July's People by Nadine Gordimer is a political masterpiece which presents certain clashes between individuals when confronted with ‘The power Shift’ which took place in the period." Do you agree?

 

The question proposes that July's People by Nadine Gordimer is a political masterpiece which presents certain clashes between individuals when confronted with ‘The power Shift’ which took place in the period. There are four premises in the question:

a.      July’s People is a political masterpiece

b.     It presents clashes between individuals

c.      The clashes are due to “The Power Shift”

d.     It is about the particular period

       I provisionally agree with the second and the third premises: July’s People presents clashes between individuals and the clashes are due to “The Power Shift”. However, I do not believe that the novel is mainly a “political” masterpiece or that it is about the time in which the novel was written.

        Political masterpieces such as Mein Kamf, Das Capital or The Prince promote a particular political ideology; they are mostly didactic in nature. However, July’s People is mainly a narrative about a family undergoing displacement in which politics of the time is in the background. The political atmosphere provides the spatiotemporal setting for the story. The politics at no place in the narrative overwhelms the unfolding of the story. Looking at the fourth premise, the novel was published in 1981 when South Africa was still administrated by a pro-Apartheid government of whites. Though there were constant clashes and skirmishes, there wasn’t a revolution at the time the novel was written on which the content of the novel could have been based. In fact, a revolution similar to the one in the novel takes place much later in 1994; hence, many call July’s People a futuristic or a prophetic novel.       

     Looking at the third premise, the clashes in the novel are mainly due to “the Power Shift”. The term “The Power Shift” refers to the switch of power from the hands of the minority pro-Apartheid whites to the majority blacks in South Africa. However, there is plenty of evidence in the novel to indicate that there had been clashes of various kinds as mentioned by the narrator prior to the power shift due to the unequal distribution of social capital: land, jobs, and access to education, healthcare, knowledge, technology, and entertainment. These clashes culminate in what the question terms as “Power Shift”.

    The question suggests that clashes took place only between individuals and thereby neglect the clashes between communities as well as clashes involving the international community indicated by the USA evacuating its citizens after the rebellion and the presence of the foreign mercenaries.

     As a result of “the Power Shift” conflicts emerge. These conflicts are both external and internal. When looking at external conflicts resulting from the shift in the power-dynamics in the South Africa of the narrative, Gordimer deals with at least six instances of clashes:  black vs. white; master vs. servant; husband vs. wife; the city people vs. the country people; the ruler vs. the ruled; and parents vs. children. Looking at the internal conflicts resulting from the power shift, almost everyone in the novel has to recalibrate his or her place in the scheme of things – this leads to a lot of soul searching and doubts causing existential angst. 

      Given the time constraints, I will limit my answer to the clashes between the white and the blacks, the master and the servant, the husband and the wife and the parents and children as a result of the power shift. Before the hypothetical power shift, the whites, the masters, husbands and parents occupied a relatively superior position in the scheme of things or “the Chain of Beings”. Whites held the lion’s share of socioeconomic wealth in South Africa. They owned the resources such as DeBeers Diamond Mines in which the native blacks were mere workers. They owned lucrative businesses and engaged in best professions while blacks were mainly restricted to low paid menial labour. They occupied best neighbourhoods while the blacks were restricted to reservations or underprivileged rural communities. They and their children had access to high culture and recreation while the black community had to be happy with things like gumba gumba. As a result of the revolution, they lose all these. Some try to flee by air and are shot down. Their very lives are under threat. The fate of Smales represent the fate of the whites who remain in South Africa. The revolution causes Smales to leave their upper middle class life in Johannesburg and flee with July to his village. In the village, the Smales had to adapt to a completely different way of life and renegotiate their position in the scheme of things: “They were no longer the benevolent masters and the grateful servant. Now he was their host and protector and the balance of power had shifted.” While the children effortlessly adapt to it, the adults suffer. Bam, who was the ultimate authority as the master of the house, Maureen’s husband and the children’s father as well as the head of a successful firm of architects was the worst affected at the beginning. In the city he had kept his distance from July due to the communication difficulties; consequently, once in the village he had to rely completely on Maureen in order to communicate with his erstwhile servant. The loss of his vehicle and later the gun almost emasculated him; upon Daniel taking his gun Bam “suddenly rolled over onto his face as the father had never done before his sons.” However, he renegotiates his position by building a rainwater tank for the use of July’s village and by hunting food for them. In the end, the reader comes across a Bam and children who are fully absorbed by the black community. Interestingly, it is Maureen who had greater access to the black world find the shift most unbearable and in the end makes a desperate attempt to escape the shift by running towards the sound of the aircraft abandoning her family.

  Looking at the clashes and the power shift from the point of view of the blacks, the lives of rural black people seem to have been largely untouched except for the possible loss of income from people like July who went to city looking for greener pastures. July, Daniel, and Ellen were rural blacks who worked for whites. They occupied a prominent position in their communities due to their relative affluence and hybrid status. With the whites being forced to flee for their lives, their position in their communities and income are threatened. This could be one reason for July being against Maureen working with the other black women and the way he keeps on acting as he used to in the city at least in public. Yet, he, in not-so-subtle ways, lets the Smales know who has power. He take the Bakkie and learns how to drive without permission and when accused of stealing by Maureen he speaks in his own language and asserts himself in no uncertain terms.

     In conclusion, July’s People published in the 1980s is a timeless narrative - with politics forming the background music for the narrative – which presents clashes between individuals, communities and even the international communities over the unfair distribution of socio-political capital which ultimately results in so-called “Power Shift” in a South Africa which is yet to come.