WINTER1989-GUARDIAN BOOK.REVIEW.SUPPLEMENT_7
,,117 DAYS"
First's daughters,Shawn Slovo, wrote the
screenplayfor the 1988'release.Another
daughter,Gillian Slovo, producedthe novel
"Ties of Blood" a year later, which also
deals with the theme of heroic parentsand
ttreireff'ecton their children'sidentity. Having seen the film before reading First's
prison memoir. I was struck by a sort of rev e r s e r e c o g n i t i o ni n s e v e r a ls c e n e s :r n o s t
notably the wontan's inevitablerecaptureas
she attenrptsto call honre fronr a pay phone
outside the prison gates, and the note she
leavesin the f1y leaf of a book when she attemptssuicideat a particularlyhopelessnrotnent.
By Ruth First
Foreword by Albie Sachs
Monthly Review Press, 1989,
1 7 0 p a g e s ,$ 9 .
I}y MARGARET
RANDALL
uth First's powerful prison diary,
f)
an early jouriral of resistance
f[.
L
L
against the rnachinery of apartheid, is important for understandingone of
our lnost heroic battlefields. It is a white
person'smemoir in a black movement, and
as such holds questions and answers for
thclseof us who work againstracism, in and
outsideof ourselves.
Ruth First and her husband. Joe Slovo.
were centralmembersof South Aliica's liberation struggle before whites were allowed
into the African National Congress(ANC).
First was a petit bourgeoisintellectualin a
nrovenrentof working poor.
Slte was also a wonran in a rnovcrnent
largely dominated by men. Although Tom
l.odge, in his afterword, is careful to point
out that these pages "were written rvhen
ferninist culture was not as intellectually
pervasiveas it is today," l found First's perceptions and stance profoundly feminist.
Furthelmore. she is an excellentjournalist
who rloves deftly betweenpolitical analysis
and the more emotional issuesof isolation,
invasion, separation,psrvchologicaltorture
and resistanceone must deal with when one
i s i n t h e h a n d so f t h e e n e n r y .
First's opening sentencebeatsa rhythmic
movementbetrveenintirrate personaldetail
and global recognition: "For the first 5(r
days of rly detentionin solitary I changed
from a rnainly vertical to a nrainll,'horizont a l c r c a t u r e . "L a t e r o n , s h e w r i t e s , " W h i l e
tinre was passing it crawled. Yet when it
had passedit had flown out of all remembrance." Explorationsof tirne, space and
memory are a leit motif throughout the
work.
Lodge, whose afterword provides an excellent synopsisof South Africa's freedom
movement.pointsout that in the early 1960s
imprisonnrent,torture and the treatmentof
\^'onrenprisoners were more mocleratetharl
they are today-at least for whites. First
rvas able to keep her confinement in pers p e c t i v e ": 1 . a p r i s o n e rh e l d u n d e rt o p s e c u rity conditions. was forbidden books, visitL)rs,cLrntactw,ith any other prisoner; but
like any white South African madarnI sat in
hed each nrorning, and Africans did the
' r n i s s u s . '"
c l e a n i n gl o r t h e
In his useful foreword. First's conter-noor a r y a n r l c o n r r a d eA l b i e S a c h s s u m \ u p
First's successfulbridging of race and class:
" . . . She was not a white fighting for the
Cover illustration front
blacks, but a persr-rn
fighting for her own i
right to livc in a just society, which in the
South African context meant destroyingthe '
whole system of white dornination."
(Sachs,anotherwhite memberof the ANC,
also speaks frorn painful personal experience. Long a target of the apartheid authorities,Sachswas nearly killed by a bomb
plantedin his car in Mozanrbiquelast year.)
" l l 7 D a v s " i s i n t e r e s t i n g l ys t l u c t u l ' e d .
The first personnanativeenablesthe reader
to enter'!insofarss is'possible,the experi*
ence of a wornan arrestedon suspicionof
Something-she must wait for nronths before she is sure of what. held for 90 days,
then released,only to be taken again just
outside the prison gate. Interspersed
throughout the bqpk are italici ze_d.pa;sages
:
providing rnore "detached" accountsof the
events.
