Africa addio Page #3

and acquire property

here and only here.

In two centuries, the new colonists

transformed it into an oasis of green.

The Africans learned to admire it,

then to desire it, and finally to claim it.

When the Golden Age is over,

the Plated Age begins.

In the highlands,

where 150 whites lived yesterday

The agrarian reform ignores

the arid immensity of the Lowlands

to express the new spirit

of Uhuru only here

on these freshly seized fertile estates.

But on the whole, it can distribute

just one acre per family.

So this land that earlier was perhaps

too much for too few

becomes too little for too many.

Uhuru has nothing more to conquer.

Only the dead have remained

to occupy a little land.

Now they, too, have to clear out.

The Indians have sold that off, too.

J. B. Johnson was the most famous

breeder of racehorses in the highlands.

He was killed by Kimathi's Mau Mau

on the steps of his farm.

These were his stables.

Before turning them over

to the new owners,

his sons chased out the horses

and set them free in the savanna.

Six months later, all the

"old land" horses are living in freedom.

But when the Africans surprise a herd

at the mouth of a narrow valley,

they're trapped inside

by the sound of shouts and old gas cans.

For the Africans, the horse is

the symbol of the white man.

Just like the whites,

it refuses contact with other species

and withdraws from

the contagion of mixture,

surrounding itself by an emptiness

that runs from itself to the horizon.

For the Africans,

the horse is physically racist.

It fears the black

and refuses to be ridden by him.

Without the presence of the whites,

its back is bare.

Its natural architecture is mutilated,

like an equestrian monument

from which the hero was toppled

by a sudden act of violence.

Like the white man, the horse is noble.

It has delicate skin.

It's sophisticated

in its choice of food.

Like the white man,

it is timid.

Just a little noise

will frighten it away.

Like the white man, the horse is useless.

All that it's good for is to be eaten.

The Boers are returning to South Africa.

They have revived the wagons on which

they arrived 400 years ago

in search of a homeland.

They could have chosen

boats or airplanes

as the English did to return to Europe.

Instead, with controversial intentions,

they loaded their families

and possessions on old wagons

from their wobbly epic and now move back

across 1000 miles of history.

The demonstration is hard and trying,

just like the entire destiny

of the Boer people.

Its meaning is tragic and precise.

The long African adventure is not over.

It starts here.

The old laws are no longer valid.

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