Every Stone Shall Cry: To Kill a Mockingbird & 12 Years a Slave

(In a parallel track to the South African authors we have been looking that, this post reflects on two North American works wrestling with the ugly bigotry triggered by the color of skin.)

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” (Scout Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird)

Last week I had the experience of considering two more viewpoints in the significant issue of how we perceive and judge according to color. I saw a live stage play of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the movie “12 Years a Slave” almost back-to-back. It was intense: two, powerful first-person stories that unwrap the bandages and show the wounds resulting when we humans descend to discriminating against one other on the basis of skin color. The juxtaposition alarmed me: the simplicity with which both persons saw through the false pretense was painfully obvious. Yet a brutal system persisted because so many “good” people did nothing.

The story tellers in these works are without guile: a white child growing up in the deep South and a free black man from Saratoga, New York, kidnapped and sold in the South. Their stories play out as encounter person after person unable to accept Truth plainly told, preferring to weave explanations and excuses. 

Scout Finch is only ten years old, but her common sense and integrity (being raised by a lawyer with true love of Justice and fellow man) cannot fathom the attitude of Macomb County which legally murders an innocent black man because his accuser is a white woman. Scout watches her father, Atticus, stand alone in the gap of understanding between the colors. The one “good person” who did something, his efforts could not hold back the ignorance and malice of the mob. He is a picture of grace, as he answers Scout’s objections against the white people: he tries to explain their stunted world view. While clinging to justice, he still reaches out in hope to the minds that have twisted it.

Solomon Northrup is the teller of “12 Years a Slave”: a true story about a talented violinist shanghaied while on a trip to Washington, D.C. His brutal treatment at the hands of slavers graphically portrays the dehumanizing process which made people tractable and “useful” slaves. One is immediately reminded of Nelson Mandela’s observation that this type of treatment is as dehumanizing to the perpetrators as the victims, and it is only too evident as the story emerges.

The major factor which keeps Solomon enslaved for so long is fear. When Solomon tries to tell people he is free, he is savaged, and the scars from that beating will give testimony to his status as a slave. After that, when he encounters someone he hopes might be able to help, fear is still the issue. He is afraid to tell people he is free. They are afraid to hear it. They are afraid to do anything about it. No wonder, then, it takes twelve years for someone with the fortitude finally appears. Even that man admits his fears for his own safety, should he do Solomon the favor, but his character is up to the challenge. 

Fear is the thing that keeps many of us from stepping beyond the borders of our lives to make a difference. I kept asking myself as I watched theseheart-wrenching stories: what would I have done? and: what is the injustice going on around me that I am doing nothing about?

When Scout wonders why her father, who is a crack-shot with a rifle, doesn’t use a gun to get his point across or defend his position, he wisely tells her: 

“Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

Atticus knew he could not win against the public tide. But he would not be swept along with it. 

Solomon’s courage is remarkable as his story descends into hopelessness. He fights the temptation to give up, despite failed attempts to communicate with his family and the system designed to prevent slaves from escape. The builder who finally carried the letter for Solomon that led to his release did succeed. His risk resulted in Solomon’s rescue. But that freedom was tainted by the backdrop of the slaves left behind, still victims of an oppressive system allowing people to treat others as property. 

These are stories that we ignore or sideline to our peril. As the human race goes forward in progress, we tend to regress in humanity. Neither of these stories verbalizes the answer, but it is pointed to in every particular: we are people imprinted with an image we have flawed. 

Our work, the work of courage, is to reconcile people to ourselves, one another, and the Maker of our image.

Reunion Reflections

Twenty-three years ago I left Swaziland with a burning desire to return. I had spent four years there teaching right out of college, and had done most of my growing up in that tiny peaceful kingdom. God, in His wisdom, put me among the people most qualified to help me learn about myself and His world view. I felt like I had found home.

Nowadays we missionary kids are called TCKs (third culture kids) and have a greater understanding of the nuances of growing up in a culture other than one's "home" culture. I attended college before TCK was even a term and before anyone was writing books or doing research. I knew deep down that I was different, a bit odd, and basically I could get on with life or not. I chose to get on, but God chose Swaziland.

       Here I am with three of my former students: Hottie, Lynne and Enola.

Most of the issues surrounding the oddness and differentness of TCKs center on this concept of "home." The question we don't know how to answer (because the answer depends on who asked the question) is: where are you from? or: where do you call home?

While I lived with my parents, wherever they were was home. After that, home was a nebulous thing that I didn't have. But in Swaziland I found a sense of home that went deep because I was enmeshed in a culture with my own boundary issues. Both this and that, but neither one. I did not feel Korean, though I grew up there, nor American, which my passport assured me I was. It was that third culture thing.

