South Africa’s Apartheid

Consequences and

Cultural Responses

“Amnesty” and Graceland

What do you know about South Africa?

• Apartheid• Table Mountain – one of the seven wonders of the

world• FIFA World Cup, 2010• AIDS (4.7 million South Africans — one in nine —

are HIV-positive) Kamil, HIV+ muppet • Diamond and gold

Related Films

In My Country (or Country of My Skull about Truth and Reconciliation committee)

Yesterday (next week)Tsotsi 黑幫暴徒Black Butterfly (2011) 黑蝶漫舞 about Sout

h-African poet Ingrid Jonker. Mama Africa《非洲媽媽》 Miriam MakebaInvictus 《打不倒的勇者》 South African

rugby in 1995 World cup

Outline

History of Apartheid (e.g. Cry, My Beloved Country; Cry Freedom)

Consequences & Responses: – 1. Long Night’s Journey into the Day& In My Country – 2 the poems about physical sufferings; – 3. Stories on Race Relations and anti-Apartheid

movements--The Music of the Violin" "Six Feet of the Country“ "Amnesty"

– 4. tradition and individual vs. society; “The Prophetess”

– 5. music—Graceland (crossover style) – 6. art works

South Africa: Past and Present

Past – – Cape Town as refreshment station for colonizers on their

way to Asia

– Aborigines: San (or Bushmen), Khoikhoi (or Hottentots), driven to Kalahari mountains and the desert areas in the 18th century, when more conflicts arose between Xhosa, Boers and the English.

Population: 479,000 （ 2007 ）， four groups: whites （ 9.1% ）、 blacks （ 79.6 % ）、 colored （ 8.9 % ） and Asians （ 2.5%, including Indians)

South Africa: Past and Present (2)

Present Problems: – increasing gap between the rich (Blacks) and

the poor (Blacks) – social unrest –23% of South Africans worried

about corruption problems, and 21% crime rates.

• Causes: 1) the blacks venting their anger; 2) conflicts between the capitalists and laborers; 3) abolishment of death penalty, 4) illegal immigrants; 5) police corruption

– AIDS (later) source

History: Triangle formed

1652 --The Dutch East India Company arrived, displacing the Bantu-speaking black Africans;

1795 -- The British seized Cape Town, and the Afrikaaners began the 'Great Trek' to find new bases. 

1814 –The British displaced the Dutch, who moved inland to Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal

The Dutch

(Boer, Afrikaans)

The British

Xhosa (the blacks)

Boer Wars

1867 -- 1886 Gold and diamond discovered in these areas Boer War (1899-1902)

(clip Cry Freedom 45:56)

Boer women and children in British concentration camps

(source)

History –domination of Afrikaans

1910 -- the four colonies were joined together under the Act of the Union, and the British handed the administration of the country over to the White locals.

1913/14 -- The Mines and Works Act and the Natives Land Act: a 'color bar' was legalized and blacks were prohibited from owning land anywhere but in 'native reserves'--7 percent of the whole.

1931-- South Africa gained its independence from Britain – 50,000 white farmers have twelve times as much land

for cultivation and grazing as 14 million rural blacks– 1930s the government tried to mechanize agricultural

practices in rural South Africa. Fewer black workers were needed. severe droughts urban migration

History: Approaching Apartheid

the Urban Areas Act (1923) -- introduced residential segregation and provided cheap labour for white industry

the Colour Bar Act (1926) -- prevented blacks from practicing skilled trades

Separate Representation of Voters Act (1956), -- removed coloureds from the common voters' roll in the Cape, and established a separate voters' roll for them (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_under_apartheid )

Examples: Cry, the Beloved Country (1995)

Novel by Alan Paton Setting: (written in 1947),

post WWII Johannesburg, right before Apartheid was institutionalized.

An aging Zulu pastor goes there to search for his son, as well as his brother and sister, only to find the son guilty of murdering a white man who was devoted to the cause of racial justice. the relations between the two fathers.

Examples: Cry, the Beloved Country

Issues: Urban migration the breaking of African tribes; poor living conditions of the blacks in the city Tsotsi, fear and possibilities of reconciliation.

Examples: Cry, the Beloved Country (1995)

""There is fear in the land. And fear in the hearts of all who live there. And fear puts an end to understanding and the need to understand. So how shall we fashion such a land when there is fear in the heart? The white man will put more locks on his door and get a fine fierce dog, but the beauty of the trees and of the stars, these things we shall forego.

