Examining the undisclosed margins: postcolonial intellectuals and subaltern voices

Abstract

South African history and culture is etched with traces of subalterns that continue to struggle against silencing. The resistance struggle owed much to the efforts of ordinary South Africans, who bore the brunt of repression. The tactics of the apartheid government included structural repression, state violence and cultural suppression. To the extent that resistance was outlawed and severely punished, the struggle was a subaltern expression. Less well known is the fact that there were other sources of cultural repression: some disaffected beneficiaries of apartheid, who styled themselves as liberal intellectuals were quite reactionary in their responses to the resistance literature. Some relatively progressive intellectuals have also contributed (however unwittingly) to the marginalization of black writers, men and women. The women’s resistance poetry addresses political and gender activism, responses to the deaths in the struggle, the recognition of the need for imaginative strategies to prevail against apartheid, capitalism, patriarchy and neo-colonialism, as well as the need for self-reflection and self-criticism. The post-apartheid period has brought new and tougher challenges. The testimony given by women at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggests how women have been silenced by tradition, the brutality of the state and some of their comrades, fear of the consequences of being heard, and by the inherent shortcomings in the structure and process of the investigation. The condition of migrant subalterns in the post-apartheid state is investigated by examining the lives of women who have casual employment as domestic workers and live in makeshift housing in urban shack settlements. Most are sole supporters and caretakers of their households and struggle to make up the curbs in social services that have resulted from structural adjustment. Poorly paid and exploited by their employers, abandoned by the trade union movement and ignored by the local government, the fact that they and their dependents survive is a function of their capacity for labour, networking and creativity. From the methods and achievements of subaltern organizations, it appears that they have a pivotal role to play in improving the lives of subalterns.

Keywords:

• resistance literature
• apartheid
• postcolonial intellectuals
• gender
• shacks
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission