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 III

From Liberalism to Radicalism: Treading the Untrodden Path

This chapter deals with the contextual and textual analysis of Nadine Gordimer’s The Late Bourgeois World, The Conservationist, and Burger’s Daughter. Published between 1966 and 1979 these works reflect a change in mood and tone in the struggle against apartheid. Besides, in the mid sixties Gordimer began to achieve a notable flexibility and complexity in the voice and style of her writing. In fact in an interview in 1979 she admits that with The Late Bourgeois World she began to “develop narrative muscle” (Bazin and Seymour 140). In the words of Dominic Head: “…The Late Bourgeois World registers the fragmentation of the liberal ideology, and does so through a skilful disruption of form which is more overt than in her previous work” (78).

The Late Bourgeois World (1966) attempts to find new ways of understanding the political situation and the demands it makes on an individual. Having proved the failure of liberal humanism through her first three novels The Lying days, A World of Strangers and Occasion for Loving Gordimer embarks on an entirely new plane armed with a deep knowledge of the political world of South Africa after the drastic change in the political situation in 1950s. The novel captures the world of mid-sixties that was marked with armed revolution from those opposing apartheid. The title The Late Bourgeois World, as Judie Newman pointed out, is taken from Ernst Fischer’s The Necessity of Art, a work in Marxist aesthetics which “forms a vital intertext to the novel” (35). In an essay published in The Essential Gesture Gordimer refers approvingly to Fischer, a Marxist critic arguing that art being a “freedom of spirit” is automatically “on the side of the oppressed”(291). Describing Fischer’s book Newman writes that according to Fischer “all art is conditioned by time and represents humanity as it corresponds to the ideas and aspirations of a particular historical situation…” (36).

The novel is in the first person narrative and depicts the events that take place on a particular Saturday in the life of the protagonist, Elizabeth (Liz) Van den Sandt, who recalls the past events that help explain the meaning of that day’s agenda. A significant part of the novel examines the revolutionary moment of the early 1960s. Liz hears about the death by suicide of her ex-husband Max Van Den Sandt, a failed revolutionary in a telegram which reads “MAX FOUND DROWNED IN CAR CAPETOWN HARBOUR…” (Gordimer, LBW 7) Liz’s review of her relationship with Max becomes the review of him as a revolutionary. His revolution, she concludes, was basically a self-centered attempt to escape the bourgeois world his parents represented.

In tracing the microcosmic world of The Late Bourgeois World Gordimer explores the bourgeois and exploitative tendencies of whites in the apartheid society. Max’s parents represent typical white bourgeois tendency. His mother “…pink-and-white as good diet and cosmetics could make her…”is a Boer who is used to superficial living of a bourgeois in South Africa. She even covers the lavatory seat with a “frilly cover.”She has servants to whom she speaks Xhosa and claims: “I know these people as if they were my own…” (22). It reveals superficially humanistic but actually patronizing behavior of whites towards blacks. His father Theo Van Den Sandt is of English and Flemish descent and is a “member of parliament” with interests in mining and industry (10). Both of them represent dominant feature of white South African society accompanied with a total disregard of the black community, for Mrs Van Den Sandt whenever speaks of South Africans:

…she meant the Afrikaans- and English- speaking white people, and when Theo Van Den Sandt called for ‘a united South Africa, going forward to an era of progress and prosperity for all’ he meant the unity of the same two white groups, and higher wages and bigger cars for them. For the rest- the ten or eleven million ‘natives’- their labour was directed in various Acts of no interest outside parliament…. (26)

Max, their son, wants to come out of the “moral sclerosis” of the bourgeois world (31). When he delivers a speech at his sister’s wedding, Gordimer brings out the white attitude very poignantly. For whites the world begins and ends with them as if blacks in South Africa do not exist. They forget that “‘There’s a whole world outside this’….‘Shut outside. Kept out….”It is this moral sclerosis that results in “Hardening of the heart, narrowing of the mind; while the dividends go up. The thing that makes them distribute free blankets in the location in winter, while refusing to pay wages people could live on…” (30, 31). But the bourgeois mentality is so ingrained in the psyche of the whites that when Max revolts against it he’s dead for them even before he actually dies. Together, the elder Van Den Sandts thus represent the dominant features of South African white society, politically, culturally and economically. Like Conrad’s Kurtz the whole of European South Africa is in them.

