White lies, white truth
2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 14; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/18125440903461812
ISSN1753-5409
Autores Tópico(s)South African History and Culture
ResumoABSTRACT Within and through texts written in English by white women both before and since the opening of the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a process of confession has been enacted. The TRC's amnesty hearings heard no submissions from English-speaking white women as perpetrators. However, the telling of stories about the self, autobiographically inflected stories – significantly stories of childhood, of mothers, of innocence and guilt – presents a different “truth”. This “confessional writing” (photographic collections, short stories, poetry and novels) is filtered through the rose-tinted hues of a child-like self and managed via the defence identity of the traditionally innocent: the figure too young to be held fully culpable. Furthermore, this identity is often framed and nurtured by the deeply ambivalent figure of the “maid” or “nanny”. Within many of these texts, the figure of the black woman becomes a cipher for perceived and acknowledged injustice but also a source of privileged information, a “native informant” who contributes significantly to the white child's political awareness. It is to this figure that the narrator returns in order to construct a moment of confession and reparation. Indeed, the tale of the maid becomes key to the narrator's liberal stance, and ultimately crucial to a post-apartheid white identity. Yes, they have a story to tell. Its setting is in the interstice between power and indifferent or supportive agency. In that interstice, the English speaking South African has conducted the business of his life. Now he was indignant and guilty; now he was thriving. This no-man's land ensured a fundamental lack of character. With a foreign passport in the back pocket of the trousers, now they belong – now they don't. When will they tell this story? (Ndebele 1998: 26)
Referência(s)