In April 1992, two years before the end of apartheid, Bosch tragically bled to death after a head-on traffic accident in a rural area of South Africa. Passersby called for an ambulance to bring the “jaws of life” and cut his feet free so the bleeding could be stopped. When they called a second time to ask what was taking so long, the emergency dispatcher reportedly replied, “You didn’t say he was a white man.” A later investigation of whether this actually occurred was inconclusive, largely because the tapes of the two phone conversations had disappeared.
How ironic that one who lived as an enemy of racism should die as an unofficial victim of it. But racism was not the victor in this story. Bosch’s death exposed racism for what it really is – an ideology that kills even when it does not intend to, an ideology that cannot silence those it wishes to silence. How could it, when mere death is its ultimate weapon?
- Discussing the death of missiologist David J. Bosch in the introduction of “A Reader’s Guide to Transforming Mission” by Stan Nussbaum.