Apocalypse Whenever: Catastrophe, Privilege and Indifference (or, Whiteness and the End Times)

South African experiences in a restructured post-apocalyptic geo-political future as depicted in speculative fiction

“…The above text is ironic in that the change has brought about authoritarian Chinese The centrality of language as a site of contestation in the fight against Chinese cultural coloniality is evident in the symbolism of the title of the story: "Taal", which means language. While the title paradoxically alludes to the white Afrikaans community's anxieties over their future survival as a distinct people (Thurman 2015), it also serves to affirm a South African language/s and sense of being, as well as the autonomy it enshrines in the face of a global threat. Ngũgĩ (1986:4-5) places language, its choice and how it is used, at the centre of the colonial project, and thus underlines a reclamation and use of vernacular languages as part of the decolonisation of the mind.…”

Imagining Africa’s futures in two Caine Prize-winning stories: Henrietta Rose-Innes’s “Poison” and NoViolet Bulawayo’s “Hitting Budapest”

“…Another instructive way in which “Poison” may be read as allegory and/or social critique 5 is highlighted in Chris Thurman’s (2015) analysis of the significance of the protagonist’s presumed racial identity. Since the story does not identify Lynn with any actual racial descriptor, Thurman’s decision to describe her as white probably depends on circumstantial evidence — her apparent socio-economic privilege, poor command of Afrikaans and her tendency to focalize other characters along racial lines.…”

“…Thurman (2015: 63) interprets the crowd that Lynn joins at the petrol station as representative of a multi-racial “pressure-cooker microcosm of South African society”. He goes on to suggest that the insignia on the pick-up van, Adils-IT Bonanza , may imply that its young driver is a Muslim and/or coloured South African.…”

“…It is this motley crowd, brought together by forces outside their power, that Thurman (2015) describes as being reflective of South Africa’s contemporary demographics. The particular circumstances of their coming together and the limited options of self-help available to them force them into cross-racial alliances that bear an unambiguous post-apartheid “rainbow nation” symbolism.…”

“…Furthermore, in refusing to join the other travellers, Lynn may also reflect the difficulties of post-apartheid national reconciliation and the problematical sceptre of enduring racial schism. In this connection, Thurman argues that Lynn’s enigmatic attitude might reflect the social “passitivity, indifference and discontent” which, in Thurman’s view, represents “internal” threats to “whiteness, Englishness and privilege” (2015: 65). It is in these specific ways that “Poison” contributes to the production of problematic African futures by skilfully sketching brief but pithy “flashes” of historical social divisions and the psycho-social disorientation of an enigmatic character converging in a postmodern urban site that is itself set within a distinct South African spatio-temporal context.…”