Journal 4

The Power of One contains a number of references to a group of people called Kaffirs – or heathens. They consisted of the native black and coloured (part black) population of South Africa, and were regarded as inferior to the white people. After South Africa was colonised by the British and Dutch in the seventeenth century, the British took total control of the country (as seen in previous blog entry). After the country was declared independent from England, there was an uneasy power-sharing between the Afrikaners (Boers) and the Anglo-African (British). Then, in the 1940’s, the Afrikaner National Party was able to gain a strong majority. The South African apartheid originated from this political party and was a means to reinforce their control over the economic and social system. Initially the aim of the apartheid was to maintain the white dominance while keeping the blacks away from the whites.

            The Population Registration Act classified all South Africans into three major categories: white, black (African) and coloured (Indians and Asians). People were classified into these categories by appearance, social acceptance and descent. For example, a white person would be defined as “in appearance obviously a white person, or generally accepted as a white person” (Act No. 30 of 1950). Any person that is a member of an African tribe is categorised as black and a coloured person is one that is neither black nor white. This categorisation was coordinated by the Department of Home Affairs, and any rebellion to the race laws were dealt with strictly.

            The racial discrimination touched every aspect of social life. The Blacks had different transport services, toilets and hospitals, to name just a few things, and lived in completely different areas than the blacks. There were designated white-only areas, and black people were required to carry ‘pass books’, containing their fingerprints and photo ID, to gain access to these white zones. The government sanctioned white-only jobs, and also prohibited marriage between whites and non-whites. Voting rights were also stripped from the native Africans, allowing them to vote only in their designated homeland. The idea of the apartheid was that every African would lose their citizenship in South Africa – they even needed passports to enter into South Africa, their own country!

Any protest or rebellion to the dominant white regime, such as 1960, when a large group of blacks refused to carry their passes, would result in punishments being imposed. Those who were put on trial were sentenced to death, banished or imprisoned for life, like the famous Nelson Mandela.

The racial discrimination present in South Africa during the mid-1900’s is also evident in The Power of One. I was first confronted with the reality of the racism on page 231 when Johannes Oudendaal, or ‘Kilpkop’, violently harasses a black African. Accusing the prisoner of eating some biscuits, he punched him in the face. With his nose bleeding all over the floor and on Klipkop’s shoes, the African was forced to lick the blood clean! Even the ‘nice’ characters in the book, such as Hoppie Groenewald, are guilty of treating non-white Africans badly (page 95). Peekay does not share in the racist ideas that others around him have, treating everybody the same. When he and Hoppy are talking with Patel the shopkeeper, a black African, Hoppy is surprised to see Peekay talk to him as if he was a ‘normal’ white: ‘You don’t call a blerrie coolie a “Mister”’. Peekay, with his actions to those around him, was considered peculiar and nobody understood his attitude.