December 6, 2013

J.M. Coetzee on Nelson Mandela

In the Sydney Morning Herald, the South African-born 2003 Nobel laureate in literature J.M. Coetzee writes:
Nelson Mandela has died after a long life – long yet lamentably truncated in that he spent 27 of the best years of his manhood incarcerated at the pleasure of the state. 
Incarcerated, he was hardly powerless. During the final years of that long sentence he in effect exercised a power of veto over the foreign policy of his country, exerting more and more of a strangehold over his jailers. 
With F.W. de Klerk, a man of much smaller moral stature, yet also, in his way, a contributor to the liberation of South Africa, Mandela held a turbulent country together during the dangerous years 1990-94, exercising his great personal charm to persuade whites that they had a place in the new democratic republic while step by step emasculating the separatist white right wing.  
By the time he became president in his own right, he was already an old man. His failure to throw himself more energetically into the urgent business of the day – the creation of a just economic order – was understandable if unfortunate. Like the rest of the leadership of the ANC, he was blindsided by the collapse of socialism world-wide; the party had no philosophical resistance to put up against a new, predatory economic rationalism. 
Mandela's personal and political authority had its basis in his principled defence of armed resistance to apartheid and in the harsh punishment he suffered for that resistance. It was given further backbone by his aristocratic mien, which was not without a gracious common touch, and his old-fashioned education, which held before him Victorian ideals of personal integrity and devotion to public service. 
He managed relations with a wife, whose behaviour became increasingly scandalous, with exemplary forbearance. 
He was, and by the time of his death was universally held to be, a great man; he may well be the last of the great men, as the concept of greatness retires into the historical shadows. 
J.M. Coetzee is an internationally renowned novelist praised for his unsparing recording of the impact of apartheid on South Africa. He won the Nobel prize for literature in 2003 and is now an Australian citizen.

Of course, there is an interesting story behind the concluding biographical phrase: "... is now an Australian citizen." 

Coetzee's 1999 novel Disgrace is about a white college professor in post-apartheid South Africa whose lesbian daughter is gang-raped by blacks. She ultimately agrees to become the polygamous wife of her rapists' clan leader to escape further violence at their hands. (I reviewed the 2009 movie starring John Malkovich as the Coetzee-like main character terrorized by the new ruling race.)

Unsurprisingly, Coetzee's book was not welcomed warmly by the ruling party, which held hearings to probe into the novel's "racism." After Coetzee's profile was raised even higher by winning the 2003 Nobel, he left for Australia where he has maintained a high level of discretion about why he is in exile.

By the way, I read all the time about African refugees being expensively brought to America (here's a new NYT Magazine article about a Sudanese refugee's misadventures trying to become a cop in America) rather than America paying to resettle them at much lower cost in neighboring countries where the climate is more congenial.

But certain African refugees elicit extraordinarily little concern or interest in this country. For example, I've never heard anyone ask why the U.S. failed to become the new home for Coetzee, a Nobel laureate wary of political persecution. You might think that Nobel prize winners looking for a safe country would be near the top of the list. Yet, not only did America fail to attract Coetzee, we didn't try, and we didn't even notice we didn't try.

63 comments:

Bert said...

I've actually had the misfortune of reading Coetzee's novel. It's both hilarious and pathetic. Full of nonstop prostrating and groveling to the blacks, begging and pleading. The ending is also the biggest load of baloney I've ever read.

South Africa is better off without Coetzee.

Dave Pinsen said...

We got Elon Musk, and the director of District 9 presumably lives in Los Angeles now, so there's that.

Incidentally, this post reminds me of a tweet I saw from a British expat in Sydney excoriating Boris Johnson for his recent burst of candor about demographics and IQ.

Anonymous said...

On the one hand i'm hoping that Mandela's death doesn't lead to an increase in the attacks on white saffas but on the other i am in the hope it forces the ex-white countries to offer them refugee status - not that they'll be much better off in the long run seeing as the ex-white countries are being deliberately driven over a cliff but at least in the short-term.

Art Deco said...

