The Seeds of Wrath

yifei

The Seeds of Wrath

   The world knows a great deal about apartheid. It knows it as a repressive political system which denies political representation to 14,000,000 South Africans because they are not white; it knows it as a divisive social system which keeps people apart, dividing them on colour lines and punishing those who try to cross these lines. But the effects of apartheid in term of social behaviour and on cultural development are less well known.
   To understand the effects of apartheid it is necessary to think of the daily lives of the people and the ways in which their lives are regulated by apartheid.
   It means standing for hours in a bus-queue, because there are too few buses specially set aside for black people; it means having to pass theatres and swimming pools with no thought of ever entering them, because they are set aside for white people; and because the restrictions extend to the thoughts people think, and because the laws apply to both black and white, it means that all people in South Africa are denied the right to read certain books because the government believes them to be subversive of its apartheid society.
   Apartheid means that sportsmen like Basil D'Oliviera, Steve Makone, and Precious Mackenzie could never represent their own country because they were not white; that singers and actors like Miriam Makeba and Lionel Ngamane would be restricted because of their colour to appearing in certain places and before certain audiences - a coloured cast could perform Verdi's \"La Traviata\" but no nonwhites could attend a performance before the State President.
   The list of restrictions is endless - these are only a few small examples. But what they add up to is a division which breeds hostility. At sports events, if white and black are present, they support opposing sides and the result is friction - so much so that in many grounds only whites are allowed.
   It is illegal for white and black to play chess together. And whites who tried to play football in a team with black members were prosecuted.
   And in a society where these ugly barriers exist, it is better to pretend that they are not there. The result is that the writers and poets of white South Africa are incapable of producing any work which truthfully reflects their society; and so deep has this kind of blindness entered that no work of any real worth has been produced in South Africa for many years.
   Perhaps one might expect the writers among the blacks, in a situation full of tension and pain, to produce works which live. But for them apartheid presents another problem; to be frank is to be banned. And so writers like Alex la Guma were silenced by banning orders, or others, like Alfred Hutchinson and Bloke Modisane fled the country. For Nat Nakasa the pledge he was required to sign - to leave his country and never return proved too much; he committed suicide in New York.
   Even white writers - Andre Brink, for instance - who have dared to criticise, or appear to criticise, the apartheid society have suffered. Their works have been banned, or they have been savagely attacked by the official spokesmen of apartheid.
   The failure of writers to write, or of people to understand each other - all these are indications of the deeper evil; the failure of communication. But what is little understood by the outside world is that this is a failure legislated for. It is a failure which has been carefully designed.
   It is the intention of those who have constructed the apartheid society, and who intend that it should last forever, that those who make up the society should be prevented from communicating with each other. Black and white must be cut off from each other, must be unable to communicate. It is on this division that apartheid rests. This is the true meaning of apartheid. And it is this that inflicts the true terrible wound on South African society.
   But the real damage is in daily human relations. I have seen white children standing in one of the mixed buses rather than sit beside anyone who was not white and this seems to me so complete a rejection of another human person that it goes much further than the division and separation backed by law. From this kind of rejection comes a complete lack of any feeling of common humanity; the suffering of human being ceases to be real because he has ceased to be a real human being.
   This is the situation which has been created in South Africa today. The tensions are real, the threat of a violent eruption constant. And this must not be thought of simply as the product of political factors or arguments. It is a simple truth that human relations between people have deteriorated so far that dialogue, understanding, friendship - all these are impossible.
   This is the effect of apartheid in terms of the society - this is its all pervasive extent: it breeds, if it breeds anything, hostility: often the result is simply the bitter sterility which will bring about violence.


愤怒的种子

   世人对种族隔离了解甚多。知道它是一种镇压性政治制度，在这种制度下，1，400万南非人因为不是白人而被否认为政治代表；人们还知道它是一种使人们隔开的政治制度，它按肤色的界限把人们分开，并惩罚那些试图越过那些界限的人。但人们对种族隔离就社会行为而言造成的影响所知甚少。
   要理解种族隔离的影响，有必要思考一下人们的日常工作以及他们在种族隔离制度制约下的生活方式。
   这意味着站几个小时等车，因为黑人乘坐的汽车太少了；意味着在不得不经过剧场和游泳池时，却从没想到要进去，因为它们是给白人准备的；因为这些限制已经延伸到人们思维之中，因为法律适用于白人和黑人，它意味着所有南非人没有阅读某些书的权利，因为政府认为他们会对种族隔离政策起破坏作用。
   种族隔离意味着因为不是白人，像贝兹尔·戴里维尔拉、史蒂夫·马孔和普莱舍斯·麦肯齐这样的运动员根本不能代表自己的祖国参加比赛。因为肤色只能出现在一定场合和一定观众面前，像米亚姆·马齐巴和莱昂纳尔·恩卡纳这样的歌唱家和演员的演出就会爱到限制。一个有色人剧组可以上演威尔第的《茶花女》，但只要不是白人，就不能先于国家总统观看演出。
   这种限制不胜枚举--这里只是几个小小的例子。但它们合起来就是一个产生敌意的隔离。在体育赛事中，如果白人和黑人都在场，他们会支持各自一方，结果就会发生磨擦--这种磨擦如此之在以至于有些场地只允许白人进入。
   白人和黑人一块下棋是非法的，试图在有黑人的球员的球队踢足球的白人会受到指控。
   在这些丑陋的障碍存在的社会里，最好是佯装不知它的存在。这样做的结果是南非白人作家和诗人不能创作出真实反映其社会生活的作品，这种视而不见对人们生活的影响如此之大以至于多年来南非就根本没有过真正有价值的作品。
   或许有些人期盼处于紧张和痛苦之中的黑人作家们会创作出反映其真实生活的作品，但对他们而言，种族隔离带来另一个问题：坦率是被严禁的。所以像亚历克斯·拉顾玛这样一些作家都因禁令而保持缄默。或者像其他作家如阿尔弗雷德·哈奇逊和布娄可·莫狄森逃往国外。证明更为过分的是纳特·纳卡萨，他被迫发誓离开他的祖国，永不回来，结果在纽约自杀了。
   即使像安德烈·布林可这样的白人作家们，他们敢于批评或者似乎要去批评隔离社会也遭到了不幸。他们的作品被禁止，他们受到了种族隔离官方发言人的猛烈攻击。
   作家不能写作，人民不能相互理解--所有这些都是很深的罪恶迹象，是不能交流的迹象，但外部世界几乎不能理解的是这是有预谋的失败。
   这是那些建立种族隔离社会的人们的意图，是那些企图让种族隔离永久存在，并且阻止组成这个社会的人们之间的相互交流的人们的意图，也正是南非社会所遭受的真正可怕的创伤。
   但真正的破坏是在日常的人际关系上。我见到过一辆黑人白人混合乘坐的公共汽车上，白人小孩情愿站着也不愿坐在任何一个有色人旁边。我个人认为如此彻底与另一个种族的人对立起来，似乎比法律意义上的分离或隔离更甚一筹。这种对立带来的是一种共同人性的感情匮乏。人类的苦难不再是真的，因为他已不再是真正意义上的人。
   这就是现今的南非造成的情况。紧张是真的，暴力的威胁经常不断。这不能简单地认为是政治因素或政治争论的产物。一个简单地事实是人们的关系已经十分恶化，以至于对话、理解、友谊--所有的这些都不可能了。
   这种种族隔离在社会方面的影响--这种影响的触角无所不在。如果说它还能繁衍什么，那就是仇视，其结果不过是痛苦的思想贫乏，而这往往又会带来暴力。