'Orright then, you two, stop nattering like a couple of old
yentas
and hop in the bleedin' ring,' Solly Goldman had called suddenly.
'Afterwards! You've got to promise to finish the story!' Peekay had said urgently.
Gideon had laughed, placing his hand on Peekay's shoulder., 'I do not think you are a white man, Peekay, just a white Zulu.' Then he had looked serious for a moment. 'That's why you are the Tadpole Angel.'
Peekay had spun around. 'Stop that, Gideon Mandoma! You call me that again and I'll drop you for the count, you hear?'
'Drop me? Your best punch is like a fly landing on my nose, white man!'
'Cheeky bloody kaffir!' Peekay had said in English. And they had both laughed as they moved towards Solly Goldman standing in the centre of the ring.
In South African society, the boxing ring was the only place Peekay and Gideon could meet on equal terms. Gideon, intellectually bright, with all the character and determination of a Peekay, was working in a foundry and living in a tin shanty; while Peekay sat sipping tea with his Oxford tutor.
'I know that, looking in from the outside, the rule of the law in my country makes a mockery of justice, E.W. But, equally I can't run from trying to find a solution by using the law. Without law there would be chaos in South Africa.'
'Ah, yes, chaos! How often men seem to initiate the greatest injustices and repression in the name of preventing chaos. The prevention of chaos was what brought the German people under Hitler and led to millions of Jews being crushed.'
Peekay knew that to pursue the argument would only lead to further humiliation. E.W. had probed his intellect and found him wanting. But Peekay neither knew how, nor did he want to back down gracefully, defeat meant relinquishing the central intellectual position he held for his future life.
'I'm afraid you're right, though being right doesn't help much. People such as Hymie Levy and myself have to return to South Africa to fight apartheid and, paradoxically, our only weapon is the law. The unjust, unfair and often ruthless instrument of the law is all we have.' Peekay hesitated. 'That is, short of violence, guns and bombs.'
E.W. became really interested in his new student for the first time. 'Ah, violence and guns. They are invoked as often in the name of law as they are in opposition to it. The trigger is a poor debater but the bleeding-heart liberal, filled with dogma and cant, is equally ineffective.'
Peekay wasn't sure what a bleeding-heart liberal was, but E.W.'s use of the expression suggested it was derogatory. 'I don't think I know what you mean.'
'Most revolutions, no matter how quiet, are not served well by the sympathetic intellectual who carps at the injustice of the culture but seems to live quite happily off the resultant lifestyle it affords him. The well-fed and housed white protest, lending its mouth to the black cause,' E.W. explained.
'And you see me as such?' Peekay felt hurt and humiliated. Somehow he had to make the tall man seated beside him see he wasn't the usual colonial apologist.
E.W., aware of his student's indignation sighed. 'The fuel of any revolution is injustice and heaven knows there has been enough in your country to stoke the revolutionary fires. But, as yet, I perceive
your
revolution as merely an intellectual idea. A few indignant members of the intelligentsia exorcising their guilt by plotting, usually without permission, on behalf of the oppressed. While this is both commendable and altruistic, it is not usually a successful ploy. The new leaders soon adopt the ways of their old masters. Witness India and Pakistan.'
E.W. looked at Peekay for a moment. 'You are not the first revolutionary to have sat in that chair. The last young chap who argued passionately about freedom from tyranny and equality of opportunity for his people, is today the tyrannical leader of a desperately oppressed nation on the same continent as your own. He has invited me on several occasions' to be a guest at the presidential palace and seems genuinely surprised at my refusal. What evidence do you have that the black people in your country are ready to rise against the regime? A true revolution begins from the soil, from the grass roots. It is the final cry of despair from the ground up. Have you heard the cry "freedom"?'
E.W. was asking for hard evidence where there was none. Well, none of the sort which would satisfy a mind such as his. Africa was as unpredictable as a bomb lying in a field for years; one day it would explode, who knew when? But there were signs. Perhaps not the sort E.W. needed to become convinced, but signs nevertheless.
When Peekay had been very young his black nanny told him the story of
Igama sina kathathu,
the stork with three dances. The first dance, or starting dance, is slow and measured, done to a careful set of rules. The second dance is still measured, though somewhat faster and more inventive. The final dance is a flurry and a flutter, a wildly erratic affair in which the male stork often kills itself by breaking its own legs.
Peekay thought of the uprising of the black people in the same way. The analogy wasn't all that strange - dancing and singing were very much a part of black protest. The first dance, the dance which Peekay believed had already begun, was the muted struggle between black and white, a struggle being conducted largely through the courts. There would be trials followed by judicial sentences. The litany of justice would always be present, mostly meaningless to the recipient but painstakingly played out in form and function, precise and according to the book, the white man's book of laws.
The second dance was born of the conditions of the first, where more and more black people were driven from their homes. Already Minister Vorster was talking of separate bantustans, independent states which he referred to as 'tribal homelands,' as if they represented some kind of homecoming for black refugees.
The third dance was bloody revolution, the final frenzied cry of pain, the atrocious day of reckoning, the river of blood.
Peekay saw his return to Africa as the beginning of the end of the first dance. It was still a time when the law could be challenged, where the etiquette of justice was intact and treason could still be proved. It was still a time when there was hope that some sanity might prevail.
'Yes, I think I've heard the cry "freedom". But I have to tell you in the African way, E.W. The greatest of the African medicine men told this story to the people. He was an incredibly old man, Inkosi-Inkosikazi, whose name simply means Man-Woman, denoting that he was above gender in even the male-dominated African society. His wisdom was for all the people and altogether pure.'