By the time he became president in his own right, he was already an old man. His failure to throw himself more energetically into the urgent business of the day – the creation of a just economic order – was understandable if unfortunate. Like the rest of the leadership of the ANC, he was blindsided by the collapse of socialism world-wide; the party had no philosophical resistance to put up against a new, predatory economic rationalism.

Another rebuke from someone who thinks economies are playdough.

FredR said...

We kicked Coetzee out of the country when he was a young man for protesting the Vietnam War. I doubt he would want to come back.

Corn said...

Coetzee may be an educated man, but he's still a leftist of some stripe. I don't think we're missing that much.
Also, I believe it says or used to say on his Wikipedia bio that he spent some time in the US in the late '60s... when a visa extension or permanent residency was denied because of anti-Vietnam War activism on his part.

David said...

Difficult to get non-black former SA'ers to open up even in the most level-headed and rational terms. The guilty don't want to talk, and their former victims are psychologically terrorized? Forget Stockholm Syndrome, call it Soweto Syndrome. Prediction: the responses by white former SA'ers to Steve's post will be curiously less numerous than expected.

bjdubbs said...

Nina Munk's biography of Jeff Sachs is inadvertently a funny portrayal of Somali dysfunction. The Somalis are dirt poor goat herders living off Jeff Sachs' largesse, and yet the refugge village *imports* Bantu workers to do manual labor. As pastoralists, the Somalis apparently don't do manual labor. They can, however, recite their lineage all the way back to Abraham. Otherwise the women do the manual labor. In the US the Somalis mostly drive cabs, which I guess is kind of like herding goats.

d..... said...

What's happening with the white Zimbabweans?

OT: Denisovans discovered in Spain, everyone revises story of evolution. I've gotten to the point where I no longer believe any of the going narratives. Everything will have to be rewritten; all the assumptions revised continually.

Soaring said...

Steve, why the hell would we (the US) take a white nobel prize winning author as an immigrant when we can have a brown, unskilled third worlder with a rap sheet from back home? Sometimes your lack of common, liberal sense is truly astounding.

Anonymous said...

(I reviewed the 2009 movie starring John Malkovich as the Coetzee-like main character terrorized by the new ruling race.)

Speaking of movies....

"How Paul Walker helped create a fast and furious box-office franchise"

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/06/business/paul-walker-fast-furious-franchise/

Anonymous said...

I remember the mother of a high school classmate coming to talk to our history class circa 2002 about life in apartheid South Africa. She had been been a vocal opponent of apartheid and described how wonderful it was that South Africa is a democracy today.

Just the same, she lived in the US.

eah said...

a white college professor in post-apartheid South Africa whose lesbian daughter is gang-raped by blacks

Potboiler alert! I see the standards for the literature Nobel seem to have declined, err changed, since I stopped paying attention to who wins it.

I recently re-read Paton's 'Cry, the Beloved Country', and had a less favorable impression of it this time 'round.

Anonymous said...

It could be that Coetzee simply preferred Australia. It's not as if Australia is an inferior choice as compared to the United States.

Peter

Anonymous said...

"OT: Denisovans discovered in Spain, everyone revises story of evolution. I've gotten to the point where I no longer believe any of the going narratives"

Out of the Tropics was the critical step not Out of Africa imo but it's been obscured by the later Bantu expansion.

If that's the premise then looking at a map the paths of least resistance out of Africa leap out.

Anonymous said...

Umm.. "Sydney"

Anonymous said...

Funny how he chose to LEAVE South Africa. If it is now all that, post-Apartheid, why didn't he stay?

Silver said...

I wonder if there is anything more pathetic than these washed up whiteys blathering on about "justice" while paying no heed whatsoever to the trends that are dispossessing and obliterating their own kind.

Anonymous said...

If Cotezee was Jewish (sorry, I mean Scots-Irish!) and escaping Palestinian persecution, he'd be addressing Obama and Romney at the AIPAC convention and probably would be a FOX News commentator.

FredR said...

How Coetzee views himself:

"Seen from the outside as an historical specimen, I am a late representative of the vast movement of European expansion that took place from the sixteenth century to the mid twentieth century of the Christian era, a movement that more or less achieved its purpose of conquest and settlement in the Americas and Australasia, but failed totally in Asia and almost totally in Africa."

Anonymous said...

