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My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience Books
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Rating:  -
I really enjoyed this book, although I do have some problems with it. First and foremost I will recommend it because I think it offers amazing insight into the psychology of Afrikaners and should be read-by any serious student of South African History. It is a valid historical document in that sense, because it is an honest and well-written, and sometimes deeply moving, biographical account of a "liberal" Afrikaner who has to struggle with his progressive ideals and his residual prejudices.
Rian Malan is a fascinating individual who fully accepts the humanity of all his fellow men and loves people of all colors-but in a way he has also rather unapologetically bought into the idea of some deep and maybe unsurpassable "cultural differences" between "us and them". This involves repeating a traditional refrain about how outsiders "don't understand" how "they" really are. While I agree that outside observers tended to see things in only one dimension, I also think that Malan is somewhat won over to the colonial discourse of "Darkest Africa", that place where savagery reigns.
What about white savagery? Although Malan talks about some white atrocities and even explicitly says they are savage-e.g., a white man forces a black man to castrate himself at gunpoint and then flicks the testicles away with a stick-and although he suggests the Afrikaner is also "savage", he never seems to make this part of "white" South African character. It is always that the whites are acting from fear, because they are "swamped". But clearly the countless cases of white human rights atrocities cannot be attributed to fear. Somehow the violence of "natives" becomes assimilated to their "culture" in his mind-some ancient "African" culture outside observers can't understand, but white inhumanity, no matter how many instances of it there are, and there are countless, is not portrayed the same way, as an offshoot of "culture" that is somehow independent of environment. Whites are always granted a context for their actions; Zulus are simply doing things the way Zulus "always have".
Still, I do think it's a beautiful book in a number of ways, despite these serious flaws, and if you want to know how some Afrikaners think, I think this is a book to look at. I recently talked to a white South African and found his discourse to be similar to Malan's-talk of fear, talk of "strange cultural rites", talk of profound differences that are unbridgeable, upsetting things I generally disagree with, but this discourse is part of the white South African self-understanding. And although poverty and crime are very real in South Africa, I still believe that white South Africans often have a self-justifying ideology that simply refuses to look at what they've done to bring about the problems of modern South Africa and prefers to look at the problems they are faced with, as if they emerged from a vacuum. (Obviously, I'm not excusing anyone's violence of any kind here, just making a point).
This is only human that people prefer to avoid examining their own consciences, and Malan has more humanity, kindness, compassion and insight than most people do anywhere, but you will see what I mean about his essentializing of difference if you read the book, and you should. He loves these "native" men and women, he jokes with them, he finds some brilliant, and at the end of the book he accepts that he has to let go of his fear if he wants to move forward. But he has somewhat convinced me prior to these last pages that he isn't really ready to make that leap, and that his faith in building a new nation could be easily shattered, as of course it will be, if you think in terms of black and white.
Rating:  -
This book came out when I was working in South Africa. It explores in an uncompromising way two rival phenomena: the hopes of 'white liberalism' and some harsh realities of South Africa's 'African-ness' which many urban liberals at that point seemed to pretend either were not there or were somehow only a function of apartheid.
The passages on Creina Alcock, a 'white' South African who stepped far away from her background to live as a Zulu are are especially poignant, even stunning. I visited Creina in her remote hut on the strength of this book and was astonished by her courage and wisdom. Rian captures this extraordinary story in a moving if (for the average reader?) pessimistic way
This book has universalist insights for anyone interested in whether Civilisations really do Clash. Rian Malan was on to something very profound in this book. It is vivid and appalling in places, and not always easy reading. So what? These issues are as difficult as anything we face. Read it, lots of times.
Rating: -
This book is an investigation into the attitudes of a liberal who was raised in South Africa. In the book, Malan tells us that his original charge was to write the history of his racist ancestors, who were among the first Boer settlers in the region. But when Malan began his project, he found he needed to first explore and develop his own perspective on race in South Africa before he could begin. And once he began doing this, he never really got around to the history project.
