Friday, October 25, 2013

What do some people in the white community fear losing?

I think that one reason that Paton's work is so effective
is because it speaks to the enfranchisement that the White community in South Africa has
gained as a result of Apartheid.  This entrenched structure reveals a fundamental fear
in losing power and control with measures designed to reduce Apartheid enacted.  It is
an interesting dynamic for while most of the world and certainly the African population
clamors in the unfairness of segregation practices, the White population resists such
change because it comes at their cost.   Jarvis writes this much in articulating the
condition of modern South Africa with relation to White people and their control over
the African population:


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The truth is that our civilization is not
Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of high
assurance and desperate anxiety, of loving charity and fearful clutching of
possessions.



This "fearful
clutching of possessions" is of vital importance in conveying how the White population
sees their African counterparts.  This "fearful clutching" involves the control over
land, political rule, and the resources that have been denied to the Black members of
the political community in order to sustain White power in South
Africa.

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