Tea and Rubber Bullets

Butler’s article on performativity strikes me most on the political front. Before addressing the image above, I would like to go on a small tangent. Having grown up in a newly independent country has afforded me the fading POV of those who lived through the joys of colonialism and the trials of freedom. I refer to colonialism with the word “joy” because many of the stories that circulated in my childhood were often laden with a sepia-toned nostalgia for the days of Her Majesty’s rule. The days of chaos into which the country descended after having been left to its own devices on the other hand, are relayed with from the grim perspective of survival.

For instance, an elderly aunt loves to reminisce with delight upon the days when they drank tea out of a tea-pot in a cozy and ate marmite on sliced bread, while my father often says my sisters and I should count ourselves lucky to have missed the wars of Idi Amin and Milton Obote. The aunt in question still has evening tea without fail (having replaced the teapot with a flask, and the marmite with red plum jam), and my father is as silent as my mother is vocal concerning the slowly deteriorating political climate in Uganda. With or without their knowledge, these two individuals have recreated and maintained the atmosphere (of British rule and political turmoil) through nostalgia and silence respectively. They are performing and creating their identity through repetitive acts which work towards “…a reproduction of norms. Indeed, there is no reproduction of the social world that is not at the same time a reproduction of those norms that govern the intelligibility of the body in space and time.” [Butler 2009; 10]

The power of the nation-state (in this case, the British Empire) remains alive and potent in the minds and through the behavior of those who lived under its rule. I observed that with intelligibility comes the perk of status, and with status comes the illusion of some kind of power. Uganda’s membership in The Commonwealth of Nations for example, may not offer any sweet trade deals or military protection, but it does offer alliance and affiliation with what was once a powerful empire. Through this alliance, Uganda is afforded certain rights to “…language, history, culture and their shared values of democracy, free speech, human rights, and the rule of law.” [Wikipedia] Despite having a rough start with independence, Uganda can save face by maintaining these alliances as a nation state and continuing to perform these shared values through individuals like my aunt. There is an acceptance, and even pride taken in continuous performance and preservation of a colonialist culture.

We now come to the image. The right half of the image depicts the death of Hector Pieterson during the Soweto Uprising of 1976. The Soweto Uprising was a series of student protests in apartheid South Africa which began on 16^th June 1976, in response to the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974. This decree declared that all instruction in black schools should comprise of Afrikaans and English in a 50-50 split. Students and teachers identified this as an intentional set-back for black students which would remove their focus from learning the material to learning the “language of the oppressor”, and severely affect their ability to be hired upon entering an already biased workforce.

On the morning of June 16^th 1976, the police opened fire upon thousands of children marching for their right to be educated in English. Pieterson, aged thirteen, was among the first to die and is captured being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo (18) to a clinic, with his sister Antionette Sitole in tow. This image became the face of the uprising, which in itself was the beginning of the end of the apartheid government eighteen years later. Although it does not contain any text, this image is a performative act that reverberated across the world, sending a clear message about the true nature of apartheid and inciting the global community to take hard action against the regime.

The image on the left depicts a group of South African students, presumably in 2016. I cannot confirm if they are indeed drunk (although they appear as such). Their names, ages, and destinations also remain a mystery, but there is no denying the disappointment with which this image seems to be laden. I located the source of the image and was led to an article (link posted below) which spoke of the reversal that has taken place on the education scene in South Africa. 

Throughout the course of my undergraduate degree, I often heard words like “decolonization” and “reintegration” and “hegemony” come out of the mouths of my peers. There was an underlying dissatisfaction, predominantly among the black students, with the nature of material that we were required to cover. They desired an education in their home languages, the study of works written in contexts familiar to their experience, and “…the decolonization of Afrikaans itself”. [Article] The “language of the oppressor” could no longer exist comfortably in a world of “woke” twenty first century students who desired nothing more than rob it of its oppressive powers.

It is telling however, that the same students who demanded a return to the language of their forefathers employed words like “decolonization”, “reintegration” and “hegemony”. These students were not only aware of the pervasive nature of English, they were using it to define their objectives and carve a path towards a future hopefully free of the inevitable consequences of apartheid. In October 2015, the Fees Must Fall movement (link below) began in response to an unexpected increase in tuition for the 2016 academic year. Once more, students took to the streets, and once more the police retaliated with everything short of live ammunition. The image at the top seems to represent a body of youth who are slumbering in the sweet aura of freedom from apartheid. It could also be interpreted as a youth who are barely coping with the disappointment of freedom. Yet more than anything, it seems to represent a youth that is downtrodden by a system which fails to work in its favor despite genuine efforts to do so.

If the ongoing movement says something however, it promotes a body of students fully aware of the chinks in its nation state’s armor. Butler makes the observation that freedom is created and exists within the moment of its manifestation – but this does not mean that a manifested freedom is a successful one.

Like my aunt with her tea cozy, it may never be possible to fully escape a history which continuously defines these student’s performativity of their reality. The language spoken between students and the police force continues in a cycle that continuously models the identity of either party. Twenty years of independence has been long enough to allow bubbles to the surface veneer of “The Rainbow nation.” It is not surprising that new demands are being made, but it is important to remember that these demands do not originate with rioting students.

“When and if subversion or resistance becomes possible, it does so not because I am a sovereign subject, but because a certain historical convergence of norms at the site of my embodied personhood opens up possibilities for action.” [Butler 2009;10-11]

Fees Must Fall: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/world/africa/fees-must-fall-anatomy-of-the-student-protests-in-south-africa.html

Article: https://www.theedgesearch.com/2016/06/sarafina-16-june-2016-vs-16-june-1976.html