit is eerder ‘n geval van sny- of kerfmerke wat in die vel aangebring is (1256).

    Greene verskaf ‘n interessante karakterisering van sy draers. “The character of a carrier is childlike. He enjoys the moment. He cannot connect cause and effect. He is used to one meal in the day at evening, he lives on the edge of subsistence and it would be a hard master who grudged him the unexpected pleasure of an extra meal … It was always the same throughout the four weeks of marching; whenever they had a breakfast they worked badly, grumbled and made palavers; when food became scarce they worked well and were happy” (1671). Die draers “could be distracted, too, as easily as children, and when a man presented me with a small grey monkey on a string they were temporarily happy again. They liked something to torment. They poked it with sticks. They turned it upside down. They dragged it head first in the dust … they left it in peace for a moment it sat with its head in its wrinkled hands as if it were weaping … they were like bullies at school with a new boy who couldn’t hit back”1677).

    In die roete deur die woude en veld was daar skoenlappers, bloedsuiers en ander insekte, bv spinnekoppe, asook voëls, paddas, slange, ape, bobbejane, luiperds en olifante. “The man in front was in the greater danger from a snake, but the man behind from a leopard” (1784). Die oorsteek van riviere was gevaarlik. Die hangbrue het dikwels uit gevlegde klimop bestaan, is nie altyd goed in stand gehou nie en het heen en weer geswaai as daarop beloop word. ‘n Enkele keer is ‘n rivier met ‘n vlot oorgesteek (2208).

    In die binneland van Liberië is daar feitlik geen winkels nie; net smouse. “The black Government distrusts them [whites] and no European firm has any trading posts in the Liberian hinterland” (1177). “No white man is allowed to own land in the Republic, the missions are at the mercy of the Government” (1183). Elke distrik het ‘n swart (of baster) regeringsaangestelde kommissaris gehad wat belasting moes invorder. Oor een van hulle skryf Greene: “I found plenty of evidence: stories of his house built by forced labour and paid for by the seizure of the natives’ produce; stories of how his messengers flogged the men working on the road” (1196). “I never came across a single native in the interior who had a good word for the politicians in Monrovia [the capital]. If they preferred one ruler to another it was simply because they were happier under one Commissioner than another. Everywhere in the north I found myself welcomed because I was a white, because they hoped all the time that a white nation would take the country over. This attitude is unreasonable, but their minds do not move on the level of reason. To accept a black overlord offended some deep communal instinct which was unaffected by the fact that under the worst black Commissioner they had not suffered what the natives in French West Africa had suffered under white Commissioners” (1530) – ‘n Brit wat beweer die Britse koloniale owerhede was beter/mensliker as dié van die Franse.

    Greene het aanvanklik dieselfde roete gevolg as Alfred Sharpe in 1919, dus ooswaarts deur die noorde van Liberië en ‘n suidelike deel van Guinee (wat voorheen Liberiese grondgebied was) en dan terug in Liberië, sonder dat hulle daar doeaneposte teëgekom het. Daarna was die roete suidwaarts tot by die kus te Grand Bassa/Buchanan. Aan die kus en omliggende gebiede verander die ingesteldheid of gesindheid van die inheemse swartes: “the coastal civilization had corrupted the natives, in which I found nothing to admire” (1874). Oor die Bassa-stam wat in die kusstreek aangetref word, skryf Greene: “I developed a bitter dislike of the very appearance of Bassa men … The Coast had corrupted them, had made them liars, swindlers, lazy, weak, completely undependable” (3188). “The beach is the most dangerous road in all Liberia to travellers, because its people have been touched by civilization, have learnt to steal and lie and kill” (3290).

    In die kusstreke is daar winkels (2416). Ook huise: “A few seedy houses appeared, definitely houses now and not huts, with a first floor and tin roofs but without glass in the windows, with the air of old-fashioned chicken coops magnified to take men” (3263). Verduidelik dit dalk waarom vandale ‘n voorliefde vir glasruite het? Die binneland van Liberië is hoogliggend en bedek met woude. Namate die kusstreek deur Greene se geselskap genader is, was die gebied al hoe meer moerasagtig en die temperatuur al hoe warmer. Greene het sy staptog in die middel van die winter begin en moes vinnig vorder, nie net om koste te bespaar nie maar ook omdat vroeë somerreëns die roete moeiliker begaanbaar sou maak, bv: “the first few miles of path were flooded waist-high” (3101).

    “I was paying them three shillings a week and that sum paid, not only for an eight-hour day or more of heavy carrying, but for their loyalty” (1771). By geleentheid het die draers meer geld as vergoeding geëis, maar tog nie vir Greene in die steek gelaat nie. Hy erken: “After all, the carriers were disgracefully underpaid” (2167). “The Government wage for a carrier was a shilling a day” (2174), maar dit was as hulle op ‘n daaglikse basis gehuur is. “I said that the Government wage didn’t include food, and I was paying for their food. They could not tell that their food only came to about twopence a head … I was exploiting them like all their other masters” (2181). “A moment later they were laughing and joking as if there had been no disagreement; they were like children who had tried to get an extra holiday but bear no grudge because they never really believed they would succeed … they began to work together happily and smoothly” (2187). Dit laat my dink aan die ANC wat spog dat die swartes in 1990/94 in die grondwetlike onderhandelinge baie meer ontvang het as wat hulle regmatig kon verwag.

    Teen die einde van die staptog was Greene se skoene flenters maar hy het die opsie om in die hangmat gedra te word, probeer weerstaan: “It was too close to using men as animals for me to be happy” (3135). Baie van die gehuggies wat hulle teëgekom het, kan op geen kaart gevind word nie. Die draers het Greene probeer mislei of ontmoedig deur dikwels te beweer dat die plek wat hy daardie dag wou bereik te ver sou wees. “I nursed the idea that a black always exaggerated, when the fact was they had so hazy an idea of time that they were just as likely to minimize” (1723). “All the white men I had met in Sierra Leone had told me how blacks must be driven, how they lied and humbugged, and it was not unnatural that I should believe they were lying now, ‘trying it on’, like schoolboys who are testing a new master’s discipline” (1757).

    Teen die einde van die staptog het Greene gehoop hulle kon eerder van vervoer gebruik maak, maar: “There was only one car in Grand Bassa and that had broken down some months before, and they doubted whether it had been repaired” (3257). Maar die laaste skof het hulle wel per vragmotor afgelê; die enigste voertuig in die omgewing. In Grand Bassa het Greene aan die draers hulle vergoeding betaal en hulle moes self hulle weg terug na Bolahun vind en die ander drie, die kreole, na Freetown. ‘n Plaaslike ingesetene het die draers gewaarsku: “To be gone as quickly as possible from Grand Bassa, for the police would be after their money. I felt sorry for the end of something which was unlikely ever to happen again. One was never likely to live for long in a company so simple and uncorrupted; they had none of them before seen so many stores, the sea, a motor-lorry; their eyes were full of excitement and wonder at Grand Bassa, and they didn’t even know the way back” (3284). Maar sommige van hulle het eerder palmwyn gekoop en te veel gedrink en in Grand Bassa ten prooi van die polisie geval.

    Greene is per boot na die hoofstad, Monrovië. Hy verneem toe daar is iemand daar wat ‘n kaart van Liberië van die ontdekkingsreisiger Anderson het. Daar is talle halfvoltooide geboue en nie eens ‘n telefoondiens nie. “No one can pretend they have made much of their country” (3402). “To me it seems remarkable that they have retained their independence at all: a kind of patriotism has emerged from the graft and the privation. England and France in the last century robbed them of territory; America has done worse, for she has lent them money” (3408). “Nor can you wonder at their hatred and suspicion of the white man. The last loan and the last concession to the Firestone Company of Ohio all but surrendered their sovereignty to a commercial company with no interests in Liberia but rubber and dividends” (3415). “Apart from the Firestone employees, who lived outside in European comfort on the plantation, there were not more than three dozen whites in Monrovia … There was not such a thing as a water-closet in Monrovia” (3442). “What the Whites suffered, they suffered with the whole population, from lack of drainage, medical services, communications and the desire to intervene was an expression of boredom rather than of imperialism” (3488). “At the end of several hours’ rough driving from the capital, live the Firestone men in houses containing shower baths and running water and electric light, with a wireless station, tennis courts and a bathing pool, and a new neat hospital … They, more than the English or the French, are the official Enemy” (3508). En die politici en plaaslike inwoners glo dit. “The Government owns both the newspapers” (3515).

    In 1935 het Westerse beskawing ‘n onsekere houvas op Liberië gehad. “It was the democracy of men and women wrecked together on a deserted coast” (3449). “There was no ambition, for Liberia, whether to the diplomat or to the storekeeper, was about the deadest of all ends” (3462). “Even in the capital town of Liberia one was aware only of a settlement, a very chancy settlement that might be wiped out at any time by yellow fever” (2104). Die swart politieke bewind was nie gewild by die breë massa, die swartes in die binneland, nie. “There was not a carrier who would not have welcomed white intervention; patriotism in their minds had nothing to do with who ruled them, it was love of a certain territory” (2482). Blankes is deur die inheemses beskou as simbole van hoop vir ‘n beter toekoms. Greene verwys bv na ‘n swart man wat vir hom medisyne vir sy geslagsiekte gevra het: “The sight of a white man had made him hope; he just stood there waiting for the magic pill, the magic ointment” (3216).

    Per skip op pad terug na Engeland “we drank ourselves free from Africa” (3669). “It isn’t that one wants to stay in Africa” (3683). “After the long push of the Atlantic sea, the lights of Dover … the only loot I had brought with me, was as far back as one needed to go, was Africa: the innocence, the virginity” (3689).

  • Leon Lemmer: Liberië, die eertydse Amerikaanse ‘kolonie’ vir vrygestelde slawe

    Leon Lemmer: Liberië, die eertydse Amerikaanse ‘kolonie’ vir vrygestelde slawe

    Liberië is ‘n land aan die kus in Wes-Afrika, met Sierra Leone aan sy wesgrens, die Ivoorkus aan sy oosgrens en met Guinee in die noorde. Die hoofstad is Monrovië, vernoem na James Monroe (1758-1831), wat as Amerikaanse president (1817-1825) $100 000 bewillig het sodat vrygestelde Amerikaanse slawe hulle in veral Monrovië kon vestig. Die land se naam is ‘n vervorming van die woord “liberty”. Engels is die enigste amptelike taal en die land het ‘n bevolking van 4,7 miljoen. In die hoofstad is die christelike godsdiens dominant. Veral Amerikaners het ‘n diepgaande invloed op die land gehad. Anders as in Suid-Afrika is daar tot op hede groot waardering vir blankes omdat Amerikaanse blankes telkens tot die redding van Liberië gekom het, bv met die bou van ‘n diepsee-hawe vir Monrovië ná die Tweede Wêreldoorlog. Dit is gedoen in ruil vir die landings- en hervullingsgeriewe wat Amerikaanse vliegtuie gedurende die oorlog in daardie land gehad het (James Ciment, bron hier onder, Kindle 3224).

    Handelaars van die Franse stad Dieppe het hulle tussen 1364 en 1413 aan die Liberiese kus by die hedendaagse kusdorpe Buchanan en Greenville gevestig. Portugese seevaarders het hierdie gebied in 1461 bereik en die latere Monrovië Cabo Mesurado genoem. Engelse en Hollandse seevaarders het spoedig gevolg. Handel is in veral peper, goud en slawe gedryf. Amerikaanse vrygestelde slawe het hulle van 1821 af in veral Monrovië gevestig, hulle land in 1847 onafhanklik verklaar en tot 1980 in Monrovië en ander kusstreke (eerder as die binneland) geheers. Hierna het die inheemse swartes politieke beheer oor die hele gebied oorgeneem en het die land in selfs groter chaos en agteruitgang as voorheen verval.

    Die 1980-oorgang in Liberië vertoon ooreenkomste met die 1994-oorgang in Suid-Afrika. In Suid-Afrika was blankes die politieke heersers terwyl dit swartes van Amerikaanse slawe-oorsprong (“Americo-Liberians”) in Liberië was. In albei gevalle is hierdie setlaars deur die inheemse swart meerderheid verswelg en daarna as tweedeklasburgers geminag en aan diskriminasie onderwerp. In Liberië behoort dit veel makliker te gewees het om die swart setlaars met die inheemse swartes te integreer as die blanke setlaars in Suid-Afrika omdat die ras- en kultuurverskille daar baie kleiner as in Suid-Afrika is. By die Amerikaanse Liberiërs was/is daar egter ‘n sterk elitistiese gesindheid, veral by die mulatto’s/basters, wat hulle as die leiers van die setlaars bewys het (131).

    Ek skryf hierdie rubriek na aanleiding van veral James Ciment se boek, Another America: The story of Liberia and the former slaves who ruled it (New York: Hill & Wang, 2013, 319p; Amazon Kindle $11,49). Liberië is die eerste land in Afrika wat homself onafhanklik verklaar het, naamlik in 1847. Haïti is die land in die Weste wat reeds die langste deur swartes beheer word; sedert 1804. In albei gevalle heers daar steeds die uiterste agterlikheid. Na beraming leef 85% van die Liberiërs steeds onder die broodlyn. Na aanleiding van 13 mense wat uit die vorige politieke bewind na ‘n staatsgreep in 1980 in Monrovië tereggestel is, skryf Ciment: “I began to think of Liberia as a noble experiment that had ended awfully. Freed slaves, given to govern themselves, had turned out to be no better than the white imperialists who had descended upon Africa around the same time. If there was any lesson to be taken from Liberian history, it was a general one about human nature: an oppressed people could readily become oppressors” (56); ‘n gevolgtrekking wat ook op Suid-Afrika toegepas kan word.

    Mettertyd het die volgende in Monrovië en ander setlaargebiede in Liberië gebeur: “Every colonist keeps native slaves (or as they term them servants) about him, varying in number from one to fifteen, according to the circumstances of the master. These poor souls they beat unmercifully, and more than half starve them, and all the labor that is done at all, is done by these poor wretches” (1256). Dit was dus eertydse Amerikaanse slawe wat in Afrika mede-swartes ná 1821 verslaaf het, terwyl slawehandel in 1807 deur Brittanje verbied is.

    “Events after 1980, especially the [Liberian] civil war [1989-1997, 1999-2003] … would prove to be one of the most brutal in postcolonial Africa’s bloodstained history, shocking the world with images of drugged child soldiers, costumed as if for Halloween, AK-47s hanging loosely from their skinny brown shoulders … What role did that century and a half of Americo-Liberian rule play in the terror than followed? … what had happened to the descendants of the former American slaves who founded the nation? When a temporary peace came in the late 1990s, I traveled to Liberia to find out” (56). [Suid-Afrika het ‘n soortgelyke geskiedenis. Die land is onder die leiding van blankes ontwikkel maar “bevry” weens geweld gepleeg deur terroriste met onder meer AK-47-gewere. In ons geval is daar egter minder besorgdheid oor die lot van die blankes as wat daar oor die nageslag van die eertydse Amerikaanse slawe is. ‘n Ander verskil is dat FW de Klerk en sy geesgenote beweer dat hulle mandaatlose oorgawe aan swart mag ‘n burgeroorlog in Suid-Afrika voorkom het.]

    Dit was vir Ciment moeilik om Monrovië te bereik omdat daar geen gereelde vlugte was nie. “The country’s international airport had been destroyed … Liberia began where the roads ended … Liberia appeared unchanged from Graham Greene’s description of the country sixty years earlier” (64). Greene het Liberië in 1935 besoek. Ek hoop om in ‘n volgende rubriek hieroor te skryf. Ciment skryf: “Monrovia was in ruins, having been the objective, in 1996, of the last great offensive of the civil war … in 1980 Monrovia was home to 100 000 residents. Now it had a million, mostly refugees from the war-torn countryside” (71). “I tried to examine the nation’s archives, but they had been destroyed in the fighting. Fortunately, I found when I returned home [America] that substantial records had been preserved in this country” (86).