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor

of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply.

Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if his gives too much. Yes cry, cry, the beloved country.".” (film 47:46 - )

Examples: Cry, the Beloved Country

"For it is the dawn that has come,

as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.” (2: 41; 44)

Apartheid --institutionalized

1948 –Apartheid institutionalized since Afrikaner Nationalists won the election;

a method of “divide and rule” to counteract the so-called "black danger“; Afrikaner rulers saw Africans as threatening to overrun or engulf them by their sheer numbers.

Brutal racism: imprisonment, police killings and murder (e.g. confiscation of property and the forced removal of millions of blacks )

Apartheid -- other examples of the laws Population Registration Act (1950) -- required that

each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics

Group Areas Act (1950) -- designed to separate racial groups geographically

The Bantu Authorities Act (or Homeland Act, 1951) -- created separate government structures for blacks

Passes: Black men and women, or even people who appeared to possibly be black, were required by law to carry passes at all times stating who they were and why they belonged in a certain area.

Consequences: Shantytown, Lack of Resources and Tsosti

Black townships: e.g. Sophiatown, Soweto near Johannesburg– In crowded, often unsanitary, and potentially dehumanizing living

conditions; – Materials used for the houses-- corrugated tin, newspaper,

cardboard boxes, and whatever else could be found to keep out wind and rain.

– "Most of the yards had a single lavatory and one tap which were shared by 150 to 200 residents" (Mattera, p. 50).

Education: 1938 -- fewer than one-third of the country's black school-aged children were actually enrolled in schools.

Tsotsi – the many black youths who turned to street hustling (theft or murder). e.g. Cry, the Beloved Country -- Absalom Kumalo. Tsotsi ( 黑幫暴徒 2005)

(e.g. CF: Squatters –opening; Pass -- clip 57:30

Tsotsi ( 黑幫暴徒 2005)

http://www.starblvd.com/cgi-bin/Movie/MV_Film?file=2006/Tsotsi/Tsotsi.html

Note: U.S. vs. South Africa U.S. S.A.

modern, industrialized Western democracy with an oppressed but culturally assimilated black minority;

an African, third-world country with a white minority enjoying a first-world living standard

separate schools, transportation, and eating facilities

native reserves and locations

50’-60’s resistance movements

1964 the Civil Rights Act; 1965 the Voting Rights Act.

1960s -- apartheid reached its zenith.

Resistance movements (1):

1943 Nelson Mandela ANC; PAC 1946 – Miners’ strike 1960 -- The Abolition of Passes and Coordination of

Documents Act, 1952 (all blacks should carry passes Sharpville Massacre); a large group of blacks in Sharpeville refused to carry their passes; the government declared a state of emergency. The emergency lasted for 156 days, leaving 69 people dead and 187 people wounded. (source)

1960’s -- the banning of African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) armed resistance; International sanctions and sabbotage

state of emergency (1960 – 1989): those who went on demonstration can be sentenced to death, banished or imprisoned.

Resistance movements (1): example

Sharpville Massacre – anti-pass movement on

March 21, 1960, in Sharpeville. 69 people were killed, including 8 women and 10 children, and of the 180 people who were wounded, 31 were women and 19 were children.

“Our Sharpville” p. B 10I was playing hopscotch on the

slateWhen the miners roared past in

lorries, Their arms raised, signals at a

crossing, Their chanting foreign and

familiarLike the call and answer of road

gangs Across the veld ( 大草原 ),

building hot arteries From the heart of the Transvaal

1. Oasis 2. Maulers of children 3. Shame???

Resistance movements (2):

1970 Black Consciousness (BMC); In Steven Biko's own words, 'we black people should all the time keep in mind that South Africa is our country and that all of it belongs to us' e.g. Cry Freedom 32:00, 38:34

-- insists on Black autonomy; formed a community, including a community clinic, Zanempilo

banned during the height of apartheid in March 1973, meaning that he was not allowed to speak to more than one person at a time, was restricted to certain areas, and could not make speeches in public.

Uprisings: – language education ( Soweto uprising 1976, the

beginning of the end) Arrested in 1977 (Biko killed on 12 September 1977)

Examples: Cry Freedom (1987)

Plot: South African journalist Donald Woods is forced to flee the country after attempting to investigate the death in custody of his friend the black activist Steve Biko.

