Page 32 - David Goldblatt _ Johannessburg 1948 - 2018

DAVID GOLDBLATT ..... 30
It will come as a surprise to many that David Goldblatt, who was a gentle person, could depict the symbols of power and violence without resorting to clichés. There is the power of the representatives of the state, the township superintendent with his trappings of office, including a fan and his qualifications with the power of life and death over his charges. There is a well-fed Mr Zulu, seated, watering his garden, one of the few who might have struck a bargain with power. Behind him, out
of focus, is a black woman – perhaps a maid, certainly not someone in Mr Zulu’s league – in an apron standing next to a shed or an outhouse. There are some more images of the black middle class, whether well-turned-out at a wedding party, enjoying a cup final at Orlando Stadium or at a prayer meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses, where, one presumes, they’ve checked out from the terror of the physical world onto a higher plane of self-delusion.
There’s an image that chilled me and simultaneously left me admiring the invincibility of the human spirit. It shows a one-armed Lena Sebalo in the shebeen in White City, Jabavu.
I have come across such women as Lena Sebalo and I know many men who have caused them torment. One thing, though about them is that they will wake up in the morning and strive to get their brew. They might have no families except the fellow-sufferers along the way. They remind me of the image of the people who were banished under apartheid rule. When the sun sets, they wonder if they will see tomorrow’s sunrise.
This is the quiet eloquence of David’s poetry.