Mother to Mother von Sindiwe Magona. Königs Erläuterungen Spezial.. Patrick Neill Charles

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Poster from 1985 protesting and demanding reform of the education system.[5]

      The combination of inadequate education, social neglect and bad politics (at once irresponsible, oppressive politics proved to be explosive in the immediate aftermath of the apartheid regime. The protests and explosions of violence which Sindiwe Magona talks about in Mother to Mother were shocking to many – to locals and neighbours as well as outsiders and foreign observers.

      The apartheid system influenced education as well as every other aspect of life in South Africa. From the early 1980s, black schools were legally required to conduct the majority of their lessons in English and Afrikaans, with the native languages only allowed to be used for subjects like art and music. The government’s goal was to make sure that all black people in South Africa knew how to communicate with white people in “white” languages. There were widespread and at times violent protests against this, as many students didn’t want to speak Afrikaans. There were strikes and boycotts of schools throughout the townships.

      Multilingual colonial societies have an interesting side-effect when it comes to languages. Organising a society along racial lines – as in apartheid South Africa, with whites on the top and blacks on the bottom – and enforcing the language(s) of the minority ruling class means that the lower classes are forced by circumstance and by law to learn the colonisers’ languages. But they also grow up speaking their own tribal language. In the case of the black characters in Mother to Mother, that language is Xhosa.

      The result of this structure, with black native languages forbidden from being taught in schools but being the main form of communication at home, is that the blacks grow up speaking at least three languages – a tribal mother tongue, English and Afrikaans – whereas the white ruling classes will usually be limited to speaking only the official “white” languages.

      The fluid ease with which Mandisa and her family switch between these languages and the interesting way in which the languages interact with and influence each other are looked at in this study guide in the chapter on Style and Language (p. 114).

      The quality of teaching was also an issue. Over 90% of all the teachers in white schools were properly trained and certified teachers[6] whereas only about 15% of the teachers in black schools were trained teachers. The pass rate for exams and graduating among black students was less than half what it was for white students.

      The issue of education is very important in Mother to Mother – Mandisa talks about it on pages 71–72, for example – but more as a matter of context and environment. It is another one of those outside influences contributing to the violence and unrest of the society and more specifically to Mxolisi’s development and behaviour as a young man. The generally low quality and restrictive nature of segregated education in the apartheid state had the effect of increasing ignorance, unemployment and despair throughout the black population. With no real education – we can see how Mandisa is constantly frustrated in her efforts to educate herself – people have no chance to get well-paying jobs or to improve their position within society. The lack of perspectives creates more despair and frustration, on the one hand: and on the other hand, it provokes radical and at times violent resistance and protest.

      The student protests

      The school boycott was sparked by the deteriorating quality of education in black schools, the school age limit of twenty, and the policy that denied students representation by a democratically elected Student Representative Council.[7]

      The student protests of the “Young Lions” in 1993 which Mandisa talks about were part of a long tradition of protest and resistance, but in this year they were particularly energized by the frustratingly slow pace of change and improvement in society and politics following the release of Mandela, among other developments. Mandela had called the Young Lions “the government-in-waiting”[8] because so many of their leaders were gifted, intelligent and energetic individuals who spoke passionately and articulately about the need for change in South Africa and an end to the oppression of the blacks. But many of these young people had come out of a nation-wide movement which had boycotted schools, protesting the state-led efforts to keep the black population in a state of passivity and ignorance.

      While many of these young people wanted to become lawyers or politicians and active, professional members of society, most of them had little or no official education. Mandisa first mentions the student protests and education boycotts on page 10, describing how a student organisation (COSAS) told students to boycott schools out of solidarity with striking teachers. For Mandisa, this playing at politics and social unrest is unreal, a dangerous and stupid game which is stopping the young people from understanding life – as she sees it, by wasting their youth and not going to school, they all but guaranteeing that their lives as adults will be no better than her generation’s: “if they’re not careful, they’ll end up in the kitchens and gardens of white homes … just like us, their mothers and fathers” (p. 10).

      ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

      Sindiwe Magona has written a two-volume autobiography (the first part of which was her first published work), a biography of Archbishop Ndungane, as well as short story collections, poetry and novels. She has also written more than 100 books for children – we won’t be looking at these in this study guide, however.

      The novels