Equality or unity? Black Consciousness, white solidarity, and the new South Africa in Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter and July’s People

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Powell
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New South ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Common Culture ◽  
Black Consciousness Movement

In the early 1970s, the Black Consciousness movement called on black radicals to dissociate themselves from dissident white South Africans, who were accused of frustrating the anti-apartheid cause in order to safeguard their ill-gotten privileges. In turn, liberal whites condemned this separatism as a capitulation to apartheid’s vision of “separate development”, despite the movement’s avowed aspiration towards a nonracial South Africa. This article considers how black separatism affected Nadine Gordimer’s own perspective on the prospect of achieving this aspiration. For Gordimer, Black Consciousness was necessary for black liberation, and she sought ways of reconciling white dissidents with black separatism. Still, these efforts didn’t always sit well together with her continuing belief that if there were to be a place for whites in a majority-ruled South Africa, then they needed to join blacks in a “common culture”. I consider how this tension marks Gordimer’s portraits of whites responding to being rejected by blacks in Burger’s Daughter and July’s People. In both novels, white efforts to resist apartheid’s racial segregations appear to be at odds with black self-liberation, with the effect that whites must find a way of doing without the as-yet deferred prospect of establishing a “common culture” in South Africa.

The Market Theatre of Johannesburg in the New South Africa

2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-374
Author(s):  
Hilary Burns
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New South ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
Black Artists ◽  
The Past ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Incumbent Regime ◽  
Apartheid Regime ◽  
Black Consciousness Movement

The Market Theatre of Johannesburg opened in 1976, the year of the Soweto Uprising – the beginning of the end for the oppressive apartheid regime. Founded by Barney Simon, Mannie Manim, and a group of white actors, the theatre's policy, in line with the advice to white liberals from the Black Consciousness Movement, was to raise the awareness of its mainly white audiences about the oppression of apartheid and their own social, political, and economic privileges. The theatre went on through the late 'seventies and 'eighties to attract international acclaim for productions developed in collaboration with black artists that reflected the struggle against the incumbent regime, including such classics as The Island, Sizwe Bansi is Dead, and Woza Albert! How has the Market fared with the emergence of the new South Africa in the 'nineties? Has it built on the past? Has it reflected the changes? What is happening at the theatre today? Actress, writer, and director Hilary Burns went to Johannesburg in November 2000 to find out. She worked in various departments of the theatre, attended productions, and interviewed theatre artists and members of the audience. This article will form part of her book, The Cultural Precinct, inspired by this experience to explore how the theatres born in the protest era have responded to the challenges of the new society.

The Prophetic Voice of the Church in a Democratic South Africa – A Theological Reflection

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lufuluvhi Maria Mudimeli
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
The State ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Prophetic Voice ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Church

This article is a reflection on the role and contribution of the church in a democratic South Africa. The involvement of the church in the struggle against apartheid is revisited briefly. The church has played a pivotal and prominent role in bringing about democracy by being a prophetic voice that could not be silenced even in the face of death. It is in this time of democracy when real transformation is needed to take its course in a realistic way, where the presence of the church has probably been latent and where it has assumed an observer status. A look is taken at the dilemmas facing the church. The church should not be bound and taken captive by any form of loyalty to any political organisation at the expense of the poor and the voiceless. A need for cooperation and partnership between the church and the state is crucial at this time. This paper strives to address the role of the church as a prophetic voice in a democratic South Africa. Radical economic transformation, inequality, corruption, and moral decadence—all these challenges hold the potential to thwart our young democracy and its ideals. Black liberation theology concepts are employed to explore how the church can become prophetically relevant in democracy. Suggestions are made about how the church and the state can best form partnerships. In avoiding taking only a critical stance, the church could fulfil its mandate “in season and out of season” and continue to be a prophetic voice on behalf of ordinary South Africans.

