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Chapter II, Reading 2 Political Torture We expect war to be brutal, despite all the attempts to civilize it through treaties and conventions. But much torture is inflicted in civilian political contexts as well. The South African system of apartheid (1948-early 1990s), for example, under which the races were separated and the black majority subjected to severe social, economic, and political repression, featured widespread violence and systematic torture by the state. In this passage from And Night Fell: Memoirs of a Political Prisoner in South Africa, Molefe Pheto recounts the beatings that accompanied his interrogation by police over the course of the 281 days he spent in a South African prison. For 271 of those days he was held in solitary confinement. He was never charged with a crime. "Why do you travel to Botswana so much? What do you want therre?"2 This time it was Tiny van Niekerk.s There were three of them in the room, Colonel Visser and Captain Magoro being the other two. I told van Niekerk that I was descended from Botswana, and that I visited my relations there, but I knew he suspected other things. Blacks criss-crossing the borders of South Mrica were suspect. They could be linking up with exiles in these independent countries for advancement of their political work. It was worse in my case, as I had traveled in Europe before. But I also told him that in mywork for MDAll4 I had to travel to collect enough work for exhibiting at our art festivals. "Why don't you damn stay therre if you have yourr rrelations therre? I'll tell you," he paused. "South Mrrika is too good forr you. You would starrve to death therre. That's why you won't go." Van Niekerk went on as though he would never stop, saying a lot that hurt me because I could not reply and wrenching my heart out with all those comparisons we have heard from their babbling politicians about how South Africawas the best countryfor Black people in the whole world: how well we Blacks were treated, having so much done for us there, how well educated we were, how the wages received by Black people were better than anywhere in Mrica, the housing schemes and so forth. I was hurt and I wanted to tell him that he was talking a lot ofrubbish. To tell him that at that very moment he and his colleagues and their laws had me in detention against my will, through laws made by White men only. That I had not seen my family since his friend Visser had decreed that I be detained, and that I wished to see my family as I was worried about their welfare. Could he, van Niekerk, tell the whole world that every morning I was brought up from the cells, kept standing from nine till 54 Chapter II three in the afternoon, asked questions which I answered to the best of my ability, yet got nowhere near being released to rejoin my family and community? That during the days I had been in detention I smelled from lack of washing facilities, yet I could hear other prisoners not far from my cell splashing water during their bath-time; that I already had bugs sucking my blood, thirteen of which I had only last night killed after searching for them on my body and clothes, killing them by putting the damn things on the cement floor before pressing them to their death with my thumbnail! Yet I was supposed to LOVE this South Mrica, LOVE it? My throat was hot. My eyes were swimming in a stream ofburning tears which I could feel about to burst down my cheeks. I knew that I could not take the insults any more. Eventually, I decided to tell van Niekerk and his friends what I felt. "I would have no problems in Bots ... " Van Niekerk did not allow me to finish. I was lifted off the floor by one of the hardest, quickest punches, the heaviest too, that I had ever taken on myjaw. The force of it threw me a little distance from the trio, under a table. Its sudden impact blinded me for a moment. Blood immediately trickled from the corner of my lip. I had sustained a cut on the inside bottom lip. Because I did not have a handkerchief to wipe my blood with, I decided to swallow it. I felt no...

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