South African Autobiography as Subjective History: Making Concessions to the Past (African Histories and Modernities) 3030832317, 9783030832315

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AFRICAN HISTORIES AND MODERNITIES

South African Autobiography as Subjective History Making Concessions to the Past Lena Englund

African Histories and Modernities Series Editors Toyin Falola The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX, USA Matthew M. Heaton Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA, USA

This book series serves as a scholarly forum on African contributions to and negotiations of diverse modernities over time and space, with a particular emphasis on historical developments. Specifically, it aims to refute the hegemonic conception of a singular modernity, Western in origin, spreading out to encompass the globe over the last several decades. Indeed, rather than reinforcing conceptual boundaries or parameters, the series instead looks to receive and respond to changing perspectives on an important but inherently nebulous idea, deliberately creating a space in which multiple modernities can interact, overlap, and conflict. While privileging works that emphasize historical change over time, the series will also feature scholarship that blurs the lines between the historical and the contemporary, recognizing the ways in which our changing understandings of modernity in the present have the capacity to affect the way we think about African and global histories. Editorial Board Akintunde Akinyemi, Literature, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA Malami Buba, African Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Yongin, South Korea Emmanuel Mbah, History, CUNY, College of Staten Island, USA Insa Nolte, History, University of Birmingham, USA Shadrack Wanjala Nasong’o, International Studies, Rhodes College, USA Samuel Oloruntoba, Political Science, TMALI, University of South Africa, South Africa Bridget Teboh, History, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14758

Lena Englund

South African Autobiography as Subjective History Making Concessions to the Past

Lena Englund Finnish Language and Cultural Research University of Eastern Finland Kuopio, Finland English Language and Literature Åbo Akademi University Turku, Finland

ISSN 2634-5773     ISSN 2634-5781 (electronic) African Histories and Modernities ISBN 978-3-030-83231-5    ISBN 978-3-030-83232-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83232-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image © David Noton Photography / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction  1 1.1 Structure of the Book 10 Works Cited 13 2 Writing Subjective Histories 17 2.1 Autobiographical Writing 17 2.2 Revisiting the Past 25 2.3 Personal Histories in the Making 29 2.4 Belonging 32 Works Cited 38 3 Struggling for Space in Christopher Hope’s The Café de Move-on Blues, Sisonke Msimang’s Always Another Country, and Tumi Morake’s And Then Mama Said…: Words That Set My Life Alight 45 3.1 Lost Lessons of the Past 48 3.2 Contested Monuments 51 3.3 Uncomfortable Belonging 56 3.4 From Expatriate to Returnee 61 3.5 Conclusion 69 Works Cited 71 4 Fighting Disadvantage in Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime and Malaika Wa Azania’s Memoirs of a Born Free 75 4.1 Education and Equity 78 v

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4.2 Economic Prospects 86 4.3 Black Tax and Class 89 4.4 Addressing Disappointment and Anger 95 4.5 Conclusion 98 Works Cited100 5 Coming to Terms with Violence and Xenophobia: Mark Gevisser’s Lost and Found in Johannesburg, Kevin Bloom’s Ways of Staying, and Clinton Chauke’s Born in Chains105 5.1 Violent Crime and Whiteness107 5.2 Private Security114 5.3 Excessive Violence117 5.4 Xenophobic Violence126 5.5 Conclusion134 Works Cited135 6 Contemplating Forgiveness in Desmond Tutu’s No Future Without Forgiveness, Lesego Malepe’s Reclaiming Home, and Haji Mohamed Dawjee’s Sorry, Not Sorry139 6.1 Forgiveness and Reconciliation141 6.2 Revisiting South Africa and the Past154 6.3 Whiteness and Wokeness161 6.4 Conclusion169 Works Cited170 7 Rewriting the Legacy of Nelson Mandela: The Memoirs of Ndileka Mandela, Zoleka Mandela, and Ndaba Mandela175 7.1 Seeking Autobiographical Freedom176 7.2 Family Controversies180 7.3 Raised by Grandparents187 7.4 Final Years195 7.5 Conclusion199 Works Cited200 8 Making Autobiographical Concessions to the Past203 Works Cited209 Index211

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This book examines twenty-first-century South African autobiographical writing that addresses the nation’s socio-political realities both past and present. The texts in focus represent and depict a South Africa caught in the midst of contradictory and competing images of the ‘Rainbow Nation’. On the one hand, the great efforts of the nation to heal itself and its people are recognised, but their inevitable futility also emerges as a central concern in the writing examined. The many versions of the past on which South Africa is built relate both to its perceived failures and to its perceived successes as portrayed in the primary texts. The argument in the present study is thus that memoirs published in recent years question and criticise the illusion of a united nation and reveal the flaws and shortcomings of not only the apartheid past but also South Africa at the time each text was written. The post-apartheid period is also dealt with in contemporary autobiographical writing with the indication that this may be the most contested period of all. The nation is presented as a place of controversy and contradiction, but also as a place of resilience. This is manifested particularly well through subtle calls for concessions and compromise on which to build possible futures. The writing examined in this book consists of autobiographical texts by fourteen different writers largely published since 2009. Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s memoir from 1999 has also been included since it marks the threshold between a South Africa still caught up in its so recent © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Englund, South African Autobiography as Subjective History, African Histories and Modernities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83232-2_1

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apartheid past and the ‘new’ South Africa that attempts to move away from being solely defined by it. The primary material analysed participates in creating subjective histories which reshape perceptions of past and present, and which challenge existing narratives of South Africa relating to persisting inequalities, racial divides, and ways of seeing the past. The texts contribute with their personal accounts of living in contemporary South Africa to the multitude of representations of the nation and its people through the variety of personal perspectives on developments related to society, economy, and politics in the nation. At the centre is the quest for space and belonging, and the study investigates who can comfortably belong in South Africa in its post-apartheid, post-Truth, and Reconciliation Commission, post-Mbeki, and post-Zuma state. The material examined suggests that claiming space is a struggle for all writers despite their varied backgrounds. Finding a compromise that enables making peace with troubles in the past and challenges in the present moment is at the core of the primary material. Seeking compromise as presented in the memoirs has become a central endeavour due to the nation’s complex colonial era and apartheid history, manifested particularly explicitly through the work of the Commission, and due to the conflicting social, political, as well as personal interpretations of this past. The complex relationship between personal memory and the past is also investigated in addition to the kinds of potentially collective histories alongside the subjective ones that are portrayed in South African nonfiction. Geoffrey Cubitt (2007) has studied the relationship between history and memory and argues that what could be termed collective memory “presents particular social entities as the possessors of a stable mnemonic capacity that is collectively exercised” (Cubitt 2007: 18). Vambe and Chennells (2009: 2) contradict this in their study of Southern African autobiography when stating that the current interest in such writing is due to the “constant movement between the collective and the self”. A collectively exercised memory thus always emanates from the private and personal, which also acts as another justification for this study. In a South African context, the relationship between art and politics is also relevant. As Michael Chapman (2014: 6) argues in his tribute to Nelson Mandela and his literary contributions, “Mandela aligns content with form in ways that connect him to a long tradition of South African literature. (It is a ‘tradition’ that is appropriate to societies in which the opportunities of art are severely circumscribed by the demands of politics.)” Content remains central also to this study, and autobiography as an art form arguably also

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gains much of its force from the balancing act between private and public, personal and collective. Both inform each other in complex ways as embodied in the material examined. The explicit politics dealt with in the primary material in this study become entrenched in personal narratives, and private lives are described as inherently connected to challenges of present-day South Africa. South African autobiographical and nonfictional writing have attracted scholarly interest previously (see among others Coullie 2006, 2014; Gagiano 2009, 2020; Garman 2015; Horrell 2009; Mbao 2010; Nuttall and Coetzee 1998; Twidle 2012, 2019). The role of nonfictional writing for the nation has thus been well-established before and its importance is not abating to which the present study also testifies. Examining representations of the nation from an explicitly socio-political perspective drawing on social studies has not been done to such an extent before, and much of the primary material discussed in subsequent chapters has received little scholarly attention previously. The present study also includes voices of so-called born free South Africans, people who came of age after the end of apartheid. Using various forms of life writing to address these issues, particularly in the form of memoir and memoir-like texts which are the chosen medium of all writers in this study, relates to what Helen M. Buss (2002: 2) argues about memoir and the relatively limited attention it has received when compared to autobiography, two genres that John Paul Eakin (2020: 68) explains have now more or less merged since the 1990s. Buss states that memoir has remained more obscure partly due to “the identification of the form as a life-writing practice associated more with history than with literature”. Although memoir can no longer be said to be obscure, or to receive limited attention—on the contrary, it has become a dominant form of life writing—the notion of history’s precedence is still central to the present study as well which draws considerably on social studies in its examination of twenty-first-century South African autobiographical texts. Buss’s claim works as a justification for the multidisciplinary nature of this book, although the present study does not engage with notions of autobiographical writing as a less ‘literary’ genre or as secondary to writing that is labelled fiction. Life writing balances between truth and fiction, and this balancing act creates unique pieces of writing that not only address events in the past but also envision futures based on whatever challenges the present moment is dealing with. Therefore, literature’s role for nation building is profound.

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Literature in all its shapes and forms imagines and represents individuals, societies, and histories, and also participates in the creation of a national repository of memories, traumas, and experiences, often relating to a troubled past. The many conflicting narratives of South Africa thus become central as the nation is still processing its apartheid past, although the texts indicate that the present moment can no longer be seen as fully immersed in and emanating from that past. South Africa’s past, present, and future exist in these subjective histories and renditions of what has been, what is, and what may come, and the selected texts all attest to this. Such a premise for the present study is reinforced by Buss (2002: 2), who adds that “memoir does not claim to be a ‘complete history,’ but rather the testimony of a writer who has ‘personal knowledge’ of the events, the era, or the people that are its subject”. This is echoed by Judith Lütge Coullie (2006: 2) in a more recent edited collection titled Selves in Question: Interviews on Southern African Auto/biography where she writes that autobiographical texts “establish and cement relations” to people around us. Further, they are connected to hierarchies, “sometimes also offering alternative ones”. More importantly, “our auto/biographical accounts become entwined in struggles about justice” (ibid.). These lines were stated in the years after the TRC and the monumental work carried out by the Commission. Seeking justice in terms of retributive or restorative efforts has turned into a search for balance, for recognition and legitimacy. To this, the selected primary material attests, giving notions of hierarchies, justice, and histories an urgently needed present-day perspective in an era no longer solely defined by apartheid or by the TRC. Njabulo S. Ndebele (1999: 22–23) argues in his article written in the immediate aftermath of the TRC that any potential healing will require time and will emerge “from the new tendency for South Africans to be willing to negotiate their way through social, intellectual, religious, political and cultural diversity. In sum, it will come from the progressive accumulation of ethical and moral insights”. The memoirs examined here can be argued to provide the ethical and moral insights Ndebele calls for, and they also emerge from a variety of social, political, and cultural contexts. To state that they provide the hindsight needed in order to exhaustively assess the effects of apartheid and the TRC would be to undermine and undervalue the personal stories put forth in the texts, and just as narratives of the past continue to change as writing history remains a subjective endeavour, so too will the ways of seeing South Africa’s past keep changing. The primary material offers a variety of perceptions of South Africa

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and its present challenges while remaining personal and private; to the extent that published autobiographical texts ever remain private, having been written for posterity and, in this case, for English-speaking audiences across the world. Unresolved—and potentially unresolvable—issues relating to race and the past still, however, form a central part of post-apartheid disillusionment in South African life writing. To what extent apartheid can and should be held accountable for more contemporary troubles is relevant in this context and also addressed in the primary material. This also raises questions about the relationship between personal experiences and collective memory, particularly with regard to coming to terms with profoundly negative aspects of the past (Assmann 2008; Boehmer 2012; Stone 2017). This historical and political background thus forms a starting point for the present book. The desire to unite the nation, for example through the work of the TRC, is sometimes portrayed as impossible, naïve, or even insincere in the memoirs under scrutiny. Contemporary events and developments in South Africa also attest to this, such as the removal of statues connected with the colonial era as well as protests against tuition fees at universities. This discrepancy and gap between that which is shown on the surface and the actual reality beneath suggests that something beyond the Commission, something more than policies of affirmative action, is needed in order to establish legitimacy and equality for all. The autobiographical texts examined in this book speak to this imbalance, offering a unique possibility to investigate the notion of a unified nation working towards a common good and to expose illusions and persisting narratives of South Africa. The primary material both support and refute this ideal, addressing and depicting a South Africa that consists of a cluster of conflicting and competing representations and voices that battle for recognition and visibility. This contest takes place despite, but paradoxically also due to, efforts to reconcile and unite people across social and racial boundaries. Society since apartheid has attempted to come to terms with what happened to and by its people, to reach some level of reconciliation between those deemed victims and perpetrators, and to create sustainable and just futures for all of South Africa’s citizens. This utopian endeavour is described in a number of works of fiction and nonfiction published since the end of apartheid and the beginning of Nelson Mandela’s presidency in 1994, for example in the fiction of Lauren Beukes, Zakes Mda, and Niq Mhlongo. Since 1994, huge steps have been taken in order to resolve the past and work towards a stable and equal future for all citizens. Despite

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enormous efforts, many of the steps taken have proven inadequate. Righting wrongs created by decades of systematic abuse is a monumental task and inevitable shortcomings have led to certain disappointment and disillusionment. The years of apartheid created a society based on race but remained notoriously inconsistent in its categorisation of people. Race still defines much of societal debate and is a running theme throughout the primary material for the present study. The apartheid years of unimaginable atrocities and state-sanctioned injustice also created a society mired in inequality, a legacy the nation seems unable to make peace with and from which it struggles to move forward. Inequality emerges as a central topic in several of the memoirs examined, if not all, from perspectives such as access to education, economic prospects, and levels of crime. Few nations have taken as concrete steps in order to reconcile with a brutal past as South Africa, through the TRC first and foremost but also by implementing measures such as the affirmative action policy after apartheid. Despite these efforts, research shows (cf. Leibbrandt et al. 2012: 19; ‘Inequality Trends in South Africa’ 2019: 4) that inequality has not decreased. These notions are also discussed in the primary material in this study; memoirs which address the many challenges still present in South Africa. The past is reflected against the present and vice versa. The present moment and foreseeable futures of South Africa thus remain complex, and as research has also shown, past, present, and future remain “intertwined” (Lundgren and Scheckle 2019: 58). For example, Chana Teeger (2014) investigates to what extent and in what ways South Africans use the past to explain occurrences of crime in the country at present and found that White and Black respondents “selectively referenced the past” in different ways (Teeger 2014: 50). Thus, the struggle over the past is by no means over and also encompasses more recent pasts since the end of apartheid. The two presidents, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, elected after Nelson Mandela’s presidency ended, have both struggled with their own controversies and troubled legacies. Mbeki’s presidency coincided with the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa, and the president’s personal statements, as well as the statements of his administration, stalled access to treatment and prevention of the disease (cf. Nattrass 2010; Kalichman 2014; Sesanti 2018; Jaiswal et  al. 2020). The end of Zuma’s rule is characterised as follows: “The ousting of South African President Jacob Zuma and his replacement by Cyril Ramaphosa brought to an end a decade of South African politics characterised by widespread

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corruption and increasingly dysfunctional governance” (‘South Africa after Zuma’, 2018). Ramaphosa’s legacy remains to be properly recorded and analysed at the time of writing as he is the current head of state (2021). The role of party politics and the future of ANC are at the core of the futures of South Africa too, and in terms of politics surrounding the ousting of Mbeki and later of Zuma, both had much to do with internal politics. Therefore, the future of South Africa’s democracy is also entangled with that of the ANC, a notion which has officially been challenged and contested by new voices such as that of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Economic Freedom Fighters, and its leading figure Julius Malema who has also been involved in controversies of his own (cf. Gunner 2015; Posel 2013). These turns of events will also be briefly addressed in this book as they connect with the discussion of subjective history and voice in multiple ways. These complicated political events and transformations remain the reality of South Africa and form part of a very recent past and the present moment, and also indicate that the nation may be divided on so many more accounts than race. This is also exemplified in the primary material examined. The very recent past (and present moment at the time of writing) has seen the spread of the global COVID-19 pandemic which struck the entire world in 2020, causing South Africa too to implement strict measures in order to keep the virus from spreading out of control. Controversies surrounding the measures again led back to the question of who gets to speak and on what matters in South Africa. The measures were criticised, for example, by Dr Glenda Gray, who faced a serious backlash on government level due to her public criticism of the lockdown which was implemented during the pandemic (Evans and Cowan 2020). This raises urgent questions about the current state of freedom of speech in South Africa. Daniël J. Louw (2020: 1) addresses the dangers of a more totalitarian turn in his paper on recent developments of democracy in South Africa and makes the following noteworthy observation: “It seems that, due to a growing dissatisfaction, governments respond in a more autocratic way. The fear for a loss of power brings about a shift from democratic sensitivity to autocratic control”. To what extent the pandemic could lead to an increasingly autocratic South Africa remains to be seen and perhaps future works of nonfiction will attempt to make sense of this particular period in time, the years of the pandemic, and create new subjective histories that revisit recent and more distant pasts. Arguably, no historical moment is ever as contested and

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complex as the so-called present, which is perhaps better seen as the recent past yet stretching into the future. As James Olney (1998: 343) states, memory “is both recollective and anticipatory”. Further, he concludes the following: “[m]emory reaches toward the future as toward the past, and balance demands a poised receptiveness in both directions” (ibid.). The present study attempts to conduct its analysis from a perspective of receptiveness in terms of both past and future. The COVID-19 pandemic sees no signs of abating at the time of writing despite vaccines and vaccine programmes being rolled out (in parts of the world that can pay for them), but the early months of 2020 when the pandemic spread rapidly around the world are already part of the past. The memoirs examined also belong to the past, as the present moment remains the most elusive and intangible temporal space of all. We may interpret the known past through our subjective histories, and we may predict the unknown future, but the fleeting present moment always belongs in equal parts to both past and future. The primary material in this book reflects this complexity. The writers write for the future while drawing on their pasts. All these notions briefly discussed in this introduction give rise to the following questions: what is the relationship between ethical memories that propel towards healing and reconciliation, and memories that speak of racial stereotypes and divides? What kind of legitimacy and for whom is sought through the memoirs? In what ways do the memoirs express and depict national mourning for a lost past and in what ways can this be said to manifest the missing piece between the TRC and true reconciliation? What kind of futures are envisioned? In what ways do the memoirs embody a new era beyond post-apartheid through their representations and imaginations of the nation’s past and present, most of all through the indication that making concessions to the past and present is necessary in order to move forward? The present study is built around these questions that are addressed in some form and to some extent in all memoirs examined. Much if not all of the writing examined in this book also deals with questions of belonging in addition to voice and authenticity. Who gets to be part of the new South Africa and on what terms? More importantly, who sets the terms? All memoirs in focus express anxieties to different degrees about the space the writers occupy, and it is a most relevant theme throughout the book. To be South African today, as represented in the primary material, seems to mean having to balance between not only the past and present but also between the many challenges affecting the lives of all citizens. These

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challenges are, as mentioned, connected to notions of class, race, inequality, crime, political futures, access to education, landowning, and many more. Such notions also form the core of the chapters in this book, which address particular themes and topics that emerge as central in the memoirs analysed, and which have also been particularly sensitive in South Africa since the end of apartheid. This suggests that what may be most central to the autobiographical writing examined here is the need for concessions not only to the past and its troubles but to present challenges too. The contest for space, for redress and equal prospects, culminates in the realisation that compromises must be made if there is to be a possible future for all. To what extent the writers agree to making concessions, and in what ways, is a central question for the study. The main argument is that compromise may be the only way forward, as suggested or refuted by the writers in focus. Does compromising and conceding to the past in South African autobiographical writing manifest and embody the continued process of reconciliation in disguise? A hypothetical answer is yes, they do. This connects with the importance of narration as stated by Andrew van der Vlies (2008: 951; emphasis in original): “The fact of the TRC’s elevation of a multitude of petits recits to counter the monstrous master narratives of the period, and the sense that the Commission had in effect initiated a process of storytelling rather than produced a final version of the past, endorsed narrative and narration”. Instead of producing a single master narrative, South African writers have set out to narrate themselves and their lives, as part of the process of storytelling that the Commission put in motion. Just as the Commission conducted its work based on the notion of compromise, so do twenty-first century South African autobiographical texts too. Living together after apartheid is already a massive concession of its own, and the discontent on many sides is present in the writing examined. The study departs from a discussion of subjective histories and the role they play for national repositories. The focus is mainly on memoir as it is the chosen medium and forms the primary material for the present study, and the chapter particularly takes issue with the confessional mode and its many dimensions. Remembering, forgetting, and claiming a voice are all central questions, and who gets to write what in the context of South Africa is a significant theme. Writing memoir can be seen as a most selfish form of writing, centring as it does on the author and their perspective. Despite demands on truth and truthfulness, memoir too is eventually a kind of fiction, relying as it does on real, lived life but taking as its starting

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point the shortcomings of human memory. This inevitably places the genre somewhere in the grey area between fact and fiction. The facts presented are one person’s facts, adding to the many dimensions that is South Africa. Examining the challenges of the nation past and present is most effectively done through the written medium that is memoir; a genre of writing that has an equally complex relationship to truth, past, present, and representation as does South Africa itself. The selection of primary material for the study does not set out to be comprehensive in its examination of South African life writing, which arguably would not even be possible, nor does it pursue equal representation of all racial categories into which South Africans are generally divided. Instead, the works in focus speak to the many themes and topics that emerge as particularly central in contemporary South Africa and therefore in nonfiction as well. Having time to write and financial support to do so is a privilege available to few individuals, not to mention who gets published and is able to gain visibility through their writing. The voices that emerge in the selected material all address in different contexts and from a variety of perspectives the many challenges South Africa faces today. Thus, the primary material for the present study has been selected in order to support dialogue between the different texts in connection to the themes and topics discussed.

1.1   Structure of the Book The chapters have been organised and structured in a manner that supports the inclusion of texts across racial, social, temporal, and geographical divides. The ordering of the chapters aims to provide a cohesive whole, starting with the question of belonging most concretely in Chap. 3 and moving on to examine disadvantage and privilege from perspectives of education, crime, and xenophobia in Chaps. 4 and 5. The following two chapters are more focused on political realities and histories in South Africa, exploring first the notions of forgiveness and reconciliation in Chap. 6 and then the legacy of Nelson Mandela in Chap. 7. A concluding discussion is provided in Chap. 8. In addition to Chap. 2 on subjective histories, which functions as a starting point for the analysis and provides a theoretical and conceptual background of sorts for this study which remains highly contextual throughout, five main chapters thus constitute the book. Chapter 2 also offers a brief discussion of subjective history in terms of autobiography,

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outlining previous studies of South African life writing and the intricacies of making subjective histories public, often with a collective purpose. The aim of the five subsequent chapters is to provide analysis of a variety of nonfictional texts by South African writers and to explore recurring themes and topics that expose, reinforce, or redress challenges that constitute the nation. The actual analysis of memoirs starts in Chap. 3, which centres on the memoirs of Christopher Hope, Sisonke Msimang, and Tumi Morake. Although an unlikely group, the three writers can be brought together in this manner as their writing emanates from the desire to understand their place in contemporary South Africa. Hope left the country in the 1970s, the same year Msimang was born, and returns to ponder particularly the place of Whites in the country. Msimang’s outsiderness comes from having spent her childhood and youth elsewhere, returning as a highly educated professional to pursue a career in South Africa. Past repression and transgressions still hold South Africans in a firm grip, and both Hope (2019) and Msimang (2017) contemplate their own complicity in a long history of subjugation and social division. Their position is one of privilege, portraying two returnees for whom South Africa is still home, yet uneasily so, but which still provides a bond that is not easily broken. Morake (2018) offers a somewhat different viewpoint, writing about her early life but dedicating a significant part of her memoir to the controversy in which she became involved while working for a South African radio station. The controversy quite explicitly centred on how to talk about the past and led Morake to reconsider her place and voice in South Africa as an outspoken public figure. In contrast to these somewhat privileged perspectives on belonging in South Africa, Chap. 4 deals with memoirs by two writers from a very different background. At the centre are experiences of disadvantage in the memoirs of Trevor Noah (2017) and Malaika Wa Azania (2018). The two writers grew up in similar circumstances, with fierce mothers for whom getting an education for their children was a primary goal. Education is a running theme for both writers, and they deal with the experiences of going to, for example, former Model C schools and realising the privilege connected with such schools. Whiteness as a marker of privilege is also dealt with, as Noah is of mixed origin making his position somewhat fluid from time to time, while Wa Azania is more vocal about the persisting inequalities and frequently raises the question of equity in her writing. The complex relationship between race and class also emerges. The concept of

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Black tax is addressed in both memoirs, and it is something to which many of the writers examined in this study refer. It is therefore discussed in this chapter too. Chapter 5 continues to explore the topic of inequality as it takes as its primary focus experiences of violence and crime in Mark Gevisser’s (2014), Kevin Bloom’s (2009), and Clinton Chauke’s (2018) memoirs. All three writers attempt to outline the realities of living in a society rife with violent crime, albeit from widely different perspectives. Gevisser and Bloom are both White South African journalists, but while Bloom’s memoir shows more journalistic tendencies in his quest to understand the role of violent crime in South Africa, Gevisser utilises his journalistic skills to uncover pasts and presents of Johannesburg not only through crime but also via its apartheid history. Much of this is related to the repressive measures against homosexuals. Chauke, for his part, belongs to the contested category of the born frees; those who were born or came of age after the end of apartheid, depending on the definition, and who have only known free South Africa. As Chauke depicts in his memoir, that freedom may still not be the same for all of the nation’s citizens and especially not for those born poor and Black. Violence and xenophobia emerge in his writing as central themes and Chauke ponders the ways in which they interconnect with lack of privileges. Chapter 6 examines notions of forgiveness in three texts that offer quite separate perspectives on the work of the TRC, on coming to terms with the legacy of apartheid in twenty-first-century South Africa, and on the evolving relationship between Black and White South Africans. Desmond Tutu’s No Future Without Forgiveness, published in the immediate aftermath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, offers a detailed account of the hearings and the importance of learning to live together despite the lasting pain of apartheid. Through the texts of Haji Mohamed Dawjee (2018) and Lesego Malepe (2018), the chapter explores how notions of forgiveness and reconciliation are addressed in more recent works by South Africans who experienced the effects of apartheid. However, the texts are not looking towards the past but remain anchored in present-day South Africa, for example, in Malepe’s memoir, which offers perspectives on the land compensation schemes for South Africans whose land was appropriated by the apartheid government. Dawjee’s essay collection is a forceful commentary on what it means to be coloured not only in South Africa but in the world at large, where whiteness still dominates socially, economically, and culturally.

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Chapter 7 deals with the legacies of Nelson Mandela, who passed away in 2013. The focus is on memoirs by three of his grandchildren: Ndileka Mandela (2019), Ndaba Mandela (2018), and Zoleka Mandela (2019, originally published in 2013). The three texts reveal controversies within the family and address the various difficulties the family faced during Mandela’s imprisonment but also challenges that emerged after his release. The three writers have quite separate aims with their memoirs, as Ndileka tries to differentiate between her own persona and the burden of being a Mandela, whereas Ndaba’s memoir reads more like a tribute to Nelson Mandela’s life. Zoleka only fleetingly discusses the challenges of being a Mandela while centring first and foremost on her breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment. The three texts both reinforce Mandela’s image as the nation’s benevolent father and acknowledge the difficulties his long imprisonment created in the family and how his absence is repeated in the lives of so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who were also raised by grandparents or other relatives. Interrupted family patterns are a central thread through all three memoirs. The final text, Chap. 8, brings the analysis of all memoirs together, providing a brief concluding discussion of central findings and highlighting the need for compromise and concession as expressed in the primary texts.

Works Cited Inequality Trends in South Africa. 2019. Statistics South Africa. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. ‘South Africa after Zuma’. 2018. Strategic Comments 24(4): i–ii. https://doi. org/10.1080/13567888.2018.1470741. Assmann, Aleida. 2008. Transformations between History and Memory. Social Research 75 (1): 49–72. Bloom, Kevin. 2009. Ways of Staying. London: Portobello Books. Boehmer, Elleke. 2012. Permanent Risk—When Crisis Defines a Nation’s Writing. In Trauma, Memory, and Narrative in the Contemporary South African Novel— Essays, ed. Ewald Mengel and Michela Borzaga, 29–46. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Buss, Helen M. 2002. Repossessing the World: Reading Memoirs by Contemporary Women. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Chapman, Michael. 2014. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918–2013) A Tribute to His Contribution to Literature. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 26 (1): 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X. 2014.897461.

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Chauke, Clinton. 2018. Born in Chains: The Diary of an Angry ‘Born-free’. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers. Coullie, Judith Lütge. 2006. Introduction. In Selves in Question: Interviews on Southern African Auto/biography, ed. Judith Lütge Coullie, Stephan Meyer, Thengeni Ngwenya, and Thomas Olver, 1–115. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. ———. 2014. The ethics of nostalgia in post-apartheid South Africa. Rethinking History 18 (2): 195–210. ­https://doi.org/10.1080/13642529.2013.858449. Coullie, Judith Lütge, Stephan Meyer, Thengeni Ngwenya, and Thomas Olver, eds. 2006. Selves in Question: Interviews on Southern African Auto/biography. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Cubitt, Geoffrey. 2007. History and Memory. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Dawjee, Haji Mohamed. 2018. Sorry, Not Sorry: Experiences of a Brown Woman in a White South Africa. Cape Town: Penguin Books. Eakin, John Paul. 2020. Writing Life Writing: Narrative, History, Autobiography. New York: Routledge. Evans, Sarah, and Kyle Cowan. 2020. SAMRC Investigation into Glenda Gray Is a ‘Witch Hunt’—Adam Habib. News24, 25 May 2020. Accessed May 25, 2020. https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/samrc-­investigation­into-­glenda-­gray-­is-­a-­witch-­hunt-­adam-­habib-­20200525. Gagiano, Annie. 2009. ‘…to Remember Is Like Starting to See’: South African Life Stories Today. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 21 (1–2): 261–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2009.9678321. ———. 2020. Complicating Apartheid Resistance Histories by Means of South African Autobiographies. a/b Auto/biography Studies 35 (3): 667–689. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2020.1762996. Garman, Anthea. 2015. Antjie Krog and the Post-Apartheid Public Sphere: Speaking Poetry to Power. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu Natal Press. Gevisser, Mark. 2014. Lost and Found in Johannesburg: A Memoir. London: Granta Books. Gunner, Liz. 2015. Song, Identity and the State: Julius Malema’s Dubul ibhunu Song as Catalyst. Journal of African Cultural Studies 27 (3): 326–341. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2015.1035701. Hope, Christopher. 2019. The Café de Move-On Blues: In Search of the New South Africa. London: Atlantic Books. Horrell, Georgina. 2009. White Lies, White Truth: Confession and Childhood in White South African Women’s Narratives. Scrutiny2 14 (2): 58–71. https:// doi.org/10.1080/18125440903461812. Jaiswal, J., L. LoSchiavo, and D.C. Perlman. 2020. Disinformation, Misinformation and Inequality-Driven Mistrust in the Time of COVID-19: Lessons Unlearned

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from AIDS Denialism. AIDS and Behavior 24: 2776–2780. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10461-­020-­02925-­y. Kalichman, Seth C. 2014. The Psychology of AIDS Denialism: Pseudoscience, Conspiracy Thinking, and Medical Mistrust. European Psychologist 19 (1): 13–22. https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-­9040/a000175. Leibbrandt, Murray, Arden Finn, and Ingrid Woolard. 2012. Describing and Decomposing Post-apartheid Income Inequality in South Africa. Development Southern Africa 29 (1): 19–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 0376835X.2012.645639. Louw, Daniël J. 2020. Disillusionment and the Dilemma of ‘The Democratic Type’: From Plato (Athenian Populism) to Helen Zille (Constitutional Democracy), Cyril Ramaphosa (Cooperative Democracy) and Jesus Christ (Compassionate Democracy). In die Skriflig 54 (1). https://doi.org/10.4102/ ids.v54i1.2516. Lundgren, Berit, and Eileen Scheckle. 2019. Hope and Future: Youth Identity Shaping in Post-Apartheid South Africa. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth 24 (1): 51–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2018.1463853. Malepe, Lesego. 2018. Reclaiming Home: Diary of a Journey Through Post-­ Apartheid South Africa. Berkeley: She Writes Press. Mandela, Zoleka. 2019 [2013]. When Hope Whispers. Auckland Park: Jacana. Mandela, Ndaba. 2018. 11 Life Lessons from Nelson Mandela. London: Windmill Books. Mandela, Ndileka. 2019. I am Ndileka: More than My Surname. Auckland Park: Jacana. Mbao, Wamuwi. 2010. Inscribing Whiteness and Staging Belonging in Contemporary Autobiographies and Life-Writing Forms. English in Africa 37 (1): 63–75. https://doi.org/10.4314/eia.v37i1.54987. Morake, Tumi. 2018. And Then Mama Said…: Words that Set My Life Alight. Cape Town: Penguin Books. Msimang, Sisonke. 2017. Always Another Country. New  York, London: World Editions. Nattrass, Nicoli. 2010. Still Crazy After All These Years: The Challenge of AIDS Denialism for Science. AIDS and Behavior 14 (2): 248–251. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10461-­009-­9641-­z. Ndebele, Njabulo S. 1999. South Africa: Quandaries of Compromise. UNESCO Courier 52 (12): 22. Noah, Trevor. 2017. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. London: John Murray. Nuttall, Sarah, and Carli Coetzee. 1998. Introduction. In Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa, ed. Sarah Nuttall and Carli Coetzee, 1–15. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Olney, James. 1998. Memory and Narrative: The Weave of Life-Writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Posel, Deborah. 2013. The ANC Youth League and the Politicization of Race. Thesis Eleven 115 (1): 58–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/0725513612470534. Sesanti, Simphiwe. 2018. Thabo Mbeki’s ‘AIDS Denialism’: Contradicting Pan-­ Africanism and the African Renaissance. Theoria 65 (165): 27–51. https://doi. org/10.3167/th.2018.6515602. Stone, Dan. 2017. History, memory, testimony. In The Future of Testimony: Interdisciplinary Perspective on Witnessing, ed. Jane Kilby and Antony Rowland, 17–30. London: Routledge. Teeger, Chana. 2014. Collective memory and collective fear: How South Africans use the past to explain crime. Qualitative Sociology 37 (1): 69–92. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11133-­013-­9267-­3. Tutu, Desmond. 1999. No Future Without Forgiveness. London: Rider. Twidle, Hedley. 2012. ‘In a Country Where You Couldn’t Make This Shit Up’?: Literary Nonfiction in South Africa. Safundi 13 (1–2): 5–28. https://doi. org/10.1080/17533171.2011.642586. ———. 2019. Experiments with Truth: Narrative Non-Fiction and the Coming of Democracy in South Africa. Suffolk: James Currey. Vambe, Maurice Taonezvi, and Anthony Chennells. 2009. Introduction: The Power of Autobiography in Southern Africa. Journal of Literary Studies 25 (1): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/02564710802261725. van der Vlies, Andrew. 2008. On the Ambiguities of Narrative and of History: Writing (about) the Past in Recent South African Literary Criticism. Journal of Southern African Studies 34 (4): 949–961. https://doi. org/10.1080/03057070802456870. Wa Azania, Malaika. 2018 [2014]. Memoirs of a Born Free: Reflections on the New South Africa by a Member of the Post-Apartheid Generation. New  York: New Stories Press.

CHAPTER 2

Writing Subjective Histories

This chapter provides a background to the topics raised in the memoirs examined as well as in the analysis, starting with a discussion of autobiography as a genre. The importance of memoir is discussed as a mode and form of writing that has become increasingly popular also in South Africa. Questions of voice and space are raised as they emerge as central throughout the book, defining the primary material and their take on personal and collective realities. Memoir documents and creates subjective history, and its archival role is particularly important. Notions of race and belonging are discussed briefly, as they form a central part of the analysis and the backdrop to the personal histories presented. Previous studies of South African autobiographical writing are also outlined with regard to how they connect to the present study.

2.1   Autobiographical Writing The selected primary material for this study draws on a variety of forms. The texts analysed represent essays, travel writing, reportage, and also memoir in a more traditional sense. While context and content are given precedence in the analysis due to their urgency and prominence in the selected material, it is necessary to briefly outline the intricacies of autobiographical writing as a genre. Various forms of life writing are dealt with in the volume On Life-Writing (2015) edited by Zachary Leader, and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Englund, South African Autobiography as Subjective History, African Histories and Modernities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83232-2_2

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Hermione Lee (2015: 125) argues that “[a]t the heart of these impure, multilayered and multisourced narratives, is always the desire to get a vivid sense of the person, or people, who are the subject”. The notion rings true for the primary material for this book too, with the central addition that not only do multi-layered and multi-sourced autobiographical texts provide insight into the writer’s life but also give valuable and detailed accounts of their surroundings and the society in which they live. Helen Buss (2002: 2), too, elaborates on these notions, stating that memoir “is becoming a discursive practice in which material realities and imaginary possibilities coexist”, and this seems to be particularly true for the memoirs examined. All texts examined address contemporary realities in South Africa and ponder not only imaginary possibilities for the future but also lost prospects. They offer representations of what it is and what could be, but also of what was not to be. Expressions relating to concession and compromise emerge in the context of reconciling present realities with futures that were never realised. Referring to the material as memoir is thus a choice made due to the fluidity of memoir as a genre and to its multiple uses and forms. It is of a more periodic nature, presenting “an anecdotal depiction of people and events” (Marcus 1994: 3), as opposed to autobiography which can be defined as documenting life “as a totality” (ibid.) and seen as “[r]etrospective prose narrative written by a real person concerning his own existence, where the focus is his individual life, in particular the story of his personality” (Lejeune 1989: 4). Lejeune, too, argues that memoir is a somewhat different kind of writing that does not fill all the criteria listed for autobiography. The more temporary and transitory dimension of memoir, providing accounts of life in particular places, times, and situations, is well suited for addressing South Africa’s realities in the twenty-first century too. All texts discussed here can be included in such a definition of memoir, even if they build on personal essay, travel writing, or journalistic reporting. However, memoir has been criticised too for its focus on the self and for its popularity in recent decades. Blake Morrison (2015: 202) calls the confessional memoir a “disreputable” genre, which according to Morrison is sometimes regarded as “little more than a selfie, a look-at me snapshot, a glorified ego”. Paradoxically enough, writing the nation, or at least its subjective history and exploring the narratives of the nation as they tie in with one’s own life, enables counteracting any views of memoir as no more than a selfie or an extension of the ego. When it takes on a

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specifically political dimension, when it becomes intervention in itself or at least an attempt to create knowledge (Garman 2015), memoir comes to serve a much higher and more important purpose. An example of controversial memoir would be Rian Malan’s acclaimed yet somewhat contested text My Traitor’s Heart (1990), the publication of which caused an uproar (Beckerman 2008: 49): “He was seen as both a self-hating Afrikaner and a self-admitted racist”. Seeing memoir as disreputable due to its focus on the self is a serious misjudgement of its power and influence, even—or especially—at its most controversial. Memoir, being a document about the self, also provides insight into relationships in which the writer engages. Buss (2002: 187) explains that “memoir discourse needs to continue to be the lively art of balancing the self and the other”. ‘The other’ in contemporary South African autobiographical writing as examined here is the nation itself, and writers balance their lives and selves in connection to their place in the nation’s past and present. Thomas Larson (2007: xii), writer and journalist, emphasises these notions too: I see memoirists focusing on the emotional immediacy of a singular relationship—unresolved feelings for a parent, a child, a sibling, a partner, an illness, a regret, a loss, a death, a phase like childhood or adolescence, a period like college. As they tell their stories, some authors expand the personal to such larger issues as heritage, gender, ethnicity, culture, the spiritual and natural realms, even time itself.

Again, the singular relationship is here interpreted as between the writer and the nation, and it is this relationship that is explored as an expression of subjective history. The era of the confessional has coincided with the post-apartheid period in South Africa, and it is therefore no surprise that themes such as belonging, personal identity, and overcoming traumatic pasts have become popular. The rise of the memoir (Gilmore 2001; Buss 2002; Nixon 2012; Coward 2013; Eakin 2020) was initiated by texts such as The Liar’s Club (1995) by Mary Karr and Angela’s Ashes (1996) by Frank McCourt, which became widely read and inspired others to write personally about their lives. Since such early ‘misery memoirs’ detailing troubled and traumatic childhoods, memoir has moved into new realms. A notable aspect of more recent autobiographical writing is its connection with journalism and

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reportage, and several of the texts examined here have been written by people who also work as journalists (e.g. Msimang, Gevisser, and Bloom). The confessional has been theorised and analysed in the earlier collection Modern Confessional Writing (2006) edited by Jo Gill. Gill (2006: 4) defines the confessional as an expression that “constructs rather then [sic] reflects some pre-textual truth”. In connection to South African autobiographical writing, it is a relevant observation. The selected memoirs in this book use their private and personal experiences to make sense of their relationship to the nation while creating new truths and histories. These notions are further elaborated by Susannah Radstone (2006: 167) in her chapter on confession and testimony, in which she establishes that “the contemporary proliferation of testimonial discourses and of writing and criticism on testimony suggest that discourses of testimonial witness may now be superseding confession’s dominance in literature and other media”  (emphasis in the  original). The distinction made by Radstone between the two categories draws on the separation between self and other, where “in confession it is the self that is scrutinised and implicated—the self that is the subject and object of confession. Witness testimony’s object, on the other hand, is always an event or an other that is external to the witness” (Radstone 2006: 169). All of the texts examined can be said to draw both on self and other as already established, and writers such as Hope, Msimang, Gevisser, and Tutu address the notion of personal guilt and implication in relation to South Africa’s past. Yet the self and the other, the self and nation, remain intertwined. The memoirs examined can be said to be both confessional and testimonial, combining two fluid categories in their representations of self and other. Rosalind Coward’s (2013) book-length discussion of the subjective and the confessional within journalism is another central starting point also for the present study. Coward (2013: 7) argues that “[s]peaking personally is now a dominant element in journalism” and ponders the reasons for the pull it has on readers. She (2013: 9) emphasises its “extraordinary” power and states that “this kind of journalism connects people to public debates more effectively than the old sources of information”. Hence, it is relevant to pay attention to such writing and also to academically assess it, its purpose, and potential impact. The private has always been public to some degree but in contexts such as post-apartheid South Africa, hardly anything remains private, although it is worth noting that this for its part also risks becoming a cliché.

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The notion of authenticity arises too, raising concern about the reliability of confessional journalism and other similar writing (Coward 2013: 94; Gilmore 2001: 3). Coward (2013: 104) also asserts that many of these confessional writers are female, resting on notions of “domesticity and emotionality”. However, several of the memoirs under scrutiny here are written by (White) male journalists. A similar pattern can be distinguished in Zimbabwe, with journalists such as Geoffrey Nyarota, Peter Godwin (for a more detailed analysis of Godwin’s memoirs, see Englund 2017), Douglas Rogers, and Andrew Meldrum having published their memoirs, some of them in several volumes. Therefore, gender is not irrelevant to the analysis here either. The subjective histories constructed in the memoirs are often of an explicitly masculine kind, drawing on the journalistic endeavours of the writers which sometimes place them in danger. Similar writing appears in this study too, through the writing of Kevin Bloom, Mark Gevisser, and Christopher Hope whose memoirs can all be said to draw on deeply personal experiences, but which also attempt to make more profound political statements. All three memoirs include voices of others and build partly on interviews with people living in South Africa. Coward (2013: 105–106) outlines problems with these kinds of gendered confessionals particularly from a female point of view and states that there has often been a demand among editors and publishers for female writers to “reveal shortcomings and personal difficulties”. The primary material selected for this study does not conform to such simple gendered divides, as the texts examined reveal shortcomings and personal difficulties while also making explicit social and political statements. The distinction between confessing in a professional capacity and personal narrative also places writing that belongs more to the first category in an intricate position where it no longer is straightforwardly confessional but more a commentary on society as a whole, or at least selected parts of it. However, as Morrison (2015: 211; emphasis in the original) argues, “the intimacy of witnessing often is confessional, and that’s what sets it apart from mere reportage”. In works such as Ways of Staying (2009) by Kevin Bloom, the entanglements become even deeper as the memoir is about loss but still also functions as an extended reportage of post-apartheid South Africa from the perspective of violent crime. Christopher Hope’s two texts from 1988 and 2018, respectively, show a similar pattern, revolving more around the politics of the nation and being less concerned with personal matters. The personal informs the political and not the other way around in these examples.

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All of the texts mentioned conform to what Morrison (2015: 211) argues about motives in confessional writing that it can work as “catharsis, cleansing, or purgation”. Reconciliation is an ongoing process in the memoirs, as South Africa still needs to overcome its divides and heal its wounds as represented in the material studied, and with that background in mind, it comes as no surprise that the autobiographical and confessional have been such popular literary forms. Furthermore, memoir can be said to attempt to “put the severed parts together, make them whole again, and move beyond pain and hurt” (Morrison 2015: 213). Here, Roger Kennedy’s (2002) examination of the relationship between psychoanalysis, history, and subjectivity is relevant. He argues that there are three ways of seeing and relating to the past: holding on to it, reliving traumas, or repressing and denying the past (Kennedy 2002: 1–2). Kennedy also states that while some people may struggle to remember the past, others do not remember what has happened and this causes suffering according to him (p. 2). Thus, amnesia or wilful forgetting may be as harmful as repeatedly returning to the past. However, his most pertinent argument, even though it is mentioned mainly in passing, is that there are ways to face the past and that this is necessary in order for mourning to take place (ibid.). Kennedy’s argument is particularly important when dealing with South African autobiographical writing, and fiction too. South Africa transitioned from decades of apartheid and race-related violence to the first free elections in 1994 when Mandela became president of the free nation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission began its work in 1995 (Abdullah 2015: 43) and Archbishop Desmond Tutu became its leader (Vora and Vora 2004: 305). Its purpose was to document the experiences of people directly affected by apartheid and the human rights violations that occurred, in order to “provide rehabilitation, reparation, and amnesty to perpetrators of politically motivated crimes” (Vora and Vora 2004: 306). The Commission has been criticised, among other things, for its limited, short-term effects (Abdullah 2015: 43) and for its failure to “produce retributive justice” (Gibson 2006: 211), when it explicitly set out to produce “restorative justice” (Stein et  al. 2007: 463). Stated aims of the Commission thus differ somewhat from perceived aims among the public as discussed in previous studies. This creates yet another discrepancy. Gibson (2006: 414) also investigates the successes of the Commission and argues the following: “Recognizing the legitimacy of one’s opponents’ claims to human rights abuses may be a necessary condition for reconciliation”. Seeking such understanding and legitimacy, for oneself and for

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others, is a recurring theme also in the memoirs examined here, and a relevant question in this context is whether the memoirs succeed in their quest for legitimacy. The search for legitimacy is also related to the question of compromise, of making concessions to the past. Memoir, autobiography, nonfiction, and reportage in a South African context inevitably means approaching and addressing extremely sensitive historical and political issues, and by doing so, each and every writer also position themselves in relation to said past. Speaking publicly in this way in fraught contexts such as South Africa also raises questions about who gets to speak and in what ways. The act of speaking has been studied to quite an extent before, for example in relation to Antje Krog, whose work Country of My Skull (1999) is a landmark text about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and their work after the end of apartheid. Witnessing is at the core of the book. Garman (2015) has dedicated an entire volume to the voice of Krog, and she states at the very beginning that “[r]edress and restitution and different types of representation are high on the global agenda” (Garman 2015: 3), which is a noteworthy point, and it also serves as justification for the present study. Garman addresses the debates surrounding public speaking and asks the following question: “[W]hat constitutes authority to speak (and especially to speak on behalf of others)” (ibid.). The act of speaking inevitably becomes connected with that of power, and Leigh Gilmore (2019: 162) comments on this, stating the following: “Life writing has proven to be an especially compelling form of testimonial empowerment for those who are marginalized”. Most of the writers in focus in the present study touch upon marginalisation in various ways, yet the question inevitably arises as to who resides in the margins in South Africa today. The memoirs in focus seem to suggest that more or less everyone feels marginalised for various reasons. The literature analysed in the following chapters attempts to if not answer then at least address this question, who has the right to speak of South Africa and on what terms, as many of the works are not just personal memoirs but include other voices too. A follow-up question concerns race and how it plays into the complexity of voice, thinking particularly of those who were previously excluded from any official discourse on what South Africa is, and for whom it is intended. Being aware at the outset of the “deep anxiety about authority, legitimacy and knowledge” (Garman 2015: 3) is central. Garman asserts that “attention must be given to subjectivity and identity” (2015: 8), which rings true for this study. Michael Britt (2018: 125) observes that Country of My Skull gives

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voice to people brutalised by the apartheid regime, “in the memoir of a privileged person”. This is a relevant statement for this study, which examines works that have, for the most part, been written by people who could also be deemed privileged due to the cultural, social, and economic capital they possess. “[T]he powerful write history, and we can only hope that they include the voices of the subaltern” (ibid.) is an important argument and it is taken into account also for this study. Several of the memoirs examined here include interviews with other people, for example, Hope’s and Bloom’s texts, and this can be seen as an attempt to include such voices, as a way of making space for others too. The indication is that personal representation in a South African context cannot be enough but must at least attempt to provide a wider perspective than just the personal one, to be more inclusive. Such a notion implies compromise as the personal must also accommodate other voices and experiences. Sometimes these subjective histories are told by proxy as, for example, in Lesego Malepe’s memoir. The question of whiteness is here central and unavoidable, as several of the works of memoirists and journalists examined in the present study are White. Garman relates this to the question of authenticity, which “can only be granted to a white person [in South Africa] by the previously damaged and dispossessed” (Garman 2015: 153). It means that placing other White journalists and writers at the centre of this book may be seen as an attempt to grant them and their works authenticity as representations of South Africa and its citizens. Eventually, Garman (2015: 155) states that Krog “sets the terms of inclusion for white South Africans into authentic citizenship” through “contrition, guilt, culpability and complicity, by bearing the burden of history of the Afrikaner nation”. The memoirs, apart from Tutu’s text, in focus in this book are not as explicitly engaged in such authenticity-seeking activities, as they differ a fair bit from Krog’s documentation of the reconciliation processes in the immediate aftermath of apartheid. The focus in the memoirs examined here is far more personal but the same issues still emerge. To some extent they too seek authenticity and recognition in terms of belonging in South Africa. In some cases, forgiveness is not sought from the people of South Africa who were previously oppressed by apartheid, but an apology from the nation itself as in the case of Mark Gevisser and his memoir which details a brutal home invasion. Similar sentiments can also be found in Kevin Bloom’s memoir which takes the murder of his cousin as

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a starting point. These considerations also raise the question as to whether the mourning phase, as outlined by Kennedy, was skipped in South Africa, with dire consequences. Had the process of reconciliation and rebuilding had more solid ground on which to stand if there had been proper time and measures for mourning? To what extent do the memoirs themselves represent this lost phase? A starting point for the present analysis is that part of the reason for the considerable number of nonfictional writing and memoirs (and fiction, too, of course) is that they represent the mourning phase which was never given enough space and attention. President Nelson Mandela’s death in 2013 initiated vivid and explicit national mourning and celebration (Bundy 2019: 997) but his legacy has also been questioned since. Colin Bundy (2019) examines reactions and responses to Mandela’s legacy in recent years and argues that these positive views of Mandela’s work and achievements became somewhat less vocal after his death. There were voices stating that the negotiations Mandela engaged in after his release from prison amounted to “an historic betrayal” (Bundy 2019: 998). This works as an example of the difficulties in finding common ground, a common denominator, that would unite all South Africans in their endeavours to find a way forward. The memoirs attest to these difficulties and to the necessary utopia of uniting the nation.