Opening – The raid on Crossroads squatter’s camp Ending –Soweto uprising (2:24:30) Biko’s ideas –

– Black Consciousness– his speech (31:32) – his self defense (naked racism) (38:34)

The community to a visit to a black township (18:30-) Afrikaner’s version

Resistance movements: Soweto Student Uprising

"It was a picture that got the world‘s attention: A frozen moment in time that showed 13-year-old Hector Peterson dying after being struck down by a policeman's bullet.  At his side was his 17-year-old sister. ” (source)

Apartheid: Repeal Efforts

1980’s: International sanctions + radicalization of resistance movements

1. Some minor laws (e.g. interracial marriage) were abolished by 1990;

2. 1985-1988, the P.W. Botha government’s elimination of black oppositions;

1991 -- President de Klerk obtained the repeal of the remaining apartheid laws and called for the drafting of a new constitution.

1993 -- a multiracial, multiparty transitional government was approved, and fully free elections were held in 1994, which gave majority representation to the African National Congress.

Response 1: Long Night’s Journey into the Day

South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Purpose: Restorative Justice, rather than retributive justice Mandated to produce "as complete a picture as possible

of the nature, causes and extent" of these violations” committed during the apartheid period. They did it with the testimonies of the victims and pepetrators.

Reasons: chose Restorative justice but not retributive justice. The

perpetrators …” [had] to confess publicly, in the full glare of television lights, that they did those ghastly things.“-- Desmond Tutu

Since the past cannot be un-lived, we have to face it. Criticized: justice before reconciliation

Response 1: Long Night’s Journey into the Day

Case 11. Amy Biehl-- Amy Biehl, an American student in

South Africa working with the ANC, was killed by four Black youths during political unrest in Guguletu township.

Why they kill -- "Killing someone like her exposed both our anger and the conditions under which we lived. If we had been living reasonably, we would not have killed her."-- Easy Nofemela on the killing of Amy Biehl

Long Night’s Journey into the DayCase 2. "Cradock 4." – Eric Taylor, a white person who

had worked (and killed) to uphold the apartheid government and who now had a change of heart and was remorseful for his acts.

His way of killing: beat the four persons (who were supposed to be movement leaders, but one was actually unknown to them) to death and then burn them.

(clips 1—his belief, 2 –his change ) The widows refused to agree with amnesty.

Long Night’s Journey into the Day

Case 3. Robert McBride-- an ANC activist "No one has apologized to me yet for

either oppressing me directly or indirectly or happily benefitting from my oppression"-- Robert McBride on apology

Clip 3 Is he a terrorist? Clip: MaBride vs. a

victim’s family

Long Night’s Journey into the Day

Case 4. Guguletu 7--the story of seven young men who were killed in what now appears to have been a set-up designed to make the apartheid police look as if they had killed a group of dangerous terrorists.

clips Mbelo as a black policeman/informant; the process of reconciliation

Questions to ponder over (1) What is truth? What is justice?

TRC – presents conflicting testimonies; Archbishop Tutu refers the past as a ‘jigsaw

puzzle’ of which the TRC report is only a piece, and alludes to a search “for the clues that lead . . . To a truth that will . . . never be fully revealed.” (TRC report 4, qtd in Graham 11).

Factual and forensic truths vs. personal and narrative truths

Desmond Tutu on restorative versus retributive justice

Questions to ponder over (1) What is justice?

Cases in Contrast: – The endless hunting for Nazi regime supporters; – Victims? Absalom in Cry, my Beloved Country. – Victims? The US: The Washington Post (June

8, 2000) - "The nation's war on drugs unfairly targets African Americans, who are far more likely to be imprisoned for drug offenses than whites, even though far more whites use illegal drugs than blacks,.... Overall, black men are sent to prisons on drug charges at 13 times the rate of white men.... Overall, one in 20(1/20) black men over the age of 18 is in a state or federal prison compared with one in 180 (1/180) white men."

Questions (2): How to resolve large-scale conflicts

law enforcement, & public policy, non-violent demonstrations, contracts, treaties use of force and imposed peace by the victor

over the vanquished. TRC: dialogue and collaborative problem

solving, arbitration, mediation, Truth is ‘the Road to Reconciliation’?

A related question: what drive some people to brutal killings? How do we avoid making errors we are induced to make by historic circumstances?

