By the end of that same century, the black people of South Africa put a powerful new model on that same table. And it is important to note that it was the first time that a real challenging alternative was put forward in the world. And yet, although it was hailed, praised and prized, it was not, and still is not, claimed as an alternative worth following by the First World.
As journalist and poet Sandile Dikeni once remarked: “What blacks say has no value, because we are black. The philosophy which Africans put forward are treated like exotic African masks -to be hung in houses or photographed for brochures, but never to be treated with the same amount of respect as the philosophies of the West.”
This kind of racist behaviour extends even further. Presidents and heads of state who would not hesitate to invade other countries will travel from all over the world to have a picture taken of themselves with former President Nelson Mandela.
Although they themselves will leave no stone unturned to haul “perpetrators” in front of their courts, they hug Mandela for forgiving those who murdered his people.
Why? And let us say it with an amount of shame: Because the West understands anger, is fascinated by revenge and deeply admires hatred.
So many things now vibrate through us as we sit here in this city in this century that we no longer know how to hear stars, or smell stone, or touch air or know how to look into the heart of sky. Not so the Bushmen. Within their hunter-gatherer existence, thousands of years old, they knew the sound of the stars. The west has been aware of it only since 1930 -at Cambridge Jocelyn Bell built an enormous radio antennae to listen to the stars. But the Bushmen knew:
What the stars say
/Han#kass’o
the stars take your heart
for they are not a little hungry
the stars exchange your heart for a star’s heart
the stars take you heart and feed you a star’s heart
then you’ll never become hungry again
because the stars are saying: ‘Tsau! Tsau!’
and the bushmen say the stars curse the eyes of the springbuck
the stars say: ‘Tsau!’ they say: ‘Tsau! Tsau!’
they curse the eyes of the springbok
I grow up listening to the stars
the stars saying: ‘Tsau!’ and ‘Tsau!’
it was always summer when they were saying: ‘Tsau!’
(ZULU LULLABY
Thula thula Mama thula Samthata sambeka ekhaya wasuke wakhala wathi hayi Bawo
So what does one say: have 40 million people been conned into a way of going forward, or does it point to something so sophisticated yet radical that the West has problems grasping it?
One can safely say that what happened here had nothing to do with Christianity, otherwise it would have worked in Ireland and the US. In fact, the Bible Belt often seems to be at the forefront of crying for revenge.
It also had nothing to do with the influence of whites because the whites (and especially the Afrikaners) did not believe (and still do not believe) in the truth and reconciliation process. When they are with their own kind they would say: what is wrong with these blacks – they can not even hate properly and now we have to share a country with them.
It is also unlikely that a group of mostly young people coming out of a decade of mass action would suddenly accept something that goes against the grain simply because two old men, Tutu or Mandela, or any white person were saying so.
And may I say the following: Derrida is misreading Tutu if he regards him purely as a Christian leader. Bush is making a mistake if he is reading Mandela purely as a unique statesman. Both Tutu and Mandela will be the first to tell you that how they are thinking is embedded in the black South African community. The essence of what they are, is the essence of being black in Africa.
Although not easily grasped by the Western mind, it was grasped and formulated by the heartbroken and barely educated mother of one of the Guguletu Seven who’s son had been brutally shot by the police.
Cynthia Ngewu, the mother of Christopher Piet, said: “This thing called reconciliation … if I am understanding it correctly … if it means this perpetrator, this man who has killed Christopher Piet, if it means he becomes human again, this man, so that I, so that all of us, get our humanity back … then I agree, then I support it all.”
What she knew, and Bush does not, is that the person who kills one’s son is doing it because he has lost his humanity. What she knew, and Bush does not, is that it is in her (and his) interest to help the perpetrator get his humanity back. What she knew, and Bush does not, is that if you kill the perpetrator, you destroy your own opportunity to get your humanity back. You freeze your society in inhumaneness.
So the woman in the shack at Houtbay did not forgive because she thought now she would get what whites have. She forgave because she saw that whites have lost their humanity and because they are inhuman within all their wealth, she can not fulfil her full potential of being humane. She forgave in order to humanise whites.
So the question should not be directed at the woman in the shack, but at the whites in the big mansions: what have you done to show that you are overwhelmed by the fact that you have been so graciously forgiven and what are you doing now to show that you are slowly getting your humanity back.
This is of course also a question to be asked to the West: you have so much blood on your hands, you have plundered half the world to be as ensconced as you are now, you have long ago lost your humanity. And because you are so in-humane, we are battling to stay humane. You need us, not to exploit, but to regain your humanity.
Horrific things happened and still happen in Christian societies. In the same way horrific things happened and still happen in African societies. But the world is poorer for insisting that what happened in South Africa was a miracle (and therefore not really applicable elsewhere) instead of recognising it as one of the biggest moral contributions of the 20th century.
Praise song
(compiled from Xhosa, Zulu, Venda and Sotho praise songs)
the earth is shaking for the whites the valleys roar green all the mountains quake mighty nations are bewildered
because a small country brings turmoil truly, a small country writhes to break lose to retell the form of man to retell being with and of another the earth really shakes the earth truly shakes
I salute you – earth-that-is-shaking I salute you -Earth-shaker milk-coffee son of ancestor Mandela lively glowing coloured skin at the house of Sokhawulela at the armed Dlomo, at Ngqolomsila the secretary bird that is so tall that he walks with his knees that is so tall that he measures the water with his shin
iron-eating iron at the place of Ndaba the Axe-who-axes-branches-from the thorns who axes the dark places of stupidity he visits all the ribs of the earth he stirs and the world is in turmoil he pierces like a needle
this beautiful man this utterly beautiful man from the house of Mthikrakra all attires of power fit him the necklace of chiefs and the loincloth of soft deer everything fits him red ochre fits him, even if he doesn’t wear it
that is why the whites are shaking with worry that is why they are walking on all fours out of fear he sows wildly among them he stews them he ruins them and turns them upside down
I salute you Earthquaker I salute Mandela who opens the footpath so that it shines clearly other nations call him remarkable even the imbongi calls him: clean-shining-open-road Africa beams beamingly through him but the beams of a new light are not welcomed by all the emerging sun scorches the bald heads of the mean ones listen how their emptiness rattles see how their greed drives them you see only their humps as they gobble up everything they soil the water as they grab everything for themselves
speak without fear, son of Zondwa, do not be scared tell the truth to the westerners they speak only their own language they visit only their own people they have no stories of others they speak to others as if they are bundles of washing they think gold shines more than cattle they think the earth feels only their shadow they live like locusts the imbongi calls them those who are unable to share those who easily live in disregard of their community
tell them the truth my leader because even if death awaits you life fits you so fittingly you have the royalty of caring in your blood you have come to tell the world about justice as you speak every lost bone in Africa moves back to its true place
let them hear you o, o, o let them hear you
© Antjie Krog / internationales literaturfestival berlin.