Étiquette : apartheid

CRISES XENOPHOBES EN AFRIQUE DU SUD : AU DELA DU MECONTENTEMENT

Posted on by Desire GNOTO

Depuis le dimanche 1er septembre, le pays est en proie à de violentes manifestations xénophobes. Ces évènements malheureux ont déjà fait plus de 10 morts.  Les motifs de ce mécontentement sont pour le moins vagues : les étrangers sont pointés du doigt comme étant des « voleurs » de travail. [1]

C’est la troisième fois que le pays connaît des troubles à caractère xénophobe après ceux de 2008 et 2015.

Si la situation actuelle nous incite à faire le rapprochement avec les tensions raciales d’alors, causées par l’instauration d’un régime d’apartheid, elle présente tout de même des caractéristiques sociologiques hautement symboliques : des populations noires, en colère, qui s’attaquent à l’intégrité et aux intérêts de populations étrangères, pour la plupart venues d’Afrique subsaharienne ou du moyen orient.

Une très forte inégalité sociale

Ce contraste traduit une réalité sociale historique et politique mouvementée. En dépit du dynamisme économique et de nombreuses ressources minières qui font de l’Afrique du Sud la première puissance économique d’Afrique Australe[2], la situation sociale demeure mitigée. Le pays présente un taux de chômage de près de 27% et l’insécurité devient de plus en plus grandissante.  L’écart social entre les communautés blanches et noires est alarmant : le revenu des familles blanches reste 5 fois supérieur à celui des familles noires soit 35 739$ par an pour 7479 $ par an pour les noirs. 75% des fermes appartiennent toujours aux Blancs et 1 noir sur 20 décroche un diplôme d’études supérieures. 20% des foyers noirs vivent dans une extrême pauvreté contre seulement 2,9% des blancs. 47 % des sud-africains Noirs seraient concernés par le taux chômage contre 11,7% des blancs.[3]

Cette inégalité sociale est malheureusement l’un des héritages obscurs de la période post apartheid, et les événements actuels témoignent d’une exaspération, tout de même maladroite d’une communauté sans repère et obligée de s’en prendre aux populations étrangères, considérées à tort comme la cause de tous leurs malheurs.

Pourtant, l’explication à donner à cette soudaine poussée de violence nous amène à questionner l’histoire politique Sud-Africaine et revenir à la période de lutte contre l’apartheid.

La période d’Apartheid, germe des difficultés d’aujourd’hui

 Ce retour en arrière peut se scinder en deux périodes : la période des négociations pour la fin de l’apartheid, et la période post apartheid avec l’accession de l’ANC au pouvoir en 1994

La première période (1989-1990) que l’on qualifierait de période de négociation, fut caractérisée par une série de réformes politiques (autorisation des parties politiques interdits, libération de prisonniers politiques dont Nelson Mandela en vue d’aboutir à la fin du régime d’apartheid). Ces réformes ont été conduites par Frederik De KLERK, qui a succédé à P. W Botha, symbole du régime d’apartheid.

La seconde période (1990-1994) est celle qui, selon, nous aura atténué la lueur d’espoir portée en Nelson Mandela et ses compagnons. Cette période marque la réussite des négociations et débouche sur l’élection de Nelson Mandela en tant que premier président noir d’Afrique du Sud. Mais ces négociations vont cacher malheureusement des compromis qui s’avèreront lourds de conséquences. L’un des gestes forts de la période post apartheid est la formation d’un gouvernement d’union nationale. Ce gouvernement était constitué de toutes les forces politiques du pays dont L’ANC et l’ex parti au pouvoir, le National party. Derrière ce symbole d’unité nationale retrouvée et de réconciliation, se cache la sauvegarde de plusieurs intérêts économiques de la communauté blanche.

