A Rainbow in the Night

Title: A Rainbow in the Night

Author: Dominique Lapierre

Publisher: Full Circle, 2010 (First)

ISBN: 9788176212014

Pages: 288

There was a time when I chanced upon the Indian passport of one of my uncles lying on the table. I was a student then and I opened the little black book with curiosity. There was an epistle from the President of India appealing to persons anywhere in the world to extend wholehearted help and cooperation to my uncle whose photo was pasted on the facing side. On the next page however, a curiosity awaited me. A seal in indelible blue ink proclaimed that the passport is valid for travel to any country except the Republic of South Africa. I was intrigued. Why a country is singled out like this? What would happen if my uncle happens to land at the border post of South Africa while on his journey and which is to be traversed to reach his designation? Then began my enquiry on why this country on the southern tip of Africa is discriminated against by the international community. I heard the term ‘apartheid’ for the first time. Dominique Lapierre, who needs no introduction, has told the story of how South Africa was born and the inhuman racial segregation made deep scars on its social life. South Africa’s history in invariably linked to that of Nelson Mandela, the first democratically elected president of the country, but had to spend 27 years of his life in a white prison. In an inimitable style Lapierre begins his story in 1652 when a group of Dutchmen landed at the Cape of Good Hope with an assignment from the Dutch East India Company – to plant lettuce and other vegetables in the Cape and to sell it to sailors who rounded it on their journey to India and the Spice Islands in an effort to rid them of the curse of scurvy, the disease caused by deficiency of fruits on a sailor’s diet. The book ends with Mandela assuming power after its first multi-racial elections. The book is a page turner like the author’s all the other titles.

Part One of the book covers the period of three centuries between the Dutch men Jan Van Riebeeck setting foot on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 and the ascendancy of the National Party to power in 1948. The whites were few in number as compared to blacks who were the original inhabitants of the country but divided into prominent tribes like the Zulu, Xhoa, and Khoikhoi. The Dutch men were adherents of Calvinism and had escaped from their motherland to evade Catholic persecution. They established the Dutch Reformed Church in their new piece of land. Deeply religious and regular church goers, the Boers, as they were called, were diehard racists who believed in the supremacy of the white race over all others. Taking theological justification for the practice of slavery from the Bible, the Boers strictly separated the races with the blacks and the coloured people treated as sub-humans. Much to the chagrin of them, the British landed in the country in 1795 to outsmart the post-revolutionary French forces. Then started a century long game of hide and seek between the old and new settlers. The Boers called themselves Afrikaners and heroically established rich provinces like Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The land was rich in coal, diamond and gold – a deadly combination. The British slowly annexed territories that were developed by Afrikaners. The frequent migrations generated a spirit of fellowship. A new language, Afrikaans was developed and jealously guarded as the medium of cultural identity of the original settlers. The Boer war (1899-1902) saw much bloodshed, but the British wiped off Boer resistance and assumed overloadship for the whole of South Africa. The Whites then organized political movements that drew inspiration from Hitler’s Germany. Finally they won power in 1948 by a narrow margin. Only 20% of the country’s inhabitants were whites, the only people who could vote. The National Party won a little over half of these white votes. Thus, with a vote share of slightly above 10%, the party changed the laws and constitution by making South Africa subscribe to apartheid. A similar electoral outcome was that of the Soviet Union, where the communist’s vote share was less than 20% but could hijack the country to a miserable destiny till they were kicked out in the 1990s.

Lapierre explains the period between the promulgation of apartheid in 1948 to the beginning of 1980s when chinks were observed in the regime’s armor in the next two parts. African National Congress (ANC) and its leader Nelson Mandela parted ways with peaceful protest and slowly degenerated into violent ways. This immensely helped the authoritarian govt which had the southern hemisphere’s most efficient police force at its disposal. Mandela and his associates were taken into custody at Rivonia for their alleged plot against the government. In a bout of good luck, they were not sent to gallows, but were awarded imprisonment for life in 1964. Mandela spent the next 27 years of his life in the maximum security prison at Robben Island off the Cape of Good Hope in a somewhat similar predicament as the protagonist in the classic fiction, “Count of Monte Cristo”. Meanwhile South Africa’s dignity and prestige had been lost in international fora. The state had become a pariah, with many countries severing diplomatic problems with it. Its business reeled under crippling sanctions and boycotts. The Afrikaner movement relented little by little until it was no longer possible to keep Mandela in prison. He was released in 1991. But the leader’s release from prison also saw the parting of ways with his wife Winnie after she was accused of murder and infidelity.

The book includes narratives of two prominent whites who defied apartheid to practice what they deemed right in their hearts. Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the world’s first heart transplant. This illustrates the state of advance South Africa’s medical system had reached in spite of racial segregation. Helen Libermann was a speech therapist who transformed herself into a social worker with the mission to emancipate black neighborhoods from the chronic problems like illiteracy, health, hygiene and empowerment of women. These are noble examples of white people rising above the level of intolerance and hatred towards the Blacks, Coloured and Indians. Lapierre presents these cases in a bid to balance the story to its proper point. Otherwise the readers would have reached the outrageous conclusion that all whites in South Africa were united in their brutal suppression of the natives, who are the original inhabitants of the country. But this detour takes some interest out of the main narrative.

One of the many interesting finds is the credibility of the claim put forward by Afrikaners on the country of South Africa. The Boers made the country as it stands today by the sheer dint of their hard work. Even though corrupted with religious ideas that pampered them as God’s chosen people, a lot of blood was spilt by the whites as well in erecting the foundation of a modern state. They made a paradise of the semi arid wilderness. Having accumulated the combined effort of ten generations on the land, and seeing it all go to others is a miserable experience. But the draconian laws they put in place that effectually treated blacks like animals prevent humanists from extending sympathy to the Afrikaners. Another point to note is the failure of ANC to develop peaceful methods of protest, which they learned from the work of Mahatma Gandhi in the country during early in his career. They very soon lost confidence in those practices and turned violent.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star