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"Detention Without Trial" was one of the most appalling of the South African apartheid regime's
methods of social control. People could be locked away almost permanently without access to law-courts
to prove their innocence.
Prisoners who were regarded as politically dangerous often met with a savage death while in detention.
The excuses given were usually the same: suicide or a silly accident.
Opponents of the regime knew that these excuses were merely lies. In this very simple poem, Chris van
Wyk examines these excuses with some sarcastic humour.
A NOTE ON THE POET
Chris Van Wyk was born in Soweto and lived his early years in Newclare before moving to Riverlea, a
poorer suburb of Johannesburg.
He was educated at Riverlea High School before working for a non government organisation known as
SACHED -- South African Committee for Higher Education -- as an educational writer.
He was also editor of Staffrider and started the short-lived Wietie magazine with fellow
poet, Fhazel Johennesse.
Van Wyk showed signs of wanting to be a writer as early as five years of age -- and since then, he says,
he has had a love affair with words.
He credits much of his success in storytelling to his love of "skinder" (gossip). "I skinder more
than most women", he says. He listened to all the gossip between his mother and her friends, and
this found its way into the many stories which he thereupon wrote.
"You will not believe the kind of information you can pick up just by keeping your ears open," van
Wyk says, although there are certain little tricks you have to observe to prevent yourself from being caught
eavesdropping.
These include not behaving like a quiet little mouse but rather making noises, "like drinking a glass of
water" or singing bits from pop songs or calling to the dog outside, or doing something like reading or
writing while you are also preoccupied in listening.
But above all, he says, don't give yourself away by laughing at a joke that you have overheard. "If you
do, it's a dead giveaway and means that you've had your ears tuned on them all the time."
Van Wyk has written over 20 books, including poetry collections and children's stories. He published his
first volume of poetry -- It Is Time to Go Home -- in1979. This was to win him the prestigious
Olive Schreiner Prize the following year.
He would win other awards for his novels and short stories, including the Maskew Miller Longman Award
for Black Children's Literature in 1982 and the Sanlam Literary Award for the best short story of 1995.
His first novel -- The Year of the Tapeworm -- was published in 1998 while, in 2004, his
childhood memoir Shirley, Goodness & Mercy became a successful play by director Janice
Honeyman.
Unlike many South African writers who wrote "as a weapon against apartheid", van Wyk preferred
to use humour as his primary weapon. "We've got our own magic, lots of it," he says.
He married his childhood sweetheart, Kathy, and they've reared their two sons in Riverlea where he has
lived most of his life. "I want to be part of this community," he says. "There's an element of the
writer that keeps me here."
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
This is by no stretch of the imagination a difficult poem. Indeed, it is hard to see what questions could be
asked in the exams. Nevertheless, here are some topics to test you.
- What is the overall TONE of this short poem? Be able to explain your answer. (4)
[Need help?]
The poet has succeeded in taking a very sordid topic -- the death of hundreds of innocent people while
in detention -- and has turned it into a light-hearted, humourous poem.
One could conclude that the poet is being sarcastic, sarcasm being a biting, bitter form of humour.
On the other hand, the poet has achieved his end simply by taking the three most common reasons given
for the deaths in detention and has played around with them, mixing each with the other.
The result is a compendium of idiotic excuses which becomes the vehicle reflecting the stupidity of these
excuses that were indeed genuinely made.
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- In a sense, this is not so much a poem as a series of statements. Can you perhaps
comment? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet has in fact taken a series of statements from the prison authorities themselves announcing the
deaths. He has then merely listed them.
Each therefore begins on a separate line, and each begins in the same way, "He . . . ".
Notice that there is no reference to women prisoners. Would you like to hazard a guess why?
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- Why would the poet prefer to use humour rather than direct criticism? (4)
[Need help?]
Many of the liberation poets adopted a tone of serious venom as their vehicle. There is, however, a
danger in this because it limits readership to those who are already convinced.
Humour, on the other hand, opens up a totally new market, even of those who might be otherwise biassed
-- people such as the politicians and even the security men themselves.
Such people, by being brought to laughter, might also have been convinced of the seriousness of their
crimes.
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"He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He fell from the ninth floor."
- What is seriously wrong with the excuse, "He fell from the ninth floor"? (4)
[Need help?]
Usually the prisoners were handcuffed and possibly even in leg-irons. The windows were barred.
How then would a prisoner in handcuffs -- and possibly leg-irons -- manage to climb through a barred
window and fall to his death?
In the actual cases, it was suspected that the prisoners were thrown to their deaths by the security police
themselves.
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- Why should one have been suspicious of the excuse, "He slipped on a piece of soap while
washing"? (4)
[Need help?]
Although it is possible to strike one's head after slipping on a piece of soap, nevertheless deaths would
be few and far between. However, this was a very common excuse given for deaths in detention. It was
therefore obviously a lie.
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- What is seriously wrong with the excuse, "He hanged himself"? (4)
[Need help?]
There would have been / should have been no rope in the prison cells. Death by hanging was therefore
a very complicated, difficult and painful process of twisting one's clothes around one's neck.
It was therefore a most painful way of suicide and so, once again, would only have happened very
occasionally, not as often as the pronounced excuses made it seem.
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