There is no shortage of white South Africans scattered all over the West, whose real reasons for emigration were firstly, fear of extreme personal violence, and secondly,fear their assets would be eroded or stolen.

Many of these claim they left "because of apartheid" but this is, with few exceptions, a complete lie; they left because apartheid came to an end.

Apartheid is what kept them physically safe; apartheid is what kept the kleptocracy's hands off their money. Anything else is just sententious hypocrisy.

Anon.

Anonymous said...

The NYT story is about a Sudani.

Unknown said...

For the record, Bert, I thought Coetzee's "Disgrace" was extremely powerful (though surpassed by his "Waiting for the Barbarians," which, for those inclined, can be read as a fascinating science fiction novel set on some distant planet). And as I recall, the "nonstop prostrating and groveling to the blacks, begging and pleading" you claim to have found in "Disgrace" is something the pathetic, off-putting raped daughter indulges in; it's not the point of the view of the unsympathetic character, not the writer. In fact, the blacks in the book are largely depicted as brutal and repulsive. Coetzee is an animal-lover, I believe, and what remains in mind from the book is the description of black interlopers killing helpless dogs.

Mr. Anon said...

"With F.W. de Klerk, a man of much smaller moral stature, yet also, in his way, a contributor to the liberation of South Africa,...."

And yet, I'd wager that de Klerk's wife never ordered anyone to be necklaced.

Mr. Anon said...

The US Government is flying flags at half-staff for four days in honor of Mandela - until sundown on Monday. Four days.

TGGP said...

The refugee in the story is from Sudan, not Somalia.

Anonymous said...

I recently re-read Paton's 'Cry, the Beloved Country', and had a less favorable impression of it this time 'round.

Did you ever read his wife's (widow's) article in the London Sunday Times, "Why I'm fleeing South Africa", Anne Paton, London Sunday Times—DISPATCHES, Sunday, November 29, 1998?

"... I am terrified. ... But I am glad he is not alive now. He would have been so distressed to see what has happened to his beloved country...

Among my friends... I know of nine people who have been murdered... I have been hijacked, mugged and terrorised. ...

... There is now more racial tension in this country than I have ever known. ...nothing can succeed while people live in such fear."

Thomas O. Meehan said...

The list of South African anti-apartied liberals traduced by the mess they helped to make is long. the late Helen Suzman and even Bishop Tutu have been shocked by the racial spoils system they help make inevitable.

I've met more than a few ex-South Africans and all of them were very deferential to all things black.

Cotezee's reticence may be a symptom of White ethno-masochism, or it might mean that he has relatives still living in the vibrant new SA and wants them to stay healthy.

Jay said...

Coetzee taught at the U of Chicago ten weeks at a time for a number of years (I was a student of his), so there is no question that settling in America was an option for him. Perhaps Chicago and Hyde Park reminded him of South Africa... with less pleasant weather.

In my memory, he remains repulsively reptilian and cold, with a demeanor that suggested unprejudiced disgust for his students. He combined this with zero positive assertiveness, offering no observations or thoughts whatsoever. The worst teacher I have ever had. At best, he was deeply damaged in some way, and dishonest about his damage in a way that greater writers, such as Naipaul, are not.


cyclops said...

ex1talMany of these claim they left "because of apartheid" but this is, with few exceptions, a complete lie; they left because apartheid came to an end.

Apartheid is what kept them physically safe; apartheid is what kept the kleptocracy's hands off their money. Anything else is just sententious hypocrisy.'
I decided after reading one of Alan Paton's articles in the press that I was not going to live under a Black Government. I remember the time and place. It was in 1968. I once went to one of Alan Paton's political meetings and was shocked that he attacked the opposition party and not the Government. Well anyway I changed after that when I became a conservative. I have been in New Zealand for 16 years now.

Discard said...

American flags at half mast? For a foreigner? I find the national whimpering over a dead imaginary friend like Paul Walker less repellent than national whimpering over a dead imaginary master like Mandela.

Silver said...

FredR, thank you for that quotation. The statement is superficially neutral and descriptive, but it doesn't take extraordinary hermeneutic ability to unpack its real purport.

Firstly, though, I would correct Coetzee: he isn't a "representative" of white expansion; he is a product of it.

