Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa

by Ilana Mercer

Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America from post-Apartheid South Africa is a polemical work anchored in history, reality, fact, and the political philosophy of classical liberalism. It is a manifesto against mass society, arguing against raw, ripe, democracy, here (in the US), there (in South Africa), and everywhere. Into the Cannibal's Pot follows Russell Kirk's contention that true freedom can be found only within the framework of a social order. It is a reminder that, however imperfect, civilized societies are fragile. They can, and will, crumble in culturally inhospitable climes. The tyranny of political correctness, so unique to the West plays a role in their near-collapse. Advanced societies don't just die; they either wither from within, or, like South Africa, are finished off by other western societies. Ilana Mercer delivers a compelling book; it is required reading for thinking people who care about the destiny of western civilization.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, Race, Philosophy, Africa, South Africa

346 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2009

About the author

ILANA Mercer is a paleolibertarian writer based in the US. She has been writing a popular weekly column, begun in Canada, since 1999. Ilana is the author of "The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed" (June 2016), the first libertarian book of Trump, and of the seminal "Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa" (2011). Ilana’s weekly column appears in The Unz Review (America’s smartest webzine), Constitution.com, TownHall.com, the British Libertarian Alliance, Quarterly Review (the celebrated British journal founded in 1809 by Walter Scott, Robert Southey and George Canning), where she is contributing editor, and PRAAG (which advocates for Afrikaner self-determination). For years, Ilana’s “Paleolibertarian Column” featured on Russia Today and in Junge Freiheit, a German weekly of excellence. For 15 years—until March, 2016—Ilana penned WND’s “Return to Reason” column. Formerly syndicated by Creators Syndicate, Ilana is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies (an award-winning, independent, non-profit, free-market economic policy think tank).

Reviews

[Kathy England]

Anyone who thinks that everything ended happily ever after for South Africa after apartheid ended needs to read this book. The Western media has done the world a disservice in ignoring the reality of the lawlessness and violence that is occurring there now. South Africa is on its way to becoming a third world nation from a modern, advanced society. This is not to say that apartheid was good, but the transition from apartheid has been handled extremely badly.

[Dan Maguire]

Ilana Mercer has a gift for the written word that cannot be taught. She also has a brilliant mind grounded in fierce intellectual and moral courage. The result of this talent and courage is Into the Cannibal's Pot, a meticulously documented work that also manages to read like a page-turner given the power of the writing.

Perhaps you, like me, were indoctrinated at a young age about the evils of Western man, his rape of more earth-friendly cultures, his inherent racism given the power he yields in the socities he's conquered. You may have sat dumbfounded through it all, wondering how one group of people could be so bad while everyone else could be so good. A simplistic description of modern academia, perhaps, but one that anyone who's sat through an insufferable liberal arts course at most universities would probably recognize. Mercer blows the lie apart, demonstrating the adversity overcome by Afrikaners as they brought prosperity to a part of the world that had never seen it, the beneficial growth enjoyed by Afrikaners and blacks alike as a result of this culture, and finally, the systematic betrayal of this culture and disaster in the aftermath.

This book is no apology for apartheid, but instead a clear lesson in being careful what you wish for. The unthinkable hardship endured by South African whites may not get a lot of airplay in the West, but it is real, and it may be coming to a place near you if contemporary trends of rewarding sociopathic behavior continue.

This book was clearly a labor of love, difficult to read in certain places due to the graphic horror described, but I'm sure just as difficult for Mercer to write. Mercer's is a unique voice, a unique talent, and an honest account that must be told. Buy this book and your eyes will be opened.

[Freedom Hayak]

Ilana Mercer spells out exactly what is happening in South Africa in vivid detail and it's scary. But what is really scary is that she believes it is coming to a country near you, like the US of A. Ilana is South African but she now lives in the US so her perspective is very broad and well informed. She is also a masterful wordsmith and even though she is writing about a deadly serious stoic she manages to inject some humor in the pathos. I think this is an important book from an important voice who speaks for freedom and authentic equal treatment of peoples. Brava Ilana.

[TomBrevisse]

In my opinion, having been a government official, this is the most important political book of our time. It is amazingly insightful and powerful in pointing out the existential threats that now face the West. If Mercer's voice remains one of those lone voices in the wilderness of modern politics, the West is doomed. A Masterpiece. Upper case "M."

[Youngblood Hawke]

Into the Cannibal's Pot reveals what happens when an advanced nation built by European people upon Christian principles is deceived by the Cultural Marxist dream of racial egalitarianism and in the name of justice and liberty surrenders political power to an African majority that had never shown the capacity to create or sustain a free, just, and civilized society. What we have witnessed since the end of Apartheid is African political leaders in South Africa dragging that nation down to the same violent, primitive and tribal existence found in every other failed African government, and for the same reasons.

