More from my activist essay...
The second piece, A Dry White Season by Andre Brink, an initially upper-class, white, naïve South African man named Ben Du Toit becomes involved in activism when his black friend Gordon Ngubene “commits suicide” while in South African police custody. This highly political novel takes place in South Africa during the 1948-1950’s Grand Apartide, which denied voting rights to all but whites, determined where people could live, and determined where people could work. While Ben lives and works in the city of Johannesburg, Gordon works there and must be bused out of the city and into the South West township of Soweto at the end of the day. Although Ben is the main example of activism, Gordon first becomes an activist when his son Jonathan disappears after the Soweto school riots. As Gordon investigates his son death, he becomes imprisoned and murdered by South African police officers who cover his death by claiming that he committed suicide. As Gordon’s close friend, Ben investigates his cause of death and eventually gathers enough evidence to prove his murder. Similarly to Clare Savage, Ben Du Toit becomes an activist through a process of embracing the problems of the South African community.
Everything wholly strange. Children who say ‘good morning’ and whose faces you see without recognizing them or knowing why they are addressing you. A bell that sends you from classroom to classroom and which you obey without knowing the reason. When you open your mouth it is without any foreknowledge of what will follow. It happens by itself. Your own words seem unfamiliar to you, your voice comes from far away. Every building, every room, the tables and benches, the blackboard, pieces of chalk, everything is strange. Nothing wholly dependable. You have to assume that, previously, you managed to pick your way through it all, that in some mysterious way you ‘belonged’, but it is inexplicable now…You’re on the other side. And how can I explain it in the words of ‘this side’? (Brink 158).
In this passage, Ben is reflecting on his experience with becoming an activist. Similarly to the bullet metaphor, Ben feels he no longer has a choice in whether or not he should act. He is part of the South African community, and by recognizing this he has become an advocate for change and justice within it. To explain the process of becoming an activist, there are a few subtle stairs to climb while reaching the level of activism. This passage argues that no real grey area exists, Ben was one a bystander and is now wholly part of the anti-Apartide movement, “It has begun. A pure, elemental motion: something happened- I reacted- something opposed me. A vast, clumsy, shapeless thing has stirred…But what? Perhaps simply to do what one has to do, because you’re you, because you’re there.” (Brink 161). As the bullet springs forth with the pull of a trigger, so is ignited and disintegrates into the action which is being done. In the example of Ben Du Toit, activism is not a direct choice but rather an involved and intimate calling.