Fault Lines: Journeys into the New South Africa (Volume 56)

Perspectives on Southern Africa

by David Goodman, Paul Weinberg (Photographer)

South Africa has experienced one of the world's most dramatic political transformations. David Goodman, a journalist and activist who has witnessed South Africa's struggles since the darkest days of apartheid, chronicles the historic transition from apartheid to democracy. This compelling story is told through the lives of four pairs of South Africans who have experienced apartheid from opposite sides of the racial and political divide. Taken together, these profiles provide the first in-depth look at the social dynamics of post-apartheid South Africa.

Part social history and part personal drama, Fault Lines is an account of what happens to real people when their country is reinvented around them. The struggle to reconcile past evils is captured in the stories of a former police assassin and his intended victim. The rise and fall of South African racism is portrayed through the lives of the late Prime Minister H.F. Verwoerd—the notorious "architect of apartheid"—and his grandson, now a member of the ruling African National Congress. The battle to break out of poverty is detailed in the story of two black one an impoverished domestic worker and new city councilor, the other a Mercedes-driving member of South Africa's new black elite. The struggle for the land is told through the eyes of two a black farmer who was evicted from his lands in the 1980s and has returned to start over, and a conservative white farmer who participated in the eviction and now does business with the man whose life he nearly destroyed. These powerful stories are accompanied by the photography of award-winning South African documentary photographer Paul Weinberg.

Genres: South Africa, Nonfiction, History

410 pages, Hardcover

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.