How do Seitlhamo Motsapi and Tatamkhula Afrika portray apartheid in their poems ‘Andif’ and ‘Nothings changed’?
The apartheid was a time between 1948 and 1990’s. Apartheid is an African word meaning ‘separateness’ this was not just separation between people but it was racial segregation. The apartheid was invented by the national party it was a way to cement their control and economic and social system. The aim of the apartheid was to maintain white domination while extending racial segregation.
The apartheid had major effects on black people in the country. Blacks had to carry identification and passports in their own country. They were not allowed education but only what they were allowed to have but this was very limited. They needed permission to enter white areas. In public areas, they had designated areas that they could use like car parks and public areas/facilities. They got jobs like slaves serving the whites. If they even tried to stand up for themselves, they were met by violence. The blacks had to stay in their own areas called ‘Bantua’. The blacks had lost their freedom and rights. There was even a ban put on marriages blacks could not marry whites. If a person in a family was black and the rest of the family was white then the rest would count as blacks.
The poems that we are going to write about are to do with the apartheid and the effects of the apartheid on the black people in south Africa and how they lived with the oppression that was bought on these people when the apartheid was put into use.
In the poem ‘Andif’ the writer is writing about blood cuts and death he is telling us about all the horrible things that happened to people and the suffering they were going through when the apartheid was in use. He describes all the different ways they suffered. The theme of cutting is used a lot he uses words like ‘lacerated’,’ incisions’, ‘rent bellies’, ‘gash’, ‘slit’ and ‘wounds’ this just tells us how things are being cut and hurt by the apartheid. He also mentions words linking to killings and death of people. He uses a simile ‘hasty like alligators in search of graves’ this just shows how there are lots of people dead and graves. In addition to this connecting the graves to ‘Abysses where death rests' this is giving an image of big holes in the earth full of dead people, mass graves it shows how many people were massacred and they put them in mass graves. The theme of killing in ‘Andif’ is linked to death, ‘genocidal frenzies’, ‘coffins’ and ‘murdered’ it is telling us all the suffering and pain they had in the time of the ‘apartheid’. Other than the killings and death there is the violence, torture of black people who try to speak and stand up for themselves against the ‘apartheid’ words like ‘bruises scream’ show they were tortured and beaten. There is one line in the poem that is showing that when people were tortured they were tortured badly this line is ‘skewed postures’ it just gives an idea of how badly they were tortured even their bodies had gone into a deformed twisted and bent shape after all the torture they suffered. This is what state they were left in the people who brutally beat them never cared for them.
