Die konserwatisme van Albert Schweitzer – praag.co.za
Die konserwatisme van Albert Schweitzer
Schweitzer het destyds met ‘n naïewe Europese perspektief na Afrika gekom.
Deesdae word ons plaaslik glad te dikwels gekonfronteer met allerhande ikone, kitsvaders en -moeders van die meerderheidsfaksie van die “nasie”; mense waarvan Europeesgesindes bitter min kennis dra en nog minder geneë voel om te vereer. In my jeug was Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) ‘n wêreldbekende humanitêre ikoon. Weens die politieke “bevryding” van Afrika teen die einde van sy lewe, het sy ster egter vinnig verdof. Hy kon nie tred hou met die veranderings in die wêreld en veral dié in Afrika nie.
Uit die oogpunt van kolonialisme was daar drie tydperke, want naas die koloniale era was daar ‘n voor-koloniale tyd en is ons tans in die na-koloniale tyd. Ekonomies en ideologies is die situasie in baie (veral agterlike) lande egter sodanig dat dit steeds ooreenkomste met kolonialisme vertoon. Veral toe die koloniale ryke hulle einde genader het, asook sedertdien, het baie stemme teen kolonialisme opgeklink. Een van die inspirasies hiervoor is die leer van die edele barbaar. Schweitzer was aanvanklik ‘n produk of prooi hiervan. My teks steun veral op die omvattendste en gesaghebbendste beskikbare lewensbeskrywing, James Brabazon (1923-2007) se Albert Schweitzer, a biography (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2nd ed, 2000, 576p; Amazon Kindle $13.67).
Schweitzer se moedertaal was Duits, maar hy het in Gunsbach, in die omgewing van Münster, Colmar en Strasbourg, grootgeword; ‘n gebied wat in 1871 (na die Frans-Pruisiese oorlog) deel van Duitsland en in 1919 (na die Eerste Wêreldoorlog) weer deel van Frankryk geword het. Dit verduidelik waarom Schweitzer geneig was om hom van nasionalisme te distansieer. In hierdie grensgebied het hy Frans uitstekend magtig geword. Hy het in die wysbegeerte (bv Kant), teologie (bv die historisiteit van Jesus), musiek (bv klavier, orrel, Bach, Wagner, Franck, Widor) en medisyne (bv tropiese siektes) studeer.
Hoewel Schweitzer aan die Lutherse Kerk verbonde was, was dit ‘n sendinggenootskap gesetel in Parys wat dit vir hom moontlik gemaak het om in 1913 na Afrika te vertrek. “Schweitzer was going to Africa to work, to serve, to heal, to try to pay back something of what the white races owed the black” (Kindle 3745). In Europa was dit Schweitzer se gewoonte om derde of vierde klas in die trein te ry omdat hy met die gepeupel wou assosieer. Hy het aanvanklik gedink dit is goeie voorbereiding vir wat op hom in Afrika wag.
In Gaboen, wat toe deel van Frans Ekwatoriaal Afrika was, het Schweitzer naby Lambarene (letterlik, “Let us try”, 3857) ‘n hospitaal tot stand gebring en uitgebou, wat hom wêreldbekend en -beroemd gemaak het. In 1912 is hy met ‘n Jodin wat christelik opgevoed is, Helene Bresslau (1879-1957), getroud. Sy was ietwat van ‘n kloosterkoek en het in die familie as Tante Anstand (dus welvoeglik, oftewel “Aunt Prim and Proper”) bekend gestaan (2716). Helene het Schweitzer na Afrika vergesel, maar na die geboorte van hulle enigste kind, Rhena (1919-2009), meesal in Duitsland en Switserland gewoon, onder meer omdat Helene aan tering gely het. Na Schweitzer se dood was Rhena, ‘n patoloog, tot 1970 vyf jaar lank in beheer van die hospitaal. Sy het egter met een van die dokters, David Miller (1917-1997), getrou en die egpaar het hulle daarna in Amerika gevestig.
In 1954 het Schweitzer die Nobel-vredesprys in ontvangs geneem vir sy filosofie van “Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben,” wat gewoonlik as “Reverence for life” (eerder as “Sanctity of life”) vertaal word. In Afrikaans behoort dit nie vertaal te word as “ontsag” of “agting” nie, maar veel eerder as “Eerbied vir lewe.” “Good is what promotes and preserves life. Evil is what destroys and injures life” (4495). Schweitzer het sy filosofie deur voorbeeldstelling uitgeleef pleks van dit bloot te propageer. Hy wou hê dat sy lewenswyse sy filosofie moet regverdig. Sy etiek (of gedragsleer) was die fondament van sy beskawings- of kultuurfilosofie (dus sy lewens- en wêreldbeskouing).
