By Helen King
“there are books that make you laugh or cry, and there are books that change your way of thinking and your life.”
Quote: Email from Dania, 25/11/12.
Photograph: Hector Pieterson being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo as his sister, Antoinette Sithole, runs beside them. Sam Nzima, 1976.
Sam Nzima’s photograph of 13-year-old Hector Pieterson, limp in the arms of a young man whilst his sister runs alongside, horror across her face, has become one the defining images of the youth struggle against South African apartheid. Hector was shot and killed by police during the Soweto Uprising, which began on the 16th June 1976 to protest the implementation of Afrikaans as a compulsory language of instruction in all schools. Whilst the events of ’76 stand out in history, the involvement of children and young people was a defining feature of anti-apartheid activism across decades and countries.
This was as much the case in Britain as it was elsewhere; there was wide youth involvement in the Non-Stop Picket, which protested outside the South African embassy for the release of Nelson Mandela from 1986-1990, and in the Anti-Apartheid Movement more generally. Activism was the conduit for coming of age for many in 1980’s Britain, and not merely ‘a backdrop to these young people’s lives; they grew up through their political engagement’ (18).
Beverley Naidoo’s first novel, Journey to Jo’burg, was born out of this movement. Her authorial archive at Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, UK, holds hundreds of responses from readers of Journey to Jo’burg. Given that this novel places children at the centre of the anti-apartheid struggle, I want to know how reading this novel in a classroom setting constituted political engagement for Naidoo’s young readers.
Journey to Jo’burg is focalised from the perspective of 13-year-old Naledi. Naledi and her younger brother Tiro live rurally, away from their mother who lives and works as a maid in Johannesburg. When their baby sister Dineo falls ill, they decide to walk to Jo’burg to find their mother and bring her home. With help from other young people that they meet along the way, they eventually find their mother and bring her home. Dineo is treated at the hospital and recovers, but the children are shocked to witness another mother mourning her recently deceased baby.
For Naledi, this physical journey is also a journey of political awakening. It is dangerous for the children to be in Johannesburg, since they are not covered by their mother’s pass, which gives her as a Black person permission to be in the areas reserved for whites. Naledi witnesses the violence of a pass raid and meets young people who were part of the Soweto uprising of 1976. This leads her to reflect on her education for the first time, on ‘all those lessons on writing letters… for jobs as servants… always writing how good they were at cooking, cleaning, washing, gardening… always ending with “Yours Obediently”’ (Journey to Jo’burg, 88). Her eyes are opened to the systematic oppression of her people, and she is spurred on to seek action. By identifying with her, the implied reader is invited on the same journey of political awakening.
The anti-apartheid ideology of Journey to Jo’burg is rooted in Naidoo’s own story of activism. Born in Johannesburg in 1943, Naidoo moved to the UK in 1965 and worked as a teacher and education advisor. She had already been arrested in South Africa for her involvement in the anti-apartheid resistance movement as a 21-year-old, and in 1981 she joined the education group of the British Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (BDAF), at the same time as being involved in the S.W. Hertfordshire Anti-Apartheid group books campaign. This campaign existed to expose the paucity of criticism of apartheid in fiction or non-fiction for British child readers. With the support of the BDAF, and in particular from its director Ethel de Keyser, Naidoo wrote Journey to Jo’burg to expose British readers to a ‘social reality which has largely been censored for children in Britain in the books available to them.’ (“Journey to Jo’burg: a South African story. A statement on its origins”). After two years of difficulty finding a publisher, Journey to Jo’burg was published by Longman in 1985, within their Knockouts imprint for reluctant older readers. It was taken up by Collins in 1987, where it has since remained in print.
Photograph by Linda Brownlee, courtesy of https://beverleynaidoo.com/
The responses I explore here are from children who read Journey to Jo’burg in school from 1985-99, which correspond to the final years of apartheid and the sustained global anti-apartheid movement that accompanied them, the release of Mandela in 1991, and his election as President in 1994. There are three general trends that I notice. Readers are asking big questions about the new ideas that the novel presents to them. Secondly, readers are registering strong emotions and the seeds of empathy. Finally, readers are becoming aware of and interrogating racism. Furthermore, these letters carry traces of the teacher’s influence, and the culture and conversations in their classroom.
