Racism is one of the most pernicious problems of the human society. It sustained on the prejudices of the whites. Racial hierarchy has come to be maintained with the rise of the modern world system

Chapter V

Truth and Imagination: An Assessment

Nadine Gordimer turns 89 in November 2012 and boasts of an oeuvre which remains unparalled by many writers in the twentieth century. For six decades now, she, with her writings has continued to be the relentless champion of South African cause. However she described herself as a “natural writer” in an interview when implicated by the interviewer that she wrote about apartheid. She further said: “I don’t write about apartheid. I write about people who happen to live under that system” (Bazin and Seymour 210). Gordimer “began writing out of a sense of wonder about life, a sense of mystery, and also out of a sense of its chaos”. Nevertheless the social consciousness became the hallmark of her writing as time went by, to which she remarks “I was writing for a long time before I stood outside and could analyze what I was doing in terms of politics”(211). Gordimer’s fiction has been that of an urban intellectual, artistic and political milieu. She penetrated the urban metropolitan centres in her early fiction, in order to escape the mean spirited world of mining towns and to find in individual term, a freedom for the self. This personal search was extended to find freedom for all the confined and oppressed. She moved on with the personal commitment of the self- within personal relationships in the early works and to political solidarities in the later. Through this, she is able to come out of the experience of alienation. Talking about the white segment of the population to which she herself belongs, Gordimer says:

…there is a segment preoccupied, in the interregnum, neither by plans to run away from nor merely by ways to survive physically and economically in the black state that is coming. I cannot give you numbers for this segment, but in measure of some sort of faith in the possibility of structuring society humanly, in the possession of skills and intellect to devote to this end, there is something to offer the future. How to offer it is our preoccupation. Since skills, technical and intellectual, can be bought in markets other than those of the vanquished white power, although they are important as a commodity ready to hand, they do not constitute a claim on the future.

That claim rests on something else: how to offer one’s self. (Essential Gesture 264)

It is this faith in “structuring society humanly” and the ensuing commitment that marks Gordimer and her writings. Her work took her towards belief in the reality and the progressive nature of history. As she herself puts it “…I admit that I am, indeed, determined to find my place ‘in history’ while still referring as a writer to the values that are beyond history. I shall never give them up” (278). Although she remained committed to the history of the nation from the beginning of her writing career, yet a marked shift occurred in her writing during the late 1970s and 1980s that reveals her changed understanding of the implications of being in history. Gordimer has always written with the authority of history because history was to be the force that would deliver freedom to all the oppressed and deprived lives in the human community.

Nadine Gordimer never escaped politics and her aim in fiction is to represent the things as they really are. As a writer in South Africa, she never attempted to circumvent politics and yet at the same time maintained creativity and imagination that is an indispensable quality of a writer. Keeping in mind the novels undertaken in the present study one can easily create her trajectory as a writer which continues to change with the socio-political changes occurring in the country during the time in which each novel was written. In The Lying Days Gordimer sets foot on the long journey as a writer and charts the progress of liberal consciousness of its heroine Helen Shaw, which undoubtedly is also of Gordimer’s own liberalism. The choice of South Africa as the novel’s setting is of particular importance as it provided a platform for her later novels. Like Helen, Gordimer too struggles out of the confining mentality of white South Africa with an ever increasing awareness of sociopolitical context towards an African identity. In addition, the novel also establishes the concern that run through all of Gordimer’s writings that the political and personal world is essentially inextricable. According to Abdul R.JanMohamed, the novel brings out “the struggle between liberal bourgeois values and horrors of apartheid” (Witelac 111).

