|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
“They gave me that ‘white-master’s-well-fed-dog’ feeling…” (p 91). The struggle against one’s own morals can be mentally detrimental. When forced to ignore natural instincts of loyalty and sympathy towards one’s own kind, a strong feeling of guilt ensnares the mind. In Miriam Tlali’s “Muriel at the Metropolitan”, many aspects of racial discrimination are touched upon, yet forced intra-racial discrimination is ever prominent. The main character of this novel, Muriel, is forced to work against her own moral instincts and be loyal to the white workers in the segregated mid-twentieth century South Africa for her family’s survival and well-being. In countries riddled with conformity, and little rebellion against the harshness of segregation, the victims of discrimination are forced to compromise their own morals in order to survive, leading to intense feelings of guilt and low self-esteem. I have read a lot of trash by the so-called ‘authorities’ on the subject of the urban Africans - those who spend most of their lives with the whites in their business places and their homes; who travel with them day and night from place to place all over Southern Africa, who toil side by side with all the other races in all walks of life to make this country the paradise it is said to be. The Republic of South Africa is a country divided into two worlds. The one, a white world – rich, comfortable, for all practical purposes organised – a world in fear, armed to the teeth. The other, a black world; poor, pathetically neglected and disorganised – voiceless, oppressed, restless, confused and unarmed – a world in transition, irrevocably weaned from all tribal ties (p 11). Muriel describes the country she lives in from an African point of view, and the bitterness of the way her fellow Africans are treated is quite evident. Bitterness not fully directed at the white people controlling South Africa, but at her own people, the Africans that do not dare defy their “white masters and white mistresses” (p 95). The sour tone of Muriel’s description of her home indicate a resentment in her towards her country. According to Charles Villa-Vincencio, who composed a criticism on moral guilt directed at the British during World War Two, who attempted to appease Germany, with knowledge that there were already hundreds of Jewish people being killed, “Moral guilt is wide ranging. It includes criminal, political, and military actions as well as indifference and passivity” (Journal of Church and State, p 184). The British were extremely passive with Germany’s dictator Adolph Hitler in his ultimate discrimination against Jewish people. At the beginning of the war, they turned a blind eye to this outrage, and were submissive to every one of Hitler’s demands. As Villa-Vincencio describes, moral guilt does include the lack of revolting against an unnatural power. This same theory applies to African peoples’ position in South Africa during apartheid.
Approximate Word count = 1917
Approximate Pages = 7.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|