course; black children weren’t. And it happened that Colin had the money to buy those books for Franz.
For the fear that continued to nag him, and perhaps also for his unfulfilled humanist yearnings, Colin now consoled himself with nature and his work and—unexpectedly—his cat’s “very intense personal relationship with me.”
I felt, though, that in Africa, where cats and animals generally are given such a hard time, even in a protected place like the Kruger Park, Colin’s relationship with his cat might open up a whole new area of pain. Colin himself told this story:
“Some time ago there was a major football championship match in the stadium here. Some time during the match someone threw a black cat in the midst of the rival team. Of course, the cat was killed, and the rival team was up in arms, saying that there was magic and an evil spell put on them. I keep thinking about it, and the only rational answer I have is that the proximity between animals and animism itself allows such brutal behaviour. Also, you have to understand that while all societies have metaphors which dilute the emotion connected with what is unpleasant, or with frustration or anger, here in South Africa the distance between metaphor and reality is very little. During the elections the ANC and its rival call each other cockroaches, snakes and dogs. You can get into real trouble very quickly here, using metaphors, and during intense debates where animal metaphors are used, real blood will flow. This is very frightening and depressing for me.”
In 1987 Colin went to Paris for the first time. He was “blown away.” Some things he could relate to, but there were things he could not understand at all. Still, the experience gave him a new way of looking.
He said, “We will have to go through a very violent post-colonial period to become human. You don’t have to go to a university to become an intellectual. There are organic traditions here too. Biko called it buntu, and it is the idea that you are a person because of another person. It gives the wish to aspire. My hope lies in the aspiration, not in the flaws all around us—though the idea of aspiring can bring its own flaws.”
He couldn’t escape conscription into the South African army. He was sent to Angola and there he had to guard refugee camps. The camps had black women and children, coloured women, and some blonde white women and children—Portuguese families who had been abandoned by their men.
“It was in this camp, while we were wearing the hated uniform, that I realised that men have a moral choice to do what they do. There were men who raped, exploited and did terrible things, and there were also men, like me, who made a small group who tried to make things better for these women, who were ready to do anything to protect their children. I saw moral shades in this army. There was, and is, a moral choice always. But I feel that being white is a debt you can’t pay even if you fought in the struggle.”
8
I ASKED Phillip whether there could be an idea of possibility in the society. I thought it was an important idea both for the society and the individual.
He said, “In my view the idea of possibility has to do with humanity. In my own small way I think that our transition from apartheid to democracy through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has provided the sense of humanity to some extent. It may have been flawed in some ways or not enough, but at least we did not have a civil war like Zimbabwe, where they wanted to get rid of the whites. This brings a sense of possibility.”
He worked professionally with a mixed group. “I don’t feel that because I am not black I don’t have possibility here. In a strange way it is and is not a disaster area. Maybe it’s like being in denial. Yet in another way I am trying to do what I can do as a South African for my country. I also know that I live with the constant dilemma of: should I go or stay? Sometimes I even wonder if this is a carry-over or part of my Jewish ancestry. My mother’s ancestors came in the 1900s to escape the Eastern European pogroms. There was a big Jewish community here pre-1994, and there was a dramatic drop in this community after