Clearing the clouds

Last Days in Cloud
Cuckooland by Graham
Boynton

Random House, 1997, 299
pages $33.50

“Anvone who thinks that the
ANC (African National
Congress) is going to run the
government of South Africa is
living in Cloud Cuckooland.”

— Margaret Thatcher, 1987

SEVEN years later South
Africa’s first democratic elec-
dons took place. ending white
rule in Afica and sweeping
Nelson Mandela and the ANC
into power. The statement
leads off the introduction to
Last Days in Cloud
Cuckooland. Dispatches from

White Africa, a primer on the .

history of whites in Africa
relayed through tales of events
interlaced with the personal
experiences of its author
Graham Boynton. Boynton’s
personal take on the events
adds not only insight but also
color to events that might. have
seemed stale otherwise.
Boynton was raised in
Bulawayo, Rhodesia and emi-
grated to South Africa shortly
before a lengthy bysh war lead-
ing to black majority rule in the
county broke out. By the time
Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in
1980 unrest in South Affica

was already ;

brewing and fae
he moved again. This

time to London and later again
to New York.

Apart from showing Ms.
Thatcher was no soothsayer,
the quote is telling of the
dizzying pace of change that
overtook the county, leaving
many of its citizens, particularly
the Afrikaners, recling.

Afrikaners are arguably
Affica’s only true white tribe.
Originally from Holland, they
have been on the continent for
more than 300 years and unlike
their English co-settlers they
severed tes with their country
of origin. With no place to gu,
they ug in for a fight for w t

they saw as their home.

They lost.

But the demise of white rule
in South Affica aces its roots
to the departure of the Belgians
from the Conge in 1960.
Merely a week later, the coun-
try was ravaged by civil strife
with many whites caught in the

middle.
The temptation to
sell the Afrikaner
people down the river
of public opinion is
not one Boynton
gives into. Time and
tame again, he defends
this white tribe of
African outcasts even in
the face of damning
and often gruesome
events that led most of
the world to convict the tribe as
a racist crew with nary a single
redeeming quality.

A journalist by profession,
Boynton doesn’t give in te
generalizations ruling mag

‘ople’s opinions. Althou
hots “iferee of the Afrikaners
and their policies, the book
offers a glimpse of South Africa
not seen on newscasts report-
ing yet another breakdown in
the country’s race reiations.

A balanced story that need-
ed to be told, Cuckooland is a
tale of change relayed by a man
uniquely qualified for the job.

— Robert Gaister

mn g09

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