IJ: ao tF U [F B GO Volume 10 Number 3 1992 Contents Comment . . . Peter Horn Three Poems Stories In grid de Kok BB | Walking Dry Between Raindrops ££| Sunny South Africa Kole Omotoso £afo Mudaly p%3H Die Avonture van Don Gxubane van Langa E3H Remembering Charles J. Fourie A few Solomons |Tfli Taxi to Town WflM Three Poems James Matthews Damian Shaw jgTBI Mag Ons Skreetjies 'n Ontploffmg Laat Losbars EQI Letter from the Vortex Stephen Samuels Rustum Kozain U22JJ Three Poems Essays Cars ten Knoch f||j| The Politics of Feminism in South Africa GJi My Airlock out of Exile Desiree Lewis Barry Feinberg Ifem Robben Island Retold mi Praise Poem for Njabulo Ndebele The Mayibuye Centre ^zY/z Gottschalk £2 'South Africa Now': Filling the Void E3H Sebokeng Danny Schechter David Motshwane Moisi niB The Self-presence of the Poet Inside; EM Two Poems Jeremy Cronin's Inside Geoffrey Haresnape Peter Horn |2J| Trans-Siberian Railway February 1989 Md Hart el Poetry Photographs EM Two Poems •cfrttiii Photographs courtesy of Joy Howard 77z£ Mayibuye Centre WRWt Love Ryder Simion Nkanunu WISEl The Way We Live |H Two Poems Mavis Matandeki and Primrose Talakumeni Stephen Yelverton mUJ Three Poems Zakes Mda SOI Out °f Touch, Out of Time Lzsa Combrinck WfWSi Two Poems Tatamkulu Afrika im i'm the streetchild Thembile Pepeteka Paintings and Graphics Q Banner Visual Arts Group WfM The Old Days Sophie Peters WTW& Voortrekker Road Apollo Gavin du Plessis Q9 Exile I: Confusion in New York Mario Pissarra UjJjgJ The Emergency Series Garth Erasmus BB Banner Visual Arts Group

Review E9 The Art of Poise: Nine Lives by T. Afrika Dirk Klopper

Some Other Journals and Publications

The English Academy Review The English Academy of Southern Africa, P.O.Box 124, Wits, 2050. Jewish Affairs P.O. Box 1180, Johannesburg, 2000. Poems, stories and unpublished essays on all matters of Jewish and general interest, between 2000 and 5000 words. Mayibuye P.O. Box 61884, Marshalltown, 2107 Short stories (1 200 words) New Coin Poetry Institute for the study of English in Africa, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 6140. Poems. Enclose s.a.e. New Contrast (incorporating Upstream) S.A. Literary Journal Ltd., P.O. Box 3841, Cape Town, 8000. Poems. Enclose s.a.e. Southern African Review of Books Centre for Southern African Studies, University of the Western Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville, 7530. Literary and social criticism; some poetry and occasional fiction. Tribute P.O. Box 781723, Sandton, 2146. Stories, poetry and letters. Vrye Weekblad P.O.Box 177, Newtown, 2113. Stories and poetry. Writers' World Options Unlimited, P.O. Box 1588, Somerset West, 7129. News on writing. Contributions welcome. Contributors' guide available. iUM The obtuseness of some of the anaesthetes among the news­ racial, non-sexist, non-elitist South Africa has not even paper critics just cannot be shaken: once they decided that started in earnest. There is a certain complacency which we political poetry or 'materialist' poetry (as they call it euphe­ need to address in our own ranks. It is not enough to wait for mistically) is necessarily 'bad' poetry, they can react to any the contributions of critics like Njabulo Ndebele and Kelwyn examples which show them to be utterly wrong only with the Sole. However valuable they are, and they have established assertion that a 'good' materialist poet like Kelwyn Sole 'is some of the outlines of what we are striving for, a democratic a traitor to his own cause' (Rod Mackenzie in the Weekly Mail aesthetic demands a wide and inclusive debate amongst all of 7 August 1992). While they would be prepared, at a pinch, those involved. Our campaign, Putting Arts on the Agenda, to swallow Kelwyn Sole as one of their own because of his can only be successful if we understand the underlying undoubted qualities as a poet, they flinch at his politics and try criteria of a democratic culture, and that involves questions to disguise that unease under a barrage of contradictions and such as standard and quality. Some of the queries at our recent non-sequiturs. The attempt to divide poets like Jeremy Cronin AGM have shown that such a debate is needed now. and Kelwyn Sole into aesthetes on the one hand and political Selecting the contributions for this Western Cape issue thinkers and critics on the other hand, and to play the aesthete has involved the editorial collective of the Western Cape and against the political thinker in order to destroy the other — its many readers in just such debates. What are the criteria tactics similar to the ones used against Brecht or Neruda — is according to which we select? Given the fact that for reasons bound to end up in critics tied in knots. Similarly, they will not of space and economy, but also for the reason that the reader succeed to place a divide between writers of this stature and would soon tire of wading through a publication which was the emerging and established writers of the struggle. put together without editorial intervention — both because of The battle by reviewers of this ilk, by now feeling threat­ its size and of the irritation of having to read much uninterest­ ened by a vital and vibrant popular culture with a wide variety ing material, it was necessary to reduce the material submit­ of outstanding South African writers aligned with organisa­ ted to the manageable size of a Staffrider edition. The selec­ tions like COSAW and AWA, to hang on both to their tion process drew on all those who had expressed an interest, sinecures as newspaper reviewers and their outdated distinc­ had the necessary skills, and were prepared to do a lot of tion between a colonial aesthetics and a political ethics which reading and be involved in long discussions. It was the nearest is supposedly incompatible with the aesthetic, is sometimes to a democratic process we could get. It was limited only by comical and sometimes extremely frustrating to watch. The the fact that many other writers were not prepared or did not paradigms of the 'Great Tradition', established by English have the time to subject themselves to this process of wide Departments in this country between 1950 and 1985, the consultation. We hope that everyone profited from that expe­ norms and values of the 'New Criticism', by now scorned rience, both the writers whose work was selected and those even by many in the very English Departments which in the whose work unfortunately had to be left out of this issue. past laid down these norms, are irretrievably lost. Their What the process has shown us, however, is that the frantic attempt to 'keep up the standards', meaning their questions underlying this sifting have not been solved, and comfortable privilege and exclusivity involves them in un­ still need a lot of open debate, perhaps in Staffrider itself, but necessary panic. definitely in the forums of the various regions of COSAW. In Such lack of critical acumen would not be all that disturb­ the meantime we believe that this issue of Staffrider, as the ing, after all critics have a right to publish their opinions if many issues that preceded it, contains a lot that is excellent, they can find a publisher prepared to convert them into print provocative and stimulating. and circulation, if it were not the hall-mark of so much of the Apart from the Western Cape Regional Editorial Collec­ still dominant South African 'canon' of reviewing. What tive, the following offered their services as readers for this makes it disturbing is that this kind of tortured logic is given issue: Keith Adams, Peter Horn, Amanda Kruger, Abner ample space in otherwise respectable publications which Nyamende, Sizwe Satyo and Lee Smith.0 pride themselves as being alternative outlets. What is even more disturbing is that the debate about what would constitute an aesthetic of a new, democratic, non- Peter Horn Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 I Poetry

Terms of Trade

I would not have believed it, If her child is very young, it will •g but that a woman with barefeet be taken high into the mountains says it is. of Guatamala, Paraguay, in El Salvador A stooped man nods, is convinced, also. This child will be fed. I believe has seen mothers who stood in lines the police, the national guard, only this under the sun, or working in the field, once. Because the campesina says it is. who did not see the van approach. That in these places they found babies One campesina said that the night with purple seams on their backs corpses before she dreamed that where of infants, their bellies hanging open every weed was pulled up, like the lower lip of a drunk, with the warm soil bled. It is emptiness where once were eyes. These true now, she knows, this bleeding. children were not taken to the airport. But in the back of private planes, in If her child is lucky, he battered styrofoam coolers, will be taken to a fattening house, surrounded by ice — a secret nursery. He will not an eye, a tiny liver, a blue heart — be forced to sit over spinach: were flown, are flown to America these things come later. But will or to Israel for $75,000 these eat cheese, beans, chilis at gunpoint. small pieces are gently lowered Or this child will be taken straight to into the bodies of children — the airport, the imprint of his mother's sick and thin — pinned hands still red and warm, where a like insects to the metal table beaming white couple stands to receive under the glow of indifferent lights. it, this nontraditional export. They pay $10,000. It will be less than his The small heart takes root, beats on, first year of college, grows and leaps for joy at its first or the car for his sixteenth birthday. touchdown, first cocaine, its bar mitzvah. This liver grows — strains soft drinks, whiskey. If her child is not so fortunate, This eye lives on, and stares from the arms If she has a crossed-eye, a lisp, a limp, of white women in book stores. the child will not be fed. By night, this eye dreams of a woman's tears She will have packets forced up her vagina. dropping into holes of warm, red earth. She will swallow condoms filled with By day, this eye surveys mountains, oceans. cocaine, and will then be driven This eye sees a deer, a Palestinian to the airport, and setting foot on a child throwing rocks — this eye strange land, a man in a white sees down the barrel of a gun. suit will claim her. He will not hold a sign. He will know her by her limp, her stringy dull hair. He will not buy her a car someday. He will throw her out in an alley when he is done with her. WALKING DRY BETWEEN RAINDROPS

Kole Omotoso

he notice that self-confessed thieves and highway Excerpt and armed robbers were going to be demonstrating from sometime somewhere in Lagos and Abuja simultaneously came to my desk as I closed for the a day. It had been a long day and I had just finished the editorial for the next day' s edition when the crumpled novel note was brought to my desk by the young girl who in sold soft drinks and moinmoin in front of the office. She was growing, her blouse pushed out by her progress changing configuration. She did not linger at my StaffriderVoL10No.3 1992 i Walking Dry desk as she was wont to do, asking me if I wanted I had no time for jokes and I was making a serious case, something to drink. She knew I did not drink non­ the like of which has been made before by others who alcoholic beverages. Or if I would want her to buy me were laughed out of court. Serious issues deserved some booli and epa. She simply dropped the note and ran serious recommendations. Surprisingly enough, the editor away shouting that she had customers waiting for her. I decided the issue in my favour with the proviso that I sign could not ask her who had delivered the note and when the editorial. I started the car and eased it out of the space had it been delivered. My thanks to her did not get to her into which I had wedged it in the morning, unmindful of ears but I had to say thank you or else she would query the fact that there was no vehicle in sight for yards on me for taking her for granted. If I had not said thank you, either side of me. slje possibly would have stopped to wait to be thanked As I joined the traffic, heavy for this time of the night, before dashing off. I put the crumpled note in my pocket I forgot completely the editorial contestations, the cor­ and picked up my soft-leather attache case and left the ruption in the country and whether things will work out news room. Most of the reporters had left and only those for the country or not. I had problems which were really who waited to sub were left darting between their cubicle no problems when you come to think of them. It was offices and the printing building. almost ten o'clock and I still had to go and see the doctor. Outside, it was dark and there were no lights in that I was working on a story about him and I spent at least two area that night except for some select places where the hours every night taping him telling me about his life. noise and fume of generators kept neighbourhoods awake The press sticker saved me from the numerous road to light one family. I got into the car and wondered where blocks; by the police, by the army and by armed robbers. to go first. I had to unwind. I had no idea what reaction I got to the house in VI at eleven. I hooted and the to expect for the editorial I had written and against the gateman threw open the nine foot high wrought iron tradition of the paper, I had been made to sign. The other gates. The picture never altered. I drive into the doctor's members of the editorial board refused to have anything driveway in the VW1303, pause to see if the Rolls Royce to do with it. There had been an argument the like of had been moved, assure myself that it has not, and then which had not taken place since the paper was founded. park next to it. The doctor was sitting in his study reading For me it was a simple matter. There was so much some specially flown in medical journal. I wondered if corruption in Lagos it did not make sense any longer to he still read anything from the West. After all he had try to use gloved hands to beat it. Hard knuckles, bare denounced Western medicine as archaic and gone back knuckles, that was what was needed. Yet, some of those to the practices of his ancestors. What use were Western who were arguing with me in that editorial office were on medical journals to him? But there were other issues the payroll of one big man or the other, military or which we had left untouched and so I did not bother to civilian. I had brought enough problems to the paper, as begin with the issue of the journals. it was, and they were not going to make it easy for the T!m tired tonight,' the doctor said as I came in. government to close them permanently. That was the I sat down and picked up the bottle of wine he was threat under which we existed. The next time we did drinking from. You were never sure what you would find anything to annoy the government, or anyone big enough the doctor drinking from. One day it could be a gourd of in government, we had had it. The paper would be closed palmwine tapped from a felled tree. Another day, it could permanently or all the journalists would be thrown into be a bottle of palmwine which you assume is no different gaol or both. And here I was writing an editorial insisting from the last one only to be told that this particular one that thieves, armed robbers, highway men and swindlers was tapped from an upright palm tree. be given licenses to practise just as the members of the 'And there's a difference,' he would caution you. government and the civil servants and those who ran I fetched a wine glass and helped myself. parastatals had letters of appointment to loot the resources 'Can we just finish the story of your departure from of the nation. Was I making a joke or what? I told them the village?' Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Kole Omotoso I

'It is already finished.' Alaba. We collected assiduously all the Yoruba poetry If he thought he had finished telling the story to me on twins, the royals among children, double blessing on he was joking. the day of their births. Our house was full of the statuettes 'Dokii,' I said looking him in the eyes, 'you know that created in the worship of twins. Sometimes we would that story is more than what you told me. The church tease each other with the idea that if the twins demanded elders came to say goodbye to you and then you left for of us that we dance and beg as the only remedy to make Lagos from where you left by boat for England. That's them stay alive with us, would we do it? Tini, who was not good enough. What about the story that they made not Yoruba, would say that among her own people, twins you swear that you will come back home, a Western were devils and from the behaviour of our twins, she did trained medical doctor, and destroy the credibility of the not see any reason to change her views. If the Yoruba in juju doctor, as they called him at the time. What do you their endless search for everything and anything to have to say to that?' celebrate and lavish money on convinced me having He put the journal he was reading on the table in front monster children, I was welcome to them. In later years of him and turned to me. as they grew up, they themselves participated in this 'Nothing; and goodnight.' discussion. Taiwo always insisted that she liked being He got up and went upstairs. I sighed, finished my celebrated and she loved having poetry composed in drink, hesitated and finished what was left in the bottle praise of her. I would put in that her future lovers had before leaving the house. I should listen to the material their work cut out for them. As for Kehinde he thought I had taped and see if there was enough in it to write a it was too much having people purring over them as if reasonable piece on this extraordinary doctor. Well, they were something special. Which they were, honestly. maybe not so extraordinary after all. There were so many And our house was always full of laughter. That was the of them, not necessarily doctors, but Africans educated house I was so scared of returning to. in the West and supposedly trained to come back and Tini and I were classmates but doing different courses. condemn the age-old practices of their forefathers only As it happens in these matters, although both of us to come back and do exactly the opposite. There is that remembers the occasion that brought us together, we Catholic Bishop from somewhere in East Africa who remember if differently and in different details. Lucky, claimed to be both a proper Catholic as well as a my lookalike, had created some trouble in the library. traditional healer with incantations. Interesting anyway. The deputy librarian had been loud and long on the It was past midnight and now I had to begin to make the telephone and Lucky had sent her a note informing her longjourney home. This is the hour I hated, the last hour that that building was erected to the greater glory of before getting home. The road blocks were no longer academic work, work that can only be done in perfect there: police, army or army robbers. Whatever needed to silence. He was asked to apologise by the librarian. be policed or armed or robbed had been policed and 'Apologise for what? Can you imagine it? I am to armed and robbed. There was no hindrance on the road. apologise for being disturbed. You know, there will Except you thought of the ladies of the night at various never be justice in this country.' corners of the rich areas of Lagos, in their various 'Come,' I said, 'don't exaggerate. What has your processes of undress, the buyer has to see what he or she being sent out of the library got to do with justice in this is buying, unless you thought of these ladies as hindrances. country?' Not physically, they were not. But they brought thoughts 'You don't understand, anyway.' to my mind. And as I drove back to my house in the Ikeja So, Lucky did not apologise. The next time I was in GRA I began to ponder the nature of my problem. I was the library, the deputy librarian shooed me out of the happily married. And we had two delightful children, building, wondering what or who I thought I was and how twins, a boy and a girl. We did not wish to finish the even without graduating I was already behaving like a process of bringing in the already named Idowu and big man, feeling too big headed to do what my elders Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Walking Dry

of my pet hates all my life. If anyone accused me of doing what I did not do, I would show them pepper, I would expose to them the red of my eyes, I would hurl mountains into valleys and block the flow of rivers with my anger. Which is what I now proceeded to do with the deputy librarian. At which point she got the security to bundle me out of the place. I did not attempt to walk back into the library since the security people stood by the library door virtually daring me to come back and twirling the night sticks they carried. I turned to go to my departmental library. I could never work there. Too much noise. As I turned I hissed. Ma b'inu now. Any Yoruba will tell you they can tell the accent of a non-Yoruba attempting to speak the language. I looked at her. 'Don't be angry now.' Without asking her what made her make her statement, and without her asking me for any story, I stood there and told her the story of the humiliating treatment which I had received from the university deputy librarian and from the security men and women. By the time I was finishing my story, she was thought was good for me. Immediately I got angry. What bubbling, heaving even, ready to burst into laughter. The was she talking about? Which only made her even more red of my eyes must have told her to hikoje brake as they rude to me. All she wanted me to do was get out of the would say in her language. So, she assumed the same library so that better behaved students could use the seriousness with which I had told her the story. place. I always thought I was an exemplary child, well- 'You finished?' behaved and respectful to my elders and parents. That's all.' Somehow, that day, I lost my temper. Here I was being 'Are you not Lucky's friend?' accused of something that I did not do. That has been one 'Yes/ Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Kole Omotoso I

'And his lookalike?' And their yoke bears me down during both days and Too late, I realised what had happened. nights. T was there when it happened.' If I am kind to one the other gets vexed. I did not bother to wait for the rest of what she had to And so I cannot escape from these two furies. say. I left her, swearing to show Lucky the red of my eyes. If you want to live well and with a free heart, All she said as I left was: And with your hands unclenched, then do not marry. 'Make you no vex too much sha!' If you must wed, then marry one wife only: The rest, as they say, is love story! One alone is enough to satisfy two armies.' I got to the house at about one a.m. Tini was still awake, working on a policy paper for her bank, something It was three a.m. when we finally went to bed, which was that would have to be debated by her fellow managers the not unusual with us. I must have fallen asleep immediately. following morning. As soon as I got in, she wanted to Later in the morning we were sleeping around each other know what I wanted to drink, if I wanted to eat and how entangled and at peace. had been the day and what she had been doing and how Our bedroom had two bathrooms with an adjoining the country was becoming one big continuous banking door which could be left open or closed as the case may bukateria! There seemed always so much to say to each be. It was exact to every specification with the exception other. The editorial, her colleagues and their various of a shower in mine and bath in hers. The only occasions scams to make so much more money from the bleeding I did not mind going into baths were when I needed to sit country, my encounter with the doctor, everything except in a bubble bath and relax. The sign of relaxation? An what bothered me. I had a rum and coke with ice and a involuntary pee. All other times I loved a shower, slice of lemon but Tini would not drink unless it was preferably hot and cold in succession. A driver came to Friday or Saturday and she was not going to work the take Tini to work and she dropped the twins at school on following morning in which case we could stay in bed her way. Her driver would pick them up in the afternoon until noon. The twins took care of their breakfast and and bring them to the house before going for her. The knew better than to disturb us. involuntary pee in the bath always reminded me of Every instinct I had protested against people having running naked in the rain and singing the song of the more than one wife. I had not seen any case of one woman masquerades: with two or three husbands but I was sure it would not be 'Seize the day of dirt with care! too comfortable. The If a Corpus which I read religiously A pee on a rain-soaked body will not blare!' was certain that there was no life in polygamous life. I didn't have to go to work until late in the afternoon Beyond one, women were more trouble. I had come and I loved nothing better than to sit in the study in the across a tattered copy of some book bearing something house and read or work on some papers or catch up on the like a perfume garden long ago among my uncle's various foreign newspapers and news magazines which termite eaten books and learnt the following poem by I stored up until they were quite a bundle. Today, that heart: pleasure, like all my other pleasures was haunted by the fact that without falling out of love with my wife, I was 'By reason of ignorance I have married two wives — in love with another woman, not as a replacement for, but And why do you complain, O husband of two wives? rather in addition to. How could I explain this situation I said to myself, I shall be like a lamb between them; to myself, not to speak of explaining it to others? And to I shall take my pleasure upon the bosom of my two my wife too? Q sheep, And I have become like a ram between two female jackals, Opposite Page: The Visual Arts Group Days follow upon days, and nights upon nights, • banner• Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 i Poetry

One

I've hoarded diamonds, •a blazing deep in my body when the sun strikes them, that can cut anything — my body, your body, the steely wall of convention. Love Their only value in the promise I of such cutting. Harmony I could take your hand Melancholy press a book into it Love-love with names scrawled It is made of four letters fists on the endpapers But its power, mh-mh-mh telling you that without coercion, Marvellous in silence, we're slaves. It is hopeful to hear two Place your hand on my breast people saying to read the places and names let's put our problems in a shoe box of my body, the words of it: Let's bathe in a gin bottle train, wire, if, plow, no, jungle. Let's learn the language of four letters The word above all the will to act. Let's die together And be glued to each other too I could take you in my hands, mouth That gives strength coming to me like a blood oath. and hope Press my ear to your body Yet times like tides may change hear the strumming Wo-o when it arrives the distant drum Don't call me to watch them the bass line that carries you When secrets appear like a face in the mirror through the scattering wail of solos. That now he may not invite her Feel your body enter me to ceremonies like a flock parting the sky of birthdays pulling me with grief and pleasure and tours until we've found home She is forgotten through a blizzard of sound Nobody knows who is right or wrong to the note that resolves Was it meant by that, to hurt the hearts the word that explodes. of Sons and Daughters Fathers and Mothers?