I taught in Florence Christian Academy which had the distinction of being a school primarily for coloured children. This did not mean "children of colour" but children of a blending of colours--black, white, brown, and ethnicities mingling, too. Swaziland was a type of haven because outside her borders, South Africa ruled with an intense opposition to that mingling, called apartheid. In fact, such an existence was "illegal" as different colours of people were not allowed to marry and have children.

So I began to understand myself as I got to know the delightful people who lived with the constant pressure of not being one or the other, but both and neither--when either side decided not to own them. Of course there were many more issues that my friends had to deal with: the pressures of competition for education, unequal treatment on either side of the border, and even the variations of skin tone within a family. But I found people who accepted me just because I came. They taught me so much about what it means to accept, what reconciliation does and does not look like: and what faith can do in the face of such a harsh world.

I made many mistakes, but was able to learn thanks to grace extended. I also saw what happens in lives that don't have the fortifications of faith, lives wasted and broken on the rack of what others thought. In those four years I went to eleven funerals and only two were older adults. It sobered me. I started to genuinely grow up. But oh, the fun I had in the process, being around so many others who felt, like I did: not a land creature, not a sea creature--not one or the other. But in fellowship, I found community. It was pretty close to "home", probably as close as I'll get in this life.

Who are you? Five Theories about Internet Quizzes.

I was going to title this: “Why don’t we know who we are?” because of the proliferation of quizzes going around on the internet aimed at resolving this perplexing issue:

What character from Lord of the Rings are you?

What character from Downton Abby are you?

What Disney princess are you?

What color are you?

What bird are you?

What animal are you?

What superhero are you?

But I am more interested in a different question: Why do we take these tests? Do we really have so little awareness of ourselves that we need a stranger and a quiz to tell us we are Frodo or Dumbledore or Iron Man or Pocahontas or Snape or purple or an eagle? And face it. sometimes we end up being someone we don’t want to be--so we take it again and tweak a few of the answers that we were ambivalent about. Because we wanted to be Samwise or Voldemort.

Why are we thus engaged? I have some theories.

1. We are in need of entertainment and these somehow qualify as “fun” in our time-space continuum.

If this is the case, I suggest we get a life and BE who we want to be, rather than take a quiz to tell us we are the ringbearer to Mount Doom or the Dowager Countess.

2. We are avoiding doing something important or something we need to so.

In which case, we are taking procrastination to new levels. I recommend we stop taking quizzes and DO the hard thing.

3. We truly don’t know who we are.

And sadly, we think that a ten question internet quiz will shed some light on that? If this is the case, we are more deluded than we know--and internet quizzes will be a panacea even though they won’t answer our question. Quiz on, my friend, quiz on.

4. We hope we are like someone we admire.

Truth be told, we are all aware of how transparent the questions are and where they will lead. So anyone with a modicum of insight can skew the results to make it come out to be whom he or she admires without being in the slightest like that person. (With the possible exception of a colour--haven’t quite figured out how that one works.)

5. We need affirmation.

This, I suspect is the secret underlying cause for the proliferation of internet quizzes which portend to deal with our deep, subterranean identities. Truly we are wading in the shallows if we want to be affirmed by an impersonal multiple choice task that supposedly interprets our clicked preference into the deeper realities of our persona. And then, whoever we turn out to be--the “you are so and so” description will airbrush the character into someone of interest, superlative positive attributes, and tingly sounding affirmatives (even if we turn out to be Loki). But, I have noticed, the character is rarely a person of character; rarely one who makes choices based on honor or integrity. 

So: do we stop taking these quizzes? I don’t know. Are we characters or do we have character?

Every Stone Shall Cry: A Beautiful Place to Die

As a break from classic “apartheid genre” books, today’s choice is A Beautiful Place to Die (2012) by Malla Nunn. Nunn has written a tight, contemporary murder mystery set in the early days of apartheid (1952) and blends a strident female voice with her message. Anyone enjoying mysteries will find this one no disappointment. Nunn’s plot twists and keeps her readers guessing while interweaving historical fact and myriad complications of apartheid.

Detective Emmanuel Cooper is sent to solve the bizarre murder of an Afrikaans policeman, apparently loved by all, in the small town of Jacob’s Rest. His English background conflicts with the Security Branch (the government’s seamy underbelly) set on finding a subversive black communist behind every violent attack. The juxtaposition of colour and ethnic interests is compounded by a curious Jewish couple who figure prominently, giving more insight into the philosophy of the architecture of apartheid.

