A taste of bitter almonds : perdition and promise in South Africa / Michael Schmidt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schmidt, Michael (Anarchist-communist journalist)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

South Africa--History.

South Africa.

History.

South Africa--Civilization.

Civilization.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

x, 278 pages ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

Cape Town, South Africa : Best Red, 2015.

Summary:

1994 symbolised the triumphal defeat of almost three-and-a-half centuries of racial separation since the Dutch East India Company planted a bitter almond hedge to keep indigenous people out of 'their' Cape outpost in 1659. But for the majority of people in the world's most unequal society, the taste of bitter almonds linger as their exclusion from a dignified life remain the rule. In the year of South Africa's troubled coming-of-age, veteran investigative journalist Michael Schmidt brings to bear 21 years of his scribbled field notes to weave a tapestry of the view from below: here in the demi-monde of our transition from autocracy to democracy, in the half-light glow of the rusted rainbow, you will meet neo-Nazis and the newly dispossessed, Boers and Bushmen, black illegal coat miners and a bank robber, witches and wastrels, love children and land claimants. With their feet in the mud, the Born Free youth have their eyes on the stars. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The bitter almond hedge 2

2 Traversing the periphery 22

Part 1 Insufficient Inferno: Perpetual Apartheid?

3 Death and the mielieboer 30

4 Of tribes and turf 57

5 No-man's-land 75

6 Of fear and faith 86

Part 2 The Gardener's Diamond: Poverty and Race

7 Cold stone jug 100

8 Hewers of wood and drawers of water 110

Part 3 Burying the Umbilical Cord: Land and Identity

9 On the red dunes 142

10 A dead apricot tree 159

11 The kite-maker's dream 178

Part 4 The Bull-Roarer's Drone

12 A children's mar tyrology 188

13 Gender benders 199

Part 5 The Rainbow in Blood and Myth

14 Collective bargaining by riot 210

15 Red in tooth and claw? 229

16 The cult of the sacred zombie 234.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 270-272) and index.

ISBN:

9781928246060

1928246060

OCLC:

948805492

Publisher Number:

99969088417