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 OPINION
Keep the faith, my broer

January 8, 2009

By Max Du Preez

January 08, 2009 Edition 1


"I must tell you this terrible thing, my old and revered leader: if a young South African were to ask me whether he or she should stay or leave, my bitter advice would be to go. For the foreseeable future now, if you want to live your life to the full and with some satisfaction and usefulness, and if you can stand the loss, if you can amputate yourself, then go." - Breyten Breytenbach in an open letter to Nelson Mandela published in Harper's Magazine, December 2008.

Dear Breyten

You are dead wrong, my old friend. Very few South Africans who have left their country live their lives "to the full and with some satisfaction and usefulness".

You should know: If your life during your exile of more than four decades gave you such deep satisfaction, you would not allow our country to still break your heart as it clearly does, judged by your piece. You would have become a European years ago.

That's the thing with Africa: If you have even half a heart, she insists on remaining a part of it, wherever you are.

It is not only completely possible to live a full and useful life in the South Africa of today, it is indeed easier to do it here than in, say, France or the US or Australia, Canada or the United Kingdom, other favourites among white South Africans. They're a bit short on passion in those places.

I still regard it as a privilege to have been born in South Africa in this era. Our earliest human ancestors first developed culture and spirituality here. And it was to this place that representatives of those humans who left the continent more than 70 000 years ago came back almost four centuries ago to eventually make a peace with those who had never left.

Our defeat of the apartheid system; the peaceful acceptance of a transition of power by the white minority after centuries of domination; and the creation of a democracy with guaranteed individual freedoms of movement, association and speech were achievements that inspired the world. Our liberation was one of the most spectacular, iconic moments in human history.


You come close to the one thing I have often warned against in my columns and writings: rubbishing the country because you dislike its rulers. As I have said before, there are millions of Americans who are deeply ashamed of the presidency of George Bush, but few if any who trash their nation and country because of that.

In your piece for Harper's, you talk about your address to the Time of the Writer Festival in Durban last year. I was there, remember? It was a strongly worded speech you made, and not well received by most in the audience, especially not by ANC supporters.

Afterwards, a newspaper reporter asked me what I thought of your speech. I was quoted as saying I thought you were brave to voice such strong criticisms of the government. I said I agreed with most of your criticism of the conduct of the ruling party.

But I added that I thought that if you had been spending more time in the country, you would have been more optimistic. I want to repeat that after reading this latest piece, although you yourself acknowledge it: "I don't go there very often any more, and I realise the extent to which I'm no longer able to read the environment instinctively," you write. Correct.

If you were living here, you would have shared my optimism and hope about the developments in the ruling party at and since Polokwane. We're going to see real democracy again this year.

I share your outrage at the epidemic of violence and crime in the country. But our violence and crime are not ANC problems or black problems, they are South African problems. The violators, murderers and rapists are not of a particular race or group or political persuasion, they are part of all of us; they are products of how we have lived and treated each other over many generations.

If a young South African were to ask me whether he or she should stay or leave, my advice would be to stay and help fight for a better society and become a more complete human being. Don't allow bad politicians to drive you out of the country of your heart.

Keep the faith, my broer.




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