Impaired Vision. Portraits of Black Women in the Afrikaans Novel 1948-1988
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Impaired Vision. Portraits of Black Women in the Afrikaans Novel 1948-1988 Judy H. Gardner bron Judy H. Gardner, Impaired Vision. Portraits of Black Women in the Afrikaans Novel 1948-1988. VU-University Press, Amsterdam 1991 Zie voor verantwoording: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/gard010impa01_01/colofon.php © 2014 dbnl / Judy H. Gardner V Mmangoana o tshwara thipa ka fa bogaleng (The child's mother grabs the sharp end of the knife - old Setswana proverb) The word does not exist in a neutral and impersonal language ..., but rather it exists in other people's mouths, in other people's contexts, serving other people's intentions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one's own - MIKHAIL BAKHTIN, ‘Discourse in the Novel’. Perhaps all one can really hope, all I am entitled to, is no more than this: to write it down. To report what I know. So that it will not be possible for any man ever to say again: ‘I knew nothing about it’ - ANDRé P. BRINK, A Dry White Season. One of the major fronts in the war against colonialism is the writing of our own history - DABI NKULULEKO, ‘The right to self-determination in research’ Judy H. Gardner, Impaired Vision. Portraits of Black Women in the Afrikaans Novel 1948-1988 VII Wherever and whenever there are the oppressed and the oppressor, the sombre fact is that the oppressed are often party to their own oppression. In teaching the literature of the Afrikaners as was expected of me by the education authorities, I may have unconsciously collaborated in manipulating the minds of our children in the direction the oppressor demanded. This study is therefore DEDICATED TO the thousands of high school pupils and college students who became the victims of another injustice but who nevertheless provided me with so much pleasure while teaching them. Judy H. Gardner, Impaired Vision. Portraits of Black Women in the Afrikaans Novel 1948-1988 XIII Preface ‘But what is there to say about the black woman as a character in the Afrikaans novel?’ ‘Are there enough black women characters in the Afrikaans novel to warrant a dissertation? If so, are they functional characters?’ These and similar questions were put to me by well-intending (and also not such well-intending) people, black and white, female and male, South African and non-South African. For example, Dr Helize van Vuuren, academic and literary critic, asked such questions and before I could reply, remarked: ‘Thank goodness for Poppie Nongena!’ (informal conversation, Amsterdam 1989); Prof. Dr Jakes Gerwel, Rector of the University of Western Cape and literary critic, asked the same questions in an informal conversation in Amsterdam 1990. It is significant that these South Africans, one white and female, the other black and male, both implied and acknowledged by their questions that the black woman as character in the Afrikaans novel is largely an absent unit, which indeed she is. For a long time she has been a non-entity and non-visible, at best a ‘filler’ with no function other than giving an indication of the socio-political milieu of the South Africa of the Malans, Strijdoms, Verwoerds, Vorsters, Bothas and De Klerks. Apartheid with its concomitant racism, sexism and class-consciousness is an emotional issue - it cannot be anything else. Apartheid has spread through our physical, mental and spiritual being like a slow-combustion fire, threatening to destroy us in its enveloping flames; the literature of a dominant class created by apartheid policies collaborates in this process of destruction. While I have tried to contain my anger, it may rear its ugly head from time to time in the ensuing pages. To try and look at apartheid and its artistic products in a detached manner would be a denial of our right to predicate our existence and experientiality. Why have I entitled this dissertation ‘Impaired Vision’? Human vision can be impaired by different factors which may leave one temporarily blinded or which may have a permanent effect upon the afflicted. More often than not, impaired vision is the result of congenital disease. White Afrikaners' vision of blacks has been almost irreparably impaired by the congenital disease of early European prejudice. How does one cure defective genes? The translation of quotations from the novels is mine, except in the case of André P. Brink's novels Looking on Darkness and A Chain of Voices and Elsa Joubert's Poppie Nongena. Judy H. Gardner, Impaired Vision. Portraits of Black Women in the Afrikaans Novel 1948-1988 XIV Acknowledgements I am deeply indebted to my promotor, Prof. Dr Mineke Schipper de Leeuw, for her patient direction, encouragement and stimulating thoughts about my work and for never being too busy to listen or comment. I am especially grateful for her insight into and understanding of the several anomalies of my situation. Special thanks go to Prof. Dr Jakes Gerwel and Prof. Dr Elrud Ibsch for agreeing to act as co-promotor and referee respectively, despite