With A World of Strangers she explored further, the Eurocentric cultural domination in South Africa through Toby Hood, an outsider in the country. Toby’s growing realization of the reality, that the difference in color is responsible for the rest of the differences he witnesses, also marks Gordimer’s further disillusionment with the liberal values. The multiracial world of fifties allowed Gordimer to fully explore the inherent discrepancies in the living condition of urban blacks and whites. Gordimer’s belief in liberal values were further undermined with the Occasion for Loving which exposed the fact that in South Africa, leading a personal life in total ignorance of reality is almost impossible, as the laws of apartheid impinge upon the most private existence. It also depicts that social and political conditions of South Africa have the power of shaping an individual’s psyche. Besides, Gordimer also brings home the point that to live on liberal ideals is no longer possible in South Africa. Occasion for Loving can be termed as a transition novel which registers a change in mood of Gordimer’s writing. The late Bourgeois World which followed Occasion for Loving, can be termed as watershed because the protagonist Liz is depicted to move probably towards radical means of opposing apartheid for she acknowledges the futility of being liberal. By then it was established that for Gordimer politics is an inseparable part of her writing and she continued depicting the same in her successive novels.

A major change is noticed in The Conservationist in terms of mode and approach to present the reality. The novel is rather a futuristic vision. Due to the growing black consciousness, Gordimer foresees a future where a black majority rule is predicted. Taking recourse to symbolism, myth and stream of consciousness she has portrayed very well, the contemporary situation and its possible outcome. The Conservationist offers a prophetic image of a different South African future by depicting the internal reality (Mehring’s) as totally separated from the external reality, finally getting replaced by an alternative text (the black story). Modernist Mehring is displaced in favor of a socially led aesthetic in which conservation equates with community and possession with prophecy. It is followed by Burger’s Daughter, a more overtly political novel, through which Gordimer establishes the point that the only way to redemption is by committing oneself radically in the struggle against apartheid. Rosa Burger, the protagonist can be defined in terms of race, sex and position in the class struggle and therefore encases in herself the warring explanations of South African racism. In Burger’s Daughter Gordimer transgressed the apartheid laws by deliberately including a pamphlet from Soweto Students Representative Council, as the black voice in real takes over the story which resulted in the banning of the novel. Its reproduction was prohibited and thus the inclusion of a banned pamphlet turned the entire novel into a political act. The novel was then unbanned due to public outcry and the voice of Soweto was finally expressed through the technical device. Gordimer took an apocalyptic stance in her next novel July’s People in which she depicted a complete takeover by blacks after a bloody revolution which forced whites (Bam and Maureen Smales) to seek refuge in the village of a black (their servant July). It results in the transformation of their status from being independent to the state of total dependence on July and his people.

With the advent of the multiracial democracy in South Africa Nadine Gordimer applied her imagination and her amazing power of observation to capture the new reality, exploring the country’s tragic past and its outcome, besides the ironies and contradictions of its dynamic future. The House Gun which came to be termed as the first truly post- apartheid novel exposed the rampant crime and violence in South Africa which is treated as the legacy of the past regime. Gordimer moved beyond the portrayal of black and white discrimination and instead presented a multiracial society in the making, with blacks rising in the social ladder and becoming rich and powerful. In the reversal of the previous relationships of dependency, Harald and Claudia had to rely on Hamilton Motsamai, a black lawyer, to defend their son Duncan. Additionally, Gordimer hinted at the growing exploitative capitalistic tendencies among blacks as it was in the previous rulers. The Pick up that followed The House Gun exposed the above mentioned problem in a greater detail. Gordimer brings out the myth surrounding the rainbow nation. She explores the change in the attitude of people involved in the struggle to free the country from apartheid, as they compromise with their long held values and ideals in order to reach the top. Greed for money and power and the resultant corruption was glaringly brought forth by Gordimer, as Motsamai of The House Gun gave up his earlier profession to join the more profit making coterie of whites. It proves that for Gordimer capturing the reality is far more important than her personal opinions and affiliations. She did not hesitate to expose the inherent corruption in the new post-apartheid regime which gave rise to the class apartheid, no different from the racial segregation of the earlier era. At the same time, since the country was officially free from apartheid, she could move beyond the borders of South Africa and concentrate on the issues that held the entire world in its grasp: the issue of migration. Moving beyond the economic factor as the sole reason of migration, through Julie Summers, she demonstrated a migration which resulted in cultural globalization i.e. mutual enrichment from each other’s overtly different cultures.

