Providing Context for Apartheid Literature

            Literature in South Africa is undeniably painted through with the effects of apartheid. Each novel we have read brings to light the depth and breadth of the atrocities and their effect on the South African people (a list of the books I’ve read so far can be found at the bottom of this post). Our literature professor understands the difficulty of reading such harrowing literature and provided added context for us by inviting a fellow professor to speak in class. The guest speaker, Janet Cherry, gave us a brief history and overview of the influence of activists and the unifying effects of music throughout the struggle.  Janet Cherry was a political activist during apartheid and in the years following. She was an underground member of the ANC as well as an active member/leader in the End Conscription Campaign, which worked to end the draft. The draft’s policy of only drafting white young men negatively affected ace relations through a compounding nature; young white men were recruited to police townships and suppress young black men, creating a cyclical pattern of violence. She was involved in this movement when she was arresting in 1986 during the famous State of Emergency that lasted three years. She described this arrest (there are many others) as particularly “funny”. She was warned that activists were being arrested and hid at a non-politically active friends house and when most of her friends were arrested at a meeting, she fled to Cape Town to her brother’s friend’s house. The security police who were sent to find her in Cape Town arrived at the house at 2 am. In her pajamas, she attempted to climb the fence in the backyard, only to be met by a security policeman. He asked who she was and she replied with a sassy “Who are you?” to which he replied that he knew she was Janet Cherry and she should promptly return to the house. The chase was over and she was taken back to Port Elizabeth and jailed at a prison for female political activists that I actually pass every time we drive to the Haven. The prison was given the name Rooi Hel meaning red hell for the horrors committed there. While Janet was not tortured, she was kept in solitary confinement for 2 months. After those two months, she still was quite secluded as the prison was segregated and she was the only white woman there at the time. She witnessed the torture of many women and one woman died due to lack of medication for her diabetes while she was in prison. One would think this would only produce negative effects in a person, but Janet still produced a positive outcome. During this stint in prison, she completed an honors degree and “even got out in time to write end of term exams”. During her next long imprisonment, she began her masters and she is now a professor of development studies at NMMU. Janet worked as a researcher for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). At one point a police officer applied for amnesty for throwing brick through the windscreen of her moving car, an action that could have easily killed her. Not only did she research for the commission, she was able to witness several public hearings, an experience that would touch any soul with the power of confession and reconciliation.  While we have studied the TRC in depth this semester, meeting someone who was a part of the process is gives added life to something we’ve encountered mostly through textbooks. Meeting a white political activist who crossed racial boundaries to join the struggle for an equal South Africa again forces me to realize how recent the struggle is and how close and real it still is today.  

**List of books so far: Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, No Future Without Frogiveness by Desmond Tutu, My Traitor’s Heart by Rian Milan, Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee, Triomf by Marlene Van Niekerk, and 13 Cents by K. Sello Duiker.