Mariam Tlali’s 1989 novel, ‘Devil at the dead end’, is a text in which the author tells us about a journey of the girl from Ficksburg to Johannesburg. The author invites us on a journey where ‘the girl’ faces obstacles and experiences she had to learn how to deal with them. The journey from the rural areas to the city can be a long, tiring and very strainers activity. One can only wish for the trip to shorten. It is not a very glamorous experience especially when you are standing the whole way through, the whole night. It would be expected for black passengers to receive the worst services they can get. Blacks were receiving the worst treatment. They were treated with little or no respect at all. It had become a norm to see a black person suffer. Apartheid means separateness. Apartheid was a tool of racial segregation coerced by the then South African National Party. It is evident from the texts and testimonials for example the Sharpeville massacre, the lives of most citizens were overwhelmed by a dark cloud. Not only was apartheid a system of racial discrimination, however, it was also imposed separation or segregation of blacks and whites in the areas of government, labour market and residency. It was, thus, pervasive in that it was deeply embedded within the economic, social and political structure of the whole country. To implement its policy of division and rule, the Nationalist Party passed a series of laws. The system was, although enforced most black South Africans. They treated non-whites, coloureds and Indians as second-class citizens and black Africans as non-citizens. Blacks were not recognized as citizens in their native land, they were foreigners in their own land. Apartheid had succeeded in dividing ‘class’ of people according to race. Whites being the supremacists, Indians following by Coloureds and blacks. Black people were forced to live within homelands; Transkei, Lebowa, Venda and seven others. They would work in certain jobs. Blacks were given an education that only gave them skills on hard labour and agricultural labour. They would only be taught what they would need in life as labourers. The apartheid system had overall power over South Africa and its mark and imprint will forever be engraved on the lives of those who endured hardships, those who were the powerless.
South Africa has several different languages present within its borders, both from natives and foreigners. The apartheid system divided people according to skin colour and the languages that they spoke. It was so sneaky or rather diabolical that they did not just separate people according to race that they altered their mindsets into thinking different types of people as ‘other types of human being’. Apartheid caused people to have psychological effects. Most of black people were left traumatized plus humiliated because of experiences that they had under the whites. One of these experiences come from the text when the girl is at the station in Ficksburg. “…his fierce~looking, cat-like, bespectacled grey eyes looking like an abyss,” Tlali (1989). It seems as if the clerk’s glance created fear and insecurities to the girl, as if he was saying with his eyes, indirectly, that she was beneath him. The clerk is like an animal, the author describes his gaze as ‘cat like’. These words are often associated with a predator and very dangerous and aggressive animals. When the girl dropped her eyes after such a powerful gaze, the clerk dropped her change. There was a struggle for power. In that moment, there was a manifestation of power through eye contact. This scene reminds of animals fighting for a mate during the mating season. When one animal backs down, it has lost, in this case the girl backed down. She had lost the fight. She is subconsciously traumatized, so she keeps on reliving that moment in her thoughts, throughout the text. The clerk as well as other white people used their skin colour and language, Afrikans, to disadvantage others. This is shown when the security guard at the station says, “speak to him in Se-Buru and not in English” Tladi (1989). This inconveniences others who may not speak the language. It would have been a different story provided that the girl did not know how to speak the language. Who would have known how that seen was going to play out? The fact that her change was thrown on the pavement, because she did not make a booking, what might have happened had she spoke in ‘English’.
Tladi’s representation of how she perceives her body offers us an insight of how women felt with themselves and bodies, mostly black woman. From the text it is self-explanatory when she replies to the old lady,ï don’t know. But somehow they don’t seem to know that we human like them.” Tladi (1989). This lays the foundations of how some white men see black women. It was like the bodies of black women had an owner. The fact that soldiers would chase and force themselves on these women is a terrifying thing. The devil was not a creature that could only be summoned when sinning, the devils were of the men who preyed on these vulnerable women. They had exercised their power that they could infiltrate someone’s being. “She had been like a bewildered beholder, powerless.” Tladi (1989). It is as if this quote marries both power relations and body relations. The girl was somewhat almost forced to engage in an act that could have possibly led to rape. Her heart and mind were fighting off the guard, but she could not gather enough courage. It is awfully sad that women had to go through this, then and now. The word ‘Mokoala’ might as well be the angel that saved her. It is ironic that the word associated with uncleanliness and death could become her beacon of light. Her fort that protected her when the war came. In the texts she speaks of how David defeated Goliath. It is strategy and technique that David used to defeat Goliath. The word ‘mokoala’ was that tool she needed to bring down the power struck man.
In conclusion Mariam Tlali highlights her travels from Ficksburg. She highlights her experiences. She gives us an insight of South Africa through her eyes. She reveals how power was a white man’s possession and no matter what the black man did, they could not share a portion of that power. From how the white clerk used such a simple mechanism, ‘glance’, to terrify the girl. That shook her that she kept on recalling that eventful day and replaying it in her mind. The apartheid system tried to invade how black people live their lives. How blacks would have to account to why they visited the city. The apartheid system made it extra difficult and dangerous to travel. They had to cross rivers to reach their destinations, whilst risking their lives. Stand for hours whilst travelling. Receive the worst sorts of services. I feel as if the devil was the apartheid system and the white man who wanted to engage with her in intercourse. The dead end was South Africa during the apartheid era and the moment when the guard pursued her. She could not do anything at that moment. Tladi’s experiences embodied South Africa’s darkest times with just one journey.
References
Beinart,W. and Dubow,S. Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth-Century South Africa. 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE: Routledge, 1995.
Maylan,P. Explaining the apartheid city: 20 Years of South African Urban Historiography, Journal of South Africa Vol 21, No. 1, Special Issue: Urban Studies and Urban Change in Southern Africa: Taylor and Francis, Ltd, 1995
Mhlauli,M. Salani,E. and Mokotedi,R. Understanding apartheid in South Africa through the racial contract. Department of primary education, faculty of education, University of Botswana, Botswana: International Journal of Asian Social Science, 2015.
Topic title: Devil at the dead end
Name: Karabo Segogela
Student number: 1848417
Critical Thinking
Course code: ELEN1003A
