Risk and Opportunity
Spring 2007
“An unusual quiver of tools.”
| South Africa was
a difficult and dangerous place to be. White men and women hissed at me
when I walked down the streets of Pretoria. Black and Indian
revolutionaries refused to meet with me when I first arrived. Colored
citizens accused me and the United States of stirring up trouble in
their country. White government officials controlled their rage at my
appointment with varying degrees of success. The possibility of
assassination was very real. I knew that my own life might be in
danger, and I accepted that in the line of duty, but I wondered
sometimes how I could have placed my family in such a precarious life.
On our posts abroad, my wife and daughters had lived through
revolutions, uprisings, and difficult conditions, but South Africa
posed a special risk to them. In this white-supremacist nation, I
wondered how my Chinese wife and our two mixed-race daughters would be
treated. South Africa was a dangerous place politically, too, because I was operating in uncharted foreign-policy waters. I doubt that any American ambassador has ever been given as much leeway as the president and secretary of state gave me. That freedom was risky. I knew very well that with bad judgment or even bad luck, my career could be ruined on this continent, and my lifelong dream of serving in the Foreign Service would end in failure... Finally, South Africa was a dangerous place spiritually. To me this nation often seemed soulless, and in the years ahead I would struggle to hold fast to my religious faith. I would be tested, exhausted, and stressed to the point of illness, but I was never afraid. I had come to South Africa armed with an unusual quiver of tools – a long study of Asian philosophy (especially Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Miyamoto Musashi’s The Books of Five Rings), a reverence for the Constitution of the United States of America, a copy of Letters from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr., a commitment to the oath of office I had taken as an officer of the Foreign Service, and the discipline of a Marine. I know the importance of comprehending both the battlefield and the opponent. I understand the art of diplomacy.... As black resistance grew and state control tightened, South Africa was a powder keg. Still, I was wedded to the concept of conflict resolution. I saw all of the violent activity around me, but I believed it could be settled peacefully. In a highly unusual assignment, I was a warrior of peace on a strange shore. |
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