Apartheid and Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer brings the realities of Apartheid to her readers attention with these three short stories we have read.  For me, these stories helped to point out the horrible realities of Apartheid.  I was not aware of all of the difficulties and hardships that come from Apartheid and the long struggle the people of South Africa were subjected to.  I thought that Gordimer's writing was even more fascinating through the eyes of a white person who clearly has major issues with Apartheid and the way it causes her fellow South African's to be treated.  Gordimer uses characters with no name in all of her stories to show us how a group of people would react in everyday situations in South Africa.

To be honest, I was completely disgusted in every sense of the word by all three of these stories.  In "Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants," we are shown how nothing in Apartheid makes sense not only to those not involved, but to those that are involved.  I found this point to be fascinating.  Before this class, I had certainly heard of Apartheid, but had never studied the true intricacies of this difficult subject.  After learning about it, I am not sure that I understand Apartheid any better than before.  This is an unbelievably complex topic, and seems to be near impossible to fully comprehend, especially for those of us who aren't African, or South African for that matter.  In my opinion, this short story does a great job of attempting to teach an outsider just how hard Apartheid is to get a grasp on.

"Amnesty" brings to light a different side of Apartheid.  Political prisoners like Nelson Mandela spent years upon years sharing radical ideas with each other on Robin's Island.  An unintended consequence of this was the forming of "the movement" by the imprisoned men once released from their island of seclusion.  These men, once released, work for the betterment of his people by joining/starting "the movement."  I had never thought of the politics of Apartheid in this fashion.  I was in awe of the sheer magnitude of everything(i.e. emotions, politics, way of life) to do with Apartheid.  Because this brought to my mind such different ideas about something that I thought I knew a little about, it has really changed the way I view any conflict in general.  It is hard to keep up on global issues for me as it is.  But when you really take the time to examine things that we briefly discussed in high school history classes, it really makes me think just how little America/Americans understands about other cultures; or try to understand for that matter (I say from my corner in the room).  To relate this to something that is current and has been for the past 10 or so years.  I would say that Americans clearly cannot grasp the ideals of the middle east which is why it seems that the two wars in which our country are involved in seem to be endless.  We want to change something that we do not understand.  That seems to be root of a lot of our problems with the middle east.
Anyway, back to "Amnesty," Gordimer made a very interesting point that although the men are the ones that are credited with all of the glory for their fighting for the people, the women are the ones that actually do all of the domestic work, and therefore cannot do anything but that.  The men sort of leave the women high and dry so to speak.  The women of South Africa seem to be speaking through this story and Gordimer, yelling "If you gave us a chance, we could do it better than you!"  It seems that Gordimer asserts that no one deserves more praise or recognition than the women in this so called "movement."

"Six Feet of the Country" was a horribly tragic story, that points out just how faceless the institution of Apartheid is.  There is no way to control the monster that is Apartheid.  It is essentially an untamable beast.  Once created, the evil that Apartheid represents takes over everyone around it, and envelops them in its evil.  This is seen clearly through this short story.  When the baas man tries to get the body back after several failed attempts, even he is not capable of doing so.  I think that this was a very strong statement from Gordimer.  She asserts that not only is the system impossibly hard to deal with for black people as is obvious to those that know anything about Apartheid, but also being white is not an easy thing to do.  Basically, she seems to point out that no one listens to anyone.  I think this is mostly because she is saying that no one cares in any way shape or form.  I mean, to me, if I was burying my brother and when I looked at him one last time before I buried him forever, and it wasn't him, not only would I be devastated, but I would have such an unbelievable amount of anger I would find it difficult not to go on a killing spree.  Especially if prior to all of this, I not only had the body, but then had to pay $20,000 to get it back...  Obviously Gordimer expresses her discontent for the system of Apartheid.  I think it is fair to say that overall Gordimer expressed herself very clearly in her short stories and he points get across very effectively.  As an American reading Gordimer, I feel as I have a much better understanding of what Apartheid actually meant for the people that were apart of it.