In your face

For A Change, June-July, 2004 by Helen Duigan

South Africa, as a new democracy with a rainbow of cultures and colours, is still struggling to understand itself, to find a comfortable identity. Besides du Preez's, two other current bestsellers are stirring the debate. In A Change of Tongue, poet Antjie Krog traces the 'humour of change and the pain of belonging as South Africans try to find new footholds in a democratic space'. Redeeming Features by media and social commentator, Denis Beckett, is a personal and often agonizing look at the schizophrenia so many of us suffer from--being deeply critical of the damage caused to black and white by politically correct 'transformation' and 'affirmative action', and then breaking one's heart over the sheer generosity and humanity that South Africans show one another.

Difficult issues confront us. We have to work through them with honesty, courage and hope if the 'South African miracle' is to survive.