Fault Lines: Journeys into the New South Africa (Updated with a New Afterword) by Goodman, David(March 15, 2002) Paperback

Perspectives on Southern Africa

by David Goodman

In April 1994, South Africa held its first ever democratic elections, ushering Nelson Mandela into office as the nation's first black president. What has followed that election, as the country attempts to reinvent a society founded on racism and the indignities of apartheid, is the subject of Fault Lines. "How does a nation deal with the memory of its brutal past?" is perhaps the question that most guides David Goodman, a journalist and longtime observer of South African life. Like the Truth and Reconciliation hearings, the political instrument of South Africa's struggle to come to terms with apartheid-era crimes, the strength of Fault Lines rests on an unflinching yet compassionate quest for truth. Goodman brings all his investigative skills to the task of getting an answer from all sides. He juxtaposes profiles of a victim of police brutality and the former security officer who helped torture him, or a well-off Afrikaner farmer and his neighbor, a black South African forcibly removed from his land. While formal apartheid has ended, Goodman finds "an unfinished revolution," with many citizens still mired in terrible economic and social injustice. Fault Lines is fascinating, if disturbing, reading for anyone interested in understanding the history and present of what the author calls "the most exciting country in the world." --Maria Dolan

Genres: South Africa, Nonfiction, History

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

David Goodman is an award-winning investigative journalist, author of seven books (including three NY Times bestsellers), and a contributing writer for Mother Jones. His most recent book, co-authored with his sister Amy Goodman (host of Democracy Now!), is Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (Hyperion, paperback 2009), which profiles the movers and movements that have defended democracy in the U.S. and helped bring about the current historic electoral changes. David and Amy Goodman's first book, The Exception to the Rulers, was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the Top 50 Nonfiction Books of 2004, and Booksense chose it as the top nonfiction book of the 2004 election season.

David Goodman's articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Outside, The Nation, and many other publications. He has been featured on numerous radio and television news shows, including Democracy Now!, Fresh Air, CNN, and the PBS Lehrer News Hour. His reporting is included in the American Empire Project book, In the Name of Democracy (Metropolitan, 2005) and No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000 (Africa World Press, 2007).

David lives with his wife, Sue Minter, and their two children in Vermont."

Reviews

[David Kenvyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Goodman has written an essential book for the understanding of the damage that apartheid has done in South Africa.

For instance, he makes the interesting point that the De Klerk government upgraded the already more than satisfactory pensions to be paid to white civil servants, increasing the debt owed by the government to insurance companies approximately tenfold. This effectively meant that the incoming government could not renege on the debt, as an unjust apartheid-caused debt, because of the damage such an action would cause to the economy. The second largest part of the South African budget is now spent on debt-servicing, which means that the millions committed to this cannot be used for social programming.

The book tells the story by comparing the lives of individuals, and it makes some very telling points. The story of the Rev Frank Chikane and of Paul Erasmus, the security policeman, who tortured him, is particularly revealing of the challenges faced by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Then there is the comparison between Tumi Modise, one of the new black entrepreneurs, and Adelaide Buso, one of the new black councillors, and how in their different ways they are helping to change lives. There is the story of the farmers of Ventersdorp and how they benefitted from the forced removal of the black farmers from Mogopa, and how the farmers from Mogopa returned to their land. And there is the story of the two Willem Verwoerds, the father who carries the flame of his father, Hendrik Verwoerd, and the son who joined the ANC.

This is a remarkable book, written as South Africa was transferring to democracy and in the first stages of that democratic government. It is a book filled with both despair and hope. And it is a book that looks forward to the future.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a history person, necessarily, but this is cool to read because it examines several figures on both sides of apartheid in South Africa, telling both their life and the larger context. The author extensively interviewed these people, so it's more than a list of facts, it has personality. Super powerful.