Listening to a student telling me about being confronted in his home by a man wielding a butcher’s knife, then locking himself in his room and, with the man stomping about outside his bedroom door, kicking out the burglar proofing to escape (from his own home!), a thought that had occurred to me several times before crossed my mind again.
Our (that is, the peace-loving citizens of South Africa’s) situation in this country reminds me of an episode in Richard Adams’s stirring allegorical tale Watership Down, of a motley band of rabbits escaping from a doomed warren to seek a safer place where they can start a new one. To the best of my memory, this part of the narrative went as follows.
In the course of their search they encounter many dangers which they negotiate resourcefully, thanks to their leader’s ability to draw on and harness the various strengths of the members of the group, and they discover several interesting things about the world.
In one of their adventures they come upon a warren where live the biggest, sleekest, best-fed rabbits they have ever seen. Learning of their flight from the ill-starred warren, the strangers invite Hazel and his band to join their ostensibly prosperous warren. Most of the refugees are delighted to do so, and their pleasure increases when, going out to feed the next morning, they discover abundant “flayrah” — the rabbit word for “king’s food” (lettuce, carrots, cabbage and the like) — outside the warren on the grass. Never have they had it so good.
Despite his concern that his brother, the clairvoyant rabbit Fiver (who had “seen” the disaster at the old warren coming, and warned them in time to escape), is the only one in their group who refuses steadfastly even to go underground, and instead urges them to leave the place at once, Hazel cannot think of any reason why they should decline the strangers’ invitation.
That evening, with Fiver sitting miserably outside, the others experience something they could never imagine in their wildest dreams. In an underground “hall” of sorts, its ceiling supported by tree roots, they witness a rabbit “poet” reciting his latest poem, which exhorts rabbits to accept the fact that imminent death is part and parcel of a rabbit’s life and should be embraced as such.
To the visitors this sounds very strange — isn’t a rabbit’s first and most important task to stay out of the clutches of their death-dealing enemies such as stoats and foxes? And here a rabbit “poet” (a weird concept to them) is trying to persuade them otherwise. Hazel feels an inexplicable feeling nagging at him in the face of this novel idea, but he can’t quite work out what is bothering him.
The next morning when he and Bigwig, the strongest rabbit in their band, are “silflaying” (eating together) from the royal food outside, Hazel shares his concern about Fiver’s reluctance to come into the warren with his friend. He had always respected Fiver’s gift of foretelling the future, but until the unlikely “message” from the rabbit poet that rabbits should embrace their mortality, Hazel thought that Fiver was dead wrong about the place.
Suddenly Bigwig, who was moving around with Hazel as they ate, is jerked off his feet violently and falls heavily to the ground, kicking weakly. Dumbfounded, Hazel sniffs at him, but cannot make out what has caused Bigwig to be pinned down like that. Knowing the cleverest rabbit in their group to be Blackberry (as far as I recall), he sends for him and urges him to find out what force has felled Bigwig.
After examining Bigwig for a while, Blackberry points out a silver wire around the big rabbit’s neck, and traces the wire to a stout peg in the ground. At Blackberry’s insistence, the other rabbits start gnawing at the peg, and before long they have bitten it through. The wire relaxes and after a while a dazed Bigwig is able to sit up.
Then the penny drops: the lettuce and carrots are strewn outside the warren by the farmer from a nearby farm, with the purpose to lull the rabbits into a life of luxury and plenty — a life, that is, which they would not easily give up for the uncertain existence of “wild” rabbits like Hazel and his group.
As a result, they face random death every day, because the flipside of the farmer’s “kindness” of providing seductive amounts of delicious food is the fact that he randomly sets traps for the well-fed, handsome rabbits, bagging one occasionally for its skin and meat. Hence the rabbit poet’s rather incongruous valorisation of death as something that has to be accepted as potentially striking at any time. While rabbits are generally quite aware of this, however, the last thing they do is to accept it with docility; instead, they use all their resourcefulness to keep it at bay. This also explains Hazel’s niggling unease after the poet’s performance. Without further ado, he calls his band together and they leave the place of unpredictably random death.
As I mentioned before, and as may already have become apparent to readers, this episode has allegorical relevance for South Africans. To be sure, the carrots and lettuce on the grass have been steadily diminishing lately, despite all the good signs about our “growing economy” in the years following the advent of democracy in 1994. But carrots and lettuce assume other shapes as well, such as our wonderful climate, the legendary friendliness and hospitality of many South Africans (we have American friends who have visited us here, and still enthuse about the hospitality they received in South Africa), and — I might say “especially” — the natural beauty of the country, which we (my wife and I) know well through regular trips to wilderness areas (we did a mountain ridge walk today, with indescribably beautiful vistas opening up in all directions).
This is probably why so many South Africans feel that they are in a double-bind: one does not want to leave all of this to move to a country where one may feel safe, but also miserable through longing for the landscape and the people of this simultaneously wonderful and terrible place.
The allegorical truth about South Africa, illustrated so well by the story of Hazel and his rabbit band’s visit to the warren of plenty, but also of unexpected death, is simply this: like those well-fed rabbits in the warren, many (though not nearly all) South Africans still experience this country as one where one can live a materially comfortable life, with many business or other kinds of opportunities that one would not easily come across overseas.
But — and this is a big but — this comes at a price similar to the one those sleek, pampered rabbits had to pay: continued uncertainty about an increasing number of things, foremost among them unpredictable, random crime, of course (like the random, unpredictable traps set by the farmer for the rabbits), but increasingly also other insecurities, such as the problems surrounding the electricity supply; clean water; a school education system that seems to be largely dysfunctional by all accounts; an imminent, huge increase in municipal taxes; and last but not least, the prospect of an “expropriation Act” that, for all intents and purposes, will (if it becomes law) pave the way for the possibility of the most arbitrary expropriations of property imaginable (not necessarily only farms, but private homes as well), as long as it may be said to be for the “common good”.
Like those rabbits staying at the jinxed warren, we stay here because we like that which remains of the lettuce and carrots, perhaps repressing the knowledge that random, unpredictable crime — or random, unpredictable legislation — may strike at any moment. Have any of our “poets” advised us that we must learn to embrace the unpredictable possibility of our own deaths? I can’t think of any off-hand, but I do remember a philosophical friend saying to me, years ago, that if one chooses to live in South Africa, one has to change one’s attitude towards death. But, of course, deep down we all hope that we will not be the next victim.
If one casts one’s net a bit wider than the metropoli of London or Perth, one might just find that there are plenty of carrots around which are just as juicy as in SA, and which can be chomped in peace. The world is a very big vegetable patch, no need to cling to one gloomy corner.
“one chooses to live in South Africa, one has to change one’s attitude towards death”. This is a bit of change of attitude to the traditional “violence is the legacy of apartheid” bromide. It implies that the violence runs more deeply than that, into the very grain of society, and must be acknowledged and perhaps even accepted. Have South Africans really become so fatalistic now?
This qualifies in my view as the most evocative piece that I have read in motivation for showing empathy for those who have taken the long walk away from an uncertain future. The much maligned Émigrés who tend to have to provide a defence to fellow countrymen for deciding that the price of living in a society of such violent conflict and long term uncertainty is just too much to handle on a daily basis.
Possibly the fractures both current and historical in society are just so entrenched that its not possible to heal them without the destruction of both good and bad. It took Britain several hundred years to achieve a relatively just society, perhaps it is going to take SA many generations to achieve a similar state.
