ABSTRACT

The motif of ‘news’, which presupposes the advent of something gifted with the power to dishearten, surprise or elevate the receiver, frames the telling of the story of the people I have called fractured souls. Any act of narration, which does not contain a kernel of newsiness, something unexperienced before the telling, is, in my reckoning, not worth the effort. The objective of telling is to change someone’s perceptions of reality; in our case the only reality that is as intimate as breath is the undying hold memory has on our past, present and future. Drawing on my lived experience and using the lives of the communities dislocated by apartheid - from the late 1960s through the unutterably bloody 1980s - I deploy the personal and communal archives of memory to tell my story, a story of how people waited for the news of their liberation. I maintain the curiosity of a child, “to know” the cryptic language of adults that obfuscated the full meaning of what was happening. The brazen display of oppressive power by the state agencies, however, exploded all concealment. Deepening the confusion was the realisation that, even though the depredations against the black masses were borne of apartheid ideology, they were similarly unforgiving towards weaker, poorer whites, bringing into focus the layering of class over race. The story, then, tries to cohere the disparate consciousnesses of these fractured souls and suggests the healing power of communal memory. A memory informed by a dispassionate examination of experience.

摘要

“新闻”的主题是预示着某种具有使人沮丧，惊奇或提升接收者的能力的天赋，它讲述了我所说的破碎心灵的人们的故事。在我看来，任何不包含新闻核心的叙述行为，在讲述之前都是没有经验的，因此不值得这样做。讲述的目的是改变某人对现实的看法。就我们而言，唯一与呼吸息息相关的现实是对我们过去，现在和未来的不朽记忆。借鉴我的生活经验并利用种族隔离造成的社区生活-从1960年代后期到血腥的1980年代-我部署了个人和公共记忆档案来讲述我的故事，这是人们如何等待新闻的故事。他们的解放。我保持孩子的好奇心，“知道”成年人的神秘语言，使正在发生的事情的全部含义难以理解。但是，国家机构大胆表现出来的压迫力量使所有的隐瞒都爆炸了。使人们更加困惑的是，人们意识到，尽管对黑人群众的蔑视是由种族隔离意识形态造成的，但它们同样对弱小，贫穷的白人不情愿，使阶级在种族上的地位更加突出。然后，这个故事试图融合这些破碎的灵魂的不同意识，并提出公共记忆的治愈能力。记忆是通过对经验的无情检查而得出的。但是，国家机构大胆表现出来的压迫力量使所有的隐瞒都爆炸了。使人们更加困惑的是，人们意识到，尽管对黑人群众的蔑视是由种族隔离意识形态造成的，但他们同样对弱小，贫穷的白人不情愿，这使阶级在种族上的地位更加突出。然后，这个故事试图融合这些破碎的灵魂的不同意识，并提出公共记忆的治愈能力。记忆是通过对经验的无情检查而得出的。但是，国家机构大胆表现出来的压迫力量使所有的隐瞒都爆炸了。使人们更加困惑的是，人们意识到，尽管对黑人群众的蔑视是由种族隔离意识形态造成的，但他们同样对弱小，贫穷的白人不情愿，这使阶级在种族上的地位更加突出。然后，这个故事试图融合这些破碎的灵魂的不同意识，并提出公共记忆的治愈能力。记忆是通过对经验的无情检查而得出的。然后，这个故事试图融合这些破碎的灵魂的不同意识，并提出公共记忆的治愈能力。记忆是通过对经验的无情检查而得出的。然后，这个故事试图融合这些破碎的灵魂的不同意识，并提出公共记忆的治愈能力。记忆是通过对经验的无情检查而得出的。