South African writers in exile
south AFRICAN WRITERS IN EXILE
‘In the night, in my mind memories lurk, and words; images so sharp, they slash the eyeballs’
DENNIS BRUTUS
Fifteen years of enforced exile! The newspapers, the radio and television become the worst enemies. If the wound was ever to heal it would have been necessary first to shut the ear to the rumours of turbulence which constant-lyassault one about what is going on in the South of the South; but the newspapers, the radio and the television will not let us forget. Meneer Vorster appears on British television, hatted or unhatted, gentle or bellicose according to the occasion, sometimes so unctuous in his protestations of good intention I am tempted to forget his Nazi past or the many men and women who have been imprisoned and brutally tortured by his regime, let alone the number of writers and artists his Government has found it convenient to suppress and to nudge into exile.
To write one must contain one's rage. All the same, it is no easy matter. In the morning, listening to the radio, my eyes fasten on the map of Africa where the land narrows down into a sharp toe: South Africa! ‘Memories lurk... images so sharp, they slash the eyeballs.!’ And fumbling with the knobs I listen to South African diplomats defending the race policies of the regime. Apartheid? ‘Well, look, apartheid is our traditional policy which ensures separate but equal development of the races. Our non-white people are the happiest on the continent!’ What about Mandela, Sisulu, Kathrada and other leaders imprisoned for life on Robben Island? ‘Criminals!’ the man utters. ‘They were sentenced after due process of the law for terrorist activities!’ A writer must make sense of so much verbiage in which tyranny, like naked Adam, is clothed. Exiled, one sees one's duty as keeping alive the knowledge of South African tyranny and the 18,000,000 of its Black citizens who are its innocent victims. Literature must serve; for us its social function is paramount. A poem, a novel, a play, as an independent structure, self-possessed and self-regulating, referring to nothing outside of itself, is a preposterous mystery which we are happy to leave to our theoretical European friends!
In Southern Africa we are, frankly, at war. Away from the battlefield, the word, la parole, is the wapon: Vorster knows this. That is why over fifty of our writers are now silenced by the South African regime. Those who are openly opposed to its policies are now scattered throughout Africa, Europe and America; but even in their exile, still committed to change come what may, rumours of war reach them in their garrets. Vorster and ourselves are in contest over the Word: these novels, poems, and testimonials, which pour forth from the pens of our writers now living in exile provide the firmest bridge between the oppressed in South Africa, those shut off from the outside world, and men and women of goodwill who feel sentiments of solidarity with them. Just as Nazism and fascism which tried to overrun Europe was defeated we feel certain its counterpart will similarly be crushed in Southern Africa. When that happens the creative energy of our people will be fully released, and our literature will flower!
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