Peekay resumed Gideon's story, as his Zulu friend had done in the shower room in Solly Goldman's gym. 'Everyone was gathered for the great indaba. The old man began to speak in a thin piping voice which carried surprisingly to all the people present. This is what he told them.
'Once a small army of ants out foraging came across a dung beetle pushing a large ball of dung up a steep hill and making heavy work of the process. It was a time of drought and the ants were hungry. One of the ants walked politely up the to dung beetle and asked him if they could help in return for some more of this delicious dung for themselves. 'The beetle agreed readily and leisurely followed as the ants, singing happily, pushed the great ball of dung to the top of the hill.
"'We have completed the task and the sun is low in the sky, tell us where we can find some dung so that we can return with it to our homes before dark," the ants asked.
'''Hayi, hayi, hayi," the dung beetle shook his head sadly. "The dung is very far away, in a place which you cannot reach before sundown. Here, take this little bit, it will stop your hunger. Tomorrow, be at the same place just before sun-up and I will show you," the beetle promised.
'It wasn't much, but it was enough to feed their families for one night. "What an excellent beetle," the ants agreed.' Peekay paused, embarrassed. 'I'm afraid African stories are a bit long-winded, I'll try to make it short.'
'No, no, please, Peekay. I'm fascinated. Detail is colour and colour is essential to most good argument.'
'Well, the following day the ants were up early, even before sun-up, and together they hurried to meet the dung beetle. They waited and waited and the sun rose and they grew very thirsty. They had almost given up when they saw the beetle approaching, rolling another very large ball of dung before him. "Where have you been?" they cried.
The beetle stopped pushing and looked very angry. "You are lazy. I came to this place early and you were not here. It's a good thing I am patient and am willing to give you a second chance. If you push this ball of dung up the hill again I will forgive you."
So the ants apologised and, forming themselves into work gangs, they pushed the ball up the hill once more. They were rewarded with the same amount of dung as the previous evening, enough only for one night. Once again, the beetle promised to show them the place of the dung if they weren't too lazy to rise and meet him the next day.
Now this beetle was a very clever
skelm
and, try as they might, they always missed him in the morning. They were then obliged to push the ball of dung up the hill in return for just enough to keep their families alive.
Soon the ants forgot how to forage for themselves and the only way they could feed their families was to push the dung ball up the hill and receive a small portion each night. 'Time went by and they no longer questioned the beetle's authority. He owned all the dung and they accepted that they worked for him and that he could beat them if he wished or starve their children or make laws telling them where they could go or even live. The old laws and customs of the ants were destroyed and the ants were forced to live by the laws and the customs of the beetle.
'Now the ants grew very unhappy but the beetle was strong and they were weak; and besides, they now depended entirely on the beetle for their livelihood.' Peekay laughed, looking up at E.W. 'We're close to the end and I promise not to be this long-winded again.'
'Don't give up while you're ahead. I haven't listened this long to a student for years. I am suitably impressed.'
Peekay flushed at the compliment. 'Like all good stories this one has a hero. One day a young male ant was born in the ant tribe. Right from the beginning he was different. "Why can't we forage for dung ourselves? Why must we work only for the dung beetle? It is well known that the ant was here before the beetle. Why does the beetle own all the dung?" he asked.
"'Shhh!" the elders among the ants cautioned, "the beetle will hear you and come and take you away and beat you and throw you into prison." But the young ant was brave and clever and very determined and soon all the young ants gathered around him and they made a plan to get the dung, which they believed belonged to them just as much as it did to the beetle.
'That day when the beetle arrived at the spot where the worker ants would push his dung up the hill they were nowhere to be seen. He shouted and threatened and stamped his feet on the ground but nothing he did or said helped. The ants had disappeared.
'Now the beetle had a problem. If he left the dung at the bottom of the hill the ants might come in the middle of the night and steal it. He started to push the ball of dung up the hill. But he wasn't used to working hard in the hot sun and the ball was very heavy. He would push it up part of the way and then his strength would fail him and the ball would roll down the hill again.
'But the beetle was not a fool and he was also very determined. He rested for a while and gathered his strength and finally, in the cool of the evening, he began to push. All the young ants watched from the top of the hill as he pushed and pushed and this time he managed to get it almost to the brow of the hill.
"'Now!" shouted the fierce young leader and they rushed at the ball of dung and began to push it back down the hill. The beetle was exhausted but he resisted stoutly. The other ants, observing this, rushed to help the young ants. The beetle could hold the ball on the brow of the hill no longer. Inch by inch the ball began to slide backwards but the beetle would not move away. He was stubborn and he was selfish and he could not bring himself to believe that the ants were capable of overcoming him.
'''Share the dung with us equally and we will stop pushing on this side and help you on your side," the young ant cried.
'But the beetle was so used to being the baas and owning all the dung that he didn't want to share. "No!" he shouted defiantly. "Beetles are better than ants, ants are meant to work and dung beetles are expected to own dung!"
'So the ants pushed harder and the ball of dung began to roll backwards. The beetle, unwilling to jump out of the way and to lose his precious ball of dung, hung on. The ball rolled over and over with him clinging on for dear life so that his shell was cracked and he was bruised and bleeding; but still he clung to the ball of dung. When the ball of dung reached the bottom of the hill it was travelling at great speed, heading for a huge rock. The ball crashed against a rock and broke up, burying the beetle deep inside a heap of dung. The beetle was too weak and injured to crawl out of the dung. He suffocated and died, buried in shit!'
'Bravo, Peekay, a lovely allegory,' E.W. was obviously amused. 'But how does it tell us that an uprising is at hand? Is this not simply a folk story? The history of every nation is told with allegorical stories of good triumphing over evil.'