The covenant - James A. Michener [648]
The major impediment to rational solution is Afrikaner stubbornness, but a contributory one is the regrettable division within the white community. Smashing Afrikaner triumphs at the polls have meant that they can ignore the other sections of the community and throw them out of all official positions. There are no Englishmen in the cabinet, or at the head of major police units or the armed services. I asked a leading Afrikaner whether the nation he foresaw would have any place for Englishmen, and he said bluntly, 'Not really.' Then he remembered that I had English relatives here and he conceded, 'Well, if they quit running back to England every time there's trouble, we might find a place for them, and even trust them when the crunch comes.'
The key phrase in every serious discussion is When the crunch comes. ' Everyone expects it to come. Super-patriots argue that when it does, the English will somehow chicken out. Everyone is convinced that when it comes, only the Afrikaner will prove reliable.
And what is this mysterious "crunch"! The armed rebellion of the blacks.
You must not conclude from what I've just said that the English-speaking South African is much different from the Afrikaner. In fact, he profits equally from the present situation and might be even more reluctant than the Afrikaner to surrender his servants and his prerogatives. My English foreman confided the other day, 'Sure I talk liberal, and I vote liberal, but on election night, when the tally's announced, I'm damned relieved the Afrikaners have won again. They'll know how to handle affairs when the crunch comes.'
I hate to say this to a professor of history, and a very good one, but South Africa is a land cruelly wounded by its constant recollection of things past. At certain points the English did behave poorly; this is never allowed to be forgotten. At every memorial the same time-worn litany of incidents must be recited. Hatreds become enshrined as the most vital components of the national mythos, and no one is ever permitted to forget, or turn his attention to more creative tasks. I remember that day you told us what Santayana had said: 'Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.' Well, those who remember it obsessively are poisoned by it.
After my third long trip through the country, friends at the mine asked what my most lasting impression had been, and I said, 'Just once I'd like to enter some South African town and see a statue to someone who wrote a book, painted a picture or composed a song.' I was weary of those dreadful monuments to minor generals who had fought battles involving thirty-eight men. It's as if our country were festooned with statues of Francis Marion, Pierre Beauregard and James Van Fleet. I'm sure they were meritorious fellows worthy of remembrance, but they would form a fragile base for constructing a national hagiography.
As for my final guess, if the Gotterdammerung Afrikaners do use their blazing guns to protect themselves for the rest of this century, I think they can get away with it. But any hope of later reconciliation would prove impossible. I would expect them, sometime around 2010, to retreat under pressure to the Cape Province enclave, there to become the Israel of Africa, surrounded not by Arabs but by blacks. I cannot see them leaving Africa, nor should they. They have no other homes. They have lived here much longer than most American families have lived in the United States.
You have probably detected that I write with more fervor than ever I dared exhibit in your class. The reason is simple. I fell in love with an adorable Afrikaner girl, much prettier than those