Assuming Identities: Kafka’s Curse and the Unsilenced Voice

Abstract

As Zoë Wicomb observes in "Shame and Identity: The Case of the Coloured in South Africa" (1998), the country's history of miscegenation has been silenced by the very people whom the practice has created: "it is after all the very nature of shame to stifle its own discourse" (Wicomb quoted by Attridge & Jolly 1998: 92). In chronicling the ways in which the color bar was constantly and continually being subverted through interracial couplings, Kafka's Curse (Dangor 1997) works to challenge the silence surrounding miscegenation as well as the idea that pure categories of race could even exist. But the categories must not be ignored altogether. Kafka's Curse cautions against a total rejection of attachment to origins, obscure, distant, or elusive as those origins may be. It must be the project of the new South African literature to examine the role of ethnic identification in nation-building and to consider how "remembrance" can be harnessed toward it.

Opsomming
Soos Zoë Wicomb in haar “Shame and Identity: The Case of the Coloured in South Africa” (1998) opmerk, is Suid-Afrika se geskiedenis van rassevermenging die domper opgesit deur die einste mense wat deur hierdie praktyk geskep is: “it is after all the very nature of shame to stifle its own discourse” (Wicomb aangehaal in Attridge & Jolly 1998: 92). Kafka’s Curse (Dangor 1997) trek die stilte rondom rassevermenging in twyfel deur die maniere waarop die kleurgrens konstant en voortdurend omvergewerp word deur interras-verbintenisse en ook die idee dat suiwer kategorieë van ras sou bestaan, weer te gee. Die kategorieë moet egter nie geheel en al ignoreer word nie. Kafka’s Curse waarsku teen die algehele verwerping van gehegtheid aan oorspronge, hoe obskuur, vaag of ontwykend dié oorsponge ook al mag wees. Die nuwe Suid-Afrikaanse letterkunde moet dit ten doel hê om die rol van etniese identifikasie in nasiebou te ondersoek, en te oordink hoe herinnering (“remembrance”) daarvoor aangewend kan word.