Helmut Lauschke - For Justice, Understanding and Humanity

Dr van der Merwe had contacted the academic hospital in Bloemfontein to start his postgraduate in orthopaedics, since he had appreciated the work in orthopaedics at Oshakati hospital so much. He asked how things were in the north when the few doctors had to cope with the work, if the wards are still overcrowded and the toilets are still stinking, if the air conditioner in theatre 2 is repaired and the old and defective operating table is replaced by a new table. He asked about my life and thanked for everything I have taught him. Under my professional and human guidance and advice he had collected a wealth of experiences and directives of great value that he will keep in mind for his life. Van der Merwe wished all the people in the north a better future what he did not describe in details. He wished the people strength to go the last part on the path to independence. He wrote that the war would accelerate the great upheaval that will move as a powerful roller from the Angolan border downward to the south and seal the end of the apartheid system. He expressed the wish to see another again in Namibia or in South Africa and gave greetings to the colleagues and the nurses.

It was a handwritten letter of a friend who was a highly dedicated medical doctor with a human face at Oshakati hospital. He was respected by the nursing staff and the patients. Dr van der Merwe was a son of the African soil who loved the African people and respected their diverse cultures and traditions. He practised in an exemplary way humbleness, honesty, diligence and humanity which are some of the important aspects of being a good doctor whom the people could trust.

Regarding the great upheaval, Dr van der Merwe had predicted it in an open conversation at a hot evening in his caravan what was the third of the five caravans on the right-hand side of the small path opposite to the tattered picket fence with the rolled-out barbed wire. I also remembered the pleasant young Ms van der Merwe who had prepared a cold lemon tea with ice cubes. Now he saw the sheet lightning in South Africa and I could imagine it as the last act of a long era. This era was historically and from the human point of view a tragedy for the black people and for the white people became the end of the era like the awakening in front of a deep canyon.

It was the flaw with the illogical and anachronistic pattern in the white thinking. The realization comes too late that a social system of segregation and discrimination regarding the other-than-white skin colours could not work due to the practised inhumanity and injustice. This system had to disappear definitely and shamefully. The black storm on the ‘pretorianic’ stronghold stood before. The anachronistic ‘concrete’ heads of the last stubbornness will sit behind bulletproof glasses in the modern ‘Wagenburgen’ [ waggons put together as a fortress ], but they cannot hinder and not repulse the heavy storm which will bring the historic change.

I got the long Angolan border in my mind as an ignited fuse that led to the tremendous escalation of war what consequently gave the strong impulse to the ‘roller’ for its southward movement with an acceleration of the sinking apartheid vessel and the docking of the new power vessel with the black crew of the new era. One of the final questions was: To whom belonged the country and the continent? The answer should be fair and just: To all the people who do respect each other and in particular to those people who have their biological and cultural roots in this African soil. That should be the case for the San-people [ Bushmen ] as well who are the oldest inhabitants in sub-Saharan Africa. They are short in length and bright in their sandy skin colour and lived some thousand years in harmony with the nature.

San-people were highly specialised track readers and skilled hunters with bows and arrows. The South African army used them as tracker ‘dogs’. Most of their natural habitat were taken away from them either by the whites or by the blacks who pushed these people deeper into the desert by ignoring their basic rights on land for their living and by neglecting their needs as the oldest inhabitants. The San population had therefore decreased dramatically due to the dry, vegetation-poor and karst environment they had to live in. Alcohol has destabilized the rest of the San community to a large extent.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu brought the attitude of the whites to the point: “The whites came with the bible in their hands and we had the land, but after a short while they had the land and we had the bible.” The whites became the landlords that the black people became field workers degraded and depressed with their families into full dependency from these landlords and deprived of their human rights on the white farms what was originally the land of their fathers and forefathers. The whites ruled with the white muscle power and with clips round the ears and with cudgels and more. All this had started with the segregation and the colour bar that had resulted in the wealth of the whites and the poverty of the blacks. This imbalance could not last for ever and should not be without consequences in terms of justice, righteousness and human dignity. In this understanding, Dr van der Merwe mentioned the ‘apocalypse’ in his letter which would sweep over on South Africa as well.

I put the letter aside and read the typewritten letter from Germany in which was drawn the affluent society where the faces looked seriously as they had lost the ability to laugh and to enjoy their prosperity. The people were under permanent stress. Air and noise pollution in the city reached the limits of the tolerance and the unemployment jumped up as never before. The social security contributions are ridiculous. The youth is unprepared and unwilling to learn and the juvenile delinquency is on the rise. The people become like outsiders of one to another. It was a depressing description of the situation in the west-German society in the second half of the eighties.

Materialism has degraded and mutilated the spiritual and other values of great importance and the Mammon had swallowed much of the culture of humanity with the great believes in humanism and religion. The high finance of the big businesses ruled the economy and politics, and those who controlled the newspaper and media industry had the final say. The profiteers with and without the dark beards, but with the specialized noses for money were busy as always and ususal, whether in Frankfurt or Johannesburg. Mankind does not get away from the brink of decline and decay.

I put the letter aside and emptied the cup of the cold rooibos tea. I read the psalm 34 when David called: “What is that for a man who desires life and loves the days to see the good? Therefore, keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking guile! Depart from evil and do good! Seek peace, and pursue it!” How far had mankind drifted away from David’s call!

The cocks crowed and the new day began. I left the flat earlier for the hospital to enjoy a walk in silence of the morning. The sun sent the early forerunners from the horizon. Dogs strayed from one roadside to the other as they had lost something last evening. Cats jumped out of the roadside ditches and whizzed into the high grass of a large front garden as they had seen something what was hiding there. I showed the permit to the guard at the checkpoint and said ‘goeiemôre’. The greeting remained without reply, since the guard had a dream and rubbed his right eye with his hand. The morning gave the calm to the other guards who stood leant back against the closed barrier rod and chewed on pieces of biltong.

A thin segment of the fireball appeared over the horizon when I reached the hospital. The gatekeeper sat on the chair and held the morning egg in his right hand and looked at it from various aspects. We exchanged the greetings and I crossed the square where the Casspirs had pressed the tread of the nightly raid into the sandy ground. Some of the many people of the evening lay wrapped in blankets and sheets on the concrete passage in front of the outpatient reception. The missing ones had moved to other places inside the hospital premises. I entered the first building with the intensive care unit and passed the private consulting room with the hanging sheet over the door frame. The nurses of the night shift told that koevoet had done the night inspection. They went from bed to bed, but have done it faintly. They asked for a glass of water that they got and thanked for.