Nadine Gordimer's "Burger's Daughter": a testimonial of the Apartheid reality in South Africa

 

Apartheid reality portrayal

 The term apartheid means an official policy of South Africa with a view to promoting and maintaining white ascendancy; the motive of which is to create an apartness between whites and blacks. Fuller recognises white supremacy in South Africa as functional racism. The races were divided according to the colour of one’s skin.

In Burger’s Daughter apartheid is referred to as one of the world’s dirtiest scams, as it deprives people (blacks) of their dignity and social mental well-being; propels the minority to false lofty heights, and makes them believe that they are better than the black race.



In Burger’s Daughter the stark difference between blacks and whites is shown in the type of dwelling areas where both groups reside. The white settlement is characterised by clean streets, good roads and excellent services in contrast to the black township that have dirty streets, old roads or dilapidated roads. On the same side of the divide, the area is characterised by a lot of littering.

The picture or the image that is portrayed is one of despair and desperation. Gordimer writes in the novel:  ‘‘How many months since I had crossed the divide that opens every time a black leaves a white and goes to his ‘place’; the physical divide of clean streets become rutted roads and city centres become veld dumped with twisted metal and a perpetual autumn of blowing paper”.

 

Most of the liberation movements in Southern Africa followed a communist approach, as they wanted everyone to benefit from the war because the state would oversee all forms of the economy. Most of the inhabitants accused the elites for enslaving them and subjecting them to all sorts of brutality, but this did not sit well with the elite of the time, as shown in Burger’s Daughter: “Communism, accusing the Afrikaner of enslaving blacks under franchise of God’s will, itself enslaved whites and yellows along with blacks in denial of God’s existence”. The blacks accused the dispensation of that time of using God’s name to infringe on their rights.

The elites were telling the blacks that they are the chosen rulers of all the land because it is stipulated in the Bible. The elite were also indirectly being enslaved by the actions they were undertaking against the blacks in denial of God’s existence. God created everyone in His image and for the whites to say that they are superior to the blacks is an insult to God and it is ridiculing him.


Anti-apartheid struggle

 In Burger’s Daughter, and in accordance with the Immorality Act, contact between the whites and blacks was prohibited. The older generations, especially the elite, practised this act to the letter. Contact between the two races was unheard of in the previous generations, and it was frowned upon, but that changed in the generation that followed. Lionel Burger did not submit to this Act. He was against the Immorality Act and had fearlessly made contact with black people. ‘‘He did not shrink from open contact with blacks as his father’s generation did, and he regarded the immorality act as the relic of antiquated libidinous backyard guilt about sex that out to be scrapped’’.

The detrimental effect of apartheid is exhibited in this conversation between friends of both races in Burger’s Daughter: “You say you want to free the blacks and ourselves of this government, and at the same time you expect people to ‘play the game’, be ‘decent’- Christ! Apartheid is the dirtiest social swindle the world has ever known-and you want to fight it according to the rules of patriotism and honesty and decency evolved for societies where everyone has something worth protecting from betrayal.”



The fight to liberate the oppressed was not an easy one because the rulers of the time did not ‘play the game’ fairly. The repressed needed to find another strategy to counteract the government of that time. That is why most of them went into the bush and to neighbouring countries to be trained in guerrilla warfare, so that they could ambush the enemy. Some of them went abroad to study military science and other fields in the hope that once the country is independent or free from oppression, they will be experts who will drive the economy forward.

Racial uprisings are presented in Burger’s Daughter include, all “the Dingaan’s Day demonstrations; all the passive resistance campaigns of the Fifties, the pass burnings of the Sixties; after all the police assaults, arrests, after Sharpeville; [and] after the trials…’’ There were a lot of passive resistance campaigns in the Fifties, and all the other forms of oppression against the black men did very little to deter the spirit of the suppressed, as they endured all the pain and tribulations. Rosa Burger was later jailed for her part in organising the youth that revolted against the government.

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