RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND DISILLUSIONMENT IN PETER ABRAHAMS’
TELL FREEDOM
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE         
1.0 Abstract    -    -    -    
Purpose of Study    -    -    -    -
1.2 Scope of Study    -    -    -    -
Methodology    -    -    -    -    
Theoretical back    -    -    -    -    -
Literature review    -    -    -    -
Justification    -    -    -    -    
1.7Thesis statement    -    -    -    
Brief history of racial discrimination (Apartheid) in South Africa-
Political and socio economicalienation in the apartheid setting-    
Definition of Terms    -
CHAPTER TWO: PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF RACIALDISCRIMINATION (APARTHEID)    -    -    -    -
CHAPTER THREE:DISILLUSIONMENT AND PROTEST AGAINST RACIAL DISCRIMINATION (APARTHEID)    -
3.1 Growth    -    -    -    -    -
3.2 Enlightenment     -    -    -    -
3.3 Flight    -    -    -    -    -    -
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION    -    
WORKS CITED    -    -    
CHAPTER ONE
ABSTRACT
This paper sort to show the psychological effects the white South African government sentenced the non-white majority to, and how it led to their disillusionment and eventual protest against racial discrimination (Apartheid).
 The aim of this study is to examine how racial discrimination [segregation] bedevilled more than ten (10) million non-Europeans living in South Africa during the racial distinction era (apartheid era), their disillusionment from the norm of racism which led to questions unanswered and the psychological effect melted down on these majority non-European South Africans who had for numerable reasons accepted their fate. Their struggles to overcome colour barred in a developed economy “RESERVED FOR EUROPEANS ONLY”.
    1.1     PURPOSE OF STUDY
            This study seeks to show how Peter Abrahams presents his text Tell Freedom to explain how the psychological effects of racial discrimination leads to the disillusionment and protest of the non-white South Africans against the Apartheid policy during the apartheid period. It also aims at exploring the theme of a degenerating socio economical life of the non-white during the apartheid era. He also writes the text Tell Freedom artistically, which gives it an aesthetic colouring and an unusual verisimilitude.
SCOPE OF STUDY
    Peter Henry Abrahams De Ras has written a lot of literatures. He wrote poems which include; ‘Here Friend’ in 1940 and ‘A Blackman Speaks of Freedom’ in 1941. He holds the distinction of being the first South African to write an English novel after Sol Plaatje’s novel Mhudi was published in 1931. Among his novels are; Dark Testament (1942), Song of the City (1945), Mine Boy (1946) Path of Thunder (1948) Wild Conquest (1950), Return to Goli(1953), Tell Freedom (1954), A Wreath for Udomo(1956), A Night of Their Own (1965), This Island Now (1966) and The View from Coyoba (1985). This study will focus on the novel, Tell Freedom, and references from anti-racism (anti-apartheid) literature (i.e. novels, poems, memoirs, essays etc.)  and how the novelist uses it to expose the ills and the effects of racial discrimination in the Apartheid South African society.
1.3METHODOLOGY
                 The methodology involves a critical study of the primary text to identify the problems (ills) associated with racial distinction on the non-European South Africans during the Apartheid era and their protest or struggle for freedom as projected by the novelist.  After identification, the problems (ills) are classified into one: the psychological effects of racial discrimination. While their struggles are classified as a whole: Disillusionment; protest against racial discrimination. Analysis is carried out based on the two broad classifications. Through the analysis, it is observed that a direct relationship exists between the problems the non-white South Africans accepted as a norm and their eventual protest against this discrimination based on race. This study also demonstrated that education in the novelis an eye opener and a tool the non-white South Africans used in their fight to end the Apartheid policy.
                Apart from the primary text, we have employed secondary sources to support or refute our argument. We have also used the Internet for necessary and relevant information.