Ryder Simion Nkanunu Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry I

Stephen Yelverton Two Poems

Drop Demolition and Flight For Robert McBride Death row glows with Morose ghosts impatiently circle eternal fluorescence, the dying good woman; bursting from the An actual cricket whistles unnerved ceilings with work-songs for excited a serpentine hiss. germs inside her: They squirm triumphantly in the This light heightens banquet of her being. harsh tension, drags the terminal wait. Holy thought has tarnished Sweat snakes down the her into rickety sickness; brow of each battered inmate. Slowly she vanishes beneath tender bed-clothes In the fierce glare (scabbing her skin), a they stare inwards. termination shroud in which Wan terror sets them adrift she bore babies and on the adrenalin of dread. sighed sultry orgasms. They react to the last treads of their next friend . . . She entered earth by a similar spasm. But now rising into song: she is on the ledge of a wider womb; Subdued footsteps beat Her pulsing tumor is pledged out of heart-time to a clearer hemisphere: to complete the music. The prisoner walks upright; Here the ghosts cheer. A passionate crescendo trills along the clinical corridor. While her child weeps sturdy wings tear through It cannot be stopped her mortality. until the comrade is dropped. A mortified porter wheels the body past earthly wails. The gallows creak: In this bleak dimension As a dirge emerges it conceals murder is pre-meditated her infinite flight. by law makers. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 I Poetry

Zakes Mda Three Poems Bloodless Philosophies

My kinsman Finally Of the bloodless philosophies My kinsman he says He talks of a more humane method In utter hopelessness Of creating wealth It is a difficult task to smile And unskewed ways And dance Of distributing it At the same time All in all Those who are able A painless dream To do it convincingly Dance The shame A beautiful lie Of these distasteful times That fills us If you listen carefully With joyous tears To the south-easterlies You hear leftwing prostitutes With Thacherite dreams In the Arms of a Loving Fire Leftwing prostitutes shout Down the Thacherite folly These are his words Down the hollowness The man whose son died in the Gulf Of our protest He says He was just a boy See us now Who bloody loved the army Everyday we diligently construct And he was only there For our self-glorification In the first place And for future generations Because they had oil Glittering centres of consumption If they had been growing carrots And none of production Nobody Would have lifted a finger But still A plague of loneliness They say Covers our land The fire that consumed him Engulfing our dissolute Was a very friendly one And dissipated lives So no one is to blame

Poor loving boy He died in the arms of flames Of a loving fire Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry

My Desolate Kinsman

He walks Their unmarked graves Under the bright shadow Are only filled Of a nimbus around his head With solid embodiments My desolate kinsman Of our collective remorse Expounding little philosophies That fill our stomachs He sings nostalgically And nourish our bodies The past is an ephemeral truth It is a lie Once he thought he could Like all pasts Walk on water And cross oceans We respond in song He tried We are not keen to store them And he walked The weapons Some followed in imitation We have not yet solidified They sank The mirage

Others followed in reverence Certify them he shouts They walked with him Send them to an asylum And meagre months They are drunk with kindness Pass everyday And this has defaced Leaving us Their judgement Sucking our fingers For memories of pleasant tastes Ignore the shrill voices Gone with the wisdom That continue to eulogise Of our present love parsimony Wars of yesterday Teach us how to savour What were you doing there This maddening freedom Whose wars were you fighting That we can see looming Now that you are humans Menacingly in our future Without memory Give us stern lessons On how to survive freedom My kinsman he said Store your guns away It is too late The war was only a nightmare To think of your old lovers You imagined Now The warriors who died Did not really die They live with us In another time mMD .^ *+% The Politics of

"2* in South Africa

he first conference on Women and Gender in Southern Africa, attended by approximately 300 delegates from Southern Af­ rica, Europe and the United States, was held at the University of Na­ Desiree tal in January 1991. For most del­ egates, the novelty of the meeting Lewiswa s a cause for celebration. Exiles Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 I The Politics of Feminism in SA and foreign researchers renewed or Postcolonial theory, the views of the interpreting subject and her dis­ established direct local contacts, and prominent academics like Gayatri course, the politics of knowledge many of the South African partici­ Spivak, black feminism in the United production and the problems sur­ pants welcomed their release from a States and a body of poststructuralist rounding class and racially-bounded long period of cultural and academic and Marxist theory on discourse and definitions of gender and feminism, isolation. Papers covered a variety of representation intersected with ob­ the dominant discourse consistently topics, and panel discussions and jections (which gradually surfaced warded off these subjects. social events stimulated interaction from about the second day) to the This was explicitly illustrated in amongst participants. conference's elitist and racist over­ the positioning of black women, who But despite the projected focus tones, although these criticisms were seemed to have been invited prima­ on Southern African women, efforts ignored as entry points for opening rily to witness exhibitions of to incorporate diversity and interac­ up both academic and political de­ hegemonic wisdom and to endorse tion, and the enthusiasm of many bates. The organisers and many del­ whatever diagnoses and proposals delegates (particularly exiles) who egates defended their biases by dis­ white feminists had to offer. Con­ welcomed the gathering in South missing objections as expressions of structed primarily as 'subject mat­ Africa, the conference was marred unacceptable 'false consciousness'. ter', black women were denied a by insularity and elitism, and This became obvious in a panel voice both because of the preponder­ epitomised the arrogance that domi­ discussion on conceptualising gen­ ance of white academics and be­ nates academia in Southern Africa, der, when sharp criticisms — origi­ cause of insidious ways in which the scholarship on the region and, to a nating from the minority of delegates tone of the gathering and the orienta­ large extent, research on the 'Third — of the conference's structure and tion of most papers and discussions World' as a whole. The academic content as well as of racial, class and stressed black women' s passivity and and political inadequacies of the occupational imbalances in the com­ the role of 'enlightened' (white, feminist discourse that dominated position of delegates clearly revealed middle-class) feminism in their sal­ suggested that a number of delegates that the definition of 'gender' over­ vation. The conference became a were either unaware of or had de­ lapped with the conceptualising of self-glorifying monologue in which cided to ignore ideas surrounding other social hierarchies. The over­ 'black woman' merely bolstered the 4 women' as heterogeneous complex­ riding response to criticism, how­ ruling elite's sense of authority — ity, ideas that have been at the centre ever, was that organisers had de­ blatantly manifested in the logo on of international feminist debates in cided on an 'academic' forum, and delegates' folders: a tiny-headed, recent years. While these views did that 'political' issues raised were naked and burdened Other, 'present' emerge in certain papers, it was dis­ separate and disruptive 'grievances'. only as object for scrutiny by the turbing that they remained inciden­ What proponents of this argument self-defining, theorising subject. tal and did not take the central posi­ failed to understand was that politi­ Balancing precariously on one tion they demand to occ cal and academic emphases were leg, head poised in an attitude of Africa. The prevailing intertwined, and that the exclusivism appeal, her arms plaintively conference (reflected in the c ha ^reflected at the conference was both outstretched as she grips something :: and structuring of s the rep- apolitical weakness and an academic enigmatically'ethnic', thisconstruct lation of activities I users, and the theories and o that jpjg dominated) establi trie lively onstructed as ubject matter, blac normative boundaries! ing 'women and gender in Soath&rh fault. Where space needed to be cre­ of black woman begs her deliverance. Africa'. ated for topics like the positioning of The image also feeds into sexist and StaffriderVol.10No.3 1992 Desiree Lewis I

racist associations of blackness and rigidly divided along lines of gender to organise separately. Black women woman with exaggerated sexuality as well as race and class, it should be were denied their right to clarify and bodiliness. In view of feminisms' obvious that the term, 'woman' on its their position or to begin to formu­ focus on women's liber­ late the strategies and prin­ ation from the phallocentric ciples which, in larger gath- mind-body split, it is erings, were demanded alarming that black women from them. continue to be presented Many black feminist in terms of conventional participants emphasised hierarchical oppositions, two main arguments: there and that oppressive myths were a number of overt and about the sub-human covert ways in which they otherness of 'woman' have felt marginalised, objecti­ been projected onto 'black fied and degraded at the woman'. In the early conference; a large repre­ nineteenth century, a black sentation of a very small Southern African woman, group of the women of Saartje Baartman, was Southern Africa as well as exhibited in Europe as the a sizeable contingent of 'Hottentot Venus'. women from abroad were Baartman ostensibly unproblematically speak­ captured the essence of ing for (there was some black woman's deviance spurious wrangling about (hyperdeveloped sexuality the distinction between and correspondingly un­ 'about' and 'for') the ma­ derdeveloped humanity) jority of women of the re­ and confirmed the Euro­ gion. I shall explore the pean viewer's sense of self Sophie Peters • The Old Days • Woodcut bases of these objections as normative, human, and briefly examine some civilised. Baartman's physiognomy own (like the ostensibly generic use of the problems and conflicts sur­ and sexuality were projected as the of 'man' to conceptualise 'human­ rounding feminism in Southern Af­ incarnation of primitiveness, the an­ ity') inscribes normative, hierarchi­ rica. tithesis of nineteenth-century Euro­ cal and exclusivist assumptions. White feminist academics have a pean superiority. The parallels be­ White women's privileges are based vested stake in the silence of black tween the logocentric display of on their dependence on and exploita­ women. As producers of knowledge 'black woman' as being-for-other in tion of black, and particularly black who have recently created a niche in nineteenth-century Europe and on working-class women. Yet the ma­ the patriarchal world of knowledge the folder of the Natal conference jority of white women resisted these production, they rely on the con­ o b s e r v a - struct 'black woman' as passive, in­ tions, con­ articulate and representable object. women were denied a voice demned the Recognition of the interpretations of criticisms of black women would lead to white delegates are striking. (See page 18.) black women as irrelevant and 'rac­ feminists' loss of dominance in an In a country like South Africa, ist', and interfered with their efforts academic domain where their hold is Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 1 The Politics of Feminism in SA

already tenuous and threatened, par­ It was argued that all women, irre­ lege, but they are not patriarchal ticularly since a high premium has spective of nationality, class or race prescriptions for many working-class always been placed on authoritative have common experiences of op­ and black women, often depended interpretations of the colonised, the pression and that it is simply the upon as breadwinners, political ac­ underclass, the dominated in South expression of this tivists and psycho­ Africa. This partially accounts for experience that var­ logical and emo­ the reluctance of some to recognise ies. There is an un­ tional supporters discourse as a site of power relations derhand elision of of damaged male and to consider the extent to which difference and a pri­ egos. It becomes their self-proclaimed interpretive vileging and natural­ impossible to ex­ mastery echoes the broader oppres­ ising of the experi­ tract a distinct and sive relations of racist, classist and ence of a distinct universal model of patriarchal society. White middle- group here: 'woman' feminine (or mas­ class feminism needs to acknowl­ in 'white woman' culine) behaviour, edge its complicity in relations of becomes normative and the complexi­ power and control, needs to subject and 'woman' in ties surrounding its own structurally determined posi­ 'black woman' de­ the construction of tion to scrutiny and needs to liberate viant; 'woman' in 'self—if we con­ itself from normative illusions and 'middle-class wom­ sider the diverse assumptions of superiority. Until this an' becomes standard and needs no factors that shape subjectivity — cast is done there can be no such thing as qualification, while 'working-class' doubts on the universality of the kinds 'Southern African Feminism', has to qualify 'woman'. 'White mid­ of psychoanalytic formulations that Examining the nexus of gender, dle-class woman' provides the basis mainstream feminism often draws race and class is, of course, the pro­ for defining gender identity, estab­ on. Attempts at constructing univer­ claimed aim of most academics in lishing feminist goals, developing sality merely involve the elevation the progressive scholarship domain. political strategies and isolating of one model and the marginalising The rationale usually offered by those 'common experiences', yet 'white of others as aberrant or 'contradic­ who focus on one category more than middle-class woman' simply be­ tory'. others is that privileging is almost comes 'Woman'. I have referred to Black and working-class women's inevitable, that accommodating all the particular irony of this reasoning struggles also differ from those of divisions is impossible, that, depend­ in a country like South Africa, but its many white and middle-class women. ing on one's particular interests, one inadequacies and the politics under­ White and middle-class feminists inevitably foregrounds one aspect, lying it need to be stressed. attach key importance to their libera­ and that it is probably best to be The question of the construction tion from the family and domestic­ honest about this. The main argu­ of social identity is central to an ity, while for many black and work­ ment offered by many white femi­ assessment of the inadequacies of ing-class women, 'freedom' to enter nists in South Africa (an argument prescriptive definitions of gender. If the male domain is frequently op­ that featured prominently in discus­ we consider 'stereotypes about pressive and exploitative, and can sions and papers at the Natal confer­ women', we find that assumptions entrench, rather than challenge pa­ ence) is that gender (defined in an a about 'femininity' vary widely. For triarchy; to inhabit the masculine priori, culturally specific and nor­ example, submissiveness and physi­ arena is not necessarily an index of mative way) is fundamental and can cal weakness may be conventionally liberation. This difference has impli­ be sifted out from the other identities admired traits of women of leisure cations for mainstream feminists' which women simultaneously hold. protected by class and racial privi- frequent impatience with 'third- Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Desiree Lewis I

world' or 'non-western' women who, women. Ong persuasively argues that tial' gender identity in their writing. apparently quite unreasonably, in­ Malay working women have a dis­ Their testimonies of oppression de­ sist on collaborating in their own tinct experience of oppression and, mand an interpretive strategy that oppression. In her discussion of the consequently, unique strategies of identifies their response to interlink­ formulation of Western feminism as rebellion and self-control. ing identities and the dilemmas of both oppositional and rooted in op­ When we consider ways in which being positioned in simultaneously pressive Western discourse on the black and other marginalised women functioning hierarchies. A failure to non-western world, Aiwa Ong (1987) articulate their experiences and at­ explore this network leads to a deval­ shows that Malay working women's tempt to realise and voice conscious­ uation of their writing as lacking in subjection shapes strategies of revolt nesses that elude oppressive con­ 'feminist' consciousness because it which are entirely logical and structs, many influential feminist lit­ does not engage with 'normative' emancipatory from their point of erary theories do not accommodate patterns of gender. By claiming to view, although these contradict West­ the circumstances which women's isolate 'gender', critics elevate iden­ ern feminists' strategies for libera­ writing and speech often struggle tities and relationships with which tion. She argues that Malay working against. The subversive language and these writers are not concerned. women frequently choose domestic style of a writer like Ntozake Shange There are, then, a number of con­ roles since patriarchal power is pow­ (1987), for example, does not re­ crete ways in which the importance erfully constituted in public life, volve simply on 'anti-masculine' of considering how gender interlocks where Islamic fundamentalism ex­ expression, but on a complex an­ with other identities can be demon­ ploits women's 'masculine' roles at swering back to white androcentri- strated and in which we can illustrate the same time that it dictates their cism. To explore Shange's writing the fallaciousness of claims to iso­ inferiority and obedience. Ong's strategy with reference to mainstream late 'basic' identities. Generally, study reveals the linear biases and feminist formulations is to simplify when white middle-class feminists prescriptivism of Western feminism, and misappropriate its conceptual talk about 'woman', they mean 'white where black/third- basis. This kind of woman', in the same way that dis­ world women are Social identity distortion can also cussion of racism is usually predi­ seen as 'doubly easily occur with cated on the experience of black oppressed' and is central to writers like Zora men. There is — contrary to the third world/black Neale Hurston, Toni claims of the organisers of the Natal working class an assessment Morrison, Tsitsi conference — obvious academic women are 'triply of the Dangaremba, Bess­ ground for challenging the feminism oppressed'. The ie Head and Buchi which has proclaimed itself absolute veiled implication inadequacies of Emecheta, who do in South Africa. is that Western not deal with prede­ It is necessary to return to the middle-class gen­ prescriptive termined constructs politics underlying many white femi­ der oppression is of race or with ab­ nists' defensiveness and to consider somehow prefer­ definitions of stractions of gender, why there has been so aggressive a able or an inter­ gender. but with how race stance in their defence of an interpre­ mediate stage to­ defines gender and tive terrain. It needs to be emphasised wards liberation, while the frequently vice versa. These writers' experi­ that in the fields of scholarly activity stated prescription is that the strate­ ence as gendered subjects affects and historical interpretation in South gies that develop out of Western and is affected by their racial consti­ Africa, systems of racial domination middle-class gender oppression are tution, and there cannot consequent­ have determined systems of discur­ fundamental and necessary to all ly be any manifestation of an 'essen­ sive and interpretive authority. The Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 The Politics of Feminism in SA

development of South African histo­ between interpretation and expres­ demic practitioners are threatened riography reveals a fundamental con­ sion and the discrediting of black by self-inquiry and reluctant to con­ tinuity regarding the mastery of those interpretation of experience along­ front their own political motiva­ who represent and the silence of the side the cultivation of black expres­ tions. represented. This relation is a racial sion of experience is an entrench­ The intransigence of dominant one. Black Consciousness in the sev­ ment Of Standard racist oppositions: discourses also has much to do with enties had a short and abortive his­ blacks 'express', feel and respond; the inherently self-aggrandising tory and was quickly discredited and Whiles observi, explain and consoli­ momentum of discursive power. The supplanted by neo-Marxists shout­ date their normativeness. The right main obstacle to debate surrounding ing false consciousness. It is interest­ to'mtrprziUack experience in South knowledge-as-power in South Afri- ing that BC was never seriously in­ Africa has corporated into historical writing, been a white sociological research or psychology, B ac a and that there is no real legacy of my !££ * l discourse is based on Afrocentric history in South Africa. emotions and It is particularly revealing how Black display their Consciousness fiction, poetry and experience, but cannot be credited ca is that the terms of the debate have drama have been actively encour­ with self-knowledge or interpreta­ been controlled by the ruling aca­ aged and patronised by white cul­ tive control. demic practitioners who reinterpret, tural brokers enthusiastically amass­ The implications of this need to redefine and effectively appropriate ing material with which to reinforce be acknowledged, not only by a num­ all criticism. Many delegates at the their interpretative authority and self- ber of feminists, but by the left aca­ Natal conference assumed that criti­ perception. demic community at large. Racial cism automatically implied compe­ There is something deeply dis­ discourse is based on othering blacks tition over the right to interpretative turbing about the autobiographical as objects, non-being, aberrant and authority, rather than an insistence impulse behind much of the teach­ inferior, and the reflection of these on the right to be heard, and the ing, criticism, publishing and editing assumptions in scholarly representa­ proprietorial language of the respons­ of expressions of 'black experience' tion and left-wing discourse is just es to criticisms was alarming: dis- and something equally disturbing cause for concern amongst those as­ sention was equated with the hijack­ about the relegation of the only sig­ serting their revolutionary role. ing (sic) of the conference, although nificant body of BC-oriented non- Eurocentric, white-centred and — curiously — that this implied that fictional interpretation to the status middle-class paradigms are relent­ 'legitimate' feminist discourse was of fiction. For example, 'left-wing' lessly deployed to silence the the rightful possession of some was interpreters and university courses scrutinised black object, a display of ignored. It was also claimed that examine Steve Biko's ideas prima­ voyeuristic wisdom often identified when black feminists objected to the rily as expressions of black middle- in colonialist and—to a lesser extent strategies and conclusions of main­ class disaffection and it is revealing — liberal paradigms, but rarely ex­ stream feminism, they were merely that few of these interpreters and posed in 'radical' (neo-Marxist and manifesting signs of middle-class courses engage with (take seriously?) many feminist) models. That this alienation from 'the working class', the persuasive insights of theorists of display is so rarely acknowledged, a category to which, presumably, colonialist ideology and discourse that inquiries into this area are often black women 'properly' belong. like Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Spivak or condemned as residues of' false con­ (Generally, lambasting of black 'sub­ Edward Said. sciousness' is an indication of the ject-matter' for refusing to conform The result of rigid distinctions extent to which the reigning aca- to constructs of 'the black working Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Desiree Lewis I

