The Aftermath

by Samuel C. Florman

  "Ladies and gentlemen," Captain Nordstrom rose, seeming refreshed after having sat with closed eyes through these last reports, "this must conclude our introduction to the resources of our new homeland. Encouraging indeed, but I want to be sure that we do not get carried away. First of all, I share General White's worry about the immediate needs of our group. I don't like to see us all excited about iron in the ground when we don't yet have a roof over our heads. But let us assume that we'll handle these mundane problems and manage to build ourselves a serviceable camp. What I am really concerned about as we look to the future is not so much KwaZulu Natal's basic resources, which I am happy to know are abundant, but rather its people, about whom I feel much less sanguine.

  "Our small company of twenty-five hundred souls is not about to work farms, excavate mines, build machinery, and otherwise create Detroit or Pittsburgh—or even Oslo, which I would prefer—on this shore of the Indian Ocean. What do we do if the survivors in this very strange corner of the world do not care to join with us in our enlightened enterprise? Officer Gustafsson reports that he has had a cordial meeting. Well and good, but that is just one meeting."

  Captain Nordstrom paced back and forth for a moment with his hands behind his back. Suddenly, he looked off into the distance, pointed upward into hills, and asked, "What do we do if a hostile band of Zulus suddenly comes charging down that ravine over there, brandishing spears and chanting war songs? Or, how about the Afrikaners, one of the more eccentric groups of people in all of history? What if they decide that this catastrophe is a special sign from their Calvinist God, and that our entry on the scene is not welcome? What if black and white, in a classic end-of-the-world scenario, start to fight with each other and we get caught up in the carnage? What I'm trying to say is, let's forget about the resources for a moment and think about something even more important: the people."

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF WILSON HARDY, JR.

  The people. What can I say about the people of KwaZulu Natal? Only this, and without exaggeration: No novelist or playwright could have dreamed up a more fantastic, exotic, implausible cast of characters than those who awaited us in this foreign land. And— more to the point, in light of our perilous circumstances—no technocrat or social planner could have conceived a group with better survival skills. At least I dare to hope that this is the case.

  Before I found myself cast away on these shores, I knew hardly anything about this part of the world. I still know very little. But once I realized that this is where world civilization is fated to be reborn, I figured that I'd better try to correct that deficiency. My father, as I have related, has directed me to keep a record of our group's experiences and activities. But I can't make much sense going forward without giving some account of what has happened here in the past. I've tried to learn about the past, not so much for its own sake—although I do love the historical narrative—but more for the light it sheds on our present situation and our future prospects.

  I've read any number of books and talked with many people, both ordinary folk and so-called experts. What follows is an admittedly casual recapitulation of facts, impressions, and assumptions. It would drive my history professors to distraction, I'm certain. But I'm not working on a Ph.D. thesis any more. In a sense, this sets me free.

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  If the human race is to endure and reconstitute itself, there is an appropriate symmetry to having this occur in Africa. Most paleontologists have agreed that this is the continent where our forebears emerged, evolving from apelike creatures into hominids over a period of some four million years. Remains of anatomically modern Homo sapiens, dating back 130,000 years, have been found in various locations on the African continent, including caves not far from where our camp is today. The "Nahoon" footprints, found along the coast southeast of here, and which scientists have called "compellingly human," have recently been dated as approximately two hundred thousand years old.

  These human ancestors of ours, established in clans of about one hundred and fifty individuals, gradually made their way to the northern part of the continent, and then ventured across the Isthmus of Suez. This momentous migration commenced, according to current thinking, about one hundred thousand years ago, and eventually extended to the farthest corners of the globe. Descendants of these wanderers were destined to return to the mother continent time and again through the centuries, coming with a variety of purposes, most of them not to the advantage of the people who had stayed behind.

  One of the most fateful of these returns occurred in 1652, when the Dutch East India Company authorized a certain Jan van Riebeeck, with a party of ninety, to set up a provisioning station at Table Bay on the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape had first been rounded in 1488 by Bartolomeu Dias, a Portuguese navigator; and as maritime trade developed between Europe and the Indies, the need for such a station became apparent. Neither the company nor the Dutch government planned on colonization by Dutch citizens. But, once established on shore, some of the pioneers started thinking about making this new world their permanent home. Within ten years, more than two hundred and fifty Dutch settlers were living near the Cape, farming and beginning to move inland. In 1689, they were joined by two hundred French Huguenots fleeing from government persecution. By 1707, there were almost two thousand freeholders of European descent.

  This was three centuries ago, not long in the grand scheme of things, but a very long time when we think in terms of historical change. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, St. Petersburg was just being built, George Washington's father was a boy, Johann Sebastian Bach was starting to write his music, and Isaac Newton was the newly elected president of the Royal Society. In Southern Africa, Negroid tribes—the Bantu—descending from the North, had not completed the process of replacing small bands of hunter-gatherers—the so-called San Bushmen. The white settlers at the Cape—called Boers, which is the Dutch word for farmers—occupied portions of the land almost as early as some of the black tribes migrating into the area. Small wonder that these Europeans came to think of themselves as genuine natives of the continent, as Afrikaners. It is with good reason that they are sometimes referred to as the "white tribe." When the British came on the scene at the end of the eighteenth century, the Boers numbered more than fifteen thousand and had begun to develop their own Dutch-based language, Afrikaans.