    “Liberia was born of a white idea: that the burgeoning and unwanted population of free blacks and emancipated slaves in post-Revolutionary America [War of American Independence, 1775-1783] could be sent to Africa … America could rid itself of its most ‘useless and pernicious’ class of people while simultaneously establishing a beachhead from which Africa could be civilized and Christianized” (115). Die vrygestelde slawe wat hulle in Liberië gevestig het, was nie in staat om die land volgens hulle eie idees te transformeer nie. Hulle het die voorbeeld van blanke Amerikaners slaafs nagevolg.

    “The early settlers of Liberia brought the mores of their homeland with them. They arrived in West Africa full of entrepreneurial energy but also with a propensity to settle disputes with violence [similar to blacks in South Africa]. Their benevolence was inseparable from their firm conviction that theirs was a superior civilization. In Africa, they endeavored to recreate the only social and political order they knew, that of the antebellum South – with themselves as the master class in the style of plantation mansions and dressed in formal nineteenth-century clothes, despite the equatorial climate … They established familiar institutions … A few of the more well-to-do settlers carved plantations out of the jungle and, from columned porches, sent orders to the natives tilling their cotton, tobacco, and coffee crops. The Americoes by and large equated liberty with the pursuit of money … Most telling, they established a republic but kept it for themselves … The Liberian constitution largely ignored the natives, except as objects of paternalist protection” (93).

    Eers in 1904 sou ‘n mate van burgerskap en stemreg aan inheemse swartes gegun word. As hierdie vrygestelde Amerikaanse slawe hulle van vroeg in die 19de eeu af kultureel hoër of meer ontwikkeld as die inheemses geag het, kan dit nie moontlik in selfs groter mate vir die blankes in die 17de eeu en daarna in Suid-Afrika geld nie?

    “As in America, the elite had a dynastic quality: politicians begat politicians, and the right last name could mean everything” (108); ook in Suid-Afrika – dink aan die Mandelas en Sisulus. Anders as die blanke bewind in Suid-Afrika, “the Americo-Liberian ruling class had been corrupt, callow and callous, at one time even being accused by an international tribunal of running a slave ring” (93). Dít “leads one to see tragedy, not justice, in their violent demise at the hands of a people they by and large oppressed. Hidebound by their Americanness and surrounded and outnumbered by natives, they could never reconcile their idealism with their pursuit of power and wealth, and with their very survival” (108).

    “To the natives, the settlers, though they looked uncannily like themselves, were just another group of outsiders with hostile intentions. They called the newcomers the ‘black white men’ and attacked their settlements. As one early settler explained in a letter to his former master in America, you can try to help the natives but ‘they still will be your enemy’” (123), dus stank vir dank, waarmee blankes goed bekend is. “The very people the Americoes had done so much to co-opt or keep down had had enough and rose up against them. For the Americoes, being in Africa but not of it proved an impossible proposition in the end” (153); ook vir die blanke Suid-Afrikaners, veral Afrikaners?

    Die geskiedenis van Liberië as Amerikaanse “kolonie” het in 1816 met die stigting van die American Colonization Society (ACS) begin. Sommige blanke Amerikaners wou van vrygestelde en basterslawe ontslae raak en hulle in Afrika hervestig, maar terselfdertyd verseker dat hulle die christelike geloof aanhang. Daar was ook behoefte aan ‘n heenkome vir slawe wat van slawehandelaars bevry is deur die tussenkoms van Amerikaanse skepe. “Between June 1860 and June 1861, nearly 4 500 recaptives were brought to Liberia” (2116). Onder die Amerikaanse swartes was daar min wat na Afrika wou gaan, wat bevestig dat hulle, selfs as slawe, glad nie so sleg deur die blankes behandel is as wat deesdae voorgegee word nie. Aanvanklik was daar net 88 (of 82) vrywillige emigrante (289) wat na Liberië onder die leiding van drie blanke agente sou gaan (305). Hulle het in 1820 op Sherbro-eiland aangekom maar hulle spoedig by Freetown, Sierra Leone, hervestig en nie in Liberië nie.

    In 1821 het ‘n verdere 34 setlaars onder die leiding van twee blankes gevolg, wat hulle op eilande by Cabo Mesurado, gevestig het en later op naby geleë land aan die Mesurado-rivier en hierdie gebied Monrovië genoem. Die nedersetting in Liberië het dus aanvanklik onder die beheer van blanke amptenare van die ACS gestaan. Daarna het die leiding na mulatto’s oorgegaan. Die Amerikaanse swartes het met Monrovië as sentrum gepoog om beheer oor die inheemse swartes in die res van Liberië uit te oefen, maar met beperkte sukses. In 1884/5 het die Europese moondhede ‘n ooreenkoms oor kolonisering bereik, waarvolgens effektiewe beheer oor alle koloniale gebiede uitgeoefen moet word waarop aanspraak gemaak word (2163). Die setlaars in Monrovië het hulle gevolglik verplig gevoel om hulle voortaan vir die “occupation and pacification” van die binneland te beywer as hulle Liberië in sy geheel wou inpalm en behou (2171).

    Indirekte regering is ingestel (2325) deur politieke gesag (bv regspleging en die invordering van belasting) aan die binnelandse konings en opperhoofde, bygestaan of oorheers deur regeringskommissarisse, toe te ken (2332). “In the 1920s and 1930s, the government representatives in the hinterland became laws unto themselves, using the troops under their command to humiliate chiefs, seize native property and women, and brutally enforce labor corvées [unpaid labour] and the hut tax” (2340). “Visitors to Liberia, particularly white ones, had long accused the Americoes of mistreating the natives” (2567), bv “It was not the custom in Liberia for any gentleman to carry parcels” (2559). In 1980 het hierdie soort kolonisering geëindig toe die inheemse swartes politieke beheer oor die hele land verkry het.

    Daar was aanvanklik groot idealisme oor wat hierdie oudslawe in vryheid op eie inisiatief tot stand sou bring. In 1855 berig ‘n reisiger egter: “No man there has now or ever had, five acres of land cleared and in cultivation” (555). “A large proportion of the emigrants entitled to land, had not drawn it ” (1096). (In die nuwe Suid-Afrika neul die swartes voortdurend oor grond, maar die oorgrote meerderheid verkies geld bo grond.) Aanvanklik “no natives would work for the settlers” (738). “The lack of draft animals and tools didn’t help” (1130). Hoewel die setlaars dieselfde kleur as die inheemses gehad het, is hulle as indringers beskou, ten spyte van ‘n vroeë ooreenkoms met die plaaslike opperhoof oor die besetting van grond. “They paid for the island and took the cape” (800). “Their very presence led to violence” (1181). Soos een van die setlaars geskryf het: “In my present thinking if we have any ancestors they could not have been like these hostile tribes in this part of Africa for you may try and distill that principle and belief in them and do all you can for them and they still will be your enemy” (1264).

    Een van die groot oorsake van wrywing was dat die setlaars, dus vrygestelde slawe, teen slawerny gekant was terwyl die inheemse swartes, veral die stamhoofde, ten gunste van die lonende slawehandel was (763, 800). “Their efforts to combat the slave trade provoked chiefs into attacking outlying colonial settlements” (1181). Die eerste ernstige skermutseling het in 1822 plaasgevind (782), waarin vier setlaars gedood is (791), gevolg deur nog ‘n aanval in dieselfde jaar (831). Die swart setlaars het vroeg reeds in opstand teen die blanke ACS-hoof gekom en die voorraadskuur geplunder, waarna die tekort aan kos ernstiger afmetings aangeneem het (873). Hierdie blanke het aan die swartes gesê: “Instead of labouring as you ought to raise food, you would obtain it by plunder” (880). In ‘n latere verslag aan die ACS oor “settler indolence and stupidity” staan: “They have never when in the U States voluntarily laboured for their own support, and now, when the stimulus of the overseer’s lash is removed, cannot be induced to exert themselves sufficiently to procure even a scanty subsistence … most of the people that comes out here by the time they get over the fever they becomes some thing like the native and wont work if they find that they can get along by stealing” (1087).

    In 1824 het ‘n verdere 105 Amerikaanse setlaars aangekom (877) en in 1833 nog twee dosyn en ‘n aantal blanke sendelinge (978). “Of the 3 160 colonists who set sail for Africa between 1820 and 1833, more than 1 700 were already free; just over 1 100 had been manumitted for the purposes of emigration. The remaining few hundred were Africans seized by federal authorities in their crackdown on international slave trafficking. Over the next fourteen years, from 1833 through Liberia’s independence from the ACS in 1847, 200 free blacks and 1 500 manumitted slaves, again mostly from the Upper South, left for Liberia. The shift was a product of the dying-off of liberal planters who freed their slaves in their wills for the specific purpose of emigration, and of free blacks being swayed by the news of disease and death in Liberia as well as by abolitionist attacks on emigration as the humbuggery of the age” (978).

    “Whereas fewer than 2 000 emigrants arrived in Liberia between the mid-1830s and the late 1840s, nearly 6 000 came in the dozen years leading up to the American Civil War [1861-1865]” (2109). “By 1861 … the Civil War effectively put an end to emigration from the United States” (1776; ook 2109). Daarna “Liberia began to benefit from the arrival of small numbers of highly educated and skilled West Indians” (2109). Die historikus, Eric Burin, “calculates that of the 2 887 African Americans who went to Liberia between 1831 and 1843, fully 42 percent died of disease, war with the natives, accidents, and ‘the sundry dangers of settler life’” (1035). “More than five hundred colonists … left Liberia for other destinations between 1821 and the first colony-wide census in 1843. Most went to the West Indies or joined the ranks of African American seamen … Some even returned to the United States … These failed emigrants drew the ire of those who remained in Africa because they appeared to undermine Liberia’s very reason for existence, as a refuge for the persecuted free man of color” (1333).

    Die American Colonization Society het beheer oor sy eie sake, soos sy voorrade, behou maar ander besluite spoedig aan verteenwoordigers van die setlaars oorgelaat (904). Hierdie setlaarsraad is sedert 1825 toegelaat om die hoofagent van die ACS in Liberië te adviseer (1370). Diefstal en opstandigheid het egter voortgeduur (bv 946). Die filantrope in Amerika het hoopvol gebly dat die “moral desert [Africa] should rejoice and blossom as the rose” (954). “White men still ran Liberia” (1341). In 1838 het Liberië ‘n “semi-autonomous commonwealth” geword, maar al hoe meer setlaars het onafhanklikheid van die ACS begeer (1350). In 1847 is onafhanklikheid verklaar met onder meer “dignity” en “honorable ambition” as haalbare ideale. Daar was ook die aanspraak dat die setlaars “susceptible of equal refinement and capable to equal advancement in all that adorns and dignifies man” is (1358).

    Die eerste Liberiese president, Joseph Jenkins Roberts (1809-1876, president 1848-1856 en 1872-1876), was “more white than black” (1427). Hy was glo slegs ‘n agste swart, al lyk dit nie so nie. Monrovië was toe ‘n gemeenskap “dominated by the light-skinned, freeborn sons and daughters” van eertydse Amerikaanse slawe (1474). “Mulattoes dominated the higher reaches of political and economic life in early Liberia” (1745). “Mulattoes typically had more money, better skills, and a higher level of education” (1791). In 1846 het die kiesers (10% van die bevolking – 1696) met ‘n klein meerderheid ten gunste van onafhanklikheid gestem, “though it excluded natives, women, and any settler with less than $25 in real property” (1629). “Race outweighed all other considerations in the thinking behind and the writing of the Liberian constitution” (1671), bv “None but persons of color shall be admitted to citizenship in this Republic” (1671) en “only citizens could own land … ‘we the people’ explicitly meant black men and women only” (1679). “In the 1860s, JJ Roberts’s ruling party feared an influx of darker-skinned people from the West Indies” (2621). “By the 1920s, the Americo elite … had become far more selective about whom they let in” (2638). Hulle wou ten alle koste die politieke mag behou. Wie het gesê swartes is nie tot rassediskriminasie/rassisme in staat nie?

    Die aandrang op swart mag het ook ‘n oorheersende rol in die formulering van die huidige Suid-Afrikaanse grondwet gespeel, bv geen groepsregte vir minderheidsgroepe (soos in bv Amerika) nie terwyl die swart meerderheid as rasgroep sy wil op alle nie-swartes kan afdwing. Wanneer in die nuwe Suid-Afrika beweer word “the people” begeer die verdeling van rykdom, die oneiening van blankes se plase sonder vergoeding, ens, word uitdrukking aan die wense van swartes gegee. Ciment skryf: “The natives, who outnumbered the settlers by 25 or 50 to 1, depending on how far Liberian jurisdiction actually extended, were strangers in their own land, subject to Liberian law but excluded from citizenship … The country was divided into coastal counties, where Americo residents were citizens, and inland territories with virtually no voice in the government” (1703).

    “Disease was part of a cycle of poverty and poor health that crippled initiative among new emigrants. Rather than finding their feet during the six months they were housed and fed by the ACS, recently arrived colonists spent much of the time in bed or wandering the streets in a fever-induced daze. By the end of the half-year, they had often failed to become self-sufficient. Many remained too ill to work, and unable to buy food, they starved, which triggered relapses of malaria … ‘Everybody wants doctors but none can pay them’” (1053). “Monrovia bred ‘drones (loafers) in the community and obstacles to the prosperity of Liberia’” (1139). Die skuld vir swart onvermoë word, soos tans in Suid-Afrika, op die blanke Amerikaners gepak. Soos ‘n swart setlaar dit gestel het: “It is our duty to prove that the mental and other disabilities under which the Negro labors as a result of his service antecedents are not inherent … but that they are solely the result of circumstances, to be altogether removed when those circumstances are altered” (1940).

    “In the middle years of the nineteenth century, thanks in part to the settlers themselves, the Liberian hinterland was riven by fighting. The colonists’ expansion into the interior displaced villages and even whole tribes, setting off internecine warfare among the natives” (1181). “As for the wars between natives and settlers, far from having ‘ceased’, they would continue well into the twentieth century, and over much the same things that had always sparked them – trade, land, and settler arrogance” (1299). “Natives displaced by war or famine often had no alternative but to work in the colony. And there is little question that native labor was cheap and readily available” (1256). “When put to work, they had to be watched or they would slack off. They had no respect for property” (1273). “The natives do not like to be governed by a colored man and they do just as they please almost” (1281).

    Van ‘n land wat met die uitsondering van ‘n klein groepie Amerikaanse basters steeds oorheersend swart is, word gesê: “The matter of color resonates in every corner of Liberian life” (1745). Dit toon dat rasbewustheid by alle mense voorkom, hetsy wit of swart. In Liberië was daar die ideaal, ten minste by die setlaars, van “a convergence of Africa and the West, a place where the best of each world would foster black self-rule” (1736). Maar nadat die swart inheemses van 1980 af politieke beheer oorgeneem het, is die land ontwesters en al hoe meer verafrika. In Suid-Afrika het die blankes eeue lank in merkwaardige mate daarin geslaag om groot dele van die land die aanskyn van Europa in Afrika te gee. Die mandaatlose oorgawe aan swart mag in 1994 het egter meegebring dat die land toenemend ontwesters en verafrika word. Die groot wenners is die (swart) politici en amptenare en nie die ander inwoners nie; nie die swart massa nie en veral nie die blankes nie.

    Een van die geykte besware teen Suid-Afrikaanse blankes is dat hulle hulleself as beter as die nie-blankes beskou (het). Dieselfde kan van die bastersetlaars in Liberië en hulle eweknieë in Amerika gesê word: “After visiting a Methodist church in Charleston, a colonization agent noted that the mulatto congregants ‘utterly refused to sit promiscuously with the blacks; and that, in all relations in life, they maintain the same dignified reserve; that the two classes are as totally distinct as it is possible for them to be’ … One group of mulattoes went so far as to tell the ACS … that they would only go [to Africa] ‘provided they could have a colony to themselves’” (1799). ‘n Swart setlaar het gesê: “The mulattoes discourage all earnest patriotism and enterprise which look to the interior because of their fear of being absorbed by a people [ie Africans] they strangely persist in regarding as a foreign element … They will never succeed here or suffer us [black settlers] to succeed. And they can never be welded into the life of this African nation” (1898).