Described by Coetzee as “the visitor from the future,” she undoubtedly is someone who did not wait for liberation, but enacted it in her fiction (Roberts 546). Never losing touch with the socio-political history of South Africa, she remained a spokesperson against apartheid. She admits that her works are described as anti-apartheid but she declares: “I have always kept my independence as a writer. I have never allowed my own personal politics to interfere” (“Truth”). Her association with African National Congress and her involvement with the anti-apartheid struggle has provided her with the subject matter that filled her books for almost four decades. In post-apartheid era, she has dared to look at the darker side of the victory.

Indeed, there is a darker side involved to the ‘Rainbow Nation’ dream of Nelson Mandela. The 1994 democratic elections were heralded as the end of the long and painful era of suffering and destitution, especially for blacks. First time ever in the history of South Africa blacks could come out and vote in order to elect their leaders, who they thought will change their lives and their years of suffering and pain will end. There were high expectations and strong faith in the coming regime, of the millions who were declared aliens to South Africa by the previous regime. At the end of his foreword to the findings of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Desmond Tutu, the spiritual leader of South Africa wrote: “‘Ours is a remarkable country. Let us celebrate our diversity, our differences. God wants us as we are. South Africa wants and needs the Afrikaner, the English, the coloured, the Indian, the black. We are sisters and brothers in one family-God’s family, the human family’” (qtd. in Irlam 695).Tutu’s prayer and his exhortation to celebrate diversity and differences by becoming one remained a difficult concept to be embraced by all. World was elated to witness such a peaceful ending to as grave a problem as apartheid had been.

With high hopes, Nelson Mandela was elected president of the country and the country became “the miracle nation”. South Africa and its new leaders attracted a world-wide attention as the country was looked upon as “an international model for problem-solving” (R. Johnson 4). While whole of South Africa was submerged in the post-apartheid euphoria, the reality turned out to be something else. The condition deteriorated to such an extent that National ‘Be Positive’ Day had begun to be celebrated by October 2001.The African National Congress (ANC) leaders though high on values and ideals during the struggle against apartheid lacked any practical skills of governing a country. They had to cater to the needs of the large masses of people lacking even the necessities of life. Hence ANC’s first and foremost priority was the redistribution of wealth. Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist, predicted:

It is hard to see how it can avoid a long-term economic deterioration. The starting point for this deterioration is the evident need for the redistribution of wealth within the country. To a much greater degree than in other developed countries the rich in South Africa got their wealth at the expense of the poor and it is important to remedy the situation. The problem is that any large-scale attempt to right these wrongs over a short period of time would be self-defeating in that it would wreck the economy, and thereby undermine the basis for wealth creation that is the only hope for black South Africa itself. (qtd. in R. Johnson 7)

Besides, it was unfortunate that the new leaders joined hands with the white privileged class in the latter’s attempt to win favors from the former. Accompanied with the fact that whites were emigrating at a fast pace once the new regime came into power, the South African economy was heading towards trouble as the major investors with whom the wealth lay were leaving the country. Corruption and greed for money seeped into the new government. R. W. Johnson has pointed out “The enormous groundswell of black aspirations was quite evident, as was the sincere determination of many ANC leaders to ameliorate the lives of the poor. But such leaders faced severely practical problems about how to make a living in the new situation and ideology and self interest made not uncomfortable bedfellows…” (17). The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) visualized by the ANC was to be “an integrated programme based on the people, that provides peace and security for all and builds the nation, links reconstruction and development and deepens democracy” (Freund and Padayachee 1175). It promised one million houses in five years, redistribution of 30 percent of the land during the same period, provide ten years of free compulsory education and create two and five million jobs in ten years (Callinicos 2362). Unfortunately, no such target was achieved and the programme was abandoned two years later (Wehner 184).