And it is as a product of that expansion that we can thusly interpret his statement to say: "Speaking as a beneficiary of the exploits of my ancestors I demand of all future generations of whites no less than eternal contrition; I for my part will bask in the moral glow of racial rectitude for the remainder of my own time on earth and reap the social benefits thereof."

Steve Sailer said...

"The worst teacher I have ever had."

Yeah, I don't really get Coetzee's reputation as a great writer. I've read two novels by him and they were both competent, but there are a lot of competent novelists. And it's not like he's got a great you-had-to-be-there personality, either.

Both Naipaul and Coetzee are misanthropes, but Naipaul appears to have a lot of personality. He's an amusing character, at least from a distance. It's the same personality as his former protege Paul Theroux, but Sir Vidal has that imperial hauteur to pull the act off.

My vague hunch is that Coetzee's large reputation has something to do with him in some way or shape coming to represent the academicization of fiction and criticism over the last half century. But, you still have to say, Coetzee's also his own man, so he doesn't represent the worst of the trend toward the academy. Or something ...

Anonymous said...

Steve, you must know by now that since 1980 at the very least, the term 'asylum seeker' certainly does *not* equate with the notion of the persected physicist threatened with the gulag for handing out photocopied pamphlets of heterodox political opinions.

No. These days it means that bod down the road - illiterate in his own language - who sells tomatoes from an impromptu street stall.
'Tis strange how language and the definition of words change throughout the years. Did you know that the word 'silly' originally meant 'innocent' as in 'sweet and unblemished'?, actually I think there's a moral to the western world in that last sentence.

Anonymous said...

it may sound silly, but if you grow up in the Southern Hemisphere the idea of a *cold* winter over a *hot* winter is almost insurmountable.

As an example, the Yanks have "A Christmas Story" wher Winter is an almost central plot premise. The Canucks have "The Hockey Sweater", where Winter...premise.

Perhaps it sounds silly, but if you grow up in the South, you, too, have oranges for Christmas with the same reverence of "A Christmas Story" has snow.

Plus, in the AnZac countries, you can watch ruggers.

Anonymous said...

As a white South African I can assure you that white liberals from South Africa think exactly like how the liberals that inhabit Slate or Huffington think.

The difference lies in the fact that utterly illiberal leaders like Zuma makes it harder to argue for the coherent liberal narrative. Looking at US demographic trends, the white population can only go in one direction, it is inevitable that at a certain point in time the white population will also be at 10% of the country. Imagine how all your prominent liberals would sound if the country is run by their favourite groups but act illiberal and standard third world politics is the order of the day ? They would also want to flee and pontificate from elsewhere, the problem is that at that point in time I don't think there would be anywhere left to flee to.

Anonymous said...

You write regularly and eloquently about why the US may be a country which white people seeking a new home would have issues with

I guess that, notwithstanding this , you still find it impossible to think that for all it's imperfections the US is not the first preference bolthole for everyone

Certainly Coetzee could make more money at a top US college which collects big name faculty but after living in Sth Africa maybe he simply prefers an ungated life in a more equitable society

Truth said...

"For example, I've never heard anyone ask why the U.S. failed to become the new home for Coetzee, a Nobel laureate wary of political persecution. You might think that Nobel prize winners looking for a safe country would be near the top of the list. Yet, not only did America fail to attract Coetzee, we didn't try, and we didn't even notice we didn't try."

Hey, the guy's a writer, and as you've said yourself numerous times; "Guys who earn soft majors ain't worth a fuck."

Anonymous said...

The US Government is flying flags at half-staff for four days in honor of Mandela - until sundown on Monday. Four days.

You're mistaken. Those flags are at half-staff for Paul Walker, and that's a good thing!

Art Deco said...

In fairness to South Africa, the homicide rate has declined by about half since 1995.

Art Deco said...

Looking at US demographic trends, the white population can only go in one direction, it is inevitable that at a certain point in time the white population will also be at 10% of the country.

You're not looking at our actual trends. The total fertility rate for caucasians, orientals, and blacks in this country is nearly identical. That for the aboriginal population is lower. That for the (largely mestizo) hispanic population is higher (2.9 v. 2.0 for the mean rate), but it is a reasonable wager that metric will regress toward the mean for earlier cohorts, and, in any case, they currently form about 15% of the population so their capacity to overtake the whole through natural increase is limited.