    “Many blacks in turn resented and distrusted mulattoes … as mulattoes they faced not only the ‘prejudice of the white man’ but ‘the deeper hate of our more sable brethren.’ [Alexis] De Tocqueville [1805-1859] picked up on the tension and put it [in] another context, noting that ‘when quarrels originating in differences of color take place, they [mulattoes] generally side with whites’” (1807). “Thus in Liberia, where there were few whites and, after 1847, none in power, the prejudices mulattoes and blacks brought with them became magnified” (1816). Na hulle aanvanklike algemene ondersteuning van die ANC vóór en kort ná 1994 het die bruin inwoners van Suid-Afrika, veral die nie-elite, hulle mettertyd, soos die Amerikaanse basters, polities al hoe meer by die blankes geskaar.

    In 1924 het Liberië se ekonomie sy grootste hupstoot gekry; nie vanweë die setlaars nie, maar danksy blanke Amerikaners. Firestone het ‘n ooreenkoms met die Liberiese regering gesluit: “a ninety-nine-year lease for a million acres at the extremely low rent of six cents an acre, per year. (Outright purchase of land by foreigners was prohibited under the Liberian constitution.) There would be no taxes either, other than a 1 percent levy on exports, and that wouldn’t start for six years. Firestone would also be granted a monopoly; no other foreigner could grow rubber in the country … Local natives would be given preferential treatment in hiring and white staff would be limited to 1 500” (2859). Let op die oorheersende rol wat swart rasbewustheid en -bevoordeling in hierdie ooreenkoms speel. Firestone “worried about Liberia reneging, by cutting a better deal with European competitors, for instance. Firestone did not like leaving anything to chance; Liberia would have to take out a $5 million loan if it wanted him [Firestone] to invest in the country as well as grant [Firestone] oversight of the nation’s finances” (2866).

    Hierdie voorwaardes is in 1926 deur die Liberiese regering aanvaar sodat die land sy groot skuldlas kon afbetaal (2884). Kritici het die Firestone-ooreenkoms as die “American occupation of Liberia” beskryf (2874). “Three-quarters of a century after a band of free blacks and freed slaves had proudly declared their independence from one American institution, the American Colonization Society, their impoverished and indebted descendants had, out of necessity, capitulated to another. Liberia would remain a virtually wholly owned subsidiary of Harvey Firestone until its economic expansion after World War II” (2892). Firestone “simply paid chiefs for labor recruits” (2980), ens. Ek hoop om by ‘n ander geleentheid vollediger oor die Firestone-sage te skryf.

    Oor die Amerikaanse setlaars se amptelike afkeer van slawerny is daar heelwat meer te sê. “Natives were never legally recognized as slaves, as that would have been a violation of every constitution by and for the colony” (1264). Omstreeks die voorlaaste eeuwending was daar ‘n groot oplewing in die kakaobedryf. In die Golf van Guinee, 2000 kilometer oos van Liberië, is daar ‘n eiland wat toe onder Spaanse beheer was en bekend gestaan het as Fernando Pó; tans Bioko genoem as deel van Ekwatoriaal-Guinee. Liberië se “chief export by the end of the nineteenth century was Liberian natives leased out by private Americo labor contractors, sometimes in collusion with local chiefs. Some served in King Leopold’s army of conquest in the Congo, others on plantations in the Gold Coast [Ghana] or Nigeria; a few helped dig France’s ill-fated canal in Panama. But the vast majority, tens of thousands over subsequent decades, were shipped off to plant and harvest cocao on Fernando Pó” (2933).

    “By all accounts, conditions on the island were appalling – twelve-hour workdays, nights spent locked in crowded barracks, a few yams and dried fish for sustenance, and for those who stole, shirked, or protested, brutal punishment. There were even reports of overseers flogging men to death. Many others died of disease, malnutrition or exhaustion before their contracts were up” (2941). “And those who survived and returned to Liberia often went unpaid; some planters supposedly held their money in trust for them, while others outright refused to pay them” (2948).

    Hierdie stelsel het die beskikbare arbeiders in Liberië verminder en die staat kon ook geen belasting hierop in nie. “To remedy both issues, the legislature issued a series of rules and laws to govern the traffic. In 1903, it required recruiters to pay a $250 licensing fee and a $5 tax on each laborer shipped, along with a $150 bond against their safe return, all of which, of course, gave Monrovia a direct interest in promoting recruitment and, with the bond, a motivation for turning a blind eye to working and living conditions on the island” (2948). In 1913 het die Liberiese president erken dat die stelsel amper soos slawerny is. Hy het ondersoek laat instel; ook na soortgelyke werksomstandighede op die Portugese eiland Sao Tomé (2956). Werktermyne is hierna tot hoogstens twee jaar beperk. Die Amerikaanse regering wou nie toelaat dat hy by hierdie arbeidsgeskil betrek word nie (2965).

    “Domestic slavery was woven into the fabric of West African life, where people did not define themselves so much as autonomous individuals but through the sum of the relationships that sustained them – family, village, clan, tribe. Children and adults were regularly ‘pawned’, to use the Western term, to pay debts between families or cement alliances between clans … in the early 1930s … ‘most of the existing domestic pawns [in West Africa] do not wish to be freed, for if they were emancipated their bond to the Chief would be destroyed, and they would lose the protection of tribe. This would make them friendless outcasts and homeless individuals’” (2974).

    Daar was die berugte hutbelasting. “Because natives often lacked the hard currency to pay this fee and others, governments imposed corvées. The chiefs would then select men to go off and labor for no pay and sometimes for long periods of time on public works, typically road-building or porterage” (2981). In 1930 Liberië “banned both labor exports and domestic pawning” (3152), hoewel laasgenoemde nog lank in die binneland voortgeduur het. Die Volkebond het dit selfs oorweeg om blanke administrateurs in Liberië te vestig om aanneemliker arbeidspraktyke te bevorder (3208).

    In die Suid-Afrikaanse grondwet staan: “No one may be subjected to slavery, servitude or forced labour.” In ‘n land waarin daar op groot skaal nie vir bv munisipale, onderwys- en gesondheidsdienste betaal word nie en daar boonop groot werkloosheid heers, kan ‘n sterk saak, ten minste ekonomies, vir gedwonge arbeid uitgemaak word, bv om paaie te bou en in stand te hou. Die uitsonderlik groot tronkbevolking kan ook hiervoor ingespan word, des te meer omdat hulle, ten spyte van hulle onsosiale gedrag, hulle stemreg behou. ‘n Opsig waarin so ‘n innovasie as onregverdig beskryf sou kon word, is dat daar heel moontlik meer misdadigers buite as in die tronke is.

    William Tubman (1895-1971, president 1944-1971) “would do more to bring his country and its political class [Americanoes] into the modern world than all his predecessors combined. Liberia’s days of forced labor and Frontier Force abuses were in the past; a new era of business opportunity – and police repression – would soon begin” (3223). “‘Uncle Shad’ had ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity and progress, but one that included the repression of labor unions and of political dissenters” (3874). Tubman “presided over the country’s greatest economic boom” (3273). Hy het bv ‘n ooreenkoms, soortgelyk aan dié met Firestone, met die Amerikaner, Landsdell Christie, gesluit “to mine Liberia’s iron ore and pay only 15 to 20 cents per ton to Tubman’s government” (3405). “Tubman did not sell Christie land but the eighty-year lease he agreed to was a sale in all but name, as distasteful to contemporary Monrovia nationalists as the Firestone deal had been to their fathers” (3413).

    “The government’s annual budget grew from a million dollars when Tubman took office in 1944 to more than $50 million in the late 1960s. Some of this new money served useful ends: paved roads fanned out from the capital … and hundreds of primary and secondary schools were built” (3430); ook klinieke (3498). Een van die groot bouprojekte herinner aan Nkandla: ‘n $20 000 “seaside Executive Mansion … [It] featured ‘an atomic bomb shelter, an underground swimming pool, a private chapel, a trophy room, a cinema and … because of the uncertainty of the city’s public utilities … its own emergency power plant, water supply and sewerage system’” (3438). Nog iets wat bekend klink: “Tubman himself was known for fathering children with at least a half dozen women, though most were of settler lineage” (3531). Daar is gesê nie Tubman nie maar “the Masons ran the country” (3369); soos eens die Guptas in Suid-Afrika?

    In 1953 is Tubman se verjaardag tot ‘n openbare vakansiedag verklaar. “By the end of the decade, the birthday festivities had become an expensive traveling circus, as each county sought to outdo the others. Government workers – down to the lowliest elementary schoolteacher – had half a month’s salary withheld to pay for the increasingly lavish gifts. In 1960, Bassa [County] presented Tubman with a Chrysler, Maryland County, Tubman’s home, followed up a year later with a yacht, and in 1962, Sinoe [County] bought him an airplane” (3246). “The yacht was not intended for his personal pleasure, Tubman reasoned, but as a sign of Liberia’s dignity” (3446). “The problem soon became: what to give a president-for-life who had everything. A monument, a cultural center, and a military academy – all with Tubman’s name engraved on them – were erected in his honor” (3254). (Vergelyk dit met wat in die naam van die Nelson Mandela-manie plaaslik gedoen word.)

    “Tubman called his efforts to bring twentieth-century civilization to the hinterland and to incorporate natives into Liberia’s body politic his ‘Unification Policy’. It culminated in the 1964 Unification Act, which finally put an end to the second-class citizenship of 98 persent of Liberia’s population: the act reconfigured the hinterland territories as counties and granted their propertied residents suffrage” (3498). “Though largely ignored, the old financial restrictions on voting still applied to the original coastal counties well into the 1970s” (5593). “Tubman understood the demographics of Liberia as well as any member of the settler community, and knew that making possible the full equality of the natives would quickly bring an end to Americo privilege and rule. Despite his strong early record on native matters, Tubman did little in the end to challenge the Americoes’ stranglehold on government” (3582). “He closed his ears to [native] pleas for a reconsideration of official Liberian history” (3590).

    “Upon Tubman’s death, William Tolbert, Jr (1913-1980, president 1971-1980) … assumed the office” (3881). “Tolbert immediately moved to distance Monrovia from Washington, voting with the nonaligned bloc at the United Nations, allowing the Soviet Union to set up an embassy in the country, and transferring diplomatic relations from Taiwan to Beijing. He set up a commission to strip triumphant Americo-Liberianism from the nation’s symbols of sovereignty (though it ended up recommending few changes)” (3889). “He eased the political repression of the Tubman years …[and] also relaxed press restrictions” (3896). In 1973 is die Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA) in Monrovië gestig (3905) met “African solidarity” as oogmerk (3913). ‘n Nagskool is in die hoofstad begin “which offered classes on reading, writing, and politics” (3922), soortgelyk aan die “geletterdheidsklasse” wat die swart bevrydingsbewegings met die ondersteuning van sommige linkse blankes in die vroeë jare negentig in Suid-Afrika aangebied het. Samuel Doe (1951-1990, staatshoof 1980-1986, president 1986-1990), ‘n soldaat in die Liberiese leër, was een van die leerlinge (3922). Amos Sawyer (gebore 1945, tussentydse president 1990-1994) was een van die onderwysers (4108). In 1975 is die Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) deur Liberiese studente in Amerika as teenhanger vir MOJA gestig. “PAL from the beginning espoused ‘black power’” (3922), maar albei “remained elitist operations” (3946).

    Dit is egter nie hierdie twee bewegings wat Tolbert tot ‘n val sou bring nie maar die verhoging van die prys van rys, die stapelvoedsel in Liberië (3953). ‘n Kwart van die rys is ingevoer en die prys is vasgestel op $22 per sak van 100 pond (3968). Te midde van inflasie het die minister van landbou voorgestel dat die prys tot $30 verhoog word. “Liberia’s largest importers of rice were companies controlled by the Tolbert family” (3976). MOJA, PAL en ander groepe het geweier om die prysverhoging te aanvaar en in opstand in Monrovië gekom. “It took three days and seven hundred troops from neighboring Guinea … to suppress the rioting. Hundreds of businesses were looted, and by official count, forty-one persons killed, though most suspected the actual total was several times that … The offenders were imprisoned, brutalized, and humiliated, until they offered up apologies, like errant children, and were released” (4026). Tolbert “lowered the price of rice, set up a commission to study the root causes of the riot – the recommendations of which he duly ignored – and eventually pardoned most of the men” (4035), hoewel party van hulle voor die geskeduleerde verkiesings van 1980 en 1981 weer opgesluit is (4083).

    Die Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) is nooit deur die Tolbert-regering as ‘n (ernstige) bedreiging beskou nie. Die soldate was egter inheemses (4092). Een van hulle was sersant Samuel Doe. Op 11 April 1980 het hy en 15 of 16 ander soldate Tolbert se ampswoning bestorm en Tolbert vermoor. Ná die staatsgreep het Doe die voorsitter en hoof van die nuwe regering, die People’s Redemption Council (PRC), geword (4115). Op hierdie manier is die politieke bewind van die Amerikaanse setlaars na 133 jaar beëindig. Dronk soldate het Monrovië op horings geneem. “Anybody with light skin or a settler pedigree was taunted by crowds and then beaten by men in uniform” (4164). Tien dae na die staatsgreep is 13 lede van die vorige bewind op 22 April 1980 op die strand van Monrovië gefusilleer (4179). Baie van diegene met ‘n ligte vel of historiese Amerikaanse verbintenis het uit die land gevlug en hulle in veral Amerika hervestig (4204). Sommige het in Liberië aangebly.

    “Americoes have been overrepresented in every government since Doe’s 1980 coup, including the current one.They still own an outsize portion of the country’s lands and businesses, especially now that old property claims have been restored” (4348). Dit lyk asof die inheemse swartes in Liberië groter waarde aan hulle setlaars heg as wat die swartes in Suid-Afrika in die geval van die plaaslike blankes doen. Eers in 2008 is getuienis by ‘n Waarheids- en Versoeningskommissie gelewer, soortgelyk aan wat ons in Suid-Afrika beleef het (4186). “However corrupt, unjust, incompetent, and occasionally brutal the Americo regime had been across its 133-year reign, its crimes paled in comparison with the dictatorships, invasions, assassinations, civil wars, and anarchy that followed” (4193). Is dit ‘n spieëlbeeld van die soort gebeure wat vir ons in Suid-Afrika voorlê?

    By ‘n latere geleentheid sal ek oor die geskiedenis van Liberië sedert 1980 skryf.

  • Leon Lemmer: Melanie Phillips: Van progessief tot behoudend

    Leon Lemmer: Melanie Phillips: Van progessief tot behoudend

    Melanie Phillips (gebore in 1951) is ‘n Britse joernalis wat uit ‘n ouerhuis kom waarin dit vanselfsprekend was dat die Arbeidersparty ondersteun word. Sy het Engelse letterkunde aan St Anne’s College, Oxford University, bestudeer en daarna joernalistiek in Cardiff. As joernalis was sy agtereenvolgend verbonde aan leidende Britse koerante: The Guardian, The Observer, The Sunday Times en Daily Mail. Hierdie lys weerspieël hoe haar mening geleidelik van progressief na behoudend verander het; ‘n aanvanklik linkse “that has been mugged by reality.” Dieselfde kan gesê word van haar tydskrifartikels wat voorheen in New Society, New Statesman en later in die meer konserwatiewe The Spectator gepubliseer is. Tans lewer sy weekliks ‘n artikel in The Times.

    Die van Phillips klink Brits maar is in werklikheid ‘n verengelsing van haar oupa se Poolse van. “My father’s father – who, according to family mythology, was given the name Phillips because the immigration officer couldn’t pronounce his Polish name” (2018-boek hier onder, Kindle 189). Dit herinner aan Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), maar anders as Conrad, vir wie Engels sy derde taal was, is Phillips in Londen gebore en is haar beheersing van Engels idiomaties en uitmuntend. Sy het verskeie boeke gepubliseer, bv All must have prizes (1996), waarin die polities byderwetse gelykverklaring van mense, die relativering van waardes en die ondermyning van gesag aan bod kom.

