Women, Activism and Apartheid South Africa: Using Play Texts to Document the Herstory of South Africa

There are seven main characters of which five are women: Sindiswa, Mia, Susan, Thenjiwe and Nicky. The other two characters, Glen and Zaccaria, represent males from very different socio-economic and political backgrounds. The character of Dumasani, a young boy, is referred to in the play. What makes the play especially significant is that of a cast of seven, five are women. Throughout the play the character of Glen, a spy for the apartheid government, reveals the manipulative and deceitful manner in which the members of the South African police force and political informers carried out their work. He forms relationships with people about whom he professes to care; however, his only concern is that they are able to provide information that will secure financial reward for his spying activities for the apartheid government. Born in the RSA offers the audience an interesting exchange of ideas and thoughts about the political, economic and social situation in apartheid South Africa. Through the exploration of narratives and improvisation a landscape of violence is thrown open. A landscape of violence, that is not only physical, but also psychological. The play presents a complex situation in which violence does not only come from one source but from various sources such as the government, the youth, the opposition parties, the comrades, the private domestic space, subversive activities and political organisations. Any opposition to government policies results in harsher and more extreme violence by the apartheid regime strengthening their oppressive forces.

Zandile is an autobiographical play about Mlophe’s childhood. It begins with her living with her Gogo (her grandmother) in Durban and then being forcefully removed to live with her mother, Lulama, in the Transkei. The play focuses on Zandile and her development as she becomes an adult woman as well as her awareness of the tensions between traditional and Western expectations, political conflicts and social pressures. Zandile, Gogo (Zandile’s grandmother), Lulama (Zandile’s mother), Bongi (Zandile’s imaginary friend) and Lindiwe (Zandile’s friend) are women whose lives are directly and indirectly affected by the rules of the apartheid regime. The play skews the emphasis away from the oppression of African men and provides a space for the women to tell their personal stories of struggle, identity, harassment, dreams, expectations and journeys. Throughout the play the men are mentioned, but are not seen. Zandile provides the reader with an insight into the lives of three generations of African women, and the impact of the political situation on their disparate reactions highlight the conflicting interpretations of the African woman’s role in theatre, at home, as an activist, and the woman’s duty – to her husband, family and the struggle.

So What’s New? is a play that centres on the lives of four female characters, Dee, her daughter Mercedes, Thandi and Pat. The play text provides a structural oppressive and gender specific framework exposing a social, political and economic background which demonstrates how African women used the informal sector in order to survive economically. It also provides a discussion about mothers and daughters and sexual activity. As the play progresses Mercedes talks to Thandi about the harm of selling illegal drugs to young people. The play centres on the impact of these relationships on the women and how they deal with their problems and fears. In this play African women’s experiences are not peripheral but are brought to the fore and celebrated with humour, pathos and admiration. Dike uses the play text to juxtapose two very different images of South Africa. One is the background of violence (perpetrated mainly by males) and the other is the lives of three women and one young girl centred round The Bold and The Beautiful, a soap opera (a feminine genre). Dike used the lives and stories of three women on which to base her play. All three women are independent and obsessed with the soap The Bold and The Beautiful. Dee’s daughter, Mercedes, is a schoolgirl who is politically aware and her boyfriend, Victor, is a political activist. These two characters provide the political background that underpins the fighting and the continuation of the struggle. By locating the play in a shebeen Dike is acknowledging the important role shebeens play in their communities.

During the apartheid era many women, such as Albertina Sisulu and Lilian Ngoyi to name only two, spent time in solitary confinement. Women were punished for taking part in political activities by being issued with banning orders or placed under house arrest. Women placed under banning orders were treated differently to men. At the Special Hearings which were organised by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) women were provided with an opportunity to talk about their experiences as women living under apartheid instead of talking about what had happened to someone in their family. The silencing of women continued even after the new government came to power. This is clearly illustrated in the negligible space allotted to the experiences of women’s oppression and human rights violations in the hearings before the TRC. My concern that an understanding and appreciation of the suffering, oppression, political activism and contribution by South African women during apartheid will be lost to future generations is shared by Annie Coombes’s statement in her book History After Apartheid: Visual Culture and Public Memory in a Democratic South Africa (2003).

The herstory of African women is one of sexualised forms of political violence which was used by the apartheid government to control women. African women were the ones who suffered the loss of sons, husbands, brothers and fathers, and who had to fend for themselves in the homelands or Bantustans. Ending women’s oppression was high on the agenda of the democratically elected government in 1994 and women’s groups lobbied consistently to ensure that gender equity was a priority. The violence in South Africa against women can be equated with a civil war on women’s bodies. There is saddening attitude of normalizing the violence committed against women and children. During the apartheid regime the dominant white group used violence to regulate the lives of African people and to remind them constantly of their subordinate status. This was not confined only to public and political spaces such as white and non-white signs on benches, beaches, shops and post offices but also penetrated private and domestic spaces. Black African men and women were subjected to conditions that perpetuated inequality, extreme disparities between the poor and the rich, violence in prisons and humiliating experiences of police harassment. Institutionalised racism led to feelings of inferiority and a lack of self-worth which contributed to acts to violence. The provision of a public space in which to voice women’s experiences of apartheid is essential as it is a contribution to a documentary record of the herstory of South Africa and to uncover the truth about the sacrifices that women have made. There is a crisis of violence against women – we need to seriously consider the dismantling of patriarchy. The concept of emancipation must involve societal transformation, women’s interests and gender interests in order to improve the status of women relative to that of men. The marginal role that women play in the occupational division of labour should be transformed to a central one. The struggle should now become a gender-conscious struggle for the new transformed South Africa.