Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 410 pages
- Published by: University of California Press
- Edition: 1st Edition March 16, 1999
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0520217365
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0520217362
-
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
- Weighs: 1.8 pounds
Product Review
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
From Publishers Weekly
In this richly textured book, GoodmanAwho first went to South Africa as an activist in 1984 and returned for a year in 1996Aprofiles four pairs of people who dramatize the country's current conflicts and contradictions. The most gripping section concerns South Africa's deep rifts over land redistribution and amnesty: Frank Chikane, a former activist now in the government, must justify his government's rightward economic drift; his one-time torturer, a white ex-cop who became a killer during South Africa's Namibian war, is now a wreck. The story of Wilhelm Verwoerd, son of apartheid's architect, and his estranged son, a supporter of the African National Congress, dramatizes the schisms among Afrikaners. South Africa's enduring povertyAand potential opportunityAis shown in the juxtaposition of a black councilwoman near Cape Town and a brazen businesswoman who exploits white guilt and doesn't flinch at blaming fellow blacks. And on the platteland, where Afrikaner farmers still beat black workers, the return of land to displaced blacks proceeds slowly. Goodman contextualizes these tales with a savvy understanding of both South Africa's history and its slow, troubled transformation. While his book doesn't encompass all of the country's fault lines of region, ethnicity and class, Goodman eloquently conveys why he has been obsessed by South Africa and its trials. Ultimately, he finds South Africans' passion for their country inspirational, and so will most readers. photographs by Paul Weinberg. First serial to the New Yorker.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Reader ReviewsI originally bought this book because it was published about five years after Apartheid's official demise and promised to be about "the New South Africa." There aren't many stories that come out of that country these days and it is difficult finding real information about the transition to full democracy. Regretfully, this book adds little to the quest for answers about South Africa's future. The author does a good job of interviewing various segments of South African society, but nearly 75% of the book focuses on Apartheid, which has been effectively dead since 1990. This book has the same feel as the many dozens of others that were written prior to Mandela's election. Technically the author is conducting the interviews post-Apartheid, but the reliance is on the old ghosts of the past to excuse tacit failure. Perhaps most frustrating are the slight clues dropped along the way that hint at corruption and crime, two areas most indicative of national direction (especially in Africa), although the author never indulges us with detail. This is unfortunate because a lot of effort was spent to put together a book that gives precious little insight into whether South Africa will wind up as another Zimbabwe, or if the continent's last great hope will manage to retain its economy and pull up its neighbors as many of us were so hopeful of in 1990.
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