Arguably, the most dominant thematic current in Alan Paton’s ‘Cry,
the Beloved Country’ is the issue of racial divide between the South African
Whites and Blacks. Paton explores the division in minute detail, both at the
microcosmic and the macroscopic level to give a rounded dimension to the South
African experience during those times.
In this novel, personal collides with the political in a jarring
way. The Blacks, who form a chunk of South Africa’s population, are oppressed
due to the denial of human rights and the decimation of their tribal system
while the minority of the population, that is the Whites, live in fear of the
majority due to the rising crime rates against them. The rising crime rates
lead to the Whites hating the natives all the more, leading to a vicious cycle,
where the lacuna between them only keeps getting wider. This is the social
landscape of South Africa at that time. Paton, to deepen his theme, also uses
the physical landscape of South Africa to hold symbolic meaning.
The novel opens
with a description of Natal’s natural beauty – the hills are verdant and
rolling, the grass is “rich and matted”. The soil holds moisture and is not
overused. However, as one goes down the valley, the earth is red, bare and
infertile. The maize has stunted growth whereas the streams run dry and the
ground is overused by the people and the cattle. The native bird, the titihoya,
which sings in the hills, is virtually missing here. These contrasts which are
subtle at the opening of the novel gains a garb of racial segregation later in
Book 2, as Paton refrains the same passage of Natal’s landscape. The lush hilly
regions are occupied by the White South Africans whereas the black South
Africans are forced to settle down the valleys. This leads to overcrowding and
hence the ground is overused, rendering it difficult to yield. Through this
symbolism, Paton probably hints at the natural, untainted and free landscape
before the colonization of South Africa or more precisely, before the
implementation of racial segregation. If these divisions had been absent, the
land of South Africa wouldn’t have been cruel and barren, not only physically
but also socially and politically. This shows that life down the valley has
been sapped away in every way.
The very fiber of a moral system that is the
family system is described by Paton as thus:
“They are valleys of old men and old women, of mothers and
children. The men are away, the young men and the girls are away. The soil
cannot keep them anymore.”
(p.8, ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’)
Sons and daughters have left the family in order to search for a
better living in the city of Johannesburg. When the narrative shifts to this
city, the division which was subtle in Natal becomes more palpable, thriving
and ugly.
Paton employs the narrative technique of a collage of anonymous
voices speaking to describe the general frustration and desperation among the
Blacks, who have to fend for a living space. Shanty Town is one representation
of this. People from all over pour in this slum-like town, made of poles, sacks
and the long grasses of the South African plains due to the lack of sufficient
housing facilities. The waiting lists to even get a boarding space are
never-ending and securing it through a bribe is no guarantee for ultimately getting
a space. The accommodations go overboard with a dozen people stuffed into two
rooms and due to the intrusion of privacies. When a fresh tide of boarders
arrives, they are driven away by the police. The description of Shanty Town
rounds up with the anecdote of a woman losing her sick daughter to death. These
strands of frustration, lack of basic rights and the destruction of the family
system is reflective of the destruction of African life as a whole.
Nevertheless, even though the city of Johannesburg has inherently
lost its moral and social moorings, it is not entirely devoid of any good.
There does exist a number of White South Africans who want to bridge the gap
between them and the Blacks and hence, they do their best to foster friendship.
One striking instance would be during the boycott of buses where the Blacks
have boycotted the buses and hence, people have to walk eleven miles to
Alexandra. Here, the rays of racial harmony glimmers as white drivers risk the
police in order to help the native pedestrians by offering them rides in their
car. The problem of racial segregation would definitely have been solved if
this solidarity was shared by all White South Africans towards the Blacks. However,
the technique of anonymous voices is again brought in by Paton to express the
differing views among the liberal Whites against the prejudiced ones. Whereas
one voice suggests that education for the Blacks is a solution to mitigate the
crime rates against the Whites, another voice argues that schooling Blacks
would in turn produce cleverer criminals. Hence, there is greater segregation
and misunderstanding and is the dominant hard reality as Blacks turn violent
while the Whites live barricaded in their prison of fear.
The racial tension in South Africa’s gains a new tinge of irony as
Arthur Jarvis, a pro Black rights crusader, is murdered at the hands of a Black
parson’s son. Arthur Jarvis stands for the paragon that espouses racial harmony
as it is made evident through the snippets in his writings. His tract on native
crime has a plausible solution and that is greater freedom and opportunity for
the Blacks and not suppression and “exploitation.” Just like the
Europeans termed the colonization of Africa as a divine mission, similarly,
Arthur contends the base of the prejudice of White South Africans that stands
on the notion that it is God’s will for South Africans to remain unskilled
workers and trying to educate them would be “not Christian”. Arthur rebuts this
and is of the view that the Blacks should be allowed to develop their God-given
abilities and should enjoy full rights of freedom in their own land.
Arthur’s writings not only suggests a solution to the racial
dilemma between the general Whites and Blacks but also in the personal world of
Stephen Kumalo‘s and James Jarvis’. Arthur’s comments on his parents: “But of South Africa I learned nothing at
all.” (p.150, ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’). This comment is significant as it
underscores the alienation between the hills and the valleys, the White and the
natives in the landscape of Natal. When Kumalo tells James Jarvis: “the heaviest thing of all my years, is
the heaviest thing of all your years also”, there is finally a common ground of sorrow and grief that
can be shared by the two men, and hence bring them together. Jarvis, who did
not socialize with the natives earlier nor met eye-to-eye with his own son’s
social and political cause, now empathizes with Kumalo and even plans for the
betterment of Ndotsheni by proposing to build a dam. However, Paton makes
Arthur’s son to be symbolic of the possibility of unity between the Whites and
the Blacks. Unlike his grandfather’s reservations, Arthur’s son enters Kumalo’s
house without hesitation in his eagerness to learn Zulu. This shows a hope in
the country’s children living without racial prejudice. Paton suggests that the
bridge between this divide much lies in the seed of understanding and love.
Msimangu says:
“I see only one
hope for our country, and that is when white men and black men . . . desiring
only the good of their country, come together to work for it. (p.37, ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’)
In order to have this solidarity,
the Whites must understand that the blacks want to “walk upright in the land
where they were born, and be free to use the fruits of the earth,” and the
Blacks must understand that the Whites hid their fear with “fierceness and
anger” and “They were afraid because they were so few.” (p.235).
This fear can only be mitigated through “love.” Paton suggests the bridging
of this racial gap before it is too late that “one day when they (the
Whites) turn to loving they will find we (the Blacks) are turned to hating.”
(p.235, ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’)
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