알렉스 라 구마의 『때까치의 계절』에 나타난 인종주의 비판

This study explores the way a radical critique of racism is advanced in Alex La Guma`s Time of the Butcherbird. In the novel, La Guma exposes the complicity between Afrikaner nationalism and Christianity in oppressing the African blacks. The specific branch of Christianity in pointed out by la Guma as an accomplice in the crime of apartheid is neo-Calvinism, which helped the Afrikaner nationalists justify their conquest of Africa as something comparable to the Jewish recovery of Canaan. Minister Visser`s sermon as presented in the novel, clearly exemplifies the Afrikaners` obsession about the cultural and racial purity, whose protection institutionalized the systematic segregation called apartheid. La Guma also focuses on the psychology of English-speakers such as Edger Stopes and his wife, Maisie. Stopes` cherished motto is; `You got to look after number one.` Contemptuous of both Afrikaners and Africans, he does not pay attention to the crises over which each ethnic group agonizes; his only concern lies in making money by exploiting `suckeds out there.` Maisie is no different from her husband in her total lack of regard for the people around her. Even when black protesters go down bleeding in front of her, clubbed by the riot police, all Maisie can feel is self-pity, commiseration with herself for the boredom of her marital life. By having Edgar as well as Hannes Meulen, the Afrikaner responsible for Timi`s death, killed by Murile, La Guma suggests that in South Africa English-speakers like Edgar, despite their belief in innocence, are as guilty for Apartheid as Afrikaners. The novel is concluded with a Zulu tribe`s forced evacuation from its land. Yet, La Guma does not fail to show a positive vision by makings Mma-Tau, the African nationalist, replace the government coopted chief and lead the tribal resistance against the force eviction. In addition, by making Murile, who insisted on going his own wat after revenging Timi`s death, join his tribe, La Guma highlight the importance of communal solidarity in fighting for liberty.