Fear, Power, Selfishness, and "Beloved Countries"

“Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear.”
—Alan Paton

Throughout my growing up years, my mother sporadically suggested books I might want to read. Usually I think I asked for ideas, but occasionally she would just bring me a book in her pile from one of her regular forays to the library. When I was in high school, she recommended that I read Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country. I liked the book then and, as an adult, have always kept a paperback copy in my own library. Last spring, though, I saw a movie version of the book and decided I wanted to read it cover to cover again. This time I was swept away! I loved it!

A writer, educator, devout Christian, and impassioned citizen of South Africa, Alan Paton wove all these strands of his being, history, and experience into the backdrop of his novel, and his lyrical style, allusions, and themes often invoke The Bible, particularly the King James translation. Although the novel is specifically a story about South Africa (first published in 1948, the same year apartheid became the law of the land), like any good literature it transcends the specifics of setting and character, becoming one of much grander scope—a true story of the human condition.

As I read the book this most recent time, I certainly envisioned the relevance of the story for South Africa, yet I also realized that the “beloved country” of the title is not limited to South Africa. So many of the dilemmas unfolded and questioned in the novel are dilemmas and questions confronted by my own “beloved country.” For the most part, I have not been happy—or even comfortable—with the direction the politics of immigration is currently moving in the USA. I believe too much of it is shaped by both fear and selfishness cloaked in a self-righteous mantle of philosophical faux-justice. Operating in a very human mode, we tend to be afraid of what is different, unfamiliar, or threatening to jostle our comfort zone, most particularly in how a new entity might impact power and resources, personally and collectively. Maybe because immigration issues seem to stem from “threats” visualized in similar fashion to those visualized by many in the white society of twentieth century South Africa, I found my own thoughts returning repeatedly to the immigration/assimilation situations in the USA as I read and underlined and marked up the margins of my copy of the book.

Here are some of my marked quotes to ponder from Cry, the Beloved Country regarding how we live our lives and how we try to structure our “beloved countries” :


[Perspective of one in “white society”]
“Who knows how we shall fashion such a land? For we fear not only the loss of our possessions, but the loss of our superiority…. Is it not better to hold what we have, and to pay the price of it with fear?...

“We do not know, we do not know. We shall live from day to day, and put more locks on the doors, and get a fine fierce dog when the fine fierce bitch next door has pups, and hold on to our handbags more tenaciously; and the beauty of the trees by night, and the raptures of lovers under the stars, these things we shall forego…. We shall be careful, and knock this off our lives, and knock that off our lives, and hedge ourselves about with safety and precaution. And our lives will shrink, but they shall be the lives of superior beings…. And the conscience shall be thrust down; the light and life shall not be extinguished, but be put under a bushel, to be preserved for a generation that will live by it again, in some day not yet come; and how it will come, and when it will come, we shall not think about at all.”


[Msimangu, a black priest]
“Because the white man has power, we too want power. But when a black man gets power, when he gets money, he is a great man if he is not corrupted. I have seen it often. He seeks power and money to put right what is wrong, and when he gets them, why he enjoys the power and money. Now he can gratify his lusts,…. Some of us think when we have power, we shall revenge ourselves on the white man who has had the power, and because our desire is corrupt, we are corrupted, and the power has no heart in it. But most white men do not know this about power, and they are afraid lest we get it.

“…But there is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and then he has power….

"I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving; they will find that we are turned to hating."



[Arthur Jarvis—son of James Jarvis, a white land owner]
“The truth is that our Christian civilization is riddled through and through with dilemma. We believe in the brotherhood of man, but we do not want it in South Africa. We believe that God endows men with diverse gifts, and that human life depends for its fullness on their employment and enjoyment, but we are afraid to explore this belief too deeply. We believe in help for the underdog, but we want him to stay under….

"The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.”


[These are some other quotes in the book I liked and marked.]
“You ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.”


"It is not permissible to add to one's possessions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation."


“We are caught in the toils of our own selfishness.”


“There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man.”


When I discuss immigration issues with others, often the idea of fairness arises. I do believe in justice, yet I also do not believe we fully understand how to balance justice with mercy. Hence, I shall conclude this post with another quote, this time from Archibald MacLeish’s play J.B., a retelling of the Book of Job:

“You wanted justice, didn’t you. There isn’t any. There is only love.”