Black Consciousness as an Expression of Radical Responsibility: Biko an African Bonhoeffer

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 28-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornel du Toit
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Black People ◽  
The Self ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
Black Liberation

AbstractThe article reflects on the ongoing relevance of Biko's thought 30 years after his death. It is not so much a comparison between Biko and Bonhoeffer's thinking as it is a focus on one aspect of Bonhoeffer's thinking, namely the insistence on independence and self-responsibility in your own situation, which is a premise of Biko's thinking. As the father of Black Consciousness in South Africa, Biko laid the foundation for black self-understanding and self-responsibility. The value of his thinking lies in a hermeneutics of consciousness, which he established and which is a presupposition of his ideals of self-responsibility and self-emancipation. Biko's hermeneutics of the self is considered with reference to the forces that kept black people captive. Although Black Consciousness is seen as a historically contingent phenomenon, the challenge of black liberation remains. Biko's legacy is vital for the establishment of a hermeneutics of poverty and freedom, which is presented as a condition for African liberation in the 21st century.

scholarly journals CLERGY’S RESISTANCE TO VENDA HOMELAND’S INDEPENDENCE IN THE 1970S AND 1980S

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-141
Author(s):  
Thias Kgatla
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Black People ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
Lutheran Church ◽  
Real Community ◽  
Student Christian Movement ◽  
Black Consciousness Movement

The article discusses the clergy’s role in the struggle against Venda’s “independence” in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as resistance to the apartheid policy of “separate development” for Venda. It also explores the policy of indirect white rule through the replacement of real community leaders with incompetent, easily manipulated traditional chiefs. The imposition of the system triggered resistance among the youth and the churches, which led to bloody reprisals by the authorities. Countless were detained under apartheid laws permitting detention without trial for 90 days. Many died in detention, but those responsible were acquitted by the courts of law in the Homeland. The article highlights the contributions of the Black Consciousness Movement, the Black People Conversion Movement, and the Student Christian Movement. The Venda student uprising was second in magnitude only to the Soweto uprising of 16 June 1976. The torture of ministers in detention and the response by church leaders locally and internationally, are discussed. The authorities attempted to divide the Lutheran Church and nationalise the Lutherans in Venda, but this move was thwarted. Venda was officially re-incorporated into South Africa on 27 April 1994.

scholarly journals Sort etik med transkontekstuel inspiration

2018 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Carsten Elmelund Petersen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Black People ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Malcolm X ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Martin Luther King

Allan Boesak developed a black liberation theology in SouthAfrica in the time of apartheid. He was studying the thinking of four afro-americans in USA, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Albert Cleage,and James Cone. Boesak does not argue that his ethics is universal, becausethe validity of his black ethics is only in the contexts where thereis oppression. Black ethics is contextual, Boesak says. But this articleargues that according to Boesak, ethics has validity in all the contextswhere there is oppression. The liberation ethic is, therefore, transcontextual.Another foundational element in Boesaks ethics is “the Black”:It is the black consciousness that gives black people a sense of belongingwhen they are oppressed. The Black consciousness is transcontextual.He uses the inspiration from USA, which is his original context, intothe South Africa apartheid situation, the application context.

The United States and South Africa: Human Investment

1987 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-29
Author(s):  
Aaron Segal
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
New South ◽  
The United States ◽  
South African Government ◽  
The South ◽  
African Government ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Constructive Engagement ◽  
And Training

The impassioned debate between those who support sanctions in order to bring about change in South Africa and those who favor “constructive engagement” misses the point. Each side assumes that the problem is to exercise U.S. leverage and pressure on the South African government. It is not. Instead the opportunity is for the U.S. to assist in human investment to help South Africans to acquire the education, skills and training to build their own future. Pressure may or may not contribute to the South African government changing its policies and practices. Investment in human resources has a more reliable payoff in terms of individuals capable of participating in building a new South Africa.

Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Attributions of Blame and the Struggle over Apartheid

1999 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 501-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Amanda Gouws
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New South ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Attributions Of Blame ◽  
Democratic Transformation ◽  
Reconciliation Process

In an effort to put its past firmly behind, the New South Africa created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document human rights abuses under apartheid and to grant amnesty to those confessing their nefarious deeds. South Africa's democratic experiment depends mightily upon whether truth does in fact bring about reconciliation. Consequently, we examine whether ordinary South Africans accept the theories of blame that underlie the truth and reconciliation process. Based on a formal experiment within a representative sample of South Africans, our results confirm some conventional hypotheses (e.g., leaders are judged more responsible for their deeds than followers), repudiate others (noble motives do little to exonerate violent actions), and modify still others (actors are judged by the severity of their action's consequences, although it matters little whether “combatants” or “civilians” were the victims). We conclude that the dark legacy of the apartheid past makes the consolidation of the democratic transformation problematical.

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