Future Challenges of South Africa
In the last two years, I have spoken at all three Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes in Greater Boston–@Tufts University, @UMass Boston and @Brandeis University (BOLLI). At each talk, participants have asked me: “Given all of the challenges facing South Africa, what is the future of the country?”
In answering that question, I always think back to the memorable conversation I had with Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Traditional Prime Minister of the Zulu Nation, at a private lunch outside Cape Town in 2007.
“As a writer of fiction, I look for evidence of redemption in the stories I write. But having traveled around the country, I see tremendous social and economic challenges and very little hope of redemption.”
The Prince thought for a moment. “I agree,” he said. “Things are bad and likely to become a lot worse before they get better.”
He turns out to have been prescient in his answer, as shown by the latest spate of civil unrest and student protests—focused this time on the flashpoint of rising university tuition fees, which now prevent so many black students from pursuing the education they are ostensibly able to receive. But at the time, I was taken aback by his frankness, and by the darkness of his response.
The Prince is a gentle and thoughtful man with a regal bearing, and he smiled at me as he continued, “I am a Christian, Neville, and I have to believe there is always hope.”
So today when they ask me, what is the future of your native country? I say, “Things may be bad in South Africa now, but there is always room for hope.”