My Traitor's Heart Book Report

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Recommended: Essay on Afrikaner Nationalism

¬¬¬¬ There are many standout moments in My Traitor’s Heart that author Rian Malan highlights because they are monumental and life-changing. The period of time where Malan leaves South Africa for his exile and his point of view looking back on his time while gone really defines who he was as a person and struck me as a fundamental concept throughout the book. The whole point of writing My Traitor’s Heart was to outline Malan’s struggle as he grips with his past and what is just, and the end of the first book into the first few pages of the second put this front and center without coming to any real resolution. On page 73, Malan writes “I ran because I wouldn’t carry a gun for apartheid, and because I wouldn’t carry a gun against it. I ran because I hated Afrikaners and loved blacks. I ran away because I was an Afrikaner and feared blacks.” …show more content…

Malan is not only an Afrikaner. His ancestors have had their hands in every major conflict the Dutch had with the African people. The guilt that weighs him down is not only because of the overarching Afrikaner identity, but with his bloodline. Now, this begs the question: was Malan conflicted because of this guilt or was he conflicted because of a true sense of injustice he saw in his country? I truly believe that Malan saw the injustices, but would not have been as aware of them if it wasn’t for who his ancestors were. He longs to be the just voice of his generation, but instead sees Dawid Malan when he looks in the

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