Outward Evil Inward Battle: Human Memory in Literature

Chapter 6. Memory and Resistance in the Poetry of Gcina Mhlophe

109 Chapter 6 Memory and Resistance in the Poetry of Gcina Mhlophe Adaku T. Ankumah “The black women in South Africa have shown outstanding tenacity against great odds. We shall never give in to defeat. Today we remain determined, like the women of our community of previous generations, who have left us a living example of strength and integrity” (Ellen Kuzwayo) Introduction For many black South Africans, apartheid laws may have been repealed in 1991, but the memory and the trauma from three centuries of separatist laws that were institutionalized in 1948 into official apartheid policy, are not easily forgotten. Maybe white South Africans and those whose skin colors allowed for tolerable existence may wish to forget a not-so-shining period in their history, but not so the people who had to live under this system, who endured harassment, torture and even murder to uphold this unjust system of government. For some South Africans, the painful memories are deep and not easily dealt with in Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings to bring out some of these issues from the past to allow for healing and mutual understanding. In a collection of essays titled From the Kingdom of Memory, Elie Wiesel, the 1986 Nobel Prize for Peace winner and a holocaust survivor himself reminisces about his obsession with memory and why he writes. In the opening chapter, he explains his motivation for writing: “Perhaps in order not to go mad. Or, on the contrary, to touch the bottom of madness. [...] I am duty-bound to serve as an 110 emissary, transmitting the history of their [victims’] disappearance, even if it disturbs, even if it brings pain” (13, 16). Indeed, this desire to bear witness to the horrors of the past, to never forget what they and their ancestors went through, motivates writers who use the past as material for present works. It is in this vein that some South African writers (and other writers who have emerged from horrid pasts and/or brutally oppressive regimes) eschewed art for art’s sake for a more militant type of writing, resistance literature not just aimed at informing the rest of the world about life under these brutal systems but most importantly at resisting the oppressive structures established by the Afrikaans government to maintain its power over other races. Both black and white artists alike engaged in this type of writing: the long list includes writers like Athol Fugard who has written plays like Blood Knot, Sizwe Banzi is Dead; Dennis Brutus, Ingrid Jonker and Mazizi Kunene, poets; and novelists and story tellers like Miriam Tlali, Bessie Head, Nadine Gordimer, For some of these artists, though, their engagement would bring them in conflict with the apartheid regime that did not want the rest of the world to get an insight into life in South Africa. The surveillance and harassments led to exile for some. Resistance literature has been defined by Barbara Harlow as “literature that calls attention to itself, and to literature in general, as a political and politicized activity. The literature of resistance sees itself further as immediately and directly involved in a struggle against ascendant or dominant forms of ideological and cultural production” (qtd. in DeShazer, A Poetics 9). For DeShazer, though, resistance is not just “mere opposition” to the powers that be, with participants viewing themselves as helpless victims of an oppressive system; on the contrary, resistance is also “an active quest for justice, and as a means of collectively empowering a particular group of activists” (2). Thus these writers are seeking to dismantle an unjust system and to seek justice for themselves and the oppressed. Many writers from Africa are familiar with this type of literature from the early stages of contemporary African writing. At an AfricanScandinavian Writers’ Conference as far back as 1967, participants 111 dealt with the issue of the writer’s individuality and social commitment. Nobel Prize winner and author Wole Soyinka sparked no small controversy about the nature and extent of the social involvement of the modern writer when he made a comment about poets who have taken to gun-running and writers who hold up radio stations—charges leveled against him by the Nigerian government and for which he was detained. Alex La Guma, a South African writer supports the involvement of the writer in social matters, making his or her writing relevant to the realities of citizens. He concludes that “all...