L’abrogation de certaines lois racistes (le land act qui réservait 87% du territoire aux blancs, le population registration act, pilier législatif de l’Apartheid) n’a pas été suivie d’actes concrets.[4]

Sur le plan économique, un fait majeur illustrera notre position. En juin 1996, le gouvernement va opérer un basculement avec la substitution du programme initial de l’ANC, le programme de reconstruction et de développement (le RDP), au profit d’un nouveau document programmatique présentant la nouvelle stratégie macro-économique adoptée par le gouvernement sud-africain. Ce texte sur la croissance, l’emploi et la redistribution marque l’abandon des options de développement et d’industrialisation se fondant sur la croissance de la demande intérieure au profit d’une perspective ouvertement néo-libérale, conforme aux stratégies de la Banque mondiale : dans ce nouveau cadre, l’objectif prioritaire de la croissance repose sur la bonne volonté des investisseurs qui doit être encouragée par la limitation des déficits publics, la baisse de la fiscalité pesant sur les entreprises, la limitation des hausses de salaire, la flexibilité du marché de l’emploi et l’accélération des privatisations.  Cette nouvelle orientation stratégique a eu inévitablement des effets négatifs sur l’emploi et n’a fait qu’aggraver l’inégalité raciale existante que le nouveau gouvernement avait du mal à éradiquer.[5]

En définitive, cette cohabitation a eu pour effet de transformer les enjeux initiaux portés par l’ANC. La vision de transformation complète de la société sud-africaine a cédé le pas à un ordre économique et social qui n’a été vidé de discrimination raciale que sur le plan institutionnel. Cette cogestion politique ainsi que la transformation des objectifs économiques n’ont fait que creuser le fossé existant entre les communautés. Les nombreux scandales de corruption qui gangrènent le paysage politique sud-africain actuel et la flambée du taux de criminalité sont sans surprise les fruits d’une période de marchandage politique permanent marquée par des concessions naïvement acceptées.

C’est donc un peuple sans repère qui s’en prend injustement aux investisseurs jadis accueillis à bras ouverts, sous le regard impuissant d’un gouvernement déjà débordé par des crises internes.

Loin de nous l’idée de remettre en cause les longues années de lutte acharnée pour la liberté, laquelle fut acquise parfois au prix du sang et de privations. Bien au contraire, le gouvernement Sud-africain devrait tâcher à engager de véritables réformes pour pallier ces inégalités aux conséquences désastreuses, et achever de la plus belle des manières le combat mené par le vieux Madiba.

Désiré Gnoto

[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2019/09/04/l-afrique-du-sud-en-proie-a-une-vague-de-violences_5506218_3212.html

[2] Source : Direction générale du trésor

[3] https://www.agenceecofin.com/hebdop3/0905-65984-revenus-education-foncier-tour-d-horizon-des-inegalites-entre-noirs-et-blancs-en-afrique-du-sud-25-ans-apres-l-apartheid

[4] https://www.jeuneafrique.com/66950/archives-thematique/fin-de-l-apartheid/

[5] Pour une analyse complète : Copans Jean, Meunier Roger, Introduction : les ambiguïtés de l’ère Mandela. In: Tiers-Monde, tome 40, n°159, 1999. Afrique du Sud : les débats de la transition. pp. 489-498

Kgebetli Moele: Room 207

Posted on by Lareus GANGOUEUS

kgebetliWhile writing this article, I realized that this book triggered within me, some sort of delight as well as questions. For some reasons, beyond me, I found that observing this breeding ground, situated at Van der Merwe road, somewhere in Hillbrow (the infamous neighborhood in Johannesburg, known as a place where violence is prevalent) fascinated me. This ill-reputed commuter town was also known as a city of dreams.

Room 207, a breeding ground

A group of six young black south-Africans, products of the post-apartheid period, live together in a dingy room in a building at Hillbrow. They occupy the room 207. They are mostly rejects of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. For most of them, this was a result of financial constraints. Intellectual resources were not enough to take them through this mastodon university that was supposed to help them touch the skies and destroy the glass ceiling of the South-African society.

At the beginning of the novel, the narrator describes the profiles of each room occupant. In truth, they are not all disenchanted students. They also represent the ethnic plurality of South-Africa. They are all black but are also Sotho. Pedi. Zulu. Tswana. However, none is Xhosa. This is an interesting point, as these individuals are not only a reincarnation of the people in power but servants of the economic power of the white.

It is important to note that this book was published in 2007 during Thabo Mbeki’s tenure as president.

Their cohabitation is a happy one. The god, Isando, watches over them during their consolatory episodes of binge drinking. Like all young educated people, the occupants of room 207 buildup a picture of South Africa without the sordid aspects of reality, without accusing her as a culprit in their lot in life.

Self-examination by the South African youth (still in search of themselves)

As I write this article, I find it surprising that, Kgebetli Moele  does not allow his whimsical and pleasure-seeking characters be saddled with mistakes of the past. This is however, not the case in Disgrace, the famous novel of Maxwell Coetzee, Nobel Prize winner for Literature. In Disgrace, the heaviness of the past is adequately felt and the fear of tomorrow resonates loudly.