  Ah yes, the British. As a consequence of various European wars and the treaties that followed, they occupied the Cape in 1795, and a decade later, made it a Crown Colony. They promptly set about irritating the Boers in numerous ways, most notably by banning the use of slaves. The settlers had come to rely upon slave labor and felt that they could not continue farming without it. But the British—much to their credit, particularly in comparison with other nations of the world—had outlawed slavery in 1807.

  In addition to feeling harassed by the British, the Boers were driven by an innate frontier-seeking hunger. For whatever complex set of reasons, in the 1830s they embarked on the Great Trek, an event of mythic import in the evolution of Afrikaner culture. Between 1835 and 1837, several thousand families—some fourteen thousand individuals—packed their wagons, hitched up their oxen, gathered their servants, their slaves, and their livestock, and headed far inland from the Cape. To the north, they founded the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, and to the east they crossed the Drakensberg Mountains and entered Natal. The territory that the whites called Natal happened to be the region that the Zulus called home.

  The word "Zulu" evokes images of ferocious warriors brandishing shields and spears. Yet, for all their warlike reputation, this tribe's entrance onto the stage of history was remarkably benign. Prior to 1800, they were one of approximately twenty Nguni-speaking clans who lived in harmony with the land, and in relative peace among themselves, in the area now known as KwaZulu Natal. These clans were patrilineal chiefdoms, consisting of a number of loosely linked family groups. The people were pastoralists, and the importance of cattle in their lives was symbolized by the p
osition of the cattlefold in the center of every homestead. According to standard historical sources, disputes over land were few, and were normally settled by the members of two competing groups lining up to throw spears at each other, while hurling abuse as well. Casualties were few, and eventually one family group would yield and move off to another piece of available land. This sounds a bit too idyllic to ring completely true; but if there was a healthy balance between population and resources, we can believe that life was reasonably tranquil.

  In any event, after 1800, conditions abruptly became more grim. The area was struck by severe drought; other tribes began to crowd in from the north; white farmers, even before the Great Trek, increased their pressure from the west; and European slave traders, with the complicity of some native Africans, conducted gruesomely efficient raids from the east coast. The result was an increasingly chaotic situation in which military prowess became the key to survival of clan and tribe.

  Shaka, who became chief of the Zulus in 1816, was the man for that historical moment. A fierce and astute military leader, he revolutionized tribal warfare with two innovative tactics: He replaced the traditional throwing spear with a shorter stabbing spear, and he directed his troops to surround opponents in a U-formation, close in on them, and kill them with the deadly new weapon. By 1826, Shaka dominated the entire territory, militarily and politically, absorbing numerous clans and tribes into the Zulu family, and sending others in flight for their lives. In just a few years the tradition of Zulus as fearsome warriors had become established. It was to be embellished in subsequent battles with the Boers and with the British. (One of the most notable encounters in military history saw the Zulus, armed only with spears, prevail over the British and their guns in the battle of Isandhlwana in 1879.)

  While the Zulus were establishing their tribal domination east of the Drakensberg Mountains in the early 1820s, most whites remained far away, in the vicinity of the Cape. However, word about the east coast, with its good weather and rich soil, was bound to spread, and in 1824, the British established a trading post there. They called it Port Natal. This port was later to become Durban— the city that was swept into the sea the day before we were scheduled to visit it. Shaka welcomed the British, at least to the extent of signing a treaty ceding them the port and much of the territory surrounding it. Shaka's successor, Dingane, renewed the treaty in 1835, and relations remained fairly cordial, thanks to the fact that the British initially were satisfied to remain on the coast.

  However, in 1837, here came the Boers, trekking over the mountains, with settlement very much on their minds. Dingane promptly massacred the Boers' leader, Piet Retief, along with more than sixty of his followers. A few months later, under the leadership of Andries Pretorius, the Boers killed more than three thousand Zulus in the fabled battle of Blood River. They then established the Republic of Natal, with its capital inland, up in the hills at Pietermaritzburg.

  This new state had a short life. In 1843, the British annexed the area and started bringing in immigrants of their own. In less than a decade, domination of the territory had shifted from blacks to Afrikaners to the British.

  As the nineteenth century progressed, the Zulus were subdued by the armies of empire, and their mighty kingdom brought low. Still, overcoming many hardships and indignities, they preserved their tribal culture and pride in their noble heritage. As for the Afrikaners, once again chafing under British control, many of them left to join their fellows in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. However, enough stubbornly stayed behind so that Natal continued to be home to three main contending groups.

