Marabou Stork Nightmares

Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh Page A

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Authors: Irvine Welsh
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and general pioneer, and owing to his superior education and his long background of civilisation he was able to provide the necessary leadership, expertise, technical skill and finance among races who were for the most part little removed from barbarism.
    South Africa is the only country in the world where a dominant community has followed a definite policy of maintaining the purity of its race in the midst of overwhelming numbers of non-European inhabitants— in most not still administered as colonies or protectorates either the non-whites have been exterminated or there has been some form of assimilation, resulting in a more or less coloured population. Indeed, far from the extermination of non-whites, the advent of the European in South Africa has meant that whole native communities have been saved from exterminating each other. It is not generally realised that scarcely a century ago Chaka, chief of the Zulus, destroyed 300 tribes and wiped out thousands upon thousands of his fellows.
    Gradually, however, the remnants of the tribes which survived the internecine wars were able to settle down to a peaceful, rural way of life under the protection and with the assistance of the white man. In the traditional homelands, which cover an extent about as large as England and Wales together, nearly one-half of the Bantu live and lead a simple pastoral life as their ancestors did through the centuries before them—happy, picturesque people living the most carefree existence imaginable.
    Thus we find that here on the southern tip of the African continent, amidst overwhelming numbers of non-European inhabitants, a small white population has made its home and is founding a new nation, with a way of life and an outlook of its own. It is due to the initiative of these people, to their knowledge and skill that South Africa has become the most advanced state on the African continent, and, as sure as night follows day, they will evolve a form of co-existence which will allow every race to live its full life and to contribute, in accordance with its own abilities, to the welfare of the country.
    After the museum we went back to Gordon's where he was having a barbecue with some of his friends. There were always braais at Gordon's. Some men were sitting in his lounge, watching the television which showed riot police breaking up a black demonstration. They were cheering on the riot police. One tall, blonde woman who looked like an actress came through and smiled at me. Then she turned to a fat guy with a beard and said, — I see that the Kaffirs are taking a dem good beating.
    — They shid ten the ficking gihns en those apes, he snarled, slugging from a bottle of beer and belching. There was such a stupid malevolence on his face that I instinctively felt that, despite what the school, the Government and my family were telling me, that something wasn't quite right. I stopped to listen as the news bulletin changed to the Rhodesian situation.
    — Botha's fucking sold out our people in Rhodesia, Gordon fumed.
    — Yes, but it's tactical, Gordon, one man smiled, — it's buying us favours in the world community. God knows, we may soon need it.
    — You're talking like a flaming red, Johan, the fat guy with the beard snapped, — we should be standing by our own. They let twelve thousand ficking terrist skim walk into kemps with their weapons for this bastard ceasefire. I say it's a gelden opportunity to shoot the ficking lit of them. Just turn the ficking guns on those Zanu so-called Patriotic Front red terrist animals and blow them to pieces just like they do to decent bloody farmers.
    Gordon sat with tears welling up in his eyes as he watched the pictures of the Patriotic Front guerrillas march into the camps and lay down their weapons, the condition for the ceasefire and the commencement of the free elections. — I can't believe it. I can't believe that they would do it. P. W. Botha. Maggie Thatcher. Fucking whore! Fucking treacherous

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