 1.4THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
       Racial discrimination and disillusionment is analysed in Tell Freedom by looking at the aftermath of deprivation, starvation, illiteracy, unequal rights, suspended universal suffrage, colour barred (For Europeans Only) amongst others and the psychological effect it had on the non-white South Africans and the gradual process to the road of disillusionment as seen in the life of the novelist and the characters he created in his autobiography Tell Freedom through the psychoanalytic theory of criticism.  
       Psychoanalytic criticism adopts the methods of "reading" employed by Sigmund Freud and later theorists to interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret of the unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche.
           One interesting facet of this approach is that it validates the importance of literature, as it is built on a literary key for the decoding. Freud himself wrote, "The dream-thoughts which we first come across as we proceed with our analysis often strike us by the unusual form in which they are expressed; they are not clothed in the prosaic language usually employed by our thoughts, but are on the contrary represented symbolically by means of similes and metaphors, in images resembling those of poetic speech".
       Like psychoanalysis itself, this critical endeavour seeks evidence of unresolved emotions, psychological conflicts, guilt, ambivalences, and so forth within what may well be a dis unified literary work. The author's own childhood traumas, family life, sexual conflicts, fixations, and such will be traceable within the behaviour of the characters in the literary work. But psychological material will be expressed indirectly, disguised, or encoded (as in dreams) through principles such as "symbolism" (the repressed object represented in disguise "condensation" (several thoughts or persons represented in a single image), and "displacement" (anxiety located onto another image by means of association).
           African writers have an enduring propensity for social and political commitment. Their texts mostly reflect and refract the socio-political events and the effect it had on their personalities and their societies. Initially, African literature was a tool for celebrating the heroic grandeur of the African past; later it was used for anti-colonial struggle. Presently, it is being employed as a veritable weapon for depicting the postcolonial disillusionment in African nations. Therefore, African literature is always chained to the experiences of the peoples of the continent.  It is observed that in Peter Abrahams Tell Freedom, postcolonial pains in African nations are imaginatively captured with apt narrative devices.   
         Peter Abrahams in Tell Freedom is asking questions such as: what is the difference between the whites and non-white? Why was he denied quality education and everything good reserved only for the European and their children? what is wrong in living in a proper house and living a decent life in a society he belongs to by birth? is it a crime to be coloured in South Africa? why is the minority white exerting power and authority over the majority non-whites?      
1.5    REVIEW OF CRITICISM
           Tell Freedom by Peter Abrahams has gained wide audience. The novel which was published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York in 1954. Is a memoir of the poet / novelist, while he was still in South Africa. Literary critics acknowledge Tell Freedom as one of the first autobiographies based on life in South Africa.
 In The Nigerian scholar, Kolawole “Ogungbesan’sThe Writing of Peter Abrahams, he commends the writer’s style in Tell Freedom as being overly selective. An incident is selected because it has contributed to the making of the artist and is recorded in such a fashion as to make the most mundane works and issues bloom with the most far reaching output (P. 91). However, this commendation was given after the author had noted that Abrahams “fails in making (such) incidents fuse into a powerful whole”. (P. 89)
Ogungbesan says also that Abraham’s characters are ‘wooden’ as in his other novels. (P.90) He says, people to Abrahams, whether fictional or non-fictional are always more important as symbols than just human beings (P.90). In truth, Abraham’s characters are wooden, perhaps this is the author’s method of symbolizing the fact in truth, and these characters never develop. They are in a perpetual state of physical, psychological and spiritual stability. They firmly belong to the past and perhaps the author does well to keep them there.
       He (Ogungbesan) points to the last two pages of Tell Freedom as the only dark cloud in the story that is remarkably free from bitterness. Indeed, as the only indication of any hint of protest… He continues, “The author has chosen to show remarkable compassion throughout his work” The author’s Marxist tendencies did much to guide his political orientations as reflected in his works.
       It appears that Ogungbesan shares the same opinions with Tucker who says in Africa inModern Literature that the works of Allen Paten, Nadine Gordimer and Peter Abrahams     
        “Represent the spirit of forgiveness”.