First usesthe full power of her perceptive
talents in describingother inrnates,.jailers,
techniquesand places, as well as her own
feelings about being separated fronr her
'
I l7
Duys,' by Teresu Kurgun
children, being confined-after the first 90
days are up-without knowing when she
will be released.She also capturesthe long
and torturousaggressionsof the proverbial
"good guy" official whosejob it is to break
her through constar)toffers of instant freedom in exchange for the most "insignificant" information.
DAUGHTERS' PERSPBCTIVES
It is in writing about this final experience
of subjugation,that First rnost powerfully
conveysthe subtletiesof internalizedrepress i o n : " I w a s a p p a l l e da t t h e e v e n t so f t h e
last three days. Thel' had beatennie. I had
a l l o w e d m y s e l f t o b e b e a t e n .I h a d p u l l e d
back forrn the brinl<just in time, but had it
been irl tinre?I was wide open to enrotional
blackmail, and the blacknrailerwas myself.
The1, had tried for three.rnonths to find
cracks in nly armor and had found sonre.
" Manv readers
The search\\'asstill on .
o f " l l 7 D a y s ' 'w i l l h a v es e e nt h ee x t r a o r d i nary film "A World Apart." Orie of Ruth
PRISON NIIND GAMES
As nremoryinfornrsboth an accufaterendering of history and a people's full cultural identity. Iim nrostinterestedin the ef'fects of imprisonrnentand torture on the
human power to recall and retain. Filst's observationsare complex: "Unlike the Zu'eig
c h a r a c t e ri n t h e " T h e R o y a l C a r n e . " l
c h a n c e du p o n n o c h e s sm a n u a li n a v i s i t t o
Gesfapi)headquartersand even if I had I
the pou'ers
doubt if I could have summor.red
of concentrationto lbarn the garne without
in
ooar<lor pieces.I playedchild-iike ganre.s
;ry head:going throughthe lettersof the alp h a h c tf o l r r a r r r cosl u r i t c r s .c o r n p r t s c r s .c i c n l i s t s . c o u n t r i e s .c i t i c s . u n i r n l l . . f r r r r t .
flowerl;. and vege(ables.As the days rvent
,.n I seerlecllo €lrow less. n()t nror-eploficient at this ganre. This ivas the tilne I
should have been atrle to l-ecdon the fat of'
nly mernor\'. but I had alu.a1'shad a bad
rnemory (the Security Branch did not bel i e v e t h a t o n e l ) a n d h a d r e l i e da l l n r v l i l ' eo n
p e n c i l ,n o t e b o o k .p r e s sc l i p p i n g .t h e n r a r k ing in the rnargin of a book tu recall a
source,a fact. a reference.Poetrythat I had
learned at school tled frorn rle: French
verbs lr,ere elusivc. I livecl again througlr
things that had happenedto nre in the past:
conversations and involr.crnents with
p e o p l e ,g l o w i n g a g a i n a t a t ' e w s u c c e s s c s .
recoiling with embarrasslrientat frequent
awkwardnesses.
I put myself througlra conc e n t r a t e ds e l f - s c r u t i n yb u t i n a s c a t t e r e d .
disorganizedfashionand I found lnysell not
r v i t h a c l e a r e ri n s i g h ti n t o n r y s e l fi n t h i s a b nornral situatron.but with a diffused rvorld
of the past divertirrgnre frorn the povertl' olt h c p r e s e n t".
T h i s i s t h e f i f t h i n N ' l o n t l r l yR c r ' i e w ' s
V o i c e so f R e s i s t a n c see r i e s .I t ' s a n e x c r l i n g
publishing eflort. producing tr.rdate solne
l'ine"[orgotten': texts,.alwaysof fered.as in
this case. rvith useful foreufordsand afierw o r d s . I n t h i s t i r n e w h e n t o u r t r i s t o r . yi s
t r i v i a l i z e do r e r a s e do n t h q n i g h t l y n e w s .
thesereissuesfill an inrportantneecl.
: