<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\nLessons learned
This is my last hour before the taxi ride to the airport and the long flight home. I’m seated in my capacious room at “The Inn with a View,” gazing at Table Mountain. Earlier, I took the cable car to the misty top where far below me Cape Town harbor appeared and disappeared in the veil of a cloud. At one point a line from Brigadoon (the musical) sang in my mind – the voice was Phil Carl, my college pal, who was born singing Brigadoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now the edge of rock is razor clear against the elevated cloud. When the cloud drops it is called “the table cloth,” draped over Cape Town’s defining monument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dolf Els and I just spoke on the phone. He ended up being our southern South Africa host, just as Wiida Fourie was our host of the North. Dolf came down with the flu or some lesser bug, and missed our sumptuous dinner last night at the Savoy Cabbage. Believe it or not, I had roast wart hog in fig sauce. Meg had an exotic preparation of quail and the others had the vegetarian cornucopia. Dolf missed all that. But he told me that he will organize his colleagues and keep the theme alive – the theme of journalism and trauma, not the theme of dining as far as the American dollar takes you in South Africa – which is quite high on the hog, and even higher on the wart hog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So as the pages in this book run out and my minutes in Africa elapse, I’ll reflect on what I have learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is an inspiring place – still wild, beautiful, varied, lush, alive. The breath of the stalking cat, lion or leopard, hangs in the air and I see that silent step on the forest floor, smell the spoor and the skin, respect the fang and the claw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The graceful impala and the dignified sable antelope and the baby giraffe on slender legs all dance behind my eyes. But I know that one missed step, one meter too far from the protection of the herd or the hoof of the parent and life is over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The irony of nature’s vocabulary floods my consciousness. “Sleek” and “swift” and “sure” and “strong” are animal adjectives – all totems of human desire – all sculpted and perfected in the race to eat and to not be eaten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Human harmony is a mythic state of mind. We live in just as much torment as the lame sable antelope, just as much hunger as the lost lion cub. Death is guaranteed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reporting without harm or exploitation may be enough<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But some of us, more than others, perceive human suffering. We define it, record it, diagnose it. We treat it, prevent it (to a point) and we soften its sting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Not our job,” says Natalie, when I wish out loud that American newspapers would learn from the Sowetan and provide social services to subjects of stories who have overwhelming needs. I debate that for a while then give up. To report news accurately without harm or exploitation may be enough. But I couldn’t live doing only that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The amount of violent death in South Africa pervades our experience. None of us received a harsh remark, saw a fight, was mugged or molested. But we heard story after story. Every reporter, photographer, editor had a story. This has to be one of the most criminally violent corners of the world. Car jackings (called hijackings) end with gratuitous murder. Rape is out of control and rape can be an inoculation of HIV. Farm incidents involve marauders from Zimbabwe and Mozambique who massacre elderly whites with machetes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have not heard any news of right-wing reaction, but it is certainly common to carry arms and to harden the targets with elaborate security. Will South Africa become a police state? Will these random acts of aggression coalesce into tribal or racial vendettas? My information about what has been tried and what may be on the horizon is meager. I wonder if lessons from other nations would be welcome?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Someone suggests a new police chief will help. But the problem seems far beyond the criminal justice system. It is a matter of education and vocation and culture and dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the sub-continent of AIDS, of counter-colonial vengeance, of white attitude hardened in decades of apartheid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The devalued Rand cripples opportunities for South Africans to travel abroad. Our spending spree is their depression. You simply cannot live in America or Europe or advanced Asia on a normal income paid in Rands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So you can’t do that junior year abroad or that mid-career fellowship or that professional exchange – unless it is well subsidized in US dollars or Euros or Yen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A lack of ease
We need a mechanism to end this form of economic isolation. Travel and trade and face-to-face friendship are obvious remedies for some of South Africa’s hardship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The anti-American sentiment is my final article of education. We have no idea of our unpopularity. We think the angry mob is an aberration of the Middle East. But for every mad Muslim extremist chanting rage at the US Satan, there is a thoughtful, educated African who deplores our myopia, our arrogance, our policy of self-subsidy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We study your farm policy,” Mike Cohen, the Associated Press reporter tells me, “and we wonder why you spend billions for farmers to produce nothing.” Those crops, that income, would do so much for the Third World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think, “Say that to a senator from Iowa!” “Discuss this with a member of the Michigan Militia – who sees the UN flag as a disgrace to sovereignty.” Then I think, “Why not deliver that message?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of … humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never had a problem being an American citizen of the World. But something doesn’t sit right after this visit. And I believe my lack of ease is good. The urge to learn more and do more is good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Director’s Note: The Dart Center’s reach has included journalists in several nations in the past year, a response to a growing commitment on our part to serve journalism worldwide. The South African group was led by Dart Center Chair Frank Ochberg, M.D., who carried the honor of Fulbright Senior Specialist as he visited news groups … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":8,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giftfromwithin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giftfromwithin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giftfromwithin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giftfromwithin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giftfromwithin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.giftfromwithin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5685,"href":"https:\/\/www.giftfromwithin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5683\/revisions\/5685"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giftfromwithin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giftfromwithin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}