  Tucker goes on further to say:“That in their work, temporary political and social defeat is secondary   to men’s eternal spiritual resistance to isolation by colour”.
 Wade refers to Tell Freedom as a:“Dramatized autobiography”
          He notes that the book operates on two levels. Like all auto biographers, he seeks to “explain, and identify” himself in relationship to his environment.  Secondly, he is spurred on to write mainly by the need to give information about shared “objective” conditions.
Ogunsanwo on the other hand considers the text, Tell Freedom as:         
    “A truly autobiographical protest literature and states that it is
    meant to gain a sincere and practical respect for human
    Dignity by arousing white conscience over black
    Frustration in South Africa”. (P.38)
He opines that Abrahams makes a conscious effort to broaden the normal limits of autobiography by recreating personal experiences and also portraying general prevailing conditions. He says the book is:
    “Both a record of events in the author’s life and an immediate
     Impressionistic evocation of representative moods and
    Moments which transcends any particular place
    And moment”. (38)    
       However, dramatized or not, the autobiography has a special advantage in South Africa, because as Olney comments “it is more effective weapon of achieving the necessary emotional and moral effect rather than purely imaginative novel,” (P.270) this, in his opinion, is because:
        “The nightmare that occurs as waking reality in the broad
        Of day and in the streets of Johannesburg or Pretoria
        Demands the realistic and interior first person voice of
        Autobiography to achieve its fullest force”. (270)
    Observations from different newspaper and online media has linked the text Tell Freedom with brilliance.
  A review on Good Reads says:
“Peter Abrahams - the veteran South African version (author) – writes
tenderly yet powerfully. And he has been doing so for many decades,
having been publishing books on his native country since the 40's!! In his books, including this one, he always comes across as a pacifist, or/and humanist.
This is a man whose childhood was spent during the terrible times of discrimination among races in South Africa. This work is an early biography of his, and can move one to tears intermittently. We see from his childhood that the white man is ‘god’. As a child he learnt this only too well when in a certain episode, to please the ‘white baas’, the child receives a horrific whipping by his own guardians! This amidst other unfortunate episodes like a mishap at the (water) well, and his ill-judged juvenile attempts to steal. The author's early life is soured because of racial discrimination – but not only him; his family, his relatives...it goes on and on. Harrowingly. Ultimate despair. His love for writing however developed from a very early age, and for me, this is the most remarkable part of this work. There was virtually no encouragement for him in this wise, but he kept on writing, including penning striking poems as a kid. The powers-that-be even had to warn him against this (writing). His determination to leave the beleaguered country, to feel free, to write about "freedom" elsewhere (in other countries) is very commendable considering that era and its stultifying restraints. And so in the end the author takes to the sea, somewhat...That he went on to succeed as a writer - very well too, and inspiring many other African writers in the process, over the decades - might be regarded as icing on the cake. A remarkable man and writer”.
            The New York Times says:
“Over the decades, in his reporting and in his fiction, Mr. Abrahams
addressed the promises and the perils of black rule after colonialism,
the possibilities of a post racial society and questions of personal identity.
 Those he felt acutely as a mixed-race South African — ‘coloured’, under
the country’s apartheid system — married to a white woman, and as an
exile for most of his life. Above all, the spectacle of racial injustice in his
homeland spurred him”.
Kirkus Magazine opines that:
“Tell Freedom is an autobiography of a South African poet, who rejected
the horrors his country offered his people- the Coloureds - this has beauty
and the marked poignancy of a hopeless struggle against overwhelming odds. For at his thirty-seven years of age Peter Abrahams looks back on a life that ran the gamut of trials-physical, emotional and intellectual to the point that he couldno longer recognize a real place for himself in Africa, even among the whites who were trying to further the causes of tolerance and freedom. His biography is conversational and grippingly sensitive in style. Beginning with early childhood, he takes us with him- into his own small poverty- stricken house in Johannesburg, into his friendship with a Zulu boy, into his first encounter with white youths who stoned him and whose father later blamed the Coloureds for the incident. With his teens came both a ray of hope and a sad romance- for when he is given the opportunity to go to a diocesan college, his girl's family moves away without leaving word. At college there is the hope of a new social order, but as it comes, in the form of Marxism, it is disillusioning to Abrahams who later feels, though he knows the communists are not the only forces at work against ‘apartheid’, that he must escape to Europe in order to write and thus do his best for his country. A book that combines the emotional appeal of a Paton story with vivid, frank actuality, and sheds important light on Africa. To those who remember his Path of Thunder and Wild Conquest (both Harper books- 1948-50), with keen delight, this will have special significance”.
