In today's NYT is a very interesting article about the future direction of Afrikaners, the Dutch-descended people of South Africa who brought apartheid with them and profited from it for decades. On surface the story is about a song and the feelings it produced. Under that is a more important story about Afrikaners trying to find their place in a new South Africa.
What's interesting is that they're asking this question so soon after the end of apartheid. Nelson Mandela was freed in 1990, so even using that early date as an end of sorts, it's been 17 years. (Apartheid ended in 1994.) By contrast, Germany has been asking questions of itself and trying to make sense of its history for the last 60-odd years.
What does this mean? Does it mean Afrikaners were more willing more quickly to come to terms with their past? Is it an indication of how speeded-up the world is today? It's true that questions in Germany were not raised for quite some time after the end of WWII but even considering that time lag, it's still a long time to come to terms. Is it a different outcome when there are many different ethnicities living in the country? My white wealthy South African friends seemed to think it was all much ado about nothing, in the late 1980s, and that has me wondering whether this quick understanding has to do with a lacking sense of the depth of the damage created, something German people who struggle with the issue have no trouble understanding.
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/world/africa/27safrica.html?hp
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