Out of Shadows

An attempt needs to be made to redress the imbalances of the past which needs to be dealt with rather than left festering. Jason Wallace has written a book that tells an uncomfortable story of historical racism that left some whites determined to fulfil a doom prophecy after 1980.

The story begins as a reluctant 12-year-old uprooted from England begins high school life at the boarding school from hell. Robert Franklin enters the school at the same time as Nelson Ndube. We all have a need to be accepted and to belong, and it isnt long before Robert abandons Nelson and aligns himself increasingly with the white thugs. Even though he struggles, he joins in their evil activities.

No-one it seems can stem the rising tide of hatred and bile fuelled by a white teacher. Although a lone black senior tries to protect Nelson, he is soon dismissed. Jason Wallace paints a bleak picture of a fictional private school where sons of white farmers spew forth the worst racist vitriol continuing to bully and subdue any blacks who cross their path.

Neither teachers, fellow students nor the local black community are safe as the malevolent boys wreak havoc, tormenting, torturing and even murdering with impunity. Its seems that life at Haven school not only continues as before, but students have access to live ammunition and appear to roam the countryside completely unsupervised.

While Wallace weaves his story peppered with reference to government attempts to intervene even while half-hearted and superficial are seen as interference, and

ultimately some of the boys believe they can take on the government.

The author was perhaps influenced by Goldings Lord of the Flies, but it was the very presence of the helpless adults in Wallaces story so absent in Lord of the Flies that undermined the credibility of this story.

The weakness of this book is that the narrator paints portraits of caricatures of the most appalling white racists and shallow unformed feeble black characters but the writer cannot resist allowing his characters to run out of control. The white boys become more and more outrageous in the acts they commit, until the story moves from an acceptable to a totally unbelievable storyline.

The black characters even the adults are portrayed as weak and powerless. This detracts from the kind of story that could be told, one about how young minds can be poisoned when fed on a diet of hatred and ignorance, how prejudice and bigotry can destroy lives.

Would removing Mugabe end the woes of Zimbabwe? Reading this book during the time when I watched Invictus highlighted some of the limitations of the plot mainly because the book lacked the balance of the finely crafted (albeit Hollywood) film.

In spite of the role that he played, Mandela could not save South Africa on his own just as Mugabe did not destroy Zimbabwe on his own. Certainly Mandela is an amazingly charismatic and noble man and was a significant influence for good and the breaking down of prejudices of the past. But would the killing of a single man change the course of history for good or bad?

I was disturbed that by the end of the story Robert was still not convinced of the destructiveness of violence and that bloodshed was not the answer. Viewing the current state of Zimbabwe it appeared Robert had reservations about the final outcome. Maybe this is one of the strengths of the book that Jason Wallace takes us right out of our comfort zone and sets us down in an unpleasant world where the strong bully the weak and where evil triumphs because good men do nothing.

Jason Wallace is a writer to follow there will hopefully be many books to look out for in the future. In spite of my reservations this is a book to be read, to bury a past that has no place in the new Zimbabwe that remains to be built.

Author: Jason Wallace

Published by Anderson Press 6.99