Listening to the silent majority

[30]

I said to Moeketsi Shai that I continued to meet a large number of sincere, intelligent and patriotic blacks, who had opted to work from within the system. ‘Do you mean to say that these people will be forgotten when liberation materializes?’ ‘We have to be practical,’ replied Moeketsi. ‘That's what the people who work within the system say, too: be practical. But, in order to be able to be practical, one needs the full co-operation of the people. In order to get their co-operation, you have to perceive them correctly. The masses perceive the blacks that work within the system negatively.’

I wondered whether Moeketsi Shai, or any other black personality of his calibre, really was in a position to unequivocally state that he knew for certain what the black masses in South Africa want, think or feel. I gathered so many different impressions; but then, aren't we all projecting, or do we not all tend to project, what we keep in our hearts of hearts to be our opinion or conviction or secret wish for reality to be? We human beings of the late twentieth century have become so super-

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clever and intelligent - we like to assume. Our technical and scientific knowledge has reached unprecedented heights. We can bring babies to life in laboratory tubes. We replace vital human organs like automobile parts. Who would not harbour the deepest admiration for South African medical sciences and the Baragwanath Hospital surgeons who successfully separated the Siamese twins Mpho and Mphonyana Mathibela? Laboratories the world over experiment with DNA and heriditary material. Scientists manipulate plants. Miracle rice turned India into a rice exporter. Animals are disappearing. In Namibia the horn of the rhino is being sawn off, so the species will not be wiped out altogether after liberation arrives. The protective ozone layer around our atmosphere is being ruined and destroyed, and threatening human life with radiation. The ice at the poles is melting prematurely. Vandals are destroying the tropical rain forests that are so needed to maintain human life and supply oxygen to the world population. Oceans are being turned into nuclear dumping grounds. Oil tanker disasters cause the death of penguins and marine life. The fallout from Chernobyl in the Ukraine made the slaughter of sheep in Wales and elks in Lapland unavoidable. Man is constantly reassuring himself that he has become the cleverest creature in the universe. Is he?

The key to preventing a fatal demise of our planet lies in our psyche. Plans for manned flights towards Mars and Venus are being drawn up by space engineers, while research concerning the 1 380 grams of protoplasm under the top of our skulls is hardly getting the scientific attention it needs and warrents. CG Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, warned years ago that the race towards technology would cause Man to lose his soul (psyche) for ever. Scientists seem in the grip of pursuing their fantasies of how electronics can enhance the survival of humanity, but in the meantime we seem inclined to entirely ignore the inescapable fact that the real survival of human life will be determined through the correct application of our thinking powers. The mind-sciences are still light years behind military and industrial research; yet never before in the history of man, has research into the functioning of that mysterious grayish mass in our heads been so imperative as at this moment, when man is quite capable of blowing up the world.

Having lived the past 30 years mainly in New York, where these subjects make up the regular repertoire of conversations and comments in the media, I realised so often when engaged in meeting people in South

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Africa, that they are so completely engulfed by or immersed in their own pressing problems, that the brain and mind side of the struggle towards a non-racially oriented society is being largely neglected or conveniently ignored. And yet, here lies the essence of the black-white confrontation on the Southern African subcontinent. Only updated brains can offer ultimate solutions.