Alert! When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. Following Breyten Breytenbach’s incendiary lament on South Africa’s decline, published late last year in Harper’s Magazine (an open letter to Nelson Mandela, the article essentially advises young people to quit SA), oubaas patriot of the rainbow nation Max du Preez has issued a riposte that begins, “You are dead wrong, my old friend”.
Sometimes the grass doesn’t get trampled, it packs a picnic basket and watches the show. And while du Preez keeps things civil – how one aches for him to call Breytenbach a trickster, tyrant or turncoat – he also indulges his enthusiastic streak to a point that will have many wondering whether he’s playing the Wordfool:
“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.
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January 8th, 2009 @16:52 #
Go Max!
January 8th, 2009 @17:16 #
Yes, go Max! I shook my head over the Breytenbach letter, but I'd like to stand up and cheer the Du Preez riposte.
January 8th, 2009 @17:38 #
*cheers* I didn't want to sound too harsh in my original comment, but I couldn't help wondering if BB was on some level wishing his own sufferings on a new generation. Yes, the curse on SA still holds: paradise still infested with snakes (morally bankrupt leaders and vile politics). But that's a reason to work all the harder: why abandon this "place of the heart" to the snakes?
January 8th, 2009 @18:14 #
The bit I really objected to was his using such a very public and influential forum to bad-mouth us. Talk about being part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
January 9th, 2009 @10:16 #
I envy Mad Max's optimism and will. I share BB's dark view. I idolise Max. What is there to do inbetween?
January 9th, 2009 @10:25 #
Be Rustum?
January 9th, 2009 @10:55 #
?
January 9th, 2009 @11:18 #
Your opinions have more influence on me than those of the big bulls.
January 9th, 2009 @11:23 #
Yes, Rustum is absolutely one of the universal legislators of the world (first person to identify source of this quote correctly, I'll buy you a drink).
January 9th, 2009 @11:28 #
Sounds a little like P.B. Shelley's bit about poets being the "unacknowledged legislators" of the world?
January 9th, 2009 @11:30 #
Hurray, Fiona, even with my "deliberate mistake" (note to self: Fiona to be my next editor), you got it. So when are you coming down here, doll?
January 9th, 2009 @11:35 #
*Sigh* - really soon, I hope. Missing the mountain and the sea, especially after reading Patricia Schonstein's love note to Cape Town.
January 9th, 2009 @12:26 #
I see. Sorry, slow, not enough coffee. That's flattering, Richard. Or do you mean, you pay more attention to the little calves than to the bulls?
And what about my opinion re the BB-Max thing then? And that I consider both their opinions on this particular matter worthy of attention?
I'm still confused...
Helen, eek. I'd like to think the universal Cassandra of a short road in Observatory...
January 9th, 2009 @12:38 #
That's exactly what I like about you, Cassandra: your eloquent confusion.