Washington, DC — Hirsh Goodman grew up in South Africa and as a young adult emigrated to Israel. His new memoir is called Let Me Create a Paradise, God Said to Himself: A Journey of Conscience from Johannesburg to Jerusalem. AllAfrica's Norah Vawter sat down with Goodman to discuss his early life and the new South Africa. Below are excerpts from that discussion.
Would you tell our readers about your life in apartheid South Africa, growing up white and Jewish?
As I wrote in the book, I grew up in an environment that was very conditioned. There was no television, no radio, and frankly, we were living in a sort of a bubble. At a very young age I felt two very strong emotions. I couldn't understand how a Jew could be discriminating against others. I had been taught about the holocaust, six million of our people being exterminated and discriminated against because they were Jewish. That was a very strong emotion and it was always with me. Also I was brought up by my nanny Grace, and she did everything for me, she washed my clothes, but there was such a disparity in the way we lived. I mean, she knew everything about me. She washed my underpants, she prepared me for school, she made my food. We lived in this house that was warm in the winter and was pleasant in the summer and had all these amenities. And she lived in a back room [in the yard], like a servant's quarters, with no amenities, and the tremendous disparity bothered me. I'm an over-tipper to this day. The third thing was there was really serious anti-Semitism. I used to go to a Jewish day school, and we'd go down to play rugby and they'd be calling out, "Hitler didn't do a good enough job!"
I write in the book that I had an epiphany at the age of 15. I was going to a football game, and I saw these two black guys fighting, and one guy had his whole head open and his brains oozing out, and there were two policemen [standing by]. And instead of stopping the fight and instead of calling an ambulance, they sat there as if this was sport for them. And I said, I can't live here. My inability to reconcile being a Jew and being a racist, and the underlying materialism of the society were things I was glad to get away from.
Do you think that there was a link between the apartheid race relations and the materialistic society?
There's no doubt in my mind. Apartheid was created by the British as a system to provide cheap labor. Our curriculum in school was the history book by a fellow by the name of Geldenhuis. It says that South Africa was empty. And then the whites came, and they planted the grapes and they planted the trees, and suddenly all these blacks came down and they ate the fruits of their labor. The Afrikaners of course were very religious people and it was easy for them to explain apartheid in biblical terms. There was a magazine called Drum Magazine. I remember there was this cover, and it said "is there apartheid in heaven?" That's the only way they could deal with the political issue. It said that in the Bible Ham laughed at Noah in his nakedness [so God made Ham and his descendents black] and so maybe in the world to come there will be an equalizing factor but in this world, not.
Could you talk a little bit about the pass laws?
In order to come into the cities and work [as a black,] you had to get a pass, and were only allowed to be domiciled in the area that your pass allowed. So Gracie, our servant, was domiciled at 27 Yeo Street and that's where she could live and that's where she could work. Grace had a child my age by the name of Maid [who lived with her grandparents]. Maid used to come visit in the summers for maybe ten days. Grace's husband Fred was domiciled at a hotel maybe 6 or 8 or 10 blocks away. They weren't allowed to sleep together at night. If he was caught out after 9 o'clock at night, he could be arrested, imprisoned, incarcerated, 90 days, 100 days, could receive lashes, could be sent as slave labor to the farms. The pass laws were a way of controlling the black population, but also a very sinister way of breaking down the black family structure. Mothers would leave the children with grandparents, and go into the cities as domestic servants and send the money back to the countryside. In the meantime, husbands and wives were separated, so there was very promiscuous behavior. I believe that is the source of the fact that today South Africa's 20 percent HIV positive, which is probably the biggest problem facing South Africa today.
You mention in the book that Gracie had other visitors.
All the time. There were all these men living across the road in the apartment buildings and they were called flat boys. 50 years old, but they were flat boys. And the flat boys lived in the men's barracks. Usually big barracks with double beds and no privacy; these men had no wives, and they had natural needs. Everyone slept with everyone.
Beyond the epiphany, why did you leave?
A lot of Jews were at the forefront of the anti-apartheid movement. I had a choice to make. I could either stay and fight apartheid, or I could leave and go to my own country and try and build a new future. It was a conscious decision. And I have a great deal of respect for those who stayed behind and fought.