2.2   Revisiting the Past A central argument in the present study is that recent works of nonfiction and memoirs by South African writers present the nation from two overlapping perspectives. One of them has to do with political transition and finding one’s place and role in the new nation and with overcoming past troubles through writing which for its part is an archival activity; a way to not only write the nation but to create an archive for coming generations. The socalled archival turn has been observed by other scholars too (see, Pieterse 2019; Samuelson 2010). The great number of memoirs and others forms of nonfiction reveal something of a paradox connected to South Africa. While there seems to be openness about the difficult past, and both private and collective mourning and negotiation of the incomplete transition to democracy and equality exist side by side, the outpouring of stories of apartheidera and post-TRC society in South Africa has yet to propel the nation forward. The discrepancy between attempts to come to terms with the past

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and the inherently complex, unfair, and racist reality of South Africa portrayed in the memoirs calls for urgent examination and attention. The second perspective has to do with the disillusionment present in most nonfictional writing about South Africa, based at least to some extent on people’s own lives and experiences. Garman (2015: 4) states that the need to address the past and its troubles has led to “a public domain filled with confessional practices: there is an ‘outing’ of the past and an airing of damage and trauma, as well as a plethora of personal stories in multiple forums and media”. She also argues that the past “has scarred every South African” (ibid.), which begs the question as to whether the present moment has succeeded in healing any of those wounds. Gibson (2002: 540) emphasises the fact that negotiation becomes a primary mode of addressing the past when there is “no unequivocal winner”. This negotiation is now becoming visible in South African autobiographical writing, as put forward in this study. The nonfictional writing emerging out of South Africa is concrete evidence of the need to resolve the past but also to address present indiscretions and problems in South Africa. The desire to keep engaging with the past has even been seen as a “space of persistent trauma and anguish, of continued suffering” by Elleke Boehmer (2012: 29). She suggests that the “repetitive compulsions” (ibid.) in literature to reflect social problems in South Africa could be seen as an addiction to “the adrenalin of crisis management, even to the compulsive contemplation of pain and yet more pain” (Boehmer 2012: 30). Further, Boehmer (ibid.) argues that this preoccupation with pain and suffering may indicate inability to deal with the legacies of apartheid, something which she explains as “the lack or loss of apartheid as opposition, as a fixed negative against which to rally” (ibid.). These notions are important and relevant for this study as well, which acknowledges the dystopian themes of much of the nonfictional writing under scrutiny. It is also of utmost importance to ask what kinds of futures are envisioned in nonfiction and whether they embody a new era less attached to apartheid histories. The large number of memoirs in South Africa since the end of apartheid and particularly in the past couple of decades, say, since 2000, has been recognised by researchers (cf. Gagiano 2009, 2020; Coullie 2014; Garman 2015; Twidle 2019). An earlier foundational examination of the relationship between memory and history can be found in the edited volume Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa (1998) by Sarah Nuttall and Carli Coetzee. The focus of the book is on the kinds

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of pasts that get to be remembered, even though the editors admit that they “are as yet unable to judge which memories and ways of remembering will come to dominate in South Africa in the future” (Nuttall and Coetzee 1998: 1). This examination of recent memoir and nonfiction is an attempt to bring that discussion to the present day, going beyond Selves in Question (2006) too which does not include voices of born frees. Nuttall and Coetzee’s volume includes more unconventional materials that engage with the past, such as advertisements (Bertelsen 1998) and an animated film (Godby 1998). A chapter on autobiography is also present in the book (Nuttall 1998), where the focus is on the “messy activity” (p. 75) of remembering, and Nuttall (p. 76) also argues that South African autobiography is often about finding a balance between “public resistance and private healing; and between private resistance and public healing”. Although the volume was compiled and published some time ago in the era of the TRC, these notions still ring true. The personal and the collective remain imbalanced, as my study shows, although some attempts to find balance is presented in texts that draw not only on private experiences but also represent the lives of others. Even this balancing act requires compromise. A recent interpretation of nonfiction in South Africa is offered in Hedley Twidle’s volume Experiments with Truth (2019), which sets out to be “the first book-length treatment of non-fictional form in modern South African literature” (Twidle 2019: 1). Twidle’s examination centres particularly on “post-TRC texts”, relating to the “unfinished business of the transition” (Twidle 2019: 4) and he sets out to examine a variety of documentary forms. The past and its representations are thus at the centre of the volume, particularly representations that clash with “dominant […] forms of public, post-apartheid or nationalist historiography” (Twidle 2019: 13). The purpose of this differs somewhat, as the memoirs examined do not present counter-histories, but subjective narratives of the past and present. Instead of clashing with dominant histories, the material can be said to introduce novel perspectives and shed light on personal experiences of living in the midst of such narratives. In contrast to these earlier studies, also including Negotiating the Past, my book puts forward the notion that contemporary writers are not only documenting and addressing the past in order to come to terms with it but also participating in the archival activity of writing history as well as in the creation of possible futures. It is not an action as much against the past or dominant discourses of history as it is an attempt to find middle ground, to find

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sustainable ways to concede to this “compromised past” (Twidle 2019: 224). Seeing the past as a battleground, something against which to rally as indicated by Boehmer too, is not evident in the primary material examined here, as the memoirs engage with an unsettling present, one which is not separated from the past, but which still carries its own specific challenges. Transitional, and particularly post-transitional, South African literature has been examined before, defined by Meg Samuelson (2010: 114) as texts that focus on the present moment, which she accurately characterises as “effervescent and ephemeral”. The present moment and very recent past as addressed and represented in the memoirs examined here are fleeting from a temporal perspective but not for the writers themselves. Past and present take on very concrete forms in the texts, commenting on urgent social and political matters. Further, Samuelson (2010: 116) explains that works that can be deemed post-transitional centre on the relationship between South Africa and the rest of the world, also from a temporal point of view: “There is certainly still a politics to this literature, but it is one that is starting to engage more with struggles that are enfolding elsewhere or both here and there, as it takes cognisance of the nations’ embedding in the global”. The works mentioned by Samuelson could largely be categorised as fiction, whereas the present study examines nonfiction and memoir specifically. To call the primary texts post-transitional here too is not entirely unjustified, but they reflect and represent realities that are still more local than global. All memoirs in focus remain preoccupied with South African realities and the outside world is merely presented as a place to which to escape, or escape from, or from which to return. Politics is at the very core of the writing investigated, and this suggests two possible developments: either fiction and personal nonfiction have moved in different directions since the end of apartheid, or autobiographical writing, due to its personal dimension, has a unique trajectory. Thus, the memoirs examined here are not explicitly termed post-transitional nor post-apartheid, although they do fall under these umbrella terms to a significant degree. The contemporary moment in South Africa is undoubtedly and irrevocably still defined by the transition to democratic rule and the end of apartheid, but as the analysis in the present study shows, much more is also at stake. Contemporary challenges are also addressed from perspectives rooted in the present moment. Instead of only looking at where South Africa has

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been, the texts examined also attempt to take a firm hold of the ‘ephemeral’ present. The problem with locating South African writing in time has also been addressed by Leon de Kock (2016: 58), who argues that much of what is termed post-apartheid writing “is distinguished by strong rather than weak or merely vestigial continuity with the past”. In addition, he states that separating time too distinctly into the time during apartheid and the time after may also not be useful, particularly if these are defined in terms of ‘bad’ and ‘good’. While the analysis carried out in this book can also be defined as addressing the post-apartheid or post-TRC era, these temporal dividers are used with caution. Going beyond such traditional notions of temporal division are relevant, not least because the memoirs examined do not explicitly deal with time before and after apartheid or the Commission. The memoirs examined are given space to speak for themselves in terms of the past, that is, the apartheid era, and what came after. The same goes for the treatment of the TRC and their work, which is the explicit focus of one of the chapters. The unfinished transition and healing process as well as the deep traumas of atrocities committed during the apartheid era have been central to South African cultural production and remain at the core of the literature investigated here too. However, new currents and trends can also be detected that demand attention. The edited volume SA Lit Beyond 2000 attempts to uncover the directions of South African literature in the new millennium. Michael Chapman (2011: 12) explains in the introduction that much of the writing in the 1990s was preoccupied with “difference”, whereas literature of the nation since tries to balance between transnational concerns and local, or indigenous to borrow his word, challenges and realities. This study can also be argued to examine ‘indigenous’ challenges and realities, although several of the writers included lead lives that could be defined as transnational, such as for example Msimang, Hope and Gevisser.

2.3   Personal Histories in the Making The connection and interplay between history and literature has been studied by a number of notable researchers such as Alun Munslow, Hayden White, and Jaume Aurell. A central question that inevitably emerges is that of truth, and the relationship between literature, history, and the truth. Therefore, it is justified to state from the outset that truth for this book is

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a highly fluid and also somewhat irrelevant concept. In a South African context, these issues become even more contested as the role of those who manage to get their voices heard is central to the construction of the past. In that sense, all literature emanating from South Africa, be it by writers living there or those who have left, is an intervention in ongoing social, political and historical issues. Annie Gagiano (2009: 262–263) makes an important observation when she argues that “many of the autobiographers consulted here see their works as being in some sense archival contributions. Undertaken by some as a duty or a responsibility, the texts also testify (however modest in tone or intent) to pride taken by the author in his or her contribution to this society”. The role of the autobiographer in South Africa as someone who participates in documenting and creating material that has a wider scope and aim than just being the story of one’s life becomes a central factor when examining representations of change. Aurell’s (2015: 244) focus is on autobiographies by historians and their role for the actual writing of history, and he argues the following: “I propose to call these writings interventional in the sense that these historians use their autobiographies, with a more or less deliberate authorial intention, to participate, mediate, and intervene in theoretical debates”. The South African memoirist, be they journalists, authors or other people of more or less fame, does not necessarily participate in theoretical debates but intervenes in the ways in which the past is not only remembered but also constructed. Munslow (2004: 3), for his part, talks about the need to be innovative when writing history, and this opens up new paths for the inclusion of more personal approaches as well, as exemplified in the edited volume Experiments in Rethinking History. This goes back to what Vora and Vora (2004) said about revolutionary ways of addressing inequality and race in South Africa. Memoir is hardly an innovative medium in itself, nor are these thoughts novel by any means, but in a South African context, there is an urgent need to delve deeper into the intricacies of subjective histories. A relevant study of the relationship between literature and history in terms of autobiography is offered by Jennifer Jensen Wallach (2006). She argues that autobiographical writing to some extent clashes with the writing of history, as the former depicts personal lives and trajectories, whereas the latter aims to document a particular era (Wallach 2006: 446–447). The present study asks in what ways and to what extent this clash exists and is portrayed in the memoirs investigated here. History itself is seen as primarily narrational by, for example, Munslow, who states that writing

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history is ultimately always ideological (p. 12) and argues that there are no truly realist renditions of history, only a variety of ways of representing the past (p.  16). Seeing history as narrative begs the question as to whether we can see narrative as history. Kuisma Korhonen’s (2006: 9) observation here about the role of literature is particularly relevant: “How people see their place in the continuity of succeeding generations is determined not only by history but also by poetry and fiction” (Korhonen 2006: 9). This can be connected with Gail Fincham’s (2011: xvi) observation with regard to Zakes Mda’s writing: “It is above all a way of rewriting history. Even as he exults in the new narrative freedoms that South African writers are able to celebrate after 1994, Mda insists on social and historical accuracy”. The role of literature can thus not be underestimated, and this also functions as a justification for the study of autobiographical writing. Many of the memoirs studied here, if not all, are about the authors negotiating and finding their place not only in the continuity of generations but also in relation to South Africa itself. This continuity demands attention not only from a past perspective but also requires thinking of present and future developments. The uses, meanings, and potential shortcomings of collective memory have also been discussed in detail by Aleida Assmann (2008), who argues that distinguishing between “experiential memories” and “what one has been told” can be really difficult (p.  50). This notion is relevant when examining personal memories in a South African context, as the personal can hardly be separated from the political, particularly not from a perspective of race. Assmann also points out the different groups we are members of and how collective memory takes part in these constructions of identity (p. 52). However, her most important contribution is the idea of ideology having been removed from research and collective memory having taken its place, and that this is not an entirely positive development (p.  53). ‘Identity’ has also replaced ideology, and here Assmann (2008: 54) argues the following: “This change of terminology and orientation cannot mean, however, that the functions of criticism, discrimination, and ethical evaluation have become obsolete”. Instead, she calls for “critical vigilance” and identifying “more ‘malign’ from more ‘benign’ memories—that is, memories that perpetuate resentment, hatred and violence from those that have a therapeutic and ethical value” (ibid.). However, these notions are not as simple as they may seem. As Dan Stone (2017: 27) observes, “the politics of memory […] might lead to the

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perpetual remobilization of antagonism and conflict, as old grievances are given a new lease of life”. Stone’s comment implies that in a context as contested and unstable as South Africa, memoirs may not pave the way for more positive ways of thinking about the past and present. Such notions may even be naïve and that is an important observation for the investigation of South African memoirs and the personal and collective experiences they recount and represent. Due to the complications of race and history, the burden of apartheid and troubles in South Africa since, ideology remains central to most writing. To what extent does South African nonfiction “perpetuate resentment, hatred and violence”, and in what ways are such notions present in the memoirs? Do they offer any therapeutic dimensions or healing? An even more pertinent question is whether, and to what extent, the memoirs attempt to rewrite the past and present through the personal quest for belonging. As Assmann (2008: 56–57) explains, the past is no longer seen as absolute and fixed but is constantly being rewritten and rethought. South African autobiographical writing therefore inevitably moves in complicated realms from temporal, historical, racial, and political perspectives. As representations of the self, the texts come to occupy much wider spaces in their attempts to enable representation also for others. Accurately defining such autobiographical writing in terms of its place in time and history has proven difficult, and for the present study no such explicit distinction needs to be made. The memoirs are post-apartheid texts, and they can also be seen as transitional, written by writers who have had the time and the means to do so. However, what they first and foremost do is to challenge existing conceptions of ‘bad’ or ‘good’ times as argued by de Kock. South Africa is presented as an inconceivable entity by some, which can be seen as a privileged notion too, as only those who are not too preoccupied with their daily lives can observe the nation from afar, and by some as a country that “finds itself less liberated from the past than engaged in the persistent re-emergence of this past” (de Kock 2016: 58).

2.4   Belonging Irrevocably connected to the conflicting views and interpretations of South Africa’s past and present is the question of space and who gets to belong in South Africa. It has been raised in previous volumes, for example, in I Want to Go Home Forever: Stories of Becoming and Belonging in South Africa’s Great Metropolis (2018a), edited by Loren B. Landau and

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Tanya Pampalone. The collection includes interviews with people who have moved to Johannesburg, from outside South Africa or within, and is largely centred on migration. As stated in the introduction to the volume, “it is not primarily for their pasts that our narrators grieve. Almost all of the voices included in this account reflect nostalgia for futures lost” (Landau and Pampalone 2018b: 10). Lost futures are central also for the memoirs examined in my study. Further, the present study also includes negotiation of belonging among people whose experiences are not rooted in migration or movement. The problem with xenophobia does emerge here too, particularly in connection to Bloom’s and Chauke’s memoirs. Finding ways to belong eventually becomes a quest not only for those who “spoke the wrong language, came from the wrong place or were seen as threatening the aspirations of others” (Landau and Pampalone 2018b: 9) but also for everyone. A similar migration approach is presented by Crystal Powell (2014) in Rethinking Marginality in South Africa: Mobile Phones and the Concept of Belonging in Langa Township, in which the author connects belonging to marginalisation: “Belonging is also politically based where the granting of ‘belonging’ in the host community to ‘the Other’ is often policed” (Powell 2014: 19). Chauke and Bloom offer concrete examples of such policing, yet each memoir examined in this book engage with the question of belonging and marginalisation, for example from the perspective of voice (Morake), landowning (Malepe), return migration (Msimang), race (Noah), family (Ndileka Mandela), or access to education (Wa Azania). An argument for the analysis is that all writers acknowledge the need for compromise also in this regard, and a comfortable space to which to belong is not provided to anyone without concessions. Ingrid Brudvig’s book Conviviality in Bellville: An Ethnography of Space, Place, Mobility and Being in Urban South Africa (2014) addresses belonging in another highly diverse location with a significant number of migrants (p. 2). Thus, studies of belonging in a South African context have often dealt with parameters such as migration and marginalisation (see also Kola et  al. (2019) for a discussion of Indo-Muslims in South Africa; Botha and Watermeyer (2018) on disability and belonging; van Zyl (2011) on same-­ sex marriage and belonging). The primary material for this study negotiates personal experiences of belonging from a variety of perspectives, and race inevitably becomes a central factor.

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Group membership is a relevant aspect of belonging, and one which has been discussed in more detail, for example, by Montserrat Guibernau (2013: 2), who argues that choosing to belong to a particular group makes it possible for people to “transcend their limited existence by sharing some common interests, objectives and characteristic with fellow-members”. In a South African context, the question is what groups are available to people. Should they be drawn solely along racial lines? All memoirs examined here fully acknowledge the role of race, for example, as represented in Trevor Noah’s memoir. His book manifests the importance of knowing to which racial group one belongs and he outlines several situations in his childhood and adolescence where he found himself an outsider in every racial group he attempted to enter. Belonging has explicitly been theorised as “racialised, classed, gendered and linked to place” (Habib and Ward 2020: 2). The memoirs examined here attest to all four categories of belonging. However, as Sadia Habib and Michael R. M. Ward (2020: 1) state in the introduction to their collection on belonging, “while belonging may often be linked to a linear, developmental process of thinking (acquisition of language, formal legalities, the documentation of the nation-state), […] belonging is far from linear and is much more personal, infused with individual and collective histories”. These notions are relevant for the study of belonging in contemporary South African autobiographical texts, as they too express a desire for belonging that is ‘infused with individual and collective histories’ as exemplified, for example, in Noah’s memoir. Exploring these texts from a perspective of subjective histories and narratives of South Africa emphasises this nonlinear notion of belonging. To return to the question of group membership, which in South Africa is largely connected with race, it is inevitable to talk about race when dealing with writings of change and subjective histories in such fraught territory. As Gibson (2002: 545) asserts, using the same terminology for different groups in South Africa as the apartheid regime did is complicated territory but that these terms are also in use among South Africans themselves. These issues have been debated in recent years (e.g. see: Tsri (2016) and Ndebele (2016) for a discussion of the negative impact of uses of the term ‘Black’ to denote Africans) and not all agree with the labels that are still in use, not to mention what the labels come to stand for. Njabulo S.  Ndebele (2016: 25) argues forcefully in his article that ‘Black’ “is a fabrication, a figment of history” and that Black people in South Africa behave “as if history owes them something, now

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and into the future. In this, the South African ‘black’ desires to inherit the extractive state that will always reproduce him as a phenomenon” (ibid.). Thus, according to Ndebele (2016: 27), being a “human being” is the primary goal and existence, beyond notions of race, and he ends his article with the comment that “[i]t is time to have to be at ease with myself, and with ourselves”. Expanding this profound thought to encompass all South Africans and not only those categorised or selfidentified as Black emphasises the importance of the present study too and its examination of texts that speak to this very problem of being at ease with oneself and with others. Hence, race will inevitably feature in the present analysis as well. My own position as an outsider, a White European, is not insignificant, and it is crucial to remain mindful and thoughtful throughout with regard to the intricacies and complexities of South African society that I will never fully comprehend. It is my humble hope that an outsider’s perspective can also be useful when discussing contested histories and experiences. From a more contemporary perspective, the coronavirus outbreak is still causing massive concern and economic difficulties across the world at the time of writing. William Saunderson-Meyer reports from Johannesburg for CNN and discusses the measures implemented by President Cyril Ramaphosa as an attempt to contain the spread: “But the national unity and common purpose that Ramaphosa sought to encourage lasted less than 24 hours before old ethnic suspicions within the populace and authoritarian tendencies within government started to reassert themselves”. He refers to financial aid promised for small businesses, but a leaked government document showed that the plan was to award aid only to businesses where the majority (51 per cent) of owners are Black. Another announcement concluded that only smaller shops in townships, so-called spaza shops, that were owned by South Africans would be supported. These events and the unfolding crisis attest to the racial and social divides still existing in South Africa. Therefore, it is of great relevance to explicitly address issues relating to race and the selection of primary material supports this, with all authors addressing race in a number of ways. Msimang (2017) depicts her childhood in Zambia and Kenya, and the complexities related to race she encountered when studying in the United States. Returning to free South Africa in the 1990s brought with it its own difficulties in finding her place again. Trevor Noah, for his part, builds his entire memoir Born a Crime (2017) on the fact that having a Black mother and a White father in 1984

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when he was born was indeed a crime as such relationships were prohibited. Thus, the question arises as to what role race plays in the creation of the subjective histories examined here. Race also relates to the policy of affirmative action which was implemented after the end of apartheid in order to “redress the gender as well as racial imbalances perceived to be the consequence of apartheid in the country” (Archibong and Adejumo 2013: 15). The policy has both been seen as necessary and effective and as highly unfair, as some perceive the programme as having less to do with competency and more to do with gender and race of applicants for particular jobs (Archibong and Adejumo 2013: 24). Kanya Adam (2000: 48) is on similar lines when stating that applicants too have felt that they received “a handout based on the color of their skin”. The policy thus runs the risk of deepening existing divides in society “by implying that [black South Africans] simply cannot compete on an equal basis with dominant groups, especially Asians and whites” (Adam 2000: 48). Ndebele (2016: 25) is also less positive when stating that “[f]ree people do not clamour for affirmative action, they build civilizations” and thus indicating that full freedom has yet to manifest itself. Matambo and Ani (2015: 274) connect affirmative action with notions of “national unity, reconciliation and equality”, which suggests that it can be seen as a continuation of the work of the TRC albeit on different terms. Previous studies of belonging in South Africa have also drawn on Michel Foucault’s (1984) theory of heterotopia, which is defined, for example, in the following way: the representation of a space containing undesirable or imperfect aspects—a space where it is difficult or even impossible to belong. Thus, possible heterotopias are spaces where people and objects related to them may be placed in a marginalised position or considered abnormal, such as asylums or prisons. (Le Juez and Richardson 2019: 3)

The inevitable question in this context is whether South Africa embodies such a space, one in which it is difficult or impossible to belong. The memoirs under scrutiny seem to suggest that this is indeed the case. Michalinos Zembylas and Ana Ferreira (2009: 4) draw on heterotopia in their study of space in “conflict-ridden societies” such as South Africa, and state the following: “In this sense, heterotopias are always in the process of being

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made, ordering (as a process) rather than order (as a state). They appear uncertain and ambivalent, never settled in any way, and they create themselves as new kinds of places, making local acts of resistance possible and offering a means of alternative ordering through difference”. Such an approach is useful as South Africa, as well as any other nation, can be seen as in the process of becoming, though Ndebele (2016: 25) offers some critique here, stating that Africans are seen as being “in a state of stasis in which they are always becoming. A devastating paradox! If Africans are always becoming when will they ever be?” Seeing South Africa as nation being made is inevitably a paradox, as the nation already is. The memoirs scrutinised attest to this state of being through their negotiations of place and recognition as part of that reality that is. A word of warning relating to the uses of heterotopia is offered by Kelvin T. Knight (2017: 142), who states that the concept has been widely applied without proper definition, and without proper understanding that “the concept was never intended as a tool for the study of real material sites”. South Africa is and is not a material site; it is the concrete reality of its millions of citizens, yet it is also a nation created through narratives and representations. The desire for belonging, too, is a concrete reality of South Africans from different layers of society as manifested in the memoirs examined, yet it is also an abstract attempt to find new ways of relating to past and present. Charles Villet’s (2018: 12) interpretation of heterotopia in a South African context draws on such notions, as he sees it not as a particular space but “in phenomenological terms—in terms, that is, of people’s experiences of and within place and space”. That is precisely the kind of approach the present study also takes to notions of space and belonging, and that for its part also works as a significant justification for a contextual and content-centred analysis of the primary material. However, due to heterotopia’s connection with “simultaneously mythic and real sites” (Knight 2017: 155), it would be a complex and somewhat problematic approach for this book which builds on South African realities as perceived and represented in memoirs. In addition, building the study on a Foucaultian idea of space (or Tuanian, or Masseyian, or Lefebvreian) would place focus on the concept or theoretical approach instead of giving the actual material the precedence and the attention it deserves. Reading South Africa through a particular theoretical lens such as heterotopia, trauma, or even identity has been done before to a significant extent, and

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it is now time for an approach that prioritises autobiographical texts and their negotiation of self, nation, and belonging in South Africa. Despite the presence of certain dystopian realities in South Africa, belonging also connects to the notion of compromise in novel ways as represented in the primary material. Vora and Vora (2004: 301) make an important point when arguing the following: “Although South Africa has a history of racial injustice and vast human rights violations, it also has a legacy of finding revolutionary ways of addressing interethnic and interracial conflicts”. The TRC is of course the obvious example of such innovative measures to overcome past burdens and tragedies, but it can definitely also be argued, as my analysis will show, that literature, be it nonfictional or fictional, is another such ‘revolutionary’ way of examining the past and personal belonging. It is also not just a question of understanding and coming to terms with the past, which can, as several if not all memoirs investigated indicate, more often than not be near impossible. The only way forward may be to accept the fact that the past and apartheid can never be fully accepted, addressed, and forgiven; that they will always occupy a space in South African history and national consciousness to which no one can belong. Such a notion implies a massive compromise, a letting go of the pain while accepting that it will always be present to some extent, and more importantly, the acknowledgement that belonging remains as elusive as compromise. This is the concession that needs to be made, and the memoirs in focus also embody such notions to a significant degree. The question of legitimacy is here relevant, as seeing the point of view of others and making space for it enables a broader, more inclusive perspective that can eventually offer some possibilities for belonging across racial, class-related, gendered, and geographical lines.

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Assmann, Aleida. 2008. Transformations between History and Memory. Social Research 75 (1): 49–72. Aurell, Jaume. 2015. Making History by Contextualizing Oneself: Autobiography as Historiographical Intervention. History and Theory 54 (2): 244–268. https://doi.org/10.1111/hith.10756. Beckerman, Gal. 2008. Divided Soul: Rian Malan Stared Down the Demons of Apartheid. Columbia Journalism Review 46 (6): 46–49. Bertelsen, Eve. 1998. Ads and Amnesia: Black Advertising in the New South Africa. In Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa, ed. Sarah Nuttall and Carli Coetzee, 221–241. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bloom, Kevin. 2009. Ways of Staying. London: Portobello Books. Boehmer, Elleke. 2012. Permanent Risk—When Crisis Defines a Nation’s Writing. In Trauma, Memory, and Narrative in the Contemporary South African Novel— Essays, ed. Ewald Mengel and Michela Borzaga, 29–46. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Botha, Michelle, and Brian Watermeyer. 2018. “This Place Is Not for Children Like Her”: Disability, Ambiguous Belonging and the Claiming of Disadvantage in Postapartheid South Africa. Medical Humanities 47 (1): 4–10. https://doi. org/10.1136/medhum-­2018-­011560. Britt, Michael. 2018. Struggles Over Voice: Polyphony, Appropriation, and the Construction of Truth in Country of My Skull. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 30 (2): 116–128. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 1013929X.2018.1497866. Brudvig, Ingrid. 2014. Conviviality in Bellville: An Ethnography of Space, Place, Mobility and Being in Urban South Africa. Bamenda, Cameroon: Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group. Bundy, Colin. 2019. Editorial: The Challenge of Rethinking Mandela. Journal of Southern African Studies 45 (6): 997–1012. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03057070.2019.1697553. Buss, Helen M. 2002. Repossessing the World: Reading Memoirs by Contemporary Women. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Chapman, Michael. 2011. Introduction: SA Lit Beyond 2000? In SA Lit Beyond 2000, ed. Michael Chapman and Margaret Lenta, 1–18. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu Natal Press. Coullie, Judith Lütge. 2014. The ethics of nostalgia in post-apartheid South Africa. Rethinking History 18 (2): 195–210. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13642529.2013.858449. Coward, Rosalind. 2013. Speaking Personally: The Rise of Subjective and Confessional Journalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. de Kock, Leon. 2016. Losing the Plot: Crime, Reality and Fiction in Postapartheid South African Writing. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Eakin, John Paul. 2020. Writing Life Writing: Narrative, History, Autobiography. New York: Routledge.

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Englund, Lena. 2017. Memoir in Transit: Whiteness, Displacement and Journalism in Peter Godwin’s Autobiographical Writing. Turku: Åbo Akademi University Press. Fincham, Gail. 2011. Dance of Life: The Novels of Zakes Mda in Post-apartheid South Africa. Claremont: UCT Press. Foucault, Michel. 1984. Des Espaces Autres. In Architecture/Mouvement/ Continuité, translated by Jay Miskowiec as “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias” [online]. Available at: http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/ www/ foucault1.pdf. Accessed August 25, 2021. Gagiano, Annie. 2009. “…to Remember Is Like Starting to See”: South African Life Stories Today. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 21 (1–2): 261–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2009.9678321. ———. 2020. Complicating Apartheid Resistance Histories by Means of South African Autobiographies. a/b Auto/biography Studies 35 (3): 667–689. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2020.1762996. Garman, Anthea. 2015. Antjie Krog and the Post-Apartheid Public Sphere: Speaking Poetry to Power. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu Natal Press. Gibson, James L. 2002. Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation: Judging the Fairness of Amnesty in South Africa. American Journal of Political Science 46 (3): 540–556. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3088398. ———. 2006. The Contributions of Truth to Reconciliation: Lessons from South Africa. Journal of Conflict Resolution 50 (3): 409–432. https://doi. org/10.1177/0022002706287115. Gill, Jo. 2006. Introduction. In Modern Confessional Writing: New Critical Essays, ed. Jo Gill, 1–10. London: Routledge. Gilmore, Leigh. 2001. The Limits of Autobiography: Truth and Testimony. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ———. 2019. #MeToo and the Memoir Boom: The Year in the US. Biography 42 (1): 162–167. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2019.0024. Godby, Michael. 1998. Memory and History in William Kentridge’s History of the Main Complaint. In Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa, ed. Sarah Nuttall and Carli Coetzee, 100–111. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Guibernau, Montserrat. 2013. Belonging: Solidarity and Division in Modern Societies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habib, Sadia, and Michael R.M. Ward. 2020. Introduction: Investigating Youth and Belonging. In Youth, Place and Theories of Belonging, ed. Sadia Habib and Michael R.M. Ward, 1–11. London: Routledge. Hope, Christopher. 2018. White Boy Running: The Classic Account of Apartheid in South Africa. London: Atlantic Books. ———. 2019. The Café de Move-On Blues: In Search of the New South Africa. London: Atlantic Books.

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Karr, Mary. 2015 [1995]. The Liar’s Club. London: Picador. Kennedy, Roger. 2002. Psychoanalysis, History and Subjectivity: Now of the Past. London, New York: Routledge. Knight, Kelvin T. 2017. Placeless Places: Resolving the Paradox of Foucault’s Heterotopia. Textual Practice 31 (1): 141–158. https://doi.org/10.108 0/0950236X.2016.1156151. Kola, Azhar, Aarti Ratna, and Katherine Dashper. 2019. On the Hunt for Belonging: Culture, Hunting and Indo-Muslim Men in South Africa. Annals of Leisure Research 22 (1): 5–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/1174539 8.2017.1415153. Korhonen, Kuisma. 2006. General Introduction: The History/Literature Debate. In Tropes for the Past: Hayden White and the History/Literature Debate, ed. Kuisma Korhonen, 9–20. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Krog, Antjie. 1999 [1998]. Country of My Skull. London: Vintage. Landau, Loren B., and Tanya Pampalone, eds. 2018a. I Want to Go Home Forever: Stories of Becoming and Belonging in South Africa’s Great Metropolis. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. ———. 2018b. Introduction. In I Want to Go Home Forever: Stories of Becoming and Belonging in South Africa’s Great Metropolis, ed. Loren B.  Landau and Tanya Pampalone, 1–17. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Larson, Thomas. 2007. The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative. Athens, OH: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press. Le Juez, Brigitte, and Bill Richardson. 2019. Introduction. In Spaces of Longing and Belonging: Territoriality, Ideology and Creative Identity in Literature and Film, ed. Brigitte Le Juez and Bill Richardson, 1–16. Leiden: Brill. Leader, Zachary, ed. 2015. On Life-Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lee, Hermione. 2015. From Memory: Literary Encounters and Life-Writing. In On Life-Writing, ed. Zachary Leader, 124–141. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lejeune, Philippe. 1989 [1975]. On Autobiography. Edited by Paul John Eakin. Translated by Katherine Leary. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Malan, Rian. 2015 [1990]. My Traitor’s Heart. Blood and Bad Dreams: A South African Explores the Madness in His Country, His Tribe and Himself. London: Vintage. Marcus, Laura. 1994. Auto/biographical Discourses: Criticism, Theory, Practice. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Matambo, Emmanuel, and Ndubuisi Christian Ani. 2015. Endorsing Intellectual Development in South Africa’s Affirmative Action. Journal of Third World Studies 32 (1): 273–291. McCourt, Frank. 2016 [1996]. Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir. New York: Scribner. Morrison, Blake. 2015. The Worst Thing I Ever Did: The Contemporary Confessional Memoir. In On Life-Writing, ed. Zachary Leader, 201–220. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Msimang, Sisonke. 2017. Always Another Country. New  York, London: World Editions. Munslow, Alan. 2004. Introduction: Theory and Practice. In Experiments in Rethinking History, ed. Alan Munslow and Robert A.  Rosenstone, 7–11. New York, London: Routledge. Ndebele, Njabulo S. 2016. To Be or Not to Be: No Longer at Ease. Arts & Humanities in Higher Education 15 (1): 15–28. https://doi. org/10.1177/1474022215613610. Nixon, Rob. 2012. Non-Fiction Booms, North and South: A Transatlantic Perspective. Safundi 13 (1–2): 29–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/1753317 1.2011.642587. Noah, Trevor. 2017. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. London: John Murray. Nuttall, Sarah. 1998. Telling “free” stories? Memory and democracy in South African autobiography since 1994. In Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa, ed. Sarah Nuttall, and Carli Coetzee, 75–88. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nuttall, Sarah, and Carli Coetzee, eds. 1998. Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pieterse, Annel Helena. 2019. After Marikana: The Temporalities of Betrayal. In South African Writing in Transition, ed. Rita Barnard and Andrew van der Vlies, 55–75. London: Bloomsbury. Powell, Crystal. 2014. Rethinking Marginality in South Africa: Mobile Phones and the Concept of Belonging in Langa Township. Bamenda, Cameroon: Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group. Radstone, Susannah. 2006. Cultures of Confession/Cultures of Testimony: Turning the Subject Inside Out. In Modern Confessional Writing: New Critical Essays, ed. Jo Gill, 166–179. London: Routledge. Samuelson, Meg. 2010. Scripting Connections: Reflections on the ‘Post-­ transitional’. English Studies in Africa 53 (1): 113–117. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/00138398.2010.488348. Saunderson-Meyer, William. 2020. In Locked-Down South Africa, Unity Is Fleeing. CNN, April 3, 2020. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/02/opinions/south-­africa-­lockdown-­coronavirus-­william-­saunderson-­meyer-­opinion/ index.html. Accessed November 10, 2020. Stein, Dan J., Soraya Seedat, Debra Kaminer, Hashim Moomal, Allen Herman, John Sonnega, and David R.  Williams. 2007. The Impact of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Psychological Distress and Forgiveness in South Africa. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 43 (6): 462–468. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s00127-­008-­0350-­0. Stone, Dan. 2017. History, Memory, Testimony. In The Future of Testimony: Interdisciplinary Perspective on Witnessing, ed. Jane Kilby and Antony Rowland, 17–30. London: Routledge.

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Tsri, Kwesi. 2016. Africans Are Not Black: Why the Use of the Term ‘Black’ for Africans Should Be Abandoned. African Identities 14 (2): 147–160. https:// doi.org/10.1080/14725843.2015.1113120. Twidle, Hedley. 2019. Experiments with Truth: Narrative Non-Fiction and the Coming of Democracy in South Africa. Suffolk: James Currey. van Zyl, Mikki. 2011. Are Same-Sex Marriage Unafrican? Same-Sex Relationships and Belonging in Post-apartheid South Africa. Journal of Social Issues 67 (2): 335–357. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-­4560.2011.01701.x. Villet, Charles. 2018. South Africa as a Postcolonial Heterotopia: The Racialized Experience of Place and Space. Foucault Studies 24: 12–33. https://doi. org/10.22439/fsv0i24.5523. Vora, Jay A., and Erika Vora. 2004. The Effectiveness of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Perceptions of Xhosa, Afrikaner, and English South Africans. Journal of Black Studies 31 (3): 301–322. https://www.jstor. org/stable/3180939. Wallach, Jennifer Jensen. 2006. Building a Bridge of Words: The Literary Autobiography as Historical Source Material. Biography 29 (3): 446–461. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2006.0063. Zembylas, Michalinos, and Ana Ferreira. 2009. Identity Formation and Affective Spaces in Conflict-Ridden Societies: Inventing Heterotopic Possibilities. Journal of Peace Education 6 (1): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 17400200802658381.

CHAPTER 3

Struggling for Space in Christopher Hope’s The Café de Move-on Blues, Sisonke Msimang’s Always Another Country, and Tumi Morake’s And Then Mama Said…: Words That Set My Life Alight

Belonging is an explicit concern in the three memoirs examined in the present chapter. Christopher Hope writes in the preface to his memoir The Café de Move-on Blues (2019; originally published in 2018) that the book manifests “a search for understanding of who ‘we’ are and what we thought we were doing here” (p. ix). The ‘we’ indicates White South Africans like himself and their place in the nation. Hope mentions that the people he met and talked to when travelling around South Africa gathering material for the book seemed eager to talk while still being concerned about having their identities revealed: “Not since I spent time in the former Soviet Union have I found people switching between two ways of talking: private truth and public pretence; kitchen-table confidences and official fictions” (p. xi). The ambiguities and controversies connected with being White in South Africa reveal some of the deepest anxieties about the futures of the nation as well as narratives that both reinforce and refute belonging, which is what the present chapter examines in three texts. The second memoir at the centre of this chapter is Sisonke Msimang’s Always Another Country (2017), which, interestingly, provides an account of similar anxieties about place and belonging as those presented in Hope’s © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Englund, South African Autobiography as Subjective History, African Histories and Modernities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83232-2_3

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text. She writes in her prologue that for those who returned to South Africa from exile, the country represented “a castle we built in the air and inside its walls everyone of us was a hero. […] We told ourselves we were special and we sought to build a Rainbow Nation” (p.  15). However, these dreams and aspirations were complicated by a reality which made little allowance for unrealistic hopes. Msimang mentions “trying to find our way in South Africa” (p. 18), and the memoir is a manifestation of this endeavour. The title itself of the book indicates that not only did Msimang spend her childhood and youth in a number of places, but that returning to South Africa too meant going to another country, a country in which finding one’s way even as a Black citizen returning home proved to be a considerable challenge. The third text in focus is And Then Mama Said…: Words That Set My Life Alight (2018) by Tumi Morake, a comedian, host, TV producer and radio presenter who became involved in some controversies due to statements she made while working at the Jacaranda FM radio station. The controversies relate directly to the South African past and sensitivities connected with how it could and should be addressed. The question was also raised in the introductory chapter: who gets to speak in South Africa today. As will be seen in later chapters, sometimes it is White citizens who are asked not to speak, but the analysis of Morake’s memoir testifies to the need to thread very carefully in general. Morake represents a different perspective when compared to Hope and Msimang, who return to South Africa after having spent considerable time abroad to make sense of their country of origin once more. Morake, on the other hand, does not recount such experiences and her quest for belonging is more connected to deep anxieties about the past and about race, and how the two should be addressed. Thus, the present chapter focuses on the efforts of Hope and Msimang to find their place in South Africa, and if this cannot be granted, they seek confirmation that they do not belong. The anxieties and challenges connected with the question as to who can claim the nation as their own surface as primary challenges. Morake’s memoir provides another perspective on the same issues, less concerned with how to live in South Africa and more focused on how to talk about it. The subjective histories discussed in the introduction to this book in the form of nonfiction and memoir are based on notions of remembering and forgetting (Kennedy 2002), and on what Blake Morrison (2015: 211) stated about motives in confessional writing which can work as “catharsis, cleansing, or purgation”. All three works at the centre in this chapter offer insights with

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regard to these notions, but they also imply that no catharsis is available to South Africans and those returning from exile to explore and to reclaim their country of origin (a topic recurring also in Malepe’s memoir analysed in Chap. 6). Addressing the disillusionment in Hope’s memoir from the perspective of White citizens, and from a point of view of children of political activists who returned after Mandela had been freed as in Msimang’s text, or through the eyes of people such as Morake, who built a career from scratch, climbing their way up only to find themselves silenced, speaks to the question asked by Nuttall and Coetzee (1998: 1): “[W]hich memories and ways of remembering will come to dominate in South Africa in the future”. Taking issue with Elleke Boehmer’s (2012) thoughts about South African writers being stuck in the painful past to a degree where their writing becomes reliant on pain and suffering, unable to take a step forward from traumatic experiences, is also at the core of the present chapter. Two of the memoirs offer the perspective of persons who are South African by birth but have spent a significant part of their lives elsewhere. Rita Barnard (2019: 11) explains in the introduction to South African Writing in Transition that the book “is concerned with temporal complexities, with the way the present is shot through with the past and shaped by dreams for the future”, and this rings true for all three works examined. Furthermore,  this chapter takes issue with what comes after when the dreams for the future have been exposed as mere illusions. All three memoirs in focus provide observations about this complex issue too. The question also arises as to whether memoir as a literary genre embodies these anxieties particularly emphatically. As Anthea Garman (2015: 4) states, the need to address the past and its troubles has led to “a public domain filled with confessional practices: there is an ‘outing’ of the past and an airing of damage and trauma, as well as a plethora of personal stories in multiple forums and media”. However, the argument for the present chapter and entire study is that such personal narratives, which are sometimes seen as attention-seeking, exhibitionist literature that is inferior to ‘real’ writing, a “disreputable genre” as stated by Blake Morrison (2015: 202), through their personal perspectives, offer unique insights not only into the past, present, and future of South Africa but also with regard to its many individual lives and destinies.

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3.1   Lost Lessons of the Past Christopher Hope’s first memoir White Boy Running was originally published in 1988 (the edition used here was reprinted and published in 2018), a few years before Mandela was freed from prison and apartheid eventually ended. Hope (2018: 260) writes towards the end of the memoir how he came to leave South Africa in 1974, explaining that it was a: [...] tactical withdrawal, an escape. I felt then, and still do, like an escapee, and perhaps this is partly to be explained by the institutional nature of South African society where no corner of life, private or public, is not touched by the shadow of racial obsession, the religion of pigmentation, and the result is to create a country more bizarre than anything a writer could dream up. (Hope 2018: 261)

These lines were published in 1988 but still seem to ring true, as Hope states in the Author’s Note written in 2018 to White Boy Running that nothing much has changed in the last thirty years (p. x). Hope addressed the bizarre nature of South Africa and its obsession with colour in his novel A Separate Development (published in 1980), which was banned by authorities due to its focus on colour (Hope 2018: 262; De Lange 1997: 94). The novel too deals with the confusion of racial categories and the experience of not belonging easily in South African society. Similar difficulties can be detected in Hope’s autobiographical writing, and his focus is largely on the shortcomings of the past, but not only of the past but of the inconceivable present, too. Referring to South Africa as “more bizarre than anything a writer could dream up” suggests that not only are certain aspects of the nation illusory and fictitious, beyond imagination, such as the notion of the rainbow nation or national reconciliation, but that the nation in itself presents a fiction. It could here be argued that Hope’s perspective is disillusioned to this degree due to his whiteness, and that his feeling of outsiderness emanates from this fact, thus perpetuating an inevitable obsession with colour. He writes in White Boy Running that “South Africa was impossible to come to grips with, it did not respond to probing or questioning, it refused to define itself and it declined to allow me to locate myself in it” (Hope 2018: 126). Such sentiments seem to have remained largely unchanged thirty years later in his recent memoir. These lines are explicitly connected with whiteness and being White in apartheid South Africa, but Sisonke

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Msimang too expresses some concern in her memoir about belonging as a Black South African. Her perspective is also that of someone who left and then returned, only to eventually leave again. Msimang spent her early childhood in Zambia, exiled from South Africa due to her parents’ involvement in the fight against apartheid. Msimang was born in 1974 (Msimang 2017: 24), the very year Hope left South Africa. She returned to South Africa in 1990 (p. 160) for a visit and later moved there permanently. Msimang writes about reporting on the TRC hearings as part of her new job, and the following few lines reveal a great deal about the anxiety of place that is present throughout her writing when she compares herself to the woman who opens the session. Msimang thought that they looked alike: “Being home, I am acutely aware of the dissonance between being of a place by virtue of physiological heritage and being from a place by virtue of memory and experience. I look like I belong, but I don’t” (Msimang 2017: 253). Thus, Hope and Msimang both struggle with similar conflicts and challenges albeit on opposite ends. Both express feeling out of place in South Africa, Hope to the degree that he ‘escaped’ the place already in the 1970s, and Msimang for her part faces the challenge upon her return in the 1990s. Her memoir represents the struggle to find her place as a Black South African in a newly free nation where racism and prejudice still prevail, but also as someone for whom South Africa is home, yet it remains a place in which she has spent little time. These intricate and deeply complex positions by the two writers enable a discussion of South Africa’s past and future, not through the eyes of someone like Wa Azania, Chauke, or Dawjee, who were there all along, having to deal with the burdens of lasting inequality and the dream of the rainbow nation which never quite materialised, but from the perspective of two South Africans who were absent, who simultaneously were not physically present but who cannot break the bond that ties them to the nation. That is also part of the paradox connected to national belonging; being part of a nation in terms of being physically present may prove impossible yet removing oneself completely from it seems equally impossible. Making a clear distinction between being of a place and from a place emphasises this complexity. This discussion of whether to stay or to leave continues also in Chap. 5. The topic of censorship emerges again in Hope’s writing in relation to a poem he wrote in 1974, and the way it was received reveals some of the anxieties and paradoxes with regard to the past. The poem is told through the voice of a railway worker who complains about authorities in South

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Africa no longer being racist enough (Hope 2019: 134). The apartheid regime banned the poem for being a “calculated insult”, and later it was banned again by the new government in free South Africa (ibid.). To Hope, these turns of events were “alarming and not much help to anyone” as they amounted to attempts to “whitewash the past and make it impossible to recreate the way that, for centuries, White South Africans had sounded and spoken” (p. 135). Hence, Hope argues that such actions to “muzzle the citizenry” only make unwanted opinions and feelings go into hiding, being uttered only in private but that such efforts do not root them out (ibid.). This example ties in with the controversy surrounding statues of Cecil Rhodes in South Africa, as well as other visible emblems and monuments of the past. The question that inevitably arises is whether memoirs and works of nonfiction by White writers belong to the same category of expressions and sentiments that should be ‘muzzled’ and kept out of view. Visibility and who gets to be on display thus remains a significant problem and challenge in South Africa. This question arises again later in the study in connection to Haji Mohamed Dawjee’s memoir. Complicity with regard to historical periods of oppression and discrimination is a recurring theme in Hope’s writing, and one which requires some examination. Complicity also emerges in Msimang’s memoir but to a different degree. She focuses on her position as a wealthy Black South African as compared to others who struggle to make ends meet. Hope, on the other hand, is deeply engaged with representations of history and what to make of them in the new and free South Africa. An important thread that runs through his entire memoir is the visible monuments to the past; statues and other tributes to a more or less glorious past and its conquerors. Towards the end of The Café de Move-on Blues, Hope (2019: 255) writes that when Mandela had been freed from prison, there were some years when it seemed possible that “the country would belong to all who lived in it”. He then proceeds to state that this is no longer the case, and that there is “a sizeable minority […] not wanted on the voyage. But until people come out and say so, and back their words with actions, defacing symbols of the oppressor is all the iconoclasts can do” (ibid.). These lines point to layers of hidden truths, uncomfortable truths about that “sizeable minority” Hope refers to. To find the new South Africa one must therefore look to the past according to Hope. Statues and monuments in South Africa come to represent that past, and they are at the centre of Hope’s writing.

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3.2   Contested Monuments South Africa since apartheid has had its fair share of troubles, as people negotiate living together amidst shared anxieties about who the nation is intended for. Coming to terms with the past has led to concrete action such as the removal of statues of Cecil Rhodes, or the Rhodes Must Fall campaign (cf. Newsinger 2016) as mentioned previously. Xenophobic attacks against immigrants from other parts of Africa have also taken place in South Africa, with “major eruptions in 2008, 2010, 2015 and 2017” (Bond 2019: 339). These upheavals are also addressed in the nonfictional writing addressed here. Christopher Hope (2019) writes in his recent memoir about the removal of the statue of Rhodes from the campus of the University of Cape Town. Hope directly connects this with race and with the oppression carried out by White South Africans during apartheid: “We had a proxy war, where each side attacked the other’s sacred idols because these were next best to the real thing. It was a way of getting at those you wanted removed but were not yet quite prepared to attack outright” (Hope 2019: xi). While watching the desecration of the statue, Hope states that at the core of the matter was race, which “far from being relegated to the past, was now more ubiquitous than it had been in the old days of apartheid, even if the word made people uncomfortable” (Hope 2019: 9). Hope calls this reluctance to deal with race in the new South Africa “amnesia”. His conclusion is that “the obsession with race” was one of the most unchangeable things about the divided nation (ibid.). Thus, he presents something of a paradox in his writing, where race represents both amnesia and obsession. The same paradox can be connected to statue removals. The removal of statues and other memorials and monuments has been a greatly debated topic in several countries, in addition to South Africa, in recent years. Carola Lentz (2017) examines controversies surrounding statues of Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah in her article and states the following: “Monuments are not affirmative expressions of a well-­ established order, but rather instruments to legitimise and stabilise precarious claims to power. They are built as lasting memories, but remain embedded in a history of social and political conflict” (p.  553). Lentz offers a relevant viewpoint, suggesting that instead of seeing monuments, memorials and statues as belonging to the past, as artefacts and symbols of times gone by, they must be viewed as interpretations and exclamations of claims for remembrance. Those who are remembered become history and

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go far beyond being mere symbols. They come to embody and personify the past, simultaneously representing amnesia and obsession. Whether statues of Cecil Rhodes in South Africa as representations of the colonial past are seen as “precarious claims to power” is perhaps not manifested in the removal of said statues. The claim to power may be forceful yet still not last into the future. A significant example of removal of statues comes from countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union (Choi 2014: 191), for example in Estonia (Melchior and Visser 2011), but most recent debates and controversies have concerned the removal of Confederate memorials in the United States. David Morgan (2018: 156) argues that the conflict which erupted over the statues: [...] reveals the instability of historical narratives and the important role that objects perform in attempting to anchor them. The objects offer access to the past, but only through the window of the present. As one person’s icon and another’s idol, public images are quickly imbued with intense feeling. Adored and despised, they become sharply politicized in the clash of conflicting cultural claims. History is not an objective other, a dispassionate, neutral reality.