In Moele’s Room 207, these former students question themselves on the condition of the Black Man (the one singular debate of the African continent), violence and his self-destruction.

There is no reason that can justify the action of men raping a 3-month old baby, shooting aimlessly at a wild crowd during a party and still leave the neighborhood to rot. At least, this is what they discuss without much illusion. It is at this point that Kgebetli Moele makes a great read and allows us relate individually with the lads occupying this room.

Insecurity and Comfort

At this stage, I must describe to you the personality of each of these characters: Modishi, Molamo, Matome, D’Nice, Zulu-Boy and the narrator Noko. Using different value systems, each of them searches for opportunities. With some form of subjectivity, the narrator transcribes these images as representatives of the fight for survival.

He describes the fierce battle, the constraining conditions through which they must go through. For example, they had to ensure they paid monthly installments to a money lender, who they had never laid eyes on but who had at his disposal, an army of slaves who helped him collect his payments. It is metaphoric. The factor of insecurity begins to appear.

The narrator also takes us by the hand, leading us through the town of Hillbrow. This town reminds me of a story that my best friend likwérékwéré* told me. He described it from his state of being a foreigner but of African descent, who almost lost his life on a side walk. Here we see that, Kgebetli Moele, narrates without mercy, the issue of Xenophobia, through the lips of Zulu-Boy.

I think that beyond the unattached style of the writer-which resonates through the discussion of these young men, the high point of the novel is the final exit from room 207. Their exit from comfort and then from Hillbrow-which most of them abhor. Kgebetli Moele succeeds in taking the reader to space where he is confronted by the terrifying reality of life.

In the same space, same breeding ground, some find their way and others perish. It is heart-breaking, touching …it is today’s South Africa…it is life. It is good literature.

Now, let us talk about the carnal relationship that exists between JoBurg, Hillbrow and its residents:

Welcome to Johannesburg. This time you really felt it. Your blood has been poured and mixed with its sands. You are now in perfect sync with the town. Your blood runs in its veins and it also runs in your blood.

Translated by Onyinyechi Ananaba

Room 207, Kgebetli Moele – published in 2007 by Kwela Books –Translated to French by David Koënig, in 2010, 269 pages


 

Bruce Clarke, a Political Painter

Posted on by Tabue Nguma

Bruce Clarke was not born in South Africa. His parents who were anti-apartheid activists were forced into exile in London. It was at the School of Fine Arts, University of Leeds, that Bruce Clarke discovered his love for the Arts and Languages in the 1980’s. Following in the path of the fathers of Conceptualism, he began painting against the painting, that is to say that he became involved in decorative painting. This led him to begin merging his love for plastic arts and his need to express his militant discourse.

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His unique technique gave birth to works of art that reflect a mix of different materials (newspapers, posters, lingual signs, paint splatter, etc.), which rub against, encounter and confront each other. At the same time, they all blend together expressing a new and different meaning. Clarke explains further, ‘‘on the canvas, words and colors, words and images mix up and metamorphose. Each fragment we find or choose has to be decontextualized before they can take up a new meaning- a meaning that may not be the same we beheld at first glance. A transfiguration takes place, a transformation in fact. In a way, I tear down to build-up again.’’

Above all, these elegant graphic compositions are tools for visual and mental deconstruction. They serve to opacify and as well enlighten the mind on contemporary history and on the genealogy of our representations of the African body and its corollary, Africa.

In our present age, where the idea of Contemporary art rhymes with the powers of financial capitalism, the words comitted artist have progressively emptied themselves of all meaning. For Bruce Clarke, the words political artist refer in a way to his work, which involves the exploration of the different forms of domination which were inflicted on and which are still being inflicted on him…on this infamous object: The African body. The African body that was banished and objectified by slavery, battered and beaten by the colonial regime, evicted and starved in the post-colonial era. It remained, all along, a desired body but also, a commodity.

Bruce Clarke has a structural vision of the world that shows the coercive force of the diverse forms of domination and their effects on the actual body and the represented image of the Black man.

Beyond his exploration of the political existence of these oppressed lives, Bruce Clarke communicates a silent message, which is absent but at the same time present. This message reaches out to us through uncompromising gazes, unexpressed rages, submissive but rebellious postures of these characters. Bruce Clarke is certainly one of the greatest stylists of the black body, revealing the intimate battles against the effects of predatory power.