Max is portrayed as a white revolutionary ready to fight against the white domination and he does so by trying to “blow up a post office” (10) but his attempts result in failure. He gets arrested for planting a bomb yet again and finally turns a state witness betraying his comrades. He becomes a failed radical. To understand the underlying motive of such a depiction it is particularly important to understand the historical time from which the novel emerges.

At the end of the previous novel Occasion for Loving the protagonist Jessie contemplates on helping someone blow up a power station which indeed was tried in the early years of the new decade- the 1960s. But by the time The Late Bourgeois World was written sabotage as a method of struggle was crushed by the state (Thompson 211). Observed in this way the novel corresponds to a twofold movement in South African history that occurred in a short span of time. The first pertains to the transition from peaceful to the violent mode of struggle against apartheid after the Sharpeville Massacre (1960) both by accident and as a matter of policy. Sharpeville anti-pass demonstration in itself was intended to be a peaceful protest. (“Umkhonto we Sizwe”). In fact the intensification began in the late 1950s in the rural areas of South Africa especially Zeerust and Sekhukhuneland in the Transvaal rose in revolt. Besides this, in 1960 Pondoland went on an uprising against the presence of the government considered illegitimate. (Ross 127-28). However, events in urban centers like Sharpeville, Langa, Nyanga and Cape Town proved to be of primary importance. The government reacted by banning the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) and declared the State of Emergency accompanied with widespread arrests.

The above mentioned series of events led to a wave of disappointment among the opposition political movements and forced them to adopt violent means to attain freedom. With the ANC and PAC now driven underground, the logic of the situation indicated an historic shift: that the movements themselves take up methods of violence, and adopt a more explicitly revolutionary stance. Hence, Umkhonto We Sizwe (‘Spear of the Nation’) or MK, a military wing of ANC, was launched on 16 December 1961. In fact what is significant about this particular date of launch is that on the same day in 1838 the Afrikaners defeated the Zulus in the Battle of the Blood River, so a counterattack was initiated against the Afrikaners on the same date after more than a hundred years (Mandela 1:415; “Umkhonto we Sizwe”). Poqo (meaning ‘pure’ or ‘alone’ in Xhosa), a military wing of PAC, gathered momentum specifically in the areas of Western Cape and the Transkei and was the most aggressive in carrying out attacks against the whites (“Poqo”). Another organization that initiated violent struggle was the African Resistance Movement (ARM), a multi racial organization consisting mainly of young white professionals and students. Together these organizations “made over two hundred bomb attacks on post offices and other government buildings and on rail-road and electrical installations near the main industrial centers….” (Thompson 211). The ARM, however, stimulated the immediate concerns of The Late Bourgeois World.

There were other developments as well. After the Sharpeville Massacre the investors withdrew their capital from South Africa resulting in financial loss. During the State of Emergency and in the aftermath of Sharpeville the pass laws were temporarily suspended by the government in the Cape Town area (Ross 129).The day after ANC and PAC were banned Hendrik Verwoerd, the then Prime Minister of South Africa was “shot twice through the head by a white farmer” but was saved apparently (Ross 133). This incident however was seen as an ominous sign by those in power and also an indication of the degree to which the known mental and political South African world was threatening to become radically destabilized. It was under these circumstances that some people may have visualized the approaching death of apartheid.