class' has been a prominent theme in tional outbursts and primordialist and interpretations in the histories of mainstream South African scholar­ polities'). The ruling interpreters gender, race, class, national, regional ship. It does not seem to have oc­ have consequently never dealt with and other identities. I do not present curred to interpreters that this may be attacks on their position, in fact, can a case for a 'correct position', nor do a sign of the fictiveness of their con­ see neither 'the attack' nor 'their I claim the legitimacy of a particular struct and of basic inadequacies in position'. All objections are collapsed set of experiences as a basis for a their theories.) That white middle- into reconceptualisation of the other's single authentic interpretation of class feminists are alienated from otherness; the other becomes recal­ 'women and gender'; rather, my con­ 'the working class' does not, appar­ citrant, but does not cease to be cern is with how hegemonising dis­ ently affect their perspectives. Crit- 'other'. The cyclical logic of this is a course needs to be replaced with perpetual what Ong has referred to as 'leads for reconstitu- recognising a mutuality of discourse tion of criti­ in our encounter with (other) women' othering of blacks as objects cism as oth­ (1987:88). Donna Haraway defines erness and a this as a taxonomy which 'does not resulting guarantee unmediated access to the icisms merely became a sign of devi­ disengagement from the criticism it­ unfixable referent of 'women's ex­ ation and an index of the critics' self. The Subject sanctifies herself perience', but. . . does guarantee an abnormality and aberration, since against self-reflection as her gaze open branching discourse with a high surely any 'authentic' black woman fixes on the ever-mutating object likelihood of reflexivity about its would welcome the way mainstream which she continually reshapes to own interpretative and productive feminism 'explained' her oppression consolidate her predetermined sense technology' (1987:109). Feminists and 'facilitated' her liberation. Cer­ of self. This is quite literally what in South Africa need to thrash out tain delegates flatly concluded that happens. Mainstream feminists and these issues instead of dismissing black women were 'alienated' (con­ neo-Marxists develop interpretative ideas that do not fit into their para­ venient catch-word for describing tools and define themselves with digms as signs of others' false con­ anything outside of reductive mod­ growing sophistication, as 'black sciousness. We are all social sub­ els of human behaviour and, in South women' or 'the working classes' are jects, and to acknowledge this should Africa, often anything 'unacceptable' seen to display a range of symptom­ be central to our understanding of the that blacks do) because of what they atic responses and provide increas­ conditions of others' existence. Q saw as resistance to efforts made to ing evidence for consolidating the deconstruct gender oppression and interpreters' subjectivity. References what many black women saw as a Let me conclude, though, by lo­ repressive imposition of authority cating a way out of this apparent —Harawy, Donna. 1987. 'Reading Bu- and an unproblematic elevation of impasse. What third-world, black, chi Emecheta: Contests for Women's inadequate models. working-class, black working class, Experience in Women's Studies' The identification by the rebel­ or any other group of women have to — Ong, Aiwa. 1987. 'Colonialism and lious subject of the oppressive other say cannot be allowed to entrench Modernity: Feminist Re-Presentations of Women in Non-Western Societies', (white-centred discourse, Western itself as a new orthodoxy, but must paper presented at the conference on feminism) has been met by a re­ be opened up to an expanding and Feminism and the Critical Study of Co­ positioning of the rebellious subject non-hierarchical categorisation of po­ lonial Discourse, Univ. of California, as other ('Black feminists are alien­ sitioned interpretations of women's Santa Cruz, Spring, 1987. ated, generally disgruntled and dis­ experiences. This taxonomy should — Shange, Ntozake. 1987. Nappy Edg­ affected, and therefore revert to emo­ contextualise different experiences es. London: Methuen. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry

Old Coast Road

Earth is peeling from the sky: .3 thin demarcating line sharpens as the light grows. Soon now whine of engines, gears of lorries hauling loads 2 up hot hillsides, will spin a thread of needle sound along Something stirs: old coast road's cat from nearby squatter-camp 3 rambling crooked miles. stands, suddenly, on the verge. Motionless, hewn Now its length lies coiled from darkness, it is huge in tranquil gravels round beyond its size. sea-abutting hills. Slick as oil, Holding still a pulse it turns and slips of past, dead suns, down narrow seaward paths, lingering resonance following other, older dawns. of labouring wheels, it stretches like a serpent lulled Nightbird floats, to deadly sleep between softly, to the road; singing powerlines. rises from it, wings alight with random, sudden flame. Dangling legs The road beneath me twitches, stills, from road's edge down distant headlamps rake the sky, to night's still dark well, and darkness, routed, fleet I hear waves crawl as hounds, has left on the far sand, the old road splayed feel their brine for bloodying by the sun. tingling on my tongue, last of silence, frail Hands red as sea's shells, as talons on the stones, wrapping me around. I stare across the blood bath of the bay. First lorry, roaring past, workers in red overalls, sounds its horn. The ringing echoes roll across the crimson hills: I watch the torched world burn. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry

The Welcoming

^j We took the first few dancing steps jfc£ even before we came up to the house. ^ It was such a small, bare house: ^7* two rooms, a kitchen, an outhouse, a yard, unfenced, of tumbling grey dust, ^ the inevitable dog, dispossessed, 2 slinking past the quickening tempo of our feet.

He had just been released. In prison, his diabetes had lost him a leg. •^ What, I wondered, did they do with the legs they cut off? Burn them, bury them, feed them to the dogs? My stomach heaved, I slapped at a fly settling, fatly, on my cheek.

We had come to thank him for the leg: it was the crutch on which our own frail bodies leaned, the totem we, dancing, chanting, ringed.

He came out, dressed in his cheap, new, double-breasted suit, too large hat planted squarely on his head, sat, with all the dignity of an ancestral tribal chief, on the chintz-covered, only comfortable chair, folded his hands, firmly, over the knob of the shiny, black, lethal-looking cane, face stony, riven with tracks of eighty indefatigable, warrior years.

We filed past him, leaning close, pressing his hand, touching cheek to his cheek, feet still moving to the measure of the dance, the mounting hymnal of dark voices massed against the rough-plastered, juddering, thin brick-walls.

My turn came: I, too, leaned close, whispered of freedom in the small, crouched ear, drew back, for the first time looked into the old, no longer expressionless eyes, the tear rolling silently down to a mouth slack with weariness and pain.

Die Avonture van Don Gxubane van Langa

on Gxubane van Langa is held van menigte en ook die eingste rerige peoples persoon van ons tyd. Hy is ook vader van agt en loverboy van al sy geliefdes.

^ Abbey van Ermelo op wie se boude #Z^ hy gediggies skryf. Rose van Parys saam met wie hy saans op die ashoop sit en die dorp bekyk. Mary van

^ Betlehem vir wie hy die son, die ^ maan en die sterre beloof.

^ Becky van Boksburg by wie hy StaffriderVol.10No.3 1992 Die Avonture van D. Gxubane

oorskiet rys, vleis en aartappels op Sondae eet. okkasie om dronk te word en mekaar met mekaar se Denise van Sharpeville in wie hy sy vertroue plaas. vrouens te verneuk. Hy wat Pieter Halgryn is het die ding Katrien van die Paarl aan wie hy sy hart gegee het, sien kom soos 'n donderstorm toe sy broer in die weste lank terug. horn opbel en se: hulle gaan die biblioteek en die Mitzi van Flaggstaff deur wie hy die toekoms sien. Sy swembad oopstel vir die swartgoed. Biblioteke kan hulle is ook sy aardmoeder en sangoma koningin. maar kry, het sy broer gese, die goed kan inelkgeval nie Laaste maar nie die minste is daar Megan, die spierwit eers lees nie. Maar die swembad! Donner man, daar staan Jodin van Bezuidenhout Valley met wie hy lekker liefde ons jare lank en stry of die ding oop moet wees op 'n maak. Megan met die gap tussen haar voortande. By haar Sondag al dan nie. Nou's dit donners oop vir alles en bure het hy ook sy silwer Mercedes verniet gekry. Yaweh almal . . . aids ook! God. seen vir jou girl al wil jou pa jou soms besny. Tannie Anneries Jordaan som die ding reg op as sy se: julle wil skiet! Met daai boeppense sal julle skaars op die Die silwer 240 D Mercedes kom tot stilstand sowat vyf grond kan le en mik nevermind skiet, en sy's 'n vrou sy kilometer buite die dorp. Op die dashboard wip 'n weet waarvan sy praat. In haar tyd was die jonstryders worshond van die jare sestig se kop geduldig, op en af, blank en slank met sulke lyne oor hul mae, nes die heen en weer. Chippendales. Champion Jack du Preez blaas die luidsprekers vol en Nee wat, dis 'n deurmekaarspul sit Pieter diep die Don vee die sweet van sy voorkop af. Dis warm. ingedagte, en merknie die silwer Mercedes wat geruisloos Hoeveld hitte wat 'n man se lyf sout en taai laat voel. Die met die hoofs traat afkom en reg voor sy hotel stilhou nie. Don gooi die deur oop en pluk sy T-hemp van sy bolyf Wat hy ook nie merk nie is sy bleekwit vrou, Annemarie af. Stap oor na die plaasdraad langs die pad en maak Halgryn, wat skuins langs horn op die rand van die patio staanplek in die lang gras. Pee 'n straal. Agter horn sak in haar hemelblou nightie staan en wieg nie. Pieter die son en laat sy lyf ieder oomblik glinster. Swart Halgryn merk eintlik nooit sy vrou op nie, selfs nie eers gespierd. Met die terugstap gly 'n pofadder uit die gras wanneer hy met haar seks het nie. Dis boonop haar skuld kort voor die Don se voete verby en met die vernuf van glo hy dat hy ly aan premature ejakulasie. Annemarie se sy Mapantsualistiese voorvaders voer hy 'n systappie uit weer dis oorlat hy nie konsentreer nie. Sy dogter op en plant sy nommer elf Crockett en Jones netjies op die kosskool in Pretoria se hy's plainweg net 'n bliksem wat pof adder se kop. Die adder raak benoud en krul sy lyf om vir niks en niemand behalwe homself lief is nie. die Don se kuit voor hy stadig slap word. Vergruis. Die So vyf meter onder Annemarie se waaghalsigheid het Don kyk af na die slang met die blik van die engel die klomp mans uit die kroeg nou vergader en hulle kan Gabriel. Satanskind! nie besluit of dit 'n stripshow of 'n ramp gaan wees nie. Terug by die Mercedes maak hy die kattebak oop en Een skree wel dat hulle vinnig 'n kombers moet kry om haal sy spierwit (katoen) Carducci uit die drycleaners haar in te vang sou sy val, maar dis reeds te laat want sak. In die verte skitter 'n weerhaan op die dorp in die Annemarie wieg eenkeer te veel vorentoe. Met 'n gil distansie se kerktoring. Die Don verklee vinnig en luister soos iemand wat uit 'n nagmerrie wakker skrik neuk sy met sy een oor vir die aankom van 'n boer se bakkie wat vooroor en tuimel reg op die mans onder haar af. Pieter horn dalk met sy pants down kan vang. Dit is die tyd van Halgryn vang die hemelblou nightie uit die hoek van sy die dag wat die boere waterbak toe jaag. Oomblikke later oog ... in haar val onthou Annemarie skielik dat sy staan hy uitgevat in sy spierwit mondering. vergeet het om 'n briefie te los en skree kliphard tot God om hulp. Vir 'n splitsekonde verskyn sy voor 'n Op die dorp in die distansie sit ene Pieter Halgryn op die majestieuse troon en hoor iemand se: okay jong. patio van sy hotel, die Oasis. Hy's erg omgekrap en Die mans onder gee almal pad behalwe vir die gatvol vir alles en almal. Die klomp daaronder in die vreemdeling in wit wat ligvoetig vorentoe tree en kroeg gebruik die derde vryheidstryd eintlik net vir Annemarie netjies in sy arms vang. Teen die tyd dat Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Charles J. Fourie I

Pieter Halgryn by die patio afkyk staar hy horn vas teen 'n luide applous en sy vrou wat met haar kop agteroor in die Don se arms hang. Net die Don se strikdassie staan effe skeef andersins sou jy nie se hy het nou net iemand se lewe gered nie. Al is dit die nikswerd lewe van 'n mal, gefrustreerde wit huisvrou van die Hoeveld. Die Don glimlag vir die mans om horn en elkeen druk mekaar uit die pad net om aan die Don te kan raak. Pieter Halgryn staan grys geets teen die aandlug en byt sy onderlip vas. Hy kyk regdeur die Don se wit mondering en sien swart, ruik swart... maar hy kan niks se nie. Annemarie lig haar kop uit die bedwelming van die handvol pille wat sy 'n halfuur van te vore gesluk het. Haar klein rooi ogies fokus hulself en sy se: jy het my lewe gered, en soen die Don vol op sy mond. Die soen word gevolg deur nog 'n luide applous van die mans . . . Pieter Halgryn moer amper self vooroor en met 'n — uuuuuuuhhhh word Annemarie slap in die Don se arms. In die agtergrond staan die verledelose Gracie Halgryn met 'n mandjievol eiers. Sy's sprakeloos om haar miesies in die arms van die swartman in sy wit pak te sien. Sy kan haar oe nie glo nie want so ver sy weet is sy die enigste swartgoed wat op die dorp toegelaat word. Sy is mos wedergebore as 'n Halgryn na die Halgryns haar langs die pad duskant die Paarl opgetel het. Haar ma het per ongeluk voor Pieter Halgryn se Cressida beland en omdat die Halgryns te bang was om die saak by die polisie aan te gee, het hulle die baba in die kar gelaai en noorde toe gejaag. Vandag werk Gracie sewentien jaar lank al vir die Halgryns in hulle hotel en dra sy die geheim van haar ma pynlik diep in haar hart saam. In een van haar dronk deleriums het miesies Halgryn vir haar die waarheid vertel en ook 'nnommer vyf skoen met 'n afgetrapte sool aan haar gegee. Die skoen is per ongeluk saam met die baba in die kar gelaai. Pieter Halgryn weet dus nie dat Gracie die waarheid ken nie. Die Don sit in die hotel se lounge en luister na die gerumoer langsaan in die kroeg waar elkeen sy weergawe van die amperste ramp vertel. Pieter Halgryn kom statig

Previous page: Gavin du Pies sis Voortrekker Road Apollo • Charcoal and pastel Left: Detail of above Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 1 Die Avonture van D. Gxubane die lounge binne en probeer hard om te smile maar kry Pieter Halgryn smile en so hard as hy wil kan hy nie dit tog reg as die Don opspring en sy hand skud. sy oe van die twee pikswart kolle in die Don se oogkaste — dag my baas. weghou nie. Gelukkig kom Gracie die lounge binne. — dagse .... —ja baas? Pieter gaan druk die diensklokkie teen die muur en — bring vir ons twee . . . biere Gracie ... en gaan kyk kom terug. Hy is nog meer verbaas om te sien dat die of daar skoon beddegoed in nommer agt is. swartgoed wag dat hy moet kom sit. Vir etlike sekondes — ja baas. is dit stil en hang die oggendmis van bloedrivier tussen Gracie gee die Don 'n vinnige smile en gaan weer uit. die Don en Pieter Halgryn. Hulle oe soek mekaar en Die Don word vir 'n oomblik bewoe maar steek dit goed Pieter Halgryn wag verniet dat Gracie horn moet kom weg. red. — so jy hipnotiseer mense? — dankie . . . man. — net so baas. — ek se vir die baas dankie. — en jy wil vir ons jou show doen? Pieter Halgryn kan sy ore nie glo nie. Hy onthou dat — net so baas. hy laas in 1982 'n swartgoed teegekom het wat horn met — en waar't jy die geleer? soveel respek behandel en hy begin met nuwe oe na die — by die groot baas Ferdinand Vosloo my baas. een voor horn kyk. Pieter Halgryn slaan sy hande saam in ongeloof teen — vanwaar kom jy? die noodlot. — Langa my baas. — my goeieste fok! Jy wil vir my se, jy ken vir die groot — waarheen is jy oppad? dokter Ferdinand Vosloo? — die dorp my baas. — ja baas. — jy't hiernatoe gekom? — my donner . . . man. Wanneer wil jy die show hou? — net so my baas. — moreaand my baas. — ek sien. En wat kom maak jy hier? Gracie kom terug met die twee yskoue biere en glase — ek soek 'n saal my baas. op 'n skinkbord en sit dit neer op die tafeltjie voor die — 'n saal? mans. Haar oe vang die Don se oe en in die swartpoele — net so my baas. sien sy 'n tingerige swartvrou agter haar hoed — vir wat soek jy 'n saal? aanhardloop. Langs die pad le 'n bondel toegedraai in 'n — vir my konsert my baas. bruin kombers. Die swartvrou sien nie die Cressida teen — watse konsert? 'n 160 km/ph aankom nie en as sy uiteindelik haar hoed — hipnose my baas. beetkry in die middel van die pad kyk sy op en sien Pieter Pieter Halgryn is stomgeslaan. Sy kop maal. Hy' s vyf Halgryn grynslag agter die stuurwiel. jaar oud en sy ouma Bennie neem horn saam na DIE — dankie Gracie. Het jy al gaan kyk of nommer agt reg is? GROOT HIPNOTIESE VERTONING VAN DOKTER — ek gaan nou kyk baas. FERDINAND VOSLOO! In 'n stadium gedurende die vertoning het dokter, Ferdinand Vosloo, die burgemeester In die kroeg langsaan breek 'n geveg tussen Daantjie en sy vrou op die verhoog onder diep hipnose. Hy se hulle Marais en Otto Brand uit — hulle stories oor die amperste dat hulle hoenders is, die burgemeester die haan en sy ramp van mevrou Halgryn verskil hemelsbreed en vrou die hen. Die twee op die verhoog begin te kekkel en Daantjie het vir Otto n poesgesig genoem. kraai en klein Pieter Halgryn lag dat die trane loop. In haar kamer skrik Annemarie Halgryn wakker met — my baas? haar middel vinger op haar clitoris en besef sy' s seksueel — ja . . . ja, sorry . . . man. gefrustreerd na al die jare. Met oorgawe gee sy toe aan — ek wil 'n kamer ook he. die molestering van haar vinger. — natuurlik, ons kan 'n plan maak. Buite is dit donker en die dorp se strate is stil. So stil Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Charles J. Fourie

