Nothing's Changed by Tatamkhulu Afrika

The policy of racial segregation in South Africa was known as Apartheid. This is an Afrikaans word which means separateness. The nonwhite majority was dominated by the white minority. The apartheid laws said where people could live and the kind of education they could have. Whites and blacks were not allowed to mix. inter-marriage was forbidden. Some areas were white only - restaurants and public transport were segregated. In 1990 the South African president, F. W. de Klerk, proclaimed the end of apartheid. The African National Congress (ANC) leader, Nelson Mandela, was released from prison and black African political organisations became legal. Apartheid

District Six - An area in Cape Town. The original community was made up of freed slaves, merchants, skilled workers, labourers and all kinds of immigrants. In 1966 the area was declared a white area only under the Group Areas Act. Sixty thousand people were forcibly removed to an area called Cape Flats. The district was demolished by bulldozers. By 1982 the community had been destroyed. District Six

Tatamkhulu Afrika was born in Egypt in 1920 of Egyptian and Turkish parents. Shortly after the family migrated to South Africa his parents died and Tatamkhulu was raised by a family of white, English speaking farmers in District Six in Cape Town during the apartheid years. He actively fought against apartheid. He was arrested in 1964 for his involvement in the uprising against the government's declaration of "District SY' in Cape Town as "White". He was accused of terrorism and arrested again in 1987 and banned from writing and public speaking for five years. Tatamkhulu Afrika

This poem depicts a society where rich and poor are divided. In the apartheid era of racial segregation in South Africa, where the poem is set, laws, enforced by the police, kept apart black and white people. The poet looks at attempts to change this system, and shows how they are ineffective, making no real difference Tatamkhulu Afrika: Nothing's Changed

In his poem, ‘Nothing’s Changed’, Afrika walks through what used to be District Six and remembers the past and present injustices.

Small round hard stones click under my heels, seeding grasses thrust bearded seeds into trouser cuffs, cans, trodden on, crunch in tall, purple-flowering, amiable weeds. Onomatopoeia creates a harsh, bitter mood. There’s a wild and neglected feel to the area Alliteration and one- syllable words make the tone snappy and hard hitting The poem is in six stanzas each with eight lines.

District Six. No board says it is: but my feet know, and my hands, and the skin about my bones, and the soft labouring of my lungs, and the hot, white, inwards turning anger of my eyes. Repetition of ‘and’ shows the poet’s rising anger Suggests he’s had a hard life He can’t express his anger and frustration Intense anger Written in the present tense, although he’s recalling a past event – makes poem more vivid

Brash with glass, name flaring like a flag, it squats in the grass and weeds, incipient Port Jackson trees: new, up-market, haute cuisine, guard at the gatepost, whites only inn. No sign says it is: but we know where we belong. The inn stands for the arrogance of the system Simile shows the proud and insulting dominance of the inn – it seems to be taunting him An ugly word, which suggests the inn doesn’t belong there Intruders in a place of original inhabitants To keep blacks out? No official segregation but the feeling of inequality lives on

I press my nose to the clear panes, know, before I see them, there will be crushed ice white glass, linen falls, the single rose. The “whites only inn” is elegant, and posh Luxury item

Down the road, working man's cafe sells bunny chows. Take it with you, eat it at a plastic table's top, wipe your fingers on your jeans, spit a little on the floor: it's in the bone.. There is no tablecloth, just a plastic top, and there is nowhere to wash one's hands after eating: “wipe your fingers on your jeans”. ‘whites only inn’ is contrasted with the ‘working man’s cafe the local fast food snack

I back from the glass, boy again, leaving small mean O of small mean mouth. Hands burn for a stone, a bomb, to shiver down the glass. Nothing's changed. He may wish literally to break the window of this inn, but this is clearly meant in a symbolic sense. He wants to break down the system, which separates white and black, rich and poor, in South Africa. The “glass” which shuts out the speaker in the poem. It is a symbol of the divisions of colour, and class - often the same thing in South Africa.

The poem uses the technique of contrast to explore the theme of inequality. It has a clear structure of eight- line stanzas. The lines are short, of varying length, but usually with two stressed syllables. Structure and Language