This allegory applied to SA is too negative. I can see the idea: that the privilege of being South African comes at the cost of unwelcome new risks – but this presentation over-amplifies the risks and underplays the opportunities. It also makes the ideal seem like a comfortable life without danger – which may feel like an ideal from a personal perspective but is a narrow from a philosophical POV. I am sure you are aware of Hegel’s dialectic that posits that positive outcomes necessarily produce commensurate negative ones and that then, inevitably, the antagonistic forces are transcended by integrating and negating the formerly opposing forces. We have strong institutions and economy – built on backs the rural population forced into migrant labour – and now we have a wobbly democratized country. This has transcended the past but only partially. Currently, there is a reshuffling of power going on (tribal awareness cannot be forced into modern awareness too quickly – hence ‘kill for Zuma’ – as if he were a tribal chief – i.e. the past is still with us) – and we have more negative work to do (to endure) as a consequence of our history that has to play out– but one day SA can transcend these massive contradictory forces (as a collective – i.e. this dialectic goes deeper than gvts can plot a course through) . Imagine modern cities in the future where community awareness still prevails amongst the elite. It has not yet been seen in the world. And it can’t develop in cities like London, Paris, Tokyo, because the financial institutions have already shaped those cultures to be driven be highly individualistic appetites. These distant cities modernized over many centuries and the traditional ways of thinking got steadily left behind. We are moving to modernity at speed and carrying our historical baggage with us (i.e. we are still post-colonial). The ‘miracle’ of South African transition to democracy may just be the first of many evolutionary steps that we can achieve. The potential is stronger here than anywhere else in the world – because of the negative times not despite them. We don’t get there without these powerful consequences of the past emerging – as frightening as they are – so that they can play their role in the dialectic. We should possibly not give up hope too quickly – nor yearn for personal sanctuaries. Sorry to sound a bit sanctimonious – just wanting to point out good reasons to grit it out and contribute to what SA can become.
Sho. Powerful. But my question is, is the concept of ‘leaving’ South Africa to seek out better and greener pastures still a behaviour typically prescribed to ‘White, Coloured and Indian’ South Africans only? Or is it becoming a more generic concern? Looking around Europe at the number of African citizens who have chosen to leave their country’s and seek a better life for their families in as stable Europe, I think of two things. One, why in 2008, is seeking of greener pastures in another country viewed as an act of betrayal in South Africa and luck for those who have made it in others? Will there be a time when we change our views in this way as well? And on this note, is it really conceivable for an average citizen to make any difference to the country when corruption is the order of the day? My second issue is, looking at all the Afro-Europeans who live in Europe, they manage to somehow keep one foot in Africa but get the best of Europe – surely we could be this inventive too? Considering the global village we live in and the sheer number of inter-continental relationships around the world, is the future not to live in more place than one? Or to be able to conceive of oneself like this?
Mmmh! the good old Prof and his kindergartens are dilly-dallying with cocky bunnies…pass the carrots, and lets do the hopping!!!
Incredible how the same thoughts and discussions tend to originate independently of one another at exactly the same period in history (almost like scientists and /or philopsophers making the same discveries independently of one another at the same time). I had almost exactly the same type of discussion with my table-mate at a supper on the weekend, and I played the role of the rabbit poet. One conquers this fear of the dangers around, and of imminent death, by realising the ridiculous nature thereof in terms of the bigger context of cosmological happenings, or so my story goes. We know it’s quite possible that a planet or other body from outer space might veer off course, bump into earth and that’s the end of that, and yet we’re all so concerned about shadows in the dark which might, or even will, end my (one morph’s) existence. Ridiculous comparison? Not through my allegorical lens after witnessing comets smashing into Jupiter a few years ago. We’re living in the Wild West, my friends, and cowboys don’t cry, as they say in the classics. Viva absolute “fatalism”, and let’s rejoice in it! A positive “fatalism”.
But, of course, as Bert says, deep down we all hope that we will not be the next victim. What splendid paradoxical Raka creatures we all are!
I moved to the United States at a young age, but have been back to SA often. We traded the comfortable life with a strong socially-connected community to a life of bunnies on a treadmill always running towards the carrot that is just out of reach.