Q (3): How do we face (collective) violence & survive trauma?

To REPRESS it, to seek VENGEANCE, RETRIBUTION, or to UNDERSTAND and FORGIVE?

To face it through a certain ritual and with a group of people, or to face it alone. (Example: the journalist whose father was killed.)

Is direct confrontation of the perpetrators’ and victims testimonies productive?

Should memory reconstruction be the only means of ‘facing’ the past?

Q (4): Justice, Truth, Forgiveness, or merely Amnesty

Who should be empowered to grant forgiveness when a person is murdered? Can the family members ever forgive on behalf of the lost loved one, or can they only forgive with regard to their own loss? (e.g. Biko’s family)

Is the TRC really engaged in offering forgiveness or only amnesty protection against prosecution? Do the victims’ testimonies get ignored when the perpetrators’ are taken as reasons for amnesty?

Can we forgive were we in the same boat? Do we dare to confess and apologize? – 80% of those who applied for amnesty were

black

One Possible Interpretation of TRC

one effect of the TRC has been ‘the restoration of narrative. In few countries in the contemporary world do we have a living example of people reinventing themselves through narrative’ (Ndebele qtd in Graham 12).

E.g. The Story I am about to Tell, Ubu and The Truth Commission, The Country of my Skull ( In my Country), etc.

Responses 2: Poems Related to Physical Suffering

• Douglas Reid Skinner “The Body is a Country of Joy and Pain” – prison experienced by 1) mother, 2) imprisoned man, 3) raped woman, 4)

self-alienated.

• Mongane Serote “Prelude” (soul bursts on the paper and heart oozes into the ink)

• Gladys Thomas “Reflections of an Old Worker” –”You” “become were” the Power over my body.

Response 3: Stories re. Anti-Apartheid movements & Race Relations

Nadine Gordimer

Bessie Head

Mbulelo Mzamane

“Amnesty”

Nadine Gordimer: treatments of races

earlier fiction: white middle class characters and their relationship to Black characters under the system of apartheid (e.g. “Six Feet of the Country”)

Later: used first-person voice to express position of Black characters

criticized – presumptuous of her to represent an experience which cannot be her own

Her defense: has her right to write about Black characters; acknowledging the need to ensure that their voices must be heard (source: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~bweber/NadineGordimer.html )

Example of the criticism (1):

“the least convincing. There is something faux-naïf [artfully simple] about the perception and diction; it feels patronising. . . It seems odd that Gordimer even tries to feel black.” (source: Nadine Gordimer 173)

Example of the criticism (2):

July’s People (1981)–banned in Gauteng province

"the subject matter is questionable ... the language that is used is not acceptable, as it does not encourage good grammatical practices ... the reader is bombarded with nuances that do not achieve much ... any condemnation of racism is difficult to discover - so the story comes across as being deeply racist, superior and patronizing.“

(source with an excerpt from the book: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,6000,475098,

00.html).

Gordimer’s view (2)

“key areas of both white and black experience are self-contained in South Africa” (Nadine Gordimer 17)

E.g. she would not attempt, for example, to “narrate the experience of the Soweto riots, knowing ‘it would be false.’”

"Amnesty"

A Woman’s Growing “Self”-Awareness

"Amnesty"

published in Jump, a collection of short stories, shortly before Gordimer won the Nobel prize.

Told from the wife of one who joins a Union first and then the “Movement.”

Questions

How much do we know, through the narrator, about her lover’s revolutionary ideas? How is he related to the narrator and their families?

What role does the narrator play in between an activist and her peasant family? How does she learn from her lover?

What does she learn at the end?

The Anti-Apartheid Movements and Ideas

From a Union to full-time participation in the Movement; – well-dressed (no stupid yes-baas black men) p.