Malla Nunn grew up in Swaziland with the perspective of a person of colour looking across the border into a nightmare of legalized bigotry. Her story rings true, sounding legitimacy in the voices and choices of her characters. She has powerful connection with her female characters: Afrikaans, Jew, and coloured while her male characters tend to be more stereotypical. Mysteries are not as much about character as plot, so her strength in defining women reflects her contemporary sensitivity to the role of women not often found in male mystery writers.

As I read the writers of Subsaharan Africa, there appears a continuum with poets at one end and potboilers at the other. Alan Paton comes to mind as a powerfully poetic voice, while Wilbur Smith is at the other extreme. Paton is to be read and reread, his words savoured and his message taken to heart. Closer to Wilbur Smith,  Nunn’s title is the most poetic part of her work. From start to finish the words pull the reader along, almost breathlessly, with little pause for reflection. If action is your choice, with history as the backdrop, you will learn more than you’ll be comfortable with in Nunn’s description of murder under apartheid.

Every Stone Shall Cry: Country of My Skull

". . . there is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu (the African philosophy of humanism) but not for victimization."

so writes Antjie Krog in her introduction to Country of My Skull.

“Trying to understand the new South Africa without the Truth and Reconciliation Commission would be futile; trying to understand the commission without this book would be irresponsible.” (Andre Brink)

How did South Africa not descend into a bloodbath upon her emergence into democracy? What made her transition from a totalitarian police state to one-man-one-vote so different than say, Rwanda, Sudan, Yugoslavia or Congo? How were the victims of oppression deterred from vengeance?

Nelson Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is largely responsible for the level of healing and restoration that is evident in SA today. With Desmond Tutu incorporating the spiritual element in resolving conflicts, the TRC had potential for healing broken spirits. Forgiveness and release of bitterness were hallmarks of the TRC as recorded by Krog.

The three year long TRC was not a “quick fix” and made no claims to solving problems. It was designed as a platform for stories to be told and the victims to meet their torturers on equal footing. Antjie Krog was South African Broadcasting Company’s (radio) representative on this sojourn which crisscrossed the country and listened to thousands of heart-breaking stories. It included her own mental breakdown.

Country of My Skull is her personal record of that journey, including many stories that shock and repulse. Her poetic voice (she has published eight volumes of poetry) speaks eloquently of the emotions on both sides of the apartheid regime. Her attempts to clearly present the voices of all speakers, although throughout her life her writing was against the official position, are strong and clear. She describes vividly the courtroom scenes and the haunted faces.

The subtitle for Country of My Skull is “Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa.” With so much vested in the success of the TRC, Krog honestly looks at how effective a process was which offered amnesty to any for simply “telling the truth.” Her epilogue balances the searing impossibility of the task with the manifest results. No bloodbath. She acknowledges Mandela’s personal integrity and character when he accepted the TRC’s report despite the discontent of his party, the ANC.

The TRC was a very significant milestone in the continental story of Africa. It needs to  be heard. Journalists are rarely poets, so accounts of these milestones are often lengthy and boring. But Krog brings her poet voice to the task and a beautiful experience awaits the reader. As Nadine Gordimer asserts: Krog the poet was not afraid to go too far.

Every Stone Shall Cry: Long Walk to Freedom

A long life with Freedom as the end goal: Long Walk to Freedom is an apt title for Nelson Mandela’s autobiography. If you are deterred by 700+ page tomes, do not let that put you off. Mandela is highly readable; the chapters are short--possibly a result of having been written surreptitiously in prison. In fact, when the initial part of the manuscript was discovered in a tin can buried in his prison garden, Mandela lost four years of educational privileges for the writing of it. 

“Prison is a still point in a turning world,” he wrote, “and it is very easy to remain in the same place in jail while the world moves on.”  With this astute observation, Mandela sets the stage for his intense efforts and those of his fellow prisoners to resist the stagnation of the oppressive life on Robben Island. The camaraderie and fellowship of the prisoners and their mutual commitment to the educating and challenging of one another is remarkable, especially with the divisive efforts of the wardens. Despite differences and conflicts of interest, many of these men grew stronger for their perseverance and served well the ultimate freeing of South Africa.

Long Walk to Freedom is necessarily lengthy. It starts with Mandela’s birth and destined role of counselor to royals in Qunu (Eastern Cape). The span of his life is sadly marked by a negative sign of progress. On his return to Qunu after his release, he observed:

When I was young, the village was tidy, the water pure and the grass green and unsullied as far as the eye could see. Kraals were swept, the topsoil was conserved, fields were neatly divided. But now the village was unswept, the water polluted and the countryside littered with plastic bags and wrappers. We had not known of plastic when I was a boy, and though it surely improved life in some ways, its presence in Qunu appeared to me to be a kind of blight. Pride in the community seemed to have vanished.