    Die boektitel is ontleen aan ‘n frase in Lewis Carroll se Alice in Wonderland: “everybody has won, and all must have prizes” – soos wat graag oor die nuwe Suid-Afrika beweer word (‘n wen-wen-situasie) terwyl dit veel eerder die geval is dat almal verloor (‘n verloor-verloor-situasie). “In this book, I wrote that education standards had not only plummeted but education itself had been redefined. It was no longer the transmission of knowledge and culture, but a process of self-discovery by ‘autonomous meaning-makers’ – once known as pupils” (2018-boek, 1389). In die nuwe Suid-Afrika, waar minder as ooit op skool geleer word, het skoliere (“verouderd” – HAT) oornag leerders geword.

    Phillips se teks is op die Britse skoolstelsel toegespits, maar dit herinner aan die Afrika-benadering waarvolgens alle swartes in dieselfde mate bevoordeel moet word, bv die jaarlikse toekenning van bonusse aan alle werkers en nie slegs aan diegene wat uitsonderlik produktief was nie. Dink ook aan swart skoliere en studente wat mbt eksamens eis: “Pass one, pass all.” “I could see for myself that teaching had been hijacked by left-wing ideology. Instead of being taught to read and write, children were being left to play in various states of anarchy on the grounds that any exercise of adult authority was oppressive and would destroy the innate creativity of the child” (2018-boek, 838).

    In The world turned upside down: The global battle over God, truth and power (2010), spreek Phillips haar kommer uit oor die irrasionaliteit wat die hedendaagse wêreld oorspoel. Sy lewer ‘n pleidooi vir die terugkeer na rasionaliteit en religieuse tradisies. Phillips se eerste roman is onlangs gepubliseer: The legacy (2018). Phillips het veral bekendheid verwerf met die boek, Londonistan: How Britain has created a terror state within (2006), waarin sy aantoon in watter groot mate veral die Britse hoofstad, maar ook talle ander gebiede in veral Engeland, vermoslem het. Tien jaar later, in 2016, het Londen sy eerste Moslem burgemeester gekry. Kindle-weergawes van die laasgenoemde drie boeke is beskikbaar.

    Ek het Londonistan in ‘n vorige rubriek bespreek (Praag 15.05.2016). Bv: “Londonistan verwys nie slegs na die Britse hoofstad nie, maar ook na vermoslemde areas in Britse nywerheidstede, wat die tradisionele aard van die Britse samelewing nie net verander het nie maar op die lange duur selfs kan vernietig … Weens kultuurverskille, dus nie-wittes se vreemde leefwyse, kon hulle nie so maklik soos blankes in die Britse samelewing geassimileer word nie. Die nie-blanke immigrante was geneig om eie monokulturele gebiede in Brittanje te vestig, wat veral in stede aangetref word en dikwels die aanskyn van krotbuurte aangeneem het … ‘the deadly fusion of an aggressive ideology [Islamism] and a society that thas lost its way [Britain] has led to the emergence of Londonistan.’”

    Ek het pas Phillips se outobiografie gelees: Guardian angel: My journey from leftism to sanity (New York: Bombardier Books, 2018, 256p; Amazon Kindle $9,19). Daarin word sy beskryf as “Britian’s most controversial champion of national and cultural identity” (Kindle 2080). Die boektitel sinspeel op die bekendheid wat sy as joernalis by The Guardian verwerf het. Wat ek eienaardig vind, is haar lojaliteit aan die Verenigde Koninkryk in sy geheel, dermate dat sy ‘n eie Ierse en Skotse nasionalisme en kulturele identiteit ontken of ten minste as onaanvaarbaar beskou. Ek gaan nie oor haar familiegeskiedenis geskryf nie maar eerder oor ‘n aantal sake wat sy opper.

    Op 23 Junie 2016 het 51,9% van die Britse kiesers in ‘n referendum die wens uitgespreek dat die Verenigde Koninkryk uit die Europese Unie (EU) moet tree. Daar was en is hewige meningsverskille tussen die Brexiteers en die Remainers. Die laasgenoemdes beweer massa-immigrasie het die uitslag deurslaggewend bepaal. Dit was ‘n groot terugslag vir “liberal, tolerant, outward-looking Remain” (66). “This view was rooted in the belief that the Western nation was the source of global oppression, bigotry and war. It therefore needed to be constrained by transnational institutions such as the EU and the United Nations, and by ‘universal’ laws such as human rights. Because transnationalism embodied the brotherhood of man, these institutions would necessarily supercede national parliaments and their laws” (79).

    Die Brexiteers meen egter dat die hoofoorweging nie ontevredenheid met massa-immigrasie was nie maar “the desire for Britain to control its own policies and laws” (66). “On June 23, 2016, the British people found the courage to assert once again the rightfulness and desirablity of an independent Western democratic nation giving expression to its own historic culture, beliefs and laws” (86). Die referendumuitslag “represented the defeat of a progressive worldview that had been actively reshaping British and Western culture for more than half a century” (73).

    Die verkiesing op 8 November 2016 van Donald Trump as Amerikaanse president word in dieselfde konteks as Brexit beskou. “He was brought to power by a revolt against a political and intellectual establishment which had long sought to erode America’s values at home and emasculate its power abroad” (92). “Both in voting for Brexit and for Donald Trump, the people were demanding the upholding of their core culture, the defense of their nation and the restoration of the democratic compact of citizenship with their country’s government” (98). Hier is daar duidelike verset teen die linkse siening “that the nation state was an oppressive western construct that was innately racist and inescapably created nationalism, conflict and war” (1504).

    The Guardian was in Suid-Afrika berug vir wat hy oor apartheid gepubliseer het. Phillips was van 1977 tot 1998 aan hierdie koerant verbonde. Nadat sy bedank het, het hierdie koerant stemming teen Phillips gemaak deur haar as ‘n “human cactus” te beskryf (2013). Terugskouend skryf Phillips: “The defining feature of Guardian journalists [is] a narcissistic self-regard based upon a fixed belief in their own superiority and righteousness, nurtured by indulgence and privilege” (464). “We also admired what we told ourselves was the paper’s historically noble and principled stand in defence of liberty and justice and against oppression. We were proud of its nonconformist origins as the Manchester Guardian and proud of its legendary former editor CP Scott who coined the dictum, ‘comment is free but facts are sacred.’ It was only later that I realized there was more than a shred of truth in the old joke that Guardian news stories freely spun the facts while its editorial comment columns treated opinion as sacred. No one ever mentioned the paper’s unfortunate support in the 1930s for Stalinism, when it sacked its Moscow correspondent Malcolm Muggeridge [1903-1990] after he had tried to report the effects of the bureaucrat-induced famine in the Ukraine and Caucasus in which some six million people starved to death” (478).

    Die destydse siening van die linkses/progressiewes het intussen nie verander nie: “Whereas the right seemed to believe the worst of people, we believed the best. They embodied darkness; we embodied light. They were about the past; we were always looking to the future” (492). “Whatever we said was, by definition, morally correct” (498). Dink aan “die donker tyd van apartheid” waaraan ons feitlik daagliks herinner word en die “moreel hoë grond” wat die ANC beklee, so hoog dat geen kwaad in die beoogde owerheidsdiefstal van blankes se eiendom gesien word nie.

    “I always thought of myself as a liberal, in the classical English meaning of the word, which to me was another way of saying I believed in progress and the capacity of human beings to create a better world” (498). “Only much later did I realize that the left is fundamentally illiberal … everything not on the left was politically extreme” (505). In die Naspers/Media24-koerante word enige iemand wat regs van die sentrum is, verregs genoem. Wat vermoë tot wêreldverbetering betref, kan ons gerus erken dat alle mense nie eenders is nie. Ons kan daagliks waarneem dat net sommige mense/groepe die vermoë het om ‘n beter wêreld te skep. ‘n Ander gevolgtrekking waartoe Phillips gekom het, is: “The left didn’t like ordinary people and in particular the lower middle class, the striving class who believed in things like self-discipline and personal responsibility” (999). Regte eerder as verpligtinge word beklemtoon.

    In die jare sestig het die swart burgerregtebeweging die Amerikaanse samelewing onherroeplik opgedonder; nie dat gelyke regte noodwendig verkeerd is nie, hoewel ‘n mens sou verkies dat sulke regte (in bv Amerika en Suid-Afrika) verdien en nie gewelddadig opgeëis word nie. Waarteen ek dit het, is dat swartes suiwer rassisties en dikwels sonder teenprestasie deesdae in buitensporige mate bo blankes bevoordeel word. In die jare sestig was daar in Brittanje ook ‘n kulturele revolusie, die “swinging sixties,” wat deur die beskikbaarstelling van die geboortebeperkingspil en die seksuele revolusie wat daarop gevolg het, moontlik gemaak is. ‘n Militante soort feminisme het sy kop uitgesteek.

    “It was during the seventies and eighties when those ideas actually became embedded in British society, when the students and young agitators of the sixties became lawyers, teachers, university lecturers, civil servants, campaigners, thinktankers, and politicians – and thus captured the citadels of British culture, where they proceeded to undermine core values of education, family, law, and other cultural building blocks of society … There was virtually no questioning of the iron assumption that the poor and socially disadvantaged were inevitably the victims of circumstances rather than accountable for their own behavior” (538). Hoeveel groter en meer tragies is die Suid-Afrikaanse revolusie van 1990/94 nie? Apartheid, dus blankes, word die skuld vir iedere swart agterstand gegee.

    Die uitgangspunt is dat almal gelyk/wesenlik eenders, bv (potensieel) ewe bekwaam, is. “‘Mindless egalitarianism’ … was leaving children ignorant and untaught” (1195). As in die praktyk blyk dat mense nie eenders is nie, word die swartes as die benadeelde slagoffers beskou en die blankes as die skuldiges wat moet opdok. “The left … had replaced truth with ideology and [their] weapon of choice against all dissent was vilification and demonization” (565). Byvoorbeeld, enigeen wat ‘n geluid maak wat polities nie korrek genoeg is nie, word sonder meer ‘n rassis genoem. Dit is nie vryheid nie; veel eerder ideologiese verslawing.

    “Respect for authority both in and outside the classroom had collapsed. Knowledge had given away to creativity and spontaneity. Literacy had been redefined as un-reading. The essay had been supplanted by the imaginative story, replacing teaching children to think by allowing them to imagine. Teaching the rules of grammar or maths was frowned upon for stifling a child’s innate creativity. Right and wrong answers were no longer distinguished from each other; relativism reigned instead, and children were told to make it up as they went along” (1397). “Correcting children’s mistakes was an illegitimate exercise of power” (1403).

    Kinders wat akademies beter as ander presteer, mag nie geloof word nie omdat dit die selfbeeld van minder talentvolle kinders ondermyn. Dit kan egter eerder ‘n geval wees van mindere toewyding as mindere talente. Die aandag van agtergeblewenes mag nie daarop gevestig word dat hulle agter raak en bly nie. ‘n Blanke mag nie spreekwoordelik van ‘n lid van ‘n ander ras/etnisiteit sê hy ‘n aap of bobbejaan nie. Die objek mag hierdie karakterisering hoogs nodig hê, maar volgens die HAT is albei neerhalende terme. “The outcome was a Lewis Carroll world in which failure of a child to learn to read was glorified as evidence of success. The result was mass functional illiteracy among school leavers, and associated behavioral problems by pupils excluded from classroom life through their inability to read. Even universities were forced to provide remedial courses for undergraduates to compensate for the gross inadequacies of the education system” (1403). Dit is ook waar van Suid-Afrika waar nie net funksionele tekstuele ongeletterdheid kenmerkend van sommige/baie skoolverlaters is nie maar ook/veral funksionele numerêre ongeletterdheid.

    “My writing during the 1980s and 1990s reflected the fact that Britain was undergoing a cultural revolution … Fundamental assumptions and values were being challenged, attacked and undermined. The homogeneity of British society was being eroded by mass immigration, which was changing the face of the country. As socialism withered and the free market dominated, identity politics replaced economics” (1006). “This was not merely to transform family life, but also turn the understanding of what was normal and what transgressive* inside out” (1012). “The left was rejecting all external authority and embrasing instead moral and cultural relativism, the idea that ‘what is right’ is ‘what is right for me,’ and declaring any hierarchy of values illegitimate. But to me, this was a recipe for an amoral free-for-all in which freedom would die” (1012). Op ‘n soortgelyke manier word hiërargie by individue en groepe mense ontken; almal is bv ewe bekwaam en moreel goed. In werklikheid is daar mense wat werksgewys nie die mas opkom nie en moreel sodanig is dat hulle nie in die samelewing geduld behoort te word nie. [* “Transgressive {oortredend/oorskrydend}: involving a violation of moral or social boundaries.”]

    As ondersoekende joernalis het Phillips “benadeelde” armes in hulle huise besoek. Te midde van die vullis was daar luukse goedere soos video-opnemers, vrieskaste en duur fietse. “What I saw was a spiritual poverty that could not be explained away by material deprivation” (585). ‘n Feitlik onontbeerlike item in ‘n arm huishouding is ‘n televisiestel. Die SABC het onlangs genoem dat hy nie sokkeruitsendings op radio kon bekostig nie omdat hy nie geld vir duur sportuitsendings het nie. Die SABC het hierdie versoek simpatiek oorweeg omdat dit hoofsaaklik swartes is wat sokkeruitsendings begeer. Wat polities korrek nie genoem is nie, is dat indien die oorgrote meerderheid swartes vir televisie-uitsendings betaal, sou die SABC oorgenoeg geld hê vir die uitsending van sokkerwedstryde op radio én televisie. Voorspelbaar het die SABC sedertdien geld gevind om sokkerwedstryde op radio uit te saai.

    Dit is hierdie nie-betaalkultuur wat veroorsaak dat diegene wat wel televisielisensies het, eersdaags vir dekodeerders sal moet opdok terwyl die nie-betalers op groot skaal van gratis dekodeerders voorsien gaan word. Die huidige bevoordeeldes gaan dus verder bevoordeel word. Die huidige benadeeldes gaan verder benadeel word. Normaalweg kyk ek nie televisie nie. Dit was ‘n riem onder die hart om te lees: “I knew that having the TV on in the middle of the day was a sign of moral weakness” (293). Die bekendste lewende, konserwatiewe Britse filosoof, Roger Scruton, het nie ‘n televisiestel nie, maar hy het sy twee kinders soms toegelaat om by die bure te gaan kyk. Omdat so baie mense in hulle vryetyd as afleiding eerder televisie kyk as om hulleself geestelik te verryk deur bv te lees, het die “sportsterre” multimiljoenêrs geword. Baie van hulle het skynbaar nie tyd om te skeer nie maar hulle vind tyd om op die veld te spoeg, hulle hare te kleur en hulle op ander maniere te mismaak, bv om hulle (oormatig) te laat tatoeëer.

    Diskriminasie teen blankes word nie rassediskriminasie genoem nie, maar regstelling. Owerheidsdiefstal van blankes se eiendom word nie nasionalisering genoem nie maar teruggawe, asof die huidige swartes, anders as die huidige blankes, ooit wettige aanspraak op bv daardie plase gehad het. Die staatsdepartement wat met die owerheidsdiefstal van veral blankes se eiendom gemoeid is, word Landelike Ontwikkeling genoem. Swart bevoordeeldes word benadeeldes genoem. “This is the core of what we now know today as ‘political correctness’ through which concepts are turned into their polar opposite in order to give miscreants a free pass if they belong to certain groups designated by the left as ‘victims.’ They are thus deemed to be incapable of doing anything wrong, while groups designated as ‘oppressors’ can do no right” (696). “This twisted thinking is what now passes for ‘progressive’ thinking in Britain and America” (703).