The argument is noteworthy and certainly connects closely to South African past and present realities as well. Seeing the importance of statues as merely symbols of times past ignores the emotional relationship particularly with oppressed pasts. The comment that history is not an objective other also works to justify the present study and the discussion of monuments and memorials. However, Hope is critical towards the idea that simple removal of statues and other memorials would somehow be a useful path towards a less painful relationship to the past: “It is wrong to imagine that by overturning idols, we can prevent the past from haunting the present. […] No amount of name-calling or name-changing gets rid of the past. Re-education of the transgressing classes, however expertly and forcefully administered, will not do the trick” (Hope 2019: 257). Statues and what they stand for can only be understood from a perspective of the present. Thus, their meaning too changes over time. Hope describes in detail the removal of the statue of Rhodes from the campus of University of Cape Town and argues the following: “Rhodes was part and parcel of what made us what we are and he cannot be got rid of” (2019: 17). Hope thus

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seems to imply that whatever White South Africans are and may become, putting forth a somewhat monolithic notion of whiteness yet acknowledging different approaches to the past in his interviews with Afrikaners, the colonial past which brought their ancestors to South Africa in the first place can never not be part of White identity. White South Africans will therefore always to some extent embody the apartheid past, becoming to some degree symbols of current persisting inequalities too by extension. Such an outlook takes complicity to another level, implying that amnesia and obsession converge in the statues of Rhodes through the complex relationship to past and present responsibility for oppressive politics. However, Pauline Leonard (2019: 580) argues in her article that “the complicity of white people in the perpetuation of this system is highly diverse”, referring to the continued social and economic imbalance in South Africa. Her suggestion is that some people still profit from their whiteness in unsustainable ways. The problem seems to be that no one has any actual solution as to how White citizens should redefine their place and claim to South Africa, and this is echoed in Hope’s memoir. Removing statues is one very concrete way of dealing with the past, and a powerful demonstration of the place White people should, according to some as outlined by Hope, occupy in present-day South Africa. Other views have also been presented relating to the removal of the statues and other more explicitly socioeconomic movements in South Africa such as the Fees Must Fall protests. Kim Wale (2020: 1194) argues the following: “In the wake of the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall protests the language has shifted from a focus on diversity, non-racialism and inclusion to a language of decolonization”. Hence, the non-racial ideals of Mandela and the reconciliation process have been proven futile, and instead of going beyond the past towards a non-racial future, the past is being revisited and brought back centre stage to define the present moment. Fear of amnesia merges with obsession in Hope’s writing. The implication is that decolonisation never took place properly and was left unfinished, a task which statue removers and protesters have now taken upon themselves to complete as depicted by Hope. The question that then arises concerns how successful and useful such measures are, and whether they are actually taking away focus from profound and deep-seated issues of South Africa, relating to lack of prospects for so many of its citizens. The nation’s preoccupation with race and colour may work to deflect from the actual problems at hand, just as the removal of statues of Rhodes does not transform society itself. The removal of statues could therefore be seen

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as an attempt to change what can be changed. The futility of such actions as represented by Hope seems to be more locked into the underlying structures that are hard to change, which means that the removal should not be seen as merely a misguided attempt to set the past straight, but an actual intervention aimed to reshape the present. Despite these relevant and justified queries, the question concerning memorials seems not to be as much about actual social change as about sending a message about attitudes, aspirations, and values first and foremost: “In today’s political climate, should personages previously considered worthy of being memorialised continue to occupy key public spaces? Does their prominence perpetuate values with which we no longer wish to be associated? Do other values outweigh or counterbalance these?” (Çelik 2020: 711). Hope (2019: 23) makes a direct comment about the role of decolonisation when writing about the toppled statue at the campus of University of Cape Town: “Rhodes had fallen: apparently the show was over, but triumph was tinged with anti-climax. The crowd drifted away amid talk of revolution, decolonization, free education and the rage to come”. This rage, according to Hope (pp. 29–30), has everything to do with White citizens and their place. He talks of the embarrassment connected to statues and memorials, which have outlived their time (p. 32). The struggle over these statues and memorials, in South Africa and elsewhere, is about taking “hostage people and places, as well as ideas and histories” (Hope 2019: 34), who also makes the statement that South African history is largely “bogus” (p. 33). Hence, Hope seems to argue with these lines that such contestations of historical statues and monuments are a struggle over not only values in the present but over the right to make history. History may not be objective as argued by Morgan (2018), but it still presents a struggle for recognition. Hope’s memoir presents a subjective viewpoint of South Africa’s past and how it should be remembered, and the people he interviews and meets in relation to the toppling of statues define their subjective actions as anticolonial in a struggle to overcome an (arguably objectively) unjust past. The fight for legitimacy is concretely manifested in Hope’s writing and in the removal of statues. The role Cecil Rhodes played for the establishment of White South Africa cannot be underestimated, and his name will remain part of the history of the nation, but present-day statue removers do not only wish to make their claim on the new nation and its future but also redefine its history. It is this attempt of which Hope (p. 34) is critical, as Rhodes’s impact

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could not be erased, “putting the genie back in the bottle” was not possible. The question then arises as to how one can live with a past that is unbearable, and how to redress that unbearable past so that it does not wreck a fragile future. Toppling offensive statues seems a harmless way to release pent up anger and frustration, although such a viewpoint can also be seen as demeaning towards those who hope to address or at least draw attention to present inequalities through their actions. Memorials are never arbitrary in what they represent even if that representation is bound to shift over time, but the question persists whether the anger from a perspective of the nation itself was more directed at present failures than past oppression. Sabine Marschall (2017: 204) seems to suggest similar observations in her study where she argues the following: “The more monumental, imposing, conceited the statue, the more alluring, inviting, beckoning it presumably becomes as a target for expressions of discontent in times of contestation and sociopolitical change”. Not taking the statue removals seriously and defining them as mere expressions of discontent could be potentially dangerous and seriously misleading, and the worldwide removals of memorials seem to spring from much more urgent sentiments than mere socio-political discontent. The symbolic value of such actions is considerable, as the actual removal is a manifestation of the importance of space and belonging. Christopher Hope’s memoir thus addresses deeply sensitive matters, and the fact that he is a White writer who left South Africa decades ago is bound to cause some controversy. The conflict surrounding memorials and statues as discussed by Hope in his writing negotiates the place of Whites not only in present-day South Africa but in its past and futures too. Negotiating the relationship between self and other, self and nation, takes on an explicit dimension in his text. Further, not only do the removal of memorials and statues reflect the place of White South Africans but also the place of people wishing to remove offensive monuments. Hope’s memoir embodies the concern that there may not be enough space for all. A similar conflict emerges in the texts of Msimang and Morake, uncovering the deep rifts between different groups in society, rifts that are connected not only with race but with the shadow of apartheid in a number of other ways as well. South Africa is depicted as a place in which each and every one of its citizens have to stake a claim for their place in the nation, to more or less forcibly ensure their belonging as it may not be anything to take for granted. A relevant, even urgent, question, is

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then whether the current levels of violence and disregard for other people’s lives, property, safety and human dignity comes from a feeling of rootlessness that goes beyond any place-specific belonging but is inherently tied to disrupted histories and lost futures. What makes people belong also goes far beyond any notions of race, as the present chapter aims to show. The following section deals with these other kinds of struggles to belong, as seen and presented from the perspectives of Msimang and Morake.

3.3   Uncomfortable Belonging Despite their positions as relatively wealthy and highly successful professionals in their respective fields, both Sisonke Msimang and Tumi Morake write extensively in their memoirs about difficulties in finding their place in a variety of ways and contexts. For Msimang, the complexity comes with being South African by origin and upbringing but not having lived physically in the country, having spent her early life, youth, and early adulthood elsewhere. Returning to South Africa as a young adult and creating space for herself proved difficult in several ways. For Morake, feeling out of place is mainly connected with her  representations of professional endeavours and particularly the deep controversy that emerged due to some of her statements while working at the radio station Jacaranda FM. The anxieties revealed in both memoirs inevitably provoke the question as to who really belongs in South Africa, and in what ways. The cathartic nature of the two texts is connected to voicing concerns about place and eventually acknowledging the struggle it presents for many South Africans. The controversy surrounding Morake’s statements while working for Jacaranda FM reveals just how multi-layered and complex the attempts to find one’s place in the new nation can be. Tumi Morake, well-known for her stand-up comedy and hosting skills, hosted the programme Breakfast with Martin Bester and Tumi Morake for eight months (Kekana 2018) in 2017 before quitting the show. She calls her experience at the station “a rainbow-nation dream” which then inevitably became “a nightmare South African reality” (Morake 2018: 133). Morake (p.  134) also claims that “Jacaranda said they wanted to be socially progressive, but they did not follow through. They wanted to hire a black woman in a prime-time slot to appear more diverse”. Despite such severe criticism, Morake acknowledges Jacaranda’s earnest attempts to address and entertain a wider audience, in a more inclusive manner. The station is part of SABC, the South

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Africa Broadcasting Corporation, which is a public service broadcaster. Antonio Ciaglia (2017) investigates the political dimension of public service broadcasting (PBS) in his article and examines proceedings of the BCCSA (Broadcasting Complaint Commission of South Africa), which also dealt with complaints lodged against Morake. Morake (2018: 130) refers to the BCCSA as a “gatekeeper to keep you in check”, which indicates that she felt reigned in, perhaps even censored and silenced. Morake’s case is explained in detail in her memoir and she devotes the final chapters of it to a discussion of the controversy at Jacaranda. She begins with a lengthy explanation of how she came to work at the station and what she felt about its general appeal: “I had observed how Jacaranda’s on-air personalities tread well within the rainbow, either consciously or unconsciously parking their identities to maintain the auditory comfort of their listeners” (p. 132). However, to this Morake adds that she could not “toe that line”, indicating certain rebelliousness. She defines herself as a performer, “loud, un-PC, unapologetically, smartass black” (ibid.), and later states that part of why things became so complicated was because “in a mixed-race space, I own my blackness, because not to do so is to allow the other person to decide what they want to do with it” (p. 134). The pressure to perform while not giving up on or diminishing one’s identity in an environment such as the radio station, which tried to cater for a wide and mixed audience, is expressed quite explicitly in these lines and further highlighted in an example by Morake. Morake together with the other host decided to talk about funerals, and Morake made a comparison between Black and White ways of mourning, indicating that Black women express their grief very vocally while White people tend to show more restraint when it comes to public displays of grieving at funerals (p. 135). These comments were met with a complaint to the BCCSA, “claiming that I had said white people lack emotion” (ibid.). Morake expresses surprise at these turns of events and makes the following statement: “It seems as if there is a small group of people who thrive on feeling victimised and will stop at nothing to have their victimhood confirmed” (ibid.). This ‘small group’ likely refers to White South Africans, and their anxiety about feeling their space becomes smaller and smaller, and the defensive reaction is to limit the space of others as indicated by Morake. Morake explains that she thought Black South Africans would have been more offended by her comment. The incident implies that division still runs deep in South Africa, where there seems to be some anxiety to protect the interests and image of one’s own group. It

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goes to back to ‘we’ and ‘them’, to group membership and collective identity as outlined by Morake. More profound trouble and a much deeper controversy occurred with Morake’s response to a listener’s comment about Black South Africans’ relationship to apartheid and their drawing on this history when it suited them, seeing them as claiming victimhood. Morake responded with an analogy of a child losing his bike to a bully and then being told by an adult to share the bike with the bully (p. 116). This comment caused an uproar, and according to Tom Head (2017), it “enraged white and Afrikaner communities and lead to a major sponsor withdrawing from the radio station”. Morake was attacked severely online due to her comment, even fearing for her personal safety when appearing in public (p. 118): “They needed someone to attack, and I was it”. This comment is similar to the statements Christopher Hope made about attacks on statues and memorials, seeing them as a substitute for the real thing which could not be got rid of as easily. Morake here comes to symbolise similar things, albeit on opposite ends, that people who campaigned for the removal of the statues and redress of other remnants of times past wanted to address. Another comparison can here be made to the writings of Hope, who (2019: 193) mentions protests at the University of Cape Town in 2016 during which paintings and pictures were burnt that had previously decorated the halls of residence. An article written for The Economist (2016), titled “Whiteness burning”, connects these events with the removal of statues and claims that despite previous actions, anger prevailed: “Most of the paintings they heaped on a bonfire were portraits of white historical figures. They were, declared one protester, ‘symbols of the coloniser’”. Hope met a White student called Duane at Witwatersrand University and challenged the student’s views that the university was to blame for current injustices. Duane explained that his situation as a White student was difficult, to which Hope (p.  191) expresses some sympathy: “As a White he had no weight, no importance. His presence was tolerated on the understanding what he wasn’t really there”. These lines again manifest the struggle over place and how it connects with being a White student in a predominantly Black community. The audience of Morake’s radio show may have felt similar anxieties. Hope argues that when the paintings and pictures were burned, the astonishing aspect was that no one seemed willing to name the “enemy” (p. 195). Those who took part in the burning were “eager to wound but afraid to strike”, leading to “constrained” action “when you’re left with only with

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inanimate or symbolic targets” (ibid.). Some of the paintings burned had also been made by White apartheid activists and one by a Black painter (ibid.), causing Hope to yet again point to the futility of the actions. What emerges as most significant and worrisome in these events, both the statements and subsequent scandal that Morake experienced, as well as the burning of paintings and removal of statues, is the desperate struggle for space and recognition at almost any cost and the collateral damage that inevitably becomes part of it. Claiming victimhood on all sides adds to the complexity and is further complicated by the fact that few things are spoken out loud, referred to as “ameliatory amnesia” by Hope (2019: 104). The backlash Morake experienced thus reveals the difficulty in addressing underlying causes for anxieties concerning how apartheid can and should be talked about. The funeral joke made certain groups feel attacked for their perceived lack of emotion even though Morake states that the joke was directed at a group of South Africans to which she can be said to belong herself. The bully analogy indicated that South Africans of colour are now forced to share their nation and its comforts with the very same people who tried to take everything from them during apartheid. Morake understandably states in her memoir that she is not a racist (p. 121) and sees herself as having become a symbol “of an imagined institution that employed apartheid tactics to denigrate and disempower white South Africans, particularly Afrikaners” (p. 122). The tables would thus supposedly have turned, with South Africans of colour now being the ones with power to decide who gets to occupy which space and who gets to belong. Eventually, the BCCSA “recommended that we tread carefully when talking about race” (p. 125). Further, Patrick Lynn Rivers (2006: 229) makes the following comment with regard to BCCSA: “As barometers of the pace of transformation, bodies like the BCCSA have the power to record, reaffirm, redirect, and reorder past and present”. Hence, the role of the commission cannot be underestimated. Treading carefully when talking about race becomes an oxymoron, as impossible as reconciliation, and may result in silence. Duane was silenced in Hope’s memoir, while watching paintings burn, and Morake herself is silenced after comments that reopened wounds that had never had a chance to heal. Speaking in such fraught contexts highlights the importance of and courage involved with  writing personal narratives, not only for purposes of catharsis or cleansing, or creating a national archive, but also in terms of recognition.

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The stressful experiences recounted in Morake’s memoir and the outsider reflections of Hope with regard to the removal of statues and paintings in an attempt to decolonise once and for all the universities, all speak to a barely suppressed anger and sense of victimhood brewing on many sides. Finding outlets for that anger, be they in the form of inanimate objects or radio presenters, becomes a battle no one can win and in which everyone has much to lose. Black students found statues and paintings symbolic of repressive politics and measures meant to keep South Africans of colour from gaining positions equal to those of White citizens, and White radio listeners were insulted by Morake’s bully analogy and her comparison between White and Black funeral attendees. Morake’s definition of herself as ‘an unapologetic smartass black’ is a confrontation in itself, and a pronounced claim to space and, more importantly, to voice. In a context so contested as race, attempts to be funny can go seriously wrong which was the case in Morake’s funeral joke. Robin K.  Crigler (2018: 168) has examined the history of humour in South Africa and argues that humour has the power to liberate but also to cause rifts: “For people who are attracted to the liberatory potential of humour, its derisive, divisive consequences pose an awkward reality – at least when the joke goes in an unwelcome direction”. The divisive consequences are manifested through Morake’s jokes and the subsequent backlash she faced. The extent to which the apartheid past and current inequalities can be made fun of in South Africa is impossible to determine, yet it is again a question of who makes what joke and on whose expense. Trevor Noah is, according to Crigler (2018: 155), the most internationally known South African comedian. His memoir also builds on humour, for example, when focusing on his relationship with his mother and her relentlessness and resilience. However, the text never strays far from the realities of South Africa. Crigler discusses the role of humour in a place such as South Africa and argues that “the landscape of humour in South Africa is rich and multifaceted, and as a young democracy still struggling in many ways with the dark legacy of apartheid, humour and politics are closely linked” (ibid.). Morake came to experience the darker side of this close link. Humour and comedy as a healing force may not yet be reality, and their liberatory potential remains limited as presented by Morake. Treading carefully may be the only possible way forward, yet such advise

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also raises questions about what, then, is carefully enough. Drawing boundaries that regulate what can be said publicly inevitably also refer back to the controversy regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and Dr Gray’s statements. Speaking publicly in South African contexts seems to be a precarious act, and this book can only hope to tread carefully enough itself.

3.4   From Expatriate to Returnee While Christopher Hope expresses concern about the treatment of the past in South Africa and the place of Whites, Sisonke Msimang offers a more personal account of the complexities of returning to the nation after the end of apartheid. Msimang spent her early childhood in Zambia, then moved to Kenya with her family when she was eight years old (2017: 82). The family’s sojourn in Zambia had taken place due to political circumstances as ANC had moved its headquarters there, but the relocation to Kenya happened for professional reasons, changing the family’s socioeconomic position: “We went from being refugees in Zambia  – a country whose entire foreign policy was built around our protection and emancipation – to being expatriates in a city concerned with feeding its rich and distancing itself from its poor” (pp. 80–81). Msimang offers a few examples about the divide between rich and poor in Nairobi, for example being chased by children when going to restaurants in the city (p. 83), and not being able to enter certain areas (p. 84). Relocating to Canada in 1984 (p. 90) placed the family in a somewhat different position as Black people in a very White environment: “We stuck out like those white NGO workers in downtown Nairobi” (p. 93). Instead of being in a privileged position belonging to an elite of expatriates, Msimang’s family had to endure various forms of racism and prejudice. For Msimang, it began with being called an “African monkey” at school (p.  95) and her mother being called an “African bitch” by her boss (p.  237). Msimang’s father was disappointed that Msimang had not defended herself and told her to hit back next time (p. 98). Msimang also writes about becoming aware of her looks and the importance of fitting in as an immigrant (pp. 113–114), exemplified through the bike that she was eventually able to buy with her savings: “Belonging thrums in my veins” (p. 123). Soon after this, the family moved back to Nairobi where the bike gained new significance and instead of being an object that secured belonging, it became a manifestation of inequality.

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“Baba is a big boss”, writes Msimang (p. 127), highlighting once more the exceptional position of the family in Nairobi. Msimang’s bike is stolen while she rides it; “I am a slow-moving shiny rich girl on a shiny bike” (p. 129), and people around her mobilise to catch the thief who turns out to be a boy of similar age but from an entirely different social group. The adults who intervene and help catch the boy force him to apologise to Msimang, which he does reluctantly: “He stares at me with naked rage. He is sorry that I am rich and that he is poor and he is not moved by my tears or my vulnerability” (Msimang 2017: 134). The encounter between Msimang and the boy centres on social class and belonging while race is irrelevant. Studies of expatriates have often focused largely on race (see, e.g. Kunz 2020; Benton 2016), a problem also recognised by François Goxe and Marjolaine Paris (2016: 172), who note that studies of expatriate migrants have often examined “the lives of Western (often White) highly skilled corporate assignees”. Hence, the experiences of people such as Msimang thus offer new perspectives on the skilled and privileged migrant family and her memoir makes an important contribution also to such topics. However, defining expatriate has also been the focus of much debate. Here, Sarah Kunz (2016: 90) observes “the instabilities of the category ‘expatriate’, noting matters of power and privilege related to this definitional work” and further argues that people who define themselves as expatriate tend to have identities “constructed against and in relation to ‘Others’. These ‘Other’s centrally include host country nationals” (pp.  90–91). Msimang explicitly refers to her family as expatriates in a Kenyan context: “Because we have just secured our Canadian citizenship, we are in Kenya as expatriates” (2017: 127). Thus, her identity construction as a privileged child with an expensive bike is moulded against the other, which in this case is the boy, a host country national who “wasn’t sorry because he understood he had just as much right to happiness as I did” (p. 139). Race is not a factor in the unequal setting between the boy and Msimang, as privilege is not connected to skin colour or ethnic heritage but with social position and class. In Canada, on the other hand, race mattered more and Msimang needed the bike in order to belong. What makes the discussion of Msimang’s identity as expatriate interesting and worthwhile is particularly how it changes once the family returns to South Africa. Race comes back into the picture with new force

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and meaning. Such return migration, or circular migration, also repeated in the moves to Kenya, has also been widely studied. Crush et al. (2012: 929) note the following: “Emerging practices amongst skilled international migrants suggest that migration is increasingly becoming a circular process, whereby migrants leave their home country, work in another country for a certain number of years, and eventually return home”. Such movements from country to country are reality for Msimang, who eventually returned to South Africa in 1990 when Mandela had been freed from prison. Apartheid had not yet been abolished and Msimang experienced what it still meant when visiting a café in Hillbrow with her cousins. At the café, a White waitress poured water on a man begging for money (p.  144), provoking loud protests from Msimang and her cousins. Msimang called the waitress racist, who then got support from other White customers in the café (pp. 146–147). Msimang writes the following emphatic lines: We have flown across the length of a continent and travelled decades in anticipation of this moment. A supervisor will not stop this collision course with a confrontation we see as our birthright. We are here to confront the apartheid whites whose boots have been on our necks. We are unruly and ungovernable. (Msimang 2017: 147)

The representation of the old man’s presence becomes a reminder of the deep inequalities in South Africa at the brink of a new era, and as both the waitress and a man who came to her defence argue, the begging man used to visit the café frequently, causing them to state that “that old man is a pest” (p. 146). Removing the insulting object exemplifies and embodies the conquest for space, and also ties in with Morake’s radio controversy, having herself been the insulting object and eventually quitting her job. The incident at the café also gives rise to the following comment by Msimang when the manager intervened and tried to find a solution to the stand-off: “We are steeped in the rules of middle-class combat and far more cosmopolitan than he can imagine” (p. 148). “Combat” refers to ongoing struggle, and in this case, it is a struggle not only for concrete space as in the case of the begging man who is literally chased away but also in terms of standing one’s ground.

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The changing elite and middle class in South Africa and the transformation they have been through since the end of apartheid warrants some discussion here, as much of the present study is focused on the prevailing inequalities and remnants of a segregated society. Sophie Chevalier (2015: 118) studies the emergence of this new class in her article on consumption patterns and explains that “the two features commonly taken in public discussions as signs of the emergence of a new non-racial middle class: access to consumption patterns previously reserved for whites; and residential mobility – that is, households that left the townships for the formerly white suburbs”. Msimang represents such movement, although she did not grow up in the townships. She writes in detail about the moment she and her husband Simon decided to buy a house in Emmarentia in Johannesburg when Msimang was pregnant with their first child who was born in 2008 (p.  301): “In some ways, this house represents the new South African dream. Set in a gorgeous neighbourhood, close to public amenities and a public school that is walking distance away, it had once been off limits and now we have just bought it” (p. 288). Just as Morake came to realise that the “rainbow-nation” dream of working at Jacaranda did not match the complex reality, Msimang too struggles with her affluence. Despite the idyllic surface, Msimang writes intimately and reflectively about the difficulties of being part of the middle class and how it relates to colour, and how it also ties in with the house she and her husband bought: “For middle-class black families like mine, the transition to democracy has proceeded in the most orderly way possible” (p. 291). The struggle took place when she was away, and Msimang in her own words had a safe childhood, got a good education in United States, and was now building herself a career (ibid.). However, after discovering that the newly purchased house sat at a busy intersection and feeling subsequent disappointment about this “First World problem”, Msimang writes that “the obviousness of our privilege begins to eat at us” (ibid.). She refers to the many workers required to keep the house in order, about becoming a “madam” herself and states that “[t]he house makes me complicit. […] [I]t places us firmly in the heart of whiteness” (p.  292). Thus, these lines show an ambivalence, conflict even, connected to the status of being part of the middle class in South Africa, able to afford a beautiful house in a nice suburb and to pay people to help take care of it, yet remaining aware of the wider implications of having staff.

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Bill Freund (2007) recognises some of these issues in his article on the formation of a new elite in South Africa and writes that while there is “a varied middle class which includes more or less disgruntled whites but also a dramatically increased black middle class” (p.  672), offering opportunities to people to further their careers and economic status particularly for those close to the ANC (p. 674), there is also a darker side to things: However, the picture is very much murkier when one questions the capacity of this class to take South Africa forward to a more successful set of niches in the globalised world. Even more serious is the failure thus far to transform the lives of the masses through the set of deep institutional and social interventions that can be associated with the most successful Asian developmental states. Some of this failure must lie in the uncomfortable relationship of the new elite to its predecessors, now confined to the private sector and their practices. (Freund 2007: 675)

Though not being explicit about it, it is possible to read Freund’s comment as relating to the relationship between the new Black elite and its White compatriots. The inability to provide for the masses is thus reflected in Msimang’s text as well, as she understands her position as opposed to those who end up working for her. This she sees as becoming complicit in unequal social structures, becoming firmly located in the heart of whiteness as she expresses it, in being a madam and employing those who are not as fortunate and privileged. It is relevant to remember that, as Justin Visagie (2015: 3) argues in his article, the middle class can be divided into two categories of which one is the affluent section while the other marks the median income. Thinking of middle class in this way clearly places Msimang in the affluent group, having access to living and working conditions that would still be out of reach for most South Africans. A more detailed discussion of class from a perspective of the more disadvantaged follows in Chap. 4. “The heart of whiteness”, with its inevitable reference to Joseph Conrad’s novel about the effects of imperialism and colonialism, also refers to who can be expected to occupy spaces such as Emmarentia. The issue of belonging is once more raised in this context too. The ability to consume is a marker of class as well, as emphasised, for example, by Sophie Chevalier (2015: 118). She also takes interest in “the possible emergence of a non-racial middle class” (ibid.). The writings of Msimang could be interpreted as a step towards such a non-racial class,

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but it is of great significance that Msimang herself explicitly attaches her life in the suburbs to whiteness. That seems to suggest that class cannot be non-racial, at least not in a South African context. The parents of Msimang also participate in building the new South Africa as members of the new educated Black elite: “Baba is busy being a First Black CEO and First Black Director General and Mummy is busy making her mark in the community of returnees who are reshaping the business and cultural life of the new South Africa” (p. 241). Msimang (p. 246) also writes that in the early post-apartheid years, there was a solidarity that was soon to disappear and “a new and arrogant black will emerge. This new black will not be interested in the stories of the poor”. The indication here is that certain self-­ interest and self-serving individual desires instead of collective needs will come to define South Africa. Some pages later, Msimang expresses her indignation with the policies of Mbeki and his followers, referring to them as an expression of pride, and argues that “the callousness of the present is excused by the horrors of the past” (p. 276). The question that inevitably arises in this context is what significance the apartheid past should be given now almost three decades since its abolishment. Msimang’s statement implies that responsibility for shortcomings in the present moment are no longer solely tied to the past. While writing this, she also implicates herself as the ‘madam’, living now in the heart of whiteness with her own small army of servants, and thus inadvertently contributing to the historical continuity of inequality that seems to haunt South Africa. Inequality and the challenges of South Africa arise also in other contexts in the memoir. After Msimang’s baby and nanny were held at gunpoint outside their own home, Msimang lost much of her resolve to stay and keep building South Africa (p. 308). Again, she connects this feeling with whiteness, with “the ones who have fled to Australia and Canada and the UK and who Facebook obsessively about South Africa’s horrors” (p. 311). Msimang sees it as a failure on South Africa’s part, exacerbated by the poor treatment her nanny received at a public hospital in Johannesburg (p.  313), an experience very similar to that of Morake (2018: 79), and by her catching her nanny being untruthful to her when leaving the house for long stretches at a time (p.  320). The statement “[s]he is not saying sorry for anything because she really isn’t sorry” (ibid.) connects the storyline about the nanny with the boy in Nairobi who stole Msimang’s bike. Transgression becomes connected with inequality, and by extension with “the horrors of the past” and persistent class divides. Feeling sorry, or not feeling sorry (another theme revisited in Chap. 6),

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becomes entangled with that of complicity, as it is Msimang who feels complicit despite the explicit transgressions of her nanny and the boy, as well as the person who held her nanny at gunpoint. Their actions become her personal burden, and ultimately her personal shortcoming as well, as represented in the memoir. Eventually, the family hired another nanny, a Zimbabwean woman, who “seems grateful but now I am wise enough to know that unfairness is built into the system so her gratitude does not change the fact of our complicity” (p. 323). Abigail Hunt and Emma Samman (2020: 106) explore current trends and issues regarding South African domestic workers and argue that their relationship with employers has much to do with class, particularly due to the growing wealth of Black South Africans. The complicity Msimang feels is thus partly the inevitable result of historical injustices but also potentially indicative of new South Africa’s particular development arch. The role of violence comes into the equation in a number of ways, not just in terms of the nanny and Msimang’s baby being subject to armed robbery but also in terms of inequality and the kind of slow violence, a term theorised most notably by Rob Nixon (2011), it constitutes. Violence in a South African context thus comes to mean much more than just violated physical and psychological spaces; it also becomes an act of self-inflicted harm, of violence against the self. This is exemplified by Msimang when she writes about the consequences of moving to formerly White neighbourhoods, in search for personal status and quality of life: “This is middle-class South Africa: hoping for the best. Bringing home the bacon. Buying new cars. Planting hedges. Hoping for the best, but creating the worst. We pretend we don’t know this, and it is this pretence that is most abhorrent” (p. 325). Violence is a central theme in Chap. 5 but a brief comment is here in order. The relationship between violence and democracy in South Africa has been examined by Karl von Holdt (2013: 590), who argues that “violence is integral to the processes of class formation and emerging class relations in democratic South Africa”. Although von Holdt cites explicit instances of violence, such as assassinations or demonstrations and protests, it is also relevant to consider whether the kind of violence referred to by Msimang, a more abstract and low-key violence connected with poverty (though being held at gunpoint is hardly abstract nor low key), makes part of the violent aspects of South African society. Similar indications are made by von Holdt (p. 591) too, who argues that the poverty and inequality combined with “institutional rupture” after apartheid has led to a

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“highly unstable social order in which intra-elite conflict and violence are growing, characterised by new forms of violence and the reproduction of older patterns of violence, a social order that can be characterised as violent democracy”. The following chapter deals in more detail with class, particularly from a perspective of lacking privilege and poverty, but there is an inevitable racial aspect too as Msimang also asserted. Her role as a ‘madam’ is a continuation of apartheid privileges, but also a matter of finding, and ultimately losing, ground in South Africa. The quest for space thus relates to class but is also still firmly entrenched in racial discourses and divides. From a viewpoint of privilege, both Msimang and Morake give evidence of the continuous struggle for space in South Africa. Morake (2018: 109) writes about visiting Franschhoek with her husband, where they were referred to a Black colleague by the coloured receptionist, and Morake interprets the shift in the receptionist’s attitude as prejudice related to the fact that they were not tourists but Black South Africans. Another incident concerns shopping, and Morake recounts being “scolded for not assisting a customer in a shop I don’t work in”, where “this Caucasian lady said that maybe I should stop looking at the books and actually help customers” (p. 110). Being perceived as a shop assistant is related both to race and class, indicating, as Morake asserts, that the incident showed prejudice on the part of the lady who seemed to think that Black people do not read (ibid.). It did not enter the lady’s mind that Morake was just another customer browsing between the shelves. This exemplifies a scramble for space, for status and for recognition. A similar incident is recounted by Msimang in connection to a grocery store she visited frequently with her sister after having moved permanently back to South Africa in its early post-apartheid years. The struggle for space is exemplified most concretely in the parking lot, where Msimang often found herself patiently waiting for a spot to free up, only to lose it to “the owner of a weathered yellow or blue bakkie” (p. 248). Msimang calls such behaviour “white righteousness”, indicating certain vindictiveness in some ways, a demonstration of presence, of still being there despite the end of apartheid and the new empowerment of its citizens of colour. However, the situation escalated inside the store, where a White woman bumps into Msimang with her trolley and does not apologise but “sneers and huffs and tells me to get out of her way” (p. 249). Msimang demands an apology and asks the woman to speak English when she responds in Afrikaans. Msimang utters the following statement: “This is our country now. You must leave if you don’t like black people!” (ibid.). (Re)claiming

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space could hardly be made more explicit, and the comment that the lady should leave underlines Hope’s question too about what “we” are doing in South Africa. Bringing the conflict in the grocery store together with Christopher Hope’s writings about the removal of statues and memorials offers some relevant insights about the question as to what can and cannot be explicitly said in South Africa. The scramble for space and the demand for an apology for rude behaviour in the grocery store can be seen as a small-­ scale manifestation of the deep-seated issues that have led to more serious and visible conflicts such as the burning of paintings at UCT. Msimang expresses what many South Africans seem to be thinking but, as Hope claims, are unable or unwilling to say explicitly. Perhaps part of the problem is the conception that ownership of South Africa has transitioned from White to Black, as indicated by a young Msimang in a heated moment some twenty years ago. White citizens as represented in Hope’s writing perceive their position as one of loss, and struggle to hold on to whatever is left, but citizens of colour as represented in Msimang’s and Morake’s memoirs have little reason to truly feel victorious. They too still fight for space and recognition despite apartheid having come to an end and despite the implementation of new non-racial policies in South Africa.

3.5   Conclusion Two of the memoirs examined in the present chapter speak particularly explicitly to the past and future conditions and expectations of South Africa and its citizens. Hope and Msimang occupy intricate positions with regard to their long absences from the nation. Hope’s writing is geared towards understanding present controversies and events by looking to the past, which itself still demands attention and consideration, whereas Msimang’s writing is more personal and focused on finding her place in South Africa. Morake’s writing does not deal with experiences of leaving and returning but the writer is still forced to face similar anxieties. Daymond and Visagie (2012: 718) argue that since 1994, a “less guilt-­ ridden mode of confessional writing” has been emerging, but the memoirs examined here attest to the opposite. Msimang, Morake, and Hope deal extensively with the struggle over history and its meanings, emphasising in their writing how sensitive and multifaceted representations of the past still are, and how personal complicity adds to the considerable burden. Their writing is a far cry from any obsession with the past, or compulsive

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return to pain and suffering as outlined by Boehmer (2012: 30). Catharsis and purgation manifest themselves through attempts of all three writers to speak of the unspeakable, of the place of Whites in South Africa, of how to talk about race, and of how to come to terms with privileges and choices available only to a small fraction of the population. Even though a sense of victory may not eventually emerge, the texts examined are struggling to find new ways of living with the past and such an endeavour can be deemed successful too at least on some level. Hope (2019: 36) asks “who came first? Who stole most, or lost more? And whose country was it anyway?”, which are questions that define much of the writing analysed here. The questions cause anxiety for all writers concerned, and the solutions they propose all speak to the need for concessions and collective legitimacy. Msimang eventually accepts her multiple roots and uneasy belonging in South Africa, as the family moved to Mozambique: “The country [South Africa] feels toxic, yet I’m obsessed with it. I swing between depression and euphoria” (p. 354). Then, when her mother died suddenly and unexpectedly, Msimang writes that the loss released her: “I was free to belong wherever it was that I happened to be and so, finally  – finally  – we left” (p.  358). The repetition of “finally” indicates relief due to being able to make the decision to leave. The author introduction on the back cover of the edition used here declares that Msimang is now based in Perth, Australia, and her essays and columns for The Guardian centre on race and living in Australia (cf. Msimang 2020). The problem with space persists in Australia too, as she writes about sitting by a statue with her son drinking milkshakes, when an elderly man driving by asks them to leave and go back to where they came from (Msimang 2020). Space, monuments, and belonging again converge in multiple ways. Apartheid can be said to have been all about space, about separating and dividing space for different groups, for example, in concrete terms of beaches for Whites only, park benches for Whites, and toilets and restaurants for White citizens. Statues and memorials have been absorbed into that same space, or more accurately, they emanated from that space and still inevitably represent it. Finding new meaning for them in South Africa today may prove a futile task. The violent democracy reaches far beyond institutional changes and political struggles for power. The struggles and conflicts recounted in the three memoirs analysed in this chapter indicate that in South Africa, most things eventually come down to space, to place,

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to land, to existence. Hope, Morake, and Msimang attest to histories that will eventually dominate national discourses being formed, not only through autobiographical writing but also at radio stations, cafés, university campuses, and grocery store parking lots. Each chapter here touches upon these topics in various ways, ranging from notions of personal freedom to political participation and the right to believe in a South Africa where something good eventually must come out of it all. Whether that common good is for all South Africans regardless of colour and all social classes remains to be seen as the three texts analysed here indicate.

Works Cited Barnard, Rita. 2019. Introduction. In South African Writing in Transition, ed. Rita Barnard and Andrew van der Vlies, 1–32. London: Bloomsbury. Benton, Adia. 2016. African Expatriates and Race in the Anthropology of Humanitarianism. Critical African Studies 8 (3): 266–277. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/21681392.2016.1244956. Boehmer, Elleke. 2012. Permanent Risk—When Crisis Defines a Nation’s Writing. In Trauma, Memory, and Narrative in the Contemporary South African Novel Essays, ed. Ewald Mengel and Michela Borzaga, 29–46. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Bond, Patrick. 2019. In South Africa, “Rhodes Must Fall” (While Rhodes’ Walls Rise). New Global Studies 13 (3): 335–350. https://doi.org/10.1515/ ngs-­2019-­0036. Çelik, Zeynep. 2020. Colonial Statues and Their Afterlives. The Journal of North African Studies 25 (5): 711–726. https://doi.org/10.1080/1362938 7.2019.1644897. Chevalier, Sophie. 2015. Food, Malls and the Politics of Consumption: South Africa’s Middle Class. Development Southern Africa 32 (1): 118.129. https:// doi.org/10.1080/0376835X.2014.965388. Choi, Suhi. 2014. Standing between Intransient History and Transient Memories: The Statue of MacArthur in South Korea. Memory Studies 7 (2): 191–206. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698012454872. Ciaglia, Antonio. 2017. Explaining Public Service Broadcasting Entrenched Politicization: The Case of South Africa’s SABC. Journalism 18 (7): 817–834. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884915614245. Crigler, Robin K. 2018. No Laughing Matter? Humour and the Performance of South Africa. South African Theatre Journal 31 (2–3): 155–171. https://doi. org/10.1080/10137548.2018.1451360.

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Crush, Jonathan, Abel Chikanda, and Wade Pendleton. 2012. The Disengagement of the South African Medical Diaspora in Canada. Journal of Southern African Studies 38 (4): 927–949. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2012.741811. Daymond, M.J., and Andries Visagie. 2012. Confession and Autobiography. In The Cambridge History of South African Literature, ed. David Attwell and Derek Attridge, 717–738. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https:// doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521199285.036. de Lange, Margreet. 1997. The Muzzled Muse: Literature and Censorship in South Africa. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Freund, Bill. 2007. South Africa: The End of Apartheid & the Emergence of the “BEE Elite”. Review of African Political Economy 34 (114): 661–678. https:// doi.org/10.1080/03056240701819533. Garman, Anthea. 2015. Antjie Krog and the Post-Apartheid Public Sphere: Speaking Poetry to Power. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu Natal Press. Goxe, François, and Marjolaine Paris. 2016. Travelling Through the Class Ceiling? Social Mobility of “Traditional” and “New” Expatriates. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management 16 (2): 171–189. https://doi. org/10.1177/1470595816660121. Head, Tom. (2017). Tumi Morake “Stands By” Her Jacaranda FM Race Comments, Calls for Unity. The South African, September 22, 2017. https:// www.thesouthafrican.com/news/tumi-­morake-­stands-­by-­her-­jacaranda-­fm-­ race-­comments-­calls-­for-­unity/. Accessed November 9, 2020. Hope, Christopher. 2018. White Boy Running: The Classic Account of Apartheid in South Africa. London: Atlantic Books. ———. 2019. The Café de Move-On Blues: In Search of the New South Africa. London: Atlantic Books. Hunt, Abigail, and Emma Samman. 2020. Domestic Work and the Gig Economy in South Africa: Old Wine in New Bottles? Anti-Trafficking Review 15: 102–121. https://doi.org/10.14197/atr.201220156. Kekana, Chrizelda. 2018. Tumi Morake Is “Angry” for Leaving Jacaranda in the Wake of Ma Winnie’s Death. Sunday Times, April 18, 2018. https://www. timeslive.co.za/tshisa-­live/tshisa-­live/2018-­04-­18-­tumi-­morake-­is-­angry-­for-­ leaving-­jacaranda-­in-­the-­wake-­of-­ma-­winnies-­death/. Accessed November 9, 2020. Kennedy, Roger. 2002. Psychoanalysis, History and Subjectivity: Now of the Past. London, New York: Routledge. Kunz, Sarah. 2016. Privileged Mobilities: Locating the Expatriate in Migration Scholarship. Geography Compass 10 (3): 89–101. https://doi.org/10.1111/ gec3.12253. ———. 2020. Expatriate, Migrant? The Social Life of Migration Categories and the Polyvalent Mobility of Race. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 46 (11): 2145–2162. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1584525.

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Lentz, Carola. 2017. Ghanaian “Monument Wars”: The Contested History of the Nkrumah Statues. Cahiers d’Études Africaines 57: 551–582. https://www. jstor.org/stable/26613054. Leonard, Pauline. 2019. Reimagining Racism: Understanding the Whiteness and Nationhood Strategies of British-Born South Africans. Identities 26 (5): 579–594. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2019.1637624. Marschall, Sabine. 2017. Targeting statues: Monument “vandalism” as an expression of sociopolitical protest in South Africa. African Studies Review 60(3): 203–219. https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2017.56. Melchior, Inge, and Oane Visser. 2011. Voicing Past and Present Uncertainties: The Relocation of a Soviet World War II Memorial and the Politics of Memory in Estonia. Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 2011 (59): 33–50. https://doi.org/10.3167/fcl.2011.590103. Morake, Tumi. 2018. And Then Mama Said…: Words that Set My Life Alight. Cape Town: Penguin Books. Morgan, David. 2018. Solder Statues and Empty Pedestals: Public Memory in the Wake of the Confederacy. Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief 14 (1): 153–157. https://doi.org/10.1080/17432200.2017.1418231. Morrison, Blake. 2015. The Worst Thing I Ever Did: The Contemporary Confessional Memoir. In On Life-Writing, ed. Zachary Leader, 201–220. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Msimang, Sisonke. 2017. Always Another Country. New  York, London: World Editions. ———. 2020. To Be a Black Mother Is to Manage the Rage of Others While Growing Joyous Black Children. This Is No Easy Task. The Guardian, August 7, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/08/to-­be-­a-­ black-­mother-­is-­to-­manage-­the-­rage-­of-­others-­while-­growing-­joyous-­black-­ children-­this-­is-­no-­easy-­task. Accessed November 9, 2020. Newsinger, John. 2016. Why Rhodes Must Fall. Race & Class 58 (2): 70–78. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396816657726. Nixon, Rob. 2011. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nuttall, Sarah, and Carli Coetzee. 1998. Introduction. In Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa, ed. Sarah Nuttall and Carli Coetzee, 1–15. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rivers, Patrick Lynn. 2006. Governing Sounds: Hate, Race, and Responsibility in Post-apartheid Broadcasting. Critical Studies in Media Communication 23 (3): 219–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/07393180600800783. Visagie, Justin. 2015. Growth of the Middle Class: Two Perspectives That Matter for Policy. Development Southern Africa 32 (1): 3–24. https://doi.org/10.108 0/0376835X.2014.965387.

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von Holdt, Karl. 2013. South Africa: The Transition to Violent Democracy. Review of African Political Economy 40 (138): 589–604. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/03056244.2013.854040. Wale, Kim. 2020. Confronting Exclusion: Time for Radical Reconciliation. SA Reconciliation Barometer Survey: 2013 Report. Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. Whiteness Burning. 2016. The Economist, February 18, 2016. https://www.economist.com/middle-­e ast-­a nd-­a frica/2016/02/18/whiteness-­b urning. Accessed November 9, 2020.

CHAPTER 4

Fighting Disadvantage in Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime and Malaika Wa Azania’s Memoirs of a Born Free

Inequality and disadvantage are key features of South African present-day disillusionment, and they inevitably connect to race. Few places in the world have as complicated a relationship to race as South Africa and this complexity is reflected in many areas of life as outlined in the memoirs examined in this chapter. According to Statistics South Africa and their population report “Mid-year population estimates” from 2019, out of the entire population of almost 59 million people, 80.7 per cent were Black African, 8.8 per cent were coloured, 2.6 per cent were Indian/Asian, and 7.9 per cent were White. The present study uses the same terminology as Statistics South Africa when talking about different groups in South Africa, although the problems with such continued categorisation are also ­recognised. A most relevant concern is whether perpetuating differentiation between groups also perpetuates racial divides. The memoirs examined also explicitly use similar terminology when addressing challenges in South Africa. The introduction to the report on inequality from 2019 addresses the seemingly irresolvable issue of inequality and its historic roots: Inequality in South Africa has long been recognized as one of the most salient features of our society. South Africa is consistently ranked as one of the most unequal countries in the world, an empirical fact that has its roots in the history of colonisation and apartheid. In addition to being extremely high, South African inequality appears to be remarkably persistent. Despite © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Englund, South African Autobiography as Subjective History, African Histories and Modernities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83232-2_4

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many efforts by government to reduce inequality since our democratic transition in 1994, progress has been limited. (Inequality Trends in South Africa 2019: 1)

This profound statement is at the centre of all of the works of nonfiction examined in this study. They all to different degrees and in different ways attempt to address this persisting problem. The citation also connects with the question asked at the beginning of this study: to what extent can and should the apartheid past be blamed for problems South Africa still struggles with in terms of income gaps and social inequality? In this context, Wa Azania’s and Noah’s memoirs emerge as particularly important, as they can shed some light on this question and offer two perspectives on personal experiences of disadvantage and inequality. Malaika Wa Azania (the writer’s pen name; she is originally known by the name Mahlatsi) published her book Memoirs of a Born Free: Reflections on the New South Africa by a Member of the Post-apartheid Generation in 2014 (the edition used here was published in 2018), which focuses largely on her childhood having been born “a year and eight months after that historic day of Mandela’s release” (Wa Azania 2018: 28). The writer thus explicitly locates herself in the post-apartheid era. The historic day she refers to was 11 February 1990, meaning that Wa Azania was born towards the end of 1991, on 19 October to be precise (Wa Azania 2018: 24). This makes her a representative of the controversial and somewhat elusive category of the born frees; South Africans who grew up and came of age after the end of apartheid. Trevor Noah published his memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood in 2017. He was born in Hillbrow Hospital on 20 February 1984 (Noah 2017: 26), some years before Mandela’s release. Thus, the memoirs go well together in an analysis such as this for a number of reasons. The authors are of similar age, both grew up around Johannesburg, and the memoirs too display certain similarities with regard to topics covered. Both writers struggled with poverty in their childhoods and were raised by extremely resourceful and fearless mothers who fought for their education and futures despite severe deprivation as recounted in the memoirs. The chapter sets out to investigate experiences of disadvantage in the two texts in focus. Education emerges as a particularly urgent topic, as both authors examined focus a great deal on their formative years and the education they received in a variety of schools, and the concept of Black tax is also raised in this context. This is the starting point of the

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chapter. Both writers also talk of experiences of feeling like an outsider due to their colour and socio-economic status, often in connection to education and various schools and institutions they attended. The question of race emerges in both memoirs as especially central and will therefore be at the centre of this chapter in relation to disadvantage and inequality. Both writers also negotiate belonging in their writing, Noah due to his complex racial heritage and Wa Azania in terms of access to higher education and securing better prospects for herself and her family. This younger generation of Black writers, also represented by Clinton Chauke whose text is dealt with in Chap. 5, have moved beyond earlier modes of autobiographical writing in South Africa. Daymond and Visagie (2012: 732) argue that “[i]n the 1980s in black writing in English, community became the revered source of a counterasserted identity”. Since those days, writing has transformed towards “a questioning of community and particularly to the requirements of a necessary self-healing” (ibid.). This questioning of community is present in both texts examined, for Noah through his fluid racial identity and for Wa Azania through the forceful critique she directs at ANC in her book. Both texts also represent self-healing in their depictions of their assertive and formidable mothers who worked hard for their futures. Further, Michael Chapman (2017: 90) argues in his chapter in the edited collection Living Together, Living Apart? on the need for social cohesion in South Africa that engaging with difficult and controversial topics is required, if that cohesion is ever to be reached: “It is a society that thrives on dialogue, in which we press our differences into the complexity of challenge and qualification; in which we remain open to revisiting entrenched positions”. This kind of approach he terms “literature thinking”. This he defines as “attachment to what is the distinctive feature of the literary work: the character of the subjective, human experiences, or the ‘story-able’ life” (ibid.). Both Noah and Wa Azania enable such literature thinking through their texts, and the subjective histories they present are firmly entrenched in personal experiences of race and inequality in the free South Africa. Thus, the memoirs also dialogue with one another as in other chapters in this book, and the somewhat opposite perspectives they present on poverty and access to education, on finding future prospects in precarious situations, touch upon the division also among people categorised as belonging to the same racial group. Despite such categorisation also emphasised in the writing examined, no ‘monolithic’ Black identity (or White identity) can be said to exist, and belonging takes on different

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meanings for the two writers despite similarities in experiences. Their contrasting outlooks on life, self, and nation form the core of the texts examined and attest to the diversity of South African autobiographical writing and to the necessity to explore controversial and sensitive issues as also argued by Chapman.

4.1   Education and Equity Apartheid caused severe inequality not only in terms of access to education but also with regard to quality of education provided. Schools were strictly segregated and some of these legacies can still be seen and felt in present-­ day South Africa. As Mekoa (2018: 228) states, One of the legacies of apartheid that led to the lack of development of the black people was the Bantu education system enacted in 1953. It was an education system organized along racial lines with vastly inferior institutions catering for black students. The policy of racism also shaped its policies and higher education landscape. This led to the creation of 36 higher education institutions in South Africa with sharp racial divisions, cultures and languages of the coloured, Indians and whites.