Ms. Mercer's book tells the story of South Africa in the face of almost universal silence by the Liberal Media in the West. Her candor and lack of political correctness is refreshing and her application of the lessons of South Africa to America is instructive. Her book is a timely warning of what can happen when a nation leaves its core principles for the sake of poltical expedience and phony compassion and equality.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with an open, questioning mind who wants to see what could happen in the USA if...

[Marc]

When you are confronted with a de Tocqueville quote in the preface you just know you are in for a sophomoric diatribe of note. The premise and highly questionable credentials of this attempt at non-fiction left a decidedly sulphuric aftertaste. Historical revisionism, geo-political ignorance and a blatant disregard for the facts abound in what can only be described as a childish and at times dishonest attempt at provocation in order to boost sales of an odious non-event.

Now if the wannabe writer reclassified her clumsy attempt to join the community of the literate, as fantasy fiction, she may achieve a 2 star rating - on par with one of Frank Herbert's lesser known Dune sequels. You know, the ones where no-one really gives a shit what happens to them sand worms.

Potential readers please note that many white South Africans love living in one of the most fascinating, challenging and complex countries in the world. We have actually produced a few decent writers, the pantheon of which this 'author' is not part of in any way. There is a reason why respected publications like The Guardian or the New York Times won't touch her drivel with a barge pole.


A classic example of how far you can get with non-existing writing skills when you are 'connected'. The book's sales and positive reviews are directly proportionate to the number of bigoted, ignorant muppets out there. Avoid like the plague if you value your IQ.

[Helen]

A hard read... Brings home some truths that are hard to swallow. More people need to read this book! Evoked many poignant feelings which leave a bitter taste in your mouth, but brilliantly executed and wonderfully thought provoking.

[Graham Seibert]

A profound message for America, via analyses of South Africa and Israel.

The deepest questions an individual faces in life concern his or her posterity. Where will your children have the best chance of survival, success, and raising their own families? She quotes Russell Kirk, who said eloquently that society is a community of souls, joining the dead, the living, and those yet unborn. It coheres through what Christians call love of neighbor, facilitated by a shared language, literature, habits and heroes. Mercer goes back to these deep questions at every turn in this philosophical analysis of the differences among the societies she knows. Though she has chosen to live in the United States, she is deeply critical of the direction it is taking. She would not claim to have found her "community of souls" anyplace she has lived. I, your reviewer, am a Mayflower descendent who has abandoned the United States to raise a second family in Ukraine to escape the despair and self-loathing which seems to have paralyzed my adult children, and to escape the increasing dangers to life and property which Mercer sees the same way I do.

Mercer is a libertarian. She believes, like the American founding fathers, that people are endowed by their Creator with different levels of ability, and should be allowed by a free society to rise to whatever position their merit would entitle them. This puts sets her in opposition to any scheme in which society's goods are distributed on the basis of race or tribe. This is, of course, exactly what is happening in both the United States and South Africa. Without apology, societal resources are being redistributed in the name of affirmative action to minorities with enough clout to extort them out of the bureaucrats, who are not merely spineless, but complicit in such schemes because they expand their own power.

In South Africa the beneficiaries are of Nelson Mandela's Xhosa tribe. The losers are above all the whites, but also other tribes such as the Zulus. In the United States the beneficiaries are Blacks and Hispanics, the losers are above all white males. However, one notes that reverse discrimination also works against the interests of Jewish and Asian Americans with regard to college admission, and other minorities such as Native Americans, who are not so politically savvy, seem as often as not to be left out because they can be cynically overlooked.

Mercer's version of South African history is a story which I had not read elsewhere and is well worth reading. She takes particular interest in Nelson Mandela, who is enshrined as a saint in the United States, never the subject of a critical word from either Republicans or Democrats. He turns out to have been in his youth just another angry Marxist African. A small degree of sophistication, some incredible luck, and the support of a credulous Western press, and the naïve hopes of Western governments propelled him to the presidency. Defying all common sense, the white government and world advisors led South Africa to an unvarnished winner-take-all, majority rule type of democracy. Better models were available: the federal system from the United States, or various parliamentary systems. Totally predictably, the African National Congress took power and has never relinquished it.

I knew from press accounts that South Africa was a very dangerous country. Mercer emphasizes that this is not by accident, and the victims are not random. The criminals and the police are in cahoots, and white victims find little justice. Particularly oppressed are the farmers, almost 10 percent of whom, more than 3000, have been murdered since 1994 under the new South Africa. Mercer pleads their case at length, and underscores the cynicism by which Western governments refuse to recogize victims of egregious racial hatred when said victims are white.

