IN EXILE in Zimbabwe, academic, researcher and journalist, Professor Govin Reddy, told me as I touched down from London in Harare in the 1980s: “One day we will have to rewrite South Africa’s history.”
Thirty years later, Thula Simpson, academic researcher, has extraordinarily cobbled not only SA’s chequered history, but has done a commentary to include geo-political challenges such as the Covid-19 era surge of the scourge, and the pandemic period of lockdowns, curfews, protocols to the Free Zuma bandwagon that routed the country’s image. During these difficult days, the associate professor at the University of Pretoria was hard at work, rewriting and researching SA’s history. Remarkably, his new research on our history – which I always describe as poignant, painful and progressive – hence I always refer to land of my birth – romantically as Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton’s riveting novel about colonial-apartheid’s Black versus White racial and social conflicts brought alive in a full-length screenplay, produced by Anant Singh and featured Hollywood’s straight-shooting protagonists – Richard Harris and James Earl Jones – as the central characters of conscience, social justice and good or bad neighbourliness.
“Narrative history at its best. With prodigious detail and eloquent prose (Thula) Simpson places Black South Africans at the centre of the country’s historical evolution and claims his place at the head table of contemporary historians. A masterpiece.’’
– Professor Xolela Mangcu
Most books on history go back deeply into the hideouts of history. History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce, say erudite writers. Before Simpson took on this onerous task of looking into the microscope of SA’s history from a 1902 colony to the incredibly horrific days of the 2021 July insurrection and looting – he travelled into the depths of the political ideology, trenches of the liberation war, jungles of the guerrilla training camps and the governing capacity of the first post-apartheid administration in his inaugural research into Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle.
With this weighty experience of having check-listed the ruling elite’s track record in 27 years, experts say Simpson’s meticulous work has earned him a seat at the head table of contemporary historians in the History of South Africa – 1902 to the President. This compelling compendium that chronicles a capitalistic-driven colonial era to race-propelled apartheid years and to a dysfunctional democracy is shared with new eyes of a born-again, old country. However, Simpson optimistically believes: “With SA currently facing a crisis as severe as any in its history, the book shows that these challenges are neither unprecedented nor insurmountable, and that there are principles to be found in history that may lead us safely into the future.”
This historical time line brings us up to date with 2020 – the apocalyptic year when SA is plunged into the darkness of a deadly disease and the coronavirus plague changed a country, to the surge of the scourge at a death toll edging to 90 000, to the unruly supporters who revolted over Jacob Zuma’s jail term, and the social uprising and looting at 700 deaths, 45 000 damaged businesses and R15 billion theft of goods and damages to properties. This historical journey is the first comprehensive account of the twentieth century. The researchers used the window of opportunity when the post-apartheid government unlocked documents and archives that were stashed away by apartheid bureaucrats. The research team draws on unpublished documentary evidence – letters, diaries, eyewitness accounts and diplomatic reports to unveil the real drama that should have chronicled SA’s journey from British to Afrikaner occupation, inter-racial battles, elections, repression, resistance, strikes, insurrections, massacres, economic meltdowns and social and health crises that have shaped the country into one of Africa’s most sought-after, mineral-rich and spectacular landscapes of rolling beauty and old-world charm, déjà vu and nostalgia, which the world’s economic migrants call ‘home sweet home’. Historical giants are mentioned among those who have shaped and reshaped the old and new SA: from Jan Smuts, Pixley Seme, Lilian Ngoyi, Hendrik Verwoerd, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Robert Sobukwe, John Vorster, PW Botha, FW de Klerk, Thabo Mbeki, Desmond Tutu, Cyril Ramaphosa et al. Dateline events – Rand Revolt, Defiance Campaign, Sharpeville, Soweto Uprising, Marikana Massacre and the recent uprising and
looting spree – are spliced within this fascinating storyline of heroes, hometowns and homage.
During this tumultuous time line, SA did not operate as a vacuum, though the anti-apartheid political, economic and sports boycotts and isolation pushed détente delegations to the negotiating table to create the Rainbow Nation: Role-playing credits are accorded to Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan, Margaret Thatcher and Fidel Castro, as their collective political vision and leadership changed a pariah nation into a newly-endorsed political pedigree. Wars – including the cross-border conflicts, birth of the new nation, transition and transformation to the Zuptagate state capture, corruption culture, new dawn, pandemics from the Spanish
Flu to HIV-AIDS to Covid-19 covers new ground.
Footnote: Over 614 pages, at 50 cents per page, you will benefit from a new perspective of the history of Cry, the Beloved Country.
Nkosi sikelel iAfrika (God Bless Africa). Source: Penguin Random House.
Marlan Padayachee is a seasoned journalist who heads a media communication strategy, publishing and research. Contact Marlan on: marlan.padayachee@gmail.com.
