Bring Me My Machine Gun

From 1993 to 1997, British journalist Russell reported from Johannesburg and witnessed the “fairy-tale” ending of apartheid with the release of Mandela. Now he returns to find South Africa still has one of the world’s starkest divides between rich and poor, little redistribution of land, and continuing rampant corruption. In open, journalistic style, he looks in depth and detail at the stalled dream of peace and reconciliation, and he speaks to the leaders, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jacob Zuma, and also to many ordinary people: Afrikaners in a small town, with their casual, unacknowledged racism about “they” and “them”; blacks in the poverty-stricken townships, who want just modest change: running water and electricity, health care, education. Scathing in his criticism of newly rich magnates, he also exposes the two-faced liberals. He shows close-up that the widely reported attacks on immigrants are rooted in the anger and anguish of the poor and dispossessed. This is exciting contemporary history, a must for anyone concerned with what is happening now. --Hazel Rochman