    Iets anders wat Phillips as ondersoekende joernalis vasgestel en oor geskryf het, is “the refusal to teach Standard English on the grounds that this was ‘elitist’” (889). “Teachers wrote to me in despair at the pressure not to impose Standard English on children on the grounds that this was discriminatory. They knew that, on the contrary, this was to abandon those children to permanent servitude and ignorance” (895). “The problem was the number of bad teachers who were turning good teachers into a beleaguered minority” (902). “Dissent was being silenced, and those who ran against the orthodoxy were being forced to operate in secret; worse still, the very meaning of concepts such as education, teaching and knowledge was being unilaterally altered, and thousands of children, particularly those at the bottom of the social heap, were being abandoned to ignorance and institutionalized disadvantage” (915).

    In Amerika is daar ‘n soortgelyke verskynsel. Pleks van onderrig in Standard American English aan swartes te verskaf, word druk uitgeoefen dat swartes in Black English onderig moet word omdat dit hulle moedertaal is. Soms, veral in die Suide, word dit Ebonics genoem, wat glo die taal was waarin die swart slawe probeer het om met hulle (wrede) wit eienaars te kommunikeer; soortgelyk aan die manier waarop Afrikaans na bewering ontstaan het. Dat daar baie fiksie/mites in die ontstaan van Ebonics is, blyk uit die feit dat daar min woorde van Afrika-oorsprong in die Engels van swart Amerikaners is. Daar is heelwat meer wat oor hierdie onderwerp gesê kan word: “Die ebonisering van Kaaps” (Praag 16.02.2014). Insgelyks is daar min woorde in Afrikaans wat aan bv die Khoi-San en die Maleis van die destydse slawe toegeskryf kan word. Maar die handvol Afrikaanse woorde van nie-wit oorsprong word deesdae tot vervelens toe gelys terwyl die olifant in die taalkamer, die Afrikaanse woorde wat uit bv Nederlands en Duits oorgeneem is, verswyg word; om nie te praat van die groot aantal Afrikaanse woorde wat vindingryke Afrikaners geskep het en steeds skep nie.

    Phillips keer telkens terug na maatskaplike kwessies. “By far my biggest break with the left … was over the breakdown of the family. In the late 1980s, I noticed that the institution of the family was suffering a ‘chronic crisis of identity and self-confidence.’ There were more and more divorces and single parents; at the same time parents were becoming less confident in managing their children” (1045). “Fatherless families [were] at least partly responsible for a national breakdown in authority and rising levels of crime” (1052). Let op hierdie skewe (feministiese) siening: Distansiëring vind plaas “from the bad old days when simply everyone was miserable because marriage chained women to men who, as everone with the correct view knew for a fact, were basically feckless wife-beaters and child abusers as well as being irrationally prejudiced against the opposite sex” (1085).

    Dit is bekend dat die meeste swart kinders in Suid-Afrika vaderloos grootgeword het en dat die buitensporig hoë voorkoms van misdaad (veral) hieraan toegeskryf word. Die tragedie is dat hierdie slegte voorbeeld van vaderlose gesinne al hoe meer in die Weste nagevolg word. “During the 1990s, the ultra-feminist agenda behind the willed breakdown of the traditional family became even boulder in attacking its real target: men. It seemed to me to be driven by women who were declaring, offensively and stupidly, that men were a waste of space and that no sensible woman ‘would take one home’” (1455). Dink aan wat mense soos Amanda Gouws en Christi van der Westhuizen aangemoedig/toegelaat word om in die hoofstroomkoerante kwyt te raak; mans as suurstofdiewe. Sulke uitlatings kan as “emotional incontinence” (emosionele swakblasigheid) beskou word (1559).

    “The left had become the sum of various interest groups all out for their own particular causes such as single parenthood, homosexuality, or animal rights” (1202). Phillips se gevolgtrekking is: “The destruction of the traditional family had as its real target the destruction of Biblical morality” (1118). “What I saw so clearly in the areas of education or family … was in essence the displacement of truth by ideology” (1138). Dít het sy vroeër soos volg geformuleer: “Truth was being sacrificed to expediency. Evidence would be denied if the consequences were too inconvenient” (1079). Hierin lê, in ‘n neutedop, ‘n verduideliking van die onverkwiklike situasie waarin die Weste, insluitende blank Suid-Afrika, hom bevind. Die ideologie wat besig is om Westerse beskawing te vernietig, is kulturele marxisme, dikwels politieke korrektheid genoem (1277). Een van die kernmaniere waarop gepoog word om die Weste kultureel te verslaan, is om die gesin af te breek. Sogenaamde selfdegeslaghuwelike is een van die maniere waarop dit gedoen word. Namate al hoe meer gesinne disfunksioneel word, word dit al hoe moeiliker om ‘n funksionele, vreedsame, voorspoedige, gelukkige samelewing in stand te hou.

    “Truth was being sacrificed to expediency” kan as ‘n “cultural nervous breakdown” beskou word (1559). Ek volstaan met twee plaaslike voorbeelde. Eerstens, in die Universiteit Stellenbosch (US) se Eeufeesjaar (2018) kies Wim de Villiers openlik en sonder dat hy daadwerklike teenstand ondervind om eerder Nelson Mandela as Jan Marais te huldig. Mandela sou De Villiers se verengelsing van die US geloof het terwyl dit teen die grein van Marais se stigtingsvoorwaarde ingaan. In die nuwe Suid-Afrika kan De Villiers mos nie verkeerd wees as hy hom eerder by ‘n swarte as ‘n blanke skaar nie.

    Tweedens, sedert 1994 is die agteruitgang van die gehalte van Afrikaans onrusbarend opvallend. Hierdie kreeftegang verkry al hoe meer momentum. Dit is die enkele kenmerk van die Afrikaans van ná 1994 wat nie misgekyk kan word nie. Desnieteenstaande voer Afrikaansinstansies en Afrikaansdosente nie ‘n veldtog om suiwerder Afrikaans te bevorder nie. Die rede hiervoor is dat die sprekers van Kaaps, dus van geradbraakte Afrikaans, polities korrek nie aanstoot gegee mag word nie. Dit is ‘n sprekende voorbeeld van misplaaste voorkeur: dat onderdanigheid aan politieke korrektheid belangriker as die heil van Afrikaans geag word. Diegene wat so lou/halfhartig oor Afrikaans is, laat my dink aan: “Maar nou, omdat hulle lou is, nie warm en ook nie koud nie, gaan Ek julle uit my mond uitspoeg” (Openbaring 3:16).

  • Verwoerd se rede oor Bloedrivier

    Verwoerd se rede oor Bloedrivier

    Jaap Marais het oor Verwoerd geskryf dat sy nalatenskap so groot was, dat sy opvolgers nie sy werk kon voortsit nie. Dus, dat daar geen leier was wat opgewasse was vir die taak nie.

    Dit is onwaar. Ons ras het die roustof van reuse, — maar is tot nog toe deur geen helder gedagte besiel nie, slegs deur Christenskap.

    Hier volg Verwoerd se Geloftedagrede van 16 Desember 1958 soos weergegee in: Verwoerd aan die woord, Afrikaanse Pers-Boekhandel, 1964, bl. 189-194.

    — Pierre Fouché

    Dr H F Verwoerd: Geloftedagrede by Bloedrivier, 16 Desember 1958

    Liewe vriende, ek wil praat van toe en van nou. As ons die gees van die wêreld van die tydsgewrig van die Voortrekkers nagaan, dan vind ons dat dit ‘n periode van beroering was in die gemoedere van mense. Daar het destyds ‘n geestestroom oor die wêreld beweeg wat ‘n nuwe atmosfeer geskep het, wat sy invloed gehad het tot so ver as hier in die suide van Afrika. Ons weet almal hoe tydens die Franse Rewolusie ‘n gees van bevryding onder die mensdom ontstaan het; ‘n gees van vryheid en broederskap en gelykheid van alle mense. Dit was gebore uit die omstandighede van die Europa van daardie tyd en is toe verkeerd toegepas op die wêreld daarbuite wat anders was.

    Die toepassing van die idee van vryheid en gelykheid en die broederskap van alle mense het aanleiding gegee tot geweldige geskille en twiste en die wanbegrip openbaar van die lewe van mense in ander lande in ander omstandighede. In Europa is geskryf van die edele barbaar, terwyl die mens rondom hulle, die blanke in sy beskawing van daardie tyd, nie geag is nie. In daardie gees is die blankes wat besig was om lande te beskaaf en om die barbaar van homself en van sy verdrukker uit eie geledere te red, as verdrukker beskryf.

    Dieselfde het met ons eie nasie en die Voortrekkers gebeur. Geweldige wanvoorstellings het in Europa geheers oor ons mense en die dade wat hier verrig is. Uit daardie lande het vreemde predikante, die Philipse en die Van der Kemps, besiel met die gees wat oor Europa versprei het, gekom na ‘n gebied wat hulle nie geken het nie. Hulle het nie net die Evangelie gebring nie, maar ook die steurnis van die misverstand. Hulle het ‘n ondiens bewys, nie net aan die blanke wat destyds met die Bybel in die hand die binneland ingedring het nie, maar ook aan die heidendom deur hom aan te hits teen die blanke met al sy goeie wil en sy kennis van die toestande hier. Hulle het die weg beswaar en heelwat van die bloed wat vergiet is en die stryd wat veroorsaak is, was die gevolg van die goedbedoelde maar misplaaste oordra van ‘n gees wat in die omstandighede van daardie tyd hier nie gepas het nie.

    Daardie gees was nie gerig teen die Afrikanervoorsate alleen nie, maar teen alle blankes. Ook die Engelssprekendes het besef dat die kersteningsproses vir Afrika nodig is en dat die heerskappy van die blanke nodig was om hier in Suid-Afrika die beskawing en die Christendom te bring en uit te bou.

    Te midde van dit alles word die optrede van die Voortrekkers deur drie duidelike gesindhede gekenmerk. Die een word gesimboliseer deur die gereedheid van Piet Retief om, waar hulle oop gebied hier gevind het, dit tog deur behoorlike onderhandelings as besit te verkry. Piet Retief was gereed om ‘n ooreenkoms met Dingaan aan te gaan. Hy was gereed om te vertrou en saam te werk. Hy het in die hande van die barbaar die lewens van sy klein groepie metgeselle geplaas. Die vertroue van die blanke, die eerlike opregtheid van die blanke, die onderhandelingsgereedheid van die blanke, die bereidheid om regte toe te ken soos dit pas, elkeen na sy soort en op sy plek, is gesimboliseer met daardie daad van Piet Retief. Verder voortvloeiend uit die gebeure te Moordkoppie, sien ons dat die mense daar vergader nie gereed was om deel te hê aan die selfmoord van ‘n nasie nie. Hulle was nie bereid om pad te gee of om te vermeng nie. Hulle was gereed om te bly of om te trek as dit nodig was na Transvaal, maar waar hulle ook al sou gaan, was hulle gereed om te stry tot die oorwinning toe, te stry om ‘n nasie te help bou. Of die Voortrekker getrek het, of hy geveg het, en of hy die hand aan die ploeg geslaan het wanneer hy in vrede gelaat is, was hy altyd besig om te bou aan sy nasie. Nooit was hy gereed om te verbreek, te vernietig of te verloor nie.

    Kenmerkend van daardie stryd was dat die Voortrekker altyd sy kind en sy vrou by hom gehad het. Dit was nie ‘n stryd van mans alleen nie. Dit was nie ‘n stryd net met die wapen in die hand nie. Dit was ‘n stryd van die hele gesin – man, vrou en kind – sy aan sy om die toekoms vir hulle nageslag te beveilig en die suiwerheid van die bloed van die volk te bewaar. Was dit mans alleen wat ‘n land so binnegestroom het, was daar vandag miskien nie ‘n blanke nasie nie. Omdat dit ‘n gesinstrek was en omdat die eenheid van die familie die basiese band was van die demokratiese bestuur van die state wat toe gestig is, kon orde en vrede so gou daar gevind word. Dit was die gesin wat getrek het, die gesin wat gestry het, die gesin wat gebou het.

    Dit is wat toe gebeur het. Wat is die posisie vandag?

    Daar bestaan ‘n merkwaardige ooreenkoms. Is dit nie so dat ‘n liberalistiese stroom weer vandag besig is om oor die wêreld te beweeg, baie soortgelyk aan 120 jaar gelede nie? ‘n Gees wat in die Tweede Wêreldoorlog, miskien alreeds in die Eerste Wêreldoorlog, sy oorsprong het; ‘n gees wat gebore is uit die ervaring van die mense elders en hulle belange alleen; ‘n gees van liberalisme wat veroorsaak het dat die blanke state so onder mekaar verdeel geraak het dat elkeen vir die welslae van sy oogmerke die steun van die nie-blanke wêreld – hetsy in Asië, hetsy in Afrika – probeer soek het; ‘n gees nie gebore soos dit dikwels voorgestel word uit die hoogste morele oorwegings nie, want dan sou dit nie so verdoemend neersien op die eie blanke in ander dele van die wêreld nie maar teenoor hom ewe begrypend kon staan as teenoor die swarte.

    Dit is eienaardig dat die wêreldgees, net soos destyds, nie gerig is teen die Afrikaner nie, maar teen alle blankes. Daardie gees is deurdring van verheerliking vir die edele barbaar. Alles wat die nie-blanke sê of doen, is goed of word goedgepraat. As hy ru of dwaas optree, word dit beskryf as maar net kenmerkend van die oorgangsperiode. Maar as die blanke deur vas te staan, moet sorg dat die beskawing behoue bly, dan is dit verdrukking en word hy gesmaad. Die wêreldgees is ook gerig teen al die koloniale moondhede in Afrika, of dit nou die Portugese of die Engelse of die Belge of die Franse is, en of dit die Suid-Afrikaners is – wie ook al die beskawing hier gebring het, wie ook al die mense gered het van onderlinge uitdelgery, wie ook al dak en voedsel besorg het vir groter massas as wat die land eers kon dra – aan hulle word nie dank gesê vir lewe, vir voorspoed, vir kennis, vir die Godsverryking van hulle gemoed nie. Dit is ook eienaardig dat juis nou weer predikante uit die vreemde moes kom wat die wanbegrippe verder dra – die Huddlestons, die Collinse, die Scotts, die De Blanks – mense miskien met goeie bedoelings, mense besiel deur die gees wat in Europa deur hulle ingedrink is, sommige selfs besiel met ‘n gees wat uit die verwerplike Kommunisme afkomstig is. In hierdie land waar ons as ‘n Christelike volk met kennis van ons geskiedenis en van die natuur van die Bantoevolkere en die peil van hulle ontwikkeling, probeer om te doen wat reg is en wat goed is en wat Christelik is, word ons verdoem uit monde wat eers moes leer voor hulle praat.

    Hulle sien nie raak nie dat net soos 120 jaar gelede, daar die duidelikste bewyse bestaan van ons gereedheid om billikheid en reg te laat geskied. Ek het verwys hoe Piet Retief gereed was om ‘n ooreenkoms aan te gaan. Ek voeg daarby dat ná daardie Moordkoppiegebeurtenis onderweg nog ‘n boodskap na Dingaan gestuur het dat as hy berou sou openbaar, die Voortrekkers nog vergewensgesind sou wees en die stryd nie tot die uiterste voer nie. Omdat die boodskap met minagting bejeën is, moes Bloedrivierslag plaasvind.

    Net so is die blanke vandag op allerlei wyse gereed om geregtigheid aan die Bantoe te laat geskied. Die beleid van Suid-Afrika is om regte aan die nie-blanke in sy eie gemeenskap en in sy eie gebied te gee waar dit pas.

