Rian Malan | Books | The Observer
I ask him the question that has been nagging, the question that lay at the heart of his book and at the heart of the country: is his vision of South Africa born of objective analysis or psychological necessity? Is it out there in the city, or inside his head?
‘The thing was,’ he says, ‘if I had been born black in this country would I forgive me, people like me? Would I fuck. I would cheer for Mugabe as well. It seems so logical to me. South Africa needed to have this really brutal dialogue with itself: black South Africa would say, “Look, you came here, you stole our lands and our cattle, you raped our women, you destroyed our lives completely, we hate you.” And white south Africa would respond, “Yes, but look at you now in your BMW with your cell phone; everything about you would not be like that if we had not been here. It cannot possibly be as simple as just to say race no longer matters in South Africa.’
Tim Adams travels to Johannesburg to meet the controversial writer Rian Malan | Books | The Observer.
Michael Seitzman: Sarah Palin Naked
Stop voting for people you want to have a beer with. Stop voting for folksy. Stop voting for people who remind you of your neighbor. Stop voting for the ideologically intransigent, the staggeringly ignorant, and the blazingly incompetent.
Vote for someone smarter than you. Vote for someone who inspires you. Vote for someone who has not only traveled the world but who has also shown a deep understanding and compassion for it. The stakes are real and they’re terrifyingly high. This election matters. It matters. It really matters. Let me say that one more time. This. Really. Matters.