These divides were later redressed in The National Plan for Higher Education (Mekoa 2018: 230), but as Chisholm (2012: 85–86) argues, this legacy is still visible in present-day South Africa: “These areas remain the poorest in the country. The majority of children continue to go to school in these areas, and the quality of schooling overall is considered to be poorest here too” (Chisholm 2012: 86). The role of education for other forms of inequality is also significant (McKeever 2017: 115). Noah explicitly addresses the issue of uneven access to good education in his memoir and argues that apartheid needed to “cripple the black mind” in order to be successful (Noah 2017: 61), which meant purposefully providing inferior and inadequate education. Noah deems this approach from the apartheid authorities as having been honest, despite it obviously having been deeply unjust and unfair: “Why educate a slave? Why teach someone Latin when his only purpose is to dig holes in the ground?” (ibid.). Reading between the lines in Noah’s writing inevitably seems to suggest that current governments and education reformers have not been able to be entirely upfront and honest about the quality of

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education still provided to many children in disadvantaged areas, unlike the apartheid regime, which openly discriminated against certain groups whose opportunities for social upward mobility were severely limited or practically removed altogether. The role of geography is another relevant topic in this context and it plays a significant role for the inequality of education (Yamauchi 2011). Living in cities and urban areas meant better access to good schools, but since Black Africans were forced to live in designated areas during apartheid, it meant that access to education was largely defined by where one lived (Yamauchi 2011: 146). These notions are reinforced by Badat and Sayed (2014: 134): “[I]f equity of opportunity and outcomes were previously strongly affected by race, they are now also conditioned by social class and geography”. Thinking in terms of equality is, however, not enough. Badat and Sayed (2014: 126) make an important statement when they argue that we need to think in terms of equity too, in order to fully address the problems that are still haunting South African educational systems: “Thus, formal equality has to be distinguished from equity: whereas the former refers to the ‘principle of sameness’ and to uniformity and standardization, the latter is concerned with fair and just treatment” (ibid.). For the present study, this distinction is quite central. What several of the writers examined here seem to be looking for in the South Africa of their experiences and imagination is equity more so than equality. Equality may have been achieved in terms of legislation and government, but real equity, to the extent it could be provided, is still lacking to which the memoirs testify. Education is a prime example of a major aspect of society in which equity measures have not taken place or been implemented to a required degree. Wa Azania’s memoir explicitly calls for equity and tries to expose the troubles still haunting the educational system in South Africa: “Every day was dedicated to extending eternal gratitude to those who fought for the liberation of black people: you” (Wa Azania 2018: 37). The ‘you’ here refers to ANC, African National Congress, to which Wa Azania directs her memoir, which from time to time reads as a riposte against the party’s shortcomings and broken promises. The teaching methods Wa Azania experienced included getting lashed with a wooden rod by the teacher when none of the pupils knew the correct title (Professor) of Kader Asmal who was Minister of Education at the time (Wa Azania 2018: 35–37). Later, towards the end of 2001, Wa Azania transferred to a so-called Model C school (Wa Azania 2018: 55), a name used for schools that accepted White students during apartheid. Christie and McKinney (2017:

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9) explain that three types of schools came into being during the final days of apartheid and that the ones called Model C would remain loyal to principles instated for the education of White pupils, a so-called White tradition, and also be semi-private. They would, however, be opened for children from other groups. Christie and McKinney (2017: 12–13) also raise the issue of language as central to the problems faced by Black children and their education, and this is something Wa Azania also criticises. Having most likely began school in an African language setting, children are forced to switch to English at a later stage putting pupils of different backgrounds on unequal footing. All their learning materials (textbooks), workbooks and assessments are supplied in English only; they are expected to follow the same curriculum, use the same textbooks and often write the same provincially distributed tests as their English Home language peers in “Model C” schools. With insufficient proficiency in English to understand the concepts introduced in Science, Mathematics or History, the goal of schooling for these children is reduced to learning English and memorisation. (Christie and McKinney 2017: 13)

Thus, the home languages of pupils are made to be inferior to English, placing pupils and students with African languages as their home language in a position where they are at a clear disadvantage when compared to students whose home language is English. Wa Azania (2018: 30–31) writes about the first school she attended from the age of six and explains that the language of instruction was Setswana, which was not her home language (it was Sesotho, see Wa Azania 2018: 17) but which she had learned well, and comments on her struggles with English. When transferring to a Model C school, Wa Azania was impressed by the facilities and privileges available to its students (Wa Azania 2018: 58–59). She struggled to fit in and also had difficulties with the language: “My command of the English language was terrible; I could barely speak a complete sentence” (Wa Azania 2018: 59). She felt out of place not only because of race but also because of class: “I was terrified of revealing to [Wa Azania’s mother] the truth about this new South Africa that she so desperately wanted us to embrace: that in Melpark Primary School, rich black students and white students were treating the rest of us like inferior beings, flashing their wealth before our desperate eyes” (Wa Azania 2018:

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61). This for its part participates in the discussion of disillusionment, that the schools which became multiracial after apartheid still remained discriminatory, if not in terms of race but of class. It is also essentially a question of equity, of social capital, and these issues cannot be rectified by equality measures alone. Wa Azania refers to her feelings of being on the outside, at the periphery and not fitting in due to her background. The indication is therefore that post-apartheid South Africa has not to a satisfying degree managed to level the playing field for all its children as represented by Wa Azania. Trevor Noah offers similar observations from his years at school and writes extensively about the difficulties of fitting in. Wa Azania’s mother had ambitions for her children to get a good education, and so did Noah’s mother: “My mother raised me as if there were no limitations on where I could go and what I could do. When I look back I realize she raised me like a white kid—not white culturally, but in the sense of believing that the world was my oyster” (Noah 2017: 73). In terms of education and going to school, the most telling example of Noah’s struggles to belong and also the kind of racial profiling he encountered had to do with him switching schools after primary school. The school he had attended became mixed after apartheid, and according to Noah, the school was free of racism and genuinely mixed (Noah 2017: 56). The new school he transferred to required him to take a test to determine which level he was to attend, and he succeeded so well in the test that he was placed in the more advanced group. However, the students in this class were mostly White. Noah realised during recess that there were lots of Black children too at the school, just not in his class with more advanced learners (Noah 2017: 57). Upon finding out that the Black pupils were in the B classes, whereas he was in A, Noah decided after the first day that he wanted to switch to the other group: “Suddenly, I knew who my people were” (Noah 2017: 58). The experience recounted is telling in terms of belonging and group membership, being here defined largely along racial lines. However, his school counsellor was not convinced by this decision: “Look,” she said, “you’re a smart kid. You don’t want to be in that class.” “But aren’t the classes the same? English is English. Math is math.” “Yeah, but that class is… those kids are gonna hold you back. You want to be in the smart class.” “But surely there must be some smart kids in the B class.” “No, there aren’t”. (Noah 2017: 59)

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Eventually the counsellor warned Noah that switching classes would negatively impact his future, but he decided to proceed with it anyway due to feeling more at ease and at home with the pupils in the other group. The paradox presented by Noah is here evident: his mother gave him a ‘White’ upbringing, teaching him that he could do whatever he set his mind to, but he himself chose to go against the advice of his counsellor and decided to study with a group the counsellor considered a hindrance to his aspirations and prospects. The complexity presented in these examples recounted by Noah attest to the nonlinear nature of belonging as outlined by Habib and Ward (2020). The passage quoted here reveals problems with equity similar to those addressed in Wa Azania’s memoir, albeit in less angry terms. The text also indicates rather explicitly that belonging and group membership may  still be  largely determined along racial lines. In this sense, Noah’s memoir exposes the narrative of South Africa as racially mixed and also indirectly touches upon the problem of equity. Noah’s problems with belonging are raised numerous times in the memoir, primarily relating to school and the difficulties in finding his place among the other children or teenagers. His experiences of a Model C school are also recounted, and these very much tie in with his feelings of being perpetually on the outside due to his mixed heritage and colour. He started eight grade at Sandringham High School, which was a Model C school and thus mixed. Noah’s first impressions are similar to those of Wa Azania concerning the sheer size of the school and the facilities it provided (Noah 2017: 137). Noah is altogether much more positive in his description of the school and does not express the same kind of alienation Wa Azania felt in her school: “The pupils were as integrated as they could be given that apartheid had just ended” (Noah 2017: 138). Despite the positive experience, Noah again faced the same problem he had at previous schools: “Where was I supposed to go? […] The group I felt the most affinity for was the poor black kids” (Noah 2017: 138–139). Not knowing which group he belonged to is a recurring dilemma throughout Noah’s childhood, and it reveals a great deal about the importance of group membership still prevalent in South Africa but also as a human desire to belong and to be accepted. Another challenge that emerges in relation to group membership along racial lines is that of what has been termed ‘tribalism’. Elijah M. Baloyi (2018: 2) discusses the dangers of tribalism in his article and argues the following: “One of the effects of tribalism is that some government departments are seen as representatives of certain tribes; hence, the equity act that our constitution expects is

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biased. This is becoming a playground for civil war and genocide”. Such predictions seem deeply troubling. In a South African context, tribalism and strengthening one’s group membership can be seen as a substitute for national unity. Where reconciliation failed, tribalism has to some extent filled the gaps. The issue is addressed later in this book in relation to crime particularly through the writing of Clinton Chauke. He recounts the negative aspects of tribalism as a South African who is othered by Black South Africans due to his home language and skin colour. These experiences speak against any notions of a unified and general Black South African identity. Interestingly enough, when Noah got into trouble with the law, he again faced the same dilemma of not knowing which group he belonged to. Noah, nineteen or twenty at the time, had taken one of his stepfather’s cars for a ride from the workshop he owned, a car which lacked proper registration. Noah was pulled over by the police who spotted the licence plates that did not match the car (Noah 2017: 229). He spent a few days in jail and was then transferred to a holding cell to await his trial (p. 238). Noah observed that the cell, which held about a hundred people, was divided according to different racial groups, each group keeping to themselves: “I didn’t know where to go. I looked over at the colored corner. I was staring at the most notorious, most violent prison gang in South Africa. I looked like them, but I wasn’t them” (Noah 2017: 238–240). Noah decided that going over to the Black side would not work either even though that was the group he identified with, as it might have made the coloured side angry (ibid.): “I’d never been more scared in my life. But I still had to pick. Because racism exists, and you have to pick a side. You can say that you don’t pick sides, but eventually life will force you to pick a side” (ibid.). These simple lines reveal a profound insight about the limiting and confining nature of belonging, which becomes a paradox in itself as it is also connected to experiences of comfort and freedom. Noah ended up choosing the White group as they felt the most harmless. This incident is revealing in terms of not just group membership and exclusion but also the racism inequality and lack of equity may and inevitably will lead to. It also says something about hierarchies, as Noah decided not to join the group of Black arrestees, in case the coloured group would feel he scorned their company. Yet the same risk was not involved with joining the White group.

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Returning to the question of unequal access to education, the racialisation of universities was also addressed after apartheid, but as Mekoa (2018: 234) states, these measures were not entirely successful: even though student demographic changed in urban areas where historically white universities are based, rural-based universities have remained marginalized in terms of institutional capacity, racial character and class status. The problem owith [sic] historically white universities, on the other hand, will be the task of transforming institutional cultures so that they can be inclusive and accommodating.

Thus, the problem is no longer rooted in legislation but more connected with persisting practices, and these are much more difficult to change. These issues with race in higher education are addressed also in the memoirs examined here, particularly by Wa Azania who writes about her experiences at Stellenbosch University, historically a mainly White, Afrikaans university. Her experiences reveal something of the problematic institutional cultures Mekoa refers to. Wa Azania (2018: 112) writes about she despite hardship and difficulties was able to get a decent result in the matric exams and was accepted at Stellenbosch but not for the exact course she had originally chosen. This was no major obstacle in the end, and she travelled to Cape Town where a friend who already studied at the university met her. The experience at Stellenbosch did not, however, meet her expectations: “I felt out of place” (Wa Azania 2018: 113). This feeling was reinforced at a braai arranged for students: “But as I stood in the middle of what felt to me like a sea of blonde-haired, blue-eyed people speaking in Afrikaans, I knew that Stellenbosch University was not the place for me” (ibid.). The discomfort seems to be a matter of race to Wa Azania, potentially of tribalism too, but her uneasiness appears to stem from a deeper place than that, as she goes on to explain: “I couldn’t exist alongside conservative Afrikaners who, by the look of things, still regarded us as kaffirs with whom they had no intention of even attempting to be polite” (ibid.). Eventually, the unpleasant situation and the outsiderness experienced by Wa Azania culminated when she went to get a drink, only to be spoken to in Afrikaans by a student who was reluctant to switch to English: “Something about the way she’d asked the question felt like an interrogation about not only what I wanted to drink but why I’d decided to dare to interrupt her world with my blackness” (Wa Azania 2018: 115). No

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explicitly racist or insulting exchange has been documented in Wa Azania’s memoir in relation to the incident, but a deep sensitivity to racial divides is revealed here. Wa Azania detects a culture at the university which, “by the look of things”, is still a remnant if not of apartheid directly then at least of the group divides that still remain. Interestingly enough, a similar encounter at a bar takes place in Kevin Bloom’s memoir, though the situation is quite different. Bloom had been covering a political rally in support of Jacob Zuma in Polokwane and went to a local bar to get himself a beer: “I am the only white person in the room. […] The barman takes fifteen minutes to acknowledge me. He looks my way and says I’m next. But then another man in a cotton suit slides in on my right. The barman smiles at the man. ‘You’re not next any more,’ he says to me. ‘You’re after him.’” (Bloom 2009: 126). Presumably, the man in the cotton suit was not White, indicating certain profiling or expression of group preference on the part of the barman. These two separate experiences have much in common, as both writers experienced what they perceived as racial profiling and even racism and felt othered by the person behind the bar. However, the two incidents are not entirely comparable as Bloom merely went for a beer in a city with a considerable Black majority where only 5 per cent of the citizens are White according to the website of the city of Polokwane (‘Demographics and Language’). Wa Azania on the other hand was supposed to study for many years at Stellenbosch becoming immersed in an environment in which she immediately felt out of place. The experiences of othering and difficulty in securing belonging as outlined by Noah and Wa Azania in this section speak to the paradoxes of group membership and the complexity of balancing personal preferences with outside expectations. Both writers feel the apartheid legacy literally in their skins when attending formerly White schools or being forced to deal with racial divides in jail cells or on university campuses. The nonlinearity of belonging as it builds on subjective histories is exemplified in both memoirs as the writers negotiate their place and group membership from their separate viewpoints. For Noah, being given a ‘White’ upbringing by his mother did not diminish his feeling of belonging to the group of poor Black students, and for Wa Azania the lack of equity, for example, in terms of language of instruction remains a central concern. Equity is discussed further in the following section, which deals with inequality from a perspective of economic mobility.

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4.2   Economic Prospects Equity as defined earlier is experiential to a larger degree than equality which can be said to be based on policies, legislation and other measures implemented by authorities. Even though a principle of sameness may have been reached on paper and in official discourse, finding the right way to reach equity is a more complex problem. The memoirs of Wa Azania and Noah attest to the need for equity, as they both grew up in relatively poor households and had to struggle to get through their schooling while taking care of their families at the same time. Both came up with more or less illegal occupations in order to bring in some money for the family. Wa Azania (2018: 92–93) wrote essays and assignments for other students and got paid for them, and later also started selling sweets to her fellow students. Noah (2017: 139–140), on the other hand, would make sure he was first in line at the snack shop at his school. He took orders for other pupils so that they would not have to queue themselves and made some money in this manner. Later his enterprising efforts expanded into selling pirated CDs as well (p.  163). Other incidents recounted are of a more troubling nature with regard to prospects and opportunities to earn money. Wa Azania in particular expresses anger at the state of things and the injustice still present in South Africa when writing about the violent death of an uncle during a failed heist (Wa Azania 2018: 47): “When a black child does his best to make an honest living but doors of learning are shut in his face or he is subjected to the cruellest exploitation in the workplace, very little options are left for him” (Wa Azania 2018: 48). However, Wa Azania (2018: 76) actually states some pages later in her memoir that her remaining uncles “had completed their matric and were in tertiary institutions”. In an attempt to respond to these complex concerns and the connection between poverty and crime, citing the statistics report also referred to earlier is here relevant as it argues the following about inequality: “Thus, until economic improvements occur domestically (with hopefully as little interference from negative changes and shocks in the global market), the challenges of inequality stemming from an unjust past will continue to anchor the country to an unequal future” (‘Inequality Trends in South Africa’ 2019: 4). The report on inequality therefore explicitly connects the problems of inequality with the past. According to a study conducted by Benjamin J. Roberts (2014: 1185), “South Africans are acutely aware of how unequal their society is”. Despite this awareness, differences between groups can be detected:

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While both black and white interviewees highlighted present conditions as contributing to crime, black respondents also proposed several ways in which current crime has its roots in the country’s apartheid past. In addition, black respondents suggested that narratives that posit a rupture between past and present limit our ability to see historical continuities that would help us account for present-day crime. In contrast, when white respondents deployed the apartheid past, they did so in order to promote these very ideologies of rupture between past and present and argued that those who illegitimately hold onto the past drove crime. (Teeger 2014: 70)

Such a disparity with regard to views of the past in connection to crime is perhaps unsurprising, but the memoirs by White writers examined here in the following chapter do not suggest ignorance with regard to the past or any wilful ‘rupturing’ between the past and the present. Wa Azania’s reaction to the criminal activities of her uncle does acknowledge historical continuities as suggested by Teeger, while simultaneously placing less emphasis on personal responsibility. Her writing can be seen as a call for more concrete measures to level the playing field so that crime ceases to be anything even remotely like an option for anyone in South Africa. In contrast to these notions, it is relevant to mention another childhood story told by Noah (2017: 154–155) in which he recounts stealing chocolates from a stationery shop in a local mall together with a friend. They were seen by security guards and pursued when running away. Noah’s friend was caught but would not give up Noah since the two children had been close friends previously (p. 157). Everyone still suspected Noah of being the second culprit even though his friend protected him, and he was questioned at school about his involvement which he vehemently denied. Due to his light skin colour, Noah’s participation could not be confirmed even though he was caught on security camera: “But the camera can’t expose for light and dark at same time. […] My color gets blown out. In this video, there was a white person and a black person” (Noah 2017: 158). Noah was then questioned about who the White child in the video could be even though he himself should have been the most likely suspect to adults investigating the case: “These people had been so fucked by their own construct of race that they could not see that the white person they were looking for was sitting right in front of them” (p.  159). It is unlikely that Noah and his friend stole the chocolates because “crime in the new South Africa is often committed by young men and women who see it as the only ticket out of a life of cruel suffering”

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(Wa Azania 2018: 48). It seems more likely that the boys did it merely for the rush (and the chocolates), but the story does have a message to convey about attitudes to colour and a paradoxical (and racist) colour-blindness of which the story gives evidence. Noah’s complex racial belonging is thus also addressed yet again. The same topic is revisited later in Noah’s memoir when he makes a more direct political statement about the workings of colour and prospects in South Africa. Noah’s business expanded when he was given the chance to sell pirated CDs which quickly became immensely popular (Noah 2017: 186). Daniel, a White teenager a few years older than Noah who was around sixteen at the time, helped him get started and taught him the intricacies involved with the production of CDs (ibid.): “What he did, on a small scale, showed me how important it is to empower the dispossessed and disenfranchised in the wake of oppression. […] Working with Daniel was the first time in my life I realized you need someone from the privileged world to come to you and say, ‘Okay, here’s what you need, and here’s how it works’” (Noah 2017: 190). This realisation can be connected to equity, with levelling the playing field, and connects well with Wa Azania’s writings, albeit in a less forceful manner. Thus, what Wa Azania seems to be calling for in her memoir is therefore perhaps better seen in terms of equity than equality. She seems to indicate that the measures implemented to support her uncles in their educational endeavours were not substantial enough, and her deceased uncle did not get the help and support he would have needed in order to keep away from trouble. Wa Azania’s perspective is personal, but she paints a picture of a system that has failed a number of its most disadvantaged citizens. Righting such wrongs is a complex task. The notable difference in the way Noah and Wa Azania remember their years at school and particularly the experiences they had of attending Model C Schools which mixed children from all racial and social groups of society indicates that to some extent, Noah fared better despite being born in the apartheid era. He turned ten the year South Africa went to the polls as a nation no longer under apartheid, whereas Wa Azania was merely a toddler at that point. The small age difference between the two writers becomes significant here, as Wa Azania expresses more direct and explicit anger at ANC and the failed promises made to all previously disenfranchised South African about a better future and prospects. The burden on the so-called born frees to rebuild the nation in their image and to make the best of whatever it had to offer, which was little in

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most cases, and the burden of having to be grateful to those who fought so hard for freedom, becomes overwhelming as it clashes with the reality of South Africa. Paradoxically, Noah got the better end of the deal having been born into the racist system which then later ended. His childhood carried fewer promises and therefore also less disillusionment. Noah’s memoir speaks less of failed promises and disappointment in the new South Africa, whereas this is the central theme in Wa Azania’s writing. The paradox of South Africa could not be made more explicit. Noah’s earlier comment about having been brought up as a White child is also relevant here. Having his mother teach him to believe in himself despite his background and skin colour, and then actually receiving help from people more fortunate such as Daniel, made a major difference for his outlook and prospects. The following section of this chapter connects the discussion of education and socio-economic mobility through the issue of Black tax and addresses the question of class.

4.3   Black Tax and Class Economy and education connect in multiple ways. As a means of social mobility, education also comes with specific responsibilities towards close relatives and extended families. Both Malaika Wa Azania and Trevor Noah ponder the burdens of taking care of less well-off members of the family, of paying so-called Black tax. The concept of Black tax in a South African context (the American use of the term is somewhat different) has been examined by researchers and is defined in the following manner: “Black Tax is understood as a financial contribution linking the emerging black middle class in South Africa to their economically disadvantaged family” (Mangoma and Wilson-Prangley 2019: 447). The role of the disadvantaged family is exemplified by Wa Azania, who explains in the preface to her memoir that since many of the Black students enrolled at universities in South Africa are the first in their families to get a higher education degree, they are forced to financially support and take care of pretty much their entire families and become the main providers (Wa Azania 2018: xviii). Class emerges as a significant concern in the preface in other ways as well, when Wa Azania discusses the Fees Must Fall campaign and states that Black students still struggle financially to pay their fees. Many are unable to pursue an academic education due to not having the necessary means: “Our class background is being used to mark us as undeserving of

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a chance to become better” (Wa Azania 2018: xvii). Thus, not having access to education due to financial disadvantage is represented as something close to deliberate. Wa Azania regards tuition fees the culprit, which continue to keep those with inadequate means in perpetual poverty and hinder them from moving upward. The role of education and the importance of having access to it can thus not be underestimated in terms of improving one’s life and as a mechanism that levels the playing field at least to some extent. In relation to these topics, Wa Azania’s memoir becomes less personal and takes on a more overtly political agenda. Black tax is also explicitly connected with the possibility of upward mobility provided by education. Samuel N.  Fongwa (2019: 7) presents evidence in his article on Black tax which “support arguments that black tax is primarily experienced by black South African employed graduates. Black tax is perceived by majority of the respondents as a negotiated process due to the legacy in which the society and the black community finds itself”. This reinforces Wa Azania’s experience of those with university degrees becoming main providers and further emphasises the observation that “black tax provides evidence that a degree in a typical black family is not an individual achievement” (Fongwa 2019: 12). This is confirmed by Christopher Webb (2020: 2) who argues the following: “For many first-­ generation students, higher education is not considered an individual endeavour, but a collective project of upliftment involving multiple obligations to family members or, as one research participant put it, an opportunity to ‘liberate the family’”. Hence, Wa Azania’s resentful remark about class and tuition fees is also connected with the notion that being held back from getting an education means that the entire family will remain behind, unliberated. The leftist sentiments detectable in Wa Azania’s writing hark back to Marxist thought of earlier decades. The Indian-born scholar Madan Sarup (2012: 167; originally published in 1978), who wrote widely on topics of racism and culture, argues the following in his book on Marxism and education: “Schools, therefore, remain hostile to the individual need for personal development, neither are they vehicles for the equalization of economic status or opportunity. Indeed it is through this correspondence that the educational system reproduces economic inequality, and distorts personal development”. The collective need for affordable education is thus rejected by capitalist aspirations: “Schools at once supply labour to the dominant enterprises, and reinforce the racial, ethnic, sexual and class segmentation of the labour force. It is argued that major aspects of

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educational organization replicate the relationships of dominance, and subordinancy in the economic sphere” (Sarup 2012: 168). More recent uses of Marxist theory and thought in South African contexts reveal complexities related to class and race. Kirk Helliker and Peter Vale (2013: 27) explain that Marxism was particularly influential in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, but that it has since lost some of its appeal. However, it is finding new ground in movements such as Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which will be discussed in more detail in the following section. Further, Khwezi Mabasa (2019: 174) writes that “racism in South Africa is inherently linked to the evolution of a racialised capitalist social order and the power relations it produces. Thus, it is impossible to understand racism outside evolving class-power relations in the political economy”. This comment aligns with Wa Azania’s observations that people belonging to certain levels of society are excluded from pursuing educational goals due to the high costs involved. A final comment by Vishwas Satgar (2019: 9) emphasises the connection between class and race: For instance, in South Africa the lived experience of race is the lived experience of class and the lived experience of class is race. Class and race are inseparable given the racist history of South Africa’s capitalist development and despite new dynamics of capitalist accumulation in contemporary South Africa.

The emerging middle class of South Africa is discussed in more detail in relation to Sisonke Msimang’s memoir, but there too race remains central. To return to the issue of Black tax, Trevor Noah (2017: 66), too, mentions Black tax in his book and explains that his mother used the term when talking about “trying to fix the problems of the past”. She ended up living with fourteen cousins at an aunt’s farm, working hard to take care of the animals and fields. She was able to learn English and get a job at a factory (Noah 2017: 65), making it possible for her to provide for herself. Eventually she returned to Soweto and took a secretarial course, enabling further upward mobility from a class perspective. However, this is where the problem of Black tax comes in: “As a secretary, my mom was bringing home more money than anyone else, and my grandmother insisted it all go to the family. […] Because the generations who came before you have been pillaged, rather than being free to use your skills and education to move forward, you lose everything just trying to bring everyone behind

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you back up to zero” (Noah 2017: 66). This embodies the lack of equity in very explicit terms and also connects with Wa Azania’s comment about the cost of education holding people back from improving their lives. Both memoirs thus suggest in no uncertain terms that true equality will never be reality unless the problems relating to poverty are solved. Mangoma and Wilson-Prangley (2019: 450) note in their study of experiences of paying Black tax that those who did so more frequently were often met with further demands and expectations on more money, which could result in the person making the payments feeling burdened. This seems to have been the case for Noah’s mother who “worked and worked and worked but, living under my grandmother’s roof, she wasn’t allowed to keep her own wages” (Noah 2017: 66). Wa Azania returns to the problem of Black tax in the preface to her memoir. She writes about the death of her mother in 2017 (p. x) and how she struggled to find the money with which to arrange the funeral and had to make plans in order to support her younger brother: I had to finish my degree, I had to work for my brother. I did not have the time or the luxury to stay in bed for weeks and cry my eyes out—which is what I would have wanted to do. […] My class background did not allow me to drown in my grief […] And so grieving is postponed—because I cannot fall apart. My class position and the demands of black tax do not allow me to. (Wa Azania 2018: xiii–xiv)

The sentiments expressed here by Wa Azania conform to what Mangoma and Wilson-Prangley argue in their discussion, that having to pay Black tax can be felt by the person making the payments as being held back from “personal and economic success” (2019: 456). In this case, Black tax responsibilities kept Wa Azania from grieving her mother as thoroughly as she would have wished to. Arguably, for most people who rely on their salaries, be they South African or living in other parts of the world, staying in bed for weeks to grieve is a luxury they cannot afford, not to mention for those who also have children or other dependents to take care of. That does not mean that the process of grieving a loved one would not potentially require extended leave from work, but that many people cannot afford it and would probably not be granted such leave depending on their line of work. This makes the issue more of a class problem and less explicitly race-­related. The preface suggests some resentment on the part of Wa

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Azania in terms of her mother’s death and how there was little money with which to arrange the funeral and no chance to take time off to process the considerable loss. This passage at the very beginning of the memoir, and an addition which was included in this later edition meant for the US market in particular, subtly exudes a feeling of being owed. This resurfaces later in the text as Wa Azania proceeds to write her letter to the ANC outlining how they in so many ways have failed their fellow Black South Africans. Another memoir by a so-called born free is Born in Chains (2018) by Clinton Chauke, who, like Wa Azania, grew up in extremely poor conditions. He also writes about the problems of Black tax, referring mainly to his sister Tsakani who dropped out of university when she could not pay her tuition fees but then went on to secure a job as an auxiliary nurse, becoming the main breadwinner of the family: Tsakani was now paying what we call black tax, extra money that young, black professionals have to pay out in order to support their extended families. For Tsakani, it was not compulsory for her to pay the money. It was more like psychological blackmail. She grew up seeing the struggle at home, so she was forced to give back. (Chauke 2018: 126)

Chauke’s explicit use of the term ‘blackmail’ suggests that he saw Black tax as a negative thing, despite himself being able to benefit directly from his sister’s earnings when she paid for his university application (Chauke 2018: 166), and later for his groceries once he had enrolled at university (Chauke 2018: 177). The subtle question arises whether there are gendered expectations at play here, but these are not raised or addressed by Chauke. Noah’s grandmother, Wa Azania, and Chauke’s sister, Tsakani, are all women who made considerable sacrifices for their family members as recounted in the texts. Overcoming poverty individually is thus not enough as the burden of supporting entire families lands on those who have made it out, or who at least stand with one foot in the door. For Chauke too, this becomes a question of class. However, Wa Azania’s preoccupation with class to some extent overlaps or even clashes with problems related to race, and in a South African context, the two can hardly be separated. Determining whether not having access to education is a class or race question can basically not be done, as statistics show how wide the income gaps still are. Inequality remains the biggest problem in connection with race, and from an economic point

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of view, it is explicitly manifested in the following numbers: “Black Africans had an annual median expenditure of only R6 009 in 2006 and R9 186 in 2015. Meanwhile, the white population group had their annual median expenditure sitting at R77 308 in 2006 which increased to R100 205 in 2015” (Inequality Trends in South Africa 2019: 27). Thus, the numbers are ten times higher for the White population. In terms of income, the statistics report on crime ‘Governance, public safety and justice survey: 2018/19’ from 2019 also includes a table for income groups in South Africa. The total income per month per household is divided into five groups of which the one with the lowest income totals only R1-1500. About 29 per cent of Black South Africans belong to this group, and a similar number, 30 per cent, is presented for the following group, R1501-3500. However, the numbers are reversed for White South Africans of whom 47 per cent belong to the group with the highest income, R16001 or more, and 25 per cent to the group with the second-­ highest earnings, R6001-16000. Thus, more than two-thirds of White citizens have a very high income and a bit less than two-thirds of the Black population have earnings that place them in the groups with the smallest income. The discrepancy between different racial groups is thus explicit and seems to override that of class. Wa Azania comes to the same conclusion at the very start of her memoir where she talks about the Model C schools at one of which she ended up herself as a child. She argues that “[r]acism and racialism are now institutionalised; they are the threads that hold together the fibre of South African society” (Wa Azania 2018: 5). The observation and insight definitely go against any ideas of a unified nation but more importantly than that, they are directly  connected with economic realities. Wa Azania (2018: 4) argues that 1994 did not bring with it a complete overhaul of the economic and political systems and “an antithesis to the ones that defined the previous regime” (p. 5). Instead, she states that the very same system is still in place: “That system is capitalism, a brutal system that can only survive through the exploitation of the majority by the elite minority who owns the means of production, primarily, land” (ibid.). The question of land is a major point that requires further investigation, as redressing land ownership has been a sore issue in South African politics since the end of apartheid. The final section of the present chapter briefly addresses the question of land particularly with regard to party politics and EFF. The question of land reappears later in this study in relation to Lesego Malepe’s memoir. The role of autobiographical writing becomes central in

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connection to these topics, as Daymond and Visagie (2012: 732) argue: “The loss or rejection of land and community and a consequent search for belonging has been a constant theme in South African autobiography”. This theme is still being dealt with, also by a younger generation of writers.

4.4   Addressing Disappointment and Anger When talking about land and land redistribution after the end of various colonial regimes, few countries have had as controversial procedures as Zimbabwe with their land reform programme initiated in 2000 that saw farms being taken over by force and the brutalisation of White farmers and their Black farmworkers. Zimbabwe and South Africa are also often compared in this regard, and this is also mentioned in Christopher Hope’s second memoir where he talks about murders of White farmers. Hope met some White Afrikaans-speaking men who were out hunting and was surprised to find out that they seemed unaware about the dangers facing White farmers: “They reminded me of their Zimbabwean counterparts I’d met long ago: lotus eaters drugged to the eyeballs, sleepwalking towards disaster. […] Theo and his hunters might say they were ‘not going anywhere’, yet they seemed to have not the least idea who, or where, they were” (Hope 2019: 110). Zimbabwe is often taken as a bad example of what might happen to South Africa as well if the land issue is not resolved in time and in a peaceful manner (cf. O’Laughlin et al. 2013; Lahiff 2016). Lahiff (2016: 181) explains that when apartheid officially ended in 1994, “86 percent of all farmland in South Africa was owned by the white minority” and goes on to outline how this situation is still at the heart of present-­ day inequality. However, South Africa has implemented various measures aimed to ensure more even distribution of land but according to Lahiff (2016: 181), these measures have largely been unsuccessful, and the problem remains unresolved. Violence against White farmers in South Africa has received international attention in recent years and caused significant controversy at a very high level (e.g. see news articles written by Smith 2019; Onishi and de Greef 2019; Ward 2018). The situation was further exacerbated when President Donald Trump tweeted about the murders in 2018 expressing his concern about the number of White farmers being killed, “the large scale killing”, angering the South African government (Sommerlad 2018). To further complicate the controversy, Black farmworkers have also faced violence (e.g. see the case of two White farmers who got long prison

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sentences in 2019 for killing a fifteen-year-old Black whom they accused of stealing; Onishi 2019). South Africa has a long history of White on Black violence, which is outlined by Ivan Evans in his study of cultures of violence in South Africa and the United States: “Trivial sentences for abusing and murdering black, the failure to prosecute and the unwillingness to convict violent landowners all confirmed with depressing regularity, as every black farm worker knew, that no government would take seriously the institutionalized violence that prevailed in the rural areas” (Evans 2009: 116). Evans’s examples are from the early twentieth century, even before the apartheid system was put officially in place. Thus, the question of land and the role of White farmers remains one of the most controversial and is difficult to resolve. The memoirs attest to this difficulty. Before looking more closely at the memoirs, a person who has been in the headlines in recent years needs to be discussed, as his political agenda is tied to the land question. That person is Julius Malema, who became president of the ANC Youth League in 2008 (Posel 2014: 32) and immediately took on a rhetoric which Posel (2014: 39) calls violent, becoming a somewhat controversial figure from the outset. Malema became widely known for a song about killing Boers which became public in 2011, and according to Liz Gunner (2015: 333), he “set the song to use in establishing the issue of land as a key pillar around which to raise his profile and make an important political intervention in a challenging and controversial way”. The song led to a court case (Langa 2018), and according to Posel (2014), the myth and legend that Malema attempted to create around himself can to some extent be compared to that of Mandela: If the mythic Mandela championed the project of ‘national reconciliation’— his symbolic powers put to the work of performing ‘non-racialism’—Malema emerged as the symbolic counterpoint, marking the limits of this project: a ghostly reminder of the abiding racial wounds that have endured, on the one hand, and of the power of violent anger to command political attention, on the other. (Posel 2014: 35)

This counterpoint was to some extent perhaps long overdue, as Mandela’s successors were not able to recreate the charisma and leadership that tend to be connected with him. Thabo Mbeki’s international reputation is heavily influenced by his stance on HIV/AIDS (e.g. see: Cohen 2000), discussed in detail in the nonfictional texts Justice: A Personal Account

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(2014) by Edwin Cameron and The Lion Sleeps Tonight (2012) by Rian Malan. Jacob Zuma’s legacy is tarnished by investigations of corruption (cf. Southall 2011) and allegations of rape (cf. Maseng et al. 2018). Julius Malema’s reputation, for its part, is perhaps best described by Nigel Worden (2012) in the following passage: Malema was a powerful orator who inspired crowds with his rhetoric against continued white economic power. By operating within the ANC, although frequently rebuked by its leaders for his intemperance, he tapped the deep-­ felt loyalty of many to the country’s leading liberation organization. In calling for the nationalization of industry and mines, for example, he invoked the clauses of the 1955 Freedom Charter. His populism was decidedly more appealing than that of the trade unions, who only represented those fortunate enough to hold permanent jobs, and more powerful than the weakened civics and NGOs who had formed the grassroots basis of anti-apartheid struggles. It severely alarmed both whites who feared Malema’s racial attacks (symbolized by his use at rallies of the struggle song, dubul’ibhunu (‘shoot the Boer’) and by the black political and economic elite who feared his economic radicalism. (Nigel Worden 2012: 168–169)

The song mentioned by Worden made Malema infamous, and he was later found guilty of hate speech due to the song (Langa 2018: 225). Malema was later expelled from ANC and proceeded to form a new political party called EFF, Economic Freedom Fighters, which fared quite well in the 2014 elections winning twenty-five seats (Swift 2015), offering an alternative to people who were somewhat disillusioned with the ANC. EFF has been described as a party which “sets out to mobilize the poor, largely on overtly racial lines, against the ANC’s perceived indifference to the problem of economic inequality—characterized structurally as the persistence of white supremacy” (Posel 2015: 2170). Further, Heywood (2015: 248) states that the party “has become the expression of a new political phenomenon, rooted in young black people’s anger at exclusion and continued marginalisation from the economy”. This disillusionment with party politics is visible in Wa Azania’s memoir as well and she engages in a lengthy description of her own involvement in the foundation of EFF and her collaboration with Malema. These activities are directly tied to the disillusionment with South African party politics and persisting inequality. Wa Azania’s early encounters with politics had left her somewhat disappointed (Wa Azania 2018: 136) but the reason she originally became involved was partly due to anger she felt: “I was angry at you, the

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ANC-­led government, for painting a false picture of South Africa. A South Africa of genuine social cohesion and racial harmony did not exist. It does not exist” (Wa Azania 2018: 119). This reproachful tone continues when Wa Azania states that anger has been a significant driving force for many South Africans “at times even more so than the love for our people” (ibid.). This anger eventually drove Wa Azania towards Malema, whom she found deserving of her respect (Wa Azania 2018: 139). She particularly addresses issues of nationalising mines which Malema campaigned for and also returns to the question of land which she deems “atrocious” and “absurd” (Wa Azania 2018: 140). Wa Azania discusses the expulsion of Malema from ANC but does not explicitly mention his song. Instead, she addresses the land question in more roundabout ways, expressing her support for “the call for land expropriation” (Wa Azania 2018: 141). She then explains how Malema asked her to take part in forming a new movement that was later to become EFF (p. 156). Wa Azania (2018: 161–166) further outlines a rift that then occurred between herself and the movement, leaving her on the outside when it was registered as a party in 2013 (p. 166). Anger is mentioned by Trevor Noah too, in similar terms but in a different context. He talks about how the history of South Africa and its apartheid years were taught in school and argues that there was no “judgment or shame” involved (Noah 2017: 183): “Facts, but not many, and never the emotional or moral dimension. It was as if the teachers, many of whom were white, had been given a mandate. ‘Whatever you do, don’t make the kids angry’” (ibid.). Noah’s perceptive observation gives a glimpse of the other side of the anger expressed by Wa Azania. The fear among White teachers to address the anger felt by many Black school children is directly connected with their perceived precarious position and fear that they would be the ones to feel the brunt of the unexpressed anger, were it to be vocalised and given a proper outlet. Memoirs such as the two texts examined here provide an outlet for anger and discontent through personal experiences, enabling an examination of the “emotional and moral dimension” that was not previously addressed.

4.5   Conclusion Belonging is a central concern in the memoirs examined, and it comes to encompass not only private feelings and experiences but also national politics and finding an outlet for discontent. The feeling of being an outsider

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is repeated on several occasions in both texts but again on very different terms. Wa Azania’s outsiderness and alienation comes from being Black, and not just Black but underprivileged and dispossessed. The same kind of experience is recounted in Noah’s memoir, but the alienation comes from his mixed background having a Black mother and a White father. Class is less of an issue for him, and he managed to make friends with children of other backgrounds too (e.g. Daniel who helped him start his pirated CD business). Such experiences are largely lacking in Wa Azania’s text where the sense of alienation is never fully overcome. Noah describes himself as a chameleon (Noah 2017: 140), being able to more or less smoothly move between different racial groups at school thanks to his lunch shop endeavours. Where Wa Azania expresses strong belonging to the group which forms a majority of South Africans, Noah’s desire to belong to the same group never quite materialises in the memoir. Not having a strong racial identity may have been to his advantage, and this could also explain the difference in political statements the two writers make. Where Wa Azania’s memoir at times reads like a call for more direct political action to right things that are wrong, Noah makes fun of himself and his awkward teenage years, while staying mindful with regard to the racial make-up of South Africa. His memoir manifests the same kind of chameleon-like existence he portrays as having been a significant part of his childhood and youth: a smooth, largely inoffensive text which shows great self-distance but also profound concern about the inequalities of his country of origin. Wa Azania is not out to entertain but to educate and remains explicitly political throughout, using her memoir to address the ANC and what she perceives as their failures. A central difference between the two authors has to do with choice. Noah’s position as a non-White, non-Black, non-coloured person not fitting into any category gives him the possibility to choose for himself. The examples quoted earlier attest to this choice, to the ‘chameleon’ he felt he was. Wa Azania’s struggle has little to do with having too much choice but the lack thereof. She places herself firmly in the category of Black South Africans, which is by no means an easily defined group, and this identity becomes a burden for her more than once. The question then emerges through her writing as to how one is to live with such an identity, one which is supposed to be the foundation on which South Africa of today rests; an identity on which the nation builds its future. These notions again point towards the nonlinearity of belonging. The anger and blame

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in Wa Azania’s memoir are sometimes aimed at the past and sometimes at the present failures of the post-apartheid nation. She describes it as a losing fight, and her memoir embodies the tragedy of how South Africa’s biggest group may feel uncomfortable in their own skins. Noah manages to slip through the cracks partly, largely, because of his lighter skin colour, even despite identifying as Black. The urgent need for dialogue, as outlined by Chapman (2017) through his concept of literature thinking, is manifested particularly well in the two memoirs analysed in this chapter and the texts themselves can be said to take part in that dialogue providing two different perspectives on similar issues and thus highlighting the need for seeing each South African as an individual, beyond racial categories that generally simplify far too much. The importance of community is both reinforced and refuted, and that includes community as family, racial category, and South Africa as a whole. These notions, too, connect to the quest for belonging, as community by default implies group membership, yet it presents another abstraction in terms of its fluidity. The following chapter presents a somewhat different perspective on belonging and disillusionment as it examines crime and violence in three memoirs. The topic was already briefly touched upon in this chapter, and all texts included in this study comment on crime in some way. Along with poverty, inequality, and race, crime remains a central issue and just as persistent inequality seems a near irresolvable problem, so does crime too.

Works Cited Badat, Saleem, and Yusuf Sayed. 2014. Post-1994 South African Education: The Challenge of Social Justice. The Annals of the American Academy 652 (1): 127–148. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716213511188. Baloyi, Elijah M. 2018. Tribalism: Thorny Issue Towards Reconciliation in South Africa—A Practical Theological Appraisal. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 74 (2): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v74i2.4772. Bloom, Kevin. 2009. Ways of Staying. London: Portobello Books. Cameron, Edwin. 2014. Justice: A Personal Account. Cape Town: Tafelberg. Chapman, Michael. 2017. “Them” and “Us”: Politics, Poetry and the Public Voice. In Living Together, Living Apart? Social Cohesion in a Future South Africa, ed. Christopher Ballantine, Michael Chapman, Kira Erwin, and Gerhard Maré, 88–100. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Chauke, Clinton. 2018. Born in Chains: The Diary of an Angry ‘Born-Free’. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers.

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Chisholm, Linda. 2012. Apartheid Education Legacies and New Directions in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Storia Delle Donne 8: 81–103. https://doi. org/10.13128/SDD-­11892. Christie, Pam, and Carolyn McKinney. 2017. Decoloniality and “Model C” schools: Ethos, Language and the Protests of 2016. Education as Change 21 (3): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.17159/1947-­9417/2017/2332. Cohen, Jon. 2000. AIDS Researchers Decry Mbeki’s Views on HIV. Science 288 (5466): 590–591. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3075024. Daymond, M.J., and Andries Visagie. 2012. Confession and Autobiography. In The Cambridge History of South African Literature, ed. David Attwell and Derek Attridge, 717–738. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https:// doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521199285.036. Demographics and Language. City of Polokwane. https://www.polokwane.gov. za/City-­Residents/Pages/Demographics-­and-­Language.aspx. Accessed April 28, 2020. Evans, Ivan. 2009. Cultures of Violence: Lynching and Racial Killing in South Africa and the American South. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Fongwa, Samuel, N. 2019. Interrogating the Public Good Versus Private Good Dichotomy: “Black Tax” as a Higher Education Public Good. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 51 (4): 564–579. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2019.1651194. Gunner, Liz. 2015. Song, Identity and the State: Julius Malema’s Dubul ibhunu Song as Catalyst. Journal of African Cultural Studies 27 (3): 326–341. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2015.1035701. Habib, Sadia, and Michael R.M. Ward. 2020. Introduction: Investigating Youth and Belonging. In Youth, Place and Theories of Belonging, ed. Sadia Habib and Michael R.M. Ward, 1–11. London: Routledge. Helliker, Kirk, and Peter Vale. 2013. Marxisms Past and Present. Thesis Eleven 115 (1): 25–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0725513612470532. Heywood, Mark. 2015. Seize Power! The Role of the Constitution in Uniting a Struggle for Social Justice in South Africa. In Capitalism’s Crises: Class Struggles in South Africa and the World, ed. Vishwas Satgar, 245–276. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Hope, Christopher. 2019. The Café de Move-On Blues: In Search of the New South Africa. London: Atlantic Books. Inequality Trends in South Africa. 2019. Statistics South Africa. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. Lahiff, Edward. 2016. Stalled Land Reform in South Africa. Current History 115 (781): 181–187. Langa, Retha. 2018. A “Counter-Monument” to the Liberation Struggle: The Deployment of Struggle Songs in Post-apartheid South Africa. South African Historical Journal 70 (1): 215–233. https://doi.org/10.1080/02582473. 2018.1439523.

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Mabasa, Khwezi. 2019. Democratic Marxism and the National Question: race and Class in Post-Apartheid South Africa. In Capitalism’s Crises: Class Struggles in South Africa and the World, ed. Vishwas Satgar, 173–193. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Malan, Rian. 2012. The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Other Stories of Africa. London: Grove Press. Mangoma, Arinao, and Anthony Wilson-Prangley. 2019. Black Tax: Understanding the Financial Transfers of the Emerging Black Middle Class. Development Southern Africa 36 (4): 443–460. https://doi.org/10.108 0/0376835X.2018.1516545. Maseng, J.O., C.T. Koosentse, and K.J. Ani. 2018. An Evaluation of Media’s Role in De-popularizing and Influencing Political Attitudes Towards Jacob Zuma: Collating Events Leading to His Removal. Gender & Behaviour 16 (2): 11604–11622. McKeever, Matthew. 2017. Educational Inequality in Apartheid South Africa. American Behavioral Scientist 6 (1): 114–131. https://doi. org/10.1177/0002764216682988. Mekoa, Itumeleng. 2018. Challenges Facing Higher Education in South Africa: A Change from Apartheid Education to Democratic Education. African Renaissance 15 (2): 227–246. https://doi.org/10.31920/2516­5305/2018/v15n2a11. Mid-Year Population Estimates. 2019. Statistics South Africa, Statistical Release P0302. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. Noah, Trevor. 2017. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. London: John Murray. O’Laughlin, Bridget, Henry Bernstein, Ben Cousins, and Pauline E. Peters. 2013. Introduction: Agrarian Change, Rural Poverty and Land Reform in South Africa since 1994. Journal of Agrarian Change 13 (1): 1–15. https://doi. org/10.1111/joac.12010. Onishi, Norimitsu. 2019. White Farmers Are Jailed in South Africa for Killing Black Teenager. The New York Times, March 6, 2019. https://www.nytimes. com/2019/03/06/world/africa/south-­africa-­white-­farmers-­black-­teenager. html. Accessed April 30, 2020. Onishi, Norimitsu, and Kimon de Greef. 2019. South African Wine Farmer in Land Dispute Is Shot Dead. The New York Times, June 3, 2019. https://www. nytimes.com/2019/06/03/world/africa/south-­africa-­wine-­farmer-­killed. html. Accessed April 30, 2020. Posel, Deborah. 2014. Julius Malema and the Post-apartheid Public Sphere. Acta Academica 46 (1): 32–54. http://www.ufs.ac.za/ActaAcademica. ———. 2015. Whither “Non-racialism”: The “New” South Africa Turns Twenty-­ One. Ethnic and Racial Studies 38 (13): 2167–2174. https://doi.org/10.108 0/01419870.2015.1058511.

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Roberts, Benjamin J. 2014. Your Place or Mine? Beliefs About Inequality and Redress Preferences in South Africa. Social Indicators Research 118 (3): 1167–1190. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-­013-­0458-­9. Sarup, Madan. 2012 [1978]. Marxism and Education. London: Routledge. Satgar, Vishwas. 2019. The Anti-racism of Marxism: Past and Present. In Capitalism’s Crises: Class Struggles in South Africa and the World, ed. Vishwas Satgar, 1–27. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Smith, Candace. 2019. The Growing Fight in South Africa Over Land and Identity. ABC News, April 11, 2019. https://abcnews.go.com/International/ growing-­fight-­south-­africa-­land-­identity/story?id=62280577. Accessed April 30, 2020. Sommerlad, Joe. 2018. The Truth About White Farmers in South Africa—and Why the Right Is Obsessed with Them. Independent, August 23, 2018. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/donald-­trump-­white-­ farmers-­s outh-­a frica-­g enocide-­e thnic-­c leansing-­l and-­s eizures-­r acism-­ violence-­a8504156.html. Accessed April 30, 2020. Swift, Richard. 2015. Introducing Julius Malema. New Internationalist 484: 9. Teeger, Chana. 2014. Collective Memory and Collective Fear: How South Africans Use the Past to Explain Crime. Qualitative Sociology 37 (1): 69–92. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11133-­013-­9267-­3. Wa Azania, Malaika. 2018 [2014]. Memoirs of a Born Free: Reflections on the New South Africa by a Member of the Post-Apartheid Generation. New  York: New Stories Press. Ward, J. 2018. The Dangerous Myth of ‘White Genocide’ in South Africa. Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/08/23/dangerous-­myth-­white-­genocide-­south-­africa. Accessed April 30, 2020. Webb, Christopher. 2020. Liberating the Family: Debt, Education and Racial Capitalism in South Africa. EDP: Society and Space 39: 1–18. https://doi. org/10.1177/0263775820942522. Worden, Nigel. 2012. The Making of Modern South Africa: Conquest, Apartheid, Democracy. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Yamauchi, Futoshi. 2011. School Quality, Clustering and Government Subsidy in Post-apartheid South Africa. Economics of Education Review 30 (1): 146–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2010.08.002.

CHAPTER 5

Coming to Terms with Violence and Xenophobia: Mark Gevisser’s Lost and Found in Johannesburg, Kevin Bloom’s Ways of Staying, and Clinton Chauke’s Born in Chains

Not only is South Africa often seen as one of the most unequal places in the world but also as one of the most violent. As Statistics South Africa argues in their report on crime from 2019 (p. 12), crime is a topic widely discussed across the country. It is therefore of no surprise, and no coincidence, that all of the memoirs in focus in this study also take issue with crime and violence in a number of ways. Crime has also been deemed highly controversial: “Crime, with or without the scare quotes, has over the past two decades replaced ‘apartheid’ as one of the country’s most conspicuous, and contested, terms” (de Kock 2016: 61). Thus, it is a topic that warrants investigation, particularly since several of the texts analysed explicitly deal with experiences of crime. Becoming victim of criminal activities and violence also raises questions about belonging, and this chapter provides yet another perspective on the complexities of claiming space in South Africa. Two of the memoirs at the centre of this chapter, Mark Gevisser’s Lost and Found in Johannesburg (2014) and Kevin Bloom’s Ways of Staying (2009), depict violence in various forms in painstaking detail as well as the consequences thereof. For both journalists, there are high personal stakes © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Englund, South African Autobiography as Subjective History, African Histories and Modernities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83232-2_5

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involved, as Gevisser became victim of a home robbery in 2012, an event which largely defines his entire memoir, and as Bloom’s cousin was brutally murdered. Both writers attempt to come to terms with their own place in South Africa and the cities in which they have lived, and to understand the crimes they had to face. Both also utilise their journalistic professions in documenting and addressing crime in their memoirs, giving space for other voices too to come forth. Thus, their memoirs go beyond solely personal narratives and come to encompass the stories of others. Self and nation become interwoven through the multiplicity of voices present in the two texts. The second part of the chapter deals with xenophobic violence, which is another central theme in Bloom’s memoir, and here Clinton Chauke’s Born in Chains (2018) provides significant material for the analysis. Chauke was born in 1994, making him a so-called born-free South African. He focuses in particular on the effects of poverty and disadvantage and the shortcomings of free South Africa, but also touches upon topics relating to crime and xenophobia in particular. Chauke’s text testifies to the different layers of violence permeating South Africa and describes a society in which those already at a disadvantage are also profoundly disadvantaged when it comes to crime. This includes both dispossessed South African citizens and those with immigrant status. Disillusionment is a prominent theme of Chauke’s writing, both in terms of the way his own life has turned out, and in terms of developments in South Africa that place disadvantaged citizens in a precarious position. Chauke’s memoir is more recent than the other two and has received considerably less scholarly attention previously. Remembering Leon de Kock’s (2016) words in the introduction about the need to go beyond seeing past and present, the apartheid era and what came after, in terms of bad or good is here relevant. Chauke in particular expresses through his personal experiences that times can be deemed both good and bad, and his writing manifests the major contrasts life in South Africa can entail. It is less about past and present being separate entities, where autobiographical writing must attempt to come to terms with whatever happened in the past in order to make sense of life in the present moment. Instead, all three memoirs examined here become transtemporal to some extent, indicating that there is a need to go beyond seeing South African literature as solely preoccupied, or obsessed in Boehmer’s terms, with a painful past. The unjust present was explored by Wa Azania as investigated in the previous chapter, but the works in focus here embody notions of time as continuously overlapping. Crime and violence not only

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disrupt individual lives for a brief moment, or sometimes for extended periods of time depending on the severity of trauma inflicted and ensuing court cases, but they also disrupt time. This is particularly well manifested in Gevisser’s memoir and the robbery he experienced. Using memoir or memoir-like modes of writing to document and explore such experiences suggest that memoir too can transcend time. Claiming space is thus here also connected to claiming space in time, in finding ways to overcome the rift between the before and the after in terms of when the crime took place. Race remains an inevitable backdrop to the discussion of violence and crime and their place in South Africa today, something which is highlighted in all three memoirs. A relevant question concerns the role crime and violence play in South African communities and for individuals themselves. The deeply traumatic aspect is emphasised particularly in Gevisser’s memoir, while Bloom and Chauke stay more detached in their writing. The question as to whether one should stay or leave is also a central one in Gevisser and Bloom’s texts, although here whiteness and privilege are significant. The same question is not raised in Chauke’s writing, even though he spent some time abroad working in Zimbabwe. This, too, points to differences in prospects and possibilities, as so many are not able to relocate when conditions become too dire. Thus, notions crime and violence relate to their frequency, to the various kinds of violence present and the experiences of victims, as well as to fear.

