And They Didn't Die
In her novel "And They Didn't Die", Lauretta Ngcobo gives us a glimpse of the life of a South African woman during the Apartheid Era (1950s-1980s). The human rights efforts of African women had a long lasting and far-reaching effect on the future cultural climate of South Africa. They fought back against the unjust laws that had permeated their country. Were they successful? What price did they pay? Ngcobo attempts to answer these questions in her novel. In order to understand the struggles of Jezile and other South Africans, it is necessary to know the history of their country. Discrimination against nonwhites was inherent in South African society from the earliest days. With the South Africa Act of 1910 the British parliament established the dominion of the Union of South Africa, with four colonies as its provinces. South African blacks had a low status in the white-dominated state. Urban blacks lived in segregated areas and could not hold office. They had no viable unions, and technical and administrative positions were closed to them. In 1914 the National Party was founded, which emphasized Afrikaner language and culture. By 1948 the all-white National Party came to power. Segregation and inequality between races had e
They could not register the births of their children or be married according to common law. A short time after Jezile's return from Durban, Siyalo too returns home to Sigageni but on totally different circumstances for as we come to hear, he has been "endorsed out" (p. Women such as Nosizwe knew that the extension of passes to women would increase the effectiveness of the pass laws. Removal of the pass laws was the overwhelming, but not the only, objective of the women of Jezile's time. But all his effort and hard work is for naught, since without fertile land nothings grows. By 1960, an estimated 3,020,28l African women, approximately 75 per cent of the adult female population, had accepted passes. The burden of raising children under such conditions, which fell almost exclusively on the women, became increasingly arduous. In the rural areas, women protested against the Government's "betterment" schemes, which included the mandatory culling of precious livestock, requiring women to fill and maintain cattle dipping tanks without pay, and soil conservation measures which dispossessed many families of arable land. Protesters in the rural areas were not risking the loss of urban residency rights, houses or jobs. The United Party mainly had an urban base with substantial support from English-speaking South Africans, while the National Party's support was drawn almost entirely from Afrikaans-speaking South Africans. Without a reference book, women could not receive old age pensions or maintenance grants. The women's role as cultivators and providers eroded, and with it, women's social status.
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