Uit sy etiek volg sy weersin in slawerny en die wreedhede en onreg wat soms teen inboorlinge in die koloniale tyd gepleeg is. Hy het Jesus se leerstellings as ideaal vir die daarstelling van ‘n hemel op aarde aanvaar. Vir Jesus sou Schweitzer in die wildernis gaan, na Afrika, om in sy wingerd te arbei. “Every human being is a person who has a right to our help and our sacrifice” (2788). “I want to be a simple human being, doing something small in the spirit of Jesus … ‘What you have done to the least of these my brethren you have done to me'” (3087). Schweitzer se etiek vind aansluiting by die Oosterse religie Jainisme en in die besonder by Ahimsa.
Schweitzer het destyds met ‘n naïewe Europese perspektief na Afrika gekom. Voor sy vertrek het ‘n Europeër met ondervinding van Afrika hom aangeraai om “tough crockery” te bring omdat die swartes geneig is om sulke ware te breek (3646). Later is geskryf: “They set new standards of blatancy in thieving and breaking things” (5353). By die eerste Afrika-hawe, Dakar in Senegal, waar Schweitzer se skip aangedoen het, het hy tot sy ontsteltenis gesien hoe wreed die swartes diere mishandel. Hy het toe hierdie raad ontvang: “If you can’t bear to see animals ill treated, don’t go to Africa” (3794).
In Gaboen het Schweitzer baie erger ontnugterings ervaar, bv kannibalisme, oftewel mensetery. “The real Africa was a deep shock to him” (3797). Sy etiek het hom genoop om ‘n vegetariër te word (7874). Uit Schweitzer se eerbied vir lewe volg dat lewe nie vernietig moet word nie, maar eerder bewaar en bevorder behoort te word, soos wat hy met sy hospitaal beoog het. Hy was dus sterk teen wreedheid, moord en oorlog, insluitende kernwapens, gekant. Sy eerbied vir lewe het nie net mense en diere ingesluit nie. “For Schweitzer even the cutting of a flower or the lopping of a tree were matters for responsible consideration” (4517). Toe Schweitzer in 1954 in Oslo was om die Nobel-vredesprys te ontvang, is hy met blomruikers oorlaai, maar hy het geen behae daarin gehad nie. “Bouquets of flowers were banished from his room, because he hated to see flowers wither” (7106).
Dit kon kwalik verwag word dat Schweitzer as ‘n hardkoppige beterweter maklik in Afrika sou aanpas. Later het hy uitgeroep: “What a blockhead I was to come to Africa to doctor savages like these!” (5366). Met verloop van tyd het dure ondervinding hom gelouter en het hy tot gevolgtrekkings gekom wat deur studeerkamer-liberaliste as paternalisties, kolonialisties en rassisties bestempel is. Met sy aankoms in Afrika was Schweitzer vas oortuig dat lewe bewaringswaardig is. “Animals had as much right to compassion as human beings” (643). Hy het ook naïef-humanisties “the hidden goodness of human beings” veronderstel (2739). As bevoorregte Europeër wou hy koloniale skuld met goeie dade aan die inboorlinge terugbetaal; dus “indebtedness” as “a self-perpetuating form of kindness” (2737).
Schweitzer het sy lewe gewy “first to doctoring himself [deur oor sy gesindheid te besin] and then to finding medicines for civilization” (1399). Hy het gedink sodanige selfverloëning sou aan hom innerlike geluk besorg. Hy het daarna gestreef om sy selfsugtige eiebelang te bowe te kom. “The actual self had to be overcome in order to release the higher self” (1467). “Self-denial and self-transcendence summed up in one way what his whole life had been about” (1472).
