Tales from Dystopia

[methodius]

Tales from Dystopia is a series of blog posts I am writing of memories of the apartheid era in South Africa.


I started it because of some comments made by some South African Christian bloggers about the need to remember history so that we are not tempted to repeat the mistakes of the past. Some were also too young to remember what the apartheid era was really like. And some noted a tendency of some, even those who had lived through it, to say that it was not so bad, and that it had good intentions, and that in any case we should forget about the past and "move on".

But it is not so easy to "move on" if we forget about the past, because the past is also a great weight to which we are tethered, which keeps us from "moving on".

So here are some memories. They are just one person's memories, but if others follow a similar idea and write about their own memories, we may get a fuller picture, and be better able to come to terms with the past.

• Tales from Dystopia I: Epukululo Lovawambo
• Tales from Dystopia II: Enemies of the State
• Tales from Dystopia III: Theological education in a totalitarian state
• Tales from Dystopia IV: Dennis Brutus and political interference in sporting affairs
• Tales from Dystopia V: Sophiatown and ethnic cleansing
• Tales from Dystopia VI: 1960 was a very bad year
• Tales from Dystopia VII: Amazing grace
• Tales from Dystopia VIII: Deportation from Namibia
• Tales from Dystopia IX: SACC Consultation on Racism 11-14 February 1980
• Tales from Dystopia X: The banality of evil
• Tales from Dystopia XI: Deacons and total onslaught