(I’ve never worked in South Africa, so who am I say that it is any different, but other side of the rabbit patch has it’s pluses and minuses as well. Also, as homo sapiens, we can do something to change our environment unlike bunnies.)
@Hope Havemore – the only Community Awareness South Africa has displayed recently is ‘awareness’ of outsiders culminating in xenephobic attacks.
People are always very quick to dismiss big cities like London or New York as heartless, cold places, but this is rubbish. As an example, a London businessman has recently made known his intent to donate his £300 million fortune to charity – likewise a city financier will do the same with £500 million. That sounds pretty damn good in terms of the elite looking out for the community.
South Africa is indeed a rabbit trap for the rich – the lucky ones get a carrot shoved where they don’t want it, the not so lucky ones get the snare.
A most apt allegory Bert. I also liken us to frogs in a pot of water on the stove. As reptiles things were once warm and cozy. Over the years we have adapted quite nicely to increased temperatures. The powers that be were very careful not to turn it up high from the beginning, for we would have long since jumped straight out, but it now sure is getting hot. Many outside the pot think we are mad to stay in, perhaps its the weed they are burning for the fire that makes us this way!
The signs are everywhere to be read but I absolutely agree that for some of us the familiar beauty is is just so hard to leave while for others the wealth- earned or swindled- is another weighty anchor keeping them here.
At the risk of horribly mixing my metaphors, but since we are in this animal farm type situation anyway, what is the harm; I fear we are playing high stakes chicken now with our futures.
Whoops, mixing my metaphors and splitting my infinitives, sorry, it must be the heat!
I struggle with this almost everyday, as the rabbit who has left the juicy carrots of South Africa myself. I think you’ve left out an important carrot though – that feeling of “realness” and spiritual authenticity that is so naturally present in South Africa and that seems to be lacking in so many first world countries I have been to, including the one in which I now live. This spiritual richness is something we all crave as human beings, let alone just as South Africans. This, in my opinion, is one of the most compelling things that beckons us to stay – or return if we have left.
Hope Havemore, you are just so brilliant. Your account is lucid and vital in this conuntry where individualism is taking over. We seem to forget too easily that poor people, who do not have the resources to leave, are hardest hit by crime. Perhaps if there was more communal effort, there would not be so much anger and violence.
Bert
Good post. There is so much “truth” in fiction. Which is why people must READ – even comics, even tabloids, if that is where they start.
Hope
The whole world was once tribal and most of it is now post colonial – only Africa uses it as an excuse to be mired in the past.
The allegory doesn’t quite work, you see, because ALL the rabbits left their original warren which was on the brink of collapse. They did not STAY as a trade off, they left because they were doomed and traded off in their new warren. So Prof, there are no trade offs to stay.
“other side of the rabbit patch has it’s pluses and minuses as well. ”
Try the east side of the rabbit proof fence.
Just this week somebody again got attacked in Sydney NSW by an intruder weilding a knife. Also a famous australian actor Viginia Gay, got badly beaten up two people who minutes later murdered a chef.
I often just give a weak smile when Saffies, fresh through Sydney International Airport customs tell me how glad they are to have left “crime infested” SA behind. Yeah right, welcome to the real world. Or rather welcome again to the real world.
Dear Prof,
With all due respect, I enjoyed Watership Down as well but I found yours rather long, though interesting. (Perhaps knowing the story beforehand ruined the process of getting to the end, for me.)
The way I see it is that we all construct our own realities in our minds and are equally capable of constructing alternative realities for ourselves. Perhaps we suffer too readily Benedict Andersen’s “imagined community” of being South African or Afrikaner or Zulu… The “comfort zone” we South Africans find ourselves in is either mental laziness or fear of life altering change. If JM Coetzee can reinvent himself in Adelaide and enjoy other beautiful sunsets, so can we.
