Battle for the South African Psyche

In 1959, Alan Paton wrote a novel that seared itself into the mind of a generation. Cry, the Beloved Country was a plea torn from the heart of a patriot who tried to articulate the pain he felt for the country of his birth.

In his book Paton attempted to break through the hardened crust of racial prejudice and indifference to show the suffering that permeated South African society. 'Brother,' he wrote, 'a man is knocking at the door. My brother said, is he a friend or an enemy? I have asked him, I said, but he replies that you will not know until you have opened the door.'

On 2 February last year, President FW de Klerk opened the door by unbanning all black political organizations and releasing the world's most famous political prisoner, Nelson Mandela.

Now that the door is open, our tragedy is that we still cannot identify friend from foe. The lid on the pent-up anger of generations was lifted on that February day - and along with it the unrealistic expectations of millions were unleashed.

The fact is, too many South Africans have no inkling of the price of freedom or the demands of liberty. Who will educate them? Or even just tell them the truth? Who will they listen to?

For decades South Africa has meant one thing only in the international mind - apartheid. The white government enforced the immoral policy, the black majority suffered under it and 'South Africa' became the strongest uniting cause in the world for those wanting to assume the moral high ground.

Apartheid has broken homes, broken trust, broken people. But its greatest effect has been on the South African psyche - and that is where the toughest battle will have to take place.

For many whites it is a fundamental dishonesty: an unwillingness to see the consequences of extreme selfishness or hear the cries of anguish of fellow South Africans.

Expiation must begin with brutal honesty about the past and total acceptance of a shared destiny for the future.

'We had failed to listen to the laughing and crying of our people,' said Leon Wessels, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, in Parliament recently. 'That must never happen again. I'm sorry for being so hard of hearing for so long, so indifferent. Apartheid was a terrible mistake that blighted our land. The only manner to build our joint future is if we are brutally, bluntly frank about the past.'

The decades of international pressure on white attitudes had little effect. Thousands of whites have not changed one iota. Thousands of others never supported apartheid in the first place. Many of them contributed daily to efforts to heal relationships and to develop people and structures. The seemingly irrational waves of violence flowing over South Africa today leave them fearful and bewildered.

On the black side, the damage shows up in the apparent sterility of thinking among much of the leadership. In the process of trying to change whites and rid the world of white racism, black leaders got away with superficial responses to their own shortcomings. They had no encouragement to probe deeply into how they would handle power in South Africa.

That is why responses to the challenges of post-apartheid South Africa seem stilted and outdated. Even Mr Mandela, with the terrible cross of the black world's unrealistic expectations resting on his shoulders, is often left mouthing the tired old cliches of a past era when so many look to him to give a vision of what South Africa can be.

There are other signs of lesions on the psyche: too little acceptance of responsibility for the hard work of building the new South Africa; frightening distortions in the concept of democracy.

Symptoms of this are evident everywhere. In one day black children at 31 schools in Mamelodi, a 'township' outside Pretoria, simply took over the premises and chased away the principals. A teacher who was interviewed in a Sunday newspaper was afraid to be seen talking to a reporter.

'We have strict instructions not to interfere with these children,' she said. 'They are dangerous. We have been told to stay on the premises, but not to teach.' The teachers obey the children without question.

A Soweto doctor talks of young girls gang-raped at schools and ten-year-olds who threaten teachers with the 'necklace' of a burning tyre.

There appear to be no leaders willing to intervene to re-establish the ethos of discipline.

But in the midst of all this, there are many individuals in the black community who are giving their all in an attempt to respond to these needs. All they ask is the opportunity to use their talents to make their contribution.

One of South Africa's most remarkable women is a young widow, Creina Alcock, whose husband was assassinated while trying to resolve the decades-old conflict between warring Zulu factions. In an interview with Rian Malan in the book, My Traitor's Heart, she put her finger on the truth so difficult for both black and white to face.

'You said one could be deformed by this country, and yet it seems to me one can only be deformed by the things one does to oneself,' she said. 'It's not the outside things that deform you, it's the choices you make.'

Whatever choices are made, the road will be rough.

Anthony Duigan is a former News Editor of 'The Star', Johannesburg, and Assistant Editor of 'The World', South Africa's biggest black daily, which was banned in 1977. He now works as a communications consultant.