Unfortunately enough, in reality it was still a far-fetched dream. Indeed, if the transition to violent struggle was the first phase of the two fold movement then its crushing defeat by the repressive government was the second, for “the government succeeded in breaking the three organizations” (Thompson 211).It was signaled early on when the uprising in Pondoland was crushed by the government by machine-gunning people (Ross 127). Nelson Mandela, the head of Umkhonto We Sizwe was arrested in August 1962 as soon as he landed in South Africa after his visits abroad (Mandela 1:455). In fact the entire force of Umkhonto was arrested after the police raided their headquarters at Rivonia in 1963. They were tried in the famous Rivonia Trial and by 1964 almost all including Nelson Mandela were sentenced to life imprisonment at Robben Island (Mandela 2:25-66). Poqo was dismantled and the underground Communist Party was infiltrated. Bram Fischer, a prominent communist was arrested after eluding the police for ten months disguised as ‘Douglas Black’( Gordimer, Essential Gesture 75; “Abram Bram Fischer”). Hence, in contrast to the increased revolutionary activities post-Sharpeville, by the end of 1964, “the first phase of violent resistance was over, and for another decade the country was quiescent….” (Thompson 211). Based on the above mentioned facts it can be drawn that by the year The Late Bourgeois World was published the revolt was effectively all over.

Repression was enabled across the board. For John Vorster, the then Minister of Justice, ‘iron fist’ became the only answer to subversion. The Ninety Day Detention Law was passed in 1963 which empowered the police to detain any suspect without trial. “As a result, the police became more savage: prisoners were routinely beaten and...reports of electric shock, suffocation and other forms of torture…”were heard (Mandela 2:10). Besides political repression cultural repression was also widespread during this time. Publications and Entertainment Act promulgated in 1963 banned from publishing anything that was considered undesirable. In her essay “Censored Banned and Gagged”, Gordimer has written about “what may be considered indecent, obscene, offensive or harmful to public morals.” The law allowed banning of everything from the scenes depicting “night life” and “physical poses” to matter “prejudicial to the safety of the State” (Essential Gesture 61).The censorship applied to magazines and periodicals and many were crippled either by being banned directly or by banning their staff and writers. The political, social and cultural world were conjoined and silenced altogether.

It is indeed shocking to see how the changes in South Africa first resulted in a violent revolution and then effectively countered by the ruling government in the short period. It gives an indication of a false start of the South African revolution suffering from shortsightedness. The Late Bourgeois World emerges from this specific experience. The novel exists in the world knocked off by the counter revolution. It is a post-war novel attempting to find ways to restart the war.

Even Gordimer could not remain untouched by the historical developments. It has been already seen in Occasion for Loving how the destruction of the world of fifties caused disillusionment and isolation in Gordimer’s life which also reflected in her work. In the 60s however, the first revolution arose and was brutally crushed by the government. It must have left her with an increased feeling of frustration. As the censorship laws became more stringent and resulted in either exile or banning of most of her comrades it can be assumed that the feeling of alienation must have been augmented. Interestingly enough, in contrast to the tendency of withdrawal evident in Occasion for Loving, it appears that in the years leading to The Late Bourgeois World, she was again becoming politically involved, as she herself was directly getting affected by the new ethos of repression. A World of Strangers was banned in the paperback edition probably because paperback, being much cheaper than hardcover edition would have been read even by blacks (Bazin and Seymour 12; Gordimer, Telling Times 123). This disprivilege was small in comparison to what her black comrades suffered. Nevertheless, Gordimer took up a stand against cultural and political onslaught and this in turn might have had the effect of politicizing her, as she put it, as a writer she was a member of a “victimised group”(Telling Times 129). In her fight against censorship and in direct response to the Publications and Entertainments Act (1963) and the Sabotage Act (1962) Gordimer wrote an article “Censored, Banned, Gagged” in 1963 in which she pointed out that all the books that have been banned in South Africa “have been banned for a political reason: non conformity with the picture of South African life prescribed and proscribed by apartheid (122). Indeed there are signs indicating that her political consciousness was being roused. In 1966 she wrote an article “Why Did Bram Fischer Choose Jail?” concerning the arrest and trial of Bram Fischer in which her admiration for his integrity and commitment became evident (Telling Times 157). This admiration will resurface thirteen years later in Burger’s Daughter (1979) in which Rosa Burger’s father Lionel Burger is modeled to some degree on Bram Fischer.