The inheritors virtually lacked the skills and expertise to govern such a vast country with a vast population. The loosely formed policies were far too short sighted and driven by self interest to bring any substantial positive change in the country. The country was submerged in violence and unemployment while the president was busy getting clicked with the “Spice Girls or Jesse Jackson” (R. Johnson 53). Nelson Mandela’s policy of all inclusiveness did not find favors with his ministers who exercised more power than ageing Mandela. Out of them, Thabo Mbeki turned out to be the most influential one. Unlike Mandela who stated that:

Whites in this country have a particular obligation. You have the knowledge, you have the skills, you have expertise. We cannot build this country without that knowledge, those skills, that expertise. And we want you to take the leadership in building a new South Africa. We do not regard it as correct that the majority should oppress the minority. Loyal opposition is the essence of democracy…We are very much alive to the danger of arrogance and being conceited…I am relieved that the ANC did not reach two-third majority. (qtd. in R. Johnson 57)

Mbeki, a staunch supporter of Africanism, went on with the promulgation of his policy and campaign to exclude whites from the strategic positions while on the other hand enjoying patronage of Sol Kerzner, a hotel magnate and brain behind the Sun City and the Lost City. The transformation drive replaced all whites, with Mbeki and his followers ruling the roost and turning Mandela a mere puppet in their hands. As R. Johnson writes: “The civil service was continuously purged until it had been ‘transformed’ into a virtually all-black body, though, since it was impossible to find enough skilled blacks, many posts were left vacant” (71). The transformation, termed as “affirmative action,” in reality slowed the efficiency and was not to be a foolproof measure to provide employment to the unemployed blacks as it catered only to a small section of blacks and left out the large unskilled masses (R. Johnson 110). The new government in South Africa inherited an economy with a huge difference in wealth and income. Most of the wealth was concentrated in white hands. In order to improve the situation “decisive improvements in the quality of African education, housing and health” were required along with the “deployment of non-African professionals to pass on their skills to young blacks” (385). But no such way was undertaken which resulted in the deterioration of health and education and a fall in life expectancy as well. The schools attended by the huge masses of Africans in townships hardly grew. On the other hand, higher education suffered due to the affirmative action, for administrators had no experience as they were employed on political rather than educational grounds. The newly rich black segment did not pay attention to such losses. Consequently, according to the survey conducted by the Swiss based Institute for Management Development, South Africa fell from “thirty-eighth to fiftieth place” among the world’s leading industrialized economies (381).The cause for the big drop was stated to be the policy of affirmative action practiced by the African National Congress.

As against the needs of the teeming millions the policies adopted by the government were too unrealistic and short sighted. In order to prove that Africans can govern, Mbeki and his comrades continued to commit grave errors especially in terms of the formation of economic strategy. The politics of power, position and money corroded the movement. The welfare motive was lost in the desire to earn quick money and class. Conditions worsened when Thabo Mbeki succeeded Nelson Mandela as the president in 1999. In contradiction of the long held socialist values, the new government enforced capitalistic economy, definitely a legacy of apartheid era thriving on the exploitation of the poor laborers. The new president “promised to clamp down on indiscipline, permissiveness, corruption and disorder and demand a faster pace of service delivery-though exactly the opposite was already happening” (R. Johnson 164). In the new presidency, nepotism became a common practice so money and power remained in the hands of selected few. Moreover, there were two incidents that reduced the power of Mbeki. The first concerns with the problem of Aids which was spreading its tentacles in South Africa. The Mandela government ignored the issue and Mbeki on his part denied the fact that HIV caused Aids.

By 2007 the number of Aids orphan was almost 1 million which was expected to rise to 2.5 million by 2010 (R. Johnson 194). As evident the figures indicated a serious trouble in store for the new democracy where as Mbeki continued that “‘a virus cannot cause a syndrome’ ” and blamed poverty as the cause of Aids (194). By 2008 2.5 million had already died of Aids due to the apathy of the government. According to the “Country progress Report on the declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS” published by United Nations in 2010, Aids epidemic has now become a major cause of concern in South Africa making it the country with the largest number of HIV infections (10). The total number of people living with HIV infection is about 5.38 million in 2011 according to the “Mid-year population estimates” prepared by Statistics South Africa. The report says that around 63,600 new HIV infections will be among children aged 0-14 years (2).

