For Justice, Understanding and Humanity. Helmut Lauschke
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malignancy. The young colleague called the superintendent a moneymaker. In this regard, I told the story of a dentist with a name of a Huguenot origin who had worked in the dental department of the hospital for quite some months. He was obsessed with the greed for quick money in the turbulent time that he charged the settings of crowns on his accounts in many cases also for clients when a crown was not needed, contradicted and not set. Some clients complained that the crowns had fallen out after a short while that the dentist had put in a new crown. Other clients were amazed at the high charges on their accounts and that they could not find a crown in their mirrored open mouths.
Medical aid questioned the high number of crowns set in the short period of time that it started an investigation by interviewing the clients including the look into their mouths and compared the dental status with the fee numbers and charges on the accounts. Some clients had a few teeth left and others had rotten dentures with a strong halitosis that there were no places for a crown as it were stated. The scheme came out: the crowns were put in place on the accounts but not into the mouths. Clients demanded the paid amounts back from the dentist. The demands of repayment became more and more that the dentist left with the money paid and his wife Oshakati overnight for South Africa.
The young colleague said in regard to people of the greed for quick money that the ‘rats’ take advantage of the war related upside downs to fill their bellies like pigs. “The behaviour of the forced-up greed for profit is criminal and does harm and discriminate the medical profession at large”, he added. I replied: “If one thing is wrong, the whole system is wrong. The morals have reached the low in this corner of the world. The system is corrupt and rotten and will sink like an old vessel when the new vessel is already in sight.” I expressed the sincere wish that the new vessel carries the booster for bringing back the morals up to standard, since the people deserve justice and a life in dignity.”
The young colleague who had his roots in the African soil like Dr van der Merwe, said: “It is a piece of truth of the low standard that money makes African people powerful and that money has the bigger saying than education. The materialism has gained ground also in Africa that the traditions and values of the old African cultures are drying up. Education and culture have slipped down to the low of illiteracy in terms of intellectual and spiritual degeneration.” The young colleague painted a black picture by saying that he cannot imagine that the blacks will be more educated than the whites that the morals will suffer from the shipwreck. The new people will grasp the levers of power. They have learnt from old people the handling of power for the advantage of the new elite. “I think the other skin colour will not make a big difference”, the young colleague added and took a neatly folded paper from the table and gave it to me with the words: “These are my words of farewell to you”.
I unfolded the paper and read :
To A Friend
I’m leaving you and need you so much
where I’m going to, it has been changed
my mind took a different view and opinion.
What I saw before is no longer meaningful
as what I have seen and experienced with people
who live with hunger and renunciation.
I have never suffered of these basics
when I passed school and university
I had to eat and had my own bed
and had the books to bring up my knowledge.
Here I have learnt that I knew little
about people suffering of these basics
because I have not considered them properly and honestly.
I have blinded myself by things of affluence and wealth
and did not think that this only belonged to the whites.
You taught me to be a doctor with a human face
to see the needs in the patients’ eyes and hearts
you taught me the humbleness which is needed
to understand what most important is in life.
Now I go back to a place where things are white
and I know that it is only a question of time
because skin colour should not make the difference
if it comes to honesty and human caring.
I will remember you as my teacher regarding the blacks
who guided me in the direction of the greater values
which are more important than I thought before.
May God bless you and the suffering people
who struggle so long for peace and freedom.
I took time in reading to perceive the spirit between and beyond the lines. I was deeply moved when I thanked the young colleague for his words and regretted that he left the hospital where doctors with a ‘human face’ where needed so much. “What will you do when you are back in South Africa?”, I asked him. The young colleague said he like to do a postgraduate in surgery, but there is the problem of money. “My parents have sacrificed much to enable me to study medicine. There are three other children younger, but not less talented who were looking for a respectable profession as well. I cannot lie on my parents’ pocket longer, but rather to earn the living by myself.” I told how I had earned my living as student by doing several part-time shops. “That is impossible in South Africa”, the young colleague said and added that he will work as a general practitioner where he thought to do a good work for and on the people.
“You have the great gift to be a good doctor, since you are a good human being with an open mind for the needs of the people”, I said. The young colleague stood up and expressed his wish of keeping in contact. “I will write you, but now I thank you for all that you have done for me. I wish you the best for the future. The change is visible that it will come soon.” I accompanied the young colleague to the gate where we gave each other the hand and said goodbye.
The three Casspirs were mud-dirty when they returned from the veld with the sitting-up squads and took the sharp right curve in front of the gate on the way back to the camp. The young colleague passed the place between flat and guesthouse when we greeted each other the last time before he disappeared on the sandy path between bushes and trees. I closed the gate and went back to the flat. I leant the verandah door by and went to the kitchen for a cup of instant coffee with the chicory supplement and put the cup on the verandah table. I took a seat on the verandah chair at the verandah table in the small sitting room and lit up a cigarette and read the young colleague’s words of farewell again.
This poem arose from a deep-rooted humanity that the reading moved my mind. I learnt the wording and had it in my mind after the seventh reading. The poem had a melancholic pensiveness especially in the saying: “Now I go back to a place where things are white” and “because skin colour should not make the differnce if it comes to honesty and human caring”. In the reflection it became clear that a long way had to be gone, since racial segregation went deep into the blood of the blacks and deep into the dried-up mud and other crusts. Hunger, poverty and indignity of the blacks and the privileges and preferences in life for whites, both had lasted too long and had created a deep valley of injustice and inhumanity.
But the time has come that more whites packed their bags and boxes for the departure to Windhoek and the coastal towns of Swakopmund, Walvisbay or Hentiesbay. Others went deeper to the south like the Free-State in South Africa where the communities were still and mainly white, while the ‘black masts’ were in sight in the far north. People were also packing things into their bags and boxes what did not belong to them and were registered with the Bantu-administration that had given up control and responsibility to its greatest extent. Things like porcelain, tea and kitchen things, and bed linen, sheets and towels were moved from the north to the south despite the washing-proof marks ‘SWAA’ [South West Africa Administration]. There was no order neither in the region