With the final piece of the Kaffir Boy
unit coming up tomorrow, I would just like to take some time to reflect
on the book, and perhaps offer a new perspective on it all.
Specifically, there is a quote at the end of the book that initially,
for lack of a better word, mystified me:
“What
had [apartheid] created within my father’s heart a granite wall, which
had prevented him from expressing feelings of love, care, compassion and
understanding?
A wall, you say? Like this one?
Say what you want about the album in terms of music. Personally, I
think it was too dominated by Roger Waters, whose lyrics can be as
annoyingly nihilistic as his voice can be just... hard to listen to.
Normally I think Pink Floyd was at their best when the individual band
members really collaborated with one another, producing tons of great
work including Dark Side of the Moon, which is most certainly the
greatest album of all time (Rolling Stone
put it at number 43 on their 500 greatest albums of all time, which is a
legitimate rating given how the once-respected magazine is now a
political column away from being Complex).
Also, Pink Floyd is equally enjoyable when David Gilmour causes the
universe to continually reset and explode through his guitar playing,
such as on “Comfortably Numb” (and yet he is only the 82nd best guitar
player according to the ever-reliable Rolling Stone… actually they recently bumped him up to 14th, so I can’t be too harsh).
Anyhow, the music itself is not what I am here to analyze, but rather
the underlying notion/theme/message of the album: the ideological
concept of ‘the wall’. Pink Floyd is certainly not the first to come up
with this idea, and Mathabane certainly did not plagiarize. Rather,
‘the wall’ itself is just a fundamental parable of life, a parable of
which we all must all take caution lest we become its next victims.
So, the concept of ‘the wall’, at its most basic level, begins with the
assumption that life as a whole is just this tornado of irrationality
and pain and, above all, insanity. This sounds tremendously bleak on
its own merits. Therefore, our instincts tell us to isolate ourselves
from life; just construct a mental wall to protect ourselves from its
misery. This, however, the concept warns us not to do. For in
isolation, our minds will only deteriorate and push us into a world more
absurd and bleak than the real one.
Such is the case for both “Mr. Pink Floyd” (not Steve Buscemi), the main character of The Wall, and Johannes’ father in Kaffir Boy.
Both quickly realize the insufferable nature of the worlds they live
in, both desperately try to protect themselves by disconnecting from it,
and both end up creating worlds in which they ultimately suffer more
than they did initially. The exact details of this narrative
undoubtedly vary between the two men. Mr. Floyd’s despair comes mostly
from his inability to free himself from an overly paranoid and
conformist society, while Mr. Mathabane’s comes from his inability to
reconcile his identity with a world ever more hostile to it. The bricks
of Mr. Floyd’s wall include his country’s rampant fears and phobias, a
stifling education system, and his superficial and impersonal
relationship with his wife. The bricks of Mr. Mathabane’s wall include
the acts of injustice apartheid makes him suffer through, his
ever-modernizing and ever-defiant family, and just the general lack of
respect and dignity with which he is treated at all levels of society.
And while the world Mr. Floyd creates for himself is hugely
psychological, in it in which he becomes a fascist dictator (I suppose
like any ‘good’ drug trip, minus the ‘almost dying on Stevens Creek
Trail’ part), the one Mr. Mathabane creates is more grounded in reality.
Anyhow, both are ultimately able to escape their intolerable isolation
through two means. First, they personally acknowledge the flaws in
their thinking that motivated them to construct their walls. Mr. Floyd
does so by mentally putting himself on trial, through which he realizes
he can and should reconnect with the outside world. Mr. Mathabane does
so by remembering that he does, in fact, greatly love his family, and
that only with their support can he become something worth respecting,
and therefore contribute to the fight against apartheid. But beyond
personal will, the two are able to tear down their walls with the help
of the outside world. This assistance comes from their loved ones, who
look past all the differences and insist on “banging [their] heart[s] on
[this] mad bugger’s wall”. For Mr. Floyd these individuals are never
specified, although one can assume it includes his wife and mother. As
for Mr. Mathabane, it was his family: his mother and Johannes in
particular, that helped him, through continually reminding him that they
loved and cared about him (even if Johannes’ rhetoric occasionally
seemed to deny this).
So, if there is anything to draw from this concept of ‘the wall’, it is
that this chaotic, crazy world of ours is something that can be neither
avoided nor managed alone. We all truly need a strong and personal
connection with another person, on which we can rely during hard times.
Nonetheless, we all, to some extent, pay no heed to this advice. We
all eventually try to go the road alone and promptly isolate ourselves
when the going gets too tough. This universal message echoes an idea
present in only Mr. Floyd’s version of the parable: the cyclical nature
of ‘the wall’. With the collapse of one wall, another one somewhere
else is built. This is said not to push one into believing in the
futility of human existence, but rather encourage one to “to never rest
in tearing down the walls that separate us”. Only through such constant
attempts to remind others that their lives do, in fact, have value, and
that the troubles of the world can be coped with can we truly progress
as a society. So please, the next time you talk to someone, impart your
newfound knowledge upon them. Maybe your incessant knocking will go
undetected; maybe the wall is just too mighty. But maybe, just maybe,
your words will not fall on such deaf ears. Then, as you walk away,
take some pride in your deeds, and enjoy the sound the bricks make as
they fall.
