Black Antigone and Gay Oedipus: Postcolonial Dramatic Legacies in the New South Africa

Abstract

Black Antigone and Gay Oedipus: Postcolonial Dramatic Legacies in theNew South Africa MARIANNE McDONALD c V^olonizers have used many tools to subdue the countries they occupied, and one of themost powerful has been the "civilizing" culture they imposed. The natives, though, often turned these tools into weapons to oppose their occupiers by beating their "masters" at their own games and reassert their own rights and values. This applied to the classics also, and to Greek tragedy in particular. Here we shall concentrate on three examples drawn from South Africa, but first two digressions. One obvious example of tool-turned-weapon is cricket.1 England exported cricket to assert its supremacy with rules and decorum and establish the superiority of the occupiers over the colonized, so much so that "it's not cricket" came to mean "it's not fair."2 Soon the "natives" were appropri? ating the game and not only beating the English at it, but adding their own nuances?or what we could call their translations?such as their own rituals preceding the ac? tion. About twenty years ago, theWest Indies were tops in the world and they introduced Caribbean song and laughter to an otherwise stolid sport. In 1984, they beat England in five straight testmatches. They won theNatWest Trophy in a se? ries of three one-day games inJuly 2007. The year 2007 also featured the total defeat (5-0) of the English by the Aus? tralians in a test series, called appropriately theAshes?there is literally an urn with ashes of the bails set on firewhen England first lost toAustralia (March 15, 1877). ARION 17.1 SPRING/SUMMER 2OO9 26 BLACK ANTIGONE AND GAY OEDIPUS Rugby is another arena where colonials have fought back. It used to be a posh English game, but quickly picked up the international flavor of the countries where ithad been intro? duced. Ireland's rugby team defeated England 43-17 in Feb? ruary 2007 m Croke Park, the site of Bloody Sunday (November 21, 1920, when the occupying British killed fourteen players and spectators at a Gaelic football match). This rugby defeat was a civilized attempt to even the score. The Irish also have their own rugby anthem, "Ireland's Call," and The Irish Times reported of this game that the na? tional anthem and "Ireland's Call" "were belted out with such hair-raising intensity thatmen and women were crying as they sang" (Irish Times, February 26, 2007). The New Zealand All Blacks rugby team performs their haka dance before their games, and until recently theywere theworld champions. South Africa defeated England in the Rugby World Cup (October 23, 2007), and their team members are mainly Afrikaners (Boers). (The Afrikaners, too, have their own sports anthem, called "De la Rey," after a famous rev? olutionary leader.) They remember that the English intro? duced the concentration camp during the second Boer War (1899-1902) mainly forwomen and children, so that the Boers could not get supplies from their families after their homes had been destroyed by the British policy of scorched earth, poisoned wells, and salted earth (to prevent harvests). Over twenty-five percent of the Boers died because of the conditions, and over half were children under sixteen. In 2008, India held its inaugural 20 /20 cricket matches and attendees were all colonials, featuring the best players in the world today. 3This is a new mixed-team concept that may revolutionize cricket; for instance, Indians and Pakista? nis play side by side on the same team with Australians, New Zealanders, Sri Lankans, South Africans, Zimbab? weans, and West Indians. England had a schedule that pre? vented them from attending. Besides sports, colonized people have also used art as protest, and not only their native art, but also themodels in Marianne McDonald 27 troduced by their occupiers.4 The British, who occupied Ire? land for some eight hundred years in an attempt to bring the wild Irish to heel, outlawed the Irish language and imposed the King's English. In this instance, however, Latin and Greek were introduced to the populace by the outlawed hedge schoolmasters trained on the continent (France, Spain, and Italy). So, for instance, Hugh in...