The central political interest of Gordimer in The Late Bourgeois World, as she herself remarks, is “the social climate which generated a wave of young white saboteurs in the years 1963-4…” (qtd. in Head 78). The reference to ‘young white saboteurs’ indicates that Gordimer had Armed Resistance Movement (ARM) in mind because it was in 1963-64 that ARM reached the peak of its activity. After launching their first operation of sabotage in September 1963 and until July 1964, it carried out many successful acts of sabotage, bombing power lines, railroad tracks and rolling stock, roads, bridges and other vulnerable infrastructure targets, without causing any civilian casualties. There were four attacks in 1961, three in 1962, eight in 1963, and ten in 1964. Unfortunately it was broken up (Gunther 246). One thing which is evident from Gordimer’s above mentioned remark is that amongst her novels The Late Bourgeois World is most explicitly linked to actual historical events. In it, Gordimer refers to various political events like the Defiance Campaign of 1952 (27), banning of the Communist Party (39) and also when it started functioning as underground organization along with the direct reference to the Liberal Party and Congress of Democrats (41-42).

However, a substantial part of the novel is devoted to an examination of the revolutionary moment of the early 1960s by Liz Van Den Sandt which she undertakes after receiving the news of her ex-husband Max’s death. Max himself had been a young white saboteur albeit a failed one for according to Liz he was not revolutionary enough “…he wasn’t equal to the demands he…took upon himself…” (18).With an inflated image of himself as a historical savior, Max’s conception of revolution was not only naïve but idealistic as well. He grossly underestimated the objective possibilities of the early 1960s. His revolution had been an egocentric affair because he wanted personal success. Hence his revolt was within the terms of bourgeois world, the world he intended to overthrow. He finally turned witness to the state he abhorred so much. In this regard his parents are symbolically cast as pillars of the South African system as proved earlier in this chapter. Therefore Max dies of the personality and historical situation he rejects but cannot transform.

Although it has been mentioned that Max as a character comes out of the history of Armed Resistance Movement (ARM) which definitely puts doubt on the commitment of those actually involved with ARM yet it would not be wrong to mention that he is casted as a type and not as an individual. A type is an amalgamation of different characteristic which does not have a direct bearing on particular individuals. In fact failure of Max can be related to the failure of the entire movement in general, for it is well known that ARM failed drastically for various reasons. It was an unstable movement gathering its participants for all sorts of private reasons (Gunther 252-54).

Nadine Gordimer must have chosen ARM because of its class and ideology. Other organizations still followed liberalism (as many of its members were liberals) but ARM was much closer to Gordimer’s own experience. Growing out of liberalism and cut off from the black mass movements as Gordimer was herself, the ARM must have provided a logical focal point to her in relation to her own historical and ideological development. It is also possible that ARM typifies the overall revolutionary moment, just as Max typifies the ARM. It can be said therefore that it represents the general patterns of the moment in which both Umkhonto and the ARM participated. In writing about the ARM Gordimer is writing about much larger events. It might be pointed out that Gordimer has unconsciously been drawn to the underlying historical realities of the time she has experienced.

The Late Bourgeois World emerges out of the post-revolutionary world of 1960s rather than from within it. It gives an introduction of that world par excellence but unlike other previous novels the observation done cannot be separated from the consciousness of the protagonist. The novel has generated in an environment totally different from that of A World of Strangers and Occasion for Loving. In contrast to the earlier novels where liberal gatherings symbolized multiracial brotherhood here when Liz describes the liberal gatherings of the 1950s, they become an occasion “…where white liberals and black tarts and toughs went for what each could get out of the other…” (LBW 51). Another instance that brings out the distance between the world of Liz and that of Occasion for Loving is when she says, “…I’ve had a black lover years ago…”(82). Even the black world which is observed in the novel is presented as if on the brink of extreme desperation. A truck carrying bags of coal where the black workers have lit up a fire and “…don’t seem to care tuppence about the proximity of the petrol tank….”Another truck loaded with furniture has the “black men clung with precarious insouciance” and “didn’t care a damn either.” The reverse side of this extremity is the complete neglect for whites when one of the furniture delivery workers completely ignores Liz’s presence while making “obscene gestures at the black girl.…But when he caught my smile he looked right through me as though I wasn’t there at all” (21).