The second mistake that Mbeki committed was to side with Robert Mugabe during Zimbabwean issue. Despite the fact that Mugabe was on the wrong side Mbeki “was unwilling to utter any public criticism of Mugabe” (R. Johnson 238). In his heart he knew that supporting Mugabe would tarnish his image and would give an impression of his having no respect for the rule of law and property rights, but he desperately wanted Mugabe to stay in power in Zimbabwe. This stance of Mbeki attracted a lot of criticisms from all quarters even from within ANC and went a long way to damage his image even more than what Aids denial did. South African politics virtually became a battleground for personal gains and fight to remain in the hierarchy.

Amongst all this political turmoil the condition of South Africa was becoming from bad to worse. Despite the fact that white racism was extant officially, the question remained- Whether the condition for the common people changed after the demise of apartheid? With ineffective leadership, the situation was indeed grim. The government’s motive was to promote blacks in all the sectors of the South African economy including business. But the African executives and businessmen still largely depended on whites, who occupied the middle management layer, for major operational decisions. As R. Johnson, quoting from the African Leadership Study, writes:

African executives do not believe that fellow Africans are capable of managing. In a self-alienated manner they present themselves to their white junior colleagues as exceptions to the ‘African problem’. Such African executives are far more comfortable being surrounded by white managers than African ones…new African managers are debilitated by the knowledge that white middle managers have occupied their positions for long periods and therefore know the job. When African middle managers fail to deliver, African executives are often prompted to turn to and rely on white managers, which perpetuate the myth of African incapacity and white excellence. (398)

As the new government also followed the ideals of capitalistic economy foreign investment increased in the country. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (total market value of all the goods and services produced in a country in a given period), a strong indicator of a country’s economic growth, increased from an average 2 percent rise annually in the period 1997-2001, to a 5 percent rise per year in 2004-2007 (Clark and Worger 126). But as International Monetary Fund (IMF) noted in its report on South Africa in 2009: “South Africa continues to face formidable medium term structural challenges largely reflecting its apartheid legacy” (6). It proves that the initial development registered in the economy was largely based on the policies followed during the apartheid era which meant that “profits continued to be generated through the use of exploited and under educated African labour” (Clark and Worger 126). Evidently enough, the prime beneficiaries turned out to be the whites though a small elite group grew among Indians, coloreds and Africans. The shocking fact that remained was, even after the end of apartheid 83 percent of whites occupied the top 20 percent of population measured in terms of income as against 7.9 percent of Africans, 25.6 percent of Coloureds and 50 percent of Indians. This inequality in income and wealth continued to be in favor of the whites, which go on to prove that white supremacy remains in the post-apartheid South Africa, despite economic expansion especially 2005 onwards (126). The reason behind this state can be attributed to the co-existence of white led private sector and a crippled state, with whites reaping the financial benefits.

Unemployment on the other hand poses another serious problem in the country. According to one survey the total employment remained stagnant at 9.3 million during the period extending from September 1996 to September 1998 (Wehner 187). Out of 12.5 million Africans of working age (15-64 years) at least 29.7 percent were unemployed in the first quarter of 2010.Though Africans have been able to gain place among the top 20 percent of income earners due to deracialisation in upper management jobs in private and public sector yet more than half of the African families still exist below poverty line. Africans constitute 80 percent of the total population and amongst them 93.3 percent are poor as compared to 0.1 percent of whites (Clark and Worger 127). Crime and violence also registered an increase henceforth. In 1995-96, the number of murders committed was 27,000 along with 123,000 robberies which registered a decline after eleven years, yet the exception occurred in case of sexual violence and xenophobic crimes asserted through riots and killings. In fact Helen Mofett has indicated that in the decade after apartheid, rape and sexual violence against women and children is at the higher levels in South Africa than any other country in the world which is not at war or any civil strife (129). Even “Interpol put it, ‘in undisputed first place as far as reported cases of rape are concerned’” (R. Johnson 446). In fact the escalation of violence in post-apartheid South Africa led to studies by Deborah Posel and Kate Wood which affirm a spurt of sexual crimes in South Africa. Not to miss the xenophobic riots waged in 2008 against the immigrants from other African countries like Congo, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Such people were regarded as usurpers of the jobs by unemployed South Africans (Clark and Worger 129). The migrants were relatively better qualified as compared to the uneducated and untrained South Africans. This point unarguably leads to the condition of education in post-apartheid South Africa.