By Lambarene het Schweitzer dadelik agtergekom dat hy bv malaria-muskiete, miere, spinnekoppe, kakkerlakke, muise, rotte en slange moet bestry as hy leefbare omstandighede wou skep. Die Griekse wysgeer Protagoras (490-420 vC) het eeue gelede reeds tot die insig gekom dat die mens die maatstaf vir alles is. Lewe behoort dus net eerbiedig te word in soverre dit in die algemene belang van mense is. “Where life is harmful to other life a choice must be made” (4531). Daar is ‘n prioriteitsorde waarvolgens “human life came before animal life” (4561). Hoe moeilik dit ook al vir ‘n humanis is om te erken, is daar mense wat liewer nie moet lewe nie omdat hulle bv die lewens van ander mense bedreig. Kannibalisme en stamgevegte het Schweitzer tot die besef laat kom: “There was little here of the noble savage” (3896). Die swartes het bv self deelgeneem aan en voordeel getrek uit die slawehandel.
Schweitzer wou ‘n hospitaal bou maar “it proved quite impossible to make them [die inboorlinge] work” (3972). “Schweitzer, knowing he would never be able to contain himself at the sight of such frustrating idleness, took precautions against his own wrath. He selected from the jungle sticks of a wood that snapped on the slightest impact so that when his own breaking point was reached he could lash out with one of these and relieve his feelings without doing any harm. In the end the laborers had to be dismissed, eight porters were borrowed from a nearby timber merchant, and Schweitzer himself took a spade and led the work ‘while the black foreman lay in the shade'” (3975).
‘n Britse joernalis James Cameron het Lambarene in 1953 besoek. Hy beskryf ‘n groep swartes wat veronderstel was om te werk. Hulle “moved with a deliberation I should scarely have thought possible. It was like watching a slow-motion film! Sometimes work slowed down to the point where movement, if it existed, was imperceptible; it was like studying the hour-hand of a watch” (5969).
Na onafhanklikheid in 1960 het Lambarene ‘n staatshospitaal gekry met ‘n blanke dokter, Weissberg, aan die hoof, maar verder net swart personeel. Weissberg “swore that so far as his experience went the difference between white and black was that the blacks had no concept of dedication. The midwife would turn up for duty when it pleased her, not when she was needed; nurses would have no interest in healing patients from a rival tribe” (7194).
“From the first Schweitzer established the principle that those who could do so should offer some token payment for their [medical] treatment. The payment might be an egg, a bunch of bananas, or money. It helped the hospital to survive, but also it served as a reminder that there were benefactors in Europe who by some effort and sacrifice had made the treatment possible” (4034). “Even the patients’ families must be housed and fed, which is not a usual hospital facility” (5682). Van pasiënte en die familielede wat hulle vergesel het, is verwag om in ruil vir kos en huisvesting te werk, bv om water aan te dra vir die groentetuin en vrugtebome (4211, 8097, 8191).
“The only thing Schweitzer did require of anyone who stayed was that they undertook a share of the work” (5852). Schweitzer: “I regard it as a matter of principle that those who find shelter and care in this Hospital maintained by gifts should serve it with the labour of which they are capable, and so acknowledge what they are receiving” (6868).”Friends in Europe are helping to support the hospital and have a right to expect each inmate to help the work in return. This truth does not easily make its way home to the hearts of my savages. They seem to believe in a ‘perfection of bounty’ and that I should feed them, heal them, and leave them all day in the sociable circle telling stories, and even furnish them with tobacco to smoke!” (5404). “As he often did, he spoke of Africa as Lazarus, the beggar at the table of the rich man that was Europe” (5563). [Vergelyk Schweitzer se aandrang op werk in ruil vir aalmoese met die ANC-beleid waarvolgens bv huise, dienste en toelaes sonder teenprestasie toegeken word.]
In Gaboen was die houthandel van deurslaggewende ekonomiese belang. Bome is afgekap en met die rivier langs na die hawe laat dryf. Maar die swartes “would work just as long as they needed money, for a specific purpose, such as buying a wife or a pair of shoes, and no longer, and if a fiesta called, they would let pass the few precious days in the year when the river was high enough to float trunks lying some distance from the river banks and leave timber worth hundreds and thousands of pounds to rot into uselessness before the next year’s floods” (4056).
Die blankes verlang produktiewe arbeid, terwyl die swartes geensins daarmee gepla is nie en dus deur Westerlinge as onbetroubare arbeiders beskou word. “Once he had what he wanted, why go on working?” (4065). Schweitzer: “We all get exhausted in the terrible contest between the European worker who bears the responsibility and is always in a hurry, and the child of nature who does not know what responsibility is and is never in a hurry” (4156). Hieruit volg nog ‘n probleem: “The black man’s innate love of spending*; they often find themselves in financial difficulties and even in want” (4093). [*Vergelyk dit met die ANC-regering se oorywerige skrapping van die name van diegene met slegte skuld sodat hulle weer maklik skuld kan maak.]