The important part of this book is on page 261 where I just summarize the difference between Israel and apartheid South Africa. I'm very critical of certain aspects of Israel, but the last two sentences read: "To compare the two demonstrates ignorance or malevolence. Apartheid South African was unique and should be remembered as such lest it be repeated."
What was unique about South Africa?
It was a brilliant system of conditioning, of denying freedom of the press, of not having television, of having laws that were so draconian that you walked around in perpetual fear. It wasn't just that this person was a racist or that person was a racist, it was a system, a cruel, well-thought out, well-organized police state that was worse than communism, worse than Stalinism. And it is to be remembered as such lest it be repeated or tolerated. And to mix up apples and oranges, I think denigrates.
What do you think of the end of apartheid and South Africa today?
I go to South Africa often. I drive through the new South Africa and I drive through Botswana and other countries like that. And of course there's still shantytowns and there's still poverty, but to see children walking around in school uniforms and going to school and literacy rising and salaries becoming equal, it's really quite remarkable. I've always loved South Africa. I love the scenery, I love the music. The book got its name from when I was a young kid, sitting on a train and it was going clickety-click, and I looked out and thought, my God, look at this. God created a paradise, and he thought, I'll give it gold, I'll give it diamonds, I'll give it trees and water, I'll give it everything. I'll put a couple of whites and a couple of blacks together, and I'll see how they get on. That's where the book gets its name. I love Africa generally and I love South Africa specifically, and I try to get my kids to spend holidays [in South Africa], as much as possible. I think Mbeki has done a reasonably good job at creating a black middle class, jobs and income. But I think they've done an appalling job in dealing with Aids. Things are so bad in certain parts of South Africa, they're burying people standing up because there's no room in the cemeteries. For a long time Mbeki denied that there was a problem. And even though in Johannesburg on every street corner there are free condoms, most men don't take them.
Mbeki won't deal with the Aids issue. But it's interesting that Mandela did, and Mandela's own son died of Aids, and he made a public statement on that. It is the greatest danger facing modern South Africa today. The social cost of the orphans and widows is going to be horrendous and it's going to cripple [the society].
What do you think the solution is?
Uganda had a tremendous Aids problem, and they managed to control it. It's sex education, and it's prevention and it's medical. It takes work.
What do you think of Nelson Mandela?
He is one of the greatest giants that ever walked this earth. And I'm not saying that because he liberated South Africa, I'm saying that because of the wisdom with which he did it. I'll give you an example: I was sitting with the South African ambassador to Israel a few months ago, and he told me he'd been the ambassador to Geneva at the time of the change, and Mandela called back the entire foreign service and they were all convinced that they were going to get fired. Instead Mandela said to them: "You are all the representatives of the old South Africa. I want you to be representatives of the new South Africa. You all have your jobs, and I want you to keep them. If any of you think that you can't represent the new South Africa, you are eligible for early pensions." In other words, he went about it in a very conciliatory way. I don't think there was another society on earth that could've been so repressed, and there was no revenge. At all.
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Which is your country, Israel or South Africa?
Israel is my country and I love it and I'll never leave it, but I certainly feel blessed to be able to go back to South Africa. I write in the book about the two most spiritual experiences I have or ever have had. There's Jerusalem at 3:00 on a Friday afternoon and everything becomes quiet and the whole city is quiet, the Muslims have finished their prayers and the Jews are getting ready for their Sabbath and there's a really spiritual feeling to it. And even though I work in Tel Aviv, sometimes when I write, I just find Jerusalem to be a very good place to write.
And the only other time I've felt that close to God is in the African bush with its huge sky and its huge clouds and you feel that heaven goes perpetually on. And those are my most favorite times. Sitting there like I did just a few months ago, and sitting in a chair, and there's a watering hole just where that elevator is, and the zebra came and the giraffe came and they each waited their turn, and suddenly everything disappeared and the lions came, and the lions left, and everyone came back to drink again. And at night, you see the most incredible constellations. I just love it: it's huge.