    Weer is dit die blanke volk van Suid-Afrika wat die toestande ken, wat die enigste metode ontwerp het en volg wat vrede kan bring en geregtigheid aan almal bewys. Maar daarin word hy nie gesteun deur diegene wat van buite kom en hom nie begryp nie. Hulle het die verdwyning van die blankedom reeds aanvaar as onvermydelik. Wanneer gepraat word soos in Europa en ook deur sommige in ons eie land dat die oplossing van hierdie stryd geleë is in die samevoeging van alle mense – sogenaamde integrasie – begryp hulle nie dat dit nie eenwordings is nie. Al wat sal gebeur, is die vernietiging van die blankedom. Nie integrasie nie, maar disintegrasie – disintegrasie van die blankedom, van die beskawing en van die godsdiens wat ons geërf het, is die enigste gevolg. Daarom, al kan ons nie meer trek nie, sê ons net soos die Voortrekker van ouds: „Ons kan nog stry.” En ons sal veg, al sou ons moet ondergaan, maar ons sal vegtend bly vir die voortbestaan van die blanke aan die suidpunt van Afrika en die godsdiens wat aan hom gegee is om hier te versprei. En ons sal dit doen net soos hulle – man, vrou en kind. Ons sal veg vir ons bestaan en die wêreld moet dit weet. Ons kan nie anders nie. Ons staan soos ‘n Luther met die Hervorming, met die rug teen die muur. Ons veg nie om geld of goed nie. Ons veg vir die lewe van ons volk.

    Maar ons veg nie net vir ons volk nie. Ek is diep sielsoortuig dat ons veg vir die voortbestaan van die blanke beskawing. As ooit ‘n stryd tussen Oos en Wes moet kom, as Afrika ooit êrens sy gewig moet ingooi en dit ‘n beslissende gewig sal wees, dan sal Afrika se gewig aan die kant van die blanke en die Westerse nasies wees aleen as die idee waarvoor ons as ‘n volk staan, kan bly seëvier. Die blanke is aan die suidpunt van Afrika ‘n voorpos van die blanke beskawing en as sodanig die krag van die vegtende massa, vooruitgeskuif daar waar die eerste aanvalle moet kom. Ons weet ons is ‘n klein nasie maar ons weet ook dat ons in ons het die staal en die krag wat by Bloedrivier-triomf teweeggebring het. Wanneer jy in ‘n voorpos is en die gevaar sien wat kom, het jy die reg om boodskappe agtertoe te stuur na die leërs wat nog agter jou skuil. Daarom stuur ons die boodskap aan die wêreld daarbuite en sê ons vir hulle weer eens daar is net een redding vir die blankedom van die wêreld. Dit is dat blank en nie-blank in Afrika elkeen sy regte beoefen binne sy eie gebiede.

    Ons veg met alles wat in ons is want ons weet ons is ‘n nasie in wording. Ons weet ons is nog nie die mas halfpad op nie. Ons weet ons is nog maar fondamentlêers net soos die helde van Bloedrivier was. Ons weet ook ons is gewone mense met baie swakhede. Maar ons weet diegene wat geskiedenis maak soos hulle, en soos ons nou, geskiedenis maak van ‘n jong volk wat nog in die lente van sy lewe staan. As die fondamente reg gelê word, kan die mure sterk gebou word. En die fondamente wat ons lê, probeer ons heg en sekuur lê. Ons probeer deur die klei grawe tot op die gruis en die rots, want die nasie van Suid-Afrika moet bestaan tot in verre tye voorentoe. Daarom laat ons ons ook nie tot oorhaastigheid of tot paniek drywe nie. Daarom bou ons op die enigste rots van nasies, nl. die geloof en dieselfde reddende Hand wat Bloedrivier aan ons voorvaders besorg het. Ons bou in geloof, ons bou met krag want ons weet ons is nie doelloos hier geplant nie. Waarom sou driehonderd jaar gelede blankes na die suidpunt van Afrika gelei gewees het? Waarom was die helfte van die land onbeset, waarom kon klein getalle mense so vermeerder en versprei raak oor die hele land? Waarom kon hulle, nieteenstaande hulle Moordkrans en Italeni, ook hulle Bloedrivier verkry? Waarom kon hulle hul vryheidsooloë deurmaak en wen of verloor, tog as ‘n nasie bly voortbestaan? Waarom is dit alles aan ons gegee as daar nie ‘n doel is nie? En ek glo dit is die doel dat ons hier vir die Westerse beskawing en vir die Christelike godsdiens ‘n anker en ‘n stutpunt moet wees. Die Westerse beskawing en die blankedom deurloop ook ‘n krisis, al sien hulle dit nie raak nie. Nog nooit in die geskiedenis, in elk geval die geskiedenis van die afgelope tweeduisend jaar, was die blankedom se posisie so in gevaar soos nou nie. Nie in gevaar weens sy gebrek aan kennis of mag nie, maar in gevaar vanweë dit wat in sy eie gees omgaan: sy innerlike verswakking en verkeerde begrip van wat sy taak op aarde is. En daar moet soms klein groepe wees wat teenstand bied wat uitgebou word totdat dit die hele volkeredom omgryp.

    Miskien is dit die doel met ons dat ons hier aan die suidpunt geplant is, binne-in die plek van krisis, om van hierdie weerstandsgroep uit weer die oorwinning te laat uitbou waardeur alles wat opgebou is sedert die dae van Christus, sal staande bly tot heil van die ganse mensdom. Mag u krag hê, volk van Suid-Afrika, om die doel te dien waarvoor u hier gestel is!

  • Dan Roodt: Gaan die EU apartheid najaag of Afrika oplaas onafhanklik maak?

    Dan Roodt: Gaan die EU apartheid najaag of Afrika oplaas onafhanklik maak?

    Vir baie Afrikaners het die onlangse Europese-Afrika-spitsberaad in Abidjan ‘n gevoel van déja vu ontlok. In die laat veertigerjare is sulke konferensies ook in Suid-Afrika gehou waar vrese uitgespreek is dat die Europese bevolking in dié land uiteindelik deur swart bevolkingsgroei en migrasie vanaf die tuislande verswelg mag word. Suid-Afrika in 1950 was ‘n mikrokosmos van Europa vandag.

    Apartheid, wat binnelands amptelik bekend gestaan het as “afsonderlike ontwikkeling” was ‘n skema waardeur die etniese tuisland van swartmense ontwikkel sou word ten einde die snel groeiende bevolkings in daardie gebiede te oorreed om “tuis te bly”. Soos ons almal weet, en ondanks die miljarde dollar wat op Suid-Afrika se binnelandse weergawe van “Afrika-ontwikkelingshulp” bestee is, is daardie beleid uiteindelik as ongeslaag laat vaar en vervang deur ‘n soort laissez-faire-beleid wat migrasie betref. Binne ‘n dekade of twee het Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban en Kaapstad oorbevolkte, misdaadgeteisterde hole geraak wat deur krotbuurte omring word. Dít wat Europeërs tans as hul toekomstige nagmerrie sien, as hul stede deur die instromende Afrikane met hul eie reëls en kultuur oorgeneem sou word, het reeds in Suid-Afrika gebeur.

    Die jongste uitgawe van die Britse Economist vertoon SA korrupsie op die voorblad.

    As ‘n voorheen eerstewêreldse nywerheidsland, is dit verby met Suid-Afrika. Dit is “verafrikaniseer” in die negatiewe sin en die daaglikse histerie in die media oor korrupsie, ‘n gebrek aan water, moord en gewapende roof, verteenwoordig bloot getuienis van ons nuwe status as “net nog ‘n Afrikaland”.

    Te oordeel aan die naïef optimistiese uitsprake oor die “skep van ‘n Afrika-ekonomie van die toekoms”, wil die Europese leiers graag Suid-Afrika se apartheidseksperiment herhaal, net op ‘n veel groter skaal. Ten minste kon Afrikaners swart tale praat en het die toestande op dié vasteland begryp, iets waarmee hulle hul ontwikkelingsplanne kon aanpas wat deur vele onafhanklike waarnemers van buite as realisties en prakties gesien is. Selfs die vorige Sweedse sekretaris-generaal van die Verenigde Nasies, Dag Hammarskjöld het dr. Verwoerd die voordeel van die twyfel gegee sover dit sy afsonderlike-ontwikkelingsbeleid betref. In weerwil van die verguising waaronder Suid-Afrika in die verlede gebuk gegaan het, en ongeag die land se huidige verval in derdewêreldstatus, verteenwoordig dit steeds die enigste voorbeeld van suksesvolle ontwikkeling op die Afrikavasteland. Dít op sigself behoort die EU te oorreed om ten minste na Suid-Afrika se veelbewoë geskiedenis te kyk en daaruit te leer.

    Aan die ander kant kan geen Europese of Westerse ingryping in ‘n Afrikaland oor die afgelope vyftig jaar as ‘n sukses bestempel word nie. Met ‘n demografiese krisis wat momentum opbou soos gereeld in die internasionale media berig word, het mev. Angela Merkel, die heersende grande dame van Europa, bloot meer hulp in Abidjan belowe:

    “Dis baie belangrik dat ons gewoon Afrikane ondersteun om ‘n einde te maak aan onwettige migrasie, sodat mense nie in die verskriklike kampe in Libië hoef te ly of selfs gekoop en verkoop hoef te word nie.”

    Duidelik het mev. Merkel nog geen boeke oor die ondwerp van hulp aan Afrika gelees nie. Anderins sou sy daarvan bewus gewees het dat swartmense op die vasteland hulp mag verlang of nie mag verlang nie. Maar ongeag die hoeveelheid hulp wat hulle ontvang, wil hulle nie voorgesê word oor hoe om dit te bestee nie. ‘n Sprekende voorbeeld hiervan is teëgekom tydens die naloop van die EU-AU-beraad, toe Ghana se president Nana Akufo-Addo vir sy Franse eweknie Emmanuel Macron by die presidensiële paleis te Accra in geen onduidelike terme laat verstaan het dat “ons nie langer kan aanhou om beleid te maak vir onsself, in ons land, in ons streek, op ons vasteland, op grond van watter ondersteuning die Westerse wêreld of Frankryk, of die Europese Unie ook al aan ons kan bied nie. Dit het nie gewerk nie en dit sal nie werk nie.”

    Akufo-Addo het verder gesê: “Ons moet wegkom van die afhanklikheidsmentaliteit. Dié mentaliteit behels ‘wat kan Frankryk vir ons doen?’. Frankryk sal doen wat hy ook al in sy eie belang wil doen, en wanneer dit met ons s’n ooreenstem, ‘tant mieu’ (soveel te beter) soos die Franse sê… Ons vraagstuk behoor te wees wat ons in die een-en-twintigste eeu behoort te doen om Afrika daarvan weg te kry om hoed-in-die-hand te moet staan en vir hulp, vir liefdadigheid, vir gunste en gawes, te bedel. Die Afrikavasteland, as jy na sy hulpbronne kyk, behoort geld aan ander plekke te skenk… Ons moet die mentaliteit wat sê dat ons nie daartoe in staat is nie verander… en as ons eers daardie benadering het sal ons sien daar is ‘n bevrydende faktor vir onsself.”

    Dog terselfdertyd, en teenstrydig met sy verklaarde standpunt dat hy van die “afhanklikheidsmentaliteit” wil wegkom, het Akufo-Addo gesê dat hy nie aanbiedinge van hulp van die hand sal wys, of ‘n “gegewe perd in die bek sal kyk nie”, soos hy dit gestel het.

    Maar die keuse vir Europa is onverbiddelik: Óf die vasteland gaan ‘n apartheids- of afsonderlike-ontwikkelingsoefening deurmaak, waardeur meer hulp aan korrupte Afrikaregerings uitgedeel gaan word, wat bloot hul eie sakke gaan vul, óf Europa sal moet beantwoord aan die swart kontinent se oproep dat hy geheel en al onafhanklik en selfgenoegsaam wil wees.

    Geld wat opsy gesit word om migrasie te keer behoort eerder bestee te word om Europa se grense dig te maak, pleks daarvan dat nog ‘n rondte hulpgeld uitgedeel word aan lande wat al vele Marshallplanne oor en oor opgeslurp het, sonder enige sigbare verbetering.

  • Linkse Duitse kroeg verbied swartes ‘omdat hulle aggressief is en steel’

    Linkse Duitse kroeg verbied swartes ‘omdat hulle aggressief is en steel’

    Die Kreuzweise, ‘n linkse kroeg in die Konrad-Adenauer-Allee in Augsburg, het al meermale probleme met ‘n groep gaste uit Afrika ervaar. Daarom het die kroeg nou besluit om alle swartes op die perseel te verbied.

    Tatjana Dogan, die kroegeienares, is nie skaam oor haar politieke verbintenis nie: “Ons is links,” sê sy. Die kroeg is alombekend by linkses in Augsburg, Duitsland. Die uitsmyter by die kroeg het nog nooit vantevore gaste op grond van geslag, ouderdom, velkleur of aantrekstyl onderskei nie.

    Maar ná verskeie voorvalle met swartes vanuit Gambië oor naweke, kon sy nie soos tevore voortgaan nie, sê Tatjana. Omdat “vlugtelinge” vanuit Gambië herhaaldelik diefstal gepleeg, aggressief opgetree en met dames gelol het.

    Die kroeg handhaaf voortaan ‘n verbod op asielsoekers uit Afrika.

    “Ons is nou keelvol! Dis net nie meer snaaks nie. Ek is sprakeloos. Die jong mans luister vir niemand nie, hulle is ongelooflik aggressief en ons kan nie dit nie meer vat nie. Hulle is uit, almal van hulle!” het sy in ‘n Facebook-plasing verklaar.

    Die polisie moes ontbied word en is uiteindelik genoop om hul wapens op die swart mans te rig wat chaos in die kroeg veroorsaak het. Volgens die gasvrou het die moeilikheid by ‘n groep van ongeveer 25 asielsoekers uit Afrika ontstaan.

    Van die linkses het beswaar gemaak dat dit onregverdig is om alle persone met ‘n donker huidskleur by die onderneming te verbied, maar die eienares wou niks weet nie, al het sy haar simpatie met hulle betuig.

    Vlugtelinge vanuit Gambië staan byna geen kans om hul asielaansoek te sien slaag nie, sê sy. Hulle kan nie werk nie, het min geld en ontvang nie Duitse taalkursusse nie. “Dit sou enigiemand gefrustreerd maak,” sê sy. “Daar moet beter na die mans gekyk word.”

    Maar sy het darem ‘n ekstra uitsmyter gehuur om die Afrika-probleem hok te slaan, iemand met ‘n “maatskaplike opvoeding”.

    Volgens die polisie bestaan al die betrokkenes uit swart mans vanuit Gambië wat in ‘n ontvangsfasiliteit in Danauwörth woon.

    Tatjana Dogan sê sy wil nie applous van politieke konserwatiewe ontvang nie, maar sy wil ook nie die probleme wat bestaan verdoesel nie. Sy sê sy is ook vir die veiligheid van haar gaste verantwoordelik.

    Oor die afgelope weke het ‘n toenemend groter groep Afrika-migrante die kroeë en klubs besoek, volgens verskeie uitsmyters. Hoewel die meeste restaurante vlugtelinge toelaat, verwelkom hulle nie groter groepe nie.

    Die polisie koester ‘n soortgelyke waarneming van die situasie, sê hul woordvoerder, Siegfried Hartmann.

  • Leon Lemmer: Afrikanerpioniers in Angola

    Leon Lemmer: Afrikanerpioniers in Angola

    Een van die onderwerpe waaroor ek al baie gelees het, is die lot van blankes in Afrika. Ek vind dat ek heelwat genade nodig het wanneer ek hieroor lees. Selfs meer genade word benodig wanneer ek daaroor skryf. In Algerië het ‘n miljoen blankes tydens en onmiddellik na die onafhanklikheidsoorlog (1954-1962) uit die land gevlug. Hierdie blankes was hoofsaaklik Franse, Spanjaarde en Italianers, dus mense afkomstig uit Europese lande aan die Middellandse See. Blankes wat Suid-Afrikaanse inwoners was, het hulle in die vorige eeu in beduidende getalle in veral Kenia, (Suid-)Rhodesië/Zimbabwe, Suidwes-Afrika/Namibië en Angola gevestig. Baie van hierdie blankes was Afrikaners. In die tweede helfte van die 20ste eeu het Harold MacMillan (1894-1986) se anti-koloniale winde van verandering in al hierdie lande gewaai. Oral is die blankes se regte erg ingekort en hulle belange benadeel. Hulle veiligheid is dermate bedreig dat hulle in groot getalle daardie lande verlaat het. Op ‘n skeefgetrekte manier het Suid-Afrika in 1990/94 ook die prooi van hierdie anti-kolonialisme geword, al het die land sedert 1652 ‘n gevestigde blanke bevolking. In Algerië was dit sedert 1830, toe daardie land ‘n Franse kolonie geword het.