their heavy academic responsibilities and busy schedules. Their comments were of much value indeed. Prof. Dr Vernon February has not only been a friend and brother but a pillar of strength when I found it difficult to cope with the realities of living and studying in a foreign country. Penny Parker-Shaw of Petersfield, England, carefully proofread my work while at the same time offering valuable suggestions. I wish to acknowledge the continual support and encouragement of the South African community in the Netherlands, especially my comrades in the African National Congress. My sincere thanks and appreciation go to Olga Rees-Loff for her supportive role. When we were dreaming our dreams and hoping our hopes in those pre-fabricated asbestos classrooms in the searing heat and freezing cold of the Karoo summers and winters in the mid-1950s, did it ever occur to us that our paths would cross again in Amsterdam nearly forty years later? I wish to thank Mathieu Derckx for translating the ‘Stellingen’ and ‘Samenvatting’ into Dutch. The group of promovendi under Prof. Schipper's direction provided me with many valuable insights during our animated discussions. Thanks go to them as well as to the Faculteit der Letteren of the Vrije Universiteit and the Rijksuniversiteit of Leiden. The support and encouragement from family and friends in South Africa never failed to lift my spirits. Warm and special thoughts are of my mother who, like Ma-Rose, is ‘always there to return to’, even in flights of the imagination and our uncanny telepathy. Due thanks go to the EOC-Vrije Universiteit Fellowship Programme and the functionaries concerned for enabling me to undertake this research in the Netherlands; the Africa Educational Trust in London and the United Nations Educational Training Programme for Southern Africa (UNETPSA) in Geneva for additional financial assistance. Amsterdam September 1991 Judy H. Gardner, Impaired Vision. Portraits of Black Women in the Afrikaans Novel 1948-1988 1 Chapter 1 Introduction This study pertains to a specific and regional field which is determined by a specific set of material and ideological conditions and produced in a specific historical period. The purpose is to examine how black women are portrayed in the Afrikaans novel after 1948, i.e. how they are perceived in an apartheid society by authors who are sometimes the very proponents of the apartheid ideology. This study has been born partly out of a concern about women's oppression and marginalisation which often assume covert forms, one of which is the artistic products of a society. While it is true that several studies have been done about ‘race’ in South African literature and that socio-political research about the black woman has been and is undertaken, it is also true that, to my knowledge, no comprehensive study has been undertaken about the black woman's status in the Afrikaans novel. It therefore becomes imperative to look into this area of the black woman's situation, to examine how her zero status in society is either reflected or abrogated in the Afrikaans novel. I have already mentioned in the Preface how underexposed the black woman is in the literature of the Afrikaners. As far as selection of novels for this study is concerned, the truth of the matter is that I had very little to choose from - the novels more or less selected themselves. I have tried, however, to include at least one representative novel from each specific historical period, even though the black woman as a character in some of these novels has a peripheral role. The justification of my choice of novels shall be made clear in the chapters dealing with them. The first forty years of apartheid rule (1948-1988) covered in this study is broadly divided into three historical periods: 1. 1948-1959, i.e. the beginning of institutionalised apartheid to the beginning of the end of the old rural order in the Afrikaans literary tradition; 2. 1960-1975: The period of severe repression by the government, as well as the period of the Sestigers and a new awareness about the greater Africa in the Afrikaans novel. Judy H. Gardner, Impaired Vision. Portraits of Black Women in the Afrikaans Novel 1948-1988 2 3. 1976-1988: The shock and bewilderment caused by the youth revolt of 1976 nationally and internationally and literature's response to that. I have tried to deal with the novels chronologically. However, the pattern is somewhat disturbed by dealing with Brink's novel A Chain of Voices (1982) in Chapter 5 and Elsa Joubert's novel Poppie Nongena (1978) in Chapter 6. The reasons for this discrepancy are: (i) Since I deal with the Sestigers in Chapter 4 and since Brink is the key-figure of this movement, it is expedient to place a discussion of his work in that particular slot; (ii) I am dealing with male authors first, as they were the first to incorporate into their stories the black woman as a character - women novelists are discussed in a separate chapter and are left for last, mainly because of the intransigence on the part of Afrikaner women authors to portray black women in their works.