Op sy beurt is geldtekort die teelaarde vir diefstal. Schweitzer “found he had to lock everthing up, to become a ‘walking bunch of keys'” (4180). Die opdrag was “never to leave anything unlocked” (7001). “He was forced to grow vegetables, plant fruit trees, and keep livestock because otherwise his patients and their families starved” (5820). “To stop the Africans from stealing fruit [uit die boord] was impossible” (5435). “Patients, on their way to steal fruit or to steal the animals themselves [bv hoenders, varke, bokke], made short work of wire netting enclosures. Besides, the patients’ own animals [bv honde], which came with the families, were quite uncontrollable … the creatures [were] roaming more or less unchecked through the hospital” (5808). Van sy hospitaal het Schweitzer gesê: “It is maintained in African squalor because it is indeed part of Africa; in any case were it otherwise no African would come” (6920). Gereedskap moes opgepas word. “If the tools were not counted, many men would put the best axes and saws aside for their own use or leave them in the forest to save the trouble of carrying them home” (8204).
‘n Ander vorm wat gewetenlose diefstal aangeneem het, was dat rekord gehou moes word van wie kos ontvang het. “Otherwise the same person might fetch a ration four times over” (8109; ook 8147). “A thorough savage will think nothing of gobbling up the share of a lying-down patient who has been committed to his care” (8115). “We hesitate to ask anybody to be a patient’s attendant unless he belongs to the same tribe, for we know in advance that he will regard the request as outrageous” (8118). “We still take the trouble to try and teach savages that the patients assigned to their care are their neighbours” (8125). Die gewilde hedendaagse voorstelling dat alle swartes broers en susters is, word dus nie noodwendig in die praktyk aangetref nie. “We keep such strict watch over the inmates and are so careful that each carries a card-label*, because without these precautions our wards would become lodging houses and places of refuge for all the riff-raff of the neighbourhood” (8194). Verder: “He found that nothing could safely be left to Africans to do by themselves; all had to be supervised and checked” (4183). [*Dit herinner aan die passtelsel waarteen swartes plaaslik so heftig beswaar gemaak het.]
Die swartes was sterk stamgebonde. Daar was geen sprake van ubuntu oor stamgrense heen nie. “For anyone with whom they had neither personal nor tribal connections they would not lift a finger. Humanity at large was no concern of theirs, and the notion of universal love was so novel to them as to be more or less meaningless” (4050). In die Weste, daarenteen, het die sug na universele liefde kolossale afmetings aangeneem. Die spreekwoordelike natuurkinders openbaar tradisioneel dikwels geen eerbied vir lewe nie; selfs die natuur self doen dit nie. Schweitzer:”Nature knows nothing of reverence for life. She creates life in a thousand ways with a prodigious ingenuity, and destroys it in a thousand ways with an equally prodigious absurdity” (4957).
Die gemis aan ubuntu by swartes is met die volgende voorbeeld deur Schweitzer toegelig. “The praiseworthy habit of dumping sick people at my hospital and then making themselves scarce has not been lost by the Ogowe people … A woman from a village not far from Lambarene has been deposited here. She has no one at all belonging to her, so no one in the village troubles about her. A neighbour’s wife, so I am told, asked another woman to lend her an axe that she might get a little firewood for the old woman to keep her warm during the damp nights. ‘What?’ was the answer. ‘An axe for that old woman? Take her to the doctor, and leave here there till she dies.’ And that was what happened” (5334). Schweitzer vertel van ‘n opperhoof wat suksesvol in sy hospitaal behandel is en belowe het om met ‘n skenking vorendag te kom, maar dit het nooit opgedaag nie (8141).
“One sleeping sickness patient had fits of mental disturbance that made him violent, and a crude wooden cage had to be built for him. The enclosure was impossibly primitive but better than the treatment his own people often gave to the mentally sick – to tie them up and pitch them in the river” (5337). Melaatses wat genees is, is soms noodgedwonge toegelaat om by die hospitaal aan te bly, want “their villages often refused to have them back” (6819).