With so much time being covered, Mandela does a creditable job of making his memoir personal as well as public. He was a party man and a freedom fighter. He was a father and a husband. He chose the good of the greater over his own personal good, and as in the case of many great leaders, his family paid a high price. 

His sympathy for his wife, Winnie’s, stressful life being married to such a man is revealed and he credits her with greater suffering than he endured. “She married a man who soon left her (for prison); that man became a myth; and then that myth returned home and proved to be just a man after all.“  How lightly he passes over the 27 years in that perception of her difficult position. He continues: “. . . it seems to be the destiny of freedom fighters to have unstable personal lives. When your life is the struggle, as mine was, there is little room left for family. That has always been my greatest regret, and the most painful aspect of the choice I made.”

As I read those words, my mind immediately went to King David and his own freedom fighting and troubled family. I have compared Mandela’s leadership style to David in another blog, and this is yet a further parallel.

My purpose is not to condense or paraphrase this noteworthy memoir. It must be read and savoured. The theme of Freedom is consistent throughout, as in the title. Years of confinement taught him more about Freedom than most of us who take it for granted daily. He shares his lessons generously:

Of those taking advantage of political unrest in order to loot and profit he warned:

Freedom without civility, freedom without the ability to live in peace, was not true freedom at all.

Of those who imprison others to protect themselves he said:

A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness.

Much wisdom is bound in the pages of Long Walk. It should be read often and out loud. If Nelson Mandela’s challenges were being listened to by his beloved party even now, South Africa would sooner take her place among those worthy to teach other nations about living in Freedom and Ubuntu.

He warned his people not to expect the government to provide unilaterally for them:

I challenged them; I did not patronize them: “If you want to continue living in poverty without clothes and food,” I told them, “then go and drink in the shebeens. But if you want better things, you must work hard. We cannot do it all for you; you must do it yourselves.”

Would that such wisdom were heeded in all countries resulting in restored Dignity which Mandela believed was the other side of Freedom’s coin.

Every Stone Shall Cry: Indaba, My Children

It isn’t often one reads a book the writing of which put the author’s life in jeopardy, but Credo Mutwa’s book Indaba, My Children is such a book. Written in 1964, during the heyday of apartheid, Mutwa is noticeably silent on that topic. His purpose was completely other and he succeeded admirably. 

The subtitle of Indaba, My Children is “African Tribal History, Legends, Customs and Religious Beliefs.” Don’t be put off by the nearly 700 pages, just take your time. It is well worth the read. Mutwa’s first name is Vusamazulu, “Awakener of the Zulus” and he has wakened considerably more than Zulus. If his book had been more widely read and valued, one wonders how different South Africa’s history might have been.

Mutwa (his name means “bushman” in Zulu) wrote to clarify the African mind for the western world. His lineage as a Zulu witchdoctor/shaman gives him the authority, learning and insight to set before us the true and ancient accounts which were handed down orally for generations. He did this at the risk of being called a traitor to his people. 

Terrible as the stigma of traitor is, I shall risk bearing it in the belief that what I am doing here will help my people in the end. Only time will tell whether I am right or wrong. There has been much suffering and bloodshed in Africa in recent years--bloodshed that has led to hatred and still more suffering. And the most pathetic thing about it is that much of this could have been prevented had the White rulers of Africa had a better knowledge and a better understanding of the way a Black man’s mind works than they do, even now.

So the self-proclaimed Outcast describes his mission. Having memorized word for word all the ancient myths and legends, he is a consummate story-teller. His writing down has enabled historians to reconstruct the Bantu history: the alliances and enmities of tribes. His role as Guardian of Tribal History is one of protection and many felt that his revelation was betrayal.

For these reasons and many more, Indaba, My Children is a rich resource everyone living in Africa, whatever color or cultural affiliation, should read. The title is parallel to the western “once upon a time” and brings a richness of cultural description.

Many elements in subsaharan African history have been recorded in texts written by whites and their history suffers from the imbalance of their perspective. Mutwa has brilliantly explained many errors of white history which are still being taught because his book is no longer being read widely. He clarifies the truth of the story of the “slaughter” Piet Retief and explains the colossal cultural faux pas in the creation of the Kariba Dam.

For a time Credo practiced Christianity (where he picked up the name Credo) and later Islam. But it was his own African Traditional Religion which called him back and regained a native son more determined than ever to hold fast to his culture and lore. His desire to protect Africa from foreign depredations was his motivation to write. His breadth of understanding and ability to communicate across cultural boundaries is truly remarkable.

He concludes: Oh my Africa, do you see the reason why I broke my oath? I am not selling you out to strangers; I am pleading your innocence in an African Place of Justice.”