In the first decade after apartheid, there was a mass movement from rural to urban areas due to the opening up of educational institutions to members of all the races. But around 40 percent of African students dropped out in first year of university due to high cost of education. Further the:

…Supreme Court decision in 1996 required that all public schools be opened to students irrespective of race, in contradiction of attempts by rural white communities to keep their schools segregated in practice, if no longer in theory. But of the approximately 25,000 public elementary and high schools in South Africa in 2009, 79 percent had no library, 77 percent had no computers, and 85 percent had no laboratories. And the quality of education remains racially stratified: among African high school students only 48 percent graduate; among white, 95 percent. (Clark and Worger 128)

During the apartheid era, blacks were forced to study in inferior schools and colleges in Bantustans which never rendered them with necessary professional skills required to work in modern professions. Unfortunately the new government also did not deem education an area to be paid serious attention to. In fact the “educational system deteriorated markedly in ANC hands and, effectively, the government insisted that expertise and good qualifications did not really matter” (R. Johnson 430). Thus, the masses remained unskilled lacking any professional qualification needed to do the jobs properly. It marred their chance of getting employed in an effective manner. Other migrants with better qualifications filled the places. Moreover it also explains why Africans remained dependent on whites for everything resulting in latter benefitting from the system even after apartheid ended.

The new government made attempts to improve the living conditions of the millions deprived under apartheid regime by providing access to clean drinking water and electricity. Around 4 million African households were connected to national electricity grid between 1994 and 2003 but still half of the rural households remained without such access in 2010. Besides, around 1.25 million new homes were constructed to provide better residence away from shacks and ghettos of the apartheid era, but unfortunately slums and shanty towns continued to grow due to rapid movements of the people from rural to urban areas. Unfortunately the government failed to keep pace with that. As against the intention of getting 30 percent of white-owned land transferred to Africans within five years of coming into power, by 2008 the government achieved only 5 percent and the target date had been moved to 2014 which seems unachievable (Clark and Worger 128).

From the above discussion one can conclude the present condition of South Africa to be hopeless and its future bleak. But before coming to this conclusion one should keep in mind that South Africa suffered extreme level of discrimination for eons. It goes without saying that the extreme level of inequity that existed in the country got psychologically inscribed amongst the majority. As Fanon writes, “…the settler is right when he speaks of knowing ‘them’ well. For it is the settler who has brought the native into existence and who perpetuates his existence” (28). The native therefore was made to believe in his inferiority and a lesser being. He was convinced that he could not compete with the dynamism of the white world which in turn perpetuated servility and passivity. Millions of people were deliberately kept away from better education and decent living. The new government thus was left with the responsibility to right the serious and heinous wrongs done to the majority. Beyond doubt, the task undertaken by the inexperienced people after finding them in power turned out to be herculean and they were bound to commit serious errors which they did. But then all is not lost as there is hope still. It is just eighteen years ago that the country freed itself from the shackles of colonialism and is still young and has a long way to go. It is only with relentless support and faith in democracy that South Africa will move on to secure a better future, a future dreamed by the likes of Nelson Mandela on the political front and Nadine Gordimer on the literary front. In this regard, Gordimer’s contribution to the achievement of democracy cannot be understated. Her literary writings may aptly be termed as ‘chronicles of apartheid’. Gordimer has opted to reveal the corruption in South African society in her post-apartheid novels which definitely does not indicate any kind of cynicism on her part towards the new dispensation. When asked about the same by Hermione Lee in an interview, she says:

These realities [of normality after apartheid]I don’t think we had given much thought to, or indeed in some cases any thought at all, the idea of what would happen the morning after. That of course is what we are dealing with now. It includes other things which are psychological and not so surprising. But people have been very deprived and once they are leading normal lives-it seems that once you have something-you seem to want more and more and this leads to corruption. […] What is corruption? Corruption comes from wanting more. From having material ambitions and may be before were a way out of your mind. You couldn’t ever think that you would aspire to such things. (qtd. in Szczurek 318)

Thus in her post-apartheid works, Gordimer is just reflecting the truth as she has done in her entire literary career. She has been religiously following what she has always recommended, that is, the task of the writer is to tell the truth. In all the works discussed in the present study one can easily perceive Gordimer’s emphatic assertion that racism is predominantly evil and the people irrespective of their race share a common humanity. Besides, she has also brought out some specific truths about the iniquitous South African apartheid system in her works since its inception in 1948. Gordimer has depicted the system as fundamentally a monopoly of power as it was based on the notion of white superiority and supremacy. Thus, liberalism and the methods this belief encompasses were ineffective in bringing about the change. The hard core Nationalists could not be persuaded to undergo a change of heart and demolish the evil system. Nevertheless Gordimer showed that apartheid was bound to fail and its end, inevitable because apartheid was not only unjust and unnatural but highly immoral too. She also makes evident through her novels that apartheid as a political policy was psychologically damaging to both the oppressors and the oppressed. The realities that Gordimer brings out in her works, serve to enhance the understanding of the readers about human predicaments in general and of South African society in particular.

The writer’s aim according to Gordimer, as noted earlier, is to reflect the reality; the ultimate objective is the transformation of society. Keeping this in mind it can be pointed that South African society under apartheid was in desperate need to be changed. Therefore, Gordimer made South Africa the focal point in all her discussions of the ways in which the writer can contribute towards such transformation. She identified black and white writers committed to bring about change in the country. According to her, the South African black writer’s art was at one with his political commitment for he belonged to the class of oppressed, so “At the same time as they [were] writing, they [were] political activists in the concrete sense, teaching, proselytizing, organizing” (Gordimer, Essential Gesture 290). They acted thus because they were part of the millions whose “tendency and tradition for more than three hundred years [had] been to free themselves of white domination” (291).

White writers on the other hand had a choice by virtue of their belonging to the privileged class. They could have opted to stay out because they did not suffer exploitation. The white writers were further subdivided into those who chose to react against the black oppression by actively participating in their political struggle along with the writing and those who sought to bring change in the society only through their work of art. Gordimer called the latter the “‘cultural worker’ in the race/class struggle” (Essential Gesture 292).The revolutionary writers sought to bring change directly but:

the white writer’s task as ‘cultural worker’[was] to raise the consciousness of white people, who, unlike himself, [had] not woken up. It [was] a responsibility at once minor, in comparison with that placed upon the black writer as composer of battle hymns, and yet forbidding if one compare[d] the honour and welcome that await[ed] the black writer, from blacks, and the branding as traitor, or, at best, turned backside of indifference, that await[ed] the white, from the white establishment. With fortunate irony, however, it [was] a responsibility which the white writer already [had] taken on, for himself, if the other responsibility-to his creative integrity-[kept] him scrupulous in writing about what he [knew] to be true whether whites like[d] to hear it or not: for the majority of his readers [were] white. He[brought] some influence to bear on whites, though not on the white dominated government, he may [have] influence[d] those individuals who [were] already coming-to bewilderedly out of the trip of power, and those who gain[ed] courage from reading the open expression of their own suppressed rebellion. (293-94)

Thus the black writer working with the same motive as above would certainly had an influence on those whites who read them and “so the categories that the state would [have kept] apart [got] mixed through literature-an unforeseen ‘essential gesture’ of writers in their social responsibility in a divided country” (294). A writer influences his or her readers and thus is instrumental in bringing about social changes by changing the thought processes. While telling the truth the writer exposes the wrong assumption for the perception of the reader. The writer can achieve it by describing the “situation so truthfully…that the reader can no longer evade it” (299). In this way the writer also performs the function of a social critic. As a social critic, according to Gordimer, the writer accepts:

a responsibility that goes back to the source: the corpus of language from which the writer arises. ‘Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings. This was the responsibility taken up in the post-Nazi era by Heinrich Boll and Gunter Grass, and [was]…fulfilled by South African writers…in exposing the real meaning of the [apartheid] South African government’s vocabulary of racist…legislature, with segregated chambers for whites, so-called coloureds and Indians, and no representation whatever for the majority of South Africans, those classified as black. (295)

