Baasie- Rosa encounter/ relationship in Nadine Gordimer's "Burger's Daughter"

 

Baasie is the black boy who briefly lived with the Burgers and whom Rosa had always considered as her brother. He was Rosa’s childhood playmate. In later part of the novel we find him a black exile in London. When Rosa proceeds to London from Paris in order to meet other revolutionaries in exile, in one of the parties she meets Baasie. However, Baasie pretends as though he does not know her well. Infuriated by Rosa’s easy reassertion of their childhood friendship, he insists on his new identity as Zwelinzima Vulindlela. He tells her that he is no longer her ‘Baasie’ (little boss). His real name, which Rosa never knew, is Zwelinzima which means ‘suffering land’. He attacks her for posing as different from other whites because of her political commitment.



Rosa is shocked to hear him speak against her father- Lionel Burger- who had done so much for him when he was a child. Zwelinzima’s argument is that though there were hundreds of black men, including his father who died in jail, the world is not concerned about them. People do not keep track of the black men who have died for their country. Instead, only white men like Lionel Burger get all the attention and their sacrifices are praised by everybody:

“Everyone in the world must be told what a great hero he was and how much he suffered for the blacks. .. Listen, there are dozens of our fathers sick and dying like dogs, kicked out of the locations when they can’t work any more. Getting old dying in prison. Killed in prison... ”

When she tells him that she had taken a fake pass to his father in the black underground before he was caught by the police, he retorts:

“Whites are locking up blacks every day. You want to make the big confession? . . .He was able to go back home and get caught because you took the pass there . . . But he’s dead, and what about all the others - who cares whose ‘fault’ - they die because it’s the whites killing them, black blood is the stuff to get rid of white shit.”
Under this barrage Rosa strikes back with insults of her own.

Baasie’s belief that she does not know him and that he does not “know who you are” is proved for him by the fact that “you didn’t even know my name. I don’t have to tell you what I’m doing”. His bitter conversation with her is an attempt not to point out or correct her misreading of him, but to insist that she has no right to any interpretation of him at all. He replies: “I don’t have to live in your head.”



This incident is shattering to Rosa. Baasie materialises before her eyes in London, is cold towards her and issues forth racism quite unfeelingly. He appears altered, but not in the sense of not being a child anymore. “In his ideological transformation from ‘Baasie’ to Zwelinzima Vulindlela, from youthful innocence to unthinking exclusivism,” as Lekan Oyegoke says, “he is diminished in stature” The experience with the grown Baasie comes as a rude shock to Rosa. The encounter in London with Zwelinzima jolts her into a new awareness. The experience brings her face to face with herself and her future. It redefines for her a sense of mission; it reshapes her will and sharpens her determination.

Baasie is the voice of the Black Consciousness movement. His words reflect the accusations made by the followers of Steve Biko that the white liberals should not expect any gratitude for what they have done for the liberation struggle.

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