was called from his quarters to the bridge and told about a signal light in the distance.And the Captain told the sig nalman,"Signalthem to bearto starboard."And backcame the signal from ahead saying,"You bear to starboard." Well as I say the Captain was very aware that he was the commander of a battle ship, the biggest thing afloat, the pride ofthe Fleetand he said,"Signal that light back again to bear to starboard now!"And once again back came the answer, "Bear to starboard yourself." Well the Captain decided to give his unknown counterpart a lesson in sea going humility so he said,"Signalthem again and tell them to bear to starboard,I am a battle ship." And back came the signal,"Bearto starboard yourself,Iam a lighthouse." So sometimes ofcourse we don't always stand in the cen tre of events. But that is not important because as Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: "It doesn't matter where you stand,what matters is the direction in which you are going." On the question ofthefuture ofSouth Africa,and our place in it, let me only say this: Personally I prefer the wisdom which admitsWe cannot see clearly to the other shore but the dark ness does not destroy that which it conceals. In other words what we do not know therefore is some times more importantthan that which we do.Atleastto be aware of the future dangers and opportunities is a major starton thejourneytowardsreconstructing ourcountry and towards finding a meaningful and fulfilling role for our selves in it. Of course when I left Kearsney in 1974 it was an age of innocence in both a personal and political sense: Personal computers were more orless unknown;Rhodesia was still in existence; Zimbabwe was a ruin; the Portuguese Em pire had just collapsed in both Mozambique and Angola; John Vorster was Prime Minister; Nelson Mandela was entering his eleventh ofover27 yearsin prison;MrJimmy Hopkins was the headmaster here and we all used to jive to a pop group called T-Rex,unaware of the fact that the real T-Rex would become the gruesome star of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park movie 19 years later. Today, however there is little innocence around us. Alan Paton, who in my time lived less than a kilometre away from here,loved thetopography ofthis province.Hespoke of the Natal hills as being "lovely beyond the singing of it."Yetthey now flow with the blood ofordinary and inno centpeople,killed in the nameofa hideous struggle which believes that any grievance justifies any violence. So Kearsney College is truly a still centre in a violent world. But nothing really is new. It has all happened before in history.Forexample,describing anotherrevolutionary situ ation in France over 200 years ago Edmund Burke wrote in his "Reflections": "You choose to act as if you have never been moulded into civil society, and had to begin everything anew. You began ill because you began by despising every thing that belonged to you.You set up your trade with out capital." But in correctly criticizing the incivility, the intolerance and the lawlessness of these times, we should not forget the fact that to some extent those ofus who are privileged white South Africans have broughtevents upon ourselves. After all the majority ofourfellow whiteschosein 11 gen eral elections to support a system of government which the rest ofthe world regarded as immoral and which most ofour fellow countrymen regarded as intolerable. Indeed during my very brief acquaintance with Latin at Kearsney College, we were taught the very wise adage of Cicero who cautioned that we should "beware the fury of the patient man".I think it is the real whirlwind which we are now reaping.Yet the change,which has come to South Africa is the better for coming when it did than if we had waited for a true"war ofall against all". In moving from our distorted system of privilege into a more equitable one,we must guard against policies which begin by talking thelanguage ofliberty butend in promot ing theoretical equality which destroys one freedom after another. But for all the dangers we face, we are remarkably well equipped forthe tasks ahead.In atechnical sense the world we now inhabit has shown the most rapid progress ever encountered in the history of man.I am advised, since I am nottoo expertin these matters,having struggled might ily with MrM.A.Thiselton over the mysteries ofphysical science over 20 years ago,that greater acceleration is cer tain as more societies enter the information age.This is an age in which the moderately equipped researcher can,to day, check more calculations in an afternoon, than Ein stein could check in his entire lifetime. Whether we see the future whole and unsentimentally is a matter of indi vidual choice because there are many waysofromanticiz ing possibilities and deluding ourselves about realities. For example, let us consider the story ofAdam and Eve. An Englishman, a Frenchman and an American were ar guing aboutthe nationality ofAdam and Eve."They must have been English",declares the Englishman."Only agen tleman would share his last apple with a woman.""They were undoubtedly French",said the Frenchman,"whoelse could seduce a woman so easily?""I think they were Rus sian", said the American."After all who else could walk around stark naked,feed on one apple between the two of them and think they were in paradise." When I was in matric at Kearsney the school put on a re markably sophisticated performance of Julius Caesar. In considering the great possibilities but also the great dan gers we mustovercome weshould rememberthe wordsof Shakespeare in that immortal play. He spoke for future generations into eternity: "There is a tide in the affairs ofmen,which taken atthe flood,leads onto fortune. Omitted all the voyagers of their life is bound in shallows and miseries." That is our challenge,and it is a challenge which we and our generation are uniquely placed to discharge. Oneofthe"shallows and miseries"which our ship ofstate could very soon flounder on is socialism. One story sums up the failed misery ofthe collectivization of conscience which was the hallmark of socialism in the Soviet Union. A smallfarmer in the Urals wasinterested in purchasing a small car. When he called on the dealer he was assured that he could take delivery of the car but only in 10 years time."Excellent", he said."Would that be in the morning or the afternoon?"The dealer asked in some surprise why he wanted to know this, given that the car would only be 18
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTc3MDU5Nw==