Demographic change in this country is driven by immigration, which is in turn a function of elite contempt for the common-and-garden (native) working class.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure VS Naipaul's first name is Vidal.
"Vidal" just sounds too Spanish or Italian for an Indian.

Anonymous said...

...dunno what to make of it, but since you mentioned Naipaul and since you seem to love odd connections, it's peculiar to note that Naipaul's wife Nadira is an author of infamous Winnie Mandela's 2010 interview, in which the later -

"attacked her ex-husband, claiming that he had "let blacks down", claiming that he was only "wheeled out to collect money", and that he is "nothing more than a foundation". She further attacked his decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with FW De Klerk. Among other things [...] she referred to Archbishop Tutu, in his capacity as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation commission, as a "cretin"

(from Wikipedia)

Pat Boyle said...

I have been studying up on Mandela. As far as I can see no one denies that he was a communist and a terrorist.

We have been told for sometime that Martin Luther King Jr. was admirable because he wasn't a communist and a terrorist - like so many of the other black leaders of the day.

What gives?

Albertosaurus

Anonymous said...

"Seen from the outside as an historical specimen, I am a late representative of the vast movement of European expansion that took place from the sixteenth century to the mid twentieth century of the Christian era, a movement that more or less achieved its purpose of conquest and settlement in the Americas and Australasia, but failed totally in Asia and almost totally in Africa."

The difference between the Americas and Australasia and Asia and Africa was that the Americas and Australasia were lightly populated with stone-age, often nomadic, populations that made displacement easy; they were not militarily conquered so much as displaced by self-sustaining settler populations that included a normal proportion of european women.

Colonies in Asia and Africa, with a few exceptions such as South Africa, weren't destinations for entire self-sustaining settler populations. Typically they only required small numbers of military or management-types and were often considered hard duty. Numbers of european women were often low. They actually were colonies, not settlements. In addition to established population density, usually in Asia and Africa there were other big obstacles to european settlement, such as endemic disease. Prior to modern medicine this was a big deal, europeans often died like flies in the tropics. Latin America had european settlement, but with significantly fewer european women.

Many of the colonies in Asia and Africa were established almost comically and accidentally by the actions of fairly junior military officers in the course of various wars between european powers.

Anonymous said...

VS Naipaul's first name is Vidia, derived from Sanskrit Vid "to know". The Sanskrit Vid is related to Latin "Videre" "to see". "video" and "vision" are derived from the Latin "Videre'.

DYork said...

Yet, not only did America fail to attract Coetzee, we didn't try, and we didn't even notice we didn't try.

But the US got blond and blue eyed South African actress Charlize Theron who now lives here with her black son.

Unfortunately, White South African heavyweight boxing champion Corrie Sanders didn't get out of South Africa in time. He was murdered last year at a birthday party when a Zimbabwean gang shot him to death.

Anonymous said...

"What gives? " - Doublethink.

FredR said...

"Yeah, I don't really get Coetzee's reputation as a great writer. I've read two novels by him and they were both competent,"

Come on. Coetzee is great. I can't read the stuff he's been putting out lately, but both of the books you've read (Waiting for the Barbarians and Disgrace?) are better than competent.

On the subject of his personality, I've never gotten over the way he doesn't smile at this joke: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZIUBLqDMi8

FredR said...

Read his book "Youth" and tell me he's not a great writer.

FredR said...

The best working literary critic on Coetzee: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n20/james-wood/a-frogs-life
http://www.powells.com/review/2001_05_10.html

Anonymous said...

Steve mentioned Paul Theroux.

It is worth one's time to watch his son
Louis Theroux's BBC documentary

Law and Disorder in Johanessburg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZJ1w9-Umcw

eric jones said...

The New York Times article is about a Sudani Lost Boy, not a Somali. Fix it.

Anonymous said...

As far as I can see no one denies that he was a communist and a terrorist.

When Mandela was leader of the militant wing of the ANC, he organized and gave approval to acts of sabotage and destruction of property but not, as far as I am aware of, the killing of people. He later trained for guerrilla warfare but was imprisoned before carrying any out.

