The Bondage Of Fear: A Journey Through The Last White Empire

by Fergal Keane

After nearly 300 years of White hegemony, the subcontinent of Southern Africa is on verge of transformation - the end of the world's last racial oligarchy. As this process unfolds the fault lines created by centuries of White rule are beginning to shift and in doing so, they have released the pent-up fears of Blacks and Whites. This book examines the climate of fear as thousands die in political violence, and locates the origin of apartheid in fear. It explores how fear threatens to poison the future as it has the past. Chapters the Boipatong Massacre; the White middle-class; the last White Parliament; the Afrikaaner bitter-enders; the Black radical left; White working-class life; the Zulus, soldiers, spies and killers; and the ANC. The book concludes with the swearing-in of the new President - Nelson Mandela.

Genres: Africa, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[HadiDee · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book about the final days of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Fergal Keane is such a good writer his descriptions and political analysis are utterly absorbing

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A journalist's account of the run up to the 1994 election in South Africa. The accounts of the violence and the anarchy that prevailed is horrific.

[Beverley Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Working for the BBC Keane recounts the last few years of Apartheid and the rising tides of violence as the political fractions struggle for power. His humanity and sense of history make this a moving witness to the coming of democracy in S.A. From the fly leaf this is a book “haunted by the shadows of the nameless dead, but always alive to the promise of the future”. The book is peppered with beautiful observations like the author’s last line. As he observes Mandela take the hand of de Klerk after the former’s inauguration as president, “This is the end and the beginning, this is the victory of decency and common sense, it is the victory of all South Africans.”
He also warns that if some economic prosperity doesn’t filter down there will be problems.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains the most chilling passage I have ever read in a book. I will dig it out from my boxes some time and quote it. It concerns an experience the writer had one night in Thokoza, one of the most violent townships in South Africa in the last years of Apartheid. It was an image that lived with me for ages afterwards.