A colleague recently sent me this article. It is frightening to realise this was written in 1998 and here nearly 10 years on we are still waiting for the miracle to change the crime and bloodshed.
Why I'm fleeing South Africa
by Anne Paton (widow of Alan Paton)
London Sunday Times—DISPATCHES, Sunday, November 29, 1998
I am leaving South Africa. I have lived here for 35 years, and I shall leave with anguish. My home and my friends are here, but I am terrified. I know I shall be in trouble for saying so, because I am the widow of Alan Paton.
Fifty years ago he wrote Cry, The Beloved Country. He was an unknown schoolmaster and it was his first book, but it became a bestseller overnight. It was eventually translated into more than 20 languages and became a set book in schools all over the world. It has sold more than 15 million copies and still sells 100,000 copies a year.
As a result of the startling success of this book, my husband became famous for his impassioned speeches and writings, which brought to the notice of the world the suffering of the black man under apartheid.
He campaigned for Nelson Mandela's release from prison and he worked all his life for black majority rule. He was incredibly hopeful about the new South Africa that would follow the end of apartheid, but he died in 1988, aged 85.
I was so sorry he did not witness the euphoria and love at the time of the election in 1994.But I am glad he is not alive now. He would have been so distressed to see what has happened to his beloved country.
I love this country with a passion, but I cannot live here any more. I can no longer live slung about with panic buttons and gear locks. I am tired of driving with my car windows closed and the doors locked, tired of being afraid of stopping at red lights. I am tired of being constantly on the alert, having that sudden frisson of fear at the sight of a shadow by the gate, of a group of youths approaching - although nine times out of 10 they are innocent of harmful intent. Such is the suspicion that dogs us all.
Among my friends and the friends of my friends, I know of nine people who have been murdered in the past four years.
An old friend, an elderly lady, was raped and murdered by someone who broke into her home for no reason at all; another was shot at a garage ...
