The Moment Before the Gun Went Off By Nadine Gordimer Marais Van der Vyver shot one of his farm labourers, dead. An accident. There are accidents with guns every day of the week: children playing a fatal game with a father's revolver in the cities where...
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The Moment Before the Gun Went Off By Nadine Gordimer Marais Van der Vyver shot one of his farm labourers, dead. An accident. There are accidents with guns every day of the week: children playing a fatal game with a father's revolver in the cities where guns are domestic objects, and hunting mishaps like this one, in the country. But these won't be reported all over the world. Van der Vyver knows his will be. He knows that the story of the Afrikaner farmer - a regional Party leader and Commandant of the local security commando - he, shooting a black man who worked for him will fit exactly their version of South Africa. It's made for them. They'll be able to use it in their boycott and divestment campaigns. It'll be another piece of evidence in their truth about the country. The papers at home will quote the story as it has appeared in the overseas press, and in the back-and-forth he and the black man will become those crudely-drawn figures on anti-apartheid banners, units in statistics
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