A review on Amazon by Winston G Allen Jr. (13 years old as at November 30, 2003) reads:
“When I started reading this book I knew that I was about to dig into the truth of the everyday lives of children in South Africa. This mystery is an autobiography. I have read some materials about South Africa but this book really tells it all. The book started out with Peter living in Johannesburg …”.
Winston goes further to say that he believes this book highlights the true and real childhood of South Africa's children. This book, Tell Freedom, is a Mystery that only those of the high hierarchy can solve if they will. I believe there is still much evidence of this type of hurt today in some parts of South Africa. This is also present all over the world. Somebody will have to do something to prevent poor children from such ridicule and hardship. It has been going on too long. I believe a change will be welcomed at this time. I would recommend that this book be read by all age groups. It is an excellent portrayal of life as an under privilege”.
1.6    JUSTIFICATION
       This study makes no attempt to idealize Peter Abrahams or his works. However, it cannot be denied that as readers, we are often hampered by our own preconceived notions. ZakesMda, the South African writer, calls them ‘abstract perceptions’. It is utterly easy to read Tell Freedom and never dig below the label of an autobiography.
        In some ways, they are like the audience at an art gallery who admire the paintings from a distance, acknowledging the high quality of the frames used and the perfect blend of colours applied but not quite understanding the essence; for Tell Freedom is in essence more than just the story of racism but also encompasses the negative effects suffered by the author and the majority non-white South Africans.
This study examines the nature of psychoanalytic approach in Abrahams` Tell Freedom. The review of this work as psychoanalytic novel as can be observed from the discussion so far, establishes the fact that the novel, Tell Freedom, has a lot of critics. These critics have shared their various contradictory ideas about the novel. Although these ideas seem to share to some level of similarities with this study, they are also different in some ways. While some critics believe that the novel speaks of the injustice melted down on the non-white South Africans during the Apartheid era, others believe that the memoir is a protest against racial discrimination by the oppressed non-white South Africans who decided to take their destinies in their own hands.
       In essence, Tell Freedom is far more than an autobiography just as a national anthem is far more than a song. This study takes its focus on two broad headings; the psychological effects of racial discrimination and disillusionment; protest against racial discrimination as an aftermath of the enactment of the Apartheid (distinction based on race) policy.
1.7        THESIS STATEMENT
This study establishes that the distinctions based on race in Peter Abrahams’ text, Tell Freedom, shows how the psychological effects of racial discrimination which the non-white South Africans suffered lead to their disillusionment and protest against racial discrimination that bedevilled the South African society during the Apartheid era.
 1.8BRIEF HISTORY OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION (APARTHEID) IN SOUTH AFRICA
          Tell Freedom was first published in 1954, exactly eight years after the enactment of apartheid laws in South Africa. South Africa was colonized by both England and the Netherlands in the seventeenth (17th) century. English domination of the Dutch descendants (known as Boers or Afrikaners) resulted in the establishing the new colonies of the Orange Free State and Transvaal. It was the discovery of diamonds in these lands that resulted in an English invasion that sparked off the Boer war. Following independence from England, the two groups held an uneasy alliance until the 1940’s when the Afrikaner National Party (ANP) was able to gain a strong majority. Strategists in the National party invented apartheid as a means to cement their control over the economic and social system. Initially, the aim of apartheid was to maintain white domination while extending racial separation. But starting in the 60s, till the dismantling of Apartheid in the early 90s, a plan of ‘Grand Apartheid’ was executed, emphasizing territorial separation between black and whites, restriction of movement and police repression.