The Late Bourgeois World also marks Gordimer’s further disdain with liberal humanism. In fact liberals came to be regarded as the ones who “always want to wait” and “never act” (Driver 62). Liz remarks that liberal humanist code which necessitates “kindness to dogs” and charity has produced only “bewilderment” (LBW 12). Almost in the same tone she points out about the inefficacy of the liberalism when she says: “The liberal-minded whites whose protests, petitions and outspokenness have achieved nothing…” (55). Ironically enough, the characters who embody humanism in the novel are the senior Van Den Sandts which in turn is inseparable from oppression, exploitation and paternalism. It becomes evident then that the ideology which supported Gordimer undergoes a further collapse.

In this historical context it is not surprising that the central observation of the novel concerns the pattern of white consciousness in the post-revolutionary period. This consciousness exists in a divested world. In this regard Max’s death symbolizes the end of revolution. There is no place for emotions and even Liz’s love affair with Graham reveals this emotional bankruptcy when she says, “Graham and I have no private names, references, or love words. We use the standard vocabulary when necessary…” (33).

Liz relates the history of the 50s and 60s while analyzing Max because of the presence of some romantic illusion in it- an illusion to change the history. But now even that illusion is no more, only absolute disillusionment. With all the possibilities exhausted, Liz survives in a world drained of its energy to try again. This disillusion is but one of the aspects of the novel for it rejoices in the spirit of revival. Gordimer has indicated that all is not lost in this post- revolutionary world. The Late Bourgeois World is still concerned with the revival of the possibility of historical engagement. “There are possibilities for me, but under what stone do they lie?”(45). That is why Liz tells her son that Max did not die because of politics but “…in general, he wasn’t equal to the demands he…took upon himself’…. ‘As if you insisted on playing in the first team when you were only good enough- strong enough for third’” (18). Further Liz adds that Max might “…have been a good revolutionary, if there had been a little more time, before all radical movements were banned, for him to acquire political discipline”(45). All this suggest that one can be good enough so long as one knows one’s own strength. This stance is particularly different from Occasion for Loving where possibility for personal engagement was lost to the objective reality. Here, however, personal engagement is possible if adequate objective terms are found to support it. In fact Gordimer herself comes out of the crisis of personal relations and the tasks of objectivity begun in The Late Bourgeois World will continue in A Guest of Honour, Burger’s Daughter and beyond.

Therefore the aim of the novel is to find the impersonal terms of action. It can be argued though that Liz herself has a reductionist position and thus no term of action can be found. No action of hers is involved here. In fact she has taken a refuge in her objectivity which cannot provide a basis for further action. This is visible indirectly in the novel, through Liz’s love affair with Graham. It has already been mentioned how her relationship is divested of all emotions in the divested world of 1960s but along with that her relationship also signifies historical failings. The incident in which this occurs is somewhat clumsily constructed in the novel but the point comes out strongly. Liz and Graham are discussing what he, after reading a book, calls “the Late Bourgeois World” (68), when he asks her, “‘How would you say things are with us?’” He means the condition of the world but for an instant Liz takes him as referring to their relationship. At that time the essential failure between the two is revealed. She remarks: “But it was a quiet, impersonal demand, the tone of the judge exercising the prerogative of judicial ignorance, not the partisan one of the advocate cross- examining. There was what I can only describe as a power failure between us…” (67).