dat jy die gelag by 'n shebeen in die township buite die GXUBANE die volgende dag deur die dorp gebrand. dorp duidelik kan hoor. Pieter Halgryn sit op die patio Met die hulp van die mans wat aanskou het hoe die Don met sy brandewyn en coke en luister na die gelag. More sy vrou gered het was dit vir Pieter Halgryn maklik om sal hy met die munisipaliteit praat oor die saal. Miskien die munisipaliteit te oortuig om die stadsaal tot die Don het hy hier uiteindelik 'n swartgoed ontmoet wat kan se beskikking te stel. help met die stryd .. . nes daar van hulle was wat gehelp Dit nog verniet ook, was Pieter Halgryn verheug om het met die vorige stryd. Dit is as die man kan hipnotiseer die Don teen middagete te vertel. Maar niks is verniet nie soos hy se hy kan. het Pieter verder gese, terwyl hy die Don inlig dat die In haar kamer sit Gracie met haar ma se skoen hele dorp daar gaan wees. vasgeklem teen haar bors. Sy kan nie die images wat sy — daars altyd 'n ander kant aan 'n coin ook my Don. in die Don se oe gesien het uit haar kop kry nie. Iewers — en dit is my baas? is daar 'n verbintenis met die snaakse swartman in wit, — ons het probleme met ons... mense hier in die lokasie. wat presies weet sy nog nie. — probleme my baas? In sy kamer le die Don op die vars bed en kyk na sy — hulle is effe opstandig . . . effe onvoorspelbaar, en ek bigscreen movie teen die plafon gevul met die verlede. het gedink jy kan my help. Hy sien die trane op sy oom Terence se wange waar hy — hoe so my baas? heel voor langs die kis stap. Die nommer vyf skoen wat — wel, jy kan mos hipnotiseer. Ek wil he jy moet hulle hy jare lank al in 'n trommeltjie onder sy bed bere. Oom hipnotiseer. Hulle weer onderdanig kry, as jy weet wat Terence wat se hy wonder nog altyd waar die ander ek bedoel. skoen is. Die stilte in die agterplaas van familie en Pieter Halgryn het nie gemerk hoe die vurk in die Don vriende wat nie wil waag om te se hoe hulle regtig dink se linker hand buig nie. Hy het ook nie gemerk hoe die die Don se ma dood is nie. Wat van sy sussie geword het Don se paar Crockett en Jones onder die tafel begin tap nie. Jare later le hy blink gesmeer met bokvet in Mitzi se dance nie. Pieter Halgryn het net geglo dat hy uiteindelik hut op die heuwels buite Flaggstaff. Mitzi sit met die die oplossing vir sy probleem gekry het. Die derde skoen in haar hande. Sy brabbel en gooi 'n paar bene, vryheidstryd sou sonder geweld gewen word! Onder skulpe en klippe op die grond. Dan gaan sy in 'n trans en hipnose sou die swartgoed weer tot hulle senses kom. kom le langs die Don. Saam sien hulle 'n dorpie in die Die stadsaal is stampvol. In die voorste ry op sitplekke distansie. Sien hulle vir Pieter Halgryn op sy patio sit. A 10 en A 11 sit Pieter Halgryn en sy vrou Annemarie Sien hulle sy gefrustreede vrou. Sien hulle vir Gracie in Halgryn. Langs hulle sit die burgemeester en sy vrou, en die kombuis brood vir toast sny. Die jare tussen in het die burgemeester is terloops ook die seun van die almal tot daardie visioen gelei en met elke stap was die burgemeester wat by dokter Ferdinand se vertoning horn Don se voorvaders daar. Van sy studies in die filosofie soos 'n haan gedra het. Andersins is die saal vol en letterkunde aan UCT tot by 'n riot op die trappe van dorpsmense . . . al die dorpsmense, en hulle blinde stom die Uniegebou waar hy sif geskiet word met rubberkoels, doof kinders ook. Op almal se gesigte is daar maar steeds storm met 'n besem in sy hande. Al die dinge opgewondenheid en naiewe afwagting te bespeur. Almal het horn tot hier gebring, al die boeke, al die gebeure, al wag vir die Don om op die verhoog te verskyn. sy geliefdes, al sy verlange, al die haat ook. Die Don gaan In die klein beligtingskamer sit Frikie Malan en suig aan die huil en hy huil sommer net omdat hy wil. Maar aan 'n Gunston plain. As Frikkie nie die 35 mm projektor hy huil ook vir sy ma en vir sy sussie en vir almal wat in beheer nie, dan beheer hy die beligting en vanaand is vir die struggle gesterf het. Hy huil homself aan die slaap. horn 'n spesiale oomblik. Hy't jare laas nodig gehad om Ver af in die gang, kom Annemarie Halgryn in al haar ligte in te stel, wat nog van groen en geel jellies gebruik gefrustreerde glorie. met nie minder as agt black outs nie. Frikkie is opgewonde. Soos 'n vlam met petrol gepor het die nuus van DIE Die mense in die saal is opgewonde. Agter die gordyn GROOT HIPNOTIESE VERTONING VAN DON staan die Don in sy wit mondering en mediteer: — dames StaffriderVoMONo. 3 1992 Die Avonture van D. Gxubane

en here ons bied met trots aan . . . DIE GROOT dorp gevolg . . . hulle het hulle soos hoenders begin HIPNOTIESE VERTONING VAN DON GXUBANE! gedra! Hulle het beginne kekkel en kraai en pik pik na Die ligte doof en daars etlike sekondes van duisternis mekaar soos 'n spul hoenders in 'n hok ... dit was iets in die saal. Stemme wat bang en onseker fluister. Gedagtes verskrikliks . . . onheilspellend ... en het glad nie gepas wat maal. by die gebruike van die mense van daai tyd nie. — DON GXUBANE VAN LANGA! — en toe pappie? Die ligte op die verhoog verkleur na 'n mengsel van — wel om 'n lang storie kort te maak; is julle 'n bietjie geel en groen. Weer gaan 'n luide applous op, en jonk om die res te hoor. onderlangs fluister Annemarie vir die burgemeesters vrou. — aag pappie .... — my held. Ver buite die dorp in die township sit 'n groep jong Fluister Pieter Halgryn vir die burgemeester. comrades by die Moonlight shebeen en bier drink. Hulle — ons redder. leier, ene Zonky is aan die woord en het dit erg oor die Die ligte verander weer na 'n mengsel van rooi en hoe pryse wat hulle vir die veerlose battery-hoenders uit pastel pienk. Pretoria moet betaal. Hy word egter skielik in die rede — DON GXUBANE VAN LANGA! geval deur die veraf gekekkel en kraai van 'n spul Wat hierna sou volg sou lank op die dorp onthou hoenders in die distansie. Zonky word stil vir 'n oomblik, word. Mense sou honderde jare later vir hulle kinders gryp sy byl en se; is mos hoenders wat ek hoor, of hoe steeds die storie vertel van die aand toe DON GXUBANE manne? VAN LANGA die hele dorp gehipnotiseer het. Een van Gracie hoor die hoenders vanaf die stadsaal tot in haar die nageslagte wat dit veral vir sy kinders sou vertel is kamer kekkel en kraai. Sy skrik as daar skielik 'n sagte Pieter Halgryn junior junior junior junior .... klop aan haar deur is en loer eers deur sleutelgat om te — Pa is moeg kinders, pa wil gaan slaap. kyk wie kom klop haar op die tyd van die aand. In die — nog pappie, net nog 'n bietjie. verlede was daar al dieselfde soort klop maar dit was — julle oupa oupa oupagrootjie was nie net 'n rasis nie, heelwat later in die aand... en sy't geweet wie dit is. Sy't hy was ook 'n slegte lover gewees. vir Pieter Halgryn geruik aan die vars aftershave wat hy — wat's 'n rasis pappie? snags op sy lyf sprinkel. Deur die sleutelgat vang haar — 'n rasis is . . . was iemand wat nie van mense hou nie oog 'n skoen; dieselfde afgetrapte sol as waarmee sy op grond van hulle velkleur... en julle oupagrootjie was vroeer op haar bed gele en huil het. Dis net die ander voet so iemand . . . anycase, daar sit hulle toe die aand se maat. en applaudieer elke keer as daar 'n lig verandering — sussie. kom . . . van kleur na kleur . . . 'n regte skouspel. Die — boeta. Don natuurlik .... — ons moet ry, Sancho Tsele sit en wag vir my by Sun — wat's 'n Don nou weer pappie? City. Twalfuur vanaand is daar 1.3 miljoen rand te wen —' n Don is ' n Don is' n Don my kind. Daar staan die Don op slotmasjien nommer 8. Mens kan nie te lank op een toe en soos die ligte op horn verander kyk hy diep in die plek stil staan nie. dorp se oe. So diep dat hulle koppe begin spin en rondomtalie slaan . . . hulle word terug geruk in hulle Minute later gly die silwer Mercedes geluidloos deur die kinderjare in en meeste bars in trane uit, ander sien hulle hoof straat die dorp uit. Gracie se oe is vol trane van geluk self weer vir die eerste keer in hul lewens vir dit wat hulle en aan haar voete sit haar ma se skoene. In sy werklik is en gaan histeries aan die lag ... maar die ergste rearviewmirror vang die Don se oog 'n skare jongmans volg toe. met hulle byle en messe omhoog wat in die rigting van — wat pappie wat? die stadsaal marsjeer. Op die verhoog in die stadsaal sit — die ding het met julle oupagrootjie en die burgemeester Pieter Halgryn gehurk en kraai benoud vir die dorpsmense in die voorste ry begin en binne sekondes het die hele om tot hulle senses te kom.flf Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry

i'm the streetchild

Dedicated to Dwight Conquergold when i die 5 no one to put wreaths on my coffin i browse with my itchy eyes if i'll have it i strip naked the street the official records with my dirty mind won't notice my disappearance i'm dirty in gaol they say i'm dirty they no longer write my name then why be bothered by my dirty ways 'cos i have twenty different names i'm nothing charges are the same just a dirty streetchild disturbing peace who in the midst of violence how can peace disturb peace looks for peace leave me alone or give me a home i'm an unknown citizen i want to live who appears without appearance when people kick me like an empty tin i smile because they do not see love in me i'm an angel incarnate i love the bins they feed me i love the police they harden my life though i love the stars the moon and darkness who watch me at night i really like these things because i have nothing to lose if i love them anyway i'm only a dirty streetchild Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry

Ingrid de Kok Three Poems Salamander Still Life Marquisite, false diamond, most desirable cheap snake: The woman is wild. the lucid silver of its vein The child has grown lizards like a forties singer away from this place gloved to the elbow to a view of its own. in lurex shine.

The woman is still. Theatrical legend, The child has gone fool's gold, dragon, fake: behind the hill its own membrane foreign moons shine on. rears an adamantine finger to let lidless libido The woman's alive. pulse through its sunlit spine. The child was led from summer ground. The child is fled.

The woman yields the cavity, renounces daily care, grants the earth its gravity, the sky its horizontal stare. Funfinder

The Friday paper, features and arts:

Voyager. Wild at heart. Deceived. Shattered. Ricochet. Body parts.

Pure luck. Sunny South Africa

Quickly now, Move them into the sun The child, mother and oupa In his ragged shirt. Surely their glazed eyes Will flicker and stare again Touched by the gentle morning light!

Who could believe that Death would undo so many In sunny South Africa Where the mealies ripen tall And the tourist trade is all!

Speak not of hope When the sun Blights the land Sucks at the rain in the ground Splitting the red earth Round the kraal Where a father sits alone, Turning his gaze on Boipatong, Braaivleis, rugby, sunny skies and Chevrolet!

So must they lie there In a Wasted Land, Victims of faceless faces That came suddenly in the night, The child, mother and wise oupa Who alone stood witness at Crossroads And buried Hector Peterson In sunny South Africa. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 I Poetry

Remembering

^ Thus remembering Chicago, the budding season, we speak of impending winter here in the aftermath of a dry spell in the scattered country.

r^f And in the twilight of the ripening era hungry black men deliberate, stare at the crumbs s and the frugal menus of cunning bosses — bald, desperate demagogues shifting & snatching burning legacies. They lick their scalded fingers crying: We didn't know. We're sorry.

The bones immortalise a story: Goniwe. Calata. Sparrow.

All this happened somewhere before — was it in enticing California? I remember an old social worker in Ilinois gazing at Rea's film about Japanese prisoners in the brutal Belsens of America. I heard that voice again: I'm sorry. I was there, but I didn't know.

We remember this morning, the television screaming a prelude to a sordid soapie: Don't buy Honda Accord. Toyota Cambri or a Mazda Try American! Buy American. And may the best car win!

Right: Robben island prisoners breaking stones in the prison courtyard — 1960s Courtesy: Mayibuye Centre, UWC tl§Ml«»:

EN- ISLAND RETOLD

iobben FROM THE Island, the notorious prison enclave APPLE BOX where thousands of political prisoners were incarcerated since the early 1960s ARCHIVES Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Robben Island Retold

has been dubbed the 'university of us in trust to preserve for future gen­ er with Chief Albert Lutuli and Dr the struggle'. Now, its life as a jail erations,' says Odendaal. 'A big re­ Yusuf Dadoo. Personal papers be­ almost over, this university's 'ar­ sponsibility rests on us.' longing to the latter, as well as to chives' are set to be established at The Centre, recently established public figures such as Go van Mbeki, UWC's Mayibuye Centre for Histo­ on campus to house a 'museum and Barney Desai, Peter Hain, Reggie ry and Culture in South Africa. archive of the struggle', may be September and Brian Bunting, are Stacked high in one of the Cen­ UWC's newest baby, but already it also to be found in the collection. tre's storage rooms are twenty-three has made a considerable impact — And last year the Centre received apple boxes of material which re­ both locally and nationally. a massive boost when the London- count the story of the prison from the Hardly out of its nappies after based International Defence and Aid perspective of the political prison­ being formally constituted at the end Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF) ers. of last year, the Centre has become decided to relocate all the material 'When people were released,' the repository of a priceless collec­ and much of the equipment in its says Dr Andre Odendaal, co-ordina- tion of historical material relating to research, photographic, audio-visu­ tor of the Centre, 'they left carrying apartheid and the liberation struggle al and publications departments to their worldly possessions in card­ in South Africa. UWC. For many years IDAF was one board boxes. When these started com­ 'We can't keep up,' says Oden­ of the nerve centres in the interna­ ing into the Centre, we noticed that daal, referring to the mass of docu­ tional anti-apartheid movement. Its they were almost always apple box­ ments, artefacts, publications, pho­ collection, documenting all facets of es.' tographs and audio-visual material life and struggle under apartheid and 'Kromco, Golden Delicious, Hei- coming in since UWC formally an­ probably the biggest of its kind in the dedal, Stallion, Cape . . . always nounced its plans for the Centre. world, forms the core of the Centre's apple boxes.' He was speaking as staff un­ current holdings. The apple boxes contain a trea­ packed ninety boxes of documents The Centre received from IDAF sure trove waiting to be explored by freighted in from the London office eight hundred boxes of news cut­ researchers — correspondence, of the African National Congress, tings, documents and periodicals; one minute books of various committees just one of a host of organisations and thousand films and videos; thirty and sports clubs; political education individuals supporting the project in thousand negatives and seventy thou­ material painstakingly copied and word and deed. sand photographic prints; one hun­ secretly circulated over the years. The list of recent acquisitions dred thousand books; as well as hun­ The documents provide some in­ includes official papers from the dreds of audio tapes and posters and sight also into current developments. United Democratic Front, the South various exhibitions which were dis­ The first constitution of the Robben African Non-Racial Olympic Com­ played in places as far apart as New Island Sports board, drawn up in mittee headed by Sam Ramsamy, the York (the United Nations), Moscow, 1971, is signed by the then president Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, the Berlin, Amsterdam, Strasbourg, To­ Steve Tshwete, currently dubbed the United Women's Congress and the kyo and London (Westminster Ab­ 'Mr Fixit' of South African sport. South African Communist Party. bey). Eight thousand pages of letters Archbishop Trevor Huddleston Building on these resources, the and notes belonging to Ahmed Kath- donated a hand-inscribed, illuminat­ Mayibuye Centre has set up photo­ rada detail the innermost feelings of ed version of the Freedom Charter graphic, film-video and publishing one of the Rivonia trialists incarcer­ presented to him at the time of the units to complement its plans for an ated for twenty-five years together historic Congress of the People, when archive museum. with Nelson Mandela. he became the first recipient of the 'Since 1987 we have been deal­ 'This is unique material given to ANC's Isitwalandwe Award, togeth- ing with the concept of a struggle museum and archive,' Dr Odendaal commented. 'Now at last we are operational; it Thiong'o ^^^B^ is there.' And the Centre, housed on and organised cultural the first level of the Main University events with the Congress of South Library, has an ambitious programme African Writers (COSAW) and the South Af­ of activities planned for this year. Federation of South African Cultural rica before — now resides with the On campus, it has launched a Organisations (Fosaco). Mayibuye Centre. weekly programme of talks, semi­ One of the main features in 1992 Other projects for this year in­ nars, films, exhibitions and perfor­ will be on publishing. Last year the clude an oral history project on the mances. Centre published the first five books exile experience; exhibitions and The theme for the first term was in its new Mayibuye History and workshops held in conjunction with Culture, Struggle and Transforma­ Literature Series. They deal with community group and institutions tion. A range of artists, academics political leaders — Govan Mbeki, such as the South African Library and activists participated, including Pixley Seme, Monty Naicker, Albert and the National Gallery; a commu­ Wally Serote, Njabulo Ndebele, San- Luthuli and Yusuf Dadoo. nity history week; and a film project dile Dikeni and Sophie Peters. Several new releases are planned. on women and resistance in South In the second quarter guest speak­ The Centre also intends publishing Africa. ers and discussions will grapple with under its imprint a selection of books Barry Feinberg, director of many the issue of recent developments in previously published in London by of the IDAF film productions, in­ South African sport. IDAF and their associated company, cluding international film festival The Centre has also hosted the Kliptown Books. The copyright of winners, recently joined the Centre, renowned Kenyan writer, Ngugi wa these books — not freely available in together with two other ex-IDAF Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 1 Robben Island Retold

colleagues. production at commercial rates, with Above: He explained that the Centre has some reductions for community and Exhibition Room in the a film production capacity which it non-commercial groups. Mayibuye Centre hopes to utilise increasingly in fu­ 'We want to make this material Previous page: detail ture. Feinberg noted also that a large widely accessible,' Feinberg con­ Courtesy: part of the Centre's photographic cluded. Mayibuye Centre, UWC archive and most of the films and The sooner this happens the bet­ videos had not been seen in South ter. It is not exaggeration to say that gantic operation in which IDAF se­ Africa before. the Mayibuye Centre's collection cretly smuggled one hundred million The Centre hopes to make avail­ constitutes a national treasure, which pounds into South Africa over a pe­ able these resources to a wide range provides a unique mirror of an im­ riod of twenty-five years to help thou­ of researchers — professionals, stu­ portant period in South Africa's his­ sands of people charged or impris­ dents, companies and people in the tory.' oned for anti-apartheid activities, as community. A computerised photo­ The transfer of the IDAF material well as their dependants. graphic and film-video catalogue is (mentioned above) to the Mayibuye The story began in 1956 when the available, and research is further fa­ Centre is a small part of a remarkable charismatic Canon John Collins of St cilitated by detailed shot lists of films. story. In May last year the Observer Paul's Cathedral agreed to guarantee All material is available for re­ newspaper in London revealed a gi- the defence costs for Chief Luthuli Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Robben Island Retold

Below: Andre Odendaal with the inscribed Freedom Charter for History and Culture In SouthAfrica Courtesy: Mayibuye Centre, UWC

Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Robben Island Retold I

realised where it (payment) was coming from'. In 1990 alone it pumped thirty-five million rands into political trials, com­ pared to the seventeen million rands paid by the state in legal aid for all criminal trials. p. As the Observer noted, 'without IDAF's millions the mass of men and women in political trials over the last three decades would have entered the dock naked.' Many dependants also re­ ceived regular support grants. IDAF's public face in all these years of clandestine activity was its publicity and information departments — the ma­ terial which now forms the core of the Mayibuye Centre's collection. The task of those departments was to keep the conscience of the world alive to the situation in South Africa. Priding them­ selves on the strict accuracy of IDAF's productions, they set up an effective multi­ media information service on the sub­ continent, feeding the world-wide anti- apartheid network with publications, films videos and photographs which countered apartheid propaganda internationally. Al­ though banned, IDAF's material was also smuggled into South Africa. With the unbanning of the liberation movements in February 1990, the IDAF trustees decided to terminate the Fund's ten million pound a year operation in London. On the recommendation of the African National Congress, IDAF chose to relocate its material to the Mayibuye Centre. Q

This article was first printed in UWC News, UWC.

Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, Robben Island — 1960s. Courtesy: Mayibuye Centre, UWC Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry

Damian Shaw Three Poems

Invitation to a Homeland

Oh my love, come back to me And let us walk, hand in hand, To where there is Political Poem grass on the Other side of the fence. One day this rain may come to an end. Immortal rain! Always the same, You know, varying only in Temperature, intensity And since this century, Chemical composition.