    Oor Afrikaners in hierdie lande is seker die minste oor dié in Angola geskryf. Die publikasie van Marthie Prinsloo-Voigt (gebore in 1931) se boek, ‘n Leeftyd later: Herinneringe aan Angola (Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis, 2017, 231p, R250), behoort dus verwelkom te word. Sy het ‘n suster en vier broers gehad, maar die laaste een van hierdie Prinsloos is in Augustus 2015 oorlede. As die laaste oorlewende het sy gemotiveerd gevoel om haar herinneringe aan ‘n vergane era op skrif te stel. “‘Kan ons tog maar net teruggaan …’ en vir mekaar vra: ‘Onthou jy nog?’” (56). “Hierdie Oktober [2015] wat verby is, was dit die eerste keer in al die jare dat nie een van hulle [haar broers] vir my kon vra ‘Onthou jy nog?’ nie, want hulle geliefde stemme het stil geword. Dis nog net ek wat [die viering van haar verjaardag op] Panguelo [in Angola] onthou” (82).

    “Ons het soveel ervaar en beleef in daardie wilde oerwoudagtige wêreld” (137). As pioniers het die Afrikaners destyds “met volharding die wildernis help tem” (154). “Die pad na die eens florerende plaas, Capolopopo, het nou vir die Prinsloos vreemd geword; plek-plek toegegroei, want die spore van eens het dof geword” (148). Maar hulle “wonderlike saamdoentye is onvergeetlik” (159). Marthie Prinsloo het haar herinneringe voortreflik op skrif gestel. In baie opsigte is sy ‘n merkwaardige mens. Deesdae het ons skielik allerhande moeders van die nasie; vroue waarvan die meeste blankes geen sout of water weet nie en waarmee ons nie kan of wil assosieer nie. Vir Afrikaners sou Prinsloo ‘n uitstekende kandidaat vir volksmoeder kon wees. Sy is ‘n Afrikaner uit een stuk wat oor baie dekades gegee en gebou het tot voordeel van ander mense, insluitende haar volksgenote.

    Wat die interessantheid van haar vertelling verhoog, is dat die Dorslandtrekkers en hulle nasate ‘n groot rol daarin speel. “Hierdie Dorslandtrekkers het eintlik Angola ‘mak gemaak’ soos ons altyd gesê het, want hulle het so ver as wat hulle getrek het paaie gemaak tot diep in die binneland” (113). Daar was ook Duitse setlaars wat hulle, soos in Suidwes-Afrika, veral in die sentrale deel van Angola gevestig het. In sowel Suidwes-Afrika as Angola was die Afrikaners veral in die suide van daardie lande invloedryk. ‘n Verskil is dat waar ondertrouery met veral Nama-vroue aanvanklik in geringe mate onder Afrikaners in Suidwes-Afrika voorgekom het (ELP Stals, Môrewind oor die Karasberge, Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis, 2016), die Afrikaners in Angola, heel moontlik vanweë die loutering wat die Dorslandtrekkers deurgemaak het, hulle blankheid bewaar het. Die outeur is in 1954 met ‘n Duitser, Carl-Wilhelm Voigt (1931-1998), wat ‘n Afrikaanse ma gehad het (“‘n Dorslandtrekkerkind” – 101), getroud en hulle het vier kinders gehad, waarvan drie nog lewe. In 1974 het die familie hulle laaste Kersfees op die Voigt-landgoed in Angola gevier. Vir my is die treffendste foto in die boek van die 14 pragtige, krakielose, blanke Voigt-kleinkinders. Die Afrikaners wat nie met mede-Afrikaners getrou het nie, het blykbaar veel eerder met Duitsers as met Portugese getrou.

    Die outeur is by Grootfontein in Suidwes-Afrika gebore. Haar ouers was die kinders van Dorslandtrekkers wat in 1928 uit Angola padgegee en hulle in Suidwes-Afrika gevestig het. “Ek sou jare later eers hoor hoe swaar hulle [haar ouers] gekry het om te oorleef” (p 15). In 1940 het die gesin na Angola teruggekeer. Die destydse plase van die Dorslandtrekkers was intussen in die sorg van Afrikaners wat daar agtergebly het of in dié van plaaswerkers wat deur die eienaars vanuit Suidwes-Afrika bestuur is. In sommige gevalle het Portugese van die plase beset, maar soos Prinsloo meer as een keer opmerk, was die Portugese meesal nie suksesvolle boere nie (26, 113). Die Prinsloos het deur die jare op verskillende plase geboer. Daar was ook die gebruik om ter wille van die weiding en gesaaides in die winter en somer op verskillende plase te woon. Wat opval, is dat hulle op iedere plaas waar hulle hulle gevestig het, self die huis en ander strukture gebou het. “My liewe ou pa [het] altyd eerste aan my ma en ons gerief gedink” (75). Daar was geen sprake van dat hulle handegevou kon sit en wag dat die owerheid huise vir hulle bou en aan hulle skenk nie. “Dit was soos ons lewe in daardie moeilike tye was, elkeen moes sy of haar kant bring om te help oorleef, en glo my, ons het nooit gevra nie, net gedoen. Vreemd soos dit mag klink, was die werk vir ons lekker” (32). “Die lewe moes aangaan en elkeen moes sy kant bring” (35). “Ons het nooit bediendes in die huis gehad nie” (66).

    Afrikaans het die huistaal van hierdie Afrikaners gebly. Daar was teenkanting teen Engels. “Ons het alles geweet van die Vryheidsoorlog. As gevolg daarvan het ek ‘n intense weersin teen Engels ontwikkel” (20). “My Engels was maar beroerd” (89). Hulle kon Portugees en van die inboorlingtale praat en in sommige gevalle ook Duits. Hulle kennis van Afrikaans is deur boeke en tydskrifte gevoed wat onder mekaar gesirkuleer is. Die Rooms-Katolieke skole wat daar was, is deur die Afrikaners vermy. Die ouers het hulle kinders so goed moontlik probeer leer en die ouer kinders het die jonger kinders geleer. Die outeur is die produk van hierdie onderrig. Dit is merkwaardig dat sy ‘n boek soos hierdie een in uitstekende Afrikaans kon skryf. Hulle het nie met hulle hande gevou gesit en gewag dat geleenthede aan hulle gebied word nie. Hulle het hulle geleenthede self geskep. “Dit … wys hoe ‘n klein groepie Boeremense hul tradisies kon handhaaf en mekaar ondersteun” (35-36). “Dus het ons ten spyte van die groot dele ongetemheid nie agterlik geleef nie” (112). “Dis mos lekker om naby aan jou eie mense te wees” (42).

    Die Afrikaners se verhouding met hulle swart werkers was goed. “Anders as wat baie mense dink of vertel, het die Boere die land se swart mense baie goed behandel” (28). Baie van die swartes het Afrikaans magtig geword, onder andere dié wat deur die Afrikaners as weeskinders grootgemaak is en as “mak volk” bekend gestaan het (23, 131). “Daardie tyd kon mens jou huis toetrek en weggaan en niemand sal ooit iets gaan verniel of breek nie” (46). “Ons is drie jong kinders in die wye wildernis, ons moet ons eie vermaak soek in die veld; tussen wilde diere en vreemde swart mense wat altyd goed en vriendelik met ons was … Ons kon hulle taal soos hulle self praat” (48).

    Op die plaas Leeukloof in sentraal Angola het die protestantse Duitsers ‘n tweetalige skool, Duits en Portugees, tot stand gebring. Dit is mettertyd na Benguela verskuif en daarna gesluit toe die Duitsers weens politieke onrus op groot skaal Angola verlaat het. Die Afrikaners het in 1953 begin met pogings om ‘n eie skool op Tunda tot stand te bring, wat tot 1957 bestaan het. “Die murasies wat eens ‘n skool was … staan vandag nog steeds as stille getuie van ‘n droom wat vir ‘n kort tydjie werklik was” (121). ‘n Foto wat in 2011 geneem is, toon ruïnes as die oorblyfsels van hierdie mooi ideaal.

    As plaaskind kon die outeur enigiets doen wat met boerdery en huishou te make het. As jong meisie was sy ‘n leerlingverpleegster op Outjo in Suidwes-Afrika. Daarna kon sy haar familielede en ander mense medies versorg en het sy dikwels as vroedvrou opgetree. “Ons het nie probleme met die swart mense nie en ek begin om hulle siekes te behandel, wonde te versorg en veral vir die kleintjies medisyne te gee as hulle siek is” (133). Later was hulle verplig om met baie moeite en teen groot onkoste hulle plaas van 2000 hektaar te omhein omdat “swartes … hul diere in ons veld … laat wei” (134; ook 145).

    Politieke onrus het in die jare sestig in die noorde van Angola begin. Dit het oor die hele land uitgebrei. Weens intimidasie en terrorisme is die goeie verhouding tussen die blankes en swartes versteur. “Teen die 1960’s is daar nog ‘n klomp Afrikaners wat in 1928 in Angola agtergebly het terug na Suidwes of Suid-Afrika” (137). In die noorde van Angola in Saurimo en Bié se wêreld het daar nog enkele Boere gewoon, “maar hulle is later tydens die terroristeaanvalle feitlik almal uitgemoor” (138). Die outeur gebruik die term “terroriste” sonder om hierdie woord tussen aanhalingstekens te plaas of om van “vryheidsvegters” te praat omdat sy hulle misdadige terreurdade eerstehands ervaar het. “Elke dag hoor ons van aanvalle op weerlose mense, en ons het baie min ammunisie, met die gevolg dat ons almal snags op Monguavolo in die groot huis [van haar skoonvader] gaan slaap … Ons moes ook saans nadat almal gebad het al ons klere aantrek, die kleintjies bad en warm aantrek, skoentjies en alles, sou ons die huis moes ontruim … Dit het ‘n paar maande so aangegaan totdat Portugal die onluste onderdruk het en ‘n groot troepemag in Angola gevestig het sodat die lewe weer normaal kon aangaan” (140).

    In die 21ste eeu word blankes en net die blankes, bv in Amerika en Suid-Afrika, steeds verwyt oor slawerny, rassesegregasie en apartheid. Swartes word egter nie van terrorisme beskuldig nie, altans nie in die hoofstroom-inligtingsmedia nie. Gewelddadigheid, insluitende terrorisme, was egter kenmerkend van al die “bevrydingsbewegings” in Suider-Afrika. ‘n Vlieg is ‘n vlieg al vlieg hy nie. ‘n Dief bly ‘n dief al steel hy nie meer nie. ‘n Moordenaar bly ‘n moordenaar al moor hy nie meer nie. Insgelyks behoort ‘n terroris as ‘n terroris bekend te staan al het hy opgehou om terreurdade te pleeg.

    Toe die Duitse skool in Junie 1967 sluit, het die outeur, haar man en vier kinders Suidwes-Afrika toe getrek sodat die kinders daar kon skoolgaan. Sy is trots daarop dat haar kinders “verbasend suiwer Afrikaans” praat (142). “Ons seuns kan met gemak Afrikaans, Duits en Portugees praat” (158). Haar man het in ‘n myn en daarna as werktuigkundige by die waterkanaal naby Ruacana gewerk en nog later by daardie dambouprojek.

    Na die dood van die Portugese staatshoof, António Salazar (1889-1970), is hy deur Marcelo Caetano opgevolg. In 1974 is Caetano se bewind in ‘n staatsgreep omvêrgewerp. Portugese inwoners het toe begin om Angola op groot skaal te verlaat. Die politieke onrus het al hoe erger afmetings aangeneem. “Dit is alles so goed georganiseer dat toe die terroriste die eerste groot aanval geloods het, iewers in Maart, dit in een nag meer as ‘n duisend lewens gekos het. Mans, vrouens en kinders is in hul huise oorrompel, gemartel, vrouens verkrag, swanger vroue se mae oopgesny, in stukke gekap en in baddens gegooi. Toe die son die oggend opkom was dit oor ‘n bloedbad soos bitter min bekend is. Geen wonder Portugal het in die begin so genadeloos teruggeslaan nie, maar Salazar is dood en die nuwe leiers is te swak” (171-172). “Wie weet wat is oorlog, wat is bloeddorstige, dierlike wreedaardigheid? … Hoe wreed hartverskeurend is oorlog nie” (173).

    In 1975 is onafhanklikheid aan Angola en talle ander Portugese kolonies toegestaan. Byna ‘n miljoen Portugese het die kolonies verlaat en toevlug in veral Portugal gesoek. Die politieke mag is aan die Angolese bevolking oorgedra. Maar daar was en is geen Angolese nasie nie, net so min as wat daar ‘n Suid-Afrikaanse nasie is. In albei lande is daar talle etniese groepe. In Angola was daar drie hoofterreurgroepe, die MPLA, FNLA en UNITA, wat elkeen die politieke mag wou inpalm. Die Angolese burgeroorlog het van 1975 tot 2002 geduur. Dit is moeilik om te besluit of die Portugese oorgawe aan swart mag in Angola meer skandalig was as dié in Suid-Afrika twee dekades later. Vir my is die skandvlek in ons geskiedenis groter omdat die verraad deur ‘n klein groepie Afrikaanssprekende blankes gepleeg is.

    “In die jare wat volg [op die onafhanklikverklaring van Angola in 1975] sou alles wat oorgebly het ook nog vernietig word. Die verarmde bevolking van ‘n ryk land vlug in massas na die dorpe vir bietjie beskerming. In Portugal is die mense verbitterd en opstandig teen Caetano, veral die vlugtelinge wat alles verloor en nou as armblankes moet oorleef. Die landjie is te klein om so ‘n massa mense, ironies genoeg honderde swartes wat sogenaamd ook gevlug het, na behore te versorg … Ja, en so kom alles tot ‘n einde. Die baie jare van vrede en harde werk en vooruitgang vir almal in Angola eindig tragies. Nou moet ons almal maar weer van heel voor af begin en vir ons en ons kinders ‘n nuwe toekoms probeer skep. Maklik is dit nie; al die jare se opbou en bymekaarmaak is tot niet, byna soos na die Vryheidsoorlog [1899-1902] in Suid-Afrika” (185-186).

    “UNITA beweeg oral [in die suide] en omdat dit ‘n Christenparty is, het die meeste Duitsers by hulle aangesluit, gehoop op beskerming. Duitsland onderneem om sy mense te help as hulle Angola wil verlaat. Hulle sal ‘n boot stuur om hulle te kom haal, maar nog steeds byt baie mense nog vas. Mens gee mos nie maklik ‘n leeftyd se werk en drome op nie. Net die gedagte daaraan laat jou voel of jy elke klip of groot boom op die plase kan omhels en vashou” (162-163). Baie van die blankes, bv Portugese, Afrikaners en Duitsers, het suid na Suidwes-Afrika gevlug. “UNITA het onderneem om hulle heeltyd van agter te beskerm … ‘n Leeftyd se werk word agtergelaat en net die allernodigste huishoudelike dingetjies word op voertuie en die trekkers gepak” (167). In Julie 1975 het hierdie konvooi uit 200 voertuie bestaan. Die funksionering van die Suid-Afrikaanse weermag “was onverbeterlik” (168). Helikopters het laag oor die konvooi gevlieg om die vlugtelinge te beskerm. Die outeur verwys na “ons wonderlike weermag” (170).

