South Africa: Apartheid and After

1) Apartheid: Resistance, Consequences & Cultural Responses

2) Post-Apartheid Society

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 in 2002; source) Kami, HIV+ muppet (source)

• Diamond and gold

Related Films

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

Yesterday DVD 987.83 3130

Tsotsi 黑幫暴徒 DVD 987.83 6462

Black Butterfly (2011) 黑蝶漫舞 about South-African poet Ingrid Jonker. DVD 987.83 6538

Invictus 《打不倒的勇者》 South African rugby in 1995 World cup DVD 987.83 5121

Mama Africa《非洲媽媽》 about Miriam Makeba

Outline

History of Apartheid Race Relations up to 1948

– e.g. Cry, My Beloved Country (novel 1948; film 1995)

– Trailer; end Apartheid (1948-1994): Resistance and

Consequences: – Stories of Race Relations & Education – Anti-Apartheid Movements and Cultural

Expressions – International Cultural Boycott and Musical

Crossover Post-Apartheid Society

Apartheid: Texts to Read or Miss

History of Apartheid

(1) Causes

South Africa: Past and Present

Past – – Cape Town as refreshment station for colonizers on

their way to Asia

– e.g. Table Mountain Clip

– 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.

  Black African  Coloured  Indian or Asian  White  None dominant

Dominant population groups in South Africa

Population: 479,000 （ 2007, four groups: whites （ 9.1% ）、 blacks （  Zulu, Xhosa, etc.; 79.6 % ）、 colored （ 8.9 % ） and Asians （ 2.5%, including Indians) image 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 Afrikaners 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, Afrikaners)

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)

DVD 987.83 6625Boer women and children

in British concentration camps (source)

History –domination of Afrikaners

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 – Owning Land: 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

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

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

Suffrage & Representation: 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 Film by Darrell Roodt 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, violence 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)

History of Apartheid

(2) Institutionalization (1948-1994)

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. Sharpville protest

Consequences (1): Shantytown & Lack of Resources

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

dehumanizing living conditions;

– Shacks – made of 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).

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

Consequences (2): Tsosti & Black Rebels

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

Tsotsi: meaning -- Someone who steals, lies and generally is not to be trusted. A township gangster.

-- 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)

Issues of Education in Njabulo Ndebele’s stories

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 the180 people who were wounded, 31 were

women and 19 were children.

“Our Sharpville”

I 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???

Painting Photo

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.

Apartheid: Cultural Responses

Response 1: Realistic Treatments Anti-Apartheid movements & Race Relations

Nadine Gordimer

Bessie Head

Mbulelo Mzamane

“Amnesty”

Response 2 : Indirect/Postmodern Treatments

J. M. Coetzee -- Foe:

Historical revision or metafiction.

Waiting for the Barbarian

Responses 3: 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”)

Ndebele on Children

"South African literature has generally handled the images of childhood as social criticism:

1. an infant abandoned by its mother. 2. Friends going against each other. the entrance of the young in national politics education affected (i.e. Soweto uprising)Reconstruction should begin with the recovery of childhood and innocence. (source: http://www.uni-ulm.de/~rturrell/antho4html/Ndebele.html )

Prophetess: Plot

entering the dark room

Blessing the holy water

Boys on the Street

entering Bringing the water home

Prophetess: Discussion Questions

1. People on the Bus: How do they relate to each other? And to the prophetess?

2. The boy & the Prophetess: On what is the boy’s attention focused when he visits the prophetess? Compared with the people on the bus, how does the boy relate to the prophetess? What breaks the spell the prophetess has on him? What does she teach him?

3. What does the ending mean? Do you see any traces of apartheid in this story, or seeds of the anti-apartheid movements?

Group Questions for Yesterday

1. What filming technique does the director use? What are the effects?

2. Why does John call yesterday beauty at the end? What does it suggest?

3. Do you believe Yesterday when she says she's not angry? Why or why not? What could be the potential cause of her angry?

Prophetess –seen from different perspectives

1. On what is the boy’s attention focused when he visits the prophetess? Are they signs of her spirituality?

dog; darkness, vine, his own sensations, memory, doek (African headscarf, 11); camphor (12); her coughing

2. The people on the bus – How do they relate to each other? And to the prophetess? How are they different from each other?

the other women the big woman

the man with a balaclava (Woollen hat); the young man at the back

the young man with immaculate dress

“The Prophetess” vs. the boy

The boy fearful of -- dog; darkness, vine, attentive to -- his own sensations (shiver,

warmth from the dog fur), the prophetess’ doek (African headscarf, 11), her coughing (12)

feel relaxed by – the smell of camphor (12); the mats ( his mother); her smile and her knowing his mother (14), memory of his mother (16)

touched by –the religious ambience, her prayer and her touch (which smells of soap and wax)

the prophetess’ lessons Learn and serve 14 Always listen to new things; then try to create the song – “We too will survive the fire that is

coming…” What grows out of the barren wastes has a strength

(15) blessing the water with “the flower of newness” and

faith (16) we are all made of all that is in the world 17

Traces of Apartheid?

The prophetess’s allusion to their hardships

The Other Views of the Prophetess

the bus passengers superstition and sexism

The mother – try all the possibilities (western medicine, herb and holy water

the other women – “really happened” like a chorus

the big woman --- evidence?

the young man at the back – “heard” it; “love is having women like you”

the man with a balaclava– cursing them

the young man with immaculate dress – “We laugh at everything.” No proof

Street Experience –also sexism

Timi discusses with Biza about a girl the latter claims that he’d “conquered”– a contrast between the two kinds of “liquid”– The boy’s sense of superiority (20)

Accident—bump into a bicycle – feels pain first, then sees/hears the bike-rider – then he realizes the loss of the water

The Boy’s Growth

sees thru’ the macho type of heroismControls his sense of pain; conquers his

fear of being punished because of telling a white lie.

takes the prophetess’ lesson to heal the mother with “the water in the world” (24)

Response 4: 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

Post-Apartheid Society

Long Night’s Journey into the Day & In My Country

Yesterday

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.

South Africa: Past and Present

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

the poor (Blacks) – 2007 survey: 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)

Post-Apartheid Society

1) Blacks’ Economic Empowerment Discrepancies between Rich & Poor

a. Cape Town apartheid after apartheid (2015) b. Poor Whites -- retrenched from the government office-- injured and losing their work -- 6:10 Afrikaners less entrepreneurial than the British SA.-- 12:30 explanation of the whites’ dilemma-- 12:40 – argument over white poverty & black poverty

2) AIDS Reasons and Current Situation (Chinese explanation) (e.g. Yesterday 2004)

3) Education South Africa's 'fees must fall‘ –more than tuition issue

4) Drought (Climate Change)

In Free State (No. 1 corn province)

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

History (SAHO) Graham, Shane. “The Truth Commission and Post-

Apartheid Literature in South Africa.” Research in African Literature 34.1 (2003): 11-30.

References: Yesterday: Music

WENA SE GOLI (when going to Johannesburg; English My Gold?) Composed by Mpahleni LatoziPerformed by Madosini

YAKA YAKA (when she the road workers help Yesterday build the shack; when Yesterday builds it alone; English Yaka: Be bright and clear, as pure water.)Composed by Mpahleni LatoziPerformed by Madosini

WOZA MOYA (Ending, and a few other places; English: Come Holy Spirit) Composed by Smiles MakhamaPerformed by Azumah

Zulu Dictionary: http://www.archive.org/stream/zuluenglishdict01colegoog/zuluenglishdict01colegoog_djvu.txt