     It was the formal enactment of apartheid laws in 1948 that formally institutionalized racial discrimination. Racial laws touched upon, amongst other things, a prohibition of marriage between non-whites and whites, the sanctioning of “white only jobs”. It also emphasized the restriction of movement within areas and required that all blacks carry ‘pass books’ containing fingerprints, photograph and information on access to non-black areas. The subsequent years up till 1994 when apartheid was formally disentranced to be replaced by a democratically elected government, marked some of the greatest landmarks in arrests, demonstrations, imprisonments and executions ever witnessed in South African history.
   1.9       POLITICAL AND SOCIO ECONOMIC ALIENATION IN THE APARTHEID SETTING
What was apartheid?
Translated from the Afrikaans meaning 'apartness', apartheid was the ideology supported by the National Party (NP) government and was introduced in South Africa in 1948. Apartheid called for the separate development of the different racial groups in South Africa. On paper it appeared to call for equal development and freedom of cultural expression, but the way it was implemented made this impossible. Apartheid made laws forced the different racial groups to live separately and develop separately, and grossly unequally too. It tried to stop all inter-marriage and social integration between racial groups. During apartheid, to have a friendship with someone of a different race generally brought suspicion upon you, or worse. More than this, apartheid was a social system which severely disadvantaged the majority of the population, simply because they did not share the skin colour of the rulers. Many were kept just above destitution because they were 'non-white'.
In basic principles, apartheid did not differ that much from the policy of segregation of the South African governments existing before the Afrikaner Nationalist Party came to power in 1948. The main difference is that apartheid made segregation part of the law. Apartheid cruelly and forcibly separated people, and had a fearsome state apparatus to punish those who disagreed. Another reason why apartheid was seen as much worse than segregation, was that apartheid was introduced in a period when other countries were moving away from racist policies. Before World War Two the Western world was not as critical of racial discrimination, and Africa was colonized in this period. The Second World War highlighted the problems of racism, making the world turn away from such policies and encouraging demands for decolonization. It was during this period that South Africa introduced the more rigid racial policy of apartheid.
People often wonder why such a policy was introduced and why it had so much support. Various reasons can be given for apartheid, although they are all closely linked. The main reasons lie in ideas of racial superiority and fear. Across the world, racism is influenced by the idea that one race must be superior to another. Such ideas are found in all population groups. The other main reason for apartheid was fear, as in South Africa the white people are in the minority, and many were worried they would lose their jobs, culture and language. This is obviously not a justification for apartheid, but explains how people were thinking.
Apartheid Laws:
Numerous laws were passed in the creation of the apartheid state. Here are a few of the pillars on which it rested:
Group Areas Act, 1950, This was the act that started physical separation between races, especially in urban areas. The act also called for the removal of some groups of people into areas set aside for their racial group.
Population Registration Act, 1950; This Act demanded that people be registered according to their racial group. This meant that the Department of Home affairs would have a record of people according to whether they were white, coloured, black, Indian or Asian. People would then be treated differently according to their population group, and so this law formed the basis of apartheid. It was however not always that easy to decide what racial group a person was part of, and this caused some problems.
Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act, 1959 This Act said that different racial groups had to live in different areas. Only a small percentage of South Africa was left for black people (who comprised the vast majority) to form their 'homelands'. This Act also got rid of 'black spots' inside white areas, by moving all black people out of the city. Well known removals were those in District 6, Sophiatown and Lady Selbourne. These non-white people were then placed in townships out of the town. They could not own property here, only rent it, as the land could only be white owned. This Act caused much hardship and resentment. People lost their homes, were moved off land they had owned for many years and were moved to undeveloped areas far away from their place of work. Some other important laws are the:
Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949
Immorality Amendment Act, 1950
Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951
Resistance before 1960.
