If we have, at the back of our minds, a stereotype of the censor or the censor type, it is probably of some nondescript male bureaucrat who comes to work punctually at 8:30 in the morning, locks his office door behind him, and spends the day going through piles of books, underlining dirty passages in red ink and stamping pass or fail on the cover, or else pouring over strips of film with scissors at the ready, ready to snip out images of breasts and bums, who, when the clock at last strikes 5:00, emerges into the daylight, catches the bus home to some anonymous suburb and spends the evening watching reruns of sitcoms on television before donning his pajamas and falling into a dreamless sleep. Or if we're thinking not of full time censors, people who dedicate their professional lives to the business of censoring, but of part time censors, people who like to do a bit of censoring on the side, then we might imagine that retired teachers, clergymen and moral busybodies in general would be attracted to the craft. But the records of the South African system don't quite fit the stereotype.
- J. M. Coetzee, Nobel laureate author,
speaks at his alma mater University of Texas Austin about his experiences with censorship in his native South Africa during apartheid. Coetzee mentions
this essay he wrote about his time at UT Austin and a book he wrote on censorship,
here's the preface to it.
posted by Kattullus
on Jul 11, 2011 -
12 comments
William Kentridge creates animation by working into charcoal drawings; drawing, erasing, redrawing, layering, to create stories that frequently link the intensely intimate with the politics of his native South Africa.
Johannesburgh -1989 introduces characters that recur through many of his films.
[more inside]
posted by louche mustachio
on May 6, 2009 -
5 comments
Last week, the Guardian posted a
three-part special report by their Middle East correspondent (and former South African correspondent) Chris McGreal on the similarities between the current situation in Israel and the South African Apartheid regime. The report provoked many heated responses,
a selection of which is reproduced here and
here. The Guardian responded by inviting Benjamin Pogrund, former deputy editor of the famously anti-Apartheid Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, author of a
number of books on South Africa and founder of Yakar, a Jerusalem center for Israeli-Palestinian dialogue to
weigh in with a response.
posted by ori
on Feb 13, 2006 -
20 comments
Why Does Archbishop Desmond Tutu Hate Our Christian Moral Values? In an interview with MSNBC, the nobel prize winner slams George Bush. "I had naively believed all these many years that Americans genuinely believed in freedom of speech. [But I] discovered there that when you made an utterance that was remotely contrary to what the White House was saying, then they attacked you. For a South African the déjà vu was frightening. They behaved exactly the same way that used to happen here [during apartheid]—vilifying those who are putting forward a slightly different view."
posted by expriest
on Dec 30, 2004 -
95 comments
Apartheid Dies Second Death A South African court has declared marriage discrimination to be unconstitutional, and has registered the union of Marie Fourie and Cecelia Bonthuys. Henceforth, marriage in South Africa will be defined as "the union of two persons to the exclusion of all others for life."
posted by expriest
on Nov 30, 2004 -
37 comments
Donald Woods, the South African writer, editor and anti-apartheid activist has died after succumbing to a two year illness. It feels right that MeFi too should mention it and pay its respect..
[...]
posted by Kino
on Aug 21, 2001 -
3 comments