Often a letter from a class teacher accompanies the responses sent to Naidoo. In her own reader response work, Through Whose Eyes, a study into the effectiveness of anti-racist literature in challenging racial bias in the classroom, Naidoo argues that ‘the teacher is an essential element within her or his own pedagogical framework ‘ (146). These responses are traces of the impact of these pedagogical frameworks, and illustrate the importance of reading in the classroom as a form of political engagement.
The effect of the novel is often communicated to Naidoo by these teachers. One teacher is impressed by her student’s ‘perceptive questions’ (“Letter from Mrs Formby to Amanda Bartell, 9/7/99”), while another, who used the text with her infants class, comments that ‘the depths of their discussions were impressive’ (“Letter from top infants teacher, April 88”). Hard and often ambiguous questions fill many of these letters. One reader uses poetry, possibly in response to a school creative writing exercise, to frame his questions:
Painful feelings, black and white
Poem: Response to Beverley Naidoo
Racism growing in might and might
Is it fair? Why is it so?
Should we put the blacks down?
Should we split Africa?
This reader uses the poem format to wrestle with his questions, which expose both his defensiveness when presented with the concept of racism, and his awareness of British complicity in the dynamics of the apartheid regime.
The questions asked by a reader from the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory, engage with the role of literature in political life. They ask: ‘did you expect your readers whether black or white to respond to your message? Was there any controversy over Journey to Jo’burg? Do you think you have changed anyone’s views of racism?’ (“Letter from Cayman Islands middle school, 22/05/92’). This reader is intuiting something about the life cycle of this politically motivated text, and interrogating the role of literature in dismantling racism. In a statement of origins attached to an early draft of Journey to Jo’burg, Naidoo has expressed her hope ’that young readers will be moved to ask questions [and] perhaps, too, they will begin to understand the spirit of resistance.’ (“Journey to Jo’burg: a South African story. A statement on its origins”). It seems that through some of these responses, her political vision for this novel has been realised.
The common thread across all of Journey to Jo’burg’s audiences is in the strong emotional responses it provokes. Whilst it was published for a middle-grade audience, there are a few instances in the archive of teachers using the novel with their infants classes (5-7 years old). Both the letter and the artwork pictured above demonstrate that these very young readers are struck by a sense of injustice. For the artist, this manifests in a dramatization of Naledi and Tiro at their mother’s place of work, as her employer refuses to let her leave and go to her sick child. The writer of the letter explores the idea of fairness: ‘when the baby dies it is sad is’t it and when the mum has to go to Jo’burg it is’t right [sic]’ (“Top infants, 6-7 yrs. Battersea, London, 1988: mounted on lilac paper”). Both readers are conveying something of the sadness they feel at the events of the novel. For the writer of the letter in particular, it is the idea of a fellow child suffering at the hands of adults that provokes this sadness.
A similar sense of grief at the suffering of fellow children is expressed in an illustrated poem entitled ‘South Africa’, written by a 12 year old in 1992 [pictured below]. This poem is stark, both in the way it is laid out on the page and in the brevity of its descriptions:
The child is shouting for help
Poem: South Africa. 12 year old student Wey Valley School
As the men beat him with sticks
One white man is laughing
Enjoying the child’s misfortune.
And the black population’s misery.
This bleakness is enhanced by the image, depicting a large white fist squeezing a tiny corrugated iron settlement and a few black figures. This is an oppressive image, which overshadows and encroaches on the text of the poem. The poet is capturing something of the dread that pervades Journey to Jo’burg, and channelling it into their own art.
Perhaps most significantly in terms of political engagement, there are signs that reading Journey to Jo’burg in the classroom has brought about new awareness of racism. This is an uncomfortable experience, especially for white readers. One reports that he is ‘ashamed for being white’ (“Letter from Morpeth, 18/06/96”), whilst another says: ‘you told me a lot of things I didn’t know but it made me feel ashamed that I am one of the white English people who discriminated against the blacks.’ (“Responses to Journey to Jo’burg: typewritten excerpts”, 8). As such a powerful social affect, this acknowledgement of shame is perhaps an indicator that these young people are encountering concepts of racism and being faced with their own whiteness for the first time. What is unclear from these responses is what these readers do with their shame, but I hope that their classrooms were safe context for them to remain open to new ideas and work these shameful feelings.