          Resistance to apartheid came from all circles, and not only, as is often presumed, from those who suffered the negative effects of discrimination. Criticism also came from other countries, and some of these gave support to the South African freedom movements. Some of the most important organizations involved in the struggle for liberation were the African National Congress (ANC), the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) and the United Democratic Front (UDF). There were also Indian and Coloured organized resistance movements (e.g. the Natal Indian Congress (NIC), the Coloured People's Organization), white organized groups (e.g. the radical Armed Resistance Movement (ARM), and Black Sash) and church based groups (the Christian Institute). We shall consider the ANC.
The ANC -  The ANC was formed in Bloemfontein in 1912, soon after the Union of South Africa. Originally it was called the South African Native National Congress (SANNC). It was started as a movement for the Black elite who were educated. In 1919 the ANC sent a deputation to London to plead for a new deal for South African blacks, but there was no change to their position.
The history of resistance by the ANC goes through three phases. The first was dialogue and petition; the second direct opposition and the last the period of exiled armed struggle. In 1949, just after apartheid was introduced, the ANC started on a more militant path, with the Youth League playing a more important role. The ANC introduced their Program of Action in 1949, supporting strike action, protests and other forms of non-violent resistance. Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu started to play an important role in the ANC in this period. In 1952 the ANC started the Defiance Campaign. This campaign called on people to purposefully break apartheid laws and offer themselves for arrest. It was hoped that the increase in prisoners would cause the system to collapse and get international support for the ANC. Black people got onto 'white buses', used 'white toilets', entered into 'white areas' and refused to use passes. Despite 8 000 people ending up in jail, the ANC caused no threat to the apartheid regime. The ANC continued along the same path during the rest of the 1950s, until in 1959 some members broke away and formed the PAC. These members wanted to follow a more violent and militant route, and felt that success could not be reached through the ANC' .
          In addition, The Afrikaans word apartheid ('apartness') is much in evidence after 1948 as a central plank of South African government policy, but it is only another word for the segregation of the races already promoted by Hertzog and accepted by Smuts. The difference in the post-war years, under successive National Party prime ministers (Malan 1948-54, Strijdom 1954-58, Verwoerd 1958-66, Vorster 1966-78), is the obsessive vigour with which systems of segregation are devised and imposed.
           A population register is established to fix the racial classification of every South African citizen. Marriage between whites and non-whites (and even inter-racial sexual intercourse) becomes a criminal offence. Towns and rural areas are divided into zones in which ownership of property, commercial activity and residence is limited to people of a specific racial group. Africans travel into white areas to work, but they require passes to do so.
          The universities are reserved for white students, while 'apartness' is carried to extreme lengths in the educational arrangements for everyone else: Coloureds, Asians and even the major African tribal groups (Sotho, Xhosa, and Zulu) are now provided with colleges of their own. In everyday life separate facilities are introduced where previously there was no formal segregation - in buses and trains, post offices and libraries, cinemas and theatres.
              The non-white population of South Africa is progressively excluded from the nation's political processes. The Coloured citizens of the Cape Province, for example, are deprived in 1956 (after a long legal battle) of their previous electoral rights. The advocates of apartheid claim that these limitations are balanced by a separate political system designed for the African majority. The promotion of Self Government Act, in 1959, arranges for the creation of ten African homelands (also known as Bantustans) which will be to some extent self-governing, though their policies remain subject to veto by the national administration in Pretoria. The Transkei, dating from 1959, is the largest and earliest of the Bantustans.
           The policy of apartheid brings widespread international opprobrium. After being censured by fellow members, South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth in 1961 and becomes a republic. The General Assembly of the UN condemns apartheid in 1948, the first year of National Party rule, and in 1962 calls on member states to apply economic sanctions. Most African states do so, but western governments are reluctant to take this step - particularly the USA and Britain in the 1980s under Reagan and Thatcher. By 1986 public pressure in the USA is so strong that congress, overriding Reagan's presidential veto, imposes trade and financial restrictions and bans air travel to South Africa. Other western countries follow suit.