She takes an almost prurient interest in the most heinous of crimes, such as raping babies under the shamanistic belief that sex with a virgin will cure AIDS, and the sadistic rapes, tortures and murders of white women by gangs of blacks. South Africa's police have stopped maintaining reliable statistics, and stopped releasing any statistics at all in many cases. The United States does a much better job. The FBI crime statistics do categorize perpetrators and victims by race. Even though Hispanics are lumped in with whites, significantly inflating the apparent rate of white crime, blacks commit several times more violent crimes than whites. I had read an analysis of these FBI statistics in a document called "The Color of Crime," available online.

Mercer emphasizes the degree to which hatred and envy drive black on white crime. This should be intuitively obvious. What is interesting is the fact that the governments of both South Africa and the United States stubbornly refuse to recognize that blacks could hate whites. Their dogma is that the hatred goes only one way.

Her most powerful chapter is entitled "Why Do WASP Societies Wither?" What is this death wish that we have? Why do we WASPs flagellate ourselves for supposedly unpardonable sins in our past, such as colonialism and slavery? It is absurd. All of these things are five generations or more in the past; United States was never much of a colonial power. Though my ancestors were in the United States at the time of slavery, they were Northerners. Methodists and Presbyterian abolitionists. Rather than having anything to be ashamed of, I should be proud that they led the battle to do away with slavery. The irony is that the United States was far from the only country to practice slavery, but together with England, and at considerable expense, it was at the forefront of eliminating it. As Mercer points out, South Africa pours scorn on the United States for our history of slavery, absolutely ignoring the much longer, continuing history of slavery in the Muslim world. Instead, they embrace the tyrants of the Muslim world as their comrades in arms against the evil white man. Mercer calls it a combination of envy and opportunism. The Africans envy our material wealth, and they have learned that they can shake us down pretty successfully.

The question of why we WASPs are such pigeons, such dupes to this sort of manipulation is interesting. Why are we committing cultural suicide? We hate ourselves, We feel guilty about our past, we feel guilty about bringing children into our world, we feel guilty about taking any pride in, or even teaching our history. Mercer says that this is a particularly WASP problem. Jews do not have a proclivity to such self-loathing. They have thick skins; they have been picked on and called names for generations. Mercer attributed to our pietism, the teachings of our religion. I'm not sure that she has a full answer to the question, but it is certainly one worthy of investigation. On this topic, one thing I enjoy about Ukraine is that it has no sense of national guilt. In recent centuries it has been the victim of aggression by Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Austria, and Turkey. Among others. It is unapologetic about what happened to Jews here; after all, it was a Soviet Jew who directed the Holodomor in which three million Ukrainians, my wife's ancestors among them, died. Today all Ukraine wants is to be left alone to enjoy its new sovereignty. The people are happy being who they are - a wonderful change from the University of Maryland campus where I was six years ago, where the message I got from all quarters was that as a white male I should be embarrassed even to breathe.

Born in South Africa, Mercer immigrated with her rabbi father to Israel in 1965 when his advocacy for democracy in South Africa made him an outcast. She returned in the 80s to study, marry, and start a family, after which she immigrated to the United States via Canada. She writes with personal authority, and on the strength of having read very widely in many fields and languages. Her "Cannibal's Pot" title - taken from Ayn Rand - is a bit provocative. Don't let it deceive you into thinking she is a doctrinaire anything. She is her own person, and has a tremendous story to tell. I'm glad to share a bit of it here.

[Leib Mitchell]

So the story is told again.

Some government somewhere runs fine for a long while, and then black people take it over and things fall apart. Detroit. East St. Louis. Gary, Indiana. Flint, Michigan. Zimbabwe. And now, someone tells the details of South Africa.

This is a good book, but it will probably be the last of its kind that I read-- and the reason is because this author is already telling us something that everyone knows.

What distinguishes the South African case?

1. The government can massage the crime statistics-- or not release them;
2. The actual rate of crime is about 6 times higher (on a per capita basis) than the United States.
3. There are many ways to make inapt comparisons to try to excuse the fact that South Africa has reverted to the jungle.

Verdict: Worth the time (about a 5 hour read), but extremely depressing.

[Karen Hanson]

Thoughtful insight

For the most part I enjoyed reading this book and even bookmarked several passages for future reference. Why I gave it only 3 stars? I found the author's style of writing annoying. Some authors write for the purpose of how they will be perceived ie will the reader admire me for the way I've written this book. Others write with empathy for the reader ie will the reader be able to enjoy and absorb what I've written. This author seems to write for the former. A small point, I'm sure, but can be somewhat exhausting.