Spring Song

What shall we call this day If not a month before spring? Ah, the birds, they know, As they make their nests In the freezing rain. Ha, my love, the birds know As they make their nests In the freezing rain. Right: Mario Pissarra • Exile I: Confusion in New York Indian ink and tippex on paper JAMES MATTHEWS Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 I Taxi To Town

' A run up and down the streets shooting each other. It's not xTLthlone — Mowbray — Kaap.' safe to walk the streets with their nonsense. They must The strident voice of the seventeen-year-old youth, think they on TV. And you can't depend on the Law! Oh who saw himself as shotgun guard of the driver, bawled no! They never there when you want them! The other day at the group standing at the bus stop. He wrenched open skollies break in at Mrs Johnson's place. She's my the sliding door of the kombi and jumped out hitting the neighbour. Nice woman she is. It was no gal a Sunday pavement before the kombi slid to a halt. 'Seats for all. morning, mind you. Mrs Johnson she go to church with Step this way,' his voice reached out as he helped an her boys. Her husband is long dead, and she bring up her elderly woman. three boys all by herself. She work as supervisor in a Those seated silenced their protest as the youth urged factory. Clothing factory it is. I'm not sure if it's Ensign. more passengers to fill the remaining cramped space. A Her three boys got nice manners. Not like some of the fat woman squashed in a corner on the back seat, voice other boys in the street, same age like them but already louder than the stridency of the youth, emoted: 'Do you smoking dagga and belong to the Apache Gang. Mrs think you a hawker and want us to sit on top of each other Johnson's boys go to school. Tommy, the eldest one, he's like melons in a cart?' Her voice choked the retort he in standard nine. Wants to become a traffic cop, he ... ' formulated. Reluctantly he desisted marshalling A listener, peeved at her rambling, said tersely: additional passengers. 'What about the police?' 'Take it away driver. That's the lot,' he yelled 'The Law is another thing,' she continued, voice squeezing himself onto the edge of the seat at the sliding same-paced, not offended at the interruption. 'They take door. their time coming. They speak to Mrs Johnson then they Conversations, as if programmed, resumed as the tell her she must keep a look-out if she see anybody kombi pulled away from the kerb. selling the things the skollies take. What you think of 'Let me tell you, things are going altogether vrot in that? We must now do their job, watch out for skollies Mannenberg!' walking around with a TV set and a small radio that the Necks stiffened to attention, and there was an almost skollies sell for buttons.' The youth fidgeted on the edge noticeable opening of ears to register what was to be of his seat and lowered his head at the mentioning of disclosed. Mandrax tablets. 'What do they get paid for? Driving The speaker, a tall, thinnish woman draped in what around in their vans as if they own Mannenberg!' appeared to be a pink curtain with purple fringes, assured 'The Law's the same all over,' a stout man, hair of a captive and willing audience, took off her glasses shaved giving his head the appearance of an ostrich egg, and squinted at the lenses then polished them while her said in accordance, dabbing at his round face. 'They listeners waited expectantly. speak to you as if they do you a favour. They seem to 'Yes, I tell you, things are going very vrot in forget that we pay the money they get every month.' He Mannenberg! Fighting and robbing. Not to talk about the looked at the youth whose eyes mirrored the incredulity drinking. God alone know where the money come from his words evoked. 'That's right! It's our money. The tax work being so scarce. And it's those who don't work are we pay.' He smiled indulgently at the youth. 'Of course, doing most of the drinking. I'm not talking about the you don't pay tax. Remember, the Law's not our boss. skollies. They get the money from robbing decent people of the money they sweat for. Weekends things become so They our boys. They there to look after us.' bad that you don't want to talk about what you see and The youth's understanding of the reality of a hear.' She paused for a moment as if offering them an policeman's role in his life was expressed by a sharp opportunity to demand of her not to shock them with whistle. further revelations of the Sodom and Gomorrah she 'You mean, pops, what you say is gospel? And they inhabited. keep them dik-neckV 'And then those bleddy skollies with their guns they Talk terminated as a woman asked the driver to stop Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 James Matthews 1 at the Red Cross Hospital. The he is when it come to women. He youth helped her alight with her can't keep his hands off them. He baby and playfully pressed the must get on top of every woman shoulders of the five-year-old boy he meet. And the younger they accompanying her. are the better it suit him. 'Mowbray — Kaap — Mow­ 'And now a girl in Elsies River bray,' he loudly chanted. 'It's is carrying his child. That man's cheaper by taxi, and you save got no shame. He told Mrs Jordaan time,' he prompted. about the girl. Even going as far as to say he want to bring The kombi acquired a few more passengers. The the girl to the house. He say he want Mrs Jordaan to meet youth reluctantly stopped his cajoling at a glare from the the girl.' She paused for an instant as if reflecting on what fat woman in the corner who refused to ease her bulk to she had disclosed, then added almost grudgingly: 'The ensure space for the new additions to the trip to town. girl isn't that young also. Mrs Jordaan say the girl's 'Driver, I think we need some music so that when we twenty-six, and she got another child by another man. hit town the passengers they all will be in a lekker vibe,' She must be a fool of a girl because the father of the child the youth urged the driver. 'Tina Turner got the beat, or don't marry her, and she go to court for support money.' a nice disco number. You know mos\ Sorry we don't got 'Maybe she want it all the time, and not particular no lang-arm for the timers. They must maar enjoy who do the riding,' the rotund man said laconically. themselves with the music.' His rider to the sparse woman's tale was answered by The younger passengers were attuned to the rhythm a withering look from the fat woman that bounced off his of the music and the kombi adapted to the beat as it bald pate. swerved from side-to-side as the driver manouevred The item was catalogued and filed by those of the between cars to the annoyance of the other drivers who women of the same age-bracket to possibly protect them controlled their temerity. from the perfidiousness of men while those younger, The interior of the kombi created a closeness that particularly two teenagers, were listening intently to a dispelled restraint in conversation and subjects that tale of raping related, looking knowingly at each other normally would be discussed by intimates were given a fully aware that rape was a constant companion in the public airing. townships whose assault could be at any time, the 'You can't trust men,' a woman announced assailant not necessarily a male unknown. judgementally. Her bleak features and sparse physique A bus hooted its driver's annoyance as the kombi slid covered in funereal cloth should have ensured that she to a halt in front of it without flickering its rear lights. would be free of pursuit directed at women with a more 'Groote Schuur — Kaap — Groote Schuur.' attractive mien. 'There's only one thing that they want Three would-be passengers, after a look at the cramped from a woman. And when they get what they want they quarters of the kombi, ignored the cajoling of the youth, leave the woman to her misery.' preferred the spaciousness of the bus. A fourth passenger The fat woman and the one draped in her curtain- whose urgency to reach his destination over-ruled the dress nodded their heads in agreement fully aware of the lack of comfort pushed past them to enter the vehicle. wiles of males, the younger ones suppressing their mirth The kombi pulled away with a swerve jamming the after taking in the speaker's aspect, and the bald man passengers against each other bringing forth a flow of showed his indifference by whistling tunelessly. protestations. T feel sorry for Mrs Jordaan. Her husband is a swine 'Not to worry,' the youth assured them. 'The driver, of a man! No, she doesn't suffer because he has a heavy that ou, he's a safe driver. Never make an accident with hand, and leave her show the neighbours on Monday the taxi.' morning the present he print on her face. He show the pig 'There can always be the first time,' the fat woman StaffriderVol.10 No. 3 1992 1 Taxi To Town

who had elected herself as spokesman, said: 'And it will be his worry then.' The driver's not like those drunk drivers who take chances, mother. He smoke a stop, but only after the job.' The youth looked at the rotund man wiping his shiny head to indicate to him that the driver is not a button-kop. We smoke a stop to get rid of the tension after the day' s k. 'It's our job to look to the safety of our passengers,' he added, his trust in the driver reflected in his proud smile. The kombi stopped at the road leading up to Groote Schuur Hospital. 'Anybody for Groote Schuur?' the youth enquired. 1 The passengers assured him that they were all in good health and did not need the ministrations of the medical profession. He opened the door of the kombi and sprinted across the road dodging cars blaring at his intrusion of their right-of-way. The youth's disappearance lengthened and passengers glanced anxiously at their wrist watches perturbed that his absence cut into the time they had at their disposal. 'Driver, what's happening now?' the fat % woman asked agitatedly. \ 'It's alright, merrum. There he's

\ \ coming,' the driver said pointing to the ! youth weaving and dodging between streams of cars. 'Take it away driver,' the youth said as he eased himself onto his seat. The pungent odour of fried R 'penny polonies' saturated with onions and vinegar filled the kombi g? prickling the nostrils of those seated near to the youth. The polonies split in half, splenderous in its red coating, was divided into two lots. The youth relished his portion ignoring the glare of the curtain-draped woman, fearful that her dress would be stained as the kombi rock-and-rolled its way to town Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 James Matthews I under the careful manipulation of the driver as he wiped to show. Why don't you come to the gym with me? You'll a grease streak from the corner of his mouth. get rid of this after a few work-outs.' Passengers departed and entered as the kombi drew T thought you like me like this?' was the coquettish nearer to Cape Town, each departure leaving more space response. for those to come. The curtain-draped woman and the 'Of course,' a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, one covered in funereal cloth got out together, waving 'but I'd like you to be among the finalists in the gay farewell to the fat woman in the corner. The rotund man, competition.' with a last wiping of his hairless head, got off a few 'There's not much competition as it is,' was the blocks further. He winked at the youth and said, confident reply. 'Remember, the Law's the servant of the people.' The T don't know. What about Scarlet, and Mandy, and youth smiled his thanks at the advice. The fat woman, the also Kim?' only passenger left, and assured of all the space she 'Forget about Mandy. She's an old cow! Yes, Kim would require, sat almost forlornly on the back seat. The and Scarlet, possibly, but I can't see myself coming to the youth, ever hopeful, continued his canvassing for gym with you. The women are too bitchy! Jealous cows!' passengers as the kombi ate into the kilometres to town. 'Well, take a work-out with me at home.' The driver pulled to the kerb causing the car behind 'You know what your work-outs lead to,' a throaty to swerve away to prevent an accident. The woman laugh followed the reply. driver nervously avoided looking at the driver as she The fat woman did not indicate that she was perturbed drove off. or offended by their conversation but the youth glanced 'Step inside. Lots of room for you, my luvvies,' the at them surreptitiously taking note of the feminine curves youth said, a smirk smearing his features. of the last speaker whose lips were slightly tinged red. The two homosexuals spread themselves feet Talk turned to the apparel displayed by the other outstretched, one draping his arm across the shoulder of competitors. the other. The youth had ceased canvassing for passengers as 'Do you know her?' the homosexual whose arm the kombi neared the Good Hope Centre. Two more stops covered his companion asked amiably, voice lilting. 'Do at robot lights and the kombi pulled to a halt at the side you know me?' the youth shook his head. 'Then don't of the bus terminus. come and luvvy us! We're not looking for company!' 'Kaap — Cape Town,' the youth announced at the T say, what kind?' the youth exclaimed. end of the journey, his departure from the kombi a 'Don't you what kind mell'm certainly not your kind, duplicate as at each stop. excuse you me!' the round-faced homosexual retorted, 'Mandela and the ANC talk about People's Power. voice challenging and eye-brows thinly-shaved scimitars. Now let me tell you about Gay Liberation. We are also The youth, taking in the broad shoulders of the part of People's Power. An injury to one is an injury to speaker, desisted in taking up the challenge, contented Gay Liberation as well. And don't you forget it!' was the himself to count the takings, spreading rand notes in a homosexual's parting rejoinder as he and his companion half-circle on his lap. hip-strutted towards the Parade ignoring the wolf-whistles The fat woman was amused at the crestfallen face of directed at the jiggling of their posteriors enclosed in the youth, then her amusement changed to benevolence tight fitting jeans. but she refrained from putting her feelings into words, 'Moffies they bad luck!' the youth said as he eased the eyeing the two seated in front of her. fat woman from the confines of the kombi. T still like that dress you wore at the Space Odyssey The fat woman pressed his arm in commiseration as on Wednesday night. Red becomes you. But I think you she waddled into the crowd. should ease off on the chocolates.' He patted the hips of The youth took up his chant. his companion sheltering under his arm. 'It's beginning 'Mowbray — Athlone — Mannenberg.' Q +±*A

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• Emergency Series: No. 9 • Emergency Series: No. 10 • Emergency Series: No. 12 • Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 1 Poetry

Letter From the Vortex

dear sir/madam and wipe the spots from my wall, there is a spot on the wall k there is a lime-green wall k and a diagonal stripe kgh... that runs across the plate a spot came out at me covering the power outlet and swallowed me without me knowing above this stripe my tongue was knotted s the wall is muted brown i cried out, but everyone carried on my words are not mine meaning no in sentences my garbled finding they come from that spot on the wall, please come and clean my wall dear madam/sir and make it soft again on my wall my words stare at this spot there is a spot the white paint didn't help and fall into it and further more the window on my wall, and come out of it who painted it? and there are other spots as well i need not say no matter how fast i climb i find this disturbing or descend the steps these spots and the white window they are grainy grey and brown and, disappointing, with paper rained stuck that this spot is rainy and bits of fluffy grass and slips from the steps on rainy days my words slip from me; into words i have been looking for. you say you do not understand? someone also slipped in look, it's simple a bird my words garble sometimes, which chatters when i need sleep i know that, surely this isn't good for me. and yesterday you came and said today is neither here in my words dear sir madam doctor and to catch leaves is not symbolic there are now many spots but a cry from a squirrel; they've grown that slippery words mark like mould a time with no meaning should you not look into it and a different rhythm and find fresh paint, to the one you're used to, and while we are at it but there is a spot on my wall i would like some bars i can see it. painted up there in the northern corner, when i climb the steps yes, ijnark my rhythm with a song and if the painter's good and carry fake diamonds in my head ask him i kindly ask and all is not random precision for some background sky rather fetch some paint, white paint night sky with diamonds for stars Staff rider Voi. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry

and could you paint the bird too like a tomb a womb i search for connections but find and pad my words grains of sand on my forehead wipe them away with because they turn to the spots disbelief in a tower a call a call echoes from long long and conspire against me long ago and reverberates from magenta in the sky the i've heard them often at night sky my hands to my ears a gesture ancient and modern now that i've strangled the bird i raise my eyes to the skies the skies and mouth the you have to paint word that you want iii run i run from the dream that i it's quiet dream when the rhythm of the tomb breaks through and and i hear the slosh the sandy carpets and summer is hot hotter than the sun as they conspire on wet steps sweat runs down our faces tickles our minds we swim they also laugh swim in a mountain made of walls where the river runs and clink their glasses loudly. and runs like a god down to me where the rocks are the giants of a big white bird burnt into the face of a dear doctor thousand ants we dive from them into an uncertain i understand your constraints but these words have stream blow kisses at fishmouthed spirits in watery now conspired with the spots and they sent me a letter dresses they are the children we dance on slippery steps to tell me they threaten me i'm not scared but i thought all of us forsaking our rhythm fearing falling because it you'd like to know i'm strong but my father's words hurts for a while bruised and torn our elbows in slings can do nothing and we can't paint the wall. they only ring loudly when it's too late and even though i've seen their fury i've seen them swallowed so, doctor, you see, there are spots on my wall. by the spots is this not what you do not want to happen so as not to slip on rain-drenched steps and fall into From: Suicide Sequence another granite vortex where we played on wet fields in the morning frost white white white our tracks like souls of early discontent running away from us on frost fields like overcrowded asylums you must also have a look at your trolley its wheels need oiling and fixing to carry us me in a straight line the chances of rolling down steps kept to a minimum when you've heard the scratch of sand on your door is that not simply the wind calling you home from poverty where everyone's syntax is jumbled like the flags of plastic on the barbed wire walls and the sun shines a futility from the glass shards lying bleached and brittle on the frosted fields yesterday was danced to death outside this play-field where a spoon is not only a spoon but a word that i can swirl into my mouth run my tongue along its mysteri­ ous cavity and make it stick and streaks of saliva to carry me beyond these spots and granite steps to 10 000 flaps of an ancient wing big as my dream that i dream when the bird is dead and white feathered pink smears against my temples no my temples where you will paint my walls and bars and skies and in this coolness -, i 11 liiTM^^"^""" ™^

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GRAPHIC BY ANDREW LORD 'South Africa Now':

Danny Schechter

n 'autobiography9 of the in­ dependent news programme, this account was submitted to Passages by the pro­ gramme's executive producer, Danny Schechter, along with an announcement that 'South Africa Now9 was closing down.

In the summer of 1986, while covering Jesse Jackson's visit to Southern Africa's Front­ line States, on assignment for a well-known prime time TV network news magazine pro­ gramme, I spoke with Zimbabwe's President Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992

Robert Mugabe outside his office in work radar screen. I could have been heid issue to world attention. There Harare, the capital city. I asked about calling from the moon. is no doubt that graphic reports of the destabilisation campaign that police violence and township re­ South Africa's neighbours said was When It's Not on TV, sponses helped galvanise world opin­ costing them billions of dollars and It Doesn't Exist ion against apartheid, and fueled anti- millions of lives. apartheid movements and their de­ I asked Mugabe if he would wel­ It has become axiomatic that when mands for sanctions. To stop such come American military help as a an issue is not on television in the images from getting out, the South way to protect his region from South United States, it doesn't exist for African government imposed media African attack. His reply was imme­ most Americans who rely on TV restrictions between 1985 and 1986 diate. First, he told me that I was the news for most of their understanding that sought to, and did, limit what the first American reporter to ask him of world issues. And for the most cameras could see and transmit. Their that question. Second, he immedi­ part, on an ongoing, regular basis, rules were designed to intimidate ately took up the idea explaining that news and developments about Africa and to encourage self-censorship. a USA arms flow would enable Zim­ in general and Southern Africa in They worked. babwe to divert its scarce resources particular are not frequently cov­ A year later, the Canadian gov­ from military expenditures into bad­ ered. The exceptions are usually mo­ ernment commissioned a quantita­ ly needed educational and agricul­ ments of high drama or when the tive study of the effects of those tural efforts. Such a USA commit­ video is particularly evocative in the restrictions and concluded that Pre­ ment, he said, would serve as a pow­ case of the bloated bellies of Ethio­ toria has been 'successful in driving erful signal to Pretoria. In a crisp pia's famine victims, an ongoing coup images of violence, human rights response — what we TV people call of civil war, violence in South Afri­ violations and poverty in South Afri­ a good sound bite — he appealed for ca' s townships, or when a well known ca off the television screens of the Washington's help. personality—say a famous celebrity Western world.' The report docu­ After confirming that this was such as Nelson Mandela — is re­ mented a sharp fall-off in coverage, indeed the first time such a statement leased from prison even though as those TV images had been made — and because such XV-& ostpartiswhat decreased, the rate of detentions and scoops are often the adrenaline of the people who run TV programmes human rights abuses inside South news organisations — I called our say is news* al&ough they are influ­ Africa increased. Just why the net­ foreign news desk in New York to enced by $$&*$ in the papers or on works were so cooperative with those find out how I should ship the tape for the wires. Few media critics or area restrictions, so passive for so long, consideration by our nightly news specialists are happy with network has become a matter of debate. show. I explained the circumstances, news offerings why his statement was newsworthy, overall, so UiS ^ I1CWS and that it had won Jackson's imme­ not surprising for the most part is diate endorsement. The response that so many from New York startled me. The Africans, and news editor on the other side of the journalists or line only had one reaction, a ques­ scholars who follow Africa, are par­ Media Appeasement tion: 'Where is Harare?' ticularly distressed by the quality It was clear that not only would I and quantity of African coverage. The argument started when a former have no sale but also that the story, In the case of South Africa, net­ senior level CBS producer penned a and by extension noncrisis news from work news coverage has played an New York Times op-ed page article Africa, was hardly a blip on the net­ important role in bringing the apart­ calling on the networks, his among Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Danny Schechter

them, to unilaterally withdraw from and the pictures it produced — had in not, at bottom, committed to cover­ South Africa if they weren't able to TV parlance 'gone away'. One net­ ing a black freedom struggle. Ken­ do their job. They've kept us from work foreign news editor told me he neth Walker, former Nightline cor­ covering the story because of the fear thought competitive pressures also respondent, one of the few black that by breaking the rules, we'll get dictated a cautious response. Every­ reporters ever assigned to that show, thrown out,' wrote Richard Cohen. one wanted to make sure they were and to report from South Africa, told He charged 'media appeasement' there when a 'big one', a story such a TV interviewer that the reason for with apartheid. A congressional com­ as Mandela's release, broke. So for diminished coverage was that 'news mittee that deals with African issues nearly two years, TV stories from decisions in this country are made by took this issue so seriously that it South Africa were few and far be­ about ten white guys who live within convened hearings, inviting network tween. And that is not simply be­ a twenty-five mile radius of Manhat­ officials to testify about their news cause there were no stories to shoot, tan' . Walker called the lack of cover­ coverage problems. The committee or that material could not be shot or age a 'failure of nerve and a failure of was startled when not one broadcast­ acquired from many freelance crews. will', even claiming that Nightline er agreed to testify. The hearing it­ In this period, many reports were only went to South Africa for its first self was not even considered news­ shot, only to be put 'on the shelf series of week-long programmes in worthy and no news crews except C- rather than on the air in New York. response to pressure from black staff­ SPAN's were even assigned to cover While it is true that major events ers at the network. it. Citing First Amendment freedom were happening elsewhere in the Other media critics have con­ of press concerns, the networks would world at this time — in Eastern Eu­ tended that poor coverage of blacks not even cooperate with an official rope and in the Soviet Union for in South Africa is not surprising in inquiry intended to call attention to example — and that the traditional light of the 'benign neglect' of black South Africa's effort to suppress the twenty-two minute newscast can't community issues in America. There flow of news. cover everything, it is also true to is no question that America's news­ In their defense — when any de­ quote a Mac-Neil/Lehrer report, that rooms tend to be racially homoge­ fense has ever been offered — news the networks were 'tip-toeing nous with few blacks in the decision­ managers claimed that they must around'. They did not challenge a making positions. Some who are, agree to obey the laws in the coun­ system of State-imposed media cen­ such as Les Payne, the managing tries in which they operate or they sorship of the type which would later editor of Newsday, have committed would not be able to operate at all. In be taken up by governments in Israel their newspapers to enhanced cover­ any case, the argument continued, and China. Not one American TV age of South Africa. TV Anchor Char- they had to protect their people, and correspondent was expelled from layne Hunter-Gaulthas done the same at PBS's 'MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour'. Many indi­ what people who run vidual journalists — black and white — are commit­ TV programmes say is news. ted to the story. There seem to be far fewer broadcast guard against their expulsion. A few South Africa in this period. institutions that are. went further, explaining the decrease Was racism a factor? Some crit­ of coverage by claiming that the ics thought so, charging that mostly Constructive Engagement story in South Africa had changed, American news coverage remains and was no longer as vivid. By that Eurocentric and that overwhelming­ Another factor which may be more they meant that the street fighting — ly white news organisations were central is political, rather than racial. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992