            Meanwhile popular revulsion at apartheid has led to the isolation of South Africa in fields such as sport and culture. South African teams and competitors no longer feature at international events. Theatre companies and orchestras refuse to go on tour to the apartheid republic, or face censure from their fellow professionals if they do so.
But the most significant opposition to apartheid is internal. It begins with non-violent protest in the tradition of Gandhi, but possibly includes in 1966 the assassination in parliament of the prime minister, Hendrik Verwoerd (stabbed by an immigrant of mixed racial descent, but of severely unbalanced mind and with no clear motive). With mounting desperation, as the white regime becomes ever more repressive, violence escalates. Spearheading the campaign are two linked organizations, the ANC and the PAC.
    The deprived African is politically, economically and socially severed from the material comfort which his land offers because of the colour of his skin (RESERVED FOR EUROPEANS ONLY).  Alienation is a condition in which the individual is physically or psychologically ostracized. It is a condition of psychic fragmentation. It is not surprising in a society governed by the principle of polarity among colour lines that the black man invariable becomes a stranger in his country.
    Politically, black South Africans have no right to vote. They can only exercise their franchise in their homelands which are independent states to which each African is assigned to by the Government according to the record of origin. The aim is to prevent any involvement with the South African Parliament which holds complete hegemony over the homelands. Africans living in the homelands need passports to enter South Africa; they are aliens in their own land.
    Economically and Socially because of these restrictions, black South Africans are unable to make an impact in the society. Life is an endless cycle… as they seek to bear the white man’s yoke. Labour restrictions prevent them from getting the kind of jobs which would provide adequate money. Educational restrictions prevent them from going to schools and getting the knowledge which would empower the people. They were therefore alien in their environment from all that was good, progressive and from their essential consciousness, ultimately denied.        
1.10         DEFINITION OF TERMS
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
    According to the Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary 8th edition.
Racial: Of or relating to a race or a people. i.e.
Race: is a group of people who share the same language, history, culture, etc.
Discrimination: is the practice of treating somebody or a particular group in the society less fairly than others.
Therefore, Racial Discrimination is the discrimination on grounds of race.
And in describing the nature of Racial Discrimination study.com says that in simple terms, racial discrimination is the practice of treating people differently, or poorly, because of the colour of their skin. For example, if two qualified applicants are interviewed for the same job (one black and the other white) and one is hired because of his skin colour. Then the organization or the company is guilty of racial discrimination.
       By the manner of presentation of this prose Tell Freedom Peter Abrahams tries to expose and expound the ills caused by racial discrimination on the country South Africa. This he does to the extent that one hardly notices when and where he makes comments against the system.
APARTHEID
Apartheid as the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary 8th edition defines it as:
     A political system in which members of different races have
    different political and social rights and lived, travelled, spent
    their free time apart from each other.
      According to Daily Times of June 19, 1991 Apartheid policy in South Africa was born by the White National Party before 1948 general election and it was built on Britain’s 1910 constitution for South Africa with laws of segregation. By this it was planned and executed that the four races; blacks, whites, coloureds (mulatto) and Asians that constitute the people of the country should live in different areas and enjoy unequal amenities and rights.
    To make the Apartheid policy admissible the Authorities in South Africa enacted and passed into law certain obnoxious laws which placed several restrictions on the blacks. Among the laws was the unpopular pass law which was the separate amenities act passed in 1953. The pass law means that every black should carry with him everywhere he is going to a passbook. Without the passbook you are not allowed to reside, work, walk in a place.
DISSILUSIONMENT
Disillusionment as the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary 8th edition defines it as:
    “A feeling of disappointment resulting from the discover
    that something is not as good as one believed it to be”.
Feeling disillusionment means one is bummed out because he or she no longer believe in something –usually because one finds out it isn’t as amazing as one thought. The definition of disillusionment doesn’t sound so bad:  being freed from false beliefs or illusions.