[Ryan Young]

angry south african emigre rails against the current (2010) state of the nation, and warns that the usa may be next! scaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaary!

[Duncan Smith]

Good book by South African Jewish author, Ilana Mercer. Recommended reading for Springsteen, Bono, and other millionaire musicians who sang on the 'Sun City' record in the 1980s.

[Katy Lovejoy]

surprisingly good points

[Lawrence]

"Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America from post-Apartheid South Africa" is a polemical work anchored in history, reality, fact, and the political philosophy of classical liberalism. It is a manifesto against mass society, arguing against raw, ripe, democracy, here, there, and everywhere. 'Into the Cannibal's Pot' follows Russell Kirk's contention that 'true freedom can be found only within the framework of a social order.' It is a reminder that, however imperfect, civilized societies are fragile. They can, and will, crumble in culturally inhospitable climes. The tyranny of political correctness, so unique to the West--plays a role in their near-collapse. Advanced societies don't just die; they either wither from within, or, like South Africa, are finished off by other western societies. Ilana Mercer delivers a compelling book; it is required reading for thinking people who care about the destiny of western civilization."

[Eric Ofinowicz]

A fairly short book outlining the problems with post-apartheid South Africa which goes against the traditional liberal narrative about apartheid, South Africa, and the ANC. It ties this heterodox account into Mercer's argument against democracy (what she calls "majoritarian democracy"), and I think, succeeds at showing how precarious democracies really are on their own without institutions to tame the general will of the majority. She parallels problems in SA to issues in the United States, and her parallels are fairly sound throughout the book.

No, Mercer is not a racist. While her accounts of crime in SA usually focus on white victims, she does not proclaim supremacy for the white race. She is a federalist-capitalist supremacist; throughout the book she hypothesizes that SA would be in a better position if it lacked market controls and punitive taxes and if its political structure were more decentralized. Color her biased for, being an Afrikaner, focusing on the well-being of her Afrikaner siblings than other groups.

Her title comes from a quote from Ayn Rand where Rand disparages Christians "leaping into the cannibal's pot" to spread their faith. This idea is more relevant in the latter part of the book where Mercer disparages what she calls the "Anglo-American-Australian Axis of Evil" for dismantling Rhodesia and South Africa. Despite the utter calamity of decolonization in the rest of Africa (switching from white to black rule, effectively), the Axis was hell bent on dismantling apartheid and the Rhodesian electoral system for being racist and undemocratic. Outside of Iraq, the AAAA has not been as active at regime change as it was in SA and Rhodesia. When one looks at the Anglosphere's historic and current friends list (anti-communist dictatorships and Persian Gulf absolute monarchies) their antipathy is more rooted in a religious anti-racism than a commitment to 'democracy'.

Her chapter titles are quite sophomoric and she makes unnecessary puns in a few instances, but overall ITCP illustrates the horrors of majoritarianism and identity politics. I think this book's importance will grow as demographic change becomes more apparent in Europe and the US.

[Chad]

This book is obviously well-researched and draws upon the author's own experiences of growing up in, and ultimately fleeing, South Africa, among other sources. Its presentation is vibrant and vivid, and makes no apologies for the facts it presents, exposing the otherwise largely ignored filthy corners of what has been going on since the (much-needed) end of South African apartheid.

Where it fails to reach its potential is, I suspect, due to a lack of as much attention from editors as it deserves. Every book needs the polish of an experienced editor, and this one seems to have failed to receive that treatment. This is surely due, in large part, to the difficulties the author -- a political essayist of surpassing talent -- had getting it published. It had effectively been shut out of attention from major publishers, and ended up being published by a firm that seems to have lacked the resources to bring the production of this book to a more satisfactory conclusion. With the right editorial touches, it could have gentled some of its polemical tone from what is eminently appropriate to a brief essay, tightened up its structure, and smoothed out some of the phrasing. In all, as a fairly choosy reader with high standards, I still would have given it five stars if it had felt more finished in its published form.

It is certainly worth the read for the sometimes surprising information it contains.

[Gregory Selgrath]

Very well researched and intelligently written. Although there is a huge amount of information in the book and the author is obviously passionate about the subject and the need for healthy discussion of its topics; it nevertheless begins to drone, unfortunately. It reads more like a text book than any other kind of book, probably because of all the historical reference...
A much needed counter to the liberal arguments that will brook no dissenting opinion under penalty of being labeled a racist or bigot.

[CJay Engel]

Review coming

[Simone]

Had known the author was such a Jew hater, I never would have read this book. Thankfully I didn’t spend my own money on it; it was gifted to me. It is now decomposing in a landfill site somewhere.