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Thank you to Gerrie Hugo, author of the autobiographical book Africa Will Always Break Your Heart for taking the time to sit down with Blogging Authors for this interview. (E-book version is also available here)
1. What prompted you to write this book? How did you come up with the idea?
Africa Will Always Break Your Heart saw the light purely as an exercise in therapy. I suffer from Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and needed an escape valve to let off steam in an effort to put the demons of the past to rest.
It is also my confession and apology for living a large part of my life as a racist.
I wrote the first draft in six weeks. It just bubbled over. During the editing process numerous other agendas came to the fore i.e. setting the record straight. Illuminating to some people just how backward their opinions are. To anger my enemies and bring the heart failure they so justly deserve on a bit sooner.
I have also written a few children’s stories which will be available soon.
2. Who did you dedicate this book to and why?
This book is dedicated to Sune and Lisbeth, my parents-in-law. By embracing me into their family they have taught me gentleness and consideration for others. They are truly genuine, honest and tender souls.
3. Who is your favorite author and why?
I have a few. All time favourite will have to be Louis de Bernières for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Birds Without Wings. He climbs into a character and is a storyteller of note.
Swedish Favourites:
Henning Mankell for his inspector Kurt Wallander series and Mikael Niemi for his Popular Music from Vittula.
South Africa:
Sarah Britten for her The Art of the South African Insult.
Tom Sharpe - Had a few more read his books about the absurdities prevailing during the apartheid regime, maybe the world could have picked up on the situation a bit sooner and not only reacted after events like Sharpeville, Soweto and Bisho.
But on the other hand, can one blame the world for not fully understanding that all Sharpe did was really an account of reality? Hardly! With such a system in place, no sarcasm and/or irony is really needed when writing about it. This system was its’ own worst enemy. Alas, it took quite a bit of time for those who advocated it to realize this…
4. If you could pick out anyone to read and comment on your book, whom would you pick and why?
It will most definitely have to be Nelson Mandela as he is the only true hero in my life.
5. What would you like to have your readers get from this book?
I would like people to read it again and again for fear of missing something the first time around. I want people to laugh, cry, think and discuss my book.
I want people to do a bit of soul-searching, too look inside themselves, before they cast any stones. If but one of them can change their way of thinking and to broaden the perspective from which they see life, then I will be content. Life is too short to waste on petty bigotry and hatred. I know, I’ve been there myself. And I almost lost trust and sight of life’s own remarkable twists of helping me find a way forward. It’s sure as heck is no joyride but once you’ve reached the point of saturation, you’ll find that a little purging of your soul does you a world of good.
6. Have you received any special comments back from any of your readers and can you share them with us?
Two distinct camps and never the twain shall meet:
Ex-military members who loathe it. Strangely enough they base their opinions purely on the publicity blurb as they refuse to read it. According to some I should be strung up by my feet as I’m trash, a turn-coat and a traitor. A traitor to what? Atrocities committed in the name of Apartheid? I’m strangely comfortable with that label.
The ones who have read it and absolutely loved it. Herewith a few comments:
o Marie Mills – Sweden - I have been rolling on the floor laughing through some passages of your book. You have turned Afrikaner humour, spot-on observations expressed in explicit language, into an art form! Your ability to deliver accounts of atrocities, abuse and tragedy with intelligence and a brutal sense of humour without diminishing the significance of the events or losing focus, makes you a truly gifted writer.
o Jim Kelly – UK – It’s a must! This is one of those books you cannot put down…a great read for all.
o A Member of Library Thing in the USA - Whewww…anyway, your book was personally very meaningful to me. I read it slowly, bit by bit taking it in, but I’m gonna reread it a couple more times. I had thought the book would be more about the bigger picture of Apartheid and not so intimate a personal journey, but I like what I found better. Crude in content and presentation (as it should be), it gave me much to think about. One of the more rewarding reads I’ve read in a while. Thanks for writing it.
o Christopher Lewis-Ewell – Texas USA - When first I opened this book, I was expecting to hate it. Being of African American decent, I was admittedly prejudiced against anything South African. Fortunately, for the book, and my own edification, I had a chance to meet the author. It is because he wears his heart on his sleeve that I open my eyes, and give his journal a chance. It is because I gave him his voice, in my mind that I have had a change of heart. His story is unique, not just because our cultures are so very different. It is unique because he has been changed and he speaks of the process and the pains that process invokes in a plain, easily understood language that reached past my pre-conceived ignorance of what HIS world was like. I honestly wanted to hate this book… just as I have grown to hate what the South African Government was doing to the people of colour inside of their country. I came away form reading this book changed. And that is a good thing. I have come to know the man, and I sincerely hope that he continues to share his unique perspective with the world through his writing… he sure has a way with words.
There is also a third group. The Swedish solidarity movement who declined to use my book as a fund-raiser for aid in Africa because they maintain that I’m not “black” enough to have these views about the apartheid regime. I do not find it strange at all because some of their members still maintain that Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is a misunderstood saint and according to them the Matabeleland massacre never took place.
7. Gerrie, tell us a little more about yourself.
Born and bred in South Africa in an Afrikaans military family. It therefore came as no surprise that I pursued a military career. I became disillusioned with the system and in 1991 I was the most senior serving officer ever to speak out about atrocities. This happened three years before the first democratic elections in South Africa and was not a popular exercise at all as I exposed existing covert operations that had to shut down as result.
I paid the ultimate price in telling the truth in the sense that my old life and existence was lost and dead. With it went my pension and all my worldly possessions. I had to start from scratch and even though it has been an uphill battle we have managed to overcome most of the stumbling blocks thus far.
I never opted to become a member of the ANC because they had just as much blood on their hands and I remain an outspoken critic of their actions and activities. I was thus shunned by all and could not secure any form of employment. Alas, any criticism of the ANC is deemed worst than blasphemy in the Roman Catholic Church.
A documentary has been made about a part of my life. Done by a Canadian crew and titled Gerrie and Louise, this won an Emmy award in 1997, for best foreign documentary.
I am fiercely critical of the way we got treated and portrayed in this hogwash and my opinion on the material will remain:
“In my opinion submitting this material as a ‘documentary’ was equivalent to trying to sell a rodent’s rectum to a blind man as a wedding ring.”
In May 2002 I left Africa for the first time in 47 years on the invitation of a Swedish journalist who was investigating the South African connection to the murder of their prime minister, Olof Palme, in 1986. During my first visit I met my wife to be and returned three more times before settling in Stockholm. I am now a Swedish citizen and gainfully employed as personal assistant to my wife who suffers from MS.
8. What message would you give anyone who may be thinking of buying this book?
I welcome you to my world and hope that you will enjoy the journey.
Also, I’m sick and tired of all the “heroic” autobiographies that former leading members of the SADF produce with a dizzy rate of knots. There’s absolutely nothing heroic in having participated in defending Apartheid. It was a crime against humanity. I hope that the prospective buyer is interested in knowing more about how innocence can get moulded into hatred, to the extent where a whole society can be kept in blissful ignorance. That we as “whites” did this on the expense of millions and millions of “non-whites” was conveniently forgotten and over-looked.
I hope to shed some light on what happened behind this looking-glass of lies, hypocrisy and fear. The truth hurts. You think you know what happened in South Africa, and why? Try again…
Stumble it!
