Surviving a Lost War

Abstract

IntroductionAt outset it is necessary to give some background information on language and literature. developed from interaction between Dutch colonisers and indigenous inhabitants of (the word Afrikaans literally means African). It became (with English) an official language in 1925, and since then a vibrant literature has developed. Although it is a minority language in South Africa-the mother tongue of about 15% of population of 45 million (Du Plessis 2001: 15)-it enjoyed a position of power while Afrikaners1 were dominating political scene. In 1948 Nationalist Party, a party which represented Afrikaner nationalism, came into power, and it ruled until 1994. Before 1948, writers generally felt some loyalty towards Afrikaners as underdogs who had suffered greatly under British imperialism. The situation changed with Afrikaners being in power, and writers did not feel same urge to support Afrikaner cause any more. In due course, a number of literary works with sharp social criticism against apartheid laws, promulgated by Afrikaner rulers, were published. It is impossible to discuss this critical involvement by authors in detail here; I will mention only a few seminal texts.One of first examples of above-mentioned social involvement is Ons die A/god 2 (1958), a novel by Jan Rabie which is caustic in its criticism of Afrikaner racism and selfishness. It is about a man who, being coloured3, is not allowed to buy a farm in country of his birth; he becomes increasingly disillusioned and ultimately dies in a tragic way. Kennis van die Aand4 (1973) by Andre P. Brink was first novel to be banned in South Africa. The hero of story is a coloured actor and producer who falls in love with a white woman - contravening so-called Immorality Act-and who uses theatre to protest against racial laws of country. After banning of book, Brink persisted in writing novels, simultaneously produced in and English, in which he vehemently criticised apartheid system-novels that earned him an international reputation. Other writers followed Brink's example to write books expressing strong political involvement. One of most remarkable of these is Die Swerfjare van Poppie Nongena (1978) by Eisa Joubert which is a semi-factual account of a black woman's suffering under country's discriminatory pass laws. poets also joined protests-the most famous being Breyten Breytenbach, who wrote bitter poems against promulgators of apartheid, and who received a jail sentence of nine years for his involvement in armed struggle of African National Congress (ANC).In 1994, with first fully democratic elections in South Africa, a South Africa emerged, and a new situation arose for language and literature. Firstly, writers did not feel obligation to protest against apartheid any more, since apartheid laws had been withdrawn. New themes had to be explored. Furthermore, lost its previous privileged position of power and became only one of eleven official languages-English absorbed most of functions previously shared by two official languages. authors are now on margin as far as numbers and power are concerned. literature, although still flowering, is in a much more vulnerable position, and academic publications have diminished dramatically (Galloway & Venter 2005).It looks like a gloomy picture for Afrikaans, but it is not completely so. Although literature does need economic and political support from centres of power, it is margin, and not centre, that is space for most intense creativity. Boundaries are the hottest spots for semioticizing processes Juri Lotman remarked (1990: 136). That is, indeed, position of literature at moment-even more than before, it has become a semiotic hot spot, a zone of transformation. …