  Perhaps I should say four groups, because we must include the Indians—yes, the Indians, from the Asian subcontinent. Starting in 1860, the British brought them to Natal in large numbers as indentured laborers for the newly established sugar plantations. At first, they were subjected to abuse and humiliating discrimination; but after a number of decades, many of them became successful merchants and leaders of the South African business community. Although they comprised less than 3 percent of the national population, in KwaZulu Natal their representation reached more than one in ten. This is a significant presence that I never could have imagined when I first thought about the rebuilding of civilization in Southern Africa. About 70 percent of this sizable minority are Hindus, 20 percent Muslim.

  Incidentally, in their early struggles for respect and civil rights, these people were led by a young lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi. That saintly man's concepts of non-violent protest evolved during the more than twenty years he spent in Natal. It will be a blessing for our future society if his spirit resides here still.

  The fates, having brought together these diverse communities at the southern end of the African continent, now introduced the element best calculated to create new extremes of turbulence: a find of diamonds, followed in 1886 by discovery of the world's richest gold fields. The British, who otherwise might have lost interest in this unprepossessing corner of their empire, suddenly showed passionate concern. Since the mines were located in the north-central lands to which the Boers had laid claim, one could have predicted the coming of conflicts that would culminate in war. An announced cause of the South African War (1899-1902) between the British and the Boers was the anger of recently arrived immigrants who were not granted the right to vote in government elections. But the war wasn't about votes; it was about wealth. And, in the end, the might of the British Empire prevailed.

  The brutal conflict, which lasted two and a half years, pitted almost a half-million imperial troops against eighty-seven thousand farmer-soldiers. The Boers, waging guerrilla warfare, enjoyed some initial successes. But when Lord Kitchener embarked on a scorched-earth policy, and rounded up the civilian population into concentration camps, the outcome was ordained. Some twenty-five thousand Afrikaner women and children died of disease and malnutrition in the camps, another grim ordeal etched indelibly in the tribal memory.

  It is notable, I think, that for all their bravery and zeal, the Afrikaners did not fight on to a suicidal end, as a few of their number urged. Neither did the Zulus when they finally discerned the almost limitless resources of their enemies. History shows us that the Afrikaners and the Zulus—along with the other tribes of South Africa—have been essentially pragmatic when confronting adversity.

  The British, too, are pragmatists of the first order, famous for their Magna Carta, for their "bloodless" revolution of 1688, and numerous accommodations between the classes.

  The story of South Africa in the twentieth century is, in fact, a testimony to the possibilities of compromise. While fanaticism and uncompromising hatred festered in other parts of the world, good sense and goodwill prevailed in South Africa. This sounds strange, given what we know about the evils of apartheid. And, admittedly, democracy and order did not prevail without exploitation, conflict, and many terrible deeds. But considering the difficulties to be overcome, and the potential for unspeakable slaughter and anarchy, the democratic multiracial elections of 1994 represented a triumph for the human spirit.

  The policy of apartheid (Afrikaans for "apartness"), longstanding in practice, was formalized in laws passed during the 1950s. Predictably, a resistance movement developed, centered in the African National Congress (ANC). Many of this group's early leaders were Zulus; but eventually it came to be controlled by members of the Xhosa-speaking tribes, led by Nelson Mandela. As demonstrations became more widespread, and sporadically violent, the government banned the ANC and, in 1962, arrested Mandela.

  Government policies of oppression were pursued at first through direct police action—including not only arrests and assaults, but also abductions, tortures, and murders. Then the policies were pursued even more insidiously, by pitting blacks against blacks. The Zulus in particular, led by Chief Buthelezi under the banner of his Inkatha Freedom Party, came into conflict with the ANC and fought many bloody battles with its supporters. Buthelezi received considerable financial support from the government and was accused by h
is foes of having "sold out" to the white establishment. Other tribal chiefs were also accused of betraying the cause of democratic civil rights. Adding to the chaos and distrust, a mysterious "third force" of militaristic right-wing whites was said to be fomenting hostilities among the various black factions.

  Protest evoked repression, which in turn evoked more outraged protest, as violence became ever more frightful. Although the fatalities were relatively few in each confrontation, they added up, totaling more than twenty thousand. One cannot make light of these fearful events, yet they fall far short of the mass uprising and massacre that had been the nightmare of many South Africans, black as well as white.

  In Rwanda, with a population one sixth that of South Africa's, five months of genocide and mass slaughter in 1994 resulted in more than a half-million deaths and two million terrorized refugees. This is just one reminder, among too many that might be cited, of what can happen when hatred and revenge take over, as civility and negotiation disappear.

  In South Africa, even while violence stalked the streets, people of good faith on all sides sought some formula for accord. Bowing to the inevitable, government leaders made overtures to Nelson Mandela in his jail cell. There followed a number of secret meetings between white politicians and ANC leaders—in New York and London—calm and congenial meetings by all accounts, in which the seemingly intractable differences between the parties were addressed. Progress was slow, but the negotiations developed an irreversible momentum. When, in 1989, F. W. deKlerk was elected leader of the governing National Party, he met with Mandela directly. This led to the release of Mandela from prison and the legalization of the ANC.