Schweitzer is van paternalisme beskuldig en dat hy blankes as meerderwaardig beskou. Schweitzer: “The negro is a child, and with children nothing can be done without the use of authority … I have coined the formula: ‘I am your brother, it is true, but your elder brother'” (4123). Hy vertel van “a missionary who some years before had left the mission staff ‘to live among the negroes as their brother absolutely. From that day … his life became a misery. With his abandonment of social interval between white and black he lost all his influence'” (4125). “Social freedom must not be allowed to go too far, for it opens the floodgates to total equality, which is unthinkable” (4133). [In Suid-Afrika het daardie ondenkbare vloed ons in 1990/1994 getref.] “The only way to maintain such authority was by preserving a distance between himself and the tribesmen, for the Africans were simply not accustomed to thinking on the lines necessary for self-discipline and voluntary cooperation. Authority had to be imposed” (4136).
Schweitzer: “A white man can only have real authority if the native respects him. No one must imagine that the child of nature looks up to us merely because we know more, or can do more than he can. This superiority is so obvious to him that it ceases to be taken into account” (4142). Schweitzer noem dan dat wittes “railways and steamers” besit, “can fly in the air, or travel under water.” Hy beskou dit as “proofs of mental and spiritual superiority” (4144).
Wat onderrig betref het Schweitzer gekonsentreer op “teaching the Africans the elements of agriculture, handicrafts, and mutual help” (5825). Wat opvoeding tref was sy fokus op “honesty and reliability” (5825). “For years he had been trying to teach them the basic principles of agriculture and carpentry so that they could feel and house themselves properly and cease to be the slaves of the seasons. He had hammered them about theft, foresight, honesty, and application, believing these to be the first essentials for the creation of any kind of stable community free from fear. His efforts rolled off them like water off a duck’s back” (6273). “He was trying to teach them … how not to get ill in the first place; how to grow food; how to plan for the future; how to avoid infection; how to defeat suicidal superstitions and hatreds – in short, how to live” (6610). Schweitzer het van tolke gebruik gemaak en Frans met die swartes gepraat, want hy het nooit ‘n Afrika-taal aangeleer nie (5999).
Soos in die goeie ou dae in seker alle lande die gebruik was, is blanke pasiënte apart gehuisves (5456, 8092, 8103, 8216). Gedurende die Tweede Wêreldoorlog was Schweitzer teen sowel fascisme as kommunisme gekant. Van die mans in die omgewing is vir militêre diens opgeroep. Hulle vroue kon nie alleen in die oerwoud agterbly nie. Die hospitaal het hulle toevlugsoord geword (6204). Gaboen was ‘n tyd lank onder Duitse beheer. Omdat daar nie kraanwater was nie, was die blanke pasiënte en personeel op puttoilette aangewese. Hierdie huttoilette “were set on the outskirts of the clearing and were known as Hinter Indien – ‘Beyond India’, a traditional German phrase for the end of the world” (5891). “The Africans simply used the bush as they did in their villages” (5888). Teen die einde van Schweitzer se lewe is kraanwater aangelê. Vroeër, toe hy in 1954 in Oslo was om die Nobel-vredesprys te ontvang, was daar kraanwater in sy hotelkamer. Toe het hy gevra: “What do I need running water for? Am I a trout?” (7106).
Schweitzer “never had a black doctor there. Why? Because Schweitzer depended on volunteers, and no black doctor ever volunteerd. The few who qualified in the Gabon stayed … in Libreville [die hoofstad] or headed for Paris. They felt no debt toward the ravaged tribes in the interior. Let the whites see to that” (5828). Die verpleegsters was ook almal blank, afkomstig veral uit Europa en later ook Amerika (7590). “No African took a meal in the staff dining room.” Dit was “a matter of discipline … his authority would be diminished to the detriment of the patients if he allowed the Africans to feel that he and they were socially identical. Some separation was necessary for the efficiency of the hospital” (6988). Schweitzer het ‘n afstand tussen hom en die swartes gehandhaaf. “He never joined in their celebrations or tried in any way to share their lives” (6005).
“Early in 1944 [Charles] de Gaulle [1890-1970] attended a conference at Félix Eboué’s headquarters at Brazzaville and took the first step toward granting full French citizenship, with voting rights, to the black populations of the French colonies … to the fury of most of the white colonists” (6267). Ter verdediging van De Gaulle, wat soortgelyke dwaasheid later in Algerië gepleeg het, kan aangevoer word dat hy dieselfde studeerkamer-liberalisme aangehang het as dié van Schweitzer toe Schweitzer nog nie eerstehandse ondervinding van Afrika gehad het nie. [Vir FW de Klerk en sy meelopers kan sodanige verskoning nie geld nie.] Albert Einstein (1879-1955) het aan Schweitzer geskryf: “Against the blindness of human beings there unfortunately does not yet exist any remedy” (6447).