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He uncovers the living conditions of the African body and at the same time he constructs some sort of biopolitical message which asks the question: under what material and psychological conditions has the Black Man been able to survive since the dawn of western modernity? His works are a representation of a life that struggles to exist. They are a representation of the wretched of the earth and as Sartre would put it, their tenacity to survive. Brutalized, flogged and oppressed on sugar cane fields, defeated and crushed in numerous resistance movements-where the spear met the gun, starved by bloodthirsty, cannibalistic tyrants who claimed to be brothers, the object of Clarke’s works-The African Body, shows that he rises above very death wish.

With every baneful situation, Clarke’s object- The African Body, shows his will to live.

Bruce Clarke carries on the legacy of his parents in his fight against Apartheid. This shows on the products of his canvas: the lines, shapes, colors, and signs and in his involvment in public action. He was one of the leaders of the project Art against Apartheid held in France. This project sponsored by numerous artists involves a travelling contemporary art exhibition. This will be the starting-point for the future South African post-Apartheid contemporary art museum.

After the democratisation of South Africa, Bruce Clarke became interested in the war in Rwanda especially in the first phases of genocide. After he made a post-genocide photo report, he decided to create a site close to Kigali called The Garden of Memories. A memorial stone sculpture, which was put up in collaboration with the war survivors who came to lay stones in memory of their loved ones.

In fact, Clarke’s different paintings show us their attachment to these bodies and the way they desperately cling to a promise held precious by every human being – a hope for a better life. The becoming of the black body is partly explained in the concept called Upright Men, which was presented at the 20th anniversary ceremony of the Rwandan genocide.

These men, women and children that were victims of the barbarism that stole the last hope that we had in human nature, are now made alive through the paintings of Bruce Clarke. The human is not far from the beast… Beautiful, poetic and political tributes have been given to these human beings (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, up to 1 000 000), who were victims of administrators who decided to separate the Tutsis as the better ethnic group and left the others to think themselves more savage than beasts. This continued till the 100 days of madness when even the Devil feared man.

For Clarke, “these shadows are silent but reincarnate witnesses, which give life to the dead. At the same time, they symbolize the dignity of human life, which was confronted by the mother of all crimes- the denial of the right to life to a whole group of people.

The objective is to publicize this historical event, which has been perceived as an African tragedy. Even so, it serves to remind humanity that in the 20th century, many other genocides took place despite the resolutions and discourse that came after the genocide of the Armenians and the Jews.”

Above this universal memorial for these victims (remembering their names, life paths, smiles and aspirations), Upright men represents all the Rwandans today who have to bear the brunt of this situation, that is, live all together after the war. In more precise words, it involves buying a shirt for someone who slit your mother’s throat after raping her, selling a phone to someone who joyfully butchered a child, riding the bus together, sitting with others in public offices and churches. They have to try to rebuild a life together that was destroyed, because life does not end because horrors begin. In real sense, living together (for all Rwandans- victims or perpetrators), despite all the carcasses around them, is a way of standing tall.

Nguma-300x196Such artistic work cannot be accomplished alone. It has to be done with other visual artists, Rwandans and Africans, so as to ensure the longevity of the idea of Upright Men. In so doing, it will be in itself a designated memorial, an intimate witness of this unspeakable event, which we must tell of.

 

The works of Bruce Clarke are an autopsy of the black body, who has been a receptor of the most extreme acts of domination (as a lab rat which has been tested to the extreme). Put side by side, these canvases unfold the long African history and open up a dark dialogue on these memories. These reincarnated beings are a constant reminder of the man-made malediction that hit the continent.

 Drowned in the darkness of enlightenment, the Black Man was taught to “tighten his belt, like a valiant man” [1], without ever tasting the fruit.

Bruce Clarke certainly shows the tragedy of the Black Man, but he also exposes the indomitable strength of one, who every day, courts the idea of death as an intrusive neighbor. In reality, no previous series of this artist has ever exposed such cruel optimism and as well, celebrated the idea of life with macabre signs.

[1] Notebook of a Return to Native Land/ Aimé Césaire. – Paris: Présence africaine, 1956

Tabué Nguma

Translated by : Onyinyechi Ananaba

Bruce Clarke Website: http://www.bruce-clarke.com/

The project Upright men: http://www.uprightmen.org/