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Dry, the beloved country (huffingtonpost.com)
83 points by wallflower on April 27, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments



The very witty title of the article is a reference to "Cry, the Beloved Country"[0], a famous South African novel from 1948 dealing with the racist social structures leading to Apartheid. (It deals with other things too). It's a great book and I would recommend it to anyone, even if you're not particularly interested in South Africa.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry,_the_Beloved_Country

[edit: typos]


One of the most interesting things I remember about "Cry, the Beloved Country" was feeling as though the book had a rhythm.


> The whole mood was contagious. My first night, I openly gagged when my friend Paul put his hands into my dirty shower water to scoop it out for the toilet. But a day or two into my trip, when I opened a friend’s guest toilet lid to a turd, I nearly squealed with glee. I have never been so thrilled to see a previously deposited piece of shit in a toilet I myself hoped to take a crap in.

It might be time to rethink happiness.


great story, thank you for posting


[flagged]


South Africans, black and white are leaving for better job opportunities and sick of corruption and poor governance.


The "assumed fortunes" are only there because of the land and labour stolen from the locals through violence and torture.


Assuming this is true it does not negate what the person you responded to wrote. It is rational for a person to try to leave a country they feel is not safe.


That would be a perspective held by the few, a perspective devoid of common sense and fueled by a need to justify violent retribution for the acts of wicked people who are no longer here.


You know you have a weak point when you rely on "my interlocutor has an unpopular opinion" and "my interlocutor just lacks common sense" as means of argument.


Just so I don't misunderstand, you are saying I have a weak argument? Do you believe that the perspective of white people holding fortunes in their houses is widely held and that violent acts of crime to redistribute this wealth are justified?


It appears that they're attempting to apply Socrate's quote, "When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser", to invalidate your argument, but they are failing to realize that "devoid of common sense" is not an insult or slander, much like those that fail to realize the same about being called ignorant when they argue out of ignorance.


My point is that whether a belief is popular, or whether you think a belief is common sensical has no bearing on the truth value, social value, rationality, or perspicacity of that belief. I don't think the GP is slandering the GGP, I think they are both missing the point and making an irrelevant quasi-argument.


Of course, to allow the descendants of later immigrants to rape your daughters and slaughter your family is only just: they do, after all, share a skin colour with the people who used to live where you live.




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