Overall, most TV news editors cannot be accused of having too much intimate knowledge or interest in African liberation movements »

Network news tends to march in lock- West issues than North-South con­ ranked twenty-seventh — next to step with USA government policy, cerns. last — on the Tyndall list of major often sharing its worldview and Cold- Overall, most TV news editors news stories being covered on televi­ War biases. The Reagan administra­ cannot be accused of having too much sion. tion considered South Africa an ally, intimate knowledge or interest in The undeniable bottom line is and practiced a policy of construc­ African liberation movements. When that South Africa coverage levels are tive engagement. Network news pro­ a story is perceived of as only of episodic and inadequate and, even grammes never dissented sharply limited interest by those at the top of when they aren't, on such stories as from this view, for example, by look­ a news organisation, it is given only the Mandela release, the levels of ing at our South Africa policy as limited coverage by the rank and file. analysis and background contextual skeptically as they come to see Amer­ It is possible that network news reporting is usually very weak. There ica's Vietnam policy in the latter managements would disagree with have been some exceptions — and years of the war. my assertions. They would probably exceptional programmes — includ­ The opposition movements there, point with pride to their coverage of ing some hosted by Ted Koppel who especially the African National Con­ Nelson Mandela's release from pris­ cannot be accused of just parachut­ gress (ANC), were not taken terribly on. And it is true that the three net­ ing over, in the manner of so many seriously in those years either. They works and CNN sent a small media network superstars. What Ted Kop­ were frequently tainted in our media army to South Africa to chronicle pel had going for him was more the same way they were tainted in that event. Yet the monthly Tyndall extensive air time and virtually un­ South Africa's pro-government white Report, a trade publication that sur­ limited budget. press as Communists, frequently la­ veys TV news coverage, noted in the belled 'Moscow-backed' without aftermath of that coverage in March Enter 'South Africa Now' much background offered about their 1990: 'South Africa received one histories or political goals. Libera­ hundred and seventy-six minutes of It is against this background, in April tion movements in other parts of the coverage in one month. The total for 1988, that former CBS reporter Rory Third World received similar treat­ the previous thirty months (August O'Connor and myself started the ment although dissident movements 1987 to January 1990) was forty-two weekly television news magazine in Eastern Europe and the Soviet minutes. Thus this month's coverage called 'South Africa Now'. We be­ block were usually treated much more was higher than the annual coverage lieved from our own experience that sympathetically. Perhaps that is be­ of South Africa (one hundred and the networks respond more to com­ cause network news programmes, sixty-five minutes) over the last two petition than to criticism. We wanted like the USA government, have al­ and a half years.' In the period before to demonstrate that the story of up­ ways been more focussed on East- Mandela's release, South Africa heavals in the region, and the aspira- Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Danny Schechter

tions of the people who live there, rica Now' with a small grant from the could be told weekly on American United Nations. Most charitable television, despite the censorship foundations or corporate sponsors there and indifference here. would not touch us initially, arguing We recognised early that we that if the networks with their vast would only have a running chance of budgets — $1 billion dollars per defeating the censors by working annum — could not provide cover­ with black journalists and video teams age, why did we think that our small who were already in place in South company, Globalvision, could? They Africa and looking for TV outlets were skeptical and not without good overseas. Collaboration became our reason. watchword — and training South So we had to get on the air first, to African blacks in TV journalism part prove that it could be done. Then, we of our mission. Our staff now is could refine our product as we went multiracial, multicultural and multi­ along. Globalvision has, as its credo, national, a mix of seasoned broad­ the view that regular on-going pro­ cast journalists and novices. We be­ grammes — weekly series, not occa­ lieve that the people closest to the sional documentaries — are what's news on the ground are in the best needed to reach and build an audi­ position to explain what is going on. ence for the information that Amer­ Since Southern Africans are most icans are not getting elsewhere. We committed to getting their news out, started transmitting the show on one we have been seeking to equip them satellite network, and soon found our with the tools and skills to tell their way onto leading PBS stations. We own story. 'South Africa Now' is a had hoped that once we proved we TV vehicle for Africans to report an could produce a quality programme, African story, and for Americans to other funding could be found. Fortu­ see and hear African voices. nately that's what happened. Unfor­ tunately, the funding has been at a Multiplier Effect subsistence level.

We hoped that the existence of 'South Where 'South Africa Now' Is Seen Africa Now' — and what publicity we could attract to promote it — As of September 1990, 'South Africa would have a multiplier effect, keep­ Now' had been on the air for two and ing the issue of the suppression of a half years, adding new stations in news from the region in the public the United States and overseas dur­ eye. We want to prod the networks to ing each thirteen week season. At improve and increase their coverage this writing the show is seen on lead­ by example. We were and are very ing public television stations nation­ aggressive in this respect and have wide, in the Caribbean, Japan and been accused of being 'guerrilla jour­ Southern Africa. Having the pro­ nalists' and advocates as a result. gramme seen in the region we cover We were able to start 'South Af­ has been very important in the sense Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992

that people who are making the news gy presentation with many quick sto­ our news section to focus on the news we are covering can now see and ries, flashy graphics, and grabby fea­ of the black majority, not the white react to our work. We also contribute tures. We decided on a magazine minority. So when the networks fea­ weekly segments to CNN's 'World format with a diverse mix of ele­ tured reports on the white elections, Report' sent by satellite to eighty- ments rather than a talk show loaded we focused on the black voter boy­ two countries. down with experts. The idea was cott and explained their unrepresen­ Our budget went from $200 a always to reach out to a large mass tative character. When some report­ week to a $15,000 cash outlay with audience and not just ers feted President de many in-kind services provided by talk to the small circle Klerk as the 'Gor­ friendly PBS stations. To put this in of the initiated. We did We bachev of South Afri­ perspective, our annual budget for not want to become the ca' , we looked analyti­ fifty-two shows approximates the TV show of the Afri­ cally at his record and amount spent each week for network can Studies Associa­ wanted at the limited nature of news magazines such as '60 Min­ tion! his reform vision. We utes', 'Prime Time Live', and '20/ Our programme our news emphasised the role that 20'. We were forced to rely on foun­ mix was consciously the mass democratic dation grants to pay for the show, designed to include movements and their which we produce on a nonprofit news, background re­ section to defiance campaigns basis, in association with the Africa ports, and cultural seg­ played in pushing the Fund. Unhappily, we could find no ments. Because cul­ focus on government to that road corporations to sponsor or under­ ture often leads poli­ of reform. Unlike the write the show. One programmer at a tics in Southern Afri­ the news network cameramen PBS station in Dallas was quoted as ca and is certainly an that tend to shoot from saying that 'South Africa Now' is arena for the expres­ behind police lines, we considered 'not corporate friendly'. sion of ideas, values, of the wanted our images to The lack of corporate interest in the and aspirations, we come from within the show is no doubt linked to the fact gave it a priority. Un­ black movements for change, that so many corporations have been like traditional news looking the other way. on the firing line for their business shows that deal with majority, On one occasion we dealings in South Africa. culture as a second were able to compete thought — in cutesy head-on with network Form and Content 'kicker' stories at the not the efforts. That occurred end of the newscast or when we produced a We were concerned with what we with 'What'sHot' seg­ white prime-time special on would put on the air as with winning ments — we devoted a PBS for Mandela's re­ air time. We started with a determi­ third of the programme minority. lease that aired nation­ nation to provide stories that were to substantive reports wide in February 2, not covered. We also wanted to forge on musicians, film, theatre, and the 1990, the day of his walk to freedom. a style of presentation that might arts. Many of these reports are lively For that occasion, we had a profes­ make the programme more accessi­ and entertaining, produced to please sional budget and satellite access. So ble to ordinary viewers. We wanted the ordinary viewer. our show carried all the news the the programme to be unique in both We had serious internal debates networks had but with a distinctly its form and content. over how to cover the news. That has different frame. Our coverage of Man­ In form, we opted for a high ener­ been a major challenge. We wanted dela's release, for example, stressed Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 | Danny Schechter

two points conspicuously absent in busters, and the like. Weekly, we nies, Global News and Globalvision, most network coverage. First, that seek out analysis and background the shows were completely differ­ Mandela himself initiated the nego­ from leading experts, analysts and ent. For one thing, Tnside South tiations that resulted in his freedom, activists. We have always tried to get Africa' had a big budget for post- and, second, that he did so from the broadest range of viewpoints as production, special effects, and sat­ behind bars. Later we reported on well, including that of the South Af­ ellite transmission. When 'South Af­ how he ended up in prison in the first rican government. But its officials rica Now' exposed this look-alike place — a rather important dimen­ have refused to cooperate, denying competitor, and tipped off a South sion of the story the networks ig­ us interviews, comments, and even African newspaper which confirmed nored — we spotlighted the role access to the country by turning down, that it was being covertly subsidized played by the CIA in tipping off the without explanation, our requests for with government funds, it soon be­ South African police about his where­ visas. came less visible. Perhaps it was abouts. Perhaps they hoped that we would unable to find a broadcast outlet in In our reporting, we also try to be go away once we were spurned or the USA. I guess we should be pleased careful about our use of language. that public television stations would about this attempt: imitation is still We avoid such phrases as 'black-on- not carry the show because of alleged the sincerest form of flattery. black violence'. The stories on this lack of balance. Thanks to our asso­ 'South Africa Now' has constant­ subject usually miss the political, as ciation with CNN, as a contributor to ly sought to explain the character of opposed to the racial or tribal, char­ a programme to which South African apartheid itself since it is not under­ acter of local conflicts. Violence Broadcasting also contributes, we stood by the American press and against black township officials or were able to use their material and so American TV viewers. Our reports fighting between activists of the ensure that government viewpoints tend to explain apartheid as more ANC/United Democratic Front and are represented on 'South Africa than a system of legalised racial dom­ the Inkatha movement led by Chief Now'. ination; we view it as a framework Gatsha Buthelezi stem from ideolog­ for economic exploitation and ethnic ical differences that must be ex­ The Sincerest Form of Flattery division and manipulation. We be­ plained. The role of the South Afri­ lieve that apartheid needs to be re­ can police and army in this conflict The South African Government has ported as a labour system as well as has been central, although you done more than show us its displea­ a tool for preserving racial privilege. wouldn't know it from most TV re­ sure. They actually attempted to com­ Issues of class need to be covered as porting. pete with us by covertly subsidising thoroughly as questions of race. We their own show, cloned after ours but believe that the economic impact of Getting the Story Right riddled with government propagan­ apartheid — vast disparities between da. Called Tnside South Africa', it white wealth and black poverty — is We have tried to get the story right too was formatted as a half-hour as cruel as its racially discriminatory rather than have it first. We want to news magazine with a black host. effects. 'South Africa Now' seeks to explain how and why events occur, The show drew on a wide range of give its viewers an insider's view of and to look at the forces behind the reports from government-controlled the struggle for majority rule and scenes. To do that, we have investi­ television and was produced by a economic transformation, not just gative reporters looking into many company called Global News, which for civil rights under the current sys­ controversial stories including South is headed up by a former SABC tem. Our reporting reflects that un­ Africa's nuclear weapons pro­ executive. derstanding. 'South Africa Now' car­ gramme, its chemical and biological Despite the similarity of the ries a 'Labour Watch' segment be­ research, military efforts, sanction names of the two producing compa- cause trade unions are often at the Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992

center of the fight for economic jus­ that country's independence, tice. It is important to cover their which we covered on the spot. demands and the highly concentrat­ One of our Namibia stories ed economic institutions they are up aired charges of a massacre of against. That means also covering SWAPO combatants by South the international dimensions of the African trained forces. It was issue, the role transnational corpora­ given page one treatment in tions play in propping up apartheid the South African press and led and the impact of sanctions. In an to a denunciation of the show increasingly global economy, you by that country's defense min­ cannot cover South Africa without ister in Parliament, a sign that also covering the countries that trade we were being taken very seri­ with South Africa. Thus, we have run ously indeed. Diescho now many stories about how Pretoria has hosts a weekly 'Frontline Fo­ worked to evade sanctions, and the cus' segment reporting on support they've received from Israe­ events in Angola, Mozam­ li arms dealers, Arab oil suppliers, bique, and Zimbabwe as well and the country' s own monopoly cor­ as Namibia. In 1990, we estab­ porations such as Anglo-American lished a Zimbabwe bureau. and overseas, from Allister Sparks to and De Beers. You can't cover apart­ Finally, we also critique news Bill Moyers, Gwen Lister to Antho­ heid without looking at its economic coverage itself through a regular ny Lewis, Les Payne to Peter Magu- underpinnings. 'Covering the Coverage' segment. bane. From our first programmes, we Since filling the void in coverage is We have been called 'indispens­ have decided also that our focus our goal, we often cover gaps, omis­ able' by the Village Voice, praised would be regional because apartheid sions, distortions, and disinforma­ for 'filling the void' by Time, called policies have impacted on all South tion in other media as a regular part 'hip and stunning television' by Van­ Africa's neighbours in such a devas­ of our programme. This type of re­ ity Fair, endorsed by Oprah Winfrey tating manner. As a result we fre­ porting is also unique on television and featured on MTV and the 'Today quently feature reports from and about where there is very little direct media Show'. Television writers around the the Frontline states. We have carried criticism by one network of another. country have sung our praises, too, reports from Angola television and from The Detroit Free Press ('puts an excerpt from a Cuban film about Evaluating our Impact the networks to shame') to The Los the battle in Southern Angola at Cui- Angeles Times ('remarkable') to pub­ to Carnivale that may have been the How can we evaluate our work? What lications in Europe and Africa. decisive factor in ending South Afri­ have we achieved, and what do we The point of citing this favour­ can intervention and assuring Nami- hope to achieve? For starters, we able attention is not just to pat our­ bian independence. have won recognition in our indus­ selves on the back; it shows that TV At a time when no other regular try. An Emmy Award. A Gold Medal programmes about Africa do not have reports were being aired on Namibia, from a New York video festival. And to be marginalised or ignored. They we started a 'Namibia Watch' seg­ a citation of 'Excellence in Televi­ can become popular and respected. ment hosted by Joseph Diescho, a sion' from Channels magazine. We For years PBS stations have run ex­ black Namibian scholar; this seg­ have been proud of the kind endorse­ pensively produced nature shows ment ran every week from the imple­ ments we have received from jour­ about Africa and specials on African mentation of UN Resolution 435 to nalists we respect in South Africa animals. They have been big ratings Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Danny Schechter

boosters. Now we must do the same Many of the programme's view­ accessible. The Boston PBS station for the African people! ers rejected this characterisation. took that view, cancelling the pro­ We are very mindful of our lim­ While the station denied that it had gramme because it had 'outlived its its, problems, and shortcomings. Our been pressured, more than a thou­ usefulness'. 'Conventional media are staff is young and largely inexperi­ sand viewers flooded the station with covering the story in depth now,' enced. (Our salaries are probably the calls and letters. Organisations threat­ contended Broadcasting Director lowest in television and not by ened to picket the TV station and Dan Everett. Researchers from Fair­ choice!) Our reporters can be rhetor­ launch a boycott. City council mem­ ness and Accuracy in Reporting re­ ical or rely on too much file footage. bers and congressional representa­ sponded with statistics to show that Our lack of access to satellites makes tives spoke out on the programme's this 'conventional wisdom' is way electronic news gathering slower than behalf, so did two Pulitzer Prize- off base. Looking at the period be­ it could be, making it hard to always winning journalists. Los Angeles tween July 1 and October 15, 1990, be as timely as we want to be. It is Times television critic, Howard they noted that the three network sometimes tough also to transcend Rosenberg, praised 'South Africa news programmes devoted no more charges of bias, a frequent conten­ Now' coverage, calling the cancella­ than thirteen minutes per week to tion of the South African govern­ tion decision 'bone-head(ed)' and South Africa. In the first two weeks ment which would prefer we didn't publicly wondering if it represented of October 1990, when the station's exist. Organisational rivalries also the 'intellectual sterilisation of PBS'. decision to cancel'South Africa Now' impact on us. For example, PAC Clarence Page of The Chicago Tri­ was being made, NBC ran one three- members say we are too ANC-orien- bune called 'South Africa Now' 'one minute report on white South Afri­ tated, and ANC people hate it when of the most enlightening programmes cans, ABC had a twenty-second an­ we cover the PAC. on television' and called the cancel­ chor mention of a change of law, and Perhaps the most public contro­ lation part of an 'ominous trend'. CBS aired nothing. versy around our work followed the 'President de Klerk's happy and The trend seemed clear: whatev­ programme's cancellation by the Los soothing diplomacy,' he wrote, 'may er beachhead 'South Africa Now' Angeles public television station in be accomplishing what his govern­ had established for coverage of Afri­ October 1990 on the grounds that we ment's onerous State of Emergency can news was being eroded. The lacked balance. The Los Angeles failed to do: silence important news news business, on commercial and Times revealed that for some time, and criticism of the South African public channels, was once again lim­ without our knowledge, 'South Afri­ government while the battle to end iting coverage. The deeper reasons ca Now' had become the target of a apartheid continues to rage. As a were discussed by some of the coun­ campaign to drive it off the airwaves loyal viewer of 'South Africa Now', try's top journalists who met at Har­ by a conservative media advocacy I think the bias excuse is bogus.' vard in May 1990 under the auspices group, the Committee on Media In­ The Los Angeles station recon­ of the Nieman Foundation in Jour­ tegrity. The group's chairman, writ­ sidered after a barrage of pressure nalism to bemoan the paucity of news er David Horowitz, publicly claimed that the station's manager called a coverage about the continent. An­ the station's decision as his own vic­ 'firestorm'. But more insidious than thony Lewis, the Pulitzer Prize-win­ tory. The Los Angeles Times explained right-wing attacks or decisions by ning New York Times columnist who that he had 'met with station execu­ conservative programmers was a frequently writes about South Afri­ tives a half dozen times and conduct­ larger problem, a growing view ca, explained the problem this way: ed a year-long letter writing cam­ among many PBS stations that the 'We have a short attention span. This paign'. His charge: 'South Africa show was no longer needed because is the age often-minute fame and the Now' represents 'hard-line Marxist the situation in South Africa was nine-second soundbite. After a week propaganda posing as news'. changing and that news was more or two, Mandela dropped down to Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992

small type and left the screen, and Mandela during his American tour, watching news from South Africa with him Africa went out of Ameri­ demonstrating their interest in the than media guardians are willing to can consciousness. As it happens, issue. If anything should have con­ provide it. South Africa is only at the beginning vinced the media gatekeepers that of a profoundly important story, what millions do care, that massive re­ What Is To Be Done? could be a transforming process.' sponse in city after city should have Some corporate executives have done the trick. A survey by the Times The challenge to American televi­ complained about our reports on di­ Media Company at the time of Man­ sion is to respond to the interest that vestment campaigns and one accused dela's release indicated there was is there, and not to abdicate its re­ us of not adequately covering Chief more interest in that story than the sponsibility to better inform Ameri­ Buthelezi. (He finally helped us get uprisings underway in Lithuania. Not cans about the world we live in. The an interview with the Inkatha leader all American news executives got challenge to those who care deeply after we assured him that we wanted that message, even after coverage of about Africa is to find ways to im­ his perspective on the air.) Like other the Mandela events proved ratings prove media coverage of Africa, es­ news organisations, we have had our blockbusters for local TV stations pecially on television, and to find share of gaffes and inaccuracies. You that went live to Mandela events. ways to change the situation. certainly can't please everyone and, A month after the trip, on August So what can be done? If you agree as someone who has known the ben­ 8, 1990, The Wall Street Journal that the television media is too im­ efits of professional network pro­ reported that the executive producer portant to be left to its own devices, duction budgets, I'm not pleased by of NBC 'Nightly News' had decided then there are efforts to be made by the quality of some of our footage. to axe a story filed by their South viewers and producers alike. For one I've had to lower my expectations as Africa correspondent on apartheid thing, individuals and organisations well as the production budget. and its effect on the education of can monitor TV news coverage to South African children, 'insisting that pinpoint inaccuracies or misinfor­ Changing Television viewers were becoming bored with mation. Letters to the editor can be the South African story'. The seg­ written and individual journalists can 'South Africa Now' has not achieved ment, which was two minutes long be approached with suggestions and all of its goals, but it has gotten its and therefore considered practically criticisms. Organised efforts can be message across. Although we know documentary length, was screened made to meet with network execu­ we haven't changed television, we for staffers who were reportedly en­ tives; letters can be sent to corre­ would like to think that we haven't thusiastic about it and thought it spondents at African news bureaus. left it the same either. Hopefully the should run. The executive producer (None of the big three networks have show's approach, its fusion of infor­ said he would broadcast it only if African bureaus outside of Johan­ mation and culture, and some of our they could 'prove it was a piece that nesburg!) Writing more about media experience in low cost production, would interest a housewife in issues, in the spirit of the essays in will find its way into a democratic Queens'. this book, can be useful in raising South Africa where the programme's Fortunately, one of the staffers public awareness about media defi­ style, sensibility, and attitude could had a mother in Queens who was ciencies. become one model for new televi­ actually invited to screen the story And 'if you don't like the news,' sion programmes there. without being told quite why. In­ to quote the legendary San Francisco The battle for more TV coverage credibly, when Mrs Sonia Perez of radio broadcaster, Scoop Nisker, 'you of Africa here will be a long one Astoria, Queens said she liked it, can always go out and make some of despite the fact that millions of Amer­ NBC ran it. This episode is one more your own.' 'South Africa Now' is icans turned out to welcome Nelson sign that the audience is more open to doing just that. Q Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry 1