The book is divided into 3 sections. In the first, Malan describes his own childhood and adolescence, leading up to his forced flight from South Africa, with a major focus on his youthful love for Blacks (especially in the abstract). The second part of the book details a number of violent murders that Malan investigated upon his return to South Africa in 1986 to write this book. In this section, Malan describes the intense violence that was occurring in South Africa at the time, and how all Whites, even doctors providing humanitarian services in the townships, became targets for Black rage. He also explores violence between rival Black political groups. In the closing section, Malan visits a White woman named Creina Alcock, who lived on the border of Msanga, a tribal homeland, where she and her husband had struggled to build a sustainable rural development project with the local Blacks. The woman was widowed after her husband was killed while trying to negotiate peace talks during a tribal disturbance in Msanga.
The book doesn't have a strong narrative thread- -instead it seems that Malan was trying to communicate some of his own confusion and ambivalence about racial questions by presenting so many stories and sides of the picture, and flipping rapidly from one to the next. The loose organization is effective to some degree; the reader slowly comes to understand the enormity and complexity of South Africa's problems. Yes, many Whites provoked anger from Blacks by their abominable behavior and laws. Blacks in turn responded with violence that was so overwhelming that even those Whites who tried as hard as they could to do the right thing were in mortal danger. And the worst and most senseless violence seemed to occur in Black communities that had no White involvement at all. The entire society was so focused on violence that as one White living on a farm in a rural area told Malan "The guy with the bigger stick wins." In closing with Creina Alcock's story, Malan tries to leave us with a little hope. He argues that Alcock's and her late husband's love for their community has made a marginal difference in the social structure, despite the ongoing attacks on them and thefts of their property by children they had adopted and raised as their own, and even the murder of Alcock's husband. With the infinitesimally small improvements that the Alcocks managed to make in their community by giving their entire lives over to the project, how many millions more Alcocks would it take to turn such a country around, and where might they come from?
Rating: -
The previous review to the contrary, this book will always be relevant as long as human beings judge other humans based on race. I just finished reading it and, as an American living in the Middle East, I faced innumerable home truths about myself and my own racist biases during the two days I was glued to it.
It is a painful read, in terms of the atrocities it depicts and the questions it asks. However, it is an essential read, though I wonder if anyone who has not lived long-term outside their own culture can truly appreciate it. It's easy to be a white liberal at home, wrapped in one's own smug assurance and safe within the majority. (And I'm speaking of myself here). Surrounded by 20 million Arabs, Malan's own journeys into Soweto strike far too close to one's heart.
On only the most superficial level is this a book about South African Apartheid. It is also about Israelis and Palestinians, Hindus and Muslims, Northern Irish and the English, the US and its every victim.
Rating: -
It seems that everyone has an opinion about Africa and all those opinions exist somewhere on a single sliding scale. At one end is the idea that all of that continent's problems are the result of some kind of post-colonial hangover and that if it hadn't been for the Europeans, Africa would be a wealthy, progressive Utopia. On the other extreme, is the opinion that the African culture has evolved in such a way as to virtually preclude `successful' statehood. Critics of this book tend to dislike it based on their position on that scale relative to the author's (somewhere in the middle, by the way.) Also, they sometimes use dubious facts and theories to back up their positions (e.g. Malan does indeed discuss the Afrikaner disinformation campaign designed to turn tribes/political movements against each other, and trying to determine what ethnic groups have `first settler' rights to a given piece of dirt is virtually impossible.)
But all this is completely irrelevant. As is clearly stated in the extended title, this is the story of one man's journey though his own past and conscience. On this level, it is a triumph. It is the only book I have ever read that doesn't seem to include a single divisive word. Whether you agree with Malan's observations or not, I think it is clear that he agonized over and believed deeply in every one. Additionally, the book is beautifully written on almost every level: smooth, engaging prose, balanced structure, and unfailing pace. It is almost impossible for the reader not be affected in one way or another.
It has been asked whether this book is still relevant in light of the fall of Apartheid and the progression of S.A. in the years since its publication. Certainly, as a wonderfully crafted look into one individual's soul and his struggle to find his place in the world, it is.
But has it become outdated politically, as has been suggested? I wonder. At the writing of this review, Zimbabwe is trying hard to destroy itself in a misguided effort to deal with its colonial past. Unfortunately, My Traitor's Heart may have some life in it yet...
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