Locating the popular-democratic in South African resistance literature in English, 1970-1990. Gayatri Priyadarshini Narismulu submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Literature at the Centre for the Study of Southern African Literature and Languages in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Durban-Westville. Promoter: Professor A.J. van Wyk January 1998 Locating the popular-democratic in South Mrican resistance literature in English, 1970-1990. Abstract Chapter One: Introduction 1 1.1 Introduction 1.2 The constructs of "the people" and "the community" 1.3 Culture 1.4 The concepts "popular" and "democratic" 1.5 Challenges and caveats attending the popular 1.6 The popular-democratic Chapter Two: Home and dislocation: resistance writers address structural oppression 17 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Townships 2.3 Hostels and migrant workers 2.4 Forced removals 2.4.1 "Black spot" removals 2.4.2 The Group Areas Act 2.4.3 Township removals 2.4.4 Shacks and squatter camps 2.5 Commuting from the dumping grounds 2.6 Homeless people 2.7 Exile Chapter Three: Security force repression: resistance writers "touch this darkness and give it meaning" 48 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Attacks on neighbouring states 3.3 Internal repression 3.3.1 The security forces 3.3.2 Effects of repression on family and loved ones 3.3.3 Attacks on townships: "the tyranny of place" 3.3.4 "Total onslaught" 3.3.5 "Border" patrol Chapter Four: "Here be dragons": challenging "liberal" literary constructions 77 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Conservative liberal constructions of literature 4.3 Conservative liberal constructions of audience 4.4 Challenging conservative liberal subjectivity 4.5 "Them" and "us": standards and privileges 4.6 Questions of form and expression Chapter Five: Black Consciousness: "spilt like this my blood speaks" 102 5.1 The impact of Black Consciousness 5.2 Satire against the apartheid regime and the liberals Chapter Six: Labour struggles 133 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Trade unionism 6.3 The harassment and persecution of workers 6.4 Mining 6.5 MayDay 6.6 The MAWU strike and The Long March 6.7 SARHWU workers and Township Fever 6.8 Focus on cultural production Chapter Seven: Representivity and representation 167 7.1 Audience: addressing the active subjects of the struggle 7.2 The rise of the United Democratic Front 7.3 COSATV and the UDF Chapter Eight: Culture and media: censorship and resistance 196 8.1 The censorship of culture 8.2 Challenging censorship and other forms of cultural repression 8.3 Media: challenging censorship and the "mainstream" media Chapter Nine: Addressing the killings committed by the state 235 9.1 Challenging the security force killings 9.2 Addressing the hangings of activists 9.3 Funerals 9.4 Militance 9.5 Self-criticism Chapter Ten: Reconstructing education and history 282 10.1 Education struggles 10.2 Memory and history Bibliography 311 F or my students, from whom I learn so much Abstract As a conjunctural construct located between politics, society and art, the popular-democratic construes the resistance literature of the 1970s and 1980s as being expressive of an entire social movement to end oppression and transform society. Through the construct of the popular-democratic voices that have been marginalised, fragmented, dislocated, excluded or otherwise silenced can be seen in relation to each other and to the sources of oppression. The introductory chapter addresses the characteristics of the popular-democratic, and the caveats and challenges that attend it. The remaining nine chapters are divided into three sections of three chapters each. The first section examines repression of different types: structural repression, coercive repression/state violence and cultural repression. An important index of the structural oppression of apartheid is the home, which a range of resistance writers addressed in depth when they dealt with city life and the townships, forced removals, homeless people, rural struggles, migrants and hostels, commuting, the "homelands" and exile. The coercive apparatus of the state, the security forces, were used against dissidents in the neighbouring states and within the country. The literature addresses the effects of the cross border raids, assassinations, abductions and bombings. The literature that deals with internal repression examines the effects of the mass detentions, restrictions, listings and bannings as well as the impact of the states of emergency, P.W. Botha's "total strategy", and the actions of the death squads. An examination of the conservative liberal constructions of resistance literature helps to clarify why resistance literature remains inadequately conceptualised ("Soweto poets", "protest literature") although there has been a vibrant and challenging corpus. The way in which the audience of resistance literature is constructed is identified as a key problem. The responses of various resistance writers, in poems, interviews, letters and articles, to conservative liberal prescriptions are contextualised. The middle section of the argument focuses on the organisations that developed to challenge oppression. Through an examination of the literature that was influenced by the activism and the cultural and philosophical production of Black Consciousness, it is apparent that the movement was continuous with the rest of the struggle for liberation. The satirical poems that challenged both the state and the conservative liberals offer powerful displays of verbal wit. The struggles of workers are addressed through texts that deal with their plight and call for worker organisations. The trade union COSATV paid close attention to the development of worker culture, which proved to be critical when the state cracked down on the resistance organisations. The production values and effects of very different plays about strikes, The Long March and Township Fever receive particular attention. The rise of the United Democratic Front (UDF) is anticipated in literature that celebrates the potential of ordinary South Africans to achieve political significance through unity. Constructed out of substantial ideological pluralism, the UDF arose as an act of political imagination and organisational strategy. The ideological convergence between the UDF and COSATU on the question of bidding for state power constituted a turning-point in a nation built on the intolerance of difference. The last section focuses more closely on the productive responses of the culture of resistance to specific aspects of repression, such as the censorship of the media and the arts, the killings of activists, the struggles around education and the keeping of historical records (which enable an interrogation and reconstruction of discursive and interpretive authority). \ Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 Introduction A literature is being born in the process of social crisis and political change. We should be able to say: we were here; and this is how we were (Gwala, 1989:71). The following research seeks to conceptualise what is referred to as resistance literature, in the medium of English in South Africa, with attention to the period from the 1970s until the early 1990s. Although South Africa became a "republic" in 1961, the majority of people had few basic rights. South Africa remained an oppressive society, with the white minority maintaining political and economic control. Black people continued to remain powerless, with no access to economic and political power. In the late 1960s the culture of resistance, that the state had tried to decimate earlier in the decade, began to regenerate. The resistance took the form of local organizations which advanced the struggles of the political organisations that had been banned. In addition to challenging the existing social order, the resistance organisations tried to reconstruct South African society (Zulu in Meer, 1989:20). The resistance struggle was accompanied by a literature that anticipated a liberated society. Cultural activity in the struggle did more than just accompany or reflect the liberation process. As Cabral contends, during resistance a reciprocal relationship between culture and the struggle develops. Culture, as a foundation and a source of inspiration, begins to be influenced by the struggle; and this influence is reflected more or less clearly, in the changing behaviour of social categories and individuals as well as in the development of the struggle itself (Mattelart and Siegelaub, 1979:211). In a highly politicised society many writers and artists would not allow themselves to be alienated from the key political struggles. Resistance literature was seen not just as the expression of individuals or small groups but of an entire social movement to end oppression. Writers and oral composers resisted the repression and censorship of the state and the prescriptions of the conservative liberal critics. Literary activists developed tactics to deal with the silencing. Intervening in various discourses of power they demonstrated that in practice there was little separation between the "literary" and "imaginative" on one side and the political and institutional world ... on the other (Merod, 1987:9-10). 2 As awareness of the constructive and constitutive potentials of culture developed many resistance writers acted reflexively, to challenge and transform the social meaning of literature and cultural practice. In the process they redefined the discursive terrain: Calling something literary depends on the relationship between literary and extraliterary orders.