MEANINGFUL COINCIDENCE
An exhibition is echoed in unrest in Joburg, writes Edward Tsumele
This week Johannesburg’s city centre was like a war zone. An assortment of people comprising the genuinely aggrieved (by their social conditions), the unemployed, the unemployable, the retrenched, thugs and opportunists marched through the streets. It started in Jeppestown, where there was a spree of looting after the burning down of a building in which three people were killed. The riots gained momentum on Monday. Shops were looted and foreign businesspeople were threatened.
It was a day of fear and shame in the city. The mobs got involved in running battles with police as they drove around. They had all sorts of weapons, including sticks and stones. Police were armed with automatic firearms. Police minister Bheki Cele described the situation as a “national emergency”.
But you needn’t have gone into the streets to witness a “national emergency”. Lizamore Gallery in Parkwood is showing scenes similar to the ones that played out this week in artist Johann Schijff’s exhibition, State of Emergency.
Police cars, fighter jets and big weapons are the subject matter.
But unlike the scenes witnessed on the streets of Johannesburg, this exhibition is about events that gripped the country in the 1980s, when PW Botha, under siege by the oppressed of South Africa, declared a state of emergency.
Cele echoed this in his description of the protests gripping Gauteng now, suggesting that the more things change, the more they remain the same.
In the gallery, police cars made of bronze and Mirage fighter jets made of wood tell the story of ’80s South Africa, as the National Party government unleashed riot police into townships to contain protest, as the government did this week.
Schijff, who has worked on this exhibition for two years, says it’s a personal memoir that traces his journey as a young white person growing up during apartheid and reflects the brainwashing that took place in white society at the time. This happened at school, with teachers assuming the role of the state.
“I was born in 1969 and grew up in Pretoria, where I was exposed daily to relentless displays of the power of ‘The State’. In the mornings, teachers dressed in safari suits indoctrinated me with a history of our country spun from lies that suited them; in the afternoons while I played rugby, Mirage fighter jets stationed at Waterkloof Air Force Base flew overhead; on the highway going home, we drove past convoys of Ratel combat vehicles; at night, on the news on
television, police Casspirs patrolled black townships,” says Schijff.
Schijff has hung photographs of the players in this brainwashing game from his school days in Pretoria. These people held different positions; some were administrators, others were principals and teachers.
“This brainwashing did a lot of damage to many young white men. I was lucky to avoid the feared reality of the majority of white male matriculants — forced conscription.” He continued his education after matric, which was a way of avoiding army service.
“My father told me there was no way I was going to the army. I believe that’s why I am now at the University of Cape Town, teaching fine art. Others weren’t that lucky, like a friend, the son of then army chief General Jannie Geldenhuys. Encouraged by his army chief father, he joined the Special Forces, and that destroyed him psychologically. Today he is a socially withdrawn man,” says Schijff, a professor of fine art at Michaelis.
The artist and academic says this exhibition is a way of trying to interrogate his own identity as a middle-aged white South African in a country that is now democratic.
“We need to talk about the past. We might not completely heal, but talking helps instead of pretending that the ugly past didn’t happen. When I started working on this exhibition two years ago, it was during the #FeesMustfall protests, which affected me in a bad way. Suddenly the students I taught wanted nothing to do with me as a white man, accusing me of enjoying white privilege. I went through a hard time; my marriage collapsed. It was then that I started to ask myself hard questions,” he says.
But the artist insists that the future of white people is here in South Africa and he’s positive about it.
“We are South Africans. This is our country. Our future is here,” he says.
The State of Emergency exhibition runs until October 5 at Lizamore Gallery in Parkwood.
‘We might not completely heal, but talking helps instead of pretending the ugly past didn’t happen’