Quotation:
“Toloki remembers that these arguments have come up in some of the funerals he has attended. Various Nurses, and other funeral orators, have blamed the tribal chief for all kinds of atrocities. He has concocted a non-existent threat to his people, telling them that they are at risk from other ethnic groups in the country. Whereas other leaders are trying very hard to build one free and united nation out of the various ethnic groups and races, he thinks he will reach a position of national importance by exploiting ethnicity, and by telling people of his ethnic group that if they don’t fight they will be overwhelmed by other groups which are bent an dominating them, or even exterminating them. Their very existence is at stake, he teaches them. ‘The rotten tribal chief is exploiting ethnicity in order to solidify his power base!’ funeral orators have eruditely explained.”[1]
Talking Point:
It’s interesting to note the change in tone from Coetzee’s Disgrace to Zakes’ Ways of Dying. In, the first, Coetzee writes from the perspective of a white, well-to-do professor who can easily take advantage of the lower-class, South African Black population. In Ways of Dying, the reader can feel the emotions of the Black population during their oppression from the upper-class, South African Whites.
Connection:
The quotation reminded me of the following section in the video clip “Poor Whites – South Africa:”
Interviewer: Do you understand how ironic it sounds for white South Africans to complain about a government being racially motivated considering the history here?
Kriel: Yeah, well, uh, but, from the outside, we also see it ironic that a government that fought against racial legislation is now doing exactly the same, what they fought against.
The ANC, formerly a group of freedom fighters, came to power promising to create a non-racial society. But there’s now clear discrimination on the basis of color.
Pahad: You cannot have transformation without pain; you cannot.
Interviewer: Isn’t black economic empowerment, though, in itself, a racist policy?
Pahad: What?
Interviewer: Well, because it’s about race. The entire policy is race-based, isn’t it?
Pahad: Why don’t you look at our constitution?
Interviewer: Well, the very phrase ‘black economic empowerment’ implies that it’s race-based. Are you saying it’s not?
Pahad: No! We had an Apartheid policy that was declared a crime against humanity. Now, either we reproduce Apartheid, or we move and we change, and we change to a non-racial society. But to move to a non-racial society you’ve got to empower those who for more than 350 years had been systematically disempowered, systematically oppressed, systematically repressed, and systematically deprived of every single possibility to grow. Now, how are you going to do that without taking a position?[2]
[1] Mda, Zakes;
Ways of Dying; pg. 55
[2] Jorneymanpictures; YouTube; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFj0HdW2iDs