“Schweitzer viewed the whole thing [politieke onafhanklikheid vir Afrika-lande] with the darkest suspicion. He … was not impressed, nor did he think it particularly sane to give the vote to people who could not read or write and who knew nothing of the issues they were voting about” (6270). Hy was teen ‘n demokratiese politieke bestel vir Gaboen. “Schweitzer was totally undemocratic” (6966). Schweitzer: “Democracy is meaningless to children!” (6918). “An authoritarian system was the only one that would work in Africa” (6281). “They have citizens’ rights now, but no citizens’ responsibilities. They destroy most things they touch. You ask whether the indigène [inboorling] can ever develop to responsibility without us, and the answer is No, they cannot. Others disagree … Do they ask who plants the trees that the African can eat, who bores the wells that he can drink?” (6915).
In 1960 het Gaboen onafhanklik geword. Toe het die swartes geredeneer: “‘Now we are all Frenchmen, we don’t have to work anymore.’ To Schweitzer one said, ‘You can stay. The rest, we’ll slit their throats'” (6342). Schweitzer het geskryf: “Among the new generation of natives there are none of the good workmen we used to find among the old ones” (6436). “Now Schweitzer was answerable to a new government; what was more, to a black government, which inevitably had a strong antiwhite element and a vested interest in rejecting the works of all Europeans” (6347).
“What, finally, was his real relationship with the Africans in his hospital? He had gone to Africa full of idealism. He had found himself in a region of greater poverty, disease, and backwardness than he had ever envisaged. He had suffered from the ingratitude and unreliability of those he came to help … he, too, had often been driven to despair. Now he had reached a kind of tolerant hopelessness toward them. Writing of them he used phrases that could be taken as very patronizing, ‘Mes sauvages,’ ‘Mes primitifs.’ Day after day the struggle was renewed to persuade them to take their treatment at the right time, in the right dosage; to discourage them from taking off their dressings to show their friends where the pain came out; to dissaude them from cooling their open sores in the infected river; to find help for the building work and the garden, and to keep them from drifting quietly away behind the bushes and disappearing. And day after day, at least some of the Africans defeated him. They failed to turn up for their medicine, they went for a swim, they consulted the witch doctor, they cut down a fruit tree for firewood; a lady being treated for gonorrhea spent a night entertaining a canoe full of gentlemen callers, themselves infected; and so on and so forth. In the end he was constantly shouting at them, he was calling them monkeys, and very occasionally, he was hitting them” (5956).
Gedurende die Tweede Wêreldoorlog het ‘n Afrika-hoofweg van Kaapstad tot Algerië via Lambarene in gebruik gekom. “The seeds for the garden now came from Capetown” (6265). Daar is drie ander verwysings na Suid-Afrika in die boek. Een is na die Brit Michael Scott (1907-1983), ‘n Anglikaanse priester wat van 1943 af in Suid-Afrika gewerk, onrus teen die plaaslike rassebeleid gestook en met swartes geïdentifiseer het op ‘n wyse wat Schweitzer nie moontlik gevind het nie (6019). Daar word ook verwys na die besoeke van die Suid-Afrikaanse snykundige en beeldhouer, Jack Penn (1909-1996), wat die borsbeeld van Schweitzer gemaak het wat in Strasbourgh is (7016). Penn het aanvanklik skepties teenoor Schweitzer se hospitaal gereageer maar later groter begrip en waardering daarvoor gehad (7760).
Meer ter saaklik is die verwysing na ‘n vorige eerste minister van Suid-Afrika (1948-1954), DF Malan (1874-1959), die “vader van apartheid.” James Cameron skryf: “It was the Doctor [Schweitzer] who proposed to me his opinion that the most salutary influence on the African race question had been the late Dr Malan; that he had never in forty years taken an African to table, and that indeed in no circumstances could he contemplate even the possibility of an indigène being seated in his presence” (6945).
Die volgende woorde van Schweitzer het die potensiaal om op ‘n Afrikaner-herlewing van toepassing te wees. “Everything that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers history” (6096).
Skrywer Leon LemmerGepubliseer op 6 Julie 2014 6 Julie 2014 Kategorieë Leon Lemmer, RubriekeSleutelwoord Albert Schweitzer, Duitsland, Frankryk, Gaboen, Helene Bresslau, kannibalisme, swartes, Switserland
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