For Black readers, responding to the novel gives them a chance to grieve in solidarity with those experiencing racism, perhaps also allowing for a reflection on their own experiences. This is articulated poignantly by one, who says that ‘for me as a black person watching this happen to my black brothers grieves me’ (“Letter from Quintin Kynaston School”)
Moving from awareness to critique, this poem by a Year 7 student (11-12 years old) comments powerfully on the harmful nature of racial categorisation, such as those enforced under apartheid:
If half my face was black
Poem: “Apartheid.”
and half my face was
white, and all my body was
coloured, what would be my
rights?
Would the powerful faces of
the government see my body
as less privileged than
my face?
Or my left eye to be a
criminal and my right to be
a saint?
This poet uses a sense of the absurd to challenge and interrogate their implied reader’s assumptions about race, revealing the apartheid system of classifications to be both arbitrary and unjust. Underlying this is a deeper critique of our global dependence on race as a social construction.
These hard questions, strong emotions and greater awareness of race and racism are political experiences for these child readers. What these responses do not show is what readers then do with the new knowledge and awareness that they have gained. However, what they do show collectively is what the fruit of an anti-racist literature education, with an anti-apartheid text such as Journey to Joburg, looks like. These young readers are supported to ask difficult or taboo questions. They are allowed space to articulate and perhaps process feelings of shame, grief and outrage, and they are guided to recognise and critique racist discourses. Whilst specific to a particular moment in British history as British adults and youth protested the injustice of apartheid, this fruit of anti-racist literature education is as needed in the UK today, as we confront the violence of our own colonial history, and affirm the value and worth of Black lives.
References
Beverley Naidoo. Through Whose Eyes?: Exploring Racism: Reader, Text and Context. Trentham Books, 1992.
Beverley Naidoo. “Braving the Dark in Writing for Young People.” Bookbird 50(3), pp.47-55, 2012.
Beverley Naidoo. ‘What Is and What Might Be’. Bookbird 53(4), pp.20-19, 2015.
Beverley Naidoo. Journey to Jo’burg. Harper Collins, 2016.
Brown, Gavin and Helen Yaffe. Youth Activism and Solidarity: The Non-Stop Picket against Apartheid. Routledge, 2018.
Deegan, Heather. The Politics of the New South Africa: Apartheid and After. Longman, 2001.
From the Seven Stories Beverley Naidoo Archive
Beverley Naidoo. “Journey to Jo’burg: a South African story. A statement on its origins”. BN/01/01/03/01. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 27 September 2019.
“Email from Dania, 25/11/12”. BN/12/02/01/02. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 10 January 2020.
“Letter from top infants teacher, April 88”. BN/12/02/01/02. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 10 January 2020.
“Letter from Cayman Islands Middle School, 22/05/92”. BN/12/02/01/01. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 19 December 2019.
“Letter from Morpeth, 18/06/96”. BN/12/02/01/01. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 19 December 2019.
“Letter from Mrs Formby to Amanda Bartell, 9/7/99”. BN/12/02/01/01. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 19 December 2019.
“Letter from Quintin Kynaston School, no date”. BN/12/02/01/01. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 19 December 2019.
“Poem: Apartheid”. BN/12/02/01/02. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 10 January 2020.
“Poem: Response to Beverley Naidoo”. BN/12/02/01/01. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 19 December 2019.
“Poem: South Africa. 12 year old student Wey Valley School”. BN/12/02/01/02. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 10 January 2020.
“Responses to Journey to Jo’burg: typewritten excerpts”. BN/12/02/01/02. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 10 January 2020.
“Top infants, 6-7 yrs. Battersea, London, 1988: mounted on lilac paper”. BN/12/02/01/01. Beverley Naidoo Collection. Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, UK. 19 December 2019.
About the Author
Helen King is a doctoral candidate at Children’s Literature Unit, School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University. Her PhD thesis is provisionally titled: ‘‘These children are people like us’: the rhetorical child, the agential child, and Beverley Naidoo’s displaced children,’ and it will form the outcome of a Collaborative Doctoral Award with Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books.
Cite this article as: Helen King, “‘Books that change your way of thinking’: political engagement with an anti-apartheid novel,” in Changing Childhoods, 27 October 2020, https://changingchildhoods.com/political-engagement-with-an-anti-apartheid-novel.