5.1   Violent Crime and Whiteness Both Bloom and Gevisser begin their memoirs in a similar manner by briefly outlining the tragedies around which the stories are built and expressing their difficulties in finding or reclaiming their place in South Africa after the events. The Prologue to Ways of Staying begins with the funerals of Brett Goldin and Richard Bloom, of which the latter was the writer’s cousin, and a few pages later, Bloom (2009: 7) provides some details about what happened when his cousin was killed. He also expresses his anxiety about South Africa: “Since April 16th 2006, when Richard was abducted by a group of men from the Cape Flats and shot in the back of the head, there has been something new and uncomfortable about the way I live in my country”. The lines set the tone for the memoir which throughout returns to the difficulty of living safely and comfortably in South Africa, both physically and psychologically. The story of the murders and the aftermath is told by Bloom in separate chapters strewn out

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across the book and written in a different font in order to separate the personal events from those of people he interviewed. Bloom’s work as a journalist, travelling through South Africa and speaking to people who had become victims of harrowing crimes, seems to be an attempt to come to terms with what happened to his cousin. A similar approach is provided by Gevisser in his memoir whose text revolves around a home invasion he and his friends became victims to. His two friends lived in Johannesburg close to a park in an apartment he had lived in himself previously (Gevisser 2014: 1). The invasion frames the entire memoir: “On the night of the 11th of January 2012, at about 9.30 p.m., three men were exhaled out of this lung across the palisade fence into Wildsview while I was watching The Slap with my friends. […] Something seemingly irrevocable changed, that night, in my relationship to Johannesburg, my home town, the place I have lived for four decades, the place of this book” (Gevisser 2014: 3). The actual home robbery is described in detail in the second part of the book in a chapter entitled “Attack” and will be further discussed later in this chapter. The way in which the two writers approach these painful subjects is strikingly similar, starting with an exact date when the tragedies and violent crimes took place. This need to document the events in such detail speaks both to their journalistic endeavours and search for accuracy and truth but also functions as a personal diary in which one harrowing event, one particular day in their lives, changed everything so profoundly. The need for specific details and dates in reporting may also be a way to distance themselves from the events and the dates and times provided exemplify the separation of time into before and after, while simultaneously merging past and present through inconceivable events. The effect such writing has on readers is another central question briefly addressed. As Rosalind Coward (2013: 93) states in her work on confessional journalism, “[e]xtreme is interesting but extreme suffering is better”. Further, the impact personal writing has on the reader is not only understood in terms of empathy as explained by Jane Kilby and Antony Rowland (2014: 5): “It can be said, in other words, that we are sentimental. We are moved by what we read and would move heaven and earth for the stories of death and suffering to have been different”. Thus, people may even be propelled into action due to the meticulously documented events in both Bloom’s and Gevisser’s texts. The two writers balance between the confessional and reportage, reshaping memoir into texts that go far beyond just egocentric selfies or snapshots (Morrison 2015).

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An argument at this point with regard to South African autobiographical writing and all of the memoirs examined in this book is that not only are the authors trying, consciously or not, to evoke a feeling of regret in their readers who will probably be deeply moved by the descriptions of violent crime such as the home invasions in both Bloom’s and Gevisser’s memoirs, but that they are also expressing their own profound regret at the shape of things in present-day South Africa. It is a regret that entails personal implication, experiences of victimhood, and equal measures of collective guilt and anger against the social structures that enable, incite, and investigate crime. Both writers express feeling out of place, for Bloom in South Africa at large, and for Gevisser more specifically in Johannesburg after having personally felt the force of violent crime. Both stake a claim to “my country” and “my home town”. Bloom sets out to document other instances of violence experienced by people who also to various degrees feel rejected by their nation, whereas Gevisser focuses his efforts on reclaiming Johannesburg. Whether to stay or to leave surfaces in both texts as a question directly connected with the levels of crime. A complex question in relation to this chapter has again to do with subjective history and the extent to which the past can be blamed for current problems facing the nation, and who really is to be held accountable for atrocities taking place. Bloom, Gevisser, and Chauke ponder these questions and try to understand the circumstances of those who perpetrate. It is essential to note at the very start of the present chapter that examining crime and related violence in a South African context through two memoirs written by White writers is somewhat controversial from the outset and needs to be addressed. As Scorgie et al. (2017: 52) state, “the poor are generally more vulnerable to violent crime than those in middle and upper income neighbourhoods”. As confirmed earlier in this study, those belonging to the middle and upper income groups are often White to a disproportionate degree. Hence, those more often facing crime are people living in townships and other dispossessed areas with little prospects, not those of relative wealth. However, crime statistics from 2018 to 2019 show that among Black, coloured, White and Indian/Asian South Africans, the percentage of households which experienced housebreakings was highest for Indian/ Asian and White families (Governance, public safety and justice survey: 2018/19 2019: 25), and that experiences of car thefts were more common among White than Black residents (ibid., p.  32), which could of course indicate something about who can afford to own a car in the first

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place. Theft of personal property was also more common among White South Africans (ibid., p. 41). Gevisser also offers some explicit facts and statistics relating to crime in South Africa from 2013 and compares the numbers to what happened in the apartheid era: “Whether it is a more violent place is, surprisingly, debatable: the murder has risen from 27 per 100,000 only slightly to 31 over the course of my life to date” (Gevisser 2014: 74). He also states that while South Africa may not statistically be a more violent place, it is more armed than before: “[A]rmed robberies are up, exponentially, from 14 per 100,000 in 1964 to 203 per 100,000 in 2012. I have become one of those statistics” (ibid.). These comments show a desire to make sense of his experience and come to terms with it as it was so common, shared by thousands of other South Africans. In terms of blaming the past, Gevisser (p. 269) explicitly comments on this in his memoir when addressing the racism that so easily emerged when having to deal with extreme violence: Even if you were a bleeding heart liberal like myself, and you believed that most crime was economically motivated and a consequence of our unequal society, and that its violence was a consequence of our bloody, brutal history, you would still be doing the profiling: That is a young black man. He looks like the men who terrorised me. […] On the basis of my personal experience, he is a threat. I must avoid him.

The complexity of on the one hand being aware of the consequences of South Africa’s present challenges and burdens of the past and on the other of letting fear take over is here exemplified. The passage addresses the silent racism that may emerge as a consequence of violent crime, exemplifying the extreme power fear may have. Looking towards the past for explanations for present troubles also requires some care as White memoirs have often been seen as arising from a “commodification of nostalgia” which for its part is seen as emerging from “a perceived lack, or from perceptions of dislocation and uncertainty” (Mbao 2010: 64). These notions are present in both Bloom’s and Gevisser’s writing as observed earlier, particularly in terms of dislocation and uncertainty. Such notions too can be seen as markers of privilege, and as a mainly White prerogative to lament the current state of society and how it brutalises its citizens. Tony Simoes da Silva (2012: 85–86) defines the aims of White autobiography in the following terms: “[A] letting go of certain ways of being white in Southern Africa, the autobiographical act

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offers white South Africans a way to redemption that is both personal and political”. Therefore, the act of writing memoir is seen as inherently caught up in the past and either trying to move away from it or come to terms with it. Similar sentiments can to some extent be found in Bloom’s and Gevisser’s writing too, but as the analysis will show, their memoirs centre around contemporary events and are written after personal disasters experienced in the ‘new’ South Africa. To what extent they manifest a preoccupation with the past is to some extent even irrelevant since autobiographical writing by nature remains inherently preoccupied with the past, even if a very recent past, yet it is always written in the elusive present moment and largely defined by it. Commodifying nostalgia is of course here seen in the light of South Africa’s apartheid past, and the implication is that White writers may perhaps not feel nostalgic for the system itself but for the easy belonging it offered. Neither Bloom nor Gevisser show such tendencies  in their writing, and the belonging they seek is not expected to come easily. Chauke, too, reports about being targeted and stigmatised due to his group membership and poverty. This seems to imply that finding one’s place in the nation and holding on to it is a precarious task, one which does not come easily to anyone. To return briefly to the question of White memoir and the past, Dennis Walder (2009: 938) talks about the “twilight zone where memory and history intersect”, calling the process of nostalgia ‘uncanny’. He argues that at first glance, perpetrators and victims may be easily distinguished, but on closer examination it could be complicated to separate between the two. This once more emphasises the complications involved with being White in South Africa as well, which of course is not a homogenous experience. Walder continues to discuss the role of personal narratives such as memoirs and their relationship to the past and touches upon the notion of responsibility: Yet the longing that drives nostalgia also drives writing, and writing involves a demand—not that the writer should try and tell the truth, although that may be part of it, but that the writer should respect the truth; by which I mean the truth of others’ experiences as well as his or her own, although all these truths are accompanied by error, or deprived of their emotional charge at the very point of the pain that prompts their recall, as well as their ­repression. Hence it is not enough simply to recall the past, and turn it into a personal narrative. Recalling involves coming to terms with the past in an

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ethical as well as a heuristic sense; it is to connect what you remember to the memories of others, including the memories of those with whom you share that past. (Walder 2009: 938)

These notions are noteworthy and highly complex in terms of White memoirs of South Africa. The nation’s past of White supremacy puts White writers in a delicate situation where respecting the truth of others becomes imperative if their own experiences, memories, and narratives are to be seen as more complex than just expressions of nostalgia and longing for a return to an oppressive past. It connects with what Garman (2015a: 153) states about authenticity being granted to White citizens “by the previously damaged and dispossessed”. Both Bloom and Gevisser can be seen as seeking recognition in this regard through the inclusion of more marginalised voices in their memoirs, through experiences of xenophobia or homosexuality, for example. This can also be seen as an attempt to include memories of those with whom they share time and space as expressed by Walder. The problematic past depicted in White memoirs has been particularly well documented in a Zimbabwean context, where the land reform policy implemented from 2000 onwards led to violent farm invasions, subsequent food shortage, mass unemployment and hyperinflation. A number of memoirs were published in the aftermath of the land reform, primarily by White writers. Astrid Rasch (2018: 148) has examined some of these texts in her article on postcolonial nostalgia, in which she argues that “we find many examples of texts that criticize empire on the surface, yet also perpetuate discourses from the colonial era and lament its passing in subtler ways. In personal memoirs like the ones examined here, the image of the past is further complicated by the authors’ private investment in questions of guilt and responsibility”. The question of settler or colonial discourse for its part has been addressed in several studies (cf. Englund 2018; Chikowero 2014; Primorac 2010) and this remains a controversial issue in White African autobiographical writing. Defining this type of writing as ‘settler’-specific speaks to the very problem at the heart of both memoirs examined in the present chapter. Using the epithet settler implies not only a preoccupation and rootedness in a White supremacist, racist past along with ongoing attempts to keep such politics alive, but a lack of permanence. A settler is presumably an outsider, imposing themselves on the

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place in which they have arrived, and often overstaying their welcome. This dilemma is central to both Gevisser’s and Bloom’s texts which do not emerge from any implied settler background but still address the inevitable challenge of belonging. Bloom’s writing in particular also provides insight about the paradox emerging from not belonging fully but not having the possibility to leave easily either. The geographical limbo is mirrored in temporal limbo, as time is split into two after his cousin is murdered. Interestingly, in the edition used here, Bloom cites Njabulo Ndebele (from Fine Lines from the Box) in the prescript to his memoir, referring explicitly to this problem of staying or going: Yes, they have a story to tell. Its setting in the interstice between power and indifferent or supportive agency. In that interstice, the English-speaking South African had conducted the business of his life. Now he was indignant and guilty; now he was thriving. This no-man’s land ensured a fundamental lack of character. With a foreign passport in the back pocket of the trousers, now they belong—now they do not. When will they tell this story? (Ndebele as cited in Bloom 2009: no page number)

The very same lines are cited in the volume Unveiling Whiteness in the Twenty-First Century (2015) by Anthea Garman (2015b: 214). She explains her standpoint after the citation: “I take this statement as a challenge to tell my story about choosing to belong and stay. And to give an account of my character as an English-speaking white South African” (ibid.). For her, the moment which gave rise to thinking about these issues was not as deeply tragic as it was for Bloom (or Gevisser), having merely involved being treated unkindly by a Black security guard at Oliver Tambo Airport in Johannesburg, but the sentiment is the same. Thus, after this lengthy opening discussion, the chapter proceeds to examine the role of violence and personal experiences thereof from a number of perspectives, with the aim of making further observations about the complexity of staying and leaving. Crime as personal and collective challenge, as temporal and geographical limbo, touching the lives of every South African, emerges at the core of all three memoirs in focus. Subjective histories merge with collective efforts to manage crime and to document not only private suffering but the tragedies of others too.

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5.2   Private Security Gated communities and private security have been a controversial topic since the end of apartheid. They can be seen as a consequence of rising levels of crime, but whether it is an inevitable development or not remains a more challenging question. Breetzke et  al. (2014: 124–125) make a statement about resorting to various protective measures due to “the fear of crime”. They argue that what creates gated communities: is the target hardening of individual properties or in some instances entire neighbourhoods. In terms of the former, target hardening mechanisms may include locks, burglar alarms, fences, walls and burglar bars. In terms of the latter, this may include changing the physical and social attributes of entire neighbourhoods through the creation of gated communities.

Such developments can be seen throughout South Africa, and Joseph Yaw Asomah (2017: 66–67) cites numbers that show increased growth and expansion in private security companies. These issues are addressed in detail in Kevin Bloom’s writing. He sets out on a journey in order to comprehend what happened to his cousin and why, and what this says about South Africa in general. During this journey he interviews a number of other South Africans who have become victims of a variety of crimes, including xenophobia and rape. The narrative of South Africa as a unified nation is again exposed in this chapter, as race remains at the core of much of both Gevisser’s and Bloom’s writing. Bloom also raises the issue of so-­ called gated communities and private security which has become a blooming business in the new South Africa (Cf. Diphoorn 2016) in an attempt to provide a sense of security to those who can afford it. Such, to some extent extreme, measures to stay safe touch upon belonging as crime also transgresses physical space. Gated communities as a way to combat crime and increase a sense of safety and belonging are referred to in several of the memoirs examined in this book, among them also the writing of Trevor Noah (2017: 151) who states the following: “In the suburbs, everyone lived behind walls. The white neighborhoods of Johannesburg were built on white fear—fear of black crime, fear of black uprisings and reprisals—and as a result virtually every house sits behind a six-foot wall, and on top of that wall is electric wire. Everyone lives in a plush, fancy maximum-security prison”. The passage thus suggests that instead of just simply providing a sense of security

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and freedom for their inhabitants, the walled communities actually constitute their own kinds of prisons reducing freedom of movement among their residents. It also suggests that those who have more complete freedom of movement are those who commit crimes and attempt to enter homes of affluent citizens. This becomes a paradox as the emphasis on choice and personal accountability arises again, as in Wa Azania’s memoir in connection to her uncle who was killed when participating in criminal activities. Freedom of movement clashes with freedom of choice, and both connect to wealth. The role of fear in South Africa is a recurring theme of the memoirs examined and this also has a strong place-specific dimension through its disruptive effects. Private security in all its many forms emerges when the state is seen as having failed to provide its citizens with an acceptable level of security but only among those who can afford the “plush, fancy maximum-security prison” mentioned by Noah. Those who do not have the means with which to protect themselves are forced to find other ways to feel even a bit safer: Security is something you pay for, if you can, or try to get by engaging in self-help policing. This has led scholars of urbanization to emphasize that the privatization of security reinforces urban inequality and class-spatial segregation: whereas upper-class citizens and businesses can afford private security, the poor, living in the growing slums, are left to fend for themselves. Diphoorn and Kyed 2016: 711)

The insight that some groups are forced to fend for themselves is an important notion, as, for example, Clinton Chauke writes about the ‘self-­ help policing’ mentioned here and how it was an integral part of the social surroundings in which he grew up and lived as an adult. Chauke describes the campus of the University of Johannesburg at which he began his mining studies and the neighbouring area called Ponte City in which serious crimes happened on a regular basis (Chauke 2018: 175). The area was altogether not very safe either for university students who “got robbed, even on the so-called safe side. When one student shouted ‘Vimba!’, others would come out in numbers to deliver mob justice” (ibid.; emphasis in original). This kind of justice and policing suggests a huge gap between those living in gated communities guarded by private security companies and those who are inevitably “left to fend for themselves” as Diphoorn and Kyed stated.

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Rian Malan (2012: 221) gives another example of mob justice when writing about his lawyer acquaintance who lived in Yeoville in Johannesburg. One morning, a group of people convened outside his house to seek punishment for someone who had been trying to break into cars. The crowd, “in a murderous mood” (ibid.), asked the lawyer to decide what was to be done with the man. The lawyer, predicting a brutal outcome if the crowd was allowed to deal with the transgressor in their own preferred way, offered the grateful man the choice to be taken to the police station, potentially saving his life when doing so. Such community vigilance indicates that residents have collectively had enough of crime and that authorities have been able to offer little help in terms of protection and justice. These experiences transcend class and racial divides, although the means with which residents mobilise to protect themselves differ greatly. A most tragic example of the repercussions not just of violent crime in South Africa but also of the controversies of private security is provided by Bloom in his memoir. The story of the Solomon family, whose names have been changed, is told at an early stage in the memoir and provides perspective not only on the nature of violent crime in South Africa and its human cost but also the wider societal consequences. The Solomons woke up one morning to the realisation that their house was being robbed, and very soon one of their four children was shot during the commotion that ensued (Bloom 2009: 46–47). Eventually the robbers left and the Solomons were able to take their son to a clinic to receive medical care (Bloom 2009: 50). The area where the family lived was Glenhazel, a neighbourhood towards the north of Johannesburg. Place is central, and the experiences of the Solomon family exemplify that the quest for belonging is not always a personal feeling of being alienated and othered or accepted as part of a group, but also quite concretely place-specific. When Bloom asked why the family decided to stay despite the terrible ordeal they had been through, Lisa, the wife and mother, responded that much of the reason was because of the support they had received from their Glenhazel community (Bloom 2009: 56). However, she also explained that the presence of a recently hired private security company was part of their decision too. After the robbery and the injuring of the Solomon boy, “meetings began, bringing together businessmen and rabbis and community leaders. At one of the first meetings, a security force

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staffed by elite former soldiers was mooted (and accepted) as a solution” (Bloom 2009: 57). Thus, the company provided a sense of safety, enough to keep the Solomons from leaving. The community’s support is here relevant too as it indicates a strong bond between people living in the same area. It is relevant to mention the title of Bloom’s memoir, which indicates that staying may actually be more difficult than leaving, and Ashlee Polatinsky (2009) argues that the book builds on suspense, as crime may or may not take place: “[T]he sense of feeling threatened which is related to abnormal levels of violence” (p. 104). However, only those with the means to set up life elsewhere can even entertain the thought of leaving. A parallel story to the one about the Solomon family is the company that was hired to protect Glenhazel and its inhabitants. Bloom writes about his meetings and interviews with security personnel as a side-story to the traumatic home invasion. The name of group providing protection was GAP, Glenhazel Active Patrol: “GAP. The full version is as tame as the acronym. But what I’m thinking is that these former soldiers, these elite fighting men, are the fierce response of a fed-up community” (Bloom 2009: 43). These thoughts are confirmed in research as well: “There are a number of responses that typically occur in countries in which residents feel threatened by crime. One response is the creation of vigilante organisations that attempt to enforce the law in communities by providing a form of social control over residents” (Breetzke et al. 2014: 124). Whether GAP could be called a vigilante organisation is perhaps debatable and Bloom himself prefers to see them as “a private army in suburbia” (Bloom 2009: 49), which is indicative of the power he thought they possessed. The examples provided by Chauke and Malan about mob justice amount to vigilante activity too albeit on completely different terms. The activities speak to the disillusionment with South African realities and the considerable challenges they present for ordinary people trying to go about their daily lives.

5.3   Excessive Violence Many of South Africa’s narratives and disillusionments connected with safety and security arise in the examples in the previous section. Fear of crime results in protective measures of various kinds, but healing after traumatic experiences may require more than just the efforts of private security or vigilante organisations. Bloom met an old acquaintance whom

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he calls Miller who was tuned in to the current affairs with regard to safety in South Africa, and Miller explains his opinion about the reasons for the precarious situation and high levels of crime present in the nation: “There are forty million poor people in this country, and they’re black. If the government is going to preserve its power and save the economy, it must act fast. It must deliver on its promise of transferring twenty-five per cent of the wealth into the hand of the disenfranchised” (Bloom 2009: 51). These comments strike a chord with Wa Azania’s and Chauke’s memoirs which in no uncertain terms describe the difficulties of growing up in extreme poverty and how some find a life of crime the only release from dire circumstances. A more recent comment on the transfer of wealth is provided by Steven Friedman (2021) who writes in his opinion piece that South Africa consists of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, of which the former consist of people whose voice is heard within politics and who make policy decisions that more often than not do not reflect the needs of the voiceless majority. Redressing inequality is part of the problem as outlined by Friedman. Bloom, however, is reluctant to accept the fact that people in Glenhazel were willing to spend a significant amount of money on what he essentially saw as a private army. Due to this development of more and more private security for the wealthy and “dirt-poor slums” for those who commit crimes, Bloom predicts South Africa becoming “a post-apocalyptic tapestry of sparkling blue swimming pools and ungovernable feral zones” (Bloom 2009: 53). The inevitable question that arises from Bloom’s comment is whether such development is already and unstoppably under way. Lauren Beukes’s science fiction novel Zoo City (2010) paints such a dystopian picture of a Johannesburg in which the “ungovernable feral zones” have literally become the residence of people accompanied by animals as punishment for serious crimes. Another pertinent issue concerns to what extent the problems with crime are economic and to what extent they have social roots; a question which undoubtedly can be contested. Bloom and Miller disagreed on whether the problem was actually economic or social with Bloom arguing that “what if the bottom line really is that people like us have too much when there are so many with nothing”. To this comment Miller responded that “[b]reaking into a house and torturing somebody for four hours is a social problem, not an economic problem. To solve that problem will take fifty years” (Bloom 2009: 53). The indication thus seems to be that crime in South Africa contains an element of excessive violence just for the sake of violence, and this demands some further discussion since such examples of crime also emerge in the memoirs

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examined. All violence is obviously always excessive, yet the nature of certain criminal acts as outlined by the writers in this chapter points towards more complex forces at play. The home robbery Gevisser personally experienced lasted for two and a half hours (Gevisser 2014: 260), which according to the police was more or less standard for a crime such as that (Gevisser 2014: 272). The sexual assault that took place during the robbery on one of Gevisser’s friends was carried out in order to make her give up the safe; a safe she did not know existed in the apartment and neither did Gevisser who had lived in the same apartment previously (Gevisser 2014: 264–265). Thus, violence and sexual assault were used as a means to an end, to get access to the safe and its presumed valuable content. Gevisser later talked about the invasion with other people, some of whom became upset on Gevisser’s behalf but also expressed fear for their own safety. He was asked whether he thought that the attack had been personal, that they were singled out, to which he replied that the robbers were in all likelihood just looking for whatever valuables they could find (Gevisser 2014: 272). This experience both contradicts and confirms what Bloom and Miller argued about, indicating that the crime was randomly carried out, following certain protocols to ensure a profitable outcome for the robbers. However, the story of the Paterson family and their ordeal again raises concern as to whether Miller was still right in his statement that crime in South Africa is not only about poverty but also a social problem. In terms of excessive violence during home invasions, one of the most distressing stories told by Bloom concerns the experiences of Alan Paterson, “the last primary liver pathologist left in South Africa” (Bloom 2009: 145). On a Tuesday night in October 2007 (the time and date are again well documented by Bloom), three men entered the house of the Patersons. They ransacked the home for valuables, stabbed the wife of Alan, and raped their teenage daughter. The robber who committed the sexual assault told her he was HIV positive before raping her (Bloom 2009: 178–179). Bloom’s account of the brutal attack on the Paterson’s home depicts rape as an inevitable, expected part of the robbery. Alan’s daughter Jamie predicts what may happen long before the actual rape takes place: “God, they’re going to rape me. Please God, let this be over” (Bloom 2009: 176; italics in original). The possibility of rape is implied also in Gevisser’s memoir. In the aftermath of the home robbery, two neighbours came to offer help and support. Gevisser was uncomfortable with the presence of the teenage daughter of one of the neighbours, but

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the mother responded that “[s]he must see, she must understand, she must be prepared” (Gevisser 2014: 264). This had a profound effect on Gevisser who felt both “hope and despair: at the compassion of children and at the horror we subject them to” (ibid.). Even though there is no clear indication in the memoir as to whether the preparedness Gevisser mentions also included the risk of being raped, the lines can still be connected to what Bloom reports about the Patersons. Thus, the rape of Jamie becomes an inevitable part of the invasion, a particular scene that needed to be played out both by the robbers and by Jamie herself who was all too aware of what would be likely to happen to her. The deeply problematic question which then follows is what drives home invaders and robbers to carry out such acts, which in the case of the Paterson family did not even have any such motives as getting the daughter to cooperate. She was fully cooperating and still the rape had to take place, as described by Bloom. Poverty itself, despite being a fact of life in South Africa and a circumstance confirmed on every level of South African society as previously stated in this book, does provocatively and controversially enough not seem to adequately justify the high levels of crime and subsequent violence as depicted by both Bloom and Gevisser. Bloom interviews the family on several occasions, and Alan tells him that when he managed to untie his hands immediately after the men had left, his first thought was “I intend to get the hell out of this place. That feeling didn’t change, so now we’re leaving. You know, I’ve always been a committed South African. It’s something that’s only been exploded in the last six months” (Bloom 2009: 143). Being a “committed South African” indicates that belonging moves in two directions: the individual citizen struggles to find and secure their place in the nation, being dependent on surrounding society to access that elusive space of belonging. The nation too depends on its citizens being ‘committed’, on them exercising their belonging through their work for the good of the community and for the nation’s prosperity and survival. Self and nation take on new meanings where the self negotiates its place and belonging in the nation, but where the nation too becomes an actor of its own. Later, Alan explained that they were not selling the house despite what had happened in it, saying that he still thought they would be back one day (Bloom 2009: 189). An ambivalence connected with leaving or staying can be detected here, also noted by Polatinsky (2009: 109). The violent crime Alan and his family faced was well-publicised, potentially causing other South Africans with the means to leave to “re-evaluate their futures”

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(Bloom 2009: 190). Eventually, Alan thought about colleagues in the building where he worked and what they had been through. These accounts testify to the violence of South Africa and the inevitable paradox of both staying and leaving: In the next office, a pathologist who was help up by gun-wielding thugs; five corridors down, a man whose wife and son were hijacked; further away, the ghost of someone who was first on the scene when his neighbours were burnt by boiling water for their valuables; the next office again, a man who left for London after he was held up in his driveway with his child in the car. (Bloom 2009: 190)

The question of violence for the sake of violence emerges again. To leave or to stay as a consequence of violence and crime is a recurring question in Bloom’s writing, and Alan’s reason for not wanting to leave South Africa has to do with the “sheer beauty” of the country. Bloom ponders why people leaving the country so often mention beauty as an important aspect of living there and sees it as part of “an uncontaminated connection” (Bloom 2009: 189). A few pages earlier, Bloom writes about a meeting with an American journalist who asked how anyone could still be living in Johannesburg and Cape Town. To this, Bloom responds with indignation on behalf of his country and its citizens: “Did he see anything? Forget the mountains and the bush and the ocean and the sky, did he go into a bar and talk to people? Did he see that despite their horror stories there was something about them that was vital and alive?” (Bloom 2009: 186). The landscape of South Africa with its varied nature represents peace and safety but also contains a great deal of nostalgia. Bloom’s response again presents the relationship between self and nation as one of mutual responsibility for belonging. To leave or not to leave becomes an issue in Gevisser’s writing too, and he decided not to leave immediately after the attack even though he easily could have done so: “I needed to make my peace with Johannesburg before I could leave, so that I could return with ease” (Gevisser 2014: 299). These attitudes imply a certain demand for solidarity among those who could easily leave if they wanted to. The higher the number of White South Africans leaving due to levels of crime as indicated in both Gevisser’s and Bloom’s memoirs, the worse the prospects and possibilities of staying for those left behind. Bloom’s response to the American journalist’s comment also reveals yet another narrative of South Africa. Its greatest strength

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and what should be the centre of focus and efforts is its people, while this is also the most complicated bridge to build. Eventually, Gevisser and his friends who were subject to the home robbery hired a private investigator, another example of private security and vigilante activity when the help provided by authorities was deemed inadequate, to help them make sense of what had happened during the robbery. The attack included them being bound while the robbers ransacked the apartment. However, for some reason, Gevisser’s feet were left unbound (Gevisser 2014: 258). Gevisser thought that leaving his feet unbound was a sign of humanity and compassion on the part of the robbers, possibly so that he could summon help once the attack was over and the robbers had left (Gevisser 2014: 282). However, the investigator disagreed with Gevisser: “No, they wanted you to get up and challenge them or run for help so they could shoot you dead” (ibid.) Gevisser was shocked by this comment, but the investigator explained that the robbers probably did this so that they could later gain respect and admiration in the townships for killing a White man (ibid.). Gevisser reluctantly accepted this explanation though still believing in the reasonability of the robbers while also acknowledging that in the large scheme of things it meant very little (Gevisser 2014: 283). Gevisser’s experience and the words of the private investigator follow along the same lines as the brutal rape of Paterson’s daughter. These were acts which essentially had nothing to do with the actual crime, with finding valuables and getting the victims to cooperate. Instead, the incidents indicate that status and prestige may have been part of the actions of the robbers. Both the daughter and Gevisser were staying as calm as they could as reported in the memoirs and cooperating to their best ability while being fully aware of what might, could, and likely would happen. The excessive, traumatising violence involved, or the hidden threat thereof in the case of Gevisser, goes to show that Miller’s comments about crime not solely being an economic problem seems to ring uncomfortably true to some extent in these representations of criminal activities. This questions the notion that crime and the ensuing inevitable violence are solely a consequence of poverty. The reality seems more complex than that. On another level, almost reaching meta proportions, Gevisser’s husband called C in the memoir was not able to tell his colleagues in Paris about what had happened “because of his own shame at how the attack confirmed preconceptions about the violence and brutality of South Africa” (Gevisser 2014: 274). Similar sentiments are expressed in Bloom’s

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writing in relation to the murder of his cousin and a documentary film which investigated the crime. The documentary had, according to Bloom, faced criticism about being “an irresponsible take on the country’s crime problem” (Bloom 2009: 131). The end of the documentary included some questions asked of the director Jon Blair. The first question concerns the portrayal of crime and whether it is “a betrayal of the country” to tell the story of the murders (Bloom 2009: 134). Bloom agrees with this criticism and asserts that it “seems in hindsight almost one-dimensional, naive” (Bloom 2009: 135): How does one leave a country, miss out on the nuances of its development, miss out on the daily intricacies of its effort to remake itself, and then have the temerity to suggest (during a visit of a few short weeks) that this country one has left can be divided into plainly identifiable halves; us and them, victim and killer, civilised and depraved? (Bloom 2009: 134–135)

Bloom’s comment indicates that not only is the idea of crime as a perhaps inevitable result of poverty a particular narrative but so too is the perpetuation of South Africa as inherently violent and segregated. Clinton Chauke to some extent provides an answer to these ponderings when writing about bringing a university friend to visit his home in Atteridgeville and how he felt great embarrassment at the living conditions of his family (2018: 213). He also writes about the anger Black people in South Africa feel about their living conditions and meagre prospects and expresses understanding at the fact that some resort to violence and crime (Chauke 2018: 214–215), which implies similar sentiments as those expressed by Wa Azania. Anger clashes with fear and both feed on each other in a seemingly never-ending loop of violence. These representations of brutal acts of violence committed against citizens of South Africa with acquired wealth and privileged positions in society speak to a fear which eventually has no colour. Bloom’s own wife-to-be Laurie was robbed while slowing down her car due to traffic, causing her sister’s husband to utter the following words: “We all need to leave this place. Next time it will be worse. We need to start making plans, we all need to go” (Bloom 2009: 170). Msimang repeatedly ponders the same questions in her memoir and also describes acts of crime to which her extended family became subject: “Nikki’s cell phone is stolen by a man with a knife as she walks home from the shops. Dipuo is stabbed in the arm on a Sunday evening as she makes her way home after a weekend in

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Soweto” (Msimang 2017: 299). Msimang’s husband was also chased across a parking lot, but none of these incidents were enough to cause any serious fear or distress: “South Africans have learnt to live with crime and violence. […] We tell ourselves nothing extreme has happened—that these are simply the daily reminders that we live in an unequal society. We are the haves. If this means becoming victims of petty crime, so be it” (ibid.). Resigning to violence, accepting a certain level of crime as a fact of life, becomes an inescapable part of life, a kind of tax you have to pay. If poor Black South Africans pay Black tax when they have to support extended family members, sometimes for years and decades, wealthy citizens pay their tax in the form of being victims of ‘petty crime’. Instead of Black tax, they essentially pay crime tax as represented in the texts discussed here. The question as to how much violent crime is necessary or inevitable in present-day South Africa is a terrifying one, but explicitly raised in several of the memoirs examined. Msimang’s family too had to face more than just ‘petty’ crime. Nikki the nanny was out with Msimang’s baby in a pram when they were approached by a man with a gun who demanded to have her phone. Another man came to their rescue and the attacker vanished (Msimang 2017: 307–308). Even this story becomes a mere “it could have been worse”. The reality in a place such as Johannesburg means that the situation could have ended in a much worse way (Msimang 2017: 308). The botched robbery of the Solomons which ended in their child getting shot, the rape of Paterson’s daughter as a mandatory, potentially even pre-planned, part of the home invasion, and the hours-long agony of Gevisser and his friends at the hands of robbers all testify to multiple levels of violent crime in South Africa. Msimang’s resignation to crime as a price you have to pay for belonging to the wealthier part of the nation rings somewhat hollow when the ones who pay the highest price are infants and teenagers as described by Bloom. Chauke’s perspective also shows that even though many South Africans cannot afford private security or other advanced safety measures, the methods and attitudes to crime are similar. Mob justice is meted out when necessary and citizens protect each other as their nation fails to do so. The memoirs express personal and collective anxiety with regard to crime, and the negotiation of space is complicated by the confining and restricting effects crime has on freedom of movement and personal safety. Despite the trauma of violence and crime presented as seemingly never ending in South Africa, and both Bloom and Gevisser’s memoirs testify to this, there is still a positive note in Gevisser’s (2014: 172) memoir about

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the period immediately after apartheid: “Despite the encroaching poverty and the way inequality became more visible once the barriers protecting the apartheid city had been lifted, there was still, in the interregnum, a wilful optimism in Johannesburg’s vitality”. However, reality after the attack is bleak as the memoir offers no redemptive hope with regard to privileged South Africans who become victims of crime, to people who actually commit the crimes, nor to police officers and other officials who investigate and try to solve crime in the country. These issues are exemplified in troubling ways in the memoir. A most telling example is when Gevisser (2014: 263) writes about one of the detectives who arrived at the crime scene after the home invasion and told some neighbours about a crime he had himself committed in the name of fighting crime: “[H]e had once taken the law into his own hands by kidnapping a neighbour’s son in the boot of his car and administering a bleach enema to him after he had been suspected of stealing”. These acts were committed due to the failure of the criminal justice system. Something so cruel seems like a direct extension of violence committed during the final years of apartheid which have been well documented in Antjie Krog’s memoir Country of My Skull (1999). The senseless torture and dehumanisation of those deemed guilty of a crime against the apartheid regime is described as outright sadistic. The same sadism appears in the crimes recounted in the memoirs examined. Violence as a means to an end or as an inevitable part of South African lives and crimes makes perpetrators of everyone alike, even those employed to protect citizens of the nation. The detective became a one man’s vigilante organisation, determined to serve the justice he deemed necessary. The private investigator Gevisser and his friends hired were also meant to help them look for the robbers, as they too were faced with the shortcomings of the system supposed to solve crimes. The investigator told them that they were never going to see their stolen items again and that a trial was unlikely to happen, and instead suggested hiring people who could carry out retribution for them (Gevisser 2014: 279–281). Gevisser and his friends declined the offer, choosing to rely on the justice system after all. The three home invasions described in Bloom and Gevisser’s memoirs thus had different outcomes. While the Solomons and their community in Glenhazel chose the protection of a private security company, working as a law unto itself, the Patersons decided to leave South Africa as they no longer felt safe enough. The decision to keep the house since they might one day return indicates that the act of leaving did not sever all ties.

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Gevisser and his two friends became deeply traumatised by the attack but saw the process through which ended with one of the robbers getting a long prison sentence. Drawing parallels to the TRC and its failures to provide adequate pain relief may be somewhat far-fetched, but the Commission, too, was criticised of inefficiency and leniency. Both Gevisser and Bloom are reluctant to accept violence as an integral part of South African life, and their memoirs emerge out of that reluctance; the inconceivability of crimes committed and ensuing personal and collective trauma is well documented, yet the memoirs also build on the subtle defiance that South Africa as a nation cannot be defined solely on its levels of crime. The clash between confession and journalism is here apparent, and “the intimacy of witnessing” Morrison (2015: 211) temporarily overrides reportage. Coward spoke of the pull of extreme suffering, and the harrowing details told by both writers are likely to exert such a pull on readers. The responsibility that comes with reporting is evident too in the meticulous writing by both Bloom and Gevisser, as they provide exact dates and times for the crimes they report. Their memoirs become testimonial in addition to being confessional, blurring the lines between the two categories and being about “an event or an other that is external to the witness” (Radstone 2006: 169) as much as about the self, to an even greater degree in Bloom’s writing. Further, Annie Gagiano (2009: 263) makes a relevant observation when stating that the act of bearing witness “can also point to a hope of eventually giving birth to a better reality. For while autobiographical texts recall an experienced past, they need to be recognised also as intended contributions to a shared future or to the history lessons of those who come after”. This is a most significant notion for the present chapter and the need for a less crime- and violence-ridden future. This discussion continues in the following section which deals with xenophobic violence as portrayed primarily in the memoirs of Bloom and Chauke.

5.4   Xenophobic Violence It was a word, they knew, that parodied the sound of a foreign African language to local ears. amaKwerekwere—the people who say, ‘kwerekwere’. (Bloom 2009: 140; italics in original)

The most central example of the consequences of racism and xenophobia in Bloom’s memoir is told through the story of Tony and Claudia

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Muderhwa, a Congolese couple who fled the brutalities of Joseph Kabila (Bloom 2009: 136). After being separated at first, the couple was eventually reunited in Johannesburg (Bloom 2009: 139). Their life together in South Africa began around the same time as xenophobic sentiments were emerging more vocally than before, and Claudia’s experience of giving birth in early 2007 exemplifies this: “‘Why are foreigners delivering babies in our country?’ asked the nurse. ‘Why is it only foreigners who are pregnant? Foreigners don’t have rights; only citizens have rights’” (Bloom 2009: 143). These lines from Bloom’s memoir reveal a deep-seated prejudice against Africans from other locations, and the situation only got worse for Tony and Claudia and their newborn son who fell ill before being even a year old. Doctors concluded that the baby needed surgery, but the procedure was postponed numerous times until doctors eventually stated that  the operation would no longer help the boy (Bloom 2009: 147). Refusing or withholding treatment also amounts to a more indirect kind of violence with potentially lifelong consequences. Later, the family had to flee their home in May 2008 during the violent attacks on foreigners which also made international news. The xenophobic violence which has erupted at regular intervals in recent years in South Africa has been well documented and analysed in research as well (cf. Mosselson 2010; Hayem 2013; Gordon 2015; AlfaroVelkamp and Shaw 2016; Klotz 2016: Gordon 2018). Christina Steenkamp (2009: 439) gives the following introduction to her paper on the attacks in 2008: In May 2008 South Africa made international news as a series of pogroms against foreign Africans occurred nationally. Within weeks at least 62 people were killed and hundreds injured. Houses and businesses belonging to migrants were destroyed or looted. Around 35,000 people became internally displaced, while thousands more queued at borders to return to their country of origin. Within a single month, notions of a ‘rainbow nation’, pan-African solidarity and equality in South Africa were ringing hollow.

Her passage works to reveal the illusion of a united, open, and free for all South Africa. The story of Tony and Claudia as provided by Bloom is a personal account of the events of 2008 and enables a personal perspective on the attacks. The reasons for xenophobia have been extensively examined and Steven Gordon (2015: 503) argues the following: “Evidence of anti-outsider

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violence in post-apartheid townships in recent years suggests that it is particularly important to consider the changing distribution of attitudes in informal urban areas”. His study confirms that “the relationship between economic status and anti-immigrant may be more complicated than first thought” (Gordon 2015: 502). Other studies, too, confirm this. Khwezi Mkhize (2019: 74) writes the following: Indeed, one of the points central to my argument is that the early postapartheid era unleashed “kwerekwere” as a category of exclusion that gave the African immigrant a precarious place in relation to the South African body politic; it also placed South Africa in a framework of becoming that tended to disavow Africa in its politics of identity. At the present juncture, where the rhetoric of decolonisation has come into vogue, it is important to keep in mind that South Africa’s politics of xenophobia/ Afrophobia is not solely the provenance of the frustrated black masses (as is often invoked), but run deep in its institutions of interpretation and knowledge production.

This confirms that the reasons behind such atrocious attacks are far more complicated than they may first seem. Race comes to play a most significant role here too according to a number of other researchers. One such viewpoint is offered by Onyekachi Wambu (2019: 74): “Afraid to take on the unfinished business with white capital (or even colluding with it); reluctant to admit to a bad independence deal (which has been institutionalised and celebrated) or their subsequent political failure in growing the economy, has finally left—as the default position—the scapegoating of foreigners for all the country’s shortcomings”. This allegation could potentially have serious consequences and seems to point an explicit finger at the “bad independence deal” as at least partly responsible for later developments and violence that has surfaced. Bloom attended a colloquium organised at the University of the Witwatersrand, where Bishop Paul Verryn was also supposed to speak (Bloom 2009: 158). Okyere-Manu (2016: 232) explains that Bishop Verryn let Zimbabwean migrants stay in his church also long before any explicit attacks on foreigners. The churches of South Africa played a significant role during the xenophobic attacks as they protected immigrants and provided shelter (Okyere-Manu 2016: 232) and are thus significant for a discussion of community measures against xenophobia. According to Bloom (2009: 166), the Bishop insinuated in his speech that there was a planned element in the attacks, that they would have been at least partly

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orchestrated on a higher level. The severity of such an accusation says a lot about the deep divide in South Africa with regard to the treatment of immigrants and refugees. This treatment is addressed, for example, by Rugunanan and Smit (2011: 712), who interviewed refugees for their study, many of whom reported having been poorly received by the Department of Home Affairs and having had to pay bribes in order to get their papers sorted out. Such actions too can be seen as amounting to violence of a more subtle and indirect kind. Another interesting incident in relation to these is part of Gevisser’s memoir, where he describes the experience of a Congolese refugee named Mayema who applied for asylum in Cape Town at the Department of Home Affairs: “‘I am gay,’ he told the Home Affairs official, a black woman. She was incredulous. ‘But there are no gays in the rest of Africa,’ she said. ‘We only have them here in South Africa’” (Gevisser 2014: 175). Mayema received his asylum permit but decided not to stay in South Africa where he felt he was not as safe as he had hoped (ibid.). Gevisser (2014: 176) reports of other transgressions too by Home Affairs or local police forces, including gay asylum seekers being physically assaulted, indicating that the system itself in South Africa may be profoundly biased, being in agreement with Mkhize’s statement about xenophobia going beyond just being sentiments of the ‘Black masses’ and penetrating institutions and knowledge production. Returning to the colloquium at Wits attended by Bloom, another talk was given by Achille Mbembe, originally from Cameroon and a well-­ known and highly influential scholar. During his speech, Mbembe referred to his own foreigner status in South Africa and also addressed colour and the experience of being “too dark” (Bloom 2009: 162–163). Mbembe, as cited in Bloom (2009: 164), made the following statement: “‘It has something to do with self-hate. Which is not inherited. Which is constructed over a long period of brutalisation. Of evictions, of non-respect for property, dispossession”. These sentiments emerged, according to Mbembe, from the perpetual threat of violence present in South Africa which makes brutality normal (ibid.). Such treatment of locals who are South African by birth has been address in research too, and Judith Hayem (2013: 80–81) states the following: “People were attacked because they were seen as outside the nation, as non-nationals—whether this was actually the case or not”. Belonging is at the core of these concerns, and in this case, it is not something at least partly determined by the individual themselves, a choice they make to belong, but something that is withheld by outside

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forces. Such experiences are exemplified in Chauke’s memoir where he writes about the difficulties of being “too dark” in a society that still favoured light skin: “I learnt to hate every bone that was in me. […] That always bothered me; because I was dark, society regarded me as ugly automatically. […] My fellow black people instinctively treated lighter children better than us dark ones. The belief that the light-skinned children were better because they were nearer to being white came directly from apartheid” (Chauke 2018: 13). These notions inevitably speak to the divide still present in South Africa and the prejudice and racism also among South Africans themselves. Trevor Noah confirms Chauke’s experiences in his own memoir as he remembers his childhood as a very light-skinned child. Once he accidentally perforated his cousin’s eardrum in a game, and his grandmother gave all the other children who had been involved in the game a serious whipping but left Noah unpunished (Noah 2017: 51). When his mother later asked why she had not touched him, the grandmother answered that she did not know how to hit a White child (Noah 2017: 52). His grandfather took things even further and insisted on calling Noah “Mastah” (ibid.): “My own family basically did what the American justice system does: I was given more lenient treatment than the black kids” (ibid.). Both writers, Noah and Chauke, grew up in severely deprived conditions but had opposite experiences to some extent largely based on the colour of their skins despite both defining themselves as Black. The anger that is explicitly present in Chauke’s writing is not expressed in Noah’s memoir. This seems to be tied to some extent to colour, suggesting that the old racism and prejudice of apartheid is still present and has permeated societal layers going far beyond original racial divides. Such inherent racism is further exacerbated by xenophobia, which Chauke too came to experience very closely while studying at university: “During the xenophobic attacks in 2008, I was terrified. The attackers did not distinguish between me, a Shangaan with a very dark complexion, and their actual targets” (Chauke 2018: 216). Chauke witnessed a Mozambican man getting stabbed and writes that South Africans too who were not part of the largest ethnic groups could be attacked (ibid.): “We ‘looked foreign’ and were ‘too dark’ to be South Africans. White people were not viewed as foreigners in the context of xenophobic violence, however. […] The attacks were black on black. I hate to say this about us, but we have been taught to hate each other” (Chauke 2018: 216–217). Steenkamp (2009: 442) confirms Chauke’s experience when stating that “the

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violence of May 2008 was directed at black Africans, mainly by black Africans. Foreigners are often treated differently depending on their race”. Chauke’s lines about the prejudice he was forced to face reveal some of the paradoxes connected with belonging as a Black, disadvantaged South African. He uses the pronoun ‘we’ to denote both Black South Africans as a racial category and when referring to his own group membership as a Shangaan. Thus, these examples are important for a discussion of belonging in South Africa and for the complex relationship between self and other, self and nation. No monolithic blackness or whiteness or coloured identity can be said to exist, yet belonging is often drawn along these lines too as exemplified in Bloom’s memoirs about the dilemma whether to stay or to leave, and by extension having an impact on the decisions of other people who can be seen as belonging to the same group. Chauke’s experiences manifest the troubled identity of South Africans since apartheid and also suggests a desire to be seen as separate from the rest of the African continent. Hayem addresses the issue of belonging and the premises on which it is negotiated in South Africa, suggesting that a significant shift has taken place when compared to the ideals of reconciliation immediately after the end of apartheid: Being South African is now promoted on a differentiating basis: nationals versus those seen as foreigners. Hence, an exclusionary process has come to be part of the idea of citizenship. It is informed by a conception of national belonging based on differentiation between groups and on potentially opposed interests, rather than on inclusivity whereby people are seen as belonging to the country, whatever their former race or community, because they live there—whether they be nationals or not. (Hayem 2013: 79)

Thus, instead of becoming more open, free, and welcoming towards its people, the nation has found new ways of differentiating between its citizens and groups, ways which still seem to be based at least to some extent on colour. The self-hate mentioned by Chauke speaks to the profound psychological challenges connected to such differentiation, both on the part of those excluded and those included. The racial and tribal divides are further exemplified by Chauke (2018: 220–221) when he recounts an encounter with a police officer who demanded to see his passport. Despite Chauke responding in Zulu, the officer did not believe that he was local. Chauke makes the connection with the passes his ancestors were forced to carry during apartheid, and

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the correlation is indeed deeply troubling. From having been severely and systematically discriminated against in the years of apartheid, Black South Africans may now receive a similar kind of treatment from their own kind. Here, Okyere-Manu (2016: 233) attempts to offer something of an explanation for such xenophobia: First is the deeply rooted effect of the apartheid system that historically limited and rejected certain categories of people through the use of violence and intimidation. Second is the violent nature of that system that sowed seeds of entitlement mentality, anger and hatred, in the lives of most of the people in the country. My point here is that the brutality of the attacks on fellow human beings implies that both of these issues have not been effectively addressed by the government and the various churches in the country.

The word ‘hate’ seems to resurface, in Mbembe’s speech and in Chauke’s memoir, and also here in Okyere-Manu’s article. Perhaps the ‘violent nature’ of apartheid has become such an integral part of, so entrenched in, South Africa that it now manifests itself in attacks on foreigners or people who do not appear domestic enough; people such as Chauke who are not Black South African in the ‘right’ way. However, economic reasons have also been addressed as a cause for racism and xenophobia in South Africa. Gordon investigates this in his paper on attitudes towards foreigners in South Africa and states the following: Economic explanations for anti-immigrant sentiment in the country are often grounded within an understanding of South Africa’s negotiated transition to democracy. The transition from a regime based on racial oppression and authoritarianism to a multiracial democracy has produced a multitude of new democratic rights for South Africa’s former oppressed population groups. (Gordon 2015: 500)

These new rights then take shape in a number of ways, and as Steenkamp (2009: 443–444) also confirms, the political events leading up to the attacks in 2008 are also significant as an underlying reason. President Mbeki had been replaced by Zuma, and “[f]or the first time since the end of Apartheid, discontent with government delivery (and Mbeki) could be voiced without compromising one’s loyalty to the ANC (represented by Zuma)” (Steenkamp 2009: 444). The political implications of the attacks are thus not to be underestimated, even though the discontent among Black South Africans may also have been economically motivated. This is

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neatly summarised by Gordon (2015: 501): “The link between economic self-interest and competition theory indicates that antagonism is likely when different groups (i.e. citizens and foreigners) are rivals for the same limited resources”. The struggle and lack of proper redistribution of resources after apartheid can to some extent be seen as having culminated in xenophobia according to some researchers, for example, by Steenkamp (2009: 442): Post-Apartheid South Africa is particularly attractive to migrants due to its relatively high level of economic development, living standards and political freedom. As the number of migrants increased, so did South Africans’ intolerance, against a background of frustrated expectations about the socio-­ economic dividends of democracy.