As for communism, he self-identified as a socialist, but not as a Marxist or communist, and expressed admiration for Western democracy. He was never a member of the South African Communist Party, although the ANC worked closely with the Communist Party. IIRC, his autobiography recounts him arguing politics against Marxists like Mbeki while in prison.

Anonymous said...

I didn't know much about Nelson Mandela's background, but his trial is interesting. (He was co-founder of the (quite active) militant arm of what sounds like something that started as a communist front but later became taken over by Mandela's tribe.):

"...ten leaders of the African National Congress were tried for 221 acts of sabotage designed to overthrow the apartheid system. ... police raid ... showed documents of relations to the 10 accused men.

...19 ANC leaders were arrested at Liliesleaf Farm, privately owned by Arthur Goldreich, on 11 July 1963. It had been used as a hideout for the African National Congress. Among others, Nelson Mandela had moved onto the farm...

Goldberg, Bernstein, Hepple, Wolpe, Kantor and Goldreich were white Jews, Kathrada and Nair were Indian, and Sisulu, Mbeki, Motsoaledi and Mhlaba were Xhosa, while Sisulu had a Xhosa mother and a white father.

...Arthur Goldreich and Harold Wolpe escaped ... after bribing a prison guard."


Six of the 12 were Jewish. It's natural to wonder if Jews of a communist bent feel empowered in South Africa today? I suppose they'd say they do.

KFC said...

Come on. Coetzee is great. I can't read the stuff he's been putting out lately, but both of the books you've read (Waiting for the Barbarians and Disgrace?) are better than competent.

I, too, have read these books. Not great. Competent is the right word. Nothing more.

Silver said...

Demographic change in this country is driven by immigration,

And miscegenation. I know some people have an impossibly difficult time even uttering the word, let alone contemplating its demographic consequences, yet if it's demographic change that you're discussing the logic is incontrovertible.

Dave Pinsen said...

Good piece. Paul Walker was sort of this generation's Paul Newman, except for the dying at 40 part. Blond, action movie star, race car driver, philanthropist, first name Paul.

Art Deco said...

And miscegenation. I know some people have an impossibly difficult time even uttering the word, let alone contemplating its demographic consequences,

It does not have any consequences.

The oriental and East Indian populations are distinct but not alienated, nor are they sinks of social pathology.

The mestizo population is already mixed race and miscegenation with other races is going to sort to those components of the mestizo population and those components the other populations who have the greatest affinity for each other.

The situation with regard to the black population is more complicated and opaque. However, mating across that particular color bar remains quite unusual.

Anonymous said...

To: White South African who explained SA White liberals

is it possible to find and marry a "normal", intelligent, conservative South African woman who would marry a European in order to get out of the mess that is SA?

Anonymous said...

It does not have any consequences.

So true, as Mexico clearly proves.

Anonymous said...

"...a movement that more or less achieved its purpose of conquest and settlement in the Americas and Australasia, but failed totally in Asia..."

To which it must be added that all the "great ancient civilizations", such as the Chinese, did not get to be great ancient civilizations by magic:

"...peoples who inhabited southern China... Chinese writers depicted the Yue as barbarians who had tattoos, lived in primitive conditions, and lacked such technology as bows, ...

The Yue were assimilated or displaced as Chinese civilization expanded into southern China in the first half of the first millennium AD."

Silver said...

It does not have any consequences.

It certainly does. It changes a country's demographic profile just as surely as immigration. In the context of white countries, it lowers the proportion that is white and increases the proportion that is non-white. Over the long-term, it will in fact ensure no whites are left, particularly since mainstream culture actively promotes mixing.

Artie tells us that black-white mixing rarely occurs, but the pertinent point with respect to demographic change (which is what we're talking about, Artie) is the very fact that it occurs, not the rate at which it occurs.

Again, the logic is simple and incontrovertible. People like Art Deco are certainly bright enough to the grasp the logic, but hey have almost insurmountable mental block actually contemplating it. Artie, you can approve of miscegenation, you can disapprove of it, or you can be indifferent to it; what you cannot honestly do is deny its demographic effects.