Ilana Mercer`s Preface to Into the Cannibal`s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa
Peter
Brimelow writes:
It seems clear that Political Correctness in MainStream
Publishing is getting more intense, but
Jared Taylor
and now
Ilana Mercer show that the new technology is weakening the traditional
gatekeepers.
Ilana`s just-released new
book,
Into the Cannibal`s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South
Africa, carries a
blurb from
John Derbyshire upon which I cannot improve (although we can
add hyperlinks):
 “Ilana Mercer calls her book`a labor of love to my homelands, old and new.` The old is South Africa, which the author left in 1995. The new is the U.S.A. In both nations the founding European stock yielded up their dominance in the interests of justice and liberty. Instead of moving to equal citizenship under fair laws, however, both nations—in different style and measure but with similarly dire results—have embraced official tribalism (`multiculturalism`) and state-enforced racial favoritism (`affirmative action`). For South Africa the transformation has been fatal—brutally so for victims of the nation`s swelling social disorder, as Ms. Mercer documents in heartbreaking detail. For the U.S.A. it is not too late to change course. The lesson of South Africa, if widely known, will help to open American eyes. Here is the lesson, in a compelling and important book.” –JOHN DERBYSHIRE, novelist, National Review columnist, pop-math writer, author most recently of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism, and all-round bon vivant. |
It is no surprise that
a manifesto against
majoritarianism would not find favor with the mission of most American
publishers. Opposition to
mass society was once an accepted (indeed, unremarkable) theme in the
richly layered works of
iconic conservatives such as
Edmund
Burke,
Russell Kirk, and
James Burnham. Today, by contrast, such opposition is considered as damning
as it is impolitic.
And
don`t even think of writing a less-than hagiographical
account of
Nelson Mandela.
Time Magazine`s
Richard Stengel has
serialized his tributes to Saint Mandela.
. (Stengel
has completed two. Perhaps a third is planned?) But an
opposing voice to the media paean for the democratic
South Africa and its deity, written by a dissenting
South African exile—this cannot be countenanced.
“What menaces democratic society in this age is not a simple collapse of
order”,
as Russell Kirk
wrote,
explicating
Alexis de
Tocqueville`s
thought, “but a tyranny of mediocrity, a standardization of mind and spirit and
condition”. In the context of post-apartheid South
Africa, this sameness of mind and spirit manifests in a
convergence of opinion—even in the neatly bifurcated
America.
Thus,
while almost every other postcolonial insurgency in
Africa has been scrutinized, rival views of
post-apartheid South Africa are unwelcome. Despite the
country`s body count since
“freedom”,
the foundations of what was a joint Anglo-American
undertaking are not to be faulted or questioned.
The loss
of
300,000
innocents murdered
since
democracy dawned in South Africa
is therefore regularly dismissed. People slide into
extenuation: “We had [in South Africa] an impossible situation and a certainty that we
were going to have bloodbath, and because we had good
leadership it was averted, and we now have, I`m proud to
say, a working, wonderful democracy.”These
words were uttered by
the
roaming Justice Richard Goldstone,
[CNN
Transcript,
October 4, 2009]
who—unlike
this
writer`s father—attached
himself to the anti-apartheid cause only once it became
fashionable, safe and professionally expedient.
In
itself, the tale of the publication of
Into the Cannibal`s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South
Africa
bears telling. For while this polemic respects no
political totems or taboos, it is faithful to facts.
These facts cried out to be chronicled. They should not
have had a struggle to find their way into print.
Yet
struggle they did.
“Ilana, if you`d only give me something like Corinne Hofmann`s Back From Africa
publishers would pounce,”
promised one literary agent. Hofmann`s salacious account
of her time as the
sexual
plaything of a virile African tribal chief
was described by
The Times Literary Supplement as “a dated tale of
exotic desire and disillusionment”.
As the
PC pecking order stands, Into the Cannibal`s Pot
author been
more
like
economist
Dambisa Moyo, authoress of the trendy Dead Aid.
deductions which had been
better reached decades earlier
by
Peter Thomas Bauer, the
enfant terrible of development economics. (To give Ms. Moyo her due,
Dead Aid is
dedicated to the late Lord Bauer.)
The
following is an assessment from a well-known academic
publisher whose stock does not exactly fly off the
shelves:
“I`ve
long been aware of Mercer`s writing. Though I rarely
agree with her, she`s quite a presence on the right side
of the
blogosphere.
This is an extremely well- written and provocative work.
I was riveted as I read it. …The problem here is that
the market for a book with such a clear political bias
is that much smaller. So I just don`t think we could
take it on.”
“There is no settling the
point of precedency between
a louse and a flea,” said
Dr.
Johnson.
This is my position with respect to
political parties stateside
and
in South
Africa.
How can a book that discounts the
venerated vote
and disavows all political parties have a political
bias? Into the
Cannibal`s Pot is manifestly against politics! A
partiality for small government and big society—in other
words, for
civilization—is
not a “political bias”.
No, the
prejudice was that of the petitioned publisher; his was
a prejudice against an unorthodox perspective that
comports with the
classical liberal
philosophy, and with reality.
Another
publisher made the following excuse:
“We
recently had the chance to review your manuscript. Like
everything you do, it is well-written and worthy of
publication. However, we do not believe we can
successfully market it.”
This
particular editor added that the imprint would be
concentrating instead on the timeless topic of the
Olympic
Games in China.
Obviously that is a far more inspiring subject than this
writer`s
“unhealthy” preoccupation with the
methodical ethnic cleansing
of the
Afrikaner farmer.
Other
respondents lavished praise on a
“closely argued
stylish effort” (for which, of course, they did not
care to make an effort).
To go by
the Left`s postmodern strictures, truth is not immutable
but subject to a process of discovery. As a practical
matter, then, how is a synthesis of
the
South-African situation
to emerge if the antithesis is disallowed?
Let us
not discount the publishing world`s ongoing drive for
the bottom line and the lowest common denominator. (The
publisher who refused to bear
Christian witness,
citing the prospects of poor profits, is an example.)
This uncompromising dedication does not lend itself to
contrarian material, not even when the facts are
pressing (and almost too horrible for words).
After
all, a complicit publishing establishment can shirk
responsibility and seek comfort in the fact that the
marketplace for books no longer adjudicates the
product`s worth. Actually, nowadays this marketplace
does no more than offer an aggregate snapshot of the
millions of subjective preferences consumers demand and
publishers deliver. High On Arrival,
Mackenzie Phillips` squalid story of
incest
and insanity, outsells Ludwig von Mises`
pearls of wisdom.
For some
this cultural foot-and-mouth will be faith-inspiring,
for others deeply distressing.
Ilana
Mercer (email
her) is a
weekly columnist for WorldNetDaily.com, a fellow at the
Jerusalem
Institute for Market Studies, and the author of
Broad Sides: One Woman`s Clash With a Corrupt Culture, the
Foreword to which was written by
Peter Brimelow.
Her website is
www.ilanamercer.com; her blog
www.barelyablog.com. She writes in the introduction to her new book, Into the
Cannibal`s Pot, that
“the titular
tease is meant as a metaphor, and is inspired by Ayn
Rand`s wise counsel against prostrating civilization to
savagery.”