26; exercise in their cells 29; – Criticism of his people’s self-content, belief

in God, and ignorance p. 26; 28; slow 30. – Criticism of racial inequality: 30; – Work for the future: issues for improvement

31

The lover: distanced from his family

Back after 5-year imprisonment: The first kiss; the child ran away 29; Different, heavier; hard to communicate with 29 absent-minded, something in his mind 29-30; the comrades: confirming “our culture” “mama

of Africa” 30Have sex like taking a meal 31; patronizing—wanting her to learn 31

The Narrator’s Position

The narrator Her lover & his comrades

The peasants Squatters

Gender: p. 25 (needs the father’s permission to get married);

Education: standard 8 constrained at home; teach in a farm school; limited knowledge: has not seen the island her lover: learns from newspaper wrapping 25; as a construction worker in a town 25

The Narrator’s Learning and Self-Awareness

The narrator– waiting – happy about his return; 25; – Get well-dressed to go see him p. 27; – has to wait again at the end.

learning e.g. p. 26; about not having a “home” 30;

has her distinct perception –about the island:– 　 ABOUT Nature (27; about the land’s belonging

to nobody; the view of the earth and the clouds 32)

Note: Standard 8

In South Africa, studies at high school level are called “Standards” and they maintain a high academic level. South African students study five years of high school, Standards 6-10. Standard 10, which is the graduate year, is also called “Matric”. (source)

Standard 8 – about Grade 12 in American system, the third-year in our senior high.

Response 4 : Indirect Treatments

J. M. Coetzee -- Foe:

Historical revision or metafiction.

Waiting for the Barbarian

Responses 6: Confirmation of traditional culture --

Njabulo S. Ndebele: Pay more attention to individual psychology and the influences of tradition.

e.g. “Prophetess” (“The Music of the Violin”)

Mazisi Kunene “The Final Supplication” -- Cultural Displacement (back to Africa, but cannot find his village.)

Response 7: Paul Simon’s Graceland (1987)

acapella ( 無伴奏和聲 ) group Ladysmith Black Mambazo (segment 2; 7:30; Homeless 9:24);

General M.D. Shirinda and The Gaza Sisters; Miriam Mekeba (1—29:45)

“an exquisite, multifaceted fusion of his own sophisticated stream-of-consciousness poetry with black South Africa's doo-wop-influenced “township jive” and Zulu choral music” (Britanica.com). Township Jive ( 鎮區爵士樂 ): this “very up, very happy music”

Response 7: Music --"crossover style"

Enoch Sontonga's beautiful African hymn "Nkosi Sikilel'i Africa" (God Bless Africa; 1897); an anthem and symbol of struggle to generations of Africans

-- the influence of the missionary school music training -- the innovative a cappella vocal harmonies of mbube

music Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Mbube mellowed into iscathamiya ("to walk on one's toes lightly").

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

ISICATHAMIYA (Is-Cot-A-Me-Ya): born in the mines of South Africa. Black workers were taken by rail to work far away from their homes and their families. Poorly housed and paid worse, they would entertain themselves after a six-day week by singing songs into the wee hours every Sunday morning. Cothoza Mfana they called themselves, "tip toe guys", referring to the dance steps choreographed so as to not disturb the camp security guards. When miners returned to the homelands, the tradition returned with them. (source http://www.mambazo.com/bio.html )

Example 1

HOMELESS (Paul Simon and Joseph Shabalala)

Emaweni　webaba　　Silale　maweni　.　.　.　　

Homeless,　homeless　Moonlight　sleeping　on　a　midnight　lake　Homeless,　homeless　Moonlight　sleeping　on　a　midnight　lake　.　.　　.

Strong　wind　destroy　our　home　Many　dead,　tonight　it　could　be　you　Strong　wind,　strong　wind　

Many　dead,　tonight　it　could　be　you　

Response 8 : Artwork re. Anti-Apartheid movements, Black Identity & Race Relations

Dumile Feni (1939-1991)

Responses 8: Artwork re. Anti-Apartheid movements & Race Relations

Ironic ad.—guerilla style, torn down soon

Response 6 : Artwork re. Anti-Apartheid movements & Race Relations

I have never tried to make illustrations of apartheid, but the drawings and films are certainly spawned by and feed off the brutalized society left in its wake. I am interested in a political art, that is to say an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures, and certain endings; an art (and a politics) in which optimism is kept in check and nihilism at bay.(source)

William Kentridge 

Response 6 : Artwork re. Anti-Apartheid movements & Race Relations

William Kentridge 

The Conservationists' Ball:Culling, Game-Watching, Taming, 1985

References

LONG NIGHT'S JOURNEY INTO DAY: STUDY GUIDE http://www.newsreel.org/guides/longnight.htm

LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO “Homeless” lyrics South African Music

http://wus.africaonline.com/AfricaOnline/music/Safrica.html

Graham, Shane. “The Truth Commission and Post-Apartheid Literature in South Africa.” Research in African Literature 34.1 (2003): 11-30.