SOURCE: Bekker, Jan. “Poets' Reactions to Apartheid Laws.” In Conscience, Consensus, and Crossroads in Law: Eighth Round Table on Law and Semiotics, edited by Roberta Kevelson, pp. 27-44. New York: Peter Lang, 1995.

In the following essay, Bekker provides an overview of apartheid legislation and cites poetry by writers such as Mongane Wally Serote, Oswald Mtshali, Sipho Sepamla, Modikwe Dikobe, and Can Themba as responses to unjust laws and descriptions of life under apartheid.

I

This paper compares and contrasts concepts created by apartheid laws with the language in which African poets expressed themselves about the effects of these laws. The point of departure is that the laws created symbols that were interpreted differently by the two main population groups, the whites and the blacks.

Some of the conditions arising from these symbols were outright unfair, oppressive and humiliating. Other similar conditions may obtain after the demise of apartheid...