    Ek was die hele 1975 in Amerika. Die televisiekanaal CBS se aandnuusbulletin was in daardie stadium die gewildste en invloedrykste in Amerika. Walter Cronkite (1916-2009) was twee dekades lank (1962-1981) nie net die aanbieder nie, maar grootliks ook in beheer van wat as nuus uitgesaai word en hoe dit ingeklee is. In swart geledere was hy die gewildste nuusaanbieder. Toe die Suid-Afrikaanse weermag na aanmoediging van die Amerikaanse regering suksesvol tot aan die buitewyke van die Angolese hoofstad, Luanda, gevorder het, het Cronkite gesê dat die Amerikaanse regering sy steun aan die verkeerde kant, dié van UNITA en Suid-Afrika, toegesê het. Cronkite het klaarblyklik voorkeur aan die MPLA gegee, wat deur kommunistiese lande soos Rusland en Kuba gesteun is. Kort hierna het die Amerikaanse regering sy steun aan Suid-Afrika se inval in Angola beëindig en het die Suid-Afrikaanse troepe na die suide teruggetrek. Dít terwyl die verslaggewers in Angola van CBS en ander televisiekanale berig het dat die Suid-Afrikaanse weermag die enigste beskaafde, stabiliserende faktor in die burgeroorlog was. Die terreurgroepe het teen mekaar geveg.

    By Ruacana in Suidwes-Afrika aan die Angolese grens het Prinsloo in hierdie tyd onder meer tolkwerk (veral uit Portugees) gedoen en mediese dienste gelewer. “Ons kry ‘n huis en ander voordele wat baie help, want ons het skaars meubels; ons moet weer van voor af begin … So begin ons familietjie maar weer bou aan ‘n toekoms so anders as die lewe wat ons in Angola gehad het” (186). Oor haar jongste broer, Peet (1940-2015), skryf die outeur: “Al wat Peet-hulle besit ná Angola is op ‘n bakkie en sleepwa gelaai” (198). “By ons in Ruacana kom baie geestelik stukkende mense aan” (172). Die outeur se oudste seun, Gerhard (1955-1986), het as tolk vir ‘n Portugese vlugteling by Ruacana opgetree. Die Portugees vra: “Is jy nie Werner Voigt van Monguavolo se kleinseun nie?” (173). Gerhard sê: “Ja.” “Die man vra toe vir hom: ‘Weet jy dat jou oupa op die plaas vermoor is?’” (173). Die outeur verwys na haar skoonpa, Werner Voigt (1907-1975) as “Pappie”: “Ons Pappie wat nooit wou moed verloor nie, is op 25 Augustus 1975 op Monguavolo vermoor. Hy is deur terroriste [nie vryheidsvegters nie] in die huis op Monguavolo doodgeskiet. Mammie [haar skoonma, Carolina Storbeck (1914-1986)] is ook raakgeskiet, maar het daarin geslaag om vir die terroriste weg te kruip, en kon ontvlug” (174). Die Duitser Werner Voigt het in Angola Afrikaans geleer en het ‘n florerende koffie- en sisalplaas gehad. “Pappie is soos ‘n misdadiger doodgeskiet” (186).

    “Daar kom nog ‘n hele paar keer groot trokke [vragmotors] deur, volgelaai met sakke koffie wat daar van ons kant van Ganda [naby Monguavolo in Angola] af kom. Vragte vol sakke met ons nommers op. Carl [die outeur se man] het die Portugese trokbestuurder daarmee gekonfronteer, dat dit Voigts van Monguavolo se koffie is, maar hulle het net gesê as hulle dit nie gevat het nie, sou ander dit gedoen het. Hulle het nogal heelwat geld gemaak met die tonne koffie in Suidweskant. Daar kom nou byna daagliks op Ruacana trokke deur met meubels en hope nuwe goed wat sommer net uit winkels opgelaai is. Die trokbestuurders verklaar dat dit hulle eiendom is en verkoop die goed dan spotgoedkoop in die binneland. Ons weet van beter. Oorlog verander die swakkes” (181). Het bevrydingsteoloë al gebeure soos hierdie geopper wanneer hulle hulle oor geregtigheid uitlaat?

    Terwyl sy op Ruacana was, sien die outeur “‘n terrie agter ‘n bos inspring, en toe hy uitkom het hy gewone klere aan; ‘n ent van my af lê ‘n soldaatjie en toe hy omkyk na my, wys ek vir hom en beduie skiet … ‘n Goeie skoot. Bo-op die damwal hardloop nog een, hulle haal hom ook af” (175). Hierdie sinne laat baie lesers seker beter voel nadat hulle gelees het wat die blankes aangedoen is. Die vlugtelinge uit Angola is in ‘n gehawende toestand en vertel gruverhale van wreedheid en onreg. “Mens kan jou nie so iets voorstel nie, want die werklikheid is soveel wreder … as ‘n mens dit nie self beleef het nie moet jy liewer doodstil bly” (178). “Die afgryslikheid van die dinge wat hy [‘n “sammajoor” in die Suid-Afrikaanse weermag] my vertel het toe hulle Lubango [in Angola] ingery het, wil ek liewer nie hier herhaal nie. Hy het ook kort daarna ‘n algehele ineenstorting gehad en is teruggestuur Pretoria toe” (179).

    “Die suide van Angola is feitlik leeg en soos ons weermag inbeweeg het, het hulle net verwoesting teëgekom. Diere is doodgeskiet. Gaingongo [een van die Prinsloo-plase] se pragtige klomp beeste wat Andries [1936-2008, die outeur se broer] probeer red het deur hulle aan te jaag Kunene [-rivier, die grens tussen Suidwes-Afrika en Angola] toe is halfpad gekaap, die wagters wat hulle probeer verset het is summier doodgeskiet … Op die ander Duitsers se plase daar bo in Ganda se wêreld is al die diere doodgeskiet, party sommer net die hakskeensenings afgekap. Die MPLA het saam met hulle kamerade, die Kubane, vir weke feesgevier tot niks meer oor was nie. Die plase vernietig, die huise met kosbaarhede vir geslagte lank, in die Voigts se geval meer as tweehonderd jaar in die familie, is alles vernietig. Die Kubane het alles wat hulle kon laai binne en buite die huise gevat. Selfs die elektriese bedrading binne-in huise is uitgeruk. Hulle het krane, slotte en kampdrade gesteel. Want dit is vir hulle geskenk deur die MPLA. Buit uit dank vir die Kubane se hulp in hulle stryd teen die blankes. Al die buit is per boot Kuba toe verskeep” (184-185).

    Suidwes-Afrika is alreeds met die aankoms van die Voigts in 1967 nie vry van terrorisme nie. “Selfs binne-in Suidwes is die onheile net so bedrywig soos die terroriste in Angola, en hulle het van Angola af hierheen oorgrens geopereer, en in Suidwes is destyds ook gruwelike moorde gepleeg, veral op plaasboere” (187). Mettertyd beland die outeur en haar man in Pietersburg en daarna in Katima Mulilo in die Caprivi in Suidwes-Afrika, waar elke erf ‘n bomskuiling gehad het omdat hulle toe in ‘n oorlogsone gewoon het. “Soms is die gevegte so naby dat van die vensterruite kraak” (195). Dit was toe die Suid-Afrikaanse weermag hom nog teen Swapo se terrorisme verset het. Die Voigt-egpaar se kinders het toe hulle diensplig gedoen. Daarna woon hulle in die Tzaneen-omgewing. “Ons voel nog altyd soos ‘n klomp hanskuikens wat uit ‘n nes geskop is” (198).

    Teen hierdie tyd steek terrorisme ook al hoe meer sy kop in Suid-Afrika uit. “Mense op plase is gereeld wreedaardig aangeval en vermoor. Suidwes se omstandighede het op ons drumpel gekom” (203-204). “Ons het gereeld lesings gehad en skietoefeninge gehou, ja, totdat so baie dinge tot niet gegaan het met die verandering in ons land” (204); dus, toe daar ook in Suid-Afrika aan die terroriste oorgegee is. Later woon die Voigt-egpaar op ‘n plaas tussen Duiwelskloof en Tzaneen. Die huis het ‘n veiligheidsheining om, maar twee swartes kry in 1996 toegang tot die huis en die outeur en haar huishulp word wreed aangerand en waardevolle besittings word gesteel. “Die sere het gesond geword, maar die letsels en die seer in my siel het lank, baie lank, gebly” (217).

    Hulle trek toe na ‘n veiliger plek naby Soekmekaar terwyl die plaasaanvalle al hoe meer word. Na haar man se dood in 1998 woon die outeur in ‘n woonstel in Pietersburg, waar sy “die eerste keer die gedagte kry om hierdie boek te skryf” (224). Daarna is sy na ‘n aftree-oord in Tzaneen. In 2011 het sy in haar 80ste jaar Angola besoek. “Wat ‘n onvergeetlike ervaring, terug op die ou paaie. Alles is verskriklik verwaarloos, wat eers spogplase en pragtige huise was, is tot op die grond verwoes. Op Monguavolo, die spogplaas van weleer, is net bosse om murasies. Een van Pappie se werkers, nou ‘n ou man, wys vir ons waar die twee grafte teen die rantjie lê. Netjies opgemaak en skoon. Caconda, die ou swart man, sê vir ons: ‘Senhora, voor my patrâo (baas) weg is, het hy vir my gesê: “Caconda, as ek weg is, moet jy vir my en my amigo Tappe (Pappie se jare lange vriend) se rusplekke mooi oppas.” Hy sê: ‘Senhora, ek kom maak altyd skoon, en elke Kersfees en Paasfees kom sit ek blomme op my patrâo se graf.’ Die plek is skoongeskoffel, en niemand het geweet ons kom nie” (229-230).

    “Ek wil dit graag net een keer weer gaan sien – hierdie ou plase in Angola – want ons almal se spore lê nog daar, toegewaai onder stof en grond, oorgroei met struik en bos, maar dis daar, die jare kan dit nie uitwis nie” (230). Sy besoek “die ou familieplaas, Gaingongo. Daar waar baie jare se Prinsloo-spore lê, eerste babaspoortjies tot ou spore, daar waar ook ons familiegrafte lê … Op my ouers en sussie (Maria, 1930-1949) se grafte tel ek ‘n paar mooi klippies op wat later op my kleinboet Peet se kis tot rus sou kom – iets van sy geliefdes van ‘n ver land naby hom. Toe ons terug is by die huis, vertel ek hom alles, en met die foto’s in ons hande kan ons stil saam huil. ‘n Laaste afskeid … Peet Prinsloo is op 30 Augustus 2015 op Tzaneen oorlede … Dis nog net ek wat oor is van ons Prinsloos” (230-231), behalwe drie van haar vier kinders wat in Angola gebore is.

    Op die agterkant van die boek staan dat die outeur nou in Okahandja, Namibië, woon. Dit is seker die naaste wat sy kon kom aan ‘n omgewing waarin herinneringe aan die Boerepioniers van Angola gestimuleer word. Angola (1975), Rhodesië (1980), Suidwes-Afrika (1990) en Suid-Afrika (1994) het agtereenvolgend ten prooi van terroriste geval. In Angola en Zimbabwe is die blankes se plase sonder vergoeding onteiën. In Suid-Afrika en Namibië word daar fluks gevorder om dieselfde te doen. Die blankes maai al hoe minder, of glad nie, waar hulle gesaai het. Die swartes maai al hoe meer waar hulle nie gesaai het nie. Só lyk nie-rassige geregtigheid in Afrika.

    Die eerste sin in die inleiding tot FW de Klerk se outobiografie lui: “The new South Africa was born on 10 May 1994, the day that Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as president of South Africa” (The last trek – A new beginning, London: Macmillan, 1998, p xv). De Klerk noem dat Fidel Castro, die Kubaanse staatshoof (1976-2008), hierdie geleentheid in Pretoria bygewoon het (xvii). Dit toon hoe ver Suid-Afrika “gevorder” het. Jubelend het ons deel van die probleem geword.

  • Geskokte Spaanse vakansiegangers kyk hoe Afrika-migrante aan land kom

    Geskokte Spaanse vakansiegangers kyk hoe Afrika-migrante aan land kom

    ‘n Boot vol Afrika-migrante het op ‘n strand in Spanje geland en vinnig weer verdwyn tussen die vakansiegangers.

    Carlos Sanz het aan The Telegraph vertel hoedat die groep “ongedokumenteerde” immigrante verdwyn het voordat die polisie kon arriveer. Volgens ‘n verslag van El Confidencial, het hulle na ‘n klein dennebos naby die Faro de Camarinal-vuurtoring gehardloop.

    Op sosiale media wys beelde van Woensdag 9 Augustus hoe ‘n rubberbootjie vol swartes op die gewilde toeriste-strand in die suide van Spanje land. Vakansiegangers kyk geskok toe terwyl die swart migrante skarrel om die strand te bereik.

    Volgens data van die Hongaarse sekuriteitshoof György Bakondi het byna 10 000 migrante in die eerste ses maande van 2017 Spanje binnegekom – ‘n beduidende toename van die vorige syfers.

    Op die strand naby die dorp het ‘n Daily Mail-verslaggewer binne drie honderd meter van mekaar, drie verlate bote ontdek wat vermoedelik deur migrante gebruik is.

    Jose Maraver, hoof van die Maritieme Reddingsentrum, het aan die Telegraph gesê dat ‘n tweede boot op Donderdag op ‘n ander strand in die gebied geland het, terwyl twee vaartuie gered moes word. “Daar is elke dag bote, elke dag is daar ‘n migrasie,” het Maraver gesê. “Die situasie word baie ingewikkeld.”

    Die aantal immigrante wat die provinsie Malaga in die eerste ses maande van 2017 bereik het, is al amper die getal vir die hele vorige jaar.

    Spanje het reeds vanjaar meer swart aankomelinge gekry as in die hele 2016, het die Internasionale Organisasie vir Migrasie verlede Donderdag bevestig. Volgens die IOM is byna 8 200 migrante aangeteken. “Dit is moontlik dat Spanje hierdie jaar beter sal presteer as Griekeland,” het Joel Millman, ‘n woordvoerder van die IOM, aan AFP gesê. “As dit so is, is dit ‘n groot verandering.”

    ‘n Bron het aan die Daily Mail gesê: “Omtrent 40 immigrante het aangekom,” Woensdag, maar net “nege van diegene wat dit tot by die strand gemaak het, is opgespoor”. Die owerhede weet nie wat gebeur het met die res van die Afrika-klandestienes nie.

    Ceuta, ‘n Spaanse enklaaf in Marokko, het intussen ‘n styging van 230 persent in aankomste in die afgelope weke beleef. Sowat 700 swartes het voor verlede Donderdag probeer deurbreek, maar is deur Marokkaanse polisie teruggedruk, het amptenare gesê.

    ‘n Vroeër poging van ongeveer 1 000 migrante, gewapen met stokke en tuisgemaakte spiese, is deur beamptes van beide lande teruggedryf.

    Maar verskeie pogings deur die migrante was wel suksesvol. Volgens El Pais het die regering se afgevaardigde in Ceuta, Nicolás Fernández Curucull, ‘n doenepersoneellid se ernstige beserings op die “gewelddadige houding” van die migrante wat die agente oorweldig het, geblameer.

    In totaal het meer as 100 migrante deur die hek gebreek nadat ‘n Spaanse grens-agent se been afgeskop is. Hordes swartes het daarin geslaag om deur die grensheining te kom en die Rooi Kruis het aan Reuters gesê dat 186 mense gedurende die nag in Ceuta kon binnekom.

    Sedert die Europese Unie ingestem het om die Turkse regering te betaal om die Oos-Middellandse See-vloei van ongeveer 885 000 migrante via Griekeland te stuit, het Italië ‘n merkbare toename beleef. Maar die Italiaanse owerhede het besluit om die smokkelaars te stop.

    El Pais het Donderdag gewaarsku dat “Spanje nie alleen as voog van die suide van Europa kan optree nie” omdat dit “duidelik is dat die migrasiedruk na die weste van die Middellandse See verskuif het”. Die Spaanse koerant het Brussel aangemoedig om so gou moontlik in te gryp.

    Maar Penny Lawrence, adjunk-uitvoerende hoof van Oxfam GB, het gesê veilige roetes vir Afrika-migrante na Europa moet voorsien word. “Uitkontraktering van die polisiëring van ons grense na Libië is nie die oplossing nie,” het sy bygevoeg.