I have to add that while reading yours, I thought that you were speaking from a typical, white, privileged, middle class perspective but the post from Sarah reminded me of the many Afro-Europeans I encountered in London while living there. She is right to allude to the fact that all people have similar aspirations and leave for similar reasons. Tribalism (yes, white SAns are tribalist too)CAN be replaced by common sense and it isn’t necessarily a middle class preoccupation to feel safe and enjoy the carrots. There are other tribes in other places to join too.
Lastly, I concur with Sarah: “My second issue is, looking at all the Afro-Europeans who live in Europe, they manage to somehow keep one foot in Africa but get the best of Europe – surely we could be this inventive too?”
You see, Bert, when you’re talking about cuddly bunny books rather than all those heavily boring -ism books you’re only pretending to enjoy and are really only trying to impress other people with, far more people stay connected with the thought you’re being paid to be leading!
Whoulda thunk it?
So leave the heavy bookshelf alone and go for the brain rather.
The world (and ultimately the universe) is a very big vegetable patch, with plenty of juicy carrots around. I agree with you, Southeaster. But the point which obviously does not come out clearly in Bert’s allegory because he applies it specifically to a local warren – the one we know best – is that the same “dangers” are present in the vicinity of all warrens, and especially the ones where abundant flayrah is to be found. What Bert should have added is that we need to change our attitude to random death wherever we are. There are many ways to kill a rabbit: A car bomb going off, stepping on a landmine, in a car accident (a much greater probability), an aircrash, being pegged by a javelin at an athletics meet(!), a tall building being hit by an aeroplane, or – heaven forbid – the earth being hit by a celestial body, as pointed out by Alice in Wonderland. These, and many more bizarre things did and do happen, some of them on a daily basis. What Alice calls a “positive fatalism” is not the “fatalism” with the negative connotations normally associated with it, and that is probably why she refers to it in inverted commas. It’s simply an acceptance of what might happen, taking historical “facts” into account. And I sometimes think the odds are similar to that of a randomly selected ant on earth being stepped on by a human being.
I’m suggesting – in contrast to Hope Havemore’s reading – that Bert’s allegory has more to do with accepting “reality” (whatever that “reality” might be, or “reality” might mean)than with being “negative”.
Ja, Mr Ooisthuizen, but the average murder rate in the southern continent is 300 per year. Natural world accidents account for 400 per year. You have more chance of being killed by a snake than a person here. There are deadly rabbit patches, deadlier rabbit ptaches, and Hobbes state of nature….
@ Oosthuizen.
Maybe you should get your head out of your warren. No-one ever said there was no crime, the frequency is but a fraction of what we experience. You talk of crime in weeks, here it happens every minute.
In three years I spent in Australia as a student I enjoyed seeing kids playing in quiet cul-de-sacs, old people going for late night walks. The difference is that there not every person they meet in the street is a danger. The picture here is somewhat different.
I had no fear that My life was in danger for having a cellphone, or anything.
Juicy Lucy only refers to physical threats ending in “physical” death. Being on someone’s payroll and “prospering” in an “advanced” civilization, or stealing intellectual property are, to my mind, even greater threats because they’re abstract and more difficult to identify. Even harder to endure in a “civilized” warren.
Oosthuizen
ONE person got attacked in Sydney in ONE week – and he is not even dead? ONE chef got murdered?
Wow! A real crime wave!
Bert
Listen to Jon and others. You do get long winded and name-drop books, making them sound boring
( and I have read some of them – they are not!)
That was beautiful and so very sad. You just broke my heart!
- from an old saffa in London
I have many friends who have left this lovely country for ‘greener’ pastures and just as many who have left those very ‘green’ pastures to come to SA and have no intention of going back, what I found about the ‘expats’ when visiting Auckland and Melbourne last year was what made them feel good about their decision to move was all the bad news coming out of South Africa what I also found rather amusing was that they all frequent the many ‘South Africa Shops’ that have sprung up all over Oz and Nz, they sure miss their Ouma rusks and Mrs Balls! Eat your hearts out we have it all here and in abundance (including the sunshine).