Louise and the Mellow Moon or The Written Woman

This is a sad country Oh, Louise, are you turning Autumn and winter come On your original futon tonight? With yellow skies It serves Here we are As a reminder Of me. 2* Here we are Leaves are climbing onto thorn bushes As if As if

Hey, Louise, are you turning? Hey, Louise, are you burning? You should sing about the seasons that cannot be felt You should think about the treasons that cannot be held against you, Louise, are you there?

This country is alive with a song of violence at night and only at night There you go There you go Will she sleep with him Won't she sleep with him I write you I write you Water

Hey, Louise, are you burning? Water fills the little bags Hey, Louise, are you turning? in the corner of my eye You should sing about When poemless people The seasons that cannot be felt Gaze at me blankly You should think about And I say that being the The treasons that cannot be held bookkeeper of my soul against you, Louise, Sometimes keeps the water are you there? that fills the little bags in the corner of my eye a from running Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry

The Uncanny Beauty of Cellos

^ For Vivaldi (This is uninteresting) ^ o She goes for wailing cellos She hacks them to death Wherever she sees them She cuts off their strings 5 She attacks the cases with knives And eats the wood And vehemently stabs the cellos The old beautiful wood s To death Then she saws off « Their necks B She saw him doing a Vivaldi reenactment on stage Which is not unusual a Purely for her self (Say the psychiatrists) And her pleasure And it was In heavy psychoses like that Induced by passions Indisputably beautiful Uncontrollable and beautiful In a meaningless way The Cellist was black Which is unusual in a world Whose Italian music belongs Only to white people

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My Airlock out of Exile

For Linda 8? A far cry from London where home was home for real if not at home in my soul; I remain for the time a being suspended over Table Bay with its Robben Island ulcer I struggle to launch hovering uncertainly a reluctant voice with no home-coming my tongue Cape Town it seems still inscrutable still steeped under my birdlike gaze in London and to be honest Blinds flap blunted by the habit and implode of abstinence as relentless summer wind my morale rifled by fluted mountain granite invaded by ennui flaunts its refrain and recycled discontent unerringly over millennia Through old avenues On a journey endlessly caravanning back and forwards my internal desert into my life I became wise to my origins this watering hole you who chose to and the life scan with me that spawns around it. go into me But my roots here brought me seem more ritual to stare unflinchingly than reality; at myself sounds, colours and smells my spirit distraught have familiarity bred with persistant anonymity of repeated dreams and pathetic regrets and not identity stirred by yearning nurtured by blood Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 I Poetry

Thirty years a castaway clockworking round a London anchor from time to time arriving at islands taking on water At last to assuage evening arrives my addled palate. and a day's unimpeded sky Often the sight of land curdles round the mountain erected castles in my head churned by unyielding wind South Africa always into buttered ridges out of reach masking the sun intermittently remained hinged as it plummets to the horizon red and naked of my mind into the Atlantic; Lion's Head Now like some Great White's fin beached in Woodstock breaks surface flagellated by palms buttressing the cascading sky indifferent as whips against this embattled planet at some wild initiation gauntlet I enter my airlock As light expires out of exile I fasten my eyes onto encroaching night; Restlessly with this mind we traverse apartheid's dunes on overtime divining oases I put sleep on hold of my adolescence; and stalk squalor pervades the darkness but the agony of deprivation into dawning is audible everywhere; heads still scan the heavens but not for signs of God as the hopes of a people elevate to freedom

Right: The Visual Arts Group • banner• ^ %• a «*tn *

Laat Losbars

Stephen Samuels

Under the layers of political slogans, in the heart and mind of a very normal man, of a man who led a model life, was a naked feeling of simply wanting to live a good life. It was a frighteningly raw and honest, selfish desire. It was a feeling that refused to submit to politics. —Zhang Xianliang — Half of Man is Woman. StaffriderVoMONo. 3 1992 I 'n Ontploffing Laat Losbars

Ons het langs die Iowarivier afge- Zhang het al sy tweede sig- stap, beduie na 'n eekhoring, papiere aret opgesteek en die rook deur rondom die eerste herfsblare uit die die slierte sneeu geblaas. Sy rivier gevis, gelag. Ons kon niks vir skouers verskonend opgetrek en mekaar se nie. Sedert daardie eerste ^1^7 'n tweede koppie tee ingeskink. dag wou ek met Zhang, die enigma- 'n Halfuur laat daag die ver­ tiese lang man praat. Vir weke het ons taler uiteindelik op, verskonend nou en dan mekaar raakgeloop, ge- in Mandarin en Engels, 'ek groet op 'n af stand, beduie, saam moes agter die sneeuploeg aan- gedraf, sonder' n gesprek met woorde. ry.' 'n Week gelede het hy so terloops 'Ek is bly ek kan met jou 'n kopie van sy vertaalde novelle, praat, ek wou lankal,' se ek nog Mimosa, in my hand gestop, met 'n voordat Yan behoorlik haar sit bewerige inskripsie, 'For my friend.' kon kry. Juis na die gebaar wou ek eenvoudig 'You're welcome!' lag met horn praat. Na drie maande moes Zhang. ons in mekaar se koppe inkom. Ek weet nie waar om te Dis met die geskiedenis dat ek voor die halfoop deur begin nie. 'Hoekom is jy in 1957 opgesluit?' kom dit van Zhang se woonstel beland. Hy blaas 'n bol rook deur hortend uit. 'n Hopelose begin vir 'n onderhoud, 'n inval die oop venster en wink my binne. Beduie-beduie gooi in die middel van die storie, sonder enige opbou. Die Zhang Xianliang sy welige swart kuif agteroor. 'Ek is op vertaler bring my van stryk af, mens kan nie eers behoorlik pad,' wys hy na die opgestapelde tasse. opwarm rondom ditjies en datjies nie. Dan mors jy die Ek knik my kop. 'Ek ook.' Dit val my op: hy lyk jonk, vertaler se tyd. te jonk vir 'n treurige geskiedenis. Ook Zhang is gesteurd deur die invalshoek, maar met Ons kan nie veel se nie. Ongedurig wag ons vir die ingebore hoflikheid antwoord hy. 'Ek weet nie regtig vertaler. Dit het dae geneem om die onderhoud te reel. nie. Almal wat teen Mao gepraat het, het daardie risiko Nou sal die gesprek waarskynlik aan informeelheid en geloop. Ek ook. Ons is tot regses verklaar. En.opgesluit.' hartelikheid inboet. Maar liewer dit, as niks. Zhang skink 'Het jy iets spesifiek gedoen?' tee in koppies, wankelrig gebalanseer op 'n geprakseerde 'Ek weet nie werklik nie. Ek was een-en-twintig. Op tafeltjie. daai ouderdom volg jy liewer in plaas van kritiseer. Maar Wat ek van Zhang weet, staan in die Iowa-skrywers- ek dink dit was my gedigte wat die owerhede kwaad brosjure: 1936 — gebore in Nanjing; geskool in Beijing; gemaak het.' in 1955 — onderwyser in Ningxia-provinsie; in 1957 — 'Tot hoe lank is jy gevonnis?' slagoffer van die 'anti-regse' beweging; in 1979 — Dis 'n vraag wat Zhang seker talle kere al moes vrygelaat; voorsitter — Ningxia Chinese skrywersve- beantwoord. 'Tien jaar, maar ek het twee-en-twintig jaar reniging; ondervoorsitter — Ningxia Federasie van gesit.' Literere en Kunskringe; lid — Chinese Volksraadpleg- 'Wat, hoe bedoel jy?' ende Politieke Konferensie; woon in Yinchuan, hoofs tad 'In China is geregtigheid 'n snaakse ding. Ek is van van Ningxia. 'n Paar reels wat 'n mens se lewe met die tronk tot tronk gestuur. As jy eers in die tronk is vir shorthand van 'n studentassistent probeer vasvat. Wat le intellektuele oortredings, dan is dit so maklik vir 'n tussen 1957 en 1979? Wat le daarvoor? Wat le daarna? volgende beweging om jou ook to veroordeel. Dan word Wat weet ons van China? Minder as niks, en tog het so jou straf net uitgerek.' baie van my generasie sinnigheid gehad in Mao se 'En vandag? Is dit oor?' 'Honderd Blomme-beweging.' Zhang lag. Yan vertaal die vraag maar antwoord Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Stephen Samuels 1

vanuit haar eie ervaring. 'Jy weet maar min van China af, beskou was. Die karakter in Mimosa besef dat die as jy dit glo. Niks is ooit oor of verby in China nie.' Marxistiese ideaal nie 'n godsdienstige ervaring behoort Na 'n rukkie se Zhang, 'ek is gerehabilteer. Die Party te wees nie, maar 'n nuttige instrument om die wereld te het 'n verskoning aangebied. Daar is 'verkeerd teen my verstaan.' opgetree', se hulle.' Ek wag dat hy moet uitbrei, maar 'Hoe sien jy die Kulturele Revolusie?' daar is eerder 'n ongemaklike stilte. Zhang sug en skud sy kop terwyl hy 'n volgende 'Wat doen mens 22 jaar lank in 'n tronk. Dis soos die sigaret aansteek. 'Dis een van ons grootste tragedies. Soviettronke, die goelags: tronkkampe, arbeidskampe Daar was soveel verneukery, soveel skewe persepsies. 'n — jy werk elke dag. Dag in. Dag uit. Elke dag. Elke dag Magstryd in die heersende elite het uieindelik uitgebrei van jou tronklewe.' tot 'n verskriklike nasionale verskynsel.' 'Hoe oorleef jy?' 'Was dit nie poging om meer Chinees, meer 'Mimosa handel daaroor.' Zhang wil duidelik die onafhanklik te word nie?' vrae van horn af weglei, na die derdepersoon van 'n 'Nee, dis 'n oppervlakkige begrip. Uiteindelik het dit romankarakter. 'In die boek vra die hoofkarakter, "hoe 'n beweging geword om mense te beheer, om hulle moet die intellektueel oorleef?" Daar is altyd twyfel, 'n verstand en hulle gedagtes te beheer. Maar ek kan jou nie gebrek aan selfvertroue. Is dit sy fout dat hy in die tronk veel vertel nie. Ek was nie daar nie. Al wat ek weet, almal beland het? Is daar iets met horn verkeerd? Het hy het gepraat, gedink, gelewe soos Mao.' verkeerd verstaan? Is die staat nie miskien reg nie?' 'Vertel my van die posisie van die kritiese intellektueel, 'Wat dink jyself, wat is jou ervaring,' hou ek vol. van jou as kritiese mens?' 'Na baie verskillende ervaringe — nou ook buite 'Die gekheid van die Kulturele Revolusie was China — weet ek, ek was nie verkeerd nie. Dis die stelsel aanvanklik nie maklik bespeur deur die meeste mense se fout. Nie myne nie. Maar in die tronk is jy sonder hoop. nie. Aan die begin was dit suiwer idealisme, die Ek moes leer van alles rondom my. Dit was die deel van slagspreuke was toepaslik en treffend. Die mense het my probeerslae vir vryheid. Selfs daar in die tronk moes saamgestem. Ook die intellektuele. Toe word dit anti- ek vryheid probeer ontdek.' alles, anti-buitelanders, anti-vooruitgang en gelykheid. 'En tog bly jy 'n kommunis?' Toe word dit 'n beheer van idees en gedagtes. Daar was 'Elke mens het 'n basis nodig. Ook intellektuele. Jy soveel spanning. Jy kon nie jou buurman vertrou nie. Of moet 'n basis he om van af te wyk, om terug te keer na, jou pa of ma nie. Jy kon jouself nie eens vertrou nie. om nek om te draai. Marxisme is my basis. Dis die storie Woorde het verskuilde betekenisse gekry. Toe die van my roman. intellektuele sien dat dit verkeerd gaan, was dit reeds te 'n Intellektueel wat soek vir 'n basis, daardie bron laat. Sommige het in die tronk beland; ander het hulle wat hy kan gebruik vir rasionele, praktiese verklarings.' hoop in die toekoms geplaas. Maar watter toekoms, 'In die boek word dit byna 'n godsdienstige soeke. Ek watter hoop? Wanneer se die denkende mens, tot hiertoe herinner my aan 'n voorstelling waar die held in 'n en nie verder nie? Waar is die kern van integriteit? So angstige moment huil, en dan gerusstelling soek in Das baie intellektuele het selfmoord gepleeg. Baie mense. Ek Kapital asof dit die allesverklarende godsdienstige boek was gelukkig; ek was in die tronk. Ek het oorleef. Ironies, sou wees,' se ek. ne? Midde-in China, het ek die Kulturele Revolusie van ' Ja, vir die intellektueel in ongewone omstandighede buite beleef.' is dit natuurlik om deur sulke wisselinge te gaan. Die ' Jy weet. Ons weet regtig min van China. Ons begrip ervaring is 'n weerspieeling van die historiese bly oppervlakkig. China sluit horn ook doelbewus van ontwikkeling in ons land. Marxisme as 'n rasionele die res van die wereld af. Maar dit is so anders met wetenskapstoerie is in 'n sin vir ons maar 'n relatief- Mimosa. Daar is 'n magdom westerse invloede, onlangse ontwikkeling. Een van die probleme van die verwysings na westerse tekste, skrywers, maar so min Kulturele Revolusie was juis dat Marxisme as 'n godsdiens van die ryk Chinese erfenis.' Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 I 'n Ontploffing Laat Losbars

'My generasie het 'n sterk dosis westerse opvoeding gehad met min Chinese klem. Die opvoeding van die bourgeois.' Ek wil self-spot in sy antwoord inlees, maar Zhang se gesig is sonder 'n teken van emosie. Dis bloot 'n feit, 'n stuk geskiedenis. Sy antwoord word korter en my vrae miskien te onsensitief. Yan vertaal sugte en toonhoogtes sonder om moeg te word, en die band is besig om vol te loop. 'Zhang, miskien 'n laaste vraag. Daar is 'n man-vrou- verhouding in Mimosa, maar ten spyte daarvan is daar 'n gebrek aan menslike warmte, liefde. Dit bly funksioneel, by Maslow se skaal van behoeftes — die uitreiking na kos, met min subtiele menslikheid.' 'Om jou honger te stil is 'n menslike verhouding. 'n Mens wat honger is, kan nie aan liefde dink nie. Hy dink aan kos. Ek wou die tragedie van die situasie wys. Ons samelewing het daardie tragedie geskep. In ons samelewing is seks uit die openbare oog. Ons het geslagloos geword ...' Die band het afgeloop. Die res van die gesprek sou ek my kon verbeel, maar sonder Zhang se ervaring is dit nutteloos. Ons het nog een en ander gepraat. Oor die sneeu in China, die afbreek van spoeltoilette met die kulturele revolusie, 'n gelykheid wat nou meesal 'n publieke gat in the grond is. 'Hy wou nie te veel se nie, want hy moet teruggaan. China het oral ore. Vra my,' se Yan terwyl ons met die trappe van die woonstel afstap na haar motor. Al die skrywers is vir die laaste keer bymekaar. Drie maande was ons hier in die midde-weste, tussen mielielande, studente, 'n kleurvolle herfs. Ons staan op die balkon van 'n huis bo-op 'n bult. Die sneeu le genoeg om nie deur propaganda oorrompel te word nie. kniediep. Die eekhorings in die somerhuis het verdwyn. Maar wat ek hier ervaar het, het vir my bewys hoe ons Die rivier is bevrore. Daar is nou minder kans om die onderdruk word, hoe agterlik ons gehou word, hoe riviertjie te besoedel. repressief ons regering is, hoe ons lewe ingeperk word. Afskeide bly moeilik. Wat ek hier se, is maar net 'n klein mompel teen alles wat Zhang, met 'n bewoeenheid wat mens nie van fyn- verkeerd is in China. Ek wil julle almal bedank vir my gemanierde Chinese verwag nie, vra vir 'n laaste woord. ervaring. En mag ons skreetjies — en julle s'n — 'n 'Dis my eerste besoek buite China. Alles wat ek van ontploffing laat losbars. Vir 'n beter China.' Amerika gehoor het, het my nie voorberei op wat ek Ons klap hande, om sentimentele redes. Ons weet nie gesien het nie. In julle wildste verbeelding kan julle nie regtig hoeveel moed in sy verklaring opgesluit is nie. Dit weet watter ervaring dit was nie. Nee, ek is oud en ervare moes ontseglik wees. Q Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry I

O Umbongo Kasekela-Nqununu uNjabulo Ndebele

^ A! Mahaye, Mazankosi!

„5J Mbongindini yasezindlwin'ezimhlophe zaseMfuthweni! ^ Ngcaphephendini kwezokubonga! ^2 Wena oyiPrezidanti ye-COSAW! Wena onguSekela-manqanqa we-UWC! © Lukhozi, wakha wantinga phezu kweentaba zeMaluti wasasaz' imfundo! ^3 Lukhozi, wakha watshawuz' uburhulumente beembila bangcangcazela: ^ 'Njabulo? N-ee. Geen werkpermit'.

^ Nantsok' iUWC isuke yaluqesh' olu khozi lungaqali; fe< Yaluphind' impinda, yaluphindis' indlela, yathi buy' ube yiVice-Rector, Ngqondi, uzile wena ukuze wakhe Ngqondi, wena wakha Umzi wethu Wemfundo.

Mbhali, sifundise, Sekela-Nqununu, sikhokele: Khawuvul' iingcango zethu zemfundo nempucuko!

ncincilili. Photographs by Mavis Matandeki and Primrose Talakumeni

7 ••i IllK^B^Hi^HI Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 sss Poetry

© Sebokeng

A peaceful march in the glow of the day, *i Separated by thirty years from Sharpeville. S Flags aloft as thousands march, ^ In a springtide of song and dance.