However, as Gevisser’s memoir showed, not all migrants were treated as well as they had hoped for and some decided not to stay in South Africa due to this. The story of Tony and Claudia in Bloom’s text also exemplifies poor treatment, and Bloom visited Bishop Verryn’s church too to talk to some of the refugees taking shelter there. One of the people he met said that the attacks destroyed South Africa’s reputation in the eyes of other Africans (Bloom 2009: 157). The person also insinuated that the attacks had been orchestrated in order to provide jobs for those participating in the violence: “Right now they are killing their black foreign brothers. What do you think they will do tomorrow? They will kill white South Africans. Then they will kill one another” (Bloom 2009: 158). This refers back to the hate discussed earlier. A repressed anger emerges in this comment, pointing to profound racial divides still present and the extremely dire consequences they eventually may have. The message of the memoirs examined, and of some of the scholarly texts too, seems to be that until the economic problems of South Africa are properly addressed and resolved, there will be no true peace among its citizens, no real acceptance and possibility to move forward. Finding such peace is no longer just a question of mediating between different racial groups but also between various layers of society as a whole. It is a monumental task that requires the efforts of all inhabitants as put forward in the memoirs examined in the present chapter. A similar sentiment is also forcefully expressed by Desmond Tutu in his memoir, the analysis of which is a central part of Chap. 6.

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5.5   Conclusion The discussion of crime and violence in the three memoirs analysed in this chapter points to deep rifts that are troubling from many socio-economic perspectives. The question of privilege and race emerges as particularly significant, as the kinds of crime people become victims of as represented in the texts examined have a connection to privilege. Whether to stay or to leave becomes a real option only for those with the means to make such a choice for themselves and their families, and the suggestion in Bloom’s memoir is that there is a lack of solidarity manifested through the act of leaving, which puts those who stay behind at even greater risk. The question arises as to whether staying actually involves sacrifice and acceptance of the risks involved and the requirement to pay ‘crime’ tax as a relatively wealthy citizen. Gevisser’s choice to stay and make peace with Johannesburg after the ordeal he and his friends went through during the home invasion points to the same thing. Thus, the memoirs indicate that part of being South African includes enduring such experiences, as Msimang also argued in her memoir. This strongly connects to the idea of compromise and making concessions. The decision to stay involves a compromise, in which, crudely put, personal safety and security are exchanged for a sense of national belonging. However, when examining experiences of xenophobia, directed both at people with immigrant backgrounds or South Africans who happen to look or speak in ways that are deemed less local or indigenous, the rifts seem to run even deeper. Refusing treatment for Tony and Claudia’s child, and a police officer harassing Chauke even though he addressed her in Zulu, also seem connected to the notion of solidarity in terms of protecting the nation’s interests and uniting against those who come from elsewhere. Again, the question of space seems to be at the centre of these accounts. Economic inequality can be seen as a reason for the outbursts of xenophobia, both in a large way such as the events of 2008, or in a smaller way exemplified by the unkind nurse whom Claudia met when pregnant. It is a struggle for space, for drawing boundaries with regard to who can belong and be accepted. The relationship between confessing and witnessing is a significant part of the three texts examined, particularly the two memoirs by Bloom and Gevisser, respectively. Their journalistic efforts are clearly visible in the texts and the personal narrative is embedded in the stories of others. Such a collective dimension is crucial for the negotiation of belonging and for understanding one’s place in the nation. Examining the self as part of a

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community of sorts, be its boundaries drawn along racial, residential, geographical, or economic lines, suggests that seeking belonging is always a collective effort even when sought by an individual. That gives memoir too a collective dimension particularly when it exists on the threshold between autobiography and reportage. Gagiano (2009: 263) suggested seeing autobiography’s importance in terms of bearing witness as “intended contributions to a shared future” (emphasis added). Thus, the works of the writers can here also be seen as intended contributions that hope to be part of the building blocks for whatever, hopefully more sustainable, future the nation and its people can envision for themselves. The texts also embody the need for open dialogue about the challenges and problems afflicting South Africa in all levels of society. Michael Chapman’s (2017: 90) argument is of primary importance: “a socially cohesive society (however generalised the term) is not averse to, but is characterised by, a robust engagement with difficult, even potentially divisive, issues and opinions”. All three memoirs call for such dialogue from their different viewpoints and seem to suggest most forcefully that only when we listen to one another and make the stories and experiences of others part of our own personal narratives, only then can something productive emerge that enables concessions not just to a brutal past and an incohesive present but also to that elusive future. This is the most urgent contribution of Bloom’s, Gevisser’s, and Chauke’s autobiographical texts.

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Gordon, Steven Lawrence. 2018. Understanding Evaluations of Foreigners in Modern South Africa: The Relationship between Subjective Wellbeing and Xenophobia. Journal of Happiness Studies 19 (6): 545–566. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10902-­016-­9838-­6. Governance, Public Safety and Justice Survey: 2018/19. 2019. Statistics South Africa, Statistical Release P0341 Victims of Crime. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. Hayem, Judith. 2013. From May 2008 to 2011: Xenophobic Violence and National Subjectivity in South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies 39 (1): 77–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2013.767538. Kilby, Jane, and Antony Rowland. 2014. Introduction. In The Future of Testimony: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Witnessing, ed. Jane Kilby and Antony Rowland, 1–13. London: Routledge. Klotz, Audie. 2016. Borders and the Roots of Xenophobia in South Africa. South African Historical Journal 68 (2): 180–194. https://doi.org/10.108 0/02582473.2016.1153708. Krog, Antjie. 1999 [1998]. Country of My Skull. London: Vintage. Malan, Rian. 2012. The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Other Stories of Africa. London: Grove Press. Mbao, Wamuwi. 2010. Inscribing whiteness and staging belonging in contemporary autobiographies and life-writing forms. English in Africa 37 (1): 63–75. https://doi.org/10.4314/eia.v37i1.54987. Mkhize, Khwezi. 2019. South African and the Politics of Coevality. Scrutiny2 24 (1): 73–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/18125441.2019.1651386. Morrison, Blake. 2015. The Worst Thing I Ever Did: The Contemporary Confessional Memoir. In On Life-Writing, ed. Zachary Leader, 201–220. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mosselson, Aidan. 2010. ‘There Is No Difference Between Citizens And Non-­ Citizens Anymore’: Violent Xenophobia, Citizenship and the Politics of Belonging in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies 36 (3): 641–655. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2010.507570. Msimang, Sisonke. 2017. Always Another Country. New  York and London: World Editions. Noah, Trevor. 2017. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. London: John Murray. Okyere-Manu, Beatrice. 2016. Ethical Implications of Xenophobic Attacks in South Africa: A Challenge to the Christian Church. CrossCurrents 66 (2): 227–238. https://doi.org/10.1111/cros.12180. Polatinsky, Ashlee. 2009. Between Suspense and Inevitability: Kevin Bloom’s Ways of Staying. English Studies in Africa 52 (1): 102–110. https://doi. org/10.1080/00138390903172575.

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Primorac, Ranka. 2010. Rhodesians Never Die? The Zimbabwe Crisis and the Revival of Rhodesian Discourse. In Zimbabwe’s New Diaspora: Displacement and the Cultural Politics of Survival, ed. Joann McGregor and Ranka Primorac, 202–228. New York: Berghahn Books. Radstone, Susannah. 2006. Cultures of Confession/Cultures of Testimony: Turning the Subject Inside Out. In Modern Confessional Writing: New Critical Essays, ed. Jo Gill, 166–179. London: Routledge. Rasch, Astrid. 2018. Postcolonial Nostalgia: The Ambiguities of White Memoirs of Zimbabwe. History & Memory 30 (2): 147–180. https://doi.org/10.2979/ histmemo.30.2.06. Rugunanan, Pragna, and Ria Smit. 2011. Seeking Refuge in South Africa: Challenges Facing a Group of Congolese and Burundian Refugees. Development Southern Africa 28 (5): 705–718. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 0376835X.2011.623919. Scorgie, Fiona, Deborah Baron, Jonathan Stadler, Emilie Venables, Heena Brahmbatt, Kristin Mmari, and Sinead Delany-Moretlwe. 2017. From fear to resilience: adolescents’ experiences of violence in inner-city Johannesburg, South Africa. BMC Public Health 17 (441): 51–64. https://doi.org/10.1186/ s12889-017-4349-x. Simoes da Silva, Tony. 2012. Under New Management: Whiteness in Post-­ Apartheid South African Life Writing. In Locating Life Stories: Beyond East-West Binaries in (Auto)Biographical Studies, ed. M.  Perkins, 83–95. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Steenkamp, Christina. 2009. Xenophobia in South Africa: What Does It Say About Trust? The Round Table 98 (403): 439–447. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00358530903017949. Walder, Dennis. 2009. Writing, Representation, and Postcolonial Nostalgia. Textual Practice 23 (6): 935–946. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 09502360903361709. Wambu, Onyekachi. 2019. African-on-African Xenophobia. New African 594: 74.

CHAPTER 6

Contemplating Forgiveness in Desmond Tutu’s No Future Without Forgiveness, Lesego Malepe’s Reclaiming Home, and Haji Mohamed Dawjee’s Sorry, Not Sorry

So far, this book has mainly occupied itself with delving into the shortcomings of contemporary, present-day South Africa as portrayed in several memoirs that largely focus on the darker aspects of living in the nation, as well as its difficulties in moving beyond struggles of the past. A tentative conclusion at this point is that those born in the free South Africa have trouble finding a stable existence and coming to terms with their identities as citizens in a nation that still remains deeply divided based on race, and in which a South African of colour may still find themself at the losing end. Economic and social resources have not been redistributed to a satisfying degree. Thus, the writings of younger citizens express disillusionment as examined in previous chapters. In addition, their memoirs also deal with feelings of anger. Having thus far focused largely on persisting challenges, it is of importance for the present book to investigate more positive notions too on which South Africa has attempted to build its futures. Here, for the present chapter, this comes to mean forgiveness, remorse, and the various forms of apology present (or not present) in society in South Africa. Inevitably, the analysis needs to encompass Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s widely known and read autobiography No Future Without Forgiveness (1999), published in the immediate aftermath of the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Englund, South African Autobiography as Subjective History, African Histories and Modernities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83232-2_6

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TRC. Finding common ground on which to move forward, granting amnesty to perpetrators who confessed their crimes and provided disclosure, and providing victims with a voice and a chance to face their oppressors were the goals of the TRC. The Commission has been criticised for failing to meet these by no means minor aims. Including Tutu’s memoir in this chapter provides a possibility to examine to what extent these aims may still have been met, at least to some extent, through an examination of more recent memoirs that offer different perspectives on the legacy of the Commission. The writings of Wa Azania and Chauke have given examples of the extent to which post-apartheid South Africa can be seen as having failed in terms of not providing equal opportunities for all its citizens and particularly for those previously disadvantaged. This chapter aims to tentatively investigate representations of  the progress that has taken place, despite obvious challenges still present. Lesego Malepe shows with her memoir Reclaiming Home: Diary of a Journey Through Post-Apartheid South Africa (2018) that there may be a generational gap at play here when compared to memoirs by born frees. Her travels through South Africa manifest a desire to reconnect with her home country after having lived for many years in the United States. They also indicate that among the slightly older generation of South Africans, those who grew up during apartheid and whose parents may no longer be around to see the developments in the new South Africa, attempts at forgiveness and understanding are at play. The memoir offers a meditative yet detailed and concrete account not only of the shortcomings of South Africa but also of its victories and triumphs since apartheid. It is an important perspective to investigate and one which can be contrasted against the writings of Tutu and Dawjee. The third memoir at the centre of this chapter was published in the same year as Malepe’s but gives a totally different perspective on forgiveness and what may be termed individual or personal reconciliation, not only with regard to the apartheid past but also in terms of what South Africa has become since. Haji Mohamed Dawjee’s book Sorry, Not Sorry: Experiences of a Brown Woman in a White South Africa (2018a) is provocative in its very title, giving an indication that apologies, (not) being sorry and eventually engaging in forgiveness-related activities are at the heart of the essay collection. However, Dawjee’s text, which balances between personal accounts and glimpses of the author’s own life, and stories of South Africa from perspectives of colour, religion, inequality and

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many more themes and topics, brings to surface the complications of living together in a society supposed to be equal on paper yet still unable to stop differentiating between its citizens. The apology and forgiveness, or lack thereof as suggested in the title, become entangled not only with identity and race but also with finding and claiming one’s space in South Africa. Belonging is thus a most central theme in the present chapter and it is also concretely manifested in Malepe’s writing about compensation for appropriated land. The three texts as introduced briefly here and combined in this unique way, all inform the question as to what degree and in what ways forgiveness is present in contemporary South African life writing and what it has come to mean since the days of the TRC. Desmond Tutu’s (2005: 124) statement in a text from 2005 speaks to the need to continue exploring this topic: “We must all be able to say, ‘The future is ours.’ But the future depends so much on the past, and we must heal our memories. We must open the wounds to cleanse them, because if we just close them up and pretend they’re not there, they will fester”. Current autobiographical writing can in that sense be seen as a continuation of the healing process, but this takes shape in many different ways as seen in the previous chapters. The notion of healing memories is important, as it directly refers to individual experiences and the urgent need not only for documentation of said memories but also of dialogue between them. The various definitions of forgiveness have also been debated from spiritual, religious, and political perspectives (cf. Nagy 2002; Couenhoven 2010; Vandevelde 2013; Marshall 2014; Watkins 2015). Opening the wounds and healing memories can at least be seen as part of the two memoirs in focus here, written by Malepe and Dawjee. Both write about sensitive issues from a social and political perspective drawing on personal experiences, but the outcomes are rather different as will be seen in later sections of this chapter. The chapter begins with an exploration of reconciliation and forgiveness guided by Tutu’s memoir.

6.1   Forgiveness and Reconciliation Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s memoir No Future Without Forgiveness offers an account of the hearings that were central to the work and process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. In addition to bearing witness to the testimonies, Tutu also elaborately speaks for the

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need for forgiveness and reconciliation in order for South Africa to have any chance at a stable future as his title also indicates. The many meanings of forgiveness and the work of the TRC have been addressed also in another notable work of nonfiction, Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull (1999), which has become highly influential. The book balances between reportage, fiction, poetry and memoir, drawing on a number of genres in its documentation and representation of the hearings. The question of personal culpability and complicity runs like a subtle thread throughout. Tutu’s memoir is more directly about the need for forgiveness and about learning to live with the pain of apartheid, about the need for ubuntu. The chapter sets out to explore forgiveness and the work of the Commission as reported and commented on by Tutu. In a South African context, a simple working definition of forgiveness may not be realistic or even fair. Generally, forgiveness implies some kind of active change of perspective among those who have been wronged, such as in the following definition by Trudy Govier (2002: viii): “I conceive of forgiveness as a process of overcoming attitudes of resentment and anger that may persist when one has been injured by wrongdoing”. Her book begins with a reference and tribute to the work of Tutu and his non-­ violent politics, acknowledging the remarkable nature of his efforts. However, such a simple notion of forgiveness may be perceived by some as unable to encompass all the complexities involved with South African processes of forgiveness, and, quite rightly, Christopher R.  Allers and Marieke Smit (2010: x) assert that there are many ways of forgiving, and that “there will always be future, indeterminate, and unknown ways of forgiving”. Hence the importance of investigating emerging forms of forgiveness in memoirs as well, particularly since the writings of Tutu have been so influential for the concept. He writes towards the end of his memoir that forgiveness “does not mean condoning what has been done” nor does it require forgetting what has happened (Tutu 1999: 219). Instead, it means striving for understanding for those who transgressed, as well as “abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin” (ibid.). To this end, Chauke’s memoir embodies such notions of forgiveness that entail living together despite lingering inequality and racial tension. To further investigate the meaning of forgiveness, it has sometimes been divided into different categories, separating bilateral, unilateral, and mutual forgiveness. These different categories are relevant also for the South African context, as Govier argues:

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In contexts of bilateral forgiveness, the wrongdoer acknowledges his wrongdoing and apologizes or in some other way indicates remorse, so that the person who forgives does so in a context where the wrongdoer has indicated that he renounces what he did. In contexts of unilateral forgiveness, this is not the case; the victim undertakes to forgive in the absence of any such acknowledgement. Wrongdoers may be absent or dead or, though present, unrepentant. From a moral point of view, unilateral forgiveness is clearly more controversial than bilateral forgiveness. Interestingly, however, the political forgiveness of Nelson Mandela must be understood, in the first instance, as unilateral, and is discussed here in that frame of reference. […] As with some other cases of unilateral forgiveness, his may be understood as constituting a unilateral initiative towards bilateral forgiveness. (Govier 2002: viii)

The workings of the TRC can definitely be seen as an effort to reach unilateral forgiveness, sometimes through bilateral forgiveness, and as Tutu (1999: 82) explains in his memoir, not many White people were willing to testify in the hearings. This suggests that unilateral forgiveness may have taken place when perpetrators where absent. However, not all researchers are as positive towards the work of the Commission, and dissenting voices claim for example that “[e]ven when individual victims and perpetrators reconcile through forgiveness and remorse, it has not carried upwards through the nation” (Nagy 2002: 334). Writing such words in the early years after the Commission seems somewhat premature and a rather hastily made conclusion. The examples brought forth in both Tutu’s and Krog’s writing on the Commission are largely focused on the unimaginable torture and pain inflicted upon members of South African society during various periods of apartheid, and some of them do directly and explicitly give evidence of forgiveness and remorse. One of the examples from the hearings as presented by Tutu (1999: 115–117) involves officers who participated in the killing of people in Bisho in 1992. A White colonel appealed to the audience during his testimony and asked for forgiveness for what he and the soldiers had done, begging them to show some understanding towards men who would have to carry with them the crimes they had committed: “That crowd, which had been close to lynching them, did something quite unexpected. It broke out into thunderous applause—unbelievable” (Tutu 1999: 117). The reaction of the crowd listening to the testimony would seem to imply some level of approval, perhaps even forgiveness, as the former perpetrators explicitly expressed remorse. The testimony of the colonel and the

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reaction of the audience confirm Tutu’s notion of forgiveness as empathy towards perpetrators and restraint among victims in terms of retaliation. Tutu (1999: 125) returns several times to the problem of White citizens not participating to a sufficient degree in the proceedings and argues that the Commission met with a lot of criticism from people who questioned its purpose and the reconciliation for which it strived: “So many white people in South Africa have come to see themselves as entitled to reconciliation and forgiveness without their having to lift so much as a little finger to aid this very crucial and demanding process” (ibid.). This indicates a demand for bilateral forgiveness and the acknowledgement that unilateral forgiveness may prove difficult to achieve. Further, Tutu defends the purpose of the Commission against those who were critical of its work: “The Commission was expected to promote national unity and reconciliation. It is crucial to underscore that it was meant to promote not to achieve those worthwhile objectives” (Tutu 1999: 126; emphasis in the original). This was supposed to involve all citizens in order to be effective “because without forgiveness, without reconciliation we have no future” (Tutu 1999: 127). These lines directly address some of the criticism the Commission has had to face. The question inevitably arises as to whether such an ambitious and unique project could ever have been entirely successful, and to what extent success can be measured in this context. Seeing the work of the Commission as an outright failure or deeming it a success have consequences for the nation. If it is regarded a failed project, the importance of a “relatively peaceful transition” (Tutu 1999: 211) to majority rule is blatantly ignored. Further, as Tutu (1999: 209) explains, there was an expectation internationally that the transition to democracy would eventually lead to armed conflict which did not happen. Seeing the Commission as a success, however, may be considered ignorance with regard to the still unresolved issues relating to inequality. The successes and failures of the TRC are very much part of the narratives of South Africa’s past and present and is therefore a significant part of the discussion here as well. It appears that some of the criticism emerged in the immediate aftermath of the TRC or within a reasonable time after the Commission finished its proceedings. Audrey R. Chapman (2007) examines transcripts of the testimonies given during the hearings and argues the following in her study: “[R]elatively few deponents in the human rights violations hearings

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even mentioned the subject of forgiveness in their testimony” (p.  56). This can be difficult to determine to some extent of course, depending on the linguistic choices of people who testified. In accordance with Tutu’s definition of forgiveness, it is something less tangible than explicitly uttering the words ‘I/we forgive you’. His notion of forgiveness constitutes a way of life, a philosophy on which to build South Africa’s future. However, Chapman also states that “only 7 of the deponents who testified, less than 2% of the sample, stated that they were ready to forgive unconditionally those responsible for the injury inflicted on them or members of their families; and these 7 did not necessarily express what could be considered a strong inclination to forgiveness” (ibid.). Chapman’s conclusion is thus that her “data indicate that the deponents who came to the public hearings were more oriented to truth and justice than to forgiveness and reconciliation” (2007: 56–57). That suggests that perhaps retributive justice would have been the desired course of action for many South Africans. The work of the Commission can be seen as an effort to get to the truth of what happened to people, justice would be meted out to perpetrators as far as it was possible, and this process would then lead to forgiveness and reconciliation. A central question is whether any demands for actual reconciliation have come much too early. As Tutu stated, the Commission aimed to promote such objectives, not achieve them. He also states that reconciliation “is liable to be a long drawn-out process with ups and downs, not something accomplished overnight and certainly not by a Commission, however effective” (Tutu 1999: 221). A tentative observation at this point is that there has not been enough time yet to go from truth to justice to actual forgiveness, and it may be a process which will continue into coming decades. Such a process does not necessarily have an end-date when reconciliation would be fully achieved. Nagy offers severe criticism against the idea of reconciliation, writing that the future of South African democracy was at stake in the hearings: “Amnesty in exchange for full disclosure represents political exoneration, as opposed to religious or personal forgiveness. The political slate of perpetrators is wiped clean, but the moral slate remains tarnished. Instead, a new beginning is promised in the commitment to democracy” (Nagy 2002: 329). It seems an exaggeration to state that the slate is wiped clean politically, but the moral corruption certainly remains. As Tutu explains, although remorse was not required of the perpetrators, “there is the penalty of public exposure and humiliation” (Tutu 1999: 48).

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Tutu returns several times to the complicity of White South Africans who may have known what went on in the country, who probably must have known at least on some level, but chose to turn away: “Apartheid could not have survived for a single day had it not been supported by this enfranchised, privileged minority” (Tutu 1999: 171). Tutu writes that he wishes for acknowledgement among the White community that they have been lucky and expresses the following in an imaginary speech from a White leader to their community: “Let us invest all we have to make this thing succeed, otherwise one day the blacks will really get angry that political change has brought no change for them materially and there will not be a Mandela to help control them” (Tutu 1999: 185). These prophetic words have to some extent been realised in the mass protests discussed also in this study and the brewing anger against lack of prospects. Thus, refraining from participating in the hearings and providing full disclosure of atrocities committed against the Black and coloured communities can be seen as not only undermining any reconciliation but democracy itself. Despite inevitable futility already acknowledged at the outset of the hearings, the idea(l) of reconciliation needed to be taken as far as possible and Tutu’s memoir testifies to this. However, Nagy (2002: 331) remains critical of this endeavour too, the Commission’s task to safeguard democracy, and argues that even this task is impaired “by its discourses on healing and forgiveness which, however unintentional and comparatively moderate, mimic the past by imposing all-encompassing, thick narratives of national unity on the victims of apartheid”. Such criticism is harsh and goes against the aims outlined by Tutu in his memoir. The refusal among White citizens to take full responsibility for their actions, for example, represented in the memoir through the evasive actions of former president P.  W. Botha (Tutu 1999: 196–201) is dealt with in detail. Eventually, Tutu appealed directly to Botha that he would apologise but he refused (p. 201). Thus, the question of apology and reparations emerges as a significant part of the reconciliation process as narrated by Tutu, which in effect does not encompass unconditional forgiveness. Forgiveness can thus take place even without explicit remorse. Here, a comment by Susannah Radstone with regard to witnessing becomes relevant. She argues that “the position of witness is a complex one that can exceed an emphatic identification with victimhood to include identifications with other positions available within any given scenario, including, especially, those of perpetration” (Radstone 2001: 61). This

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seems a tall order in the context of victims of apartheid, but it is what Tutu too is advocating and what forgiveness means in his own words: “It involves trying to understand the perpetrators and so have empathy, to try to stand in their shoes, and to appreciate the sort of pressures and influences that might have brought them to do what they did” (Tutu 1999: 219). Likewise, it is an equally tall order for perpetrators to realise what they have done and come to terms with it, but the responsibility for reaching forgiveness seems in this instance to belong to the victim. What Tutu seems to explicitly call for is legitimacy for all experiences, also those on the wrong side of the fence. The magnanimity asked for and provided by South African after apartheid entails making space for the experiences of perpetrators. The need for reparation, and for reaching some kind of not only spiritual reconciliation and balance in society but material as well, is also addressed by Tutu. In order for there to be a solid future for all South Africans, it would be necessary for “the perpetrators or their descendants to acknowledge the horror of what happened and the descendants of the victims to respond by granting the forgiveness they ask for, providing something can be done, even symbolically, to compensate for the anguish experienced” (Tutu 1999: 226). This places the responsibility of reconciliation and forgiveness not only on the generations of South Africans who actually lived through apartheid themselves but also on their children and grandchildren, indicating that the Commission did not finish the process of reconciliation but merely put it in motion. Predictably, the responsibility to carry on with this process will be a collective experience for generations to come, but it is also relevant to ask whether that process has already been interrupted. The memoirs investigated earlier in this book seem to suggest that this is indeed the case. In contrast, their negotiation of space also indicates that in the uneasy belonging available to South Africans across racial lines some common ground may be found. The compromise required involves living with some unease and discomfort. Forgiveness and reconciliation will also need to take very explicit and concrete forms and cannot exist only on a conceptual or moral level. Tutu often refers less directly to the question of redistribution of wealth but is more explicit in other parts of the memoir: Apartheid provided whites with enormous benefits and privileges, leaving its victims deprived and exploited. […] Confession, forgiveness and reparation, wherever feasible, form part of a continuum. […] The huge gap between

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the haves and the have-nots, which was largely created and maintained by racism and apartheid, poses the greatest threat to reconciliation and stability in our country. […] For unless houses replace the hovels and shacks in which most blacks live; unless blacks gain access to clean water, electricity, affordable health care, decent education, good jobs and a safe ­environment— all things which the vast majority of whites have taken for granted for so long—we can kiss goodbye to reconciliation. (Tutu 1999: 221)

This important passage makes it clear and explicit in no uncertain terms that forgiveness and reconciliation on some spiritual, abstract level is not going to be enough. The memoirs of Wa Azania, Chauke, Msimang, and Dawjee definitely attest to this in a variety of ways. The question of personal responsibility to reconcile and forgive merges in complex ways with the collective effort to build a non-racial future. To some extent the Commission’s work can be seen as an effort to inspire individuals who gave testimonies to grant forgiveness to perpetrators who sought it. The ripple effect of these actions would then multiply throughout the nation who followed reports of the hearings in media. The outpouring of autobiographical writing from and of South Africa also attests to the efforts made for individual healing. Tutu does, as previously explored, offer some accounts of remarkable insight and goodwill on the part of both victims and perpetrators, but these instances are by no means to be seen as some kind of reflections of healing taking place throughout the nation. Janine Natalya Clark (2012: 190) asks an important question in connection to the successes and failures of the TRC, as to whether “TRC truths do in fact facilitate reconciliation”. The question arises partly from the difficulty in defining reconciliation but also from the fact that “the relationship between truth and reconciliation is unlikely to be static but rather to change over time” (ibid.). The argument is a noteworthy and the memoirs in focus in the present chapter do give some indication about this change over time. Further, as previously explained, Tutu is explicit about the need for reparations and the damage the long era of complete segregation and injustice has done. He talks about the “self-hate and self-contempt” which became second nature of those brutalised by apartheid (1999: 155): “[S]ociety has conspired to fill people with self-hate which they then project outwards. They hate themselves and destroy themselves by proxy when they destroy those who are like this self they have been conditioned to hate” (ibid.). Such self-contempt and difficulty in managing and building

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a healthy self-esteem and sense of self-worth is particularly well-explored in Dawjee’s memoir. The title of her memoir, Sorry, Not Sorry, refers to this internal battle. The outbursts of xenophobia in South Africa can also to some extent be seen as self-hate seeping out, becoming inflicted on those who already find themselves marginalised and with whom some South Africans struggle to find solidarity and common ground on which to build better futures for all. Such notions offer very bleak prospects according to some of the texts examined. The focus on tragedy, trauma, and violence in so many if not all South African autobiographical texts raises the question as to whether such indulgence in the hardships and terrors of citizens of South Africa actually conforms to what Elleke Boehmer (2012: 30) stated, that there is something of an addiction to “the adrenalin of crisis management, even to the compulsive contemplation of pain and yet more pain”. Further, Boehmer (ibid.) also argued that this preoccupation with pain and suffering may be seen as an indication of an inability to fully deal with the legacies of apartheid which she explains as “the lack or loss of apartheid as opposition, as a fixed negative against which to rally” (ibid.). Her statement suggests an obsession with the negative aspects of the past, a South Africa in which apartheid is and will always be the point of reference. The memoirs examined here do not conform to such notions, but it is nonetheless worthy of some consideration. It can be argued that the memoirs examined here still take apartheid as a starting point and that all works try to negotiate the legacy of such a past the best they can. Seeing the memoirs as a continuation of the work done by the TRC is one way, as some White writers ponder their culpability and responsibility for past and present crimes and inequalities, and some writers of colour attempt to come to terms with their anger at the difficulties faced by so many millions of young people who share their backgrounds. To that extent, apartheid never fully ended, and the witnessing is still very much ongoing. However, another way of looking at it is that the work of the TRC was never completed in the sense of remorse and forgiveness. Anthony Holiday (1998) makes several important observations in his chapter about the work of the TRC, and as the text was published while the Commission was still in the midst of its processes, it can provide relevant insights for the present moment too which is, in effect, in the midst of its own painful and prolonged birthing process. The following point is interesting for a number of reasons: “For to be remorseful is an indispensable part of what it means to be a penitent and remorse is itself a form of memory, which

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consists in our being haunted by the distinctive presence of whomever it is we have wronged” (Holiday 1998: 44). Remorse in the South African present-day context is muddled by several factors such as the writers producing memoirs not having been the perpetrators themselves nor have the so-called born-free authors lived under apartheid. Tutu’s memoir embodies the reconciliation process itself through its mediating approach to White citizens and their direct or indirect contributions to apartheid. The hearings made perpetrators and their deeds a very public affair and brought to light atrocities which had previously been hidden. To that extent, it managed to uncover the truth at least to some  degree, even though the people who testified and witnessed formed  only a small portion of all the victims and perpetrators. Here, Clark’s (2012) study of experiences of the role of truth-telling and its relationship to reconciliation is of value. The result of her study and the interviews she conducted indicate that “short-term, medium-term, and ultimately long-term impact may be very different” regarding the Commission and its work (Clark 2012: 192). For people who had actually taken part in the hearings and given witness accounts, “their disappointment in the TRC process had increased over the years as their many expectations—particularly in respect of reparations and experiencing fundamental changes in their own everyday lives—had remained largely unmet” (ibid.). Whether the present moment is in the short-term, medium-term, or long-­ term category is up for debate and different categorisations may exist, but the main finding is that the work of the Commission was a process, as acknowledged by Clark (2012) too, and as such it still continues to date, as manifested in all primary material in this study. The different approaches to the Commission and reconciliation over time are also represented in research cited here. The presence, or non-presence, of remorse must however be seen as somewhat irrelevant, and Anthony Holiday (1998: 54) goes as far as claiming that the TRC worked with “an amoralized and psychologistic understanding of forgiveness”, making it possible for, for example, “a professional torturer […] to describe in gleeful detail all he had done to his victims and earn immunity from prosecution” (Holiday 1998: 55). Tutu (1999: 51) offers advice also on this point. He explains that “amnesty is granted only to those who plead guilty, who accept responsibility for what they have done”. Further, he states that these measures were temporary only and not the way “justice is to be administered in South Africa for ever” (ibid.). The specific and unique nature of the TRC is thus

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emphasised, and as such it should also be judged according to Tutu. Further, Vandevelde (2013: 271–272) argues that forgiveness enables new relationships to form between victims and perpetrators, and makes a central comment that can be directly connected with role of Tutu too: In the case of forgiveness the one who would ‘represent’ the victims would need some legitimacy within the community, but would also need to challenge that community to transform itself from a community of victims to a community of forgivers. This would mean not just a self-transformation in a collective psychological sense of overcoming individual and collective anger, but a challenge to be disposed to enter or re-enter into a relationship with former perpetrators, thereby significantly changing the community. (Vandevelde 2013: 272)

The work of Tutu can definitely be seen as representing the victims, and his memoir too carries on with this work of representation as he recounts some of the testimonies and witness accounts from the hearings, providing victims with yet another platform for their voices to be made as public as possible. The plea to Botha to apologise can be seen as an attempt to change the community and form a new relationship, a process which Vandevelde (2013: 273) states is a transformation that stretches into the future. This argument makes any claims about the failures of the Commission seem extremely premature. That does not mean that discontent or disillusionment should not be addressed, to which this study also testifies. Some more positive notions of forgiveness and its crucial role have also been brought forward by other scholars. Jeremy Watkins (2015: 23–24) investigates its meaning and claims the following: “It seems to be characteristic of those who forgive that they overcome their resentment whilst holding on to a clear conviction that they were unjustifiably and inexcusably injured. It is the retention of this ‘cognitive ingredient’ in forgiveness that helps to distinguish it from other responses to wrongdoing”. Watkins’s argument is far more positive than some of the previous perspectives as it emphasises the role of resentment and getting past it. Further, Mark R. Amstutz (2007: 556) talks about the shortcomings of retributive justice too: Punishment is important, according to the retributive theory, because it helps restore the moral equality between offenders and victims and helps

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deter the repetition of wrongdoing. Failure to impose a penalty proportionate to guilt is itself considered an injustice. But while retribution is important in maintaining and sustaining the rule of law, the prosecution and punishment of wrongdoing does not necessarily lead to the healing of victims and the restoration of political community. This is especially the case in deeply fractured societies characterized by ethnic, religious, and political violence.

Hence, retribution may not offer the desired outcome either. The role of the political leaders, Mandela and Tutu first and foremost, who were involved personally in the reconciliation process as those who appointed and chaired the committee respectively (Vandevelde 2013: 273), and also with their own personal example, such as that of Mandela, campaigned for the importance of forgiveness in order to heal the nation. Here, Michael Battle (2000: 173) asks a justified question: “What will happen, however, when South Africans are faced with future political crises while having perhaps little recourse to major public, spiritual leaders like Tutu?”. The present moment with its toppling of statues, university protests, xenophobic violence and global pandemic have shown just how divisive such developments and events can be. Perhaps a significant conclusion here is that after major crises such as apartheid, or colonialism more generally speaking, strong and fair leadership is required in order to bring the nation together. In this regard, South Africa stands both as an awe-inspiring example and a lesson. Before concluding the discussion of Tutu’s memoir and the TRC, one more aspect of reconciliation and forgiveness needs to be briefly explored, and that is that of ubuntu. Tutu (1999: 51) explains that retributive justice “is not the only form of justice”. Instead, he advocates restorative justice as something inherently part of “African jurisprudence” in which “the central concern is not retribution or punishment but, in the spirit of ubuntu, the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships”. This includes working with perpetrators and seeing their humanity despite their offences. Taking such a holistic approach to healing potentially has much more to offer than traditional courts that judge and sentence perpetrators and isolate them from society. There are numerous discussions of the meaning of ubuntu, but the core of it is the shared humanity and humanness, also seen as “the idea that the good of one life is caught up with the good of another” (Couenhoven 2010: 153). Eventually, it could lead to what Watkins (2015: 30) states

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about forgiveness, thus combining the two concepts: “The relationship that would result from forgiveness would instead be characterized by a shared commitment to principles of mutual respect and non-violence”. This mutual respect may need ubuntu in order to arise. The origins of ubuntu have been outlined as follows by Astrid Berg (2012: 93–94): Ubuntu comes from the African proverb Umntu ngumntu ngabantu, which literally translated means ‘a person is a person because of persons.’ ‘I am because you are’ is another way of expressing this. Personhood and individuation are thus firmly situated within the context of human relationships. We are all part of one another, and what affects one person affects all of us.

This explains well the focus on reconciliation during the TRC process, on simply learning to live together. Inevitably, it is necessary to ask whether some South Africans would have preferred a new, free nation without White citizens as that would have enabled moving forward from the brutal past in more straightforward ways but that would also diminish and belittle the work of the Commission. Further, Murove (2014: 37) defines ubuntu as “based on a worldview of relationality, its main insight is consequently based on the idea that as human beings we depend on other human beings to attain ultimate wellbeing”. In terms of relationality and the relations particularly between White and Black South Africans, ubuntu goes beyond notions of forgiveness and reconciliation. It is a question of being able to not just coexist but live together, to recognise the intrinsic human value in one another, and to forge new ways of being, not despite each other but because of one another. To what extent the analysis of memoirs in this study has shown that such a noble and worthwhile aim is impossible still remains open for discussion. The next section of the present chapter hopefully offers some insights into this question. A final note on the concept of ubuntu and forgiveness is offered by Ngubane-Mokiwa (2018: 2), who discusses the meaning of ubuntu from a perspective of inclusion: “Because identity formation is a crucial element of any living human being, communities with ubuntu values would have to find ways of ensuring that their identity perceptions do not make those who differ from the norm feel devalued”. The focus in the paper is on people with disabilities, but this is a noteworthy point also with regard to race. The paradox involved in South Africa is that despite White citizens having been a minority, they embodied the norm. As the memoirs of

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Chauke, Wa Azania, and Dawjee express, this norm is still to a significant degree present in South Africa. This poses a number of problems. Perhaps what Tutu stated in his memoir, about the TRC only offering a first step on the way towards healing, is important to remember and to repeat here. In its own small way, this book is also trying to make its contribution to the discussion of the complexities and juxtapositions that make up South Africa. A lot of it has to do with race and the self-hatred mentioned by Tutu, but a lot of it is also a question of economic privilege. Here, Lesego Malepe has much to offer in her memoir which takes a different approach when compared to that of Chauke or Dawjee. Malepe’s writing is hopeful in the sense that maybe some kind of healing, if not reconciliation, has taken place, also in economic terms. Some empathy and understanding across racial lines have also emerged, embodying the notion of forgiveness in Tutu’s terms.

6.2   Revisiting South Africa and the Past The memoir Reclaiming Home (2018) by Lesego Malepe offers a diary-­ like representation of travels across South Africa undertaken in 2004. The travels took place not too long after the completion of the work of the TRC, but the memoir itself was published much later, suggesting some revision or rewriting at a later stage, or at least certain hindsight. Not only is Malepe’s memoir built around revisiting the country in which she was born and grew up, but she also weaves in her past, the lives of her parents, the apartheid era of South Africa and the situation the country was in at the time of writing. These glimpses provide a noteworthy perspective and insights into the changes that have taken place, as well as the lives of citizens of colour in the new South Africa; citizens who are not necessarily living in poverty and deprivation as opposed to the memoirs of born frees examined here. Questions of generation inevitably arise as well, as Malepe is older than Wa Azania and Chauke, and also older than Dawjee, and has the privilege of being able to look at things from the outside due to her having relocated to Boston, United States, a long time ago. This makes her memoir even more relevant for the present study, as it has both the hindsight and the distance required to observe and address changes taking place. The generational difference in perspective is a relevant starting point, and Robert Mattes (2012: 137) explores attitudes towards democracy in South Africa from the point of view of different generations. He divides

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South Africans into five generational groups, starting with the oldest group which he calls the pre-apartheid generation who “reached their politically formative years (defined here as the age of 16) before the historic victory of the National Party (NP) in the 1948 election and the imposition of the system of official race classification and segregation” (ibid.). The second group, called “the Early Apartheid generation, comprise people who turned 16 between 1948 and 1960, meaning that they have no working memory of life before the rise of the NP”. While Malepe’s year of birth is not explicitly disclosed in the memoir, she does mention the year she left South Africa, which was 1978 (Malepe 2018: 43). She also mentions trying to drive to her cousin’s home the day after the march in Soweto in June 1976, which indicates that she had a driver’s licence at the time or at least knew how to operate a car (p. 163). Further, Malepe talks about her brother who was sentenced to life on Robben Island at the age of just eighteen in 1963. Malepe mentions that she herself was thirteen at the time (Malepe 2018: 33). This suggests that she would have been born in 1950, give or take a year. Thus, Malepe cannot be said to belong to either of these earlier groups as she would have been around ten years old in 1960. Hence, Malepe must be considered to belong to Mattes’s (2012: 137) third group, which he calls “the Grand Apartheid generation”, defined as consisting “of those citizens who turned 16 between 1961 and 1975” (ibid.). Having concluded that Malepe was probably born around 1950, she would have turned sixteen around 1966, placing her quite firmly within this group. The two final groups, according to Mattes (2012: 138) are “the Struggle Generation, consisting of people who turned 16 between 1976 and 1996” and marked by the Black Consciousness movement and the uprising in Soweto, and then finally the so-called born frees in the fifth group, “young people who came of age politically after 1996” (Mattes 2012: 139). In terms of future prospects and expectations of young South Africans, a separate study examined attitudes and views among the younger generation, concluding that the outlook is generally positive: “It appears that the new emerging generation of South Africans is characterized by a common, non-racial view of life and future expectations” (Steyn et  al. 2010: 185). Such attitudes seem very positive, but, as previously stated in the memoirs of some of those belonging to the born-free generation, such notions may be somewhat simplistic. Statistics does not express the views of individuals, and this highlights the need for examinations of personal narratives of life in post-apartheid South Africa.

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Such attitudes have been explored in other studies as well, presenting noteworthy findings with regard to generational differences. Benjamin J.  Roberts (2014) has examined attitudes among South Africans with regard to inequality and how it should be addressed. His starting point was the notion that the younger generation would have a different approach to redress when compared to older generations, but findings showed otherwise: Given the youthful nature of South Africa’s demographic profile and the fact that many of today’s young adults grew up under a democratic political system, strong intergenerational differences were expected. Specifically, the ‘Born Free’ generation were expected to exhibit different values and citizenship norms to older citizens, including a deeper commitment to transformation and redress. Somewhat surprisingly, the analysis indicates that the findings on inter-racial differences in support for redress policies are largely reproduced when examined intra-racial class and cohort differences. Class based attitudinal differences within race groups tend to be nominal to modest in nature, while in many ways the new post-apartheid generation seem to reflect similar ideological positions to redress policy as older cohorts. (Roberts 2014: 1186)

This suggests that age makes little difference in terms of attitudes towards South Africa’s past. However, the hindsight and retrospection provided by Malepe does differ to a significant degree from the writings of, for example, Dawjee, Wa Azania, and Chauke. A few themes and topics emerge as particularly prominent in Malepe’s travel memoir. One of them has to do with language and she returns to the question of language use and the dominance of English several times in her writing (a relevant observation is that the writer herself wrote her memoir in English). A second even more important theme is related to the sore question of land and land redistribution which was touched upon in Chap. 4 in relation to Wa Azania’s writing and the politics of EFF. Malepe writes about her family being forcibly removed from their home along with a number of other families in the apartheid era. During her travels in South Africa in 2004, she attended a land settlement ceremony while also visiting her childhood home Mamelodi to which the family relocated: “I think of my brother, who spent all those years on Robben Island but did not live to see this day. The forced removal of people from Kilnerton and the closing of Kilnerton High School were among the events that made

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him go into the struggle against apartheid” (Malepe 2018: 105). Further, Malepe (p. 106) explains that the apartheid government confiscated the land and that the “pain of that theft of our land is still fresh in us, and it will never go away”. This indicates that even though measures have been taken in order to ensure some kind of compensation for people who lost their land, or, like Malepe’s grandmother who lost a prosperous farm that enabled her children to get a proper education (p. 106), the actual pain of the appropriation of land will take further time and many more generations in order to subside. It is also an indirect reference to what Tutu said about the need for reparations and redistribution of wealth in order to ensure true reconciliation. Compensation schemes offer some reparations although they do not fully repay what was lost, and this is where the need for concessions comes in most urgently and concretely. Malepe is also critical towards developments in South Africa in more contemporary times and not at all oblivious to its shortcomings. When she and a family member went to the Land Affairs Office to get their compensation checks for the lost land, they encountered a man who told them that the office had ruined his chances to buy a farm. The man complained about “the incompetence and slowness of civil servants” (Malepe 2018: 186), which suggests some level of inability to provide the services needed. She also reads in the paper about what is going on in South Africa, and several of the stories have to do with the level of crime (cf. p. 47, 17). In addition to this, Malepe offers some subtle commentary on the work ethics of the younger generation, when a young woman refused to work as a maid, feeling that it is beneath her dignity (p. 111). Malepe also overhears some other young women in the street talking about work, one of them having called in sick because she was tired: “Jobs are so hard to find, and here her friend is, playing with her job” (Malepe 2018: 120). Further, she touches upon the enhanced security in people’s homes, with barbed wire and electric fences (p. 129–130). These notions support what has already been addressed in previous chapters about the difficulties facing South Africa today and its effect on its citizens. The perspective of Malepe, a highly educated South African who left the country for the United States, is thus not much different from that of other writers despite the generational gap. She sees the shortcomings of not just South Africa itself but also its citizens and criticises both. The main generational difference emerges in her writing about the past.

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The topic of forgiveness and reconciliation is directly addressed in Reclaiming Home. Malepe (2018: 131) recounts a conversation she had with an academic acquaintance about the differing views of Black and White South Africans: “[P]eople are always saying we should forgive—victims are made to bend over backwards to do so—while nothing is asked of the perpetrators and beneficiaries of apartheid”. Malepe’s statement is more matter of fact than the emotional writings of the younger generations to which Dawjee, Wa Azania, and Chauke belong, but still resembles much of the criticism directed towards the concept of forgiveness as embedded in the work of the Commission. Tutu explicitly outlined in his memoir that reconciliation will require a massive effort from all members of South African society, not just from people of colour. Yet, the socioeconomic inequalities to a significant degree still exist along racial lines. Malepe gets emotional when visiting Robben Island where her brother spent so many years imprisoned. She travelled there together with tourists “and everybody looks happy. I tell myself I should be happy, too. After all, apartheid is defeated, the prison was closed in 1996, and my brother survived” (2018: 92). The brief passage indicates that the past still had a strong hold on Malepe, and it is further reinforced later on the page when she arrived at Robben Island and met the guide who was himself a former prisoner: “I think of Dimake, and I still feel great anger. I quickly get hold of my emotions, however, and remind myself it’s all over” (ibid.). Similar sentiments are repeated several times over the next couple of pages. Malepe is reminded of the removal of her family from their home in Kilnerton during her visit to Robben Island and it makes her emotional: “I remind myself again that it’s over and I should not hurt” (p. 93). These explicit references to the apartheid past and the injustice Malepe’s family faced offer a new perspective on dealing with such a past as compared to the memoirs by younger writers. Malepe seems to be well aware of the expectation to get over the past, to forgive and move on, and to not feel the hurt any longer. Her writing explicitly shows that reconciliation and forgiveness take much longer than just a decade or two, and that it is an ongoing process both in concrete terms such as the land compensation scheme but also in more personal terms with regard to grieving the past and what was lost. The family members and relatives who are no longer around are also included in this grieving process, and Malepe expresses grief on their behalf too. Her writing exemplifies negotiation of the relationship between self and other where the other comes to  mean earlier generations whose legacy is now being recognised and restored, to the

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extent that it is possible to do so. The passages referred to earlier text do to some extent exemplify what Jeremy Watkins (2015: 23–24) wrote about forgiveness: “It seems to be characteristic of those who forgive that they overcome their resentment whilst holding on to a clear conviction that they were unjustifiably and inexcusably injured”. Malepe’s writing manifests this, fully acknowledging what has been done in the past and how this inevitably also impacts the present and reveals the deep hurts that still remain painful even though the past is over, apartheid is over, as the author so often reminds herself. Those words explicitly imply a desire for, if not forgiveness then at least reconciliation with the past. “I should not hurt”, may, however, be an impossible demand. Reconciling with what has happened and been done to her family means feeling the pain over and over again, as she does when visiting Robben Island or thinking about the land her family lost, but still being able to carry on. Malepe’s memoir is an elaborate homage to her country of birth, and it holds the past accountable for what was done to her family and perceptively criticises present-day South Africa for its shortcomings. Despite the painful topics dealt with, there is little sense of deep resentment or lingering anger as discussed in relation to memoirs of the younger generation. The emotions Malepe expresses when faced concretely with her past and that of South Africa seem to be more grounded in grief and sadness, and her travel memoir takes on a relational dimension in its quest for legitimacy not for her own experiences but for those of her family members who are no longer around. This too, for its part, indicates that the past has been processed at least to some extent. It is worthwhile to remember here what Roger Kennedy (2002) wrote about the role of mourning for overcoming painful pasts. He argues that there are three ways of seeing and relating to the past: holding on to it, reliving traumas, or repressing and denying the past (Kennedy 2002: 1–2) as stated in the introduction. He states further that some people may struggle with remembering the past while others do not remember it and this causes suffering too (p.  2). In relation to Malepe’s memoir, the most relevant observation is that there are ways of facing the past and that this is necessary in order for mourning to take place (ibid.). One of the arguments for the present study was that the mourning phase has been skipped altogether in South Africa and that this may be part of the root cause for present-day problems. Malepe shows with her subtle and carefully constructed memoir just what a source of liberation and empowerment grief and mourning can be. Feeling the pain of the past

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and physically revisiting places of great hurt and injustice enable her to move forward and reach some kind of closure, while acknowledging the fact that some hurts will never fully heal. If Dawjee, Chauke, and Wa Azania can be said to express the anger of the born-free generation or those belonging to the struggle generation as categorised by Mattes (2012) in their memoirs, Malepe deals with far more complex emotions, indicating that if forgiveness is not possible nor fully desirable, reconciliation can still become reality at least on an individual level. Reconciliation may thus exist without full forgiveness, whatever its chosen definition. This of course does not suggest that the problems of race have been overcome. Malepe addresses the relationship between different groups in South Africa in numerous places in her memoir. When having just arrived in South Africa and travelling to Pietermaritzburg, Malepe (2018: 15) remembered a story she read about a White farmer feeding a Black worker to his lions. She later discussed the story with her cousin Mathabo, and they both argue that racism is still inherent and White farmers may have a difficult time giving up their old attitudes. The two women believe that time will bring about necessary change also in attitudes, and Malepe (p. 21) ends the conversation by stating that their parents “worked so hard to help us avoid hating whites”. The passage is significant from a reconciliation perspective, particularly since the two cousins also argue that one cannot be responsible for one’s parents’ beliefs, referring to a White acquaintance of Mathabo who had a very racist father. Proposing such an approach to the past in general would suggest some relief with regard to the burden of apartheid. The generational aspect is again significant, acknowledging the role of parents and their influence on younger generations. The discussion between Malepe and her cousin also provides the understanding and empathy that Tutu called for. Through such notions, legitimacy and recognition is provided also to those who were on the perpetrating side. The question of forgiveness and reconciliation emerges also in Malepe’s comments on language. She (2018: 15–16) explicitly connects the language issue with colonialism, when overhearing a young person on the bus using English on the phone. Malepe herself is Setswana-speaking: “I don’t see why people don’t speak their own languages to each other” (p. 15). Further, she considers English a “status symbol”: “They are so colonized that they have no love or appreciation for their own languages” (p.  16). This, Malepe explains, is a remnant of apartheid: “This poor young woman is growing up in circumstances where formerly colonized

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feel inferior and see everything white as more valuable and do not appreciate their culture and traditions. Apartheid and colonialism may be over, but the psychological damage is still around” (p.  17). The connection with Tutu’s and Chauke’s writing is here explicit, as Tutu explained how Black Africans have been conditioned to hate themselves, and Chauke too stated that self-hatred is a significant problem among people of colour in South Africa. Malepe returns to these issues at the end of her memoir when she discusses the hiring of a new principal for the University of Witwatersrand, a choice which was criticised in the press: “This reminds me of what my uncle Israel used to say—for whites, no black person is ever good enough in anything, so proving yourself to them is a waste of time and energy. The best course, he said, was to simply focus on doing your best” (Malepe 2018: 155). These lines, too, suggest some kind of, if not forgiveness or reconciliation, then at least an attempt to keep moving forward. Not taking responsibility for the beliefs of one’s parents and ancestors and moving beyond external perceptions of one’s ability and skills as outlined here in Malepe’s writing have a lot to offer the discussions of the future of South Africa. Her perspective is one of distance, having had the possibility to return to South Africa as someone who can concretely claim belonging there as manifested through the land compensation check she received. In addition, she is able to view things from the outside due to her long sojourn in the United States. Such distance is not connected with complex belonging to the same extent as that of Hope and Msimang, at least not as outlined in the memoir. Instead, the distance enables seeing South Africa closely in minute detail.