It then, goes without saying that both black and white writers collectively took the responsibility to expose the unjust system of institutionalized racism in all its manifestations. In the essay titled “Relevance and Commitment”, Gordimer argues that a writer cannot avoid the role of social critic if he chooses the truthful depiction of society because probably no artist “ever finds himself in the ideal condition of Hegel’s ‘individual consciousness in wholly harmonious’ relationship to the external power of society’” (Essential Gesture 135). In case of South Africa, as Gordimer opined:

…there [could] have been few if any examples in human history of the degree, variety and intensity of conflicts that exist[ed] between South African artist and the external power of society. That external power [was] at its most obvious in the censorship laws, running amuck through literature and lunging out at other arts. But it [was] at the widest level of the formation of… society itself, and not any specific professional level, that the external power of society enter[ed] the breast and the brain and determine[d] the nature and state of art. It [was] from the daily life of South Africa that there [had] come the conditions of profound alienation which prevail[ed] among South African artists. (135)

The writers were indeed alienated from their society simply because the entire system of apartheid prevailed on racist beliefs. An erroneous system that validated untruth, injustice, violence and oppression resulted in the commitment of these writers to expose it, and in doing so they also revealed their inherent revolutionary will to bring about the required change. It makes evident that:

Writers who accept a professional responsibility in the transformation of society are always seeking ways of doing so that their societies could never imagine, let alone demand: asking of themselves means that will plunge like a drill to release the great primal spout of creativity, drench the sensors, cleanse the statute book of their pornography of racist and sexist laws, hose down religious differences, extinguish napalm bombs and flame-throwers, wash away pollution from land, sea and air, and bring out human beings into the occasional summer fount of naked joy. (297-98)

In this regard Nadine Gordimer’s contribution in bringing about a change in her society remains unquestioned and unparalled. In her long fight against apartheid through her writings, she has unfailingly tried to expose the wrong assumptions for the people to perceive it. Her never ending commitment towards her country and people surpasses everything. It is difficult, if not impossible to gauge the impact she has made in her effort (during apartheid years) to bring home the fact that political situation needed to change. Significantly, the very fact of her works been banned in South Africa is a proof enough to prove that the apartheid government did feel threatened by the impact of her writings on her readers. Despite her works being banned, she refused to let go of the situation and continued to stay in South Africa, for leaving her country would have meant giving up on the battle in which she finally succeeded. Negating all the speculations regarding her literary career after apartheid she continues to be actively involved and still dares to expose the new challenges engulfing the country in post-apartheid years.

Innumerable literary awards and recognitions bestowed on her by both local and international organizations over the years hold a testimony to the influence her writings have had on her readers both inside and outside South Africa. Her commitment towards art and vision has been acknowledged globally, the culmination of which happened in 1991 when she received the most coveted Nobel Prize in literature. Nadine Gordimer never failed to live up to the task required of her as a person and as a writer and she has done it with courage and an inimitable power of imagination. With her keen observation Gordimer has been able to capture the realities of her country, not as a mere collector of facts but as a re-imagined gestures drawn into the whirlpool of historical and socio political changes. In fulfilling her calling, as she herself stated in her Nobel Banquet Speech, she has fulfilled “what Roland Barthes called ‘the essential gesture’ towards the people among whom we live, and to the world; it is the hand held out with the best we have to give” (“Nadine Gordimer-Banquet Speech”).This has been her gesture towards the humanity in general and South African society in particular. Reading Gordimer before and after 1994 enlightens the reader with a meditative record of South Africa which is definitely truer than most of the fictions come to be written in the world of literature.

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