Amandla!... Awethu! (Power!... to Us!) Cultural Identity, Political Resistance, Gender and Love in Nadine Gordimer’s “My Son’s Story”

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Amandla! ... Awethu! (Power!... To us!) Cultural Identity, Political Resistance, Gender and Love in Nadine Gordimer’s “My son’s story” “There were the cries, Amandla! Viva! and joy when these were taken up by the whites, and there were the deep dreamy intonations of the old-time greetings” (Gordimer, 1991: 108-109) And there we are, crying with them, singing, facing the story, almost a historical document written beautifully by Nadine Gordimer. It is impossible not to get involved, not to become absorbed in the narrative and be part of the fights; those for the right of freedom and the cultural power of the people, or the internal ones, in Will and Sonny’s souls, or those that emerge when the female characters shift positions from domestic to revolutionary by replacing social stereotypes. From its beginnings under Dutch and British domination, South Africa lived in a constant racial conflict; a white minority, only thirteen percent of the population, ruled a large black majority. In 1910, it gained self-rule from the British Empire and in 1931 it became an independent member of the Commonwealth. Although South Africa had a constitutional government, segregation and racial hatred were formalised in through law since 1948, when the National Party came into power and South Africa’s apartheid (Afrikaans: “apartness”) era started. The new official policy classified inhabitants into racial groups: Bantu (all black Africans), Coloured (those of mixed race), or White. A fourth category, Asian (Indian and Pakistani) was later added. “The laws that have decided what we are, and what they are” (Gordimer, 1991: 14) These major groups where confined to live in set up reserves, called Homelands and they were forbidden in white lands. The “pass” laws required nonwhites to carry documents authorizing their presence in the restricted areas. As some lordly

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