South Africa’s Apartheid
Consequences and
Cultural Responses
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—crossover style;
– 6. art works
South Africa: Past and Present
Past -- 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）-source
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
source
– AIDS (later)
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;
 1867 -- 1886 Gold and
diamond discovered in these
areas  Boer War (18991902) (clip Cry Freedom
45:56)
The Dutch
(Boer, Afrikaans)
The
British
Xhosa
(the
blacks)
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.".”
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.”
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
(e.g. CF:
Squatters –
opening;
Pass -- clip
57:30
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)
Tsotsi (黑幫暴徒 2005)

http://www.starblvd.com/cgibin/Movie/MV_Film?file=2006/Ts
otsi/Tsotsi.html
Note: U.S. vs. South Africa
U.S.
S.A.
modern, industrialized
an African, third-world
Western democracy with country with a white
an oppressed but
minority enjoying a
culturally assimilated
first-world living
black minority;
standard
separate schools,
native reserves and
transportation, and
locations
eating facilities
50’-60’s resistance movements
1964 the Civil Rights
1960s -- apartheid
Act; 1965 the Voting
reached its zenith.
Rights Act.
Resistance movements (1):
 1943 Nelson Mandela  ANC; PAC;
 1946 – Miners’ strike
 1960 -- The Abolition of Passes and Coordination of
Documents Act ( 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 –  “Our Sharpville” p. B 10
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.
1. Oasis
2. Maulers of children
3. Shame???
I was playing hopscotch on the
slate
When the miners roared past in
lorries,
Their arms raised, signals at a
crossing,
Their chanting foreign and
familiar
Like the call and answer of road
gangs
Across the veld (大草原),
building hot arteries
From the heart of the Transvaal
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
 -- 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
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 1
1. 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
Day
Case 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. AntiApartheid movements & Race
Relations
Bessie Head
Mbulelo Mzamane
“Amnesty”
Nadine Gordimer
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://wwwunix.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"
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 much does she learn from her lover?
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” 30
 Have sex like taking a meal 31;
 patronizing—wanting her to learn 31
The Narrator’s position
Her lover &
his comrades
The narrator
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 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 (1986)
“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”
 acapella (無伴奏和聲 ) group
Ladysmith Black Mambazo;
 General M.D. Shirinda and
The Gaza Sisters; Miriam
Mekeba
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. AntiApartheid movements, Black Identity &
Race Relations
 Dumile Feni (1939-
1991)
Responses 8: Artwork re. AntiApartheid movements & Race Relations
Ironic ad.—guerilla style, torn down soon
Response 6 : Artwork re. AntiApartheid 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
William
Kentridge 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)
Response 6 : Artwork re. AntiApartheid movements & Race Relations
 The Conservationists' Ball:Culling, Game-Watching, Taming, 1985
William
Kentridge
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/Sa
frica.html
 Graham, Shane. “The Truth Commission and PostApartheid Literature in South Africa.” Research in
African Literature 34.1 (2003): 11-30.