More than just a memoir, Norman Nathan’s Apartheid: South African Memories is an intensely
intimate exploration of a life spent in two different worlds: the racially divided South Africa of
his childhood and the United States, where he developed a 45-year medical career. His story is a
love letter to a country that both shaped and damaged him, a reflection on injustice, and a
monument to the human spirit’s tenacity. Intimate moments are interwoven with more general
historical facts as Nathan candidly takes readers through his upbringing during apartheid, his
realization of its atrocities, and his final emigration.
A Childhood Under Apartheid: Innocence and Awakening
Nathan’s early recollections of Johannesburg in the 1950s are vividly described, including the
excitement of Saturday matinees at the local bioscope, the aroma of jacaranda blooms, and sunny
afternoons spent riding around Greenside. However, the harsh apparatus of apartheid was hidden
beneath this façade of normalcy. His innocence as a child is shattered by one crucial incident:
seeing a Zulu guy being attacked by police for not producing his passbook. Young Norman is
shaken by the violence and experiences nausea that lasts long after the scene has ended.
Key Moments from Nathan’s Childhood:
- Privilege and Complicity: Despite his distaste for the brutality of apartheid, Nathan, a white boy, struggles with the unmerited privileges it granted him.
- The Servants Who Raised Him: Characters such as Franz (the cook who taught himself to read), Lizzie (the nurse who loved him like her own), and Jeremiah (the gardener incarcerated for not having a pass) highlight the inconsistencies of a system that required subservience but was unable to eradicate dignity.
- Prohibited Friendships: His relationship with Nomaan, the son of Franz and Makoti, who was reared in their house illegally, turns into a silent act of rebellion. The strict racial barriers of apartheid are broken by their collaborative soccer matches and instruction.
The memoir doesn’t flinch from these complexities. Nathan acknowledges the love he felt for the Black individuals who shaped his life, while also recognizing how apartheid distorted those relationships. His return to South Africa decades later, and the emotional reunion with Nomaan (orchestrated by his nephew), underscores the enduring connections that apartheid could not fully erase.
The Wild and the Political: Kruger, Gorongoza, and the Shadow of War
Nathan’s love for the African wilderness provides some of the book’s most lyrical passages. Family trips to Kruger National Park and Mozambique’s Gorongoza are escapes into a world untouched by politics—or so it seems. His descriptions of the bush are cinematic: lions roaring at dusk, the sudden flash of a kudu leaping over the car, the eerie silence of a drought-stricken landscape.
But even here, apartheid’s shadow looms. Gorongoza, once a paradise, later becomes a
battleground in Mozambique’s civil war—a metaphor for how conflict ravages both land and
people. Nathan’s grief over its destruction mirrors his mourning for a South Africa that could
have been.
Military Service: Indoctrination and Silent Rebellion
Mandatory conscription forces Nathan into the heart of apartheid’s machinery. The harrowing
account of his platoon terrorizing an African woman—while he stands by, paralyzed by fear—is
a stark reminder of how systems dehumanize everyone they touch. Yet small acts of defiance
emerge:
- Secret Escapes: With his sister’s help, he sneaks out of army camp on weekends, a risky
but necessary rebellion.
- Moral Awakening: The cognitive dissonance between his upbringing and the brutality
he witnesses fuels his growing disillusionment.
Medicine as Resistance: Wits, Bobby Kennedy, and the
Fight for Justice
Nathan’s medical training at Wits University becomes a crucible for his political awakening. The
campus is a hotbed of anti-apartheid activism, where banned writings of Mandela circulate in
secret, and students risk expulsion—or worse—for dissent.
Defining Moments at Wits:
- Bobby Kennedy’s Visit: The U.S. senator’s 1966 speech (“Each time a man stands up
for an ideal, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope”) electrifies Nathan and his peers.
- Friendship Across Color Lines: His bond with Jay, an Indian classmate, defies
apartheid’s laws. Their friendship invites police harassment, including midnight calls
threatening fabricated charges.
- Rural Medicine and Systemic Neglect: Clinical rotations in townships and Zululand
expose the devastating human cost of apartheid’s healthcare disparities. The death of a
young asthmatic woman in Alexandra Township—a preventable tragedy—haunts him.
Medicine, for Nathan, becomes both a refuge and a form of resistance. In treating the
marginalized—whether Black South Africans or, later, Rwandan refugees—he seeks to mend
what apartheid tore apart.
Exile and Legacy: A Life Beyond Borders
Graduation from Wits is not a triumph but a hurried escape. Nathan and Jay flee to the U.S.,
where he builds a life as a physician treating cystic fibrosis patients, coal miners, and refugees.
Yet South Africa never leaves him. His reflection on leaving—“my tragic, turbulent, vibrant,
majestic, and beloved country”—captures the duality of exile: relief mingled with irreparable
loss.
Why This Book Matters Today
Nathan’s memoir is more than a historical account; it’s a mirror held up to contemporary
struggles. The parallels between apartheid and modern injustices—racial inequality, systemic
oppression, the courage of dissent—are impossible to ignore.
Key Takeaways for Readers:
- The Power of Witness: Nathan presents himself as someone who witnessed, inquired,
and finally decided to take action rather than as a hero.
- The Cost of Silence: By exposing his instances of complicity (such as while serving in
the military), he challenges readers to consider their own responsibilities inside unfair
systems.
- Hope in Human Connection: His racial relationships with Nomaan, Jay, and others
demonstrate that compassion endures even under the most repressive governments.
Final Thoughts: A Call to Remember
Apartheid: South African Memories serves as a reminder that the lessons of history are brittle in
a time of widening divisions. Nathan’s storyline lacks self-aggrandizement, and his style is
modest but evocative. He emphasizes the need of remembering but doesn’t provide simple
solutions.
This narrative serves as an approachable introduction to apartheid for people who are not
familiar with it. Nathan’s voice will sound painfully familiar to those who experienced it. And his
journey—from complicity to consciousness—is a lighthouse for anyone who believes in the
strength of personal conscience.
This book itself may ultimately be Nathan’s greatest act of healing, demonstrating that memory is
a work in progress, much like justice.