6.3   Whiteness and Wokeness From a perspective of White South Africans and their relationship to and views of the past, an interesting debate occurred with regard to an article ten years later after Desmond Tutu’s memoir was published, offering another perspective on the short-term, medium-term, and long-term consequences of reconciliation and learning to live together. Samantha Vice’s (2010) article entitled “How Do I Live in This Strange Place?” offers a personal reflection on being White in South Africa today and the inevitable privileges it brings. She also makes a direct connection to the TRC and its work: “Despite this focus on serious individual wrongdoing in the TRC, issues of collective guilt certainly arose, and there is in South Africa

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much talk, usually dismissive, of ‘white guilt’” (Vice 2010: 327). This guilt is tied to privilege (p. 328) and Vice (p. 329) suggests that a feeling of shame should be the natural consequence. Vice (2010: 332) further elaborates on the issue of shame in the following manner: “In short, white South Africans cannot unproblematically see themselves as fitting into or contributing much to the post-Apartheid narrative. There is a sense that we need to earn our place in a country and continent that is not simply ours. And feeling ashamed seems a recognition of a failure to earn this”. A solution to this dilemma is presented at the very beginning of the article: “If we are a problem, we should perhaps concentrate on recovering and rehabilitating our selves. I shall suggest that because of peculiarities of the South African situation, this personal, inward-directed project should be cultivated with humility and in (a certain kind of) silence” (p. 324). This silence is to include making political statements and expressing opinion with regard to political matters. A similar sentiment is expressed by Tutu, although in more indirect terms, when he tells the story of a man who was blinded when a police officer, presumably White, shot him in the face. The man then felt like he got his eyesight back when he was able to tell his story to the Commission: “The privilege of being part of such a process more than made up for the mean-spiritedness of so many who impoverished themselves by shutting themselves out of something that would have benefited them in ways that they had never imagined” (Tutu 1999: 129). Participating fully in the hearings may have shown the humility Vice calls for and also helped White South Africans earn their way back into society. In that sense, not taking part in the hearings may be seen as a lack of acknowledgement of suffering on the part of other South Africans. Vice’s article is provocative in its approach to White South Africans and their place in the nation, and these controversial notions are particularly well summarised towards the end of her paper: “For those of us who live here, it is home. However, I do not believe that this attachment can ever, in good conscience, be entirely comfortable” (Vice 2010: 337). This seems to be another expression of uneasy belonging to say the very least, and it also indicates that on the part of White citizens, the concession that may need to be made is living with the knowledge of what happened in the past, that it was orchestrated and carried out by people who represented the same group. It is a legacy that requires a most profound compromise.

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However, there have also been several responses to Vice’s article, which address her analysis of South African Whiteness. David Futter’s (2011) paper suggests that Vice would have been better served by being less direct and argumentative (p. 418). A much more controversial riposte is presented by David Benatar (2012), who, among other things, argues that Vice’s suggestion that White South Africans refrain from taking part in politics “would lead to the ‘Zimbabwefication’ of South Africa, an outcome that would be catastrophic both for ‘black’ and for ‘white’ South Africans” (Benatar 2012: 630). Further, Benatar argues that silencing White citizens would lead to “‘whites’ mattering less, politically and morally. Everybody else would be morally entitled to speak, but ‘whites’ would not” (ibid.). It seems that this is exactly the outcome enforced by Vice, and here repeated by Benatar who sees it as a negative result. Dawjee’s essay collection may also offer some insights as her essays, apart from being both personal and political, also deal with the issue of whiteness and White privilege, and most urgently of voice. Haji Mohamed Dawjee’s essay collection Sorry, Not Sorry is a relevant text from many perspectives. While not being outright a memoir, Dawjee does reveal a fair bit of details about her life and relationship to her family, her struggles with mental health, and her sexual identity. Her relationship with her father is outlined, focusing particularly on the disappointment she felt she caused him when not being ambitious or studious enough (p.  84–85), as well as her marriage to and divorce from a man she had decided to be with in order to “fit in and feel safe” (p. 89). Eventually, Dawjee entered a relationship with a White woman, which made her wonder whether she was “a trophy of [the girlfriend’s] progressiveness” (p. 93). Later, she writes about meeting the woman she eventually married, stating that her new life situation had finally given her a sense of home (p. 95). The anxieties related with place and belonging thus are to some extent personal, but they also take on explicit political and race-­ related dimensions, for example when she ponders what it would feel like to be White: “The rules would be my own. […] My ambitions would be my own as well. They would not be a product of this incessant need to prove myself. […] I would carry great pride and no guilt” (Dawjee 2018a: 38).

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The lines cited reveal similar sentiments to those expressed by previous writers examined about the need for people of colour to prove their self-­worth and skills, and the mentioning of guilt implies that while guilt may traditionally be attached to those who can be regarded as beneficiaries of apartheid (Rian Malan’s memoir My Traitor’s Heart (2015) offers an exploration of that guilt, and it is also revisited in Hope’s writing), the complexities go beyond racial categories. Dawjee (p. 194) elaborates on this at the end of her book when arguing that her existence has largely “been defined by shutting up, hiding who I really am, staying out of the way and being grateful for being allowed to even exist in certain spaces”. Such spaces may be connected to the act of writing and being a journalist as they include entering certain spaces, often very concretely, but also in terms of speaking up about certain issues. This is also a recurring theme in the essay collection where Dawjee ponders her role as journalist and the stories she gets to write about. The question of belonging is thus dealt with in Dawjee’s essays from multiple perspectives, drawing on personal histories but connecting them to the socio-political and racial realities of South Africa. Large parts of her book are dedicated to a discussion of her position in relation to what she calls ‘woke’ Whites, and it will also be central for this section as it ties in with the notion of space, voice, and belonging but also with forgiveness in complex ways. Wokeness is defined by the writer as “a cloak made of personal gain— whether socially or politically—and the thread of insight is often lacking” (Dawjee 2018a: 193). In this manner, Dawjee directly participates in the debate about the futures of South Africa, about voice and place and whose turn it is to speak. Speaking and being heard also imply belonging and acceptance and are thus important topics. Further, Dawjee argues that woke Whites position themselves as “saviours to the ‘less fortunate’ so that they can feel righteous and exceptional, thereby consoling others” (ibid.). Dawjee (2018a: 102–103) touches upon the subject of Whites expressing discomfort with their position and defines this too as part of ‘wokeness’. Such white people “do us favours, but then have the audacity to preach about equality and rainbow-nationness. Their freedoms and entitlement are so vast that they share with pride their fragility and struggles of being white” (ibid.). Vice’s article could be argued to present exactly this kind of “fragility and struggle” of being White, occupying a victim position. Yet, Vice’s call for silence and humility also touch upon notions of forgiveness

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and reconciliation, as a belated act of participating in nation building in post-apartheid South Africa, following developments from the sidelines instead of occupying centre stage. If White South Africans are on some fronts seen as too vocal still, too visible and too powerful, and asked to take a step back in order to allow for other voices to take centre stage, the opposite problem seems to afflict citizens of colour. Dawjee (2018a: 9) addresses this issue when talking about the kinds of topics she is expected to write about as a journalist: We own the hard stuff. We really do. We own the struggles. And if we don’t write about them, the country will forever dwell in the lily-white utopia that once was. […] But here’s the truth (and strike me if you will): the struggle is exhausting. And we are not just the struggle. And so sometimes (by which I mean a lot but not all of the time), I wish I could get paid to write the nice stuff. Because, you know what? We also like nice things.

This important passage highlights what was briefly addressed at the beginning of this study, about the kinds of voices that are heard in public discourse and the kinds of topics they get to write about. The expectations put on writers of colour as presented by Dawjee create a warped representation of reality where White citizens become only the privilege they inevitably possess, and citizens of colour come to solely embody their suffering and struggle. Dawjee (2018a: 9) argues that writers of colour have to “embrace a responsible theme”, while White writers get the freedom to write about whatever they choose: “They are not constrained by the shackles of literary servitude in the media industry” (Dawjee 2018a: 8). Dawjee (2018a: 146) offers an example of such servitude later in the essay collection when she recounts a story she was once asked to write about a Black young person who had given a speech at a TEDx event, but the actual truth about the person was not deemed appropriate. The young man had a good life working to support and mentor others. He came from a secure and sound family background. The magazine wanted Dawjee to give the young person a more troubled background from which he was then able to move forward and to overcome his difficulties. Despite protests from Dawjee, the magazine changed the story because “no one wanted a story of a good black kid. Only white kids are intrinsically exceptional” (Dawjee 2018a: 147).

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These forceful comments by Dawjee about the inevitable categorisation and lack of freedom to choose their topics for writers and journalists of colour are to some extent repeated in a different context when discussing her fascination with Downton Abbey, the historical costume TV drama that has been immensely popular. Her interest in the series is based on the fact that it features “white aristocrats with their white slaves and it makes for pretty cathartic viewing” (Dawjee 2018a: 99). However, she also points out that the show is not diverse, being “a white show for white people” (Dawjee 2018a: 98). Further, she argues that the show is about White privilege and that it “asks the viewer to get lost in the luxury of a white twentieth-century England and forget that, during the same time, black people, Asian people, all kinds of people who weren’t white, were busy being displaced—or worse” (ibid.). Dawjee’s comment suggests that the series had been better served by including the fates of those less fortunate and less White and reworking the focus of the series entirely. An interesting contrast here is the film Black Panther (2018), though not mentioned by Dawjee, which has been celebrated “as exceptional for its representations of black characters, black women, a black superhero and the way in which a fictional black nation exists and enacts its power in a dystopian future” (Marco 2018: 3). Furthermore, the film “explicitly addresses the legacies of colonialism, slavery, and segregation while also speaking to the long history of black dissent, civil rights and the disposability of black people central to the Black Lives Matter movement” (Curtis 2019: 266). Hence, the political impact of the film has been considerable. The film has also been criticised for having failed “to depict diversity in terms of sexuality and body type, and its female characters occupy circumscribed roles. Nonetheless, Black Panther challenges the prevailing norms of shallow representations of blackness by depicting black people as unique, multifaceted, and even ambiguous in their blackness, rather than as part of a monolithic community” (Faithful 2018: 12). Emphasising the heterogeneous nature of all groups and communities in South Africa and elsewhere is relevant here, and the complexity of discussing race to the degree that the present study also does is manifested in the personal narratives examined which themselves draw on the categorisation of people which inevitably leads to certain monolithic representation. Thus, despite the considerable importance of the film in terms of portrayal of people of colour, not even Black Panther ticks every box in the

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diversity test. The question as to whether it should have been more diverse is more irrelevant than the question whether Downton Abbey should have featured characters of colour, in other than a few very minor supporting roles. Diversity demands may be placed on ‘White’ productions, as they have controlled most of the industry, whereas a celebration of Black identity in a contemporary blockbuster film cannot be seen as belonging to the same category. This still puts Downton Abbey and Black Panther in separate spheres, where one of the two is allowed more freedom and the other put to stricter tests. The same can  be said about South Africa in general, and this is related to Vice’s call for Whites taking a less vocal role in politics. Perhaps removing themselves centre stage may eventually show White South Africans “into a place of self-reflection and fault-seeking” (Dawjee 2018a: 193), where ‘wokeness’ turns into true remorse. As Chauke (2018: 259) writes, “it is up to the white minority to extend the hand of reconciliation”. Again, the humility advocated by Vice is here relevant. Eventually, it comes down to space yet again, this time concerning space in TV series, films, columns, newspapers, online media, and who gets to decide what topics they are qualified and allowed to address. The question also arises as to whether Downton Abbey would have resorted to ‘woke’ behaviour had they included people of colour in the series, to a larger extent than just as “a token black person” (Dawjee 2018a: 98). Dawjee (p. 99) commends the series on not including Black people just for the sake of diversity. Wokeness as a concept has been discussed in recent years in media, and its original meaning was far more positive than what it has now become: “When we are ignorant of our history, unaware of the social and racial context in which we exist, we are disconnected from ourselves and our capacity for woke-ness” (Holmes and Lang 2018: 308). David Brooks (2018) argues in his column for The New  York Times that “[t]he problem with wokeness is that it doesn’t inspire action; it freezes it. To be woke is first and foremost to put yourself on display. To make a problem seem massively intractable is to inspire separation—building a wall between you and the problem—not a solution”. This point is valuable and ties together the original, positive connotations of the term and the negative ‘linguistic eye-roll’ (Sanders 2018) it has become. In Dawjee’s text, woke becomes not only worthy of an eye-roll but of more chastising measures. Brooks’s comment is here particularly relevant, as Dawjee seems to suggest that through wokeness, White South Africans

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(and perhaps White people in general) place themselves at the centre of whatever issue is being dealt with, thus once more pushing more marginalised people to the periphery of struggles that are in fact their own: You set up your tents of privilege on ground we fought hard to stand on. […] Going to protests and painting underprivileged schools in underprivileged areas does not remove your whiteness. And it does not remove our pain. You will not colonise our pain. You have no right to it. It is not yours, nor is this fight. (Dawjee 2018a: 74–75)

Drawing attention to oneself through charity work or activism may easily be seen as an expression of a White saviour complex, and in this sense, Dawjee again seems to be on the same lines as Samantha Vice. White people may be present in society but should not make themselves unduly seen or heard in the discussion of topics in which they have no part. It is above all a struggle for space, for recognition and legitimacy once more. The indication seems to be that the future of South Africa requires that roles in the nation are redistributed to a greater degree than has been done so far. Eventually, Dawjee (2018a: 197) states that she is not sorry that “your rainbow nation did not work out”. This suggests that the idea of racial harmony and coexistence, of the “bad independence deal” (Wambu 2019), would have benefited White South Africans the most and that they have the most to lose if the endeavour fails (or already has failed). It is here relevant to return to the question of remorse and reconciliation and that of culpability. The perpetrators of apartheid and their descendants arguably needed reconciliation the most, in order to secure their safe and continued existence in South Africa. From a meta perspective, this suggests then that not only is the idea of South Africa as a rainbow nation an illusion, but that examining said illusion only works to reinforce racial divides in South Africa and makes reconciliation an even more impossible dream to achieve. However, as Dawjee states in an interview about her book, conducted by Alet Jense van Rensburg for News24, “[i]t is actually your turn to listen, and our turn to speak” (Dawjee 2018b:  5:08–5:17). This is the most forceful message of her essay collection and one which also connects directly to the unfinished process of reconciliation.

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6.4   Conclusion The three memoirs examined in this chapter have very different aims and scopes. Yet, as the analysis shows, the themes and topics they touch upon in their writing provide several worthwhile insights about the workings of the TRC, its successes and failures both past and present. More importantly, they indicate how the principles of the Commission and the role of ubuntu as outlined by Tutu are realised in South Africa today. Malepe offers a mature, thoughtful, and somewhat conciliatory approach in her memoir, revisiting the pain and suffering of the past through her physical travels throughout South Africa. The loss of ancestral land and her brother’s long imprisonment on Robben Island are profound experiences on which the memoir centres, and as such direct results of apartheid policies that caused so much pain and disrupted lives among those it attempted to control. However, the active decision not to dwell is the most important, most conciliatory aspect of Malepe’s memoir. The pain of the past can be revisited, in fact, it must be revisited, but it need not define the present and that is her most valuable contribution to the process of reconciliation and mourning. Tutu’s call for more involvement among White South Africans is to some extent in a small way also present in Malepe’s text, but her South Africa is not built solely on colour. Dawjee’s writing is more confrontational and open about the difficulties of making a career for oneself and claiming the space needed in South Africa. She explicitly asks White people to take a step back and to let South Africans of colour take centre stage. The work of the TRC was in many ways aimed towards the same goal; to let those who had suffered in silence finally be heard and taken seriously. The hearings explicitly worked towards this aim, although it was evident from the start that not everyone could be heard. Hence the importance of autobiographical writing and of noting down the experiences of people such as Malepe’s parents and grandmother whose stories would otherwise be lost. It is a struggle that continues in memoirs by young South Africans today: Wa Azania, Chauke, and Dawjee all use their memoirs to be heard, to address political and social injustices in South Africa. As the analysis of Morake’s memoir showed, speaking of the past is fraught territory also for South Africans of colour, and the difficulty in finding any kind of balance is apparent. Malepe’s professional life outside South Africa may to some extent keep her removed from these contested topics, and her memoir also shows that seeing South Africa from

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an outside perspective may sometimes give more clarity of vision. Not being constantly mired in the daily struggles seems to provide some respite and space for reflection. Thus, autobiographical writing may take on profoundly different shapes and forms depending on geographical and temporal distance to events. Desmond Tutu’s call for reconciliation, for without it there is no future, is here manifested in both Malepe and Dawjee’s writing, albeit in opposite manners. Malepe sees her country of origin with critical yet patient eyes and reveals little of the struggles she may have had to go through when moving to the United States, whereas Dawjee exclaims in her very title that there will be no apologies and no forgiveness in her text. The self-hate Tutu mentioned resurfaces in both Malepe and Dawjee’s writing, as Malepe talks about the inferiority some South Africans may feel with regard to language, and Dawjee addresses the expectation to be, act, and write a certain way. Belonging becomes connected to the notion of recognition and legitimacy, and it is a quest for space in terms of redressing the past and claiming voice in the present. Compromise with regard to the past is at the centre of Malepe’s memoir, whereas Dawjee’s writing indicates that perhaps too many concessions have been made in terms of who can speak of what topics, and that is the time to redistribute these roles. Tutu’s representations of the hearings and the work of the Commission function as a mediator in their own right, through the memoir’s emphasis on empathy and understanding, and on addressing the challenges still present. Malepe and Dawjee as analysed here engage with these notions and reassert their place in South Africa both physically and psychologically through their subjective histories.

Works Cited Allers, Christopher R., and Marieke Smit. 2010. Introduction: Putting Forgiveness in Perspective: Some First Words, No Last Words. In Forgiveness in Perspective, ed. C.R. Allers and M. Smit, ix–xvii. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. Amstutz, Mark R. 2007. Human Rights and the Promise of Political Forgiveness. Review and Expositor 104 (3): 553–577. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 003463730710400306. Battle, Michael. 2000. A Theology of Community: The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu. Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 54 (2): 173–182. https://doi.org/10.1177/002096430005400206.

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Benatar, David. 2012. ’How Does Anybody Live in This Strange Place? A Reply to Samantha Vice. South African Journal of Philosophy 31 (4): 619–631. https://doi.org/10.1080/02580136.2012.10751797. Berg, Astrid. 2012. Connecting with South Africa: Cultural Communication and Understanding. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. Boehmer, Elleke. 2012. Permanent risk – When crisis defines a nation’s writing. In Trauma, Memory, and Narrative in the Contemporary South African Novel – Essays, ed. Ewald Mengel and Michela Borzaga, 29–46. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Brooks, David. 2018. The Problem with Wokeness. The New York Times, June 7, 2018. Accessed June 4, 2020. nytimes.com/2018/06/07/opinion/wokeness-­ racism-­progressivism-­social-­justice.html. Chapman, Audrey R. 2007. Truth Commissions and Intergroup Forgiveness: The Case of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 13 (1): 51–69. https://doi. org/10.1037/h0094024. Chauke, Clinton. 2018. Born in Chains: The Diary of an Angry ‘Born-Free’. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers. Clark, Janine Natalya. 2012. Reconciliation via Truth? A Study of South Africa’s TRC. Journal of Human Rights 11 (2): 189–209. https://doi.org/10.108 0/14754835.2012.674455. Couenhoven, Jesse. 2010. Forgiveness and Restoration: A Theological Exploration. The Journal of Religion 90 (2): 148–170. https://doi.org/10.1086/649846. Curtis, Neal. 2019. Black Panther’s Rage: Sovereignty, the Exception and Radical Dissent. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 32 (2): 265–281. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-­018-­9597-­2. Dawjee, Haji Mohamed. 2018a. Sorry, Not Sorry: Experiences of a Brown Woman in a White South Africa. Cape Town: Penguin Books. ———. 2018b. Interview by Alet Janse van Rensburg. ‘Haji Mohamed Dawjee on Her Book: Sorry, Not Sorry’. News24 May 4. https://www.news24.com/ news24/Books/book-­review-­sorry-­not-­sorry-­it-­is-­our-­turn-­to-­talk-­and-­their-­ turn-­to-­listen-­20180504; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKBxKp VMKfk&t=56s&ab_channel=News24. Faithful, George. 2018. Dark of the World, Shine on Us: The Redemption of Blackness in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther. Religions 9 (10): 304. https://doi. org/10.3390/rel9100304. Futter, Dylan. 2011. Exploring and Communicating Whiteliness. South African Journal of Philosophy 30 (4): 417–427. https://doi.org/10.4314/sajpem. v30i4.72103. Govier, Trudy. 2002. Forgiveness and Revenge. London and New York: Routledge. Holiday, Anthony. 1998. Forgiving and Forgetting: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa, ed. Sarah Nuttall and Carli Coetzee, 43–56. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Holmes, Natasha, and Frances Lang. 2018. One Year Later to Black and White Perspectives on Get Out. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 15 (4): 305–310. https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.1590. Kennedy, Roger. 2002. Psychoanalysis, History and Subjectivity: Now of the Past. London, New York: Routledge. Krog, Antjie. 1999 [1998]. Country of My Skull. London: Vintage. Malan, Rian. 2015 [1990]. My Traitor’s Heart. Blood and Bad Dreams: A South African Explores the Madness in His Country, His Tribe and Himself. London: Vintage. Malepe, Lesego. 2018. Reclaiming Home: Diary of a Journey Through Post-­ Apartheid South Africa. Berkeley: She Writes Press. Marco, Derilene (Dee). 2018. Vibing with Blackness: Critical Considerations of Black Panther and Exceptional Black Positionings. Arts 7 (4). https://doi. org/10.3390/arts7040085. Marshall, Joretta L. 2014. The Politics of Apology and Forgiveness. Pastoral Psychology 63 (4): 489–501. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-­013-­0578-­9. Mattes, Robert. 2012. The ‘Born Frees’: The Prospects for Generational Change in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Australian Journal of Political Science 47 (1): 133–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2011.643166. Murove, Munyaradzi Felix. 2014. Ubuntu. Diogenes 59 (3): 36–47. https://doi. org/10.1177/0392192113493737. Nagy, Rosemary. 2002. Reconciliation in Post-Commission South Africa: Thick and Thin Accounts of Solidarity. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue Canadienne de science politique 35 (2): 323–346. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/3233430. Ngubane-Mokiwa, Sindile A. 2018. Ubuntu Considered in Light of Exclusion of People with Disabilities. African Journal of Disability 7 (1): 1–7. https://doi. org/10.4102/ajod.v7i0.460. Radstone, Susannah. 2001. Social Bonds and Psychical Order: Testimonies. Cultural Values 5 (1): 59–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/14797580109367221. Roberts, Benjamin J. 2014. Your Place or Mine? Beliefs about Inequality and Redress Preferences in South Africa. Social Indicators Research 118 (3): 1167–1190. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-­013-­0458-­9. Sanders, S. 2018. Opinion: It Is Time to Put ‘Woke’ to Sleep. NPR, December 30, 2018. Accessed June 4, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2018/12/30/ 680899262/opinion-­its-­time-­to-­put-­woke-­to-­sleep?t=1591259258988. Steyn, Miemsie, Jo Badenhorst, and Gerrit Kemper. 2010. Our Voice Counts: Adolescents’ View on Their Future in South Africa. South African Journal of Education 30 (2): 169–188. https://doi.org/10.15700/saje.v30n2a337. Tutu, Desmond. 1999. No Future Without Forgiveness. London: Rider. ———. 2005. Our Hope for the Future. Reclaiming Children and Youth 14 (2): 124.

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Vandevelde, Pol. 2013. Forgiveness in a Political Context: The Challenge and the potential. Philosophy and Social Criticism 39 (3): 263–276. https://doi. org/10.1177/0191453712473079. Vice, Samantha. 2010. How Do I Live in This Strange Place? Journal of Social Philosophy 41 (3): 323–342. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-­9833.2010. 01496.x. Wambu, Onyekachi. 2019. African-on-African Xenophobia. New African 594: 74. Watkins, Jeremy. 2015. Unilateral Forgiveness and the Task of Reconciliation. Res publica 21 (1): 19–42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-­014-­9256-­8.

CHAPTER 7

Rewriting the Legacy of Nelson Mandela: The Memoirs of Ndileka Mandela, Zoleka Mandela, and Ndaba Mandela

The contestations of South Africa that have so far been outlined and analysed in this study have concerned topics such as education, equity, the question of land, and experiences of violence. The present chapter examines narratives and challenges in relation to South Africa’s former president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, one of the most well-known and celebrated (Rwafa 2017) South Africans throughout the world. His life forms an inherent part of the history of South Africa, of its apartheid struggles and of the challenges facing the democratic nation. Mandela’s legacy continues to be part of present-day South Africa and examining it is a logical continuation of the topic of reconciliation as presented in the previous chapter. His presidential post-apartheid legacy has been well-­ examined from a number of perspectives, some of which have also been raised in this book, including education (Gebremedhin and Joshi 2016), social work (Sewpaul 2016), and political leadership (Rwafa 2017). However, recent years have seen his legacy receive more criticism. Elleke Boehmer (2019), among others, discusses his legacy at length in her article and mentions the “dimming light” of the “once-shiny Mandela story” (p.  1180), drawing attention to shifting perceptions of his achievements. In addition, Gebremedhin and Joshi (2016: 193) argue the following with regard to the legacy of education after apartheid: “As president, Mandela permitted the retention of fee-paying schools, presumably with © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Englund, South African Autobiography as Subjective History, African Histories and Modernities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83232-2_7

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the aim of not antagonising privileged groups, but in effect this policy has perpetuated class-based and race-based segregation within the education system”. Their comment present vocal critique against Mandela’s policies, indicating that too many concessions were made at the brink of democratic transition. The legacy of Nelson Mandela, the first president of free South Africa, has thus transformed significantly, being less focused on his image as the father of the new nation and more attuned to the failures to build a strong society with equal prospects for all. Thus, the present chapter also ties in with previous discussions of the various topics mentioned. Analysing Mandela’s legacy from the perspective of three of his grandchildren also gives the opportunity for new insights, as his life and work have not been examined from this viewpoint before to any significant degree. This chapter thus provides a unique contribution to the subjective histories that constitute South Africa and the profound connection they have to the legacy of Nelson Mandela. Many of the memoirs examined so far attest to the difficulty of finding one’s place in South Africa, and the three texts in focus in this chapter negotiate to various degrees the complexities of being a Mandela and finding ways to live with the surname in their personal lives as well as in South Africa at large.

7.1   Seeking Autobiographical Freedom Nelson Mandela’s legacy both within and outside South Africa is largely connected to his work for peaceful transition and how he encouraged reconciliation, and he is described by Tutu (1999: 7) in the following way: “This man, who had been vilified and hunted down as a dangerous fugitive and incarcerated for nearly three decades, was transformed into the embodiment of forgiveness and reconciliation”. His importance cannot be overestimated for the process of peaceful transition, yet recent years have seen more explicit criticism emerge against his work and the policies implemented after apartheid had ended. As Boehmer (2019: 1177) argues, “audiences outside South Africa today, as also within the country, no longer have the same personal investment in Mandela’s story as did previous generations”. Again, the importance of generation is emphasised, indicating that a significant shift in attitudes has taken place. More recent approaches clash significantly with earlier approaches to Mandela: “[T]he late president was presented as an unreservedly positive influence on future generations, a form of cultural soft power made flesh” (Boehmer 2019: 1175). The fact that this legacy is no longer celebrated to the same degree

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according to some researchers inevitably has consequences for the country as a whole and for its histories, both dominant and subjective. However, where many researchers have produced brief biographies of Mandela in their papers relating to a variety of topics (see, Suttner 2014; Mpofu and Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018 for detailed accounts of Mandela’s life), far fewer have focused on the complex family relationships of the Mandela clan and how they relate to his legacy. The focus of this chapter is thus the legacy of Mandela as seen through the eyes of three of his grandchildren who have all published memoirs recently that detail not only their own lives but that of Nelson Mandela too. The memoirs can be argued to border on the biographical, as the writers all deal with their relationships and connections to Mandela in various ways. According to the Mandela family tree published by  the BBC, both Ndileka Mandela (born in 1965) and Ndaba Mandela (born in 1983 according to the tree but in 1982  in the memoir, p.  14) had the same grandmother, Evelyn, who was Mandela’s first wife. Zoleka (born in 1980), on the other hand, descends from his second marriage to Winnie Madikizela. Ndaba Mandela’s 11 Life Lessons from Nelson Mandela (2018) explicitly draws on a shared history and family relations with Mandela as indicated in its title. Ndaba (the three writers in focus will here be referred to by their first names in order to avoid confusion, as Mandela here means Nelson Mandela) outlines the purpose of his memoir and states that the book is “about my life with my grandfather” (2018: xv). His explicit focus on his relationship with Mandela provides a perspective from the inside and adds to the already prolific writing on Mandela (Davis 2014). Steve Davis (2014: 171) writes about the great interest in Mandela’s life after the publication of Long Walk to Freedom, and that instruction in particular became a popular theme of “Mandela-branded products”: At the heart of this tangle was the idea that Mandela’s life story is, above all else, didactic. From whichever angle authors approached his life, they saw it as a source for moral principles tested by actual experiences. Each experience contained lessons that inoculate the future against the mistakes of the past, and at the same time, had the potential to empower, or at least edify, the reader. (Davis 2014: 171)

Ndaba, too, takes a didactic approach to the legacy of Mandela in his memoir, as he states that “I believe Madiba’s words have the power to change your world too, and by that I mean both the world around you

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and the world within you, the undiscovered universe that is your own possibility” (p. xvii). This statement more or less defines the purpose of the book as some sort of self-help publication, while still being centred on Ndaba’s life and relationship with his grandfather. Carrying on the tradition of didactic self-help writing is central, as Ndaba’s inspiration seems to come from his grandfather. Davis (2014: 171) explains that Long Walk to Freedom too took on a self-help dimension, as the “mass audience read terms like forgiveness, healing and redemption as homonyms for identical terms in the vocabularies of self-­ help”. These international audiences, for which Long Walk to Freedom was also written according to Davis (p. 171), are also mentioned by Ndaba (pp. xv–xvi) in his memoir: “I hope to share the greatest life lessons I learned from Madiba. […] As I sit down to this task, I’m humbled by the knowledge that people all over the world—including my own children— will read this book”. This implies that the memoir has been written for those same readers as the autobiography of Mandela, with the hope that the book will reach the same levels of influence and fame. A different purpose is presented in Ndileka Mandela’s I Am Ndileka: More than My Surname (2019). The writer explains having felt invisible “to the broader public as an individual simply because I carry the last name of one of the world’s most beloved icons” (2019: xiii). Hence, the memoir is an attempt to find and claim a place as an individual, as separate from the Mandela family and particularly the legacy of Nelson Mandela. However, Ndileka also draws on her heritage in the memoir and further states that she also intends to offer “the missing parts of the story of my grandfather” (p. xiv), as her feeling of being invisible “has been compounded by being almost cast out of the personal history of this great man, uTata, as he’s affectionately known by South Africans” (p. xiii). Thus, Ndileka’s endeavour to tell her own story and make herself visible in her own right and not only as a descendant of Mandela comes to rely on the fact that she is his relative and her story is inevitably interconnected with his. The evident paradox in these statements to some extent mirrors the ambivalent relationship South Africans have with Mandela and his legacy today. This ambivalence is captured particularly well by Boehmer (2019: 1179): Today, his national luminosity has guttered for some. The former president has been criticised and discredited for a host of reasons—for having pressed

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for reconciliation instead of justice, especially economic justice, in the interests of ‘saving the nation’; for having made compromises with neoliberal big business; for his government’s inadequately redistributive growth, employment and redistribution economic policy; for having tacitly participated in AIDS denialism until his own son died of the illness. In sum, Mandela has been vilified for having supported, in effect, the wrong kind of new society, a rainbow nation rather than a properly just society based on greater economic equality.

Ndileka’s attempt to reconstruct her image and to some degree separate herself from her heritage testifies to and symbolises the need for South Africans in general to create an identity for themselves, one which is not built on the ideal of a rainbow nation, but which allows personal freedom to choose one’s future and that of the nation, and to decide what to make of the apartheid past as well as of the contested notions of reconciliation and forgiveness. The present chapter asks to what degree such personal freedom is possible, and as Ndileka’s memoir shows, the entanglements run deep. Zoleka Mandela’s memoir When Hope Whispers (2019, originally published in 2013) offers a somewhat different scope as the book does not explicitly set out to rewrite the history of the Mandela family or to make an individual claim. Instead, the memoir takes on much more personal and tragic topics, primarily focusing on Zoleka’s battle with breast cancer. At the start of the memoir, she also alludes to having been sexually abused in her childhood and early teens but refrains from going into detail about her experiences: “It is a story for another time and another platform” (p. 21). Zoleka also gives an account of her teenage pregnancy and giving birth to her first child aged only sixteen, going from relationship to relationship in desperate search for love and connection, as well as describing her drug abuse. She later gave birth to a second child in 2002 (p. 57). Despite being very open about her tumultuous relationships, even being burnt on her back by one of her lovers (p. 52), and reckless drug use to the point of concealing cocaine in her bra (p. 67), and the immense tragedies of losing two of her children (p. 75; 90), some issues are still left untold or merely hinted at. After having lost her daughter, who died in a car accident, Zoleka writes about finding strength to get help with her drinking and getting sober, which was compromised by her own mother’s continued drinking, with whom Zoleka had “used to drink together almost every single night”

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(p. 84). This indicates that excessive use of alcohol was not solely Zoleka’s problem but that her mother too suffered from similar issues. However, the memoir does not lay any blame or point fingers and discusses these issues quite matter of fact. The second half of the book is centred on Zoleka’s battle with breast cancer, and the chapters in the final one hundred pages are titled according to the rounds of chemotherapy treatment she received. The memoir was originally published in 2013 and the final chapter ends with the words “I am officially cancer free!” (p.  252). However, Ashitha Nagesh (2016) reports for Metro that Zoleka’s cancer returned in 2016, leading to a second round of treatment against a cancer which turned out to be more aggressive the second time. When Hope Whispers is altogether much less focused on Zoleka’s extended family and her relationship with Mandela than the other two memoirs, which explicitly set out to redefine that relationship (Ndileka) or to celebrate it (Ndaba). The choice not to address the challenges of being a Mandela is as interesting as the choice to build an entire memoir around it. Not dealing with the joys and burdens of being a Mandela is potentially an even more powerful declaration of independence and individualism than dedicating the bulk of one’s text to exploring this complex connection. Thus, the following sections examine the three texts in more detail, starting with family controversies that have also gained widespread media attention in recent years. The conflicts manifest the difficulty of living in the public eye as descendants of Mandela, and the struggles for power and recognition that can emerge in any family, but which gain major proportions as they partly concern the life and legacy of Mandela himself and therefore, by proxy, South African history as well. The chapter examines the personal connection with Mandela from the perspective of his grandchildren’s memoirs, and particularly the shared experience of having grown up with relatives instead of parents. The death of Mandela is discussed in the final section, and the analysis also returns to the question of his legacy.

7.2   Family Controversies The Mandela family has been discussed extensively in the media in recent years due to some controversies that have surfaced. These conflicts are also dealt with in the memoirs. A legal battle ensued in 2013 concerning Mandla Mandela’s actions, another grandson of Nelson Mandela, and Ndaba’s brother (same father), regarding the burial site of the family. As

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Sope Maithufi (2018: 1852) outlines, “Mandla surreptitiously exhumed Madiba Thembekile, Makgatho and Makaziwe, the remains of three of the children whom Mandela had had with his late first wife Evelyn Mase, from Qunu, and reburied them in Mvezo”. This action caused severe controversy within the family, and subsequently a court case ensued: “Makaziwe, who is Mandela’s daughter with his first wife and Mandla’s paternal aunt, and others (see Mthatha High Court, case number 1552/13), approached the Mthatha High Court, whereupon the judge ruled in favour of the solicitations for the vestiges of the Mandelas to be returned for reburial in Qunu, where they were originally interred before being clandestinely moved by Mandla” (ibid.). Express (2013) and Hawes (2013) imply that Mandla’s decision to remove the bodies were connected with his position as chief in Mvezo, the birthplace of Mandela. Mandla’s position is also discussed in other media outlets, for example, by Farouk Chothia (2010) for the BBC: “Mandla has become influential since his appointment as a traditional chief in Mr Mandela’s birthplace, the village of Mvezo, and his elevation to parliament in last year’s election”. The conflict connected with the removal of the remains of three of Mandela’s children is also covered in Ndileka’s memoir. She begins by stating that she finds it difficult to bear sometimes how “almost everything that happens in my family becomes a public debate” (2019: 163). Ndileka expresses frustration and exasperation at the fact that her family’s internal affairs immediately became world news and criticises people for addressing issues of which they had little to no knowledge. She directly refers to the reburial controversy involving Mandla, retelling how the family found out that the graves in Qunu at the gravesite at which Mandela himself wished to be buried were empty (p. 165). According to Ndileka, Mandla at first denied having removed the remains but then promised to repatriate them to Qunu (ibid.). This did not happen, after which Ndileka recounts how the family decided to take the matter to court. After winning the court case, the family travelled to Mvezo to remove the remains. Ndileka states that the whole endeavour was difficult, particularly since so many people had opinions about the whole affair. She asks where Mandela’s public persona begins and ends (p. 167), a relevant question for South Africa as a nation, too, and refers to her own approach to him many times in the book: “Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was my grandfather, period, not the president of the ANC and not the president of the country” (p. 65). This need to separate the private from the public suggests a need to reclaim Mandela, and such desires are not present to the same

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degree in Ndaba’s memoir, where he remembers several events he partook in, which were huge media spectacles. For example, Ndaba writes about a charity gala organised to raise money for Mandela’s Millennium Fund: “Celebrity guests included Stevie Wonder, Danny Glover, and Michael Jackson” (p. 102). Ndaba got to meet Michael Jackson along with other members of his family, writing how lucky they felt “hanging out, singing happy birthday, and eating birthday cake with Michael Jackson” (p. 103). On another occasion, Ndaba got to accompany Mandela to a soccer game and without thinking stepped out of the car in the stadium, hearing the crowd cheer as they first thought he was Mandela himself. Mandela then proceeded to introduce Ndaba to the audience (p.  136). A final example comes from 2003, when another major concert was organised for AIDS and HIV awareness (p. 178). Ndaba was most excited about getting to meet Beyoncé but was eventually unable to attend the concert due to having to travel to Qunu for his circumcision. No such extravagant experiences are present in Ndileka’s and Zoleka’s memoirs, indicating that the grandchildren of Mandela have lived thoroughly different lives with varied prospects, and also had profoundly different relationships with the former president. The clash between private and public is also expressed in different terms, and how the two combined and collided in Mandela himself. These different approaches to Mandela have also been noted by Maithufi (2018: 1852), who writes that through the controversy with regard to handing over the chieftainship of Mvezo to Mandla, “[w]hat came to the fore were thus conflicting but subtle claims to Mandela”. According to Maithufi, gender played a significant role here. Thus, it is not surprising that the person who took the reburial conflict to court was Makaziwe, Mandela’s eldest living daughter (ibid.). Further, Maithufi (ibid.) explains that the attempt by Mandla to rebury the remains of the family members was an “attempt to entrench himself and his future children within the Mandela lineage, particularly also as he references it in the physical graveyard that he reserves for the Mandelas in Mvezo”. Similar observations are expressed by Sarah Nuttall and Achille Mbembe (2014: 281) in their chapter on Mandela’s mortality. They argue that there have been various attempts to capitalise on Mandela’s name and legacy, and that the actions of Mandla were part of such aspirations. They write about allegations, “not only that Mandla Mandela sold the exclusive rights to Madiba’s funeral to the SABC, but that he pocketed R3 million from the deal” (Nuttall and Mbembe 2014: 282).

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These allegations paint a troubled picture of the family controversies and conflicts surrounding Mandela and his legacy, particularly with regard to Mandla, Ndaba’s brother. Ndaba (p. 91) writes about the relationship he had with Mandla at a young age, how he adored him as the older brother, but that some unease entered the relationship during their trip to the United States when Mandla was in charge of the travel budget and spent most of the money on his girlfriend: “This was the beginning of the end of my relationship with my brother Mandla—not because of the trip budget, but because I realized he wasn’t the Fresh Prince I’d idolized for so many years” (p. 129). Ndaba does not go into detail about what exactly made their relationship become so strained, but briefly addresses Mandla in his Acknowledgements at the end of the memoir: “Mandla, no man is an Island. Our grandfather talked about forgiveness. There’s a lesson we can all learn from him and his life. Let’s share and continue this great legacy we have inherited” (p. 253). The lines may be a direct reference to the allegations against Mandla about trying to profit from Mandela’s death and to the reburials of Mandela’s children. Ndaba appears to be wanting to separate himself from Mandla by indicating that his handling of money was discreditable but without providing any exact details, and the few words at the end of the memoir indicate a need to retain a bond but also to rebuke at the same time. Thus, the claims to Mandela, the father and grandfather, the head of the family and of the country, revered by millions of South Africans, show deep complexities and attest to a family that struggled to come together in matters of heritage, lineage, and even personal identity. Ndileka’s memoir attempts to both separate herself from the burden of the Mandela name, while simultaneously reforming and reclaiming that bond. The complexities of the Mandela family also emerged when Nelson Mandela’s health was deteriorating in 2013. Julia Llewellyn Smith (2013) interviewed Zindzi Mandela, daughter of Mandela and Winnie Mandela, not long after Mandela had passed away. Zindzi expressed some exasperation with the media interest and speculations with regard to her father’s condition: “‘Whenever he sneezes the whole world gathers at the hospital,’ she said. ‘The impression that some of the media are looking forward to his speedy demise is very hurtful. We appreciate that people are afraid to lose him, we know he’s never just belonged to us, but it’s painful to see my father’s death treated as a scoop to be chased’”. The observation that Mandela never belonged just to his family is significant, and it is echoed in Ndileka’s writing where she states that he was first and foremost her grandfather, not

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the president. Ndaba, too, touches upon this matter in his memoir: “It didn’t matter if [Mandela] was being treated for pneumonia or an ingrown toenail; we could count on the reporters storming us every time we walked out the door. Aunti Maki got cross about it sometimes: ‘What other president had to put up with this prying into personal details? Nobody! There was never a white president who was so scrutinized’”. Thus, the sentiments concerning the press and their treatment of Mandela’s illness and impending death were not received well by the family, just as media’s coverage of family controversies was criticised by Ndileka. Memoir is thus used not only to document subjective history but also to reclaim the public as private. Paradoxically, memoir itself is a very public form of personal history. Again, Zoleka’s memoir takes a different approach as it does not deal with any of the controversies even in passing. Cassie Coburn (2014: 385) has reviewed the memoir and makes the same observation: Those hoping for an insider’s view on life within the Mandela family, and insights into behind-the-scenes stories during the most turbulent episodes of South African history, will not find them here. At times this narrow focus can feel frustrating; knowledge of the wider backdrop against which her life played out can sometimes make the narrative feel sparse. But ultimately, through honest, clear writing, she provides an account of what cancer feels like for an every women [sic], not just Nelson Mandela’s granddaughter; it is here that the strength of the book lies.

The question emerges as to whether Zoleka’s memoir reached such fame due to her experiences or her last name, but Coburn makes a justified comment about the power of the book which lies specifically in its separation from that famous legacy. Instead, Zoleka presents herself as a breast cancer survivor primarily, and not as the granddaughter of Nelson Mandela. However, that connection is also present in the memoir, for example, quite explicitly through a foreword by her grandmother Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Rayne et al. (2018: 812) define Zoleka as a ‘celebrity survivor’ in their article on breast cancer in South Africa. The sparseness mentioned by Coburn is to some degree present in all three memoirs examined here, which paradoxically manage to be painfully open and honest about deep personal suffering and loss, but simultaneously remain somewhat remote with regard to the presumably quite carefully selected information included in the memoirs. That serves as an acknowledgement

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of the inevitable responsibility and unique platform that comes with being a Mandela and also attests to the difficulties involved with balancing between private and public. It is necessary to briefly address the case of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela when approaching the subject of family controversy. Not only is the legacy of Nelson Mandela himself somewhat controversial today as outlined at the beginning of this chapter, but even more so is that of his second wife Winnie. BBC reports in 2016 that the court had reached a conclusion to dismiss Winnie’s claim to Mandela’s rural home in Qunu. She had been left out of his will but proceeded in 2014 to take legal action in order to gain access to the property. As Shireen Hassim (2019: 1152) outlines, the marriage between Mandela and Winnie inevitably became one of controversy and juxtaposition, particularly after Mandela was released from prison: “One would come to represent South Africa’s velvet revolution, built on compromise and reconciliation. The other would come to stand for a stalled revolution, one that promised a radical redress of injustices”. Winnie became increasingly involved with the fight against apartheid in the 1970s and 1980s, and as Hassim explains, expressed her support for the practice of necklacing (pp. 1165–1166) and was linked to the killing of a teenager, Stompie Seipei, in 1988 (p.  1167), who was accused of being an informer (Krog 1999: 374). Ed Cropley (2018) reports that the couple divorced in 1996 after some allegations of corruption against Winnie the previous year. She was also called to testify in front of the TRC, an event of which both Desmond Tutu and Antjie Krog write in their memoirs. Tutu’s (1999: 129–131) description of Winnie is compassionate, acknowledging her suffering at the hands of those in power and her importance for the struggle against apartheid. However, Tutu reports that Winnie remained unaffected during the TRC hearings and “disdainfully dismissed almost all the testimony against her as ‘ridiculous’ and ‘ludicrous’” (p. 132). Eventually, he pleaded with her to openly acknowledge the things that went wrong and to ask for forgiveness, to which she responded by apologising to the families of those affected by violence she had allegedly condoned (p. 135). Krog is a bit less compassionate towards Winnie, describing her as intimidating (1999: 372) and goes on to report her unwillingness to cooperate (p. 389). After Tutu’s heartfelt plea that she should apologise, Winnie uttered the words asked of her, which according to Krog were insincere (p. 392).

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Nelson Mandela himself mentions the trial Winnie underwent due to the abduction of the teenagers of which one was killed and how she was sentenced to six years in prison which was then reduced to a fine (Cropley 2018). Mandela (1994: 711) writes that he had no doubt about her innocence, but then proceeded to give an official statement in April 1992 about their separation (p. 718). After the divorce, Hassim (2019: 1170) explains that “Winnie and Nelson regrouped as the elders in an uneasy extended family with many disagreements and enmities”. Some of those have been briefly discussed earlier, painting the picture of a family put together and wrought apart by the struggle against apartheid, by questions of legacy and heritage that eventually erupted in several controversies. The question is whether the family could have been anything but uneasy after so many decades in the public sphere, on the frontlines of the struggle against apartheid with two people at the head of the family who both had sacrificed so much. Mandela seemed well aware of the toll his political involvement had taken on the entire family, and the memoirs by his grandchildren also testify to this two decades later. Mandela makes the following statement in his autobiography: “[I]t seems to be the destiny of freedom fighters to have unstable personal lives. When your family is the struggle, as mine was, there is little room left for family. That has always been my greatest regret, and the most painful aspect of the choice I made” (p. 719). These notions seem to still reverberate through the entire Mandela family, as the three memoirs examined here all attest to the difficulty in connecting with family and with finding one’s place in it. All three of the writers were also mainly raised by relatives and not by their parents. Mandela’s comment on his involuntary separation from his family, which in the end could not be avoided due to his activism, also connects in complex ways with the frustrations expressed by several of his close family members about the media interest in Mandela’s health and increasing old age. Their need to keep him private resonates with the long absence. The acknowledgement that he and his family were the struggle is also significant, as the children and grandchildren of Mandela have found themselves in a situation where they, too, become part of the public political legacy whether they like to or not. The following section addresses in more detail the role of Mandela as father and grandfather as seen through the eyes of his grandchildren.

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7.3   Raised by Grandparents A central theme that connects all three memoirs examined in this chapter is childhoods which were largely spent in the care of other relatives and not the writers’ own parents. Nelson Mandela himself was absent from much of his children’s lives and was even barred from attending the funeral of his first-born son Thembekile, Ndileka’s father, who died in a motor accident in 1969 (Mandela 1994: 530–531). This absence and the unstable personal lives he referred to later in his memoir seem to have been repeated and replayed several times in the lives of his children and grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. However, Zolani Ngwane (2014: 122–123) explains in her chapter on the role of tradition in Mandela’s life that the separation from one’s family is “a major traumatic experience” for “elite nationalist subjects”. Mandela, too, moved away from his childhood home at a young age to live in the “royal household of Mqhekezweni” (ibid.), experiences of which he tells in great detail in his own autobiography. Further, Ngwane (2014: 123) states that such experiences are common: “In black South Africa this farming out of children is often naturalized as part of custom or tradition”. However, as Ngwane argues, simply referring to such practices as part of local custom overlooks “the trauma for the individual subject”. While the experiences of Mandela’s grandchildren do not fit into the same elite nationalist subject category, as they were not schooled and trained in the same tradition as Mandela himself, their lives can, however, to some extent be examined through the same lens. They were all “farmed out” at an early age, which had significant and deep emotional consequences for all three of them as outlined in their memoirs, and which complicated the bond they had with their own parents. Before engaging in more detailed analysis of the memoirs and their descriptions and perceptions of family life, it is necessary to briefly look at the concept of the family in broader terms. Statistics South Africa state in their General Household Survey (GHS) of 2018 that almost 20 per cent of children did not live with either parent: “The value of living with biological parents, however, depends on the quality of care they can provide and children are often left in the care of other relatives such as grandparents. The survey found that 19.8% of children lived with neither their biological parents while 33.8% lived with both parents, and 43.1% lived with their mothers” (p. viii). Hence, the experiences of Mandela’s grandchildren are not exceptional in a South African context. As Gabrielli et al. (2018: 4260) argue, “the phenomenology of living arrangements” in

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Sub-Saharan Africa evoke interest “owing to the extraordinary diversification and complexity of the traditional family patterns”. Ndaba (p.  43), too, explains the role of the extended family in his memoir, stating that “[o]perating as an extended family is very much in keeping with tradition” and explains how all aunts, uncles, cousins form the large family that takes care of its own. However, Ndaba (p. 48) also recognises the price Mandela himself had to pay when being absent from his family for so many years, and how this was also repeated in later generations: “Then my dad, who never knew his grandfather, grew up without his father, so that relationship was set back another generation”. This implies a kind of generational experience of absent fathers. Ndileka, too, lost her father at a young age. In addition to this, the role of fatherhood also takes on importance in other respects relating to children being raised by other than their biological parents. Clark et al. (2015: 577) argue the following in their article on fathers’ roles in their children’s lives in South Africa: Patrilineal kinship structures are common throughout South Africa. This strong vertical lineage system traced through paternal lines reinforces the central role of fathers in providing social standing, legitimacy, protection, and economic support for their children. As a consequence, paternal grandparents and other relatives have a keen interest in helping fathers build and maintain strong ties to their children.