S Racist police toting guns, Hatred unchained from the minds taught to hate, Like thieves in the night fingers inch along the triggers. Co In cold-blood marchers are mowed down.

Blood-soaked bodies strewn Over the thirsty ground, Like trampled flowers Whose stems stand unconquered.

Bullets lodged in men's and women's backs. Agony mirrored in their sightless eyes, Empty shoes lie like vacated houses, Whose tenants left to return nevermore.

Sebokeng, a backyard of assasins you've become. Gunmen lurking in your dark shadows. Your barren soil soaks in scarlet red. Falling rain ever washing our blood into gutters.

Sebokeng, your image of death I fear, Glazed in the pained looks of your departed, But your resistance is woven into my being Wrapped like fabric around my soul.

Behind your eyelids death abounds Long rows of coffins placed on biers, Like boxes on conveyor-belts, To be sunken down the yawning graves.

Let your blood nourish the indomitable tree of freedom Pregnant with the succulent fruit of hope, Whose sweetness melts the anguish of our hearts. The Self-ptesente of the Poet Inside:

Peter Horn here are situations where the only speech possible is solitary speech, a speech inside, a speech which does not through phonemes or graphemes reach out to \3 others to communicate something, a speech where we represent something to ourselves which is absent. Such a situation is the inside of Cronin's poems, the speech of solitary confinement, the speech of jail. Of course, now the poems speak to us, but Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 I Jeremy Cronin's Inside that is not the situation in which they less presence, is always also mean­ and a sign is always a repetition of were produced, and in which they ingless: I can attach no meaning to something which happened without first functioned, in jail. Inside there what I have not already experienced asign: 'Wheredo babies come from?' is no outside except that which we and given a sign by which to remem­ (37) Indeed! Out of a past with a can evoke in our words which we ber that presence, by which to re- silent mouth: speak, silently, to ourselves. Yet, presence it. Those incredible mo­ how can we speak to ourselves? Is ments which are mainly in the past, I ask a sea anemone. not whatever I say already known to in early childhood, where something It folds a secret me? How can I communicate inside happened for the first time before it mouth in its mouth. (37) —my head, my cell, and what would happened for the first time—there is be the purpose of me saying some­ always a before, before it can sink in There is no access, no speech here: thing to myself? One of course speaks, — those are the moments of radiant the ability to see, hear, smell, imag­ in a certain sense, even if one speaks presence, but precisely because of ine and understand events depends to oneself that, those are the moments always on signs, on representation. The pres­ already erased: no memory can reach ence of the present is derived from Off the top of my head the unique which has no sign at­ repetition. But of course nothing re­ a stream of bubbles tached to it yet. That is why child­ peats itself exactly, only the words hood is that ideal object which is we use to designate what is happen­ That rises, that billows present before the act of repetition, ing to us repeat each other from one above me, inside it the origin which is &ftjtl£ely imagi­ end of the dictionary to the other, and nary, because no memory is attached the identity of what is repeated is the £ Is written: to it. The adult oot:ft$re circling idealism of the concepts. Not even in thinks dot-dot-dot about' can learn or forget nothing solitary confinement, where nothing about the child 'hiding in there, ears happens what has not already hap­ And no pricked up\ (36) beeMs£ all child­ pened, word of a lie (19) hood memories blS|| off access to what it was. That thinking is present, isn't it, and Most of the uniquely s every presence not needs no re-presentation, does not present things, these have to be made present again by signless memories block something which I can signs, by language, by speech. It is of f access to what it was. 'dot-dot-dot\ It is only when I want Most of the uniquely because it i to present my thoughts to others that present things, these I have to re-present it in language, signless presences happened before not so? Or is the presence of the we were four, before there were signs, Where without appetite — present, is that which seems immedi­ before there was memory. And yet, you commune ately accessible, that which I now however alien that form is it is the with the stale bread of yourself think, feel and experience, impossi­ form of ourselves, 'this five-year old (25) ble without the sign, the representa­ boy, this shadow,/this thing stuck to tion? Is every presence not already a my feet' (39). Forgotten, because do events repeat themselves, howev­ repetition of the sign, is every pres­ neverremembered. Remembered for er much they look alike. There is ever, because intensely forgotten. ence not something which I can only therefore always this difference be­ There is no thinking, because there is understand because it is a repetition? tween the words, the signs, the repet- no memory, before there is a sign, That which is entirely new, the sign­ itiveness of our thinking, our need to Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Peter Horn

represent the events as the same or by others. We all only have this one in this distinction that the brave poem alike, as fitting some theory which life: and it is not ideal, permanent, To Althea, from prison' by Lovelace we have constructed about the world, everlasting, it has its time, its histo­ fails: it is whistling in the dark, cre­ and the events which differ more or ry, its unique story, ating an entirely ab­ less from that description. which can never be stract 'liberty' in pris­ It is only in the metaphysics of repeated. It is true on, a freedom in a love the idealists that the present is all the uniqueness can which has lost its third there is, and that being is this eternal ever only be dimension. That love, presence: in the material world there grasped in the in prison, becomes a is always a difference between the words which are love poem 'To no-one sign and the event which is supposed repetitions of the in particular' (88). Even to be a repetition of itself. In the same words said be­ if that love has a name, human world this difference in the fore, but in poetry it has lost its particular­ repetition of signs is history. Ideal­ that difference ap­ ity, its being made out ism is the move by which I want to pears within the of particles, of matter, hide my being in time and in the words; the fact that living matter, warmth, world by thinking that my presence the same words are repeated to des­ energy. Even where three-dimension­ is the universal form, and that the ignate different events, makes these al life is allowed to visit the jail, its present is before my birth and after words differ in their meaning in their three-dimensionality is kept two-di­ my death. repetitions. mensional behind a glass plate: But being inside also means to It is precisely this difference understand that that ideality is a false which surfaces in 'A grounded para­ A glass plate, its sheer consolation: that some Wednesday chutist' as 'Ryle's distinction:/know­ quiddity, its coldness morning the noose will go around the ing how/knowing that' (89): forever between our hands. (75) throat and end that presence. And Lock a white boy up Poetry then is about this intensely a few years inside, you'll find felt absence, it is celebrating and him overcoming this amnesia of the sens­ knowing that/but not knowing es and the consciousness, which con­ only understand how there're three dimensions stantly forgets how to think in three to a woman (89) dimensions. A poem is the passion of a repitition? a singular mark: and that of course is The difference between knowing and impossible; as there is no singularity this is not as it always was or will be, knowing is that which generates that ever in words, the singular mark is a these are 'three fokken terrorists', in speech in our heads where we talk to catachresis. Therefore the need to the language of the warders, they ourselves about the things we know 'test the distant parts of this ma­ committed 'high treason', in the lan­ but do not know. The attempt to chine', the 'solid arch of bone' be­ guage of the court, it is the same and reestablish the three (or four) dimen­ hind 'your upper front teeth' is a not the same, and they have names: sions, the corporality and temporal­ need to test the three-dimensional Johannes Shabangu, David Moise, ity of things, the 'knowing how' of existence of the self at least, when no Bobby Tsotosobe. They are people, that immediacy of experience, the other corporality can be tested any­ and once they are hanged, they will presence of people and things which more, 'let lip touch lip' when it can never be again, even if the hole which is constantly fading, which gets lost no longer touch any other lip (45). they leave behind is apparently filled in the 'knowing that' of words. It is The prisoners 'are restless': Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 1 Jeremy Cronin's Inside

they hoist the back of their inversion of Plato's cave parable, newspaper, that piece of paper stands tongue where the prisoners 'incessantly mim­ for the life that goes on outside, it to enclose a pocket of air, and ic/the sounds of their land'... 'down guarantees that the struggle contin­ then in the very con­ ues, that the incarcera­ with a quick downward stroke fines of their tion of comrades, that they make chamber' , their death in prison is Iquagga! where they re­ not the last word in this painting a palatal click on the construct out of story. Against this real­ roof of their cave. (48) 'snatches of ity the apparently im­ news', out of'a mediate reality of the The mouth, the 'cave-site of word' meagre / well- four walls circumscrib­ (46) contains 'shells of meaning' left read, smug- ing the pacing foot, the there 'by thousands of years of hu­ g 1 e d - i n , rhythm of the poem, man occupation' (46). Words, month-old becomes a shadow. sounds, mouths as caves: sounds scrap of/news­ There is only one kind painted like magic ritual signs so as paper' which is of amnesia which con­ to evoke the great freedom of the transported by trary to Plato's parable hills of the Karoo, a counter-image a cotton thread torn from a blanket never befalls these prisoners. They to the confinement. But all evoca­ across the enormous distances of the do remember where they came from, tions are admissions of absence: you floor of the prison, the reality of the and therefore why they are here. do not evoke what is here. struggle: But to feed that memory, poetry Conversely: The inside of Jere­ is vital: and I am not talking about my Cronin is for the average white Supposing all this, verse and rhyme, I am talking about citizen the outside, outside of soci­ do you think they'd assume mnemosyne, that constant attempt to ety: the criminal is banished outside this shadow play was real? infuse life and materiality into that of society into the inside of the jail. That these prisoners could which is not here. Mneme, memory, Living inside a very confining bound­ forget is always close to mime sis,.imitative ary, one which allows practically no the struggles of their brothers recreation: 'You bleddy cocksuck- escape, one lives outside the bound­ and sisters ing, kaffir loving, / Communist jew' ary of society. Having transgressed there outside where these (16). One needs to remember that, this boundary in both directions, hav­ sounds and one needs to remember Johannes ing gone inside and having returned bathed in daylight, may Stephanus Februarie, who makes a to the outside, the criminal lives on someday, grow into words? (48) mockery of the ritual of submission, the border, also on the border of and one needs to remember the exact language. He makes clear the dis­ However shadowy and flat all mem­ pronounciation of the Internationale tance between what is said and what ory grows in this confinement which by those comrades who sing it on is meant by placing between his per­ makes the sky shrink, one inversion death row. The memory is in the son and 'submission' to a law which that is never achieved by the cave is: detail, the flashback is released as in incarcerates him 'This epic gap', this to make the prisoner believe that this Proust by the smell of tea and cook­ Brechtian like and unlike at the same cave is the last word in the game, that ies. 'Course I knew Braam Fischer.' time. Language mimics submission the shadowy characters playing in its That remembrance is refreshed by a but is subversion showing that it mim­ darkness are reality. Even if the out­ butterfly which flies into the cell, an ics by exaggerating the submission. side reality has been compressed into ibis which flies across the sky, 'dop- All the more interesting then the the two-dimensionality of a scrap of plered by mesh', by the archeology Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Peter Horn

of one's own childhood, but also by the defeat of the South African troops the life histories of other prisoners, before Luanda. It is in the poem. The 'pieced together, here from many group photo was never taken, but it is months, from the prison workshop', in the poem. Even what is not in the One like the story of John Matthews, born photo, and what could never be in the in Bez Valley, Joburg. A narrative, photo, because as Brecht has pointed answering the comradely demand out, the essential relationships of the needs to (not that other demand, uttered by capitalist society cannot be photo­ those who want to know for other graphed, even that is in the poem, reasons and who use instruments of signalled by the empty, unoccupied remember, torture to wring the narrative out of place in the centre, which 'stands for one), the comradely demand to know, what happened / Way outside the because tell us what happened, 'was he present frame of this photo ... I name it: on the two days of Kliptown . . . Luanda' (22) 1955? . . . when the People's Con­ The heart of the poet is that place the holes gress adopted the Freedom Charter?' where they chopped the figtree. A — 'Actually' — 'No he wasn't' — hole, a cavern. A place inhabited by 'He was there the day before, he built men for thousands of years, but un­ created by the platform' (6). One needs to re­ known, dark, difficult to access, need­ member, because the holes created ing all the finesse of the archeologist by death and brutality look so ordi­ w7ho brushes away the layers with a death and nary a few months, a few years, later, toothbrush. The heart is not what is and South Africa is embarking on a present to your immediate conscious­ colossal exercise of amnesia right ness, it is something which you have brutality now: called negotiation, pronounced to supplement to the picture which is 'nothing every happened here, did clearly in your mind. That is why you look so it?' and spelled: 'Let's forget about have to talk to yourself in prison. the past. Let's play rugby!' But the You do not yet know your heart, you memory resides in those who didn't have to learn it. Off by heart. Until ordinary live in white suburbs where 'nothing you can carry it from inside to an happened': outside not only on scraps of toilet paper but in your heart, so that if the a few The uprooted tree leaves paper gets lost in that last search behind a hole in the ground inside the poem does not get lost. So But after a few months that it survives this dangerous pas­ months, a You would have to have known sage from the inside to the outside. that something grew here once. And in order that it remains, and does few years, And a person uprooted? not get lost in the outside, it needs to Leaves a gap too, I suppose, but go to the heart again, be learned off then by heart, it needs to reach others, after some years . . . (21) outside, it needs to reach their inside. later That alone is the survival of the poem The fig tree will not be forgotten that — being printed in a book does not was 'chopped down in reprisal' for make it remembered. Q Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Poetry

Watching Young Beach-goers

Today the guys are out and jogging. Two tonnes of manhood trundles down the shore — calf-springy, tippy-toey, tanned to gold, flaunting brightly-coloured strips of bathing-suits. Stunning good looks and pumped-up pectorals join in this paean to flesh.

I am peripheral to such delights. Time's whittling me a rugged mask; Geoffrey Haresnape gouging in ways I hadn't guessed: (I always imagined that my brow would be Two Poems formally ribbed like sands of the sea — not these random ditches.) o

Bowled over by the surf, I learn that oceanic lusts are not for me. I have no barrel chest nor G-strung groin to bolster up a macho fantasy. Towelling my flanks and combing scanty hair, I settle for a cool, unsalty dream.

Sentence on a Painter who hangs 'Do Not Disturb, Please' on her studio door

As you trade on your superb self-confidence, inspiration [or whatever] snatching from your bucket of brushes that slant upward like spears to daub on your canvas a slant-toothed, African mask and its basilisk stare,

it's clear that you regard as little nobodies the others in your home who might otherwise come knocking to ask you about the grocery order or in the hope of sharing some subliminal and mortal fear. Nine Lives by Tatamkulu Afrika published by Carrefour Press 1991. 111111 uch about this volume of poetry suggests the making of poetic myth. The name Tatamkulu Afrika, the old man of Africa, conjures up images of the prophetic; the title of the volume, nine lives, points to rebirth and transcendence; and the cover photograph looks uncannily like the Turin shroud. Yet the author has Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 I The Art of Poise been interviewed and reviewed, and has been the He would eat prodigiously but without haste, recipient of two poetry awards: the Arthur Nortje Award cutting meat into precise, manageable shapes, and the Sydney Clouts Memorial Prize. So he must be re-mashing potato with a deliberate fork, real. chewing, seemingly, without taste, Nine Lives offers itself as an autobiographical swabbing his plate clean with a bread-crust, sequence which traces the life of the seventy-two-year- sitting back to wait for his second helping old Tatamkulu Afrika: his birth in Egypt, his youth on the without so much as word or glance, Cape Flats, war and imprisonment in North Africa, palms on either side of the plate, eyes political activism and detention back home, and finally, travelling round the table at the level of our laps, old age. This is the kind of life experience of which the liver-spotted fingers of his right hand legends are made, and the volume does afford a sense of strangling his serviette. mythical wholeness in its trajectory from birth to death. (The Stepfather) Tatamkulu describes his encounters with people and places in simple cadences, creating a corpus of poems In his review of Nine Lives, Peter Strauss in New Coin that are memorable in their clear lines and vivid depiction. Volume 27 Number 2, 1991, regrets the volume's lack of The enchantment of these poems lies in their linking of poetic rigor, its careless diction and slack rhythms, and the Cape and the Mediterranean, the effect of which is to faults the poems for 'botching their key moments by infuse Cape scenes with the breath of Mediterranean flowering into a poetical language which is too easily beauty and idealism: come by and which often comes over as sentimental'. He speaks of the poetry's 'sprawl', and observes that, in this nothing dies: respect, it is an 'antidote and complement to the more all that I thought long-dead narrowly focused but more finely tuned and sparely is rising up again: crafted work of Dennis Brutus'. the little house where first they slapped me into The contrast with Brutus is interesting. What Strauss life, fails to appreciate, however, is precisely that Tatamkulu's took off the tip of my manhood as the religion poetry is different from Brutus's. Tatamkulu is romantic demands, and expansive. In his discursiveness, his reverent attitude the red sand slipping into the blue Mediterranean, to nature, his naturalistic portraits of simple and vital the smell of incense on the khamsin wind — characters, and his religious cadences, he is closer to Guy so much remembered, Butler than to Dennis Brutus. so many old lamps burning again — Tatamkulu's style is perfectly congruent with his lamps whose wicks I thought had long since humanist project, which is to portray the human charred — experience that underlies the public expressions, the and from the night beyond their light street marches and clenched fists, of radical politics. The a face is floating, characters who populate this volume are not media bending over mine — heroes but ordinary people. Many have been broken by its sweetness is effulgence, the struggle, such as the ex-detainee whom the poet visits its fragrance is of flowers .... at home: (Remembering) When I was little older than your son, The poems are graphic and evolve from close observation I saw a tortoise, wrapped in flame, and precise description. In the following scene from boiling in its shell. childhood, the hidden menace of the stepfather is gradually Its head swung this way, that, revealed through telling details: its mouth cawed soundlessly as it screamed. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Dirk Klopper i

So, as the evening aged and you talked on, of a cat walking carefully along a wall on which broken reliving for me what I had no right to know, glass has been embedded. The poet admires its assurance your voice grew softer till it was as dust on air, as it jumps onto a higher level of the wall, and is reminded and then it stopped and your head by this action of his impending death: swung this way, that, and soundlessly, as did the tortoise in its shell, It is then that you face what no man does you screamed. unless it is the middle of the night and the day far: (The Detainee) you are old and dry as these dry leaves and the road that once seemed endless is Tatamkulu's own imprisonment is hauntingly conveyed turning through its last slow curve, in the image of the Doppelgdnger crouching in the dark and you can cry if you want to, and be a fool, corner of his cell. Typically, even the harshest of because the road, like the cat, has never cared. experiences is transmuted into a mystical encounter: As none have ever really cared, Am I alone? neither lovers nor friends: all loose your hand Who is the stranger sitting in the corner then? at the final bend of the road. The sunlight does not touch his face. You call to them, but they turn away Though I turn and turn, in terror of your end. he wears a shadow like a veil, The cat, though, still walks along but the bright eyes, gleaming through it, the high yard-wall, and you watch it go. question mine, Where, in your heart, the grace to leap, and I feel that I yet will come to know him well, like it, straight up, to a higher plane? as I should have known him all along, (Cat on a High Yard Wall) but this is the first time I have sat with him, measuring him as he is measuring me, The concluding sentiment of the volume is one of faith listening to freedom wailing at the wall . in the possibility of transcendence. The word 'grace' has (The Prisoner) been chosen with care, balanced as it is between suggestions of physical beauty and spiritual redemption. There is a sense, finally, that the struggle has been A similar poise is evident throughout the volume, making betrayed. The victors are not those who took to the streets this a graceful body indeed.^ in courageous defiance of batons and bullets. The heroes of the struggle, the ordinary people, have been forgotten. Note The real victors are the 'deft men in trim, grey suits' (Lines to a Jailed Friend). Nine Lives was awarded the 1992 CNA Award for New The volume ends with a rumination on the significance Writers. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 3 1992 Sf Poetry

Trans-Siberian Railway, February 1989

We burst through Ural at night, at Couldn't catch, couldn't hold a throbbing ache of snow and but noted at least a dust stars like dangerous glass, a and the point of a fence buried in the round Chinese host mopping round our feet infinite drift inaudibly filling the samovars with steaming life and an occasional white smoke, factory chimneys like absurd ancient monuments I pressed my nose against the movie, licked on the fled tundra the air for smoke, caught a dust transported it on the tip of my tongue up But grief itself under the lip This dust doesn't grieve had to be my reality, in lack With an almost foolish smile it rests upright, aware of A herd of rocking sleeping dustlickers in lack the steaming of primeval forests the billowing of savannas the water we are HIPPOGRIFF PRESS Constantly awake it listens to the song of horizon the sublime mumbling of circulation

It knows it is a long farewell The Hippogriff Press invites new writing for adults to be published in the that must be taken second anthology in the series Hippogriff New Writing. Contributions with uneven courage in short story form should not exceed 5000 words and must be accom­ panied by a stamped self-addressed envelope.

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