As ignorant as it may sound as a white American man, I was totally unaware of the fact that in South Africa there are both white Africans and black Africans. Furthermore, I had heard about apartheid in my AP European History class in high school, but I never really understood the full extent of apartheid until my recent study of apartheid in my World Literature course. The racial tensions between many South African races led to a very unequal division among themselves, fully dominated by the white South Africans.
Apartheid is, well, evil. Apartheid is unfair on so many levels because of the inequality it brings to citizens within the same nation. The division of races in South Africa was nothing more than whites, especially those of European decent, feelings superior over those of another race or color. As crazy as it may sound, those living in South Africa were required to carry an ID card that determined their race, whether it was "white", "black", "Indian", or "colored". The country of South Africa was fully segregated among the races from education and medical care to beaches and other public areas. Apartheid is very comparable to the Jim Crow laws of "equal but separate" in the United States for black Americans which thrived until about 1965.
Nadine Gordimer, arguably the most legendary female author of South Africa, wrote many stories in response to apartheid. Gordimer was one of the biggest advocates for ending or putting a stop to apartheid and discussed how unfair it is for there to be segregation. As a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Gordimer is truly able to reach a larger audience metaphorically within her writing. Two of her stories that greatly influenced me were "Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants", and "Amnesty". These two stories left a lasting impact on my view of the cruelty and ignorance of apartheid.
First, in "Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants", the story revolves around one white woman living in South Africa during apartheid. The woman works at a mechanic shop as an account. Throughout the story, the woman is very stereotypical for a white woman living in South Africa at the time. She is very gullible, ditzy, and extremely racist. She feels that the black men working in the mechanic shop are nothing but below her and that "on the whole they're not a lot of natives." She is very naive in her perception of the black men working the mechanic shop; they're actually not natives, they're human beings who have the ability to think. In particular, she talks about one black man working in the shop who she calls "boss man". Boss man expresses to the woman, "Here I'm Jack because Mpanza Makiwane is not a name, and there I'm Mpanza Makiwane because Jack is not a name..." Jack/Mpanza Makiwane is explaining to the woman that because of apartheid, depending on where he is, he has to go by different identities. As a black African living South Africa during apartheid, your heritage was not honored, only your English name in town.
I could not imagine, as a fortunate white American male, experiencing something like apartheid. In order to be recognized, you had to go by a foreign identity that had no personal connection to you is mind-boggling to me. I can't imagine if the Japanese came and took over America and forced every American to speak Japanese, receive a Japanese name, and forget their heritage and their history. As ridiculous as it sounds, that's exactly what the white Africans did to the black Africans during apartheid.
Secondly, Gordimer's short story entitled "Amnesty", discusses one black African woman's struggle to hold down a family during the fight against apartheid. Her husband, a member of the ANC, fought against the evils of apartheid but was never home or there to support her or the family. Even though she supported her husband, the woman never received the credit that she deserved and her husband always made it seem as if it were never enough. In this story, not one character received a name, meaning the the characters within this story represent all men and all women during apartheid. The overall theme of this story was that women were doing the best that they could with the resources they had but were always pushed into the background. Moreover, the women who farmed the lands and took care of the children while their men involved themselves in the ANC, where actually the backbone of help. They were the reason why their men could leave and participate in the ANC and fight against apartheid. Also, the women were raising the children who would help shape the future of the nation if apartheid were to continue or end. Gordimer argues that women deserve more credit than they were accounted for.
The issue of women supporting the fight for a cause reminds me of World War II and the involvement of women in the U.S. The women of the U.S. were arguably one the reasons why WWII ended because of their war efforts. They helped build victory gardens, went and worked in the factories, and even produced bombs, missiles, and ammunition used by the American forces. Thanks to women, men were able to go off an fight in war. An image of Rosie the Riveter saying "We Can Do It" reminds me of the faith that the woman in "Amnesty" proved.
Great job: I really like the connections you make, both personally and in terms of the larger social context. I also never thought of the narrator of "Amnesty" and Rosie the Riveter, but I think you are right that, in a way, they are quite similar. That's cool.
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