In the case of Ndaba, who, along with his brothers, came to live with Mandela himself, the importance of these patrilineal connections and structures are confirmed. The same concerns Ndileka, who ended up living with Evelyn, Mandela’s first wife, her paternal grandmother and mother of Thembekile, Mandela’s first son. Clark et al. (2015: 585) also argue in their study that maternal grandmothers, on the other hand, “play a central and critical role in helping their unmarried daughters care for their grandchildren”. The important role of maternal relatives is exemplified in Zoleka’s memoir. Zoleka (p. 40) writes about her first pregnancy at the age of sixteen, and how she hid it from her family for a long time. Eventually, despite not speaking to Zoleka for weeks after finding out about the pregnancy, her mother was present during the birth along with Zoleka’s grandmother Winnie (pp. 42–43). Zoleka continued living with her mother and moved out in 2007 when her two children were ten and five, respectively. She

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then came to live with her aunt Zenani (p.  63). Zoleka writes that she “spent as much time with [the children] as my studies allowed”, indicating that she received some help with childcare in order to carry on with her studies. These passages support the results from Clark, Cotton, and Marteleto’s study about the role of not only maternal grandmothers but other maternal relatives as well for childcare and creating a supportive network for the young mother on which to rely. However, Lucy Holborn and Gail Eddy (2011: 6) ask in their report on families in South Africa whether grandparents are capable of providing the care needed: “More research needs to be done into the effects on children of extended family parenting. Are grandparents stepping in to provide the support children are not getting from their parents, or are they illequipped to deal with the burden of parenting?” The experiences of both Ndileka and Ndaba seem to show that, at least in their specific cases, their grandparents were more than capable of taking care of them. However, some resentment can also be detected against parents who for a variety of reasons were not the primary caretakers of their children. In Ndileka’s case, the trauma of being “farmed out”, as termed by Ngwane, takes place across two generations concerning not only herself but also her own son. Ndileka begins her memoir with memories from her childhood of living with her grandmother Evelyn, called Rundu in the memoir, Mandela’s first wife, and remembers visiting her mother and new partner Phineas every year in Cape Town (p. 21). However, despite these happy childhood memories, Ndileka also writes about later visits to Durban to which her mother had relocated with her new family, having to share space and even clothes with Phineas’s children: “I could not understand why she had, in my view, not chosen my sister and me, and had instead chosen a life of having to bring up children that were not her own” (p. 37). These lines suggest deep resentment and a feeling of abandonment, to which Ndileka returns several times throughout her memoir, while also expressing profound love and gratitude to her grandmother: “I started living with Rundu at the age of two and she became my mother in every way that counts for me. My mother was more like an affectionate aunt I visited from time to time. I commend both my parents for loving me enough to realise I would be better placed with Rundu than with them” (Ndileka, p. 80). The feelings with regard to her early childhood thus seem somewhat ambivalent. Ndileka (p. 99), too, became pregnant as a teenager and was a mother “by the time I turned 19”. Her mother was not happy with the turn of

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events, and neither was Mandela, who told Ndileka he was to blame “for being absent in my life and not being able to guide me when it came to sex” (p. 59). Ndileka’s mother and stepfather wanted her to go and live with them in Durban until the baby was born, but Ndileka refused which led to her not being in touch with her mother for some time. Her mother met her grandson when he was already a year old (p. 100). These lines are somewhat similar to the experiences of Zoleka, whose mother also refused to talk to her throughout the pregnancy. When Ndileka’s son Tembela was born, she soon left him in the care of his paternal grandmother in order to continue her studies herself: “This is a decision I would regret years later. I feel that I missed out on the most crucial time in my child’s life—early childhood” (p.  101). Hence, Ndileka’s own experiences of not being raised by her mother were repeated in the life of her son, leading to certain regret on her part. She writes that she later took her son with her when she went to live in Durban with her mother, and that Tembela had some difficulties in adjusting to this new life (ibid.). Eventually, Ndileka decided he would not visit his paternal relatives anymore as it made him so upset having to leave them and go back to Durban: “I have often wondered about this decision” (p. 102). Zoleka, too, writes about having a distant relationship with both her parents, even to the extent of having no relationship at all (Zoleka 2019: 186). Throughout the exhausting rounds of cancer treatment she received, her grandmother Winnie and aunt Zenani were the ones who supported her. Zoleka later returns to her relationship with her mother as she finds out that her mother had given an interview about Zoleka’s illness, something Zoleka felt she had no right to do: “[I]t is still my story to tell, and not hers or anyone else’s” (p. 241). The similarity with Ndileka’s memoir is apparent, as both feel the need to claim their stories as their own and use memoir as the medium to stake this claim and make it public. Zoleka also admits to having some understanding for her mother’s struggles, as she was politically involved and needed to complete her studies after having given birth to Zoleka. Thus, the experience is somewhat similar to that of Ndileka, whose son was cared for by his grandmother giving Ndileka the chance to finish her degree. Ndaba, too, writes in detail about the circumstances surrounding him moving in with Mandela himself, although the reasons were not made explicit to him as a child. Ndaba (p. 46) remembers his father leaving him at Mandela’s estate, simply telling him “You live here now”. The lack of emotions shown at this parting was part of how things were done, and

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Ndaba did not hear from his mother either for a while: “No one explained to me that she and my dad were both struggling with alcoholism. The older generation considered these topics inappropriate for discussion, and they were certainly not to be discussed with children” (ibid.). These silences are repeated later in the memoir when Ndaba recounts the circumstances surrounding the deaths of his parents. Taking care of children not one’s own also stretches beyond the Mandela family. Ndaba and his younger brothers were raised by women he calls Mama Xoli and Mama Gloria, while Mama Xoli’s children were taken care of by her sister (Ndaba pp.  244–245): “Every day I wish that Mama Xoli was here, but she’s home with her own family now, which is where she wants to be. She certainly earned that. For so many years, her sister took care of her children while Mama Xoli took care of my granddad and me and our family”. Such experiences seem not too far removed from the apartheid era, when White families would employ Black domestic workers to take care of their homes and children. As Ena Jansen (2019: 4) outlines in her extensive study on the topic, these traditions still continue to this day: “[D]omestic workers continue to be the most important contact figures in South Africa between white and black, between urban and rural, and between the wealthy and the poor”. Jansen (p. 5) also asks whether the stereotype of “motherly subservient black women” have changed over the years since South Africa moved away from apartheid, and whether this has led to more distant relationships between workers and employers. Ndaba seems to imply in his memoir that at least in the case of Mandela’s domestic workers, this was not the case. He writes about convincing Mandela to let his other brothers come to live with him as well, Mbuso who was five at the time and Andile who was still a baby (p. 99). This required that Mama Xoli and Mama Gloria would take care of the boys together with “the other ladies who worked in the house” (ibid.). This indicates that the house of Mandela had a significant number of domestic workers, creating a family-like environment for Ndaba and his brothers, confirming the stereotype of the if not subservient at least motherly domestic worker. Ndaba later writes about reconnecting with his mother while at university (p.  169), visiting her regularly and remaking a long-lost bond. However, it soon became apparent that his mother was ill, and Ndaba, to his disbelief, found out that she had AIDS (p. 172). His mother eventually died in 2003, and Ndaba writes about his anger about not being told earlier that she was seriously ill (pp. 173–174): “I stared at the newspaper reports about my mother’s death. The family’s official press release stated

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that she had died of pneumonia”. Not long after, Ndaba’s father, Mandela’s son, also got terminally ill with AIDS and Ndaba was eventually forced to realise that his father was the one who had infected his mother (p. 203). A different perspective of these events is presented in Ndileka’s memoir, who dedicates a whole chapter to the emotional strain of dealing with a number of close family members who died over the course of a few years. Her uncle Makgatho, Ndaba’s father, was one of them. According to Ndileka, Makgatho died of cholecystectomy, writing that she “had never seen a patient survive this operation” (p. 131) throughout her years as working as a nurse in intensive care. It is difficult to draw any conclusions from this somewhat unclear statement, but NHS, for example, reports on their website that gallbladder removal is a common procedure. However, Green et al. (2017: 704) argue in their study of surgical procedures carried out in patients with HIV that there is an increased risk: “The management of patients with a surgical disease and HIV co-infection remains controversial. Many have suggested that HIV co-infection places surgical patients at risk of major morbidity and have advocated a minimalistic and ultimately fatalistic approach to patients with acute surgical emergencies”. This could explain the reaction of Ndileka, although she was later angered when she found out that Mandela intended to tell the press that his son had died of AIDS: “I told Granddad that this was untrue, that he had died due to complications from a laparotomy, in my view” (p.  132). According to Ndileka, Makgatho’s viral load did not account to being AIDS, but that Mandela explained how important it was to “further destigmatise HIV and AIDS” (ibid.). She adds that these events took place when Thabo Mbeki was president. Baffour Ankomah (2010: 17) confirms these events and writes that Makgatho suffered from pancreatitis, a serious condition. The illness could potentially have been related to alcohol abuse, confirmed earlier by Ndaba, but, politically, a far less useful cause of death, as insinuated though not stated outright by Ndileka. The controversies surrounding Mbeki’s statements regarding HIV and AIDS have been outlined earlier, and Ndileka suggests that Mandela’s decision was entirely political: “I felt that Granddad always chose the country over his family” (pp. 132–133). These lines emphasise the need to be heard and taken seriously, particularly from a professional point of view. They also attest to the conflicting position Mandela occupied after being released from prison, and particularly after his presidential period ended. He remained a public figure, caught between the needs of the

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nation and the needs of his family. Sadly, the strife within his family seems to reflect the contestation over his legacy also in the nation at large. Boehmer (2019: 1180) argues in quite negative terms that “the redeeming concepts associated with Mandela’s name—forgiveness and reconciliation, the Rainbow Nation—did not survive many years beyond his presidency, at least at home”. “Home” here likely refers to South Africa and not explicitly to Mandela’s own home, but a double reading of the word enables seeing his own extended family caught in the midst of these difficulties with preserving and safe-guarding his legacy, which has become increasingly criticised since his death in 2013. Further, Mpofu and Ndlovu-­ Gatsheni (2018: 175) state that “his idea of South Africa as a rainbow, post-racial humanist nation is now on public trial in the country”. It bears stating in this context that the memoirs examined in previous chapters of this book truly do, at least in a small, personal way, testify to the survival and continuation of both forgiveness and reconciliation. There may perhaps be no grand, visible projects such as the TRC at present in South Africa, but the experiences of individuals as documented and represented in the primary material and particularly their anxieties with regard to space and belonging attest to the ongoing subtle process of finding compromise, the compromise that reconciliation too ultimately requires. The conflicts within the family outlined and discussed in this chapter were exacerbated by the inevitable presence of the media and the need to make choices that would send the right message to South Africans in general, to preserve the rainbow image of South Africa, the “post-racial humanist nation” as defined by Mpofu and Ndlovu-Gatsheni. Ndaba writes that he struggled to come to terms with the fact that his parents were not a part of his life for a long time and that he found it difficult to forgive his grandfather for his involvement in the decision to remove Ndaba from his parents (pp. 46–47). However, he also realised later that the life he would have had with his mother had he stayed with her “would not have been better than the life I’ve had” (p. 48). The hindsight here can be applied to symbolise South Africa as a whole too, as the nation seems undecided as to whether a different outcome after the end of apartheid would have been preferable to the reconciliation and healing promoted by Mandela, Tutu, and their contemporaries. A potential response, however simplistic or naïve, could here be that different outcomes would not necessarily have been better. The past cannot be changed but rewriting history through personal experiences can be done.

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The traumatic separations from their parents in both Ndileka and Ndaba’s writing, and the feeling of disappointment and abandonment (cf. Ndileka p. 178), mirror the disappointment felt by South Africans when their post-apartheid reality did not meet expectations. The lack of economic redress is visible also in Ndileka’s (p. 103) memoir, as she struggled financially while being a young mother trying to complete her studies. She hoped to be in a better position financially after Mandela’s release but found it difficult to plead her case as he was always busy. Eventually, she quit her studies and went back to working fulltime. Later, Ndileka recounts the work she has done representing the family or travelling for other charity purposes, being paid little or nothing for her appearances (p.  159): “It’s a well-known fact that Granddad’s estate was modest and yet people still assume that I have endless amounts of money”. Ndileka explains how she took care of Mandela before he died, having no income of her own during that time. She also states that there was a paradox involved with Mandela raising funds for the benefit of the nation by appealing to wealthy people and businessmen, yet “he did not do that for me” (ibid.). However, Ndileka states that she never expected anyone to help her and was prepared to manage on her own. Again, a profound ambivalence emerges in these lines. She was grateful for her life with her grandmother but still resentful towards her mother for abandoning her, and she builds her memoir around the topic of finding separate space for herself as a Mandela while drawing heavily on that connection. Mandela did not help her financially, which also caused some resentment although Ndileka was prepared to manage by herself. The internal struggles visible in these sections of the memoir are also to some extent symbolic of the ambivalence that troubles South Africa; a nation that is rightfully and justifiably proud of its development and efforts since apartheid which ended so recently, yet it is still seen as a failure to some extent. The same ambivalence is present with regard to the TRC and the reconciliation process. The notions of compromise and concession are also embedded in this ambivalence, in not knowing how to think and feel about the past but being forced to live with a sense of loss and disappointment, and a sense of incompleteness which is also inevitably part of the human condition. Living in this way in the public eye, where not even the most painful family tragedies could remain private, caused a strain on various members of the Mandela family to which the memoirs testify. The different treatment and expectations of the grandchildren are also revealed, attesting

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both to Mandela’s efforts to support his large extended family (he eventually helped Ndileka get a bursary for her studies (p. 102) and bought her a house in 1997 (p. 104)), as well as to the inevitable failures to provide equally for everyone. Again, the symbolism with regard to the nation is apparent. Paradoxically enough, while Mandela’s major achievement in the 1990s was building the foundation for an equal South Africa, not just in terms of making sure citizens of colour had access to the same rights and privileges as White South Africans, but also in terms of ensuring that White citizens felt part of the new nation, this has also become his biggest failure according to some critics. The same can be said for his family as represented in the memoirs examined. While he attempted to make decisions for the good of his children and grandchildren, the memoirs examined also suggest that these decisions led to far-reaching consequences in a negative sense. Thus, the father of the nation, and the family (grand) father faced similar challenges: how to do what was best for the country when it was evident that no simple solution was available as years of discrimination had left such deep divides. During his long prison sentence, Mandela became the beloved leader which is how he is still known. That absence also caused disruption in his family, the consequences of which can still be seen and felt in the memoirs examined.

7.4   Final Years The last few years of Mandela’s life as well as his death on December 5, 2013 (Barnard 2014: 291) have been described more or less in detail by Ndileka and Ndaba, whereas Zoleka’s memoir was published right before Mandela’s death. The difficulty in making meaning of his death has been addressed by Nuttall and Mbembe (2014: 285), who argue that Mandela “has been a screen on which to project wishes and dreams, often contradictory ones”. Some of these contradictions have been discussed in relation to the memoirs analysed, and  as part of the critique with which Mandela’s legacy is increasingly connected. Mandela’s life and work can be used to justify the relative prosperity of South Africa today, as well as to explain the degrading circumstances in which so many of its citizens live. It is a legacy that bends in multiple directions. When he passed away, people across the world mourned him: Above all, Western leaders celebrated Mandela’s compassion, forgiveness and love of peace. A common sentiment was that Mandela had the humility

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to understand other people’s points of view and, through this understanding, was able to mediate and reconcile between forces that could destabilise or subvert a transition to democracy. (Beresford 2014: 297)

These notions are what he is known for, and to a significant degree, they are also visible in his treatment of his family, taking some of his grandchildren in to live with him and supporting the education and lives of others. However, Beresford (2014: 304) is also wary of paying tribute to Mandela only with regard to his enormous achievements: “Mandela was, in many respects, an example to the world, and one that has inspired generations of political activists. But to sanitise his life, politics and legacy in this manner is also to do it a disservice: the long walk to political freedom may have been accomplished, but this is only a part-freedom, reflecting an unfinished liberation”. The comment connects with Tutu’s statement about the work of the Commission and that it could not possibly have achieved complete reconciliation on its own, nor was that ever the aim. It merely set the process in motion. One person cannot and could not overcome the challenges of apartheid, just as one single person could not in equal measures be father of the nation and father of his complex extended family. The memoirs under scrutiny here both attest to this and offer understanding for his impossible position, while, as already stated, from time to time being part of the voices that felt that Mandela had not done enough; perhaps he had for the nation, but not for his family. The interweaving and overlapping of these two enormous tasks are also discussed by Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2014: 918) in his tribute to Mandela: However, Mandela has also been heavily criticised for putting forward his own personal diplomacy, which backed up his formation as a global icon while neglecting the concrete transformation of South Africa. Even his divorcing of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is said to be linked with his desire to dissociate himself from anything and anyone who had the potential to dent his growing iconic stature.

Such comments reveal the difficulty, perhaps even impossibility, in reconciling the roles of father of the nation with regular fatherhood and marriage. The choice was Mandela’s own, but the way the apartheid regime treated him with the prolonged prison sentence, the harassment and imprisonment of his associates and family members, particularly Winnie

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Madikizela, were also part and parcel of making him the icon he was to become. The memoirs of Mandela’s grandchildren describe to various degrees the final years of Mandela and ultimately his death. Zoleka underwent treatment for breast cancer in 2013, the year he passed away. She writes about him being hospitalised and how she later went to see him at his house (pp. 216–217). She also reminisces about her relationship with him, a rare occurrence in her memoir which does not in any detail dwell on what it means to be related to Nelson Mandela, and how she felt he was disappointed in her (p. 218). Zoleka makes an explicit comment about her heritage when talking about getting involved with raising awareness about breast cancer after finishing her treatment: “My hope is that my story will touch lives. I hope that it shows that no matter what family you come from and no matter who you are, experiences like mine can happen to anyone” (p. 234). She returns to the importance of leaving a legacy behind when remembering a conversation she had with Mandela after the death of her daughter. He reminded her that such profound loss would help her give other people hope (Zoleka p.  260). Zoleka thus uses her own immensely difficult experiences, not only of breast cancer and losing two of her children but also of dealing with alcohol and drug abuse, to inspire others to carry on despite severe adversity. To that extent, her message remains inspirational and becomes a way to carry on the Mandela legacy, which is what Ndaba too aspires to in his memoir although his aims are more straightforwardly expressed. Ndaba ends his memoir with an Afterword about the passing of Mandela, reciting a speech he gave at the funeral in Qunu. The speech outlined Mandela’s life, the political struggle, and incarceration, his presidency and work not only for a better South Africa but also for a better world (pp. 240–244). Remembering Mandela in this way, through his life story and achievements, is the established story by now, as his remarkable life is such an inherent part of contemporary South Africa. The man and the legend are inseparable, despite the fact that the nation still faces immense difficulties in providing sustainable and decent lives for all its citizens. The message in Ndaba’s memoir is that through Mandela’s words of wisdom and his extraordinary life, anyone can find strength and that the importance is in working towards a common goal, a common good. Thus, the legacy of Mandela is here used, as in Zoleka’s memoir too, both for documenting personal experiences and private life away from the shadow of being a Mandela, but also to use that heritage to make sense of the joys

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and burdens of being a Mandela. This discrepancy, sometimes even amounting to conflict, is particularly visible in Ndileka’s writing. Ndileka explains how she took care of Mandela more or less full time from 2011 until he died two years later (p. 212). She states that they had planned the funeral for nine years prior to his death, and that this was inevitable due to the major international interest in Mandela and the commotion that would ensue after his passing (p.  135). The plans involved Ndileka being in charge of a guest list of a few thousand people (p. 136). Ndileka is open about the difficulties in caring for her grandfather and managing her family at the same time, explaining that this was her way of paying Black tax, a concept she does not quite agree with: “I felt duty bound to make the sacrifices I did, as it was something that had been done for thousands of years in African families—caring for your loved ones, especially the old and infirm” (p. 213). Ndileka asks “[w]hen did taking care of family become a burden?” (ibid.). This indicates privilege that the families of Wa Azania, Chauke, and Noah did not possess as the writers remain more critical towards the concept of Black tax. Ndileka’s ambivalent relationship to her heritage is a central theme throughout the memoir, and just as Zoleka presumed that Mandela was disappointed in her and the way her life had turned out, so does Ndileka too imply that Mandela was disappointed in her not becoming a doctor which was his preferred path for her. She talks about being a ‘pariah’ in the family for going against its wishes, how she could not “escape being in the shadow of my grandfather” (p. 239). The conflicted image of Nelson Mandela as patriarch and family father that emerges in the memoirs examined to some extent mirrors the controversy regarding his political legacy. To put so much faith in one man, so much expectation, was at the same time an inevitability and an impossibility. Mandela brought the nation together in a way that most likely no one else could have done at the time but being so exposed at the top also left him open for critique. The same can be said about his family as portrayed in the memoirs examined. Being such a famous public person placed Mandela firmly and permanently at the centre where his every decision would be scrutinised, also within his family. The disparate lives and desires of his many children and grandchildren have only been briefly discussed here, but the memoirs attest to the complexity not only of being a Mandela but of balancing between the private and the public and of finding a space in the midst of it in which one can belong. Each of the three grandchildren celebrate Mandela’s life in their writing while

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attempting to carve out a space for themselves. For Zoleka, this happens through the tragedy of her breast cancer diagnosis, for Ndaba through his work for better prospects for South Africans within his foundation Africa Rising, and for Ndileka, perhaps most complexly, through her asking to be seen as separate from her surname and in her attempt to rewrite family history.

7.5   Conclusion Absence defines several of the personal adversities outlined in the memoirs, and a continuity with regard to Nelson Mandela’s own life can here be detected. He was absent from active participation in politics for twenty-­ seven years as well as absent from his family. Ndileka, Zoleka, and Ndaba also all suffered from absences in their childhoods and adulthoods particularly with regard to their parents. Instead, they were raised and supported by other relatives and family members. Despite such strong family bonds that extend beyond mere parent–child connections, being a common occurrence in South Africa, the separations and absences also caused pain. Behind the façade of a wealthy, politically powerful family exist a multiplicity of truths that speak to the challenges of living life at least partly in the shadow of Mandela and in the public eye. While Mandela had twenty-­ seven years to prepare for his public life, as discussed for example by David Schalkwyk (2014), his family did not. Mandela emerged an elderly man from prison, but he also emerged a leader ready to take on responsibility for the nation’s future and for his family. While little is known about his private thoughts and feelings regarding, for example, the deaths of his children or the full impact of his prolonged incarceration apart from what has been disclosed in published texts, his grandchildren used public platforms to bring their stories forth. Part of Mandela’s image is the fact that he did not display his emotions in public, apart from discussing, for example, the death of his son Thembekile in brief in his autobiography. Airing his private tragedies would perhaps have made him more approachable but lessened his position as negotiator and leader. As Schalkwyk (2014: 66) argues, “Mandela’s stoic management of emotions […] was an ideal way of refusing the vicissitudes of fate and impositions from outside; it formed an indispensable platform for turning the enemy into a negotiating partner. But it also brought with it an immense loss of humanity”. It is precisely this loss that seems to be the

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source of some discontent in the memoirs of his grandchildren. Ndileka laments that Mandela always chose his country over his family, and this does not lessen the difficulties of his family members who by extension suffered in various ways from his fame and position. Being a Mandela becomes a burden and a blessing, and this ambivalence is present throughout the memoirs. It also mirrors the conflicted history that still looms large, and the ambivalent present in which no one seems to know exactly how to belong even in their own families, not to mention in which direction the nation should be headed.

Works Cited Ankomah, Baffour. 2010. The Mandela Many Have Never Seen. New African 498: 10–18. Barnard, Rita. 2014. Afterword. In The Cambridge Companion to Nelson Mandela, ed. R. Barnard, 291–294. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beresford, Alexander. 2014. Nelson Mandela and the Politics of South Africa’s Unfinished Liberation. Review of African Political Economy 41 (149): 297–305. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2014.883114. Boehmer, Elleke. 2019. Mandela and Beyond: Thinking New Possibility in the 21st Century. Journal of Southern African Studies 45 (6): 1173–1181. https:// doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2019.1697923. Chothia, Farouk. 2010. The Battle for Nelson Mandela’s Legacy. BBC, July 16, 2010. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-­africa-­10351550. Accessed November 9, 2020. Clark, Shelley, Cassandra Cotton, and Letícia J. Marteleto. 2015. Family Ties and Young Fathers’ Engagement in Cape Town, South Africa. Journal of Marriage and Family 77 (2): 575–589. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12179. Coburn, Cassie. 2014. When Hope Whispers. Lancet Oncology 15 (4): 385. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-­2045(14)70148-­2. Cropley, Ed. 2018. Winnie Mandela, Tarnished “Mother” of Post-apartheid South Africa. Reuters, April 2, 2018. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-­ safrica-­winniemandela/winnie-­mandela-­mother-­then-­mugger-­of-­new-­south-­ africa-­idUSKCN1H91A6. Accessed November 9, 2020. Davis, Steve. 2014. Struggle History and Self-help: The Parallel Lives of Nelson Mandela in Conventional Figurative Biography. African Studies 73 (2): 169–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2014.922272. Gabrielli, Giuseppe, Anna Paterno, and Sacco Pietro. 2018. Living Arrangements in Sub-Saharan Africa between Modernization and Ethnicity. African Population Studies 32 (2): 4260–4272. https://doi.org/10.11564/32-­2-­1206.

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Gebremedhin, Abrehet, and Devin Joshi. 2016. Social Justice and Human Rights in Education Policy Discourse: Assessing Nelson Mandela’s Legacy. Education as Change 20 (1): 172–198. https://doi.org/10.17159/1947-­9417/ 2016/899. General Household Survey. 2018. Statistics South Africa. Pretoria: South Africa. Green, S., V.Y.  Kong, J.  Odendaal, B.  Satories, D.L.  Clarke, P.  Brysiewicz, J.L.  Bruce, G.L.  Laing, and W.  Bekker. 2017. The Effect of HIV Status on Clinical Outcomes of Surgical Sepsis in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. South African Medical Journal 107 (8): 702–705. https://doi.org/10.7196/ SAMJ.2017.v107i8.12045. Hassim, Shireen. 2019. The Impossible Contract: The Political and Private Marriage of Nelson and Winnie Mandela. Journal of Southern African Studies 45 (6): 1151–1171. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2019.1697137. Hawes, Anna. 2013. Mandela Family Given Free Legal Aid in Fight Over Graveyard. The Telegraph, July 21, 2013. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/nelson-­mandela/10194052/Mandela-­family-­given-­free-­legal-­aid-­ in-­fight-­over-­graveyard.html. Accessed November 9, 2020. Holborn, Lucy, and Gail Eddy. 2011. First Steps to Healing the South African Family. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations. Jansen, Ena. 2019. Like Family: Domestic Workers in South African History and Literature. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Krog, Antjie. 1999 [1998]. Country of My Skull. London: Vintage. Maithufi, Sope. 2018. Nelson Mandela: The Ripple Effect. Third World Quarterly 39 (9): 1848–1859. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2018.1438183. Mandela, Nelson. 1994. Long Walk to Freedom. London: Abacus. Mandela, Zoleka. 2019 [2013]. When Hope Whispers. Auckland Park: Jacana. Mandela, Ndaba. 2018. 11 Life Lessons from Nelson Mandela. London: Windmill Books. Mandela, Ndileka. 2019. I am Ndileka: More than My Surname. Auckland Park: Jacana. Mandela Burial Site Legal Battle. 2013. Express, June 28, 2013. https://www. express.co.uk/news/world/410996/Mandela-­b urial-­s ite-­l egal-­b attle. Accessed October 20, 2020. Mpofu, Busani, and Sabelo J.  Ndlovu-Gatsheni. 2018. Nelson Mandela’s Changing Idea of South Africa. Critical African Studies 10 (2): 173–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2018.1470018. Nagesh, Ashitha. 2016. Mandela’s Granddaughter Instagrams Fights Against Breast Cancer. Metro, August 19, 2016. https://metro.co.uk/2016/08/19/ mandelas-­granddaughter-­instagrams-­fight-­against-­breast-­cancer-­6077918/. Accessed November 10, 2020. Nelson Mandela’s family tree. New African 585: 20–21.

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Nelson Mandela family tree. BBC, December 5, 2013. ­https://www.bbc.com/ news/world-africa-23083138. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. 2014. From a “Terrorist” to Global Icon: A Critical Decolonial Ethical Tribute to Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela of South Africa. Third World Quarterly 35 (6): 905–921. https://doi.org/10.1080/0143659 7.2014.907703. Ngwane, Zolani. 2014. Mandela and Tradition. In The Cambridge Companion to Nelson Mandela, ed. Rita Barnard, 115–133. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nuttall, Sarah, and Achille Mbembe. 2014. Mandela’s Mortality. In The Cambridge Companion to Nelson Mandela, ed. Rita Barnard, 267–289. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rayne, Sarah, Kathryn Schnippel, Carol Benn, Deirdre Kruger, Kathryne Wright, and Cynthia Firnhaber. 2018. The Effect of Access to Information on Beliefs Surrounding Breast Cancer in South Africa. Journal of Cancer Education 33 (4): 806–813. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-­017-­1234-­3. Rwafa, Urther. 2017. Theorising Mandela. Journal of Literary Studies 33 (4): 90–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2017.1403726. Schalkwyk, David. 2014. Mandela, the Emotions, and the Lessons of Prison. In The Cambridge Companion to Nelson Mandela, ed. Rita Barnard, 50–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sewpaul, Vishantie. 2016. Politics with Soul: Social Work and the Legacy of Nelson Mandela. International Social Work 59 (6): 697–708. https://doi. org/10.1177/0020872815594226. Smith, Julia Llewellyn. 2013. Zindzi Mandela Interview: The Father I Knew. The Telegraph, December 15, 2013. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nelson-­mandela/10513991/Zindzi-­Mandela-­interview-­the-­father-­I-­ knew.html. Accessed November 9, 2020. South Africa’s Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Fails to Inherit Home. 2016. BBC, April 7, 2016. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-­africa-­35960280. Accessed August 5, 2020. Suttner, Raymond. 2014. Nelson Mandela’s Masculinities. African Identities 12 (3–4): 342–356. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725843.2015.1009623. Tutu, Desmond. 1999. No Future Without Forgiveness. London: Rider.

CHAPTER 8

Making Autobiographical Concessions to the Past

The memoirs examined in this study present a more or less disillusioned outlook on contemporary South Africa as a somewhat dystopian reality. The difficulties in feeling fully at home have been extensively discussed from a variety of perspectives, drawing on critical perspectives of socio-­ political topics in research as well. Such recurring, persistently negative approaches to South Africa have been criticised, for example, by Jonathan Crush, Abel Chikanda, and Wade Pendleton (2012: 927) in their article on the medical brain drain of South Africa and its consequences: “As we show, at the heart of these narratives is a dystopic set of images that show nothing of value and nothing praiseworthy in post-apartheid South Africa”. The present book undoubtedly adds to these dystopic narratives through its analysis of personal memoirs of South Africans who have lived in and experienced the nation as citizens throughout their lives, or for whom South Africa is the country of origin. Remembering Elleke Boehmer’s reflection on the persistent focus on negative aspects of South African life; the addiction to “the adrenalin of crisis management, even to the compulsive contemplation of pain and yet more pain” (2012: 30) is also relevant here, as this book certainly draws more on pain than it envisions hopeful futures. This book has attempted fair and equal treatment of all writers and memoirs involved, with respect to their circumstances and the experiences they narrate. The memoirs have guided the analysis, being brought © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Englund, South African Autobiography as Subjective History, African Histories and Modernities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83232-2_8

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together through particular topics that reappear in most of the texts. None of the writers examined express any desire to return to an apartheid-era South Africa, and none of them argue that apartheid is to blame for all of the nation’s current challenges. This study has attempted to move beyond such dichotomies, remembering Leon de Kock’s (2016) words about ‘bad’ and ‘good’ times. The post-apartheid present in South Africa is neither good nor bad, and applying such simplistic adjectives does not allow for the multitude of experiences and lives, as presented in the memoirs examined, to come forth. Narratives come to define the nation, as is the case with all nations, and many of them are related to the idea of a rainbow nation, to reconciliation, perpetual violence and crime, disadvantage and dispossession, persistent racism, and so on. Even though all of these concepts have been addressed in the material in this study from a largely negative and disillusioned perspective, all writers also point towards future directions that may in small ways change the course of the nation. For example, Malepe and Wa Azania speak of the importance of documenting not only personal history but also family history, highlighting the need for representation that goes beyond the self. Hope and Gevisser negotiate their place in the nation while also looking further, trying to understand the underlying causes of and reactions to socio-political protest or serious crime. The Mandela grandchildren present novel perspectives on the life of Nelson Mandela himself, reminding readers about the fact that not only is the personal political, but the political can also be deeply personal. Perhaps South Africa needs even more potent narratives and illusion, something that can act as a positive self-fulfilling prophecy and counteract the racism, poverty, and mutual suspicion. Maybe the nation’s future lies not in more efforts to reconcile with the past and with uncovering what really happened and who suffered the most, but with placing more emphasis on the persisting inequalities from as many perspectives as possible. As Chapman (2017) argued, speaking openly about the realities in which people live their everyday lives is of utmost importance if the actual problems are to be properly addressed. Memoir is a most excellent medium for such undertaking through its close connection to history and its often narrow focus on particular periods or events. The present is still rooted in the apartheid past, inevitably so and will possibly always be, but shifting focus to more contemporary problems is suggested as a way forward by the texts examined.

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Portraying South Africa as mired in failures and disappointments as several memoirs examined here have done indicates that such writing could be a necessary phase after the initial hopefulness and euphoria after the end of apartheid, related to the mourning phase that was not given enough time and space as the nation needed to be rebuilt and move forward. The efforts of Mandela, De Klerk, Tutu, and their contemporaries are unparalleled also from an international perspective, and any leaders since are bound to appear like diluted versions in comparison. The troubles South Africa is facing today are not unlike problems in other locations, albeit more pronounced to some extent. Crime, poverty, and lack of prospects are not unique challenges, nor do they form the kind of easily identifiable and defined adversary as, for example, apartheid did. The memoirs examined do not speak to an obsession with the past, but to the desire to comprehend the conditions and realities within which people live today. Instead of seeing the texts as just another step on the way in some unfinished transitional process, they should be seen as the process itself. Just as the work of the Commission included compromise as the motor that set the process into motion, so does the autobiographical writing in focus here. Living with the past in any nation will always require certain concessions in the present; an understanding of what it takes to carry it into the future. The origins of the Anglo-American misery memoir of traumatic childhood, severe abuse and neglect, or later narratives of terminal illness or divorce, have transformed and taken on new shapes and forms in contemporary South African autobiographical writing. These notions are still present in the confessional and testimonial modes of writing as analysed here too, and many of the writers build their narratives around deeply tragic and difficult personal experiences. They also seem to suggest collectively that suffering may be an inherent part of being South African due to its past and, more importantly, that sacrifice and compromise are expected and required. The memoirs do not as much present a struggle for personal redemption or seeking public recognition in terms of tragic personal experiences, but engage in negotiation of where and how one can find a place in South Africa, of how to belong. Their writing indicates that it may not be possible to be South African without having to make certain sacrifices, some concessions that enable living on as part of the nation. These concessions have to do with safety and the risk of becoming victim of a crime, as discussed by Msimang, Bloom, and Gevisser, or they may be connected with access to proper education as outlined by Wa Azania,

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Noah, and Chauke. As Ashlee Polatinsky (2009: 107) argues in connection to Bloom and his writing about xenophobia, there is a way in which the book suggests that these inhabitants have a claim on South Africa because they too have their stories of horror at this country’s hands. They too live in the suspense in which we all live, although perhaps more vulnerably so. An experience or expectation of woundedness because of living here becomes a curious qualification for citizenship of the national narrative.

Woundedness, sacrifice, and suffering all converge in complex ways in the memoirs examined, and at the core of these experiences are the concessions and admissions made, for example, by Tony and Claudia who Bloom interviewed. They decided to stay after all, despite the poor treatment they had received and the prejudice they had faced. In the words of Tony, “[W]e must accept. That is all” (Bloom 2009: 148). Concessions were made also by Mandela’s grandchildren, who found themselves in the public eye whether they liked to or not, having to build their lives and identities in the shadow of Mandela’s achievements and sacrifices, and likely also in the shadow of sometimes harsh critique against his policies and the independence negotiations. Tutu, too, had to accept the limitations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the marginal participation of White citizens, and he returns several times to these issues in his memoir. In fighting the norm of whiteness in her essay collection, Dawjee attempts to make an end to concessions and sacrifice and to claim her voice, but Morake through her experiences at Jacaranda FM shows that reality is deeply complex in terms of who gets to speak and on what topics. For Hope and Malepe, both belonging to an older generation who left South Africa to pursue careers and education elsewhere but returned to reconnect with the nation, concessions are concerned with the past and how to relate to it. Malepe repeats to herself several times, when confronted with particularly painful memories from the past, that the past is over and she need not hurt anymore. The compensation for appropriated land is a concession in itself, an admission of unjust practice and an attempt for redress, expecting those wronged to accept the reparations even though what happened can obviously never be adequately compensated for. Malepe’s concessions to the past also involve having to live with the knowledge that her parents and grandmother did not live to see the day of compensation being paid.

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Hope, on the other hand, is mostly concerned with the place of Whites and the lack of concessions on all sides. The removal of statues is to him a futile act, although he acknowledges their symbolic value. Such protests and actions, including the burning of paintings of White artists in university halls, are also concessions for their part. Hope argues that the actual issue cannot be addressed, and therefore memorials and monuments come to stand in for targeted actions and anger that has no proper outlet. To be South African in the contemporary moment thus seems to include making sacrifices and compromise, releasing pent up anger on inanimate objects that in themselves are not responsible for the past even if they come to represent it. From an outside perspective, the open armed conflict that never manifested in the early post-apartheid era should not, cannot, be seen as a shortcoming of the past but must instead be seen as one of the nation’s greatest successes; a concession in itself. Instead of the memoirs here being termed confessional, as defined by Coward (2013), I therefore suggest that they be called concessional. South Africa as a nation constitutes a compromise itself, perhaps more so than being built on narratives or illusions connected to the past. It is not a compromise easily made for any citizen as outlined in the memoirs. However, all memoirs analysed here attest to the importance of making concessions and compromise, of admitting failures and wrongdoings, and this is suggested as the only viable step forward. A compromise rarely wholly satisfies any party, but the alternative such as armed conflict seems far more unsatisfactory and dire and would undo all the painstaking work and progress made. That does not mean that present challenges and problems need not be addressed, and the texts examined also suggest a number of ways forward, such as documenting the experiences of those no longer around or able to speak with their own voices, and more actions in terms of equity and equal prospects. Thus, while moving in the realms of the disillusioned, this study may attempt to produce a tentative silver lining in its conclusion, despite its dystopian outlook. The concessional memoir as analysed in this study emerges as a deeply personal yet profoundly politically and socially aware piece of writing which addresses the challenges of living in South Africa, of being of it and from it to varying degrees. The illusions of South Africa, the many controversies and contested versions of the past, present, and future of the nation should perhaps not be seen as simply negative or harmful, but as concessions in their own right. Debating the challenges of the nation, its many forms of inequality, poverty, and disadvantage, also

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requires making concessions. The past is still to be reckoned with (few national pasts are ever pain-free and it is not a solely South African phenomenon, which also invites further research in other contexts), while the nation’s people have not yet found ways to bridge rifts and divides between different groups. Prosperity is not available for all, nor is feeling comfortable in your skin and your chosen group always granted. In fact, the memoirs testify to the fact that more often than not, it is not granted. Still, the most urgent message of all texts examined here is that while reconciliation may be a utopian ideal; one which was perhaps never even meant to materialize in such a short space of time, conceding to the realities of South Africa shows strength and perseverance in the face of adversity. South Africa as represented and portrayed in the memoirs comes to be a place not only of strife and division but most importantly of compromise. Writing memoir, too, is an act of concession with regard to inclusions and omissions, when some people are, for example, renamed to keep them protected while others are more exposed, but in the words of Sisonke Msimang (2017: 346), “writing is space; it takes up space, it creates space, it gives me space”. Therefore, it is no coincidence that autobiographical writing has been the preferred medium for so many writers and continues to be a genre of writing that deserves attention as all writers examined have created space for themselves through their memoirs. They have found their voice and allowed space for the voices of others in their attempts to write self and nation. Thus, autobiographical writing can provide space and build communities in fraught circumstances, even to the point of being an expression of solidarity, even if cannot offer belonging in any simple terms. The memoirs in this study have provided space for writers to redefine themselves, their place, and their past. That place, while entrenched in the difficult realities of South Africa, still becomes something of a safe haven in which uncertain futures can be renegotiated. Conceding to the past may not be only a negative thing. On the contrary, it may be necessary in order to release the present from some of the power of the past. The creative imagination, in fiction as well as nonfiction, but particularly in South African autobiographical writing, appears to provide freedom to rewrite history. Such writing also creates unique possibilities to continue the process of transformation and reconciliation.

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Works Cited Bloom, Kevin. 2009. Ways of Staying. London: Portobello Books. Boehmer, Elleke. 2012. Permanent Risk—When Crisis Defines a Nation’s Writing. In Trauma, Memory, and Narrative in the Contemporary South African Novel—Essays, ed. Ewald Mengel and Michela Borzaga, 29–46. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Chapman, Michael. 2017. “Them” and “Us”: Politics, Poetry and the Public Voice. In Living Together, Living Apart? Social Cohesion in a Future South Africa, ed. Christopher Ballantine, Michael Chapman, Kira Erwin, and Gerhard Maré, 88–100. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZuluNatal Press. Chauke, Clinton. 2018. Born in Chains: The Diary of an Angry ‘Born-Free’. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers. Coward, Rosalind. 2013. Speaking Personally: The Rise of Subjective and Confessional Journalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Crush, Jonathan, Abel Chikanda, and Wade Pendleton. 2012. The Disengagement of the South African Medical Diaspora in Canada. Journal of Southern African Studies 38 (4): 927–949. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2012.741811. Dawjee, Haji Mohamed. 2018. Sorry, Not Sorry: Experiences of a Brown Woman in a White South Africa. Cape Town: Penguin Books. de Kock, Leon. 2016. Losing the Plot: Crime, Reality and Fiction in Postapartheid South African Writing. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Gevisser, Mark. 2014. Lost and Found in Johannesburg: A Memoir. London: Granta Books. Hope, Christopher. 2019. The Café de Move-On Blues: In Search of the New South Africa. London: Atlantic Books. Malepe, Lesego. 2018. Reclaiming Home: Diary of a Journey Through Post-­ Apartheid South Africa. Berkeley: She Writes Press. Mandela, Zoleka. 2013. When Hope Whispers. Auckland Park: Jacana. Mandela, Ndaba. 2018. 11 Life Lessons from Nelson Mandela. London: Windmill Books. Mandela, Ndileka. 2019. I am Ndileka: More than My Surname. Auckland Park: Jacana. Morake, Tumi. 2018. And Then Mama Said…: Words that Set My Life Alight. Cape Town: Penguin Books. Msimang, Sisonke. 2017. Always Another Country. New  York, London: World Editions. Noah, Trevor. 2017. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. London: John Murray.

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Polatinsky, Ashlee. 2009. Between Suspense and Inevitability: Kevin Bloom’s Ways of Staying. English Studies in Africa 52 (1): 102–110. https://doi. org/10.1080/00138390903172575. Tutu, Desmond. 1999. No Future Without Forgiveness. London: Rider. Wa Azania, Malaika. 2018 [2014]. Memoirs of a Born Free: Reflections on the New South Africa by a Member of the Post-Apartheid Generation. New  York: New Stories Press.

Index

A African National Congress (ANC), 7, 61, 65, 77, 79, 88, 93, 96–99, 132, 181 Apartheid, 1–6, 8, 9, 12, 19–29, 32, 34, 36, 38, 48, 50, 51, 53, 55, 58–61, 63, 64, 66–69, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 82, 84, 85, 87, 88, 94–98, 100, 105, 106, 110, 111, 114, 125, 128, 130–133, 140, 142, 143, 146–150, 152, 154–156, 158, 160, 164, 165, 168, 169, 175, 176, 179, 185, 186, 191, 193, 194, 196, 203–205, 207 Autobiographical writing, 1, 3, 9, 17, 19, 20, 22, 26, 28, 30–32, 48, 71, 77, 78, 94, 106, 109, 111, 112, 141, 148, 169, 205, 208 See also Memoir

B BCCSA (Broadcasting Complaint Commission of South Africa), 57, 59 Belonging, 2, 8, 10, 11, 17, 19, 24, 32–34, 36–38, 45, 46, 48, 49, 51, 55, 61, 62, 65, 70, 77, 81–83, 85, 88, 91, 95, 99, 100, 105, 109, 111, 113, 114, 116, 120, 121, 124, 127, 131, 134, 147, 155, 160–164, 167, 193, 206, 208 Beukes, Lauren, 5, 118 Black tax, 12, 76, 89–93, 124, 198 Bloom, Kevin, 12, 20, 21, 24, 33, 85, 105–135, 205, 206 Ways of Staying, 21, 105–135

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Englund, South African Autobiography as Subjective History, African Histories and Modernities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83232-2

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INDEX

C Cameron, Edwin, 97 Chauke, Clinton, 12, 33, 49, 77, 83, 93, 105–135, 140, 142, 148, 154, 156, 158, 160, 161, 167, 169, 198, 206 Born in Chains, 93, 105–135 Commission, 2, 4, 5, 9, 22, 29, 126, 140, 142–151, 153, 158, 162, 169, 170, 205 See also Truth and Reconciliation Commission Confession, 20, 126 COVID-19, 7, 8, 61 Crime, 105, 113, 205 home invasion, 24, 108, 117, 124, 125, 134 home robbery, 106, 108, 119, 122 rape, 97, 114, 119, 120, 122, 124 sexual assault, 119 D Dawjee, Haji Mohamed, 12, 49, 50, 139–170, 206 Sorry, not Sorry, 140 Disillusionment, 5, 6, 26, 47, 75, 81, 89, 97, 100, 117, 139, 151 E Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), 7, 91, 94, 97, 98, 156 See also Malema, Julius EFF, see Economic Freedom Fighters Elite, 61, 64–66, 68, 94, 97, 117, 187 F Fees Must Fall, 53, 89 Foucault, Michel, 36 heterotopia, 36, 37

G Gevisser, Mark, 12, 20, 21, 24, 29, 105–135, 204, 205 Lost and Found in Johannesburg, 105–135 Gray, Glenda, 7, 61 Group membership, 34, 58, 81–83, 85, 100, 111, 131 H Hope, Christopher, 11, 20, 21, 24, 29, 45–71, 95, 161, 164, 204, 206, 207 The Café de Move-on Blues, 45–71 A Separate Development, 48 White Boy Running, 48 K Krog, Antjie, 23, 24, 125, 142, 143, 185 M Madikizela-Mandela, Winnie, 177, 183–186, 188, 190, 196 Malan, Rian, 19, 97, 116, 117, 164 The Lion Sleeps Tonight, 97 My Traitor’s Heart, 19, 164 Malema, Julius, 7, 96–98 See also Economic Freedom Fighters Malepe, Lesego, 12, 24, 33, 47, 94, 139–170, 204, 206 Reclaiming Home, 139–170 Mandela, Mandla, 180–183 Mandela, Ndaba, 13, 175–200 11 Life Lessons from Nelson Mandela, 177 Mandela, Ndileka, 13, 33, 175–200 I am Ndileka-More than My Surname, 178

 INDEX 

Mandela, Nelson, 2, 5, 6, 10, 13, 22, 25, 47, 48, 50, 53, 63, 76, 96, 143, 146, 152, 175–200, 204–206 Long Walk to Freedom, 177, 178 Mandela, Thembekile, 181, 187, 188, 199 Mandela, Zenani, 189, 190 Mandela, Zindzi, 183 Mandela, Zoleka, 13, 175–200 When Hope Whispers, 179, 180 Mase, Evelyn, 177, 181, 188, 189 Mbeki, Thabo, 2, 6, 7, 66, 96, 132, 192 Mbembe, Achille, 129, 132, 182, 195 Mda, Zakes, 5, 31 Memoir, 1, 3, 4, 9, 11–13, 17–19, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28, 33–35, 45–48, 50, 51, 53–55, 57, 59, 60, 62, 66, 76, 78, 79, 82, 85, 86, 88–95, 97, 99, 100, 106–108, 110, 111, 113, 115–117, 119, 122–126, 129, 130, 132–135, 140–143, 146, 147, 149–152, 154–156, 158–161, 163, 164, 169, 170, 177–184, 187–192, 194, 195, 197, 198, 205–208 See also Autobiographical writing Mhlongo, Niq, 5 Middle class, 64, 65, 89, 91 Morake, Tumi, 11, 33, 45–71, 169, 206 And then Mama Said…, 45–71 Msimang, Sisonke, 11, 20, 29, 33, 35, 45–71, 91, 123, 124, 134, 148, 161, 205, 208 Always Another Country, 45–71 N Noah, Trevor, 11, 33–35, 60, 75–100, 114, 115, 130, 198, 206 Born a Crime, 35, 75–100

213

P Private security, 114–118, 122, 124, 125 gated communities, 114, 115 R Race, 5–7, 9, 11, 17, 22, 23, 30–36, 46, 51, 53, 57, 59, 60, 62, 68, 70, 75, 77, 79, 80, 84, 87, 91–93, 100, 107, 114, 128, 131, 134, 139, 141, 153, 155, 156, 160, 163, 166, 176 See also Racism Racism, 49, 61, 78, 81, 83, 85, 90, 91, 110, 126, 130, 132, 148, 160, 204 See also Race Ramaphosa, Cyril, 6, 7, 35 Reconciliation, 5, 8–10, 12, 22, 24, 36, 48, 53, 59, 83, 96, 131, 140–142, 144–148, 150, 152–154, 157, 158, 160, 161, 165, 167–170, 175, 176, 179, 185, 193, 194, 204, 208 Rhodes, Cecil, 50–54 S Statues, 5, 50–55, 58–60, 69, 152, 207 T TRC, see Truth and Reconciliation Commission Tribalism, 82, 84 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), 2, 4–6, 8, 9, 12, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29, 36, 38, 49, 126, 140–144, 148–150, 152–154, 161, 169, 185, 193, 194, 206 See also Commission

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INDEX

Tutu, Desmond, 1, 12, 20, 22, 24, 133, 139–170, 176, 185, 193, 205, 206 No Future without Forgiveness, 139–170 U Ubuntu, 142, 152, 153, 169 V Violence, 12, 22, 31, 32, 56, 67, 95, 100, 105–135, 149, 152, 153, 175, 185, 204

W Wa Azania, Malaika, 11, 33, 49, 75–100, 106, 115, 118, 123, 140, 148, 154, 156, 158, 160, 169, 198, 204, 205 Memoirs of a Born Free, 75–100 X Xenophobia, 10, 12, 33, 106, 112, 114, 126–130, 132–134, 149, 206 Z Zuma, Jacob, 2, 6, 7, 85, 97, 132