The Polka Dot Ones

February 29, 2023 – Millarville, Africa

“If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn’t concern the central issues, it wouldn’t be worth publishing.”

– Alan Paton

Alan Paton wrote these words in 1948.  The “central issues” he was referring to were race relations among South Africans. 

1948 was the beginning of the Apartheid era, a time of institutionalized racial segregation. Paton was a champion of liberal reform, and a strong opponent of racial discrimination. Through his books, lectures, and other writing, Paton advocated for the political integration of races in South Africa.

Paton was never imprisoned for his words, as so many others were, but he had other freedoms revoked.  Paton’s writing was censored, and his passport was confiscated, in an attempt to silence him.  The racially integrated Liberal Party he co-founded was abolished by the ruling National Party in 1968, to strangle Paton’s political voice. 

Paton continued to resist apartheid all his life. He died in 1988, before the Nationalist regime came to an end.  Paton never saw Mandela released from prison, and he never experienced the transition to the democratic, representative government he envisioned.

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We visited South Africa seventy-five years after Alan Paton wrote the words above, and I feel compelled to comment on race relations, which continue to be South Africa’s “central issue”.

Tension among races in South Africa remains intense.  It has been thirty years since the abolition of apartheid; if anything, hostility is deeper, and people are more divided than they have ever been. 

The dream of Alan Paton, and all those who fought for freedom, has not yet been fulfilled.

We were sheltered from reality in our touristy bubble.  We stayed in hotels and camps surrounded by walls of security.  We ventured out to Soweto and traveled through the townships, but we were always accompanied by a driver (a.k.a. security guard).  We came in contact with people of all races, but never in a confrontational way.  My vision of South Africa is shaded behind the rose-coloured glasses of tourism, but my opaque observation is this:

Alan Paton’s dream of a unified South Africa remains unfulfilled, but hope remains:

Every person we encountered on this trip was kind and helpful.  Race didn’t matter; whether we encountered white, black, brown, coloured, or polka dot, we felt accepted and safe. 

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