Tongaati by R.G.T Watson (FIRST EDITION)

An African Experiment

259 Pages, Hardcover

FIRST EDITION 1960

Condition:

Dust Jacket is shelf-worn but intact. Has subsequently been covered in clear cellophane to preserve and protect.

Contents are crisp and clear with light foxing on first pages. Gift inscription only visible marking.

Tongaati tells the story of an experiment in living. On a sugar estate, founded in the early days of Natal, there has grown up a multi-racial community - European, African and Indian - existing in mutual harmony and trust. Here, near Durban in South Africa, has developed an oasis in which the dominant word is not "segregation", but "aggregation".

Segregation can never be dissociated from degradation, humiliation and injustice, but aggregation - the voluntary association of individuals in groups bonded by similarities in race, religion, traditions, interest, custom, trade and occupation - carries no stigma and is repugnant to none.

People want to be aggregated. Using this as the basis of their work, three men have devoted a lifetime to the development of Tongaat as an ideal multi-racial community.

Standards of Human relationship are naturally better in a small population group such as Tongaat than in great, inhuman population centers, and it is possible to aim at perfection by a repeated and consistent raising of standards. So, working marginally, by the gradual and slowly spreading permeation of an idea, such a community can in time influence the larger cities and eventually the central government itself. This is the aim of Tongaat.