Artists' Commitment

IT IS IN THE artists' nature to be agents of change, to transform the world. they are apprentices of freedom." Nadine Gordimer states this credo clearly, but proves it by her fiction. Burger's Daughter, her latest novel, which was banned until last week in South Africa, presents a passionate argument for social and political change.

Most of Gordimer's writings reflect her belief that artists, through the emotional force of their work, can transform society. She holds up two standards for artists--relevance and commitment, "the justification of the writer's existence and the source of communication with one's people."

South African society demands relevance from its writers with a particular urgency, Gordimer says. "The writer is told you have a role in society. You have to serve--you must put yourself at the service of the struggle."

The question of relevance--how to capture the essence of one's country in a way meaningful to both the artist and his society--haunts South African writers today, Gordimer says. Writers who duck the visceral issue of apartheid find their work irrelevant to their society and in some larger sense to themselves. They are cut off from society, bereft.

Although she talks about alienation from society and self caused by apartheid, Gordimer scorns an empty, abstract ideal of relevance. "Artists shouldn't talk about apartheid--they have to go deeper," she snorts. The writer can make others feel, and the emotional depth necessary to convey such experience comes from a writer's internal commitment, she says. "Commitment takes over from within--it's the point at which the inner and outer world fuse." Commitment is the process of making moral decisions on grounds frustratingly ambiguous and clouded.

It is these moral decisions--and all their shades of gray--that obsess Nadine Gordimer. Burger's Daughter dramatizes Rosa Burger's search for a cause to which she can commit herself, while accepting her fears, doubts, and ambivalence.

But passionate and inspiring as her novel is, Gordimer emphasizes that the way Rosa chooses is not necessarily hers. "I haven't got the Rosa kind of commitment--it would be terrible to let you think that of me. It's kind of a holy mystery to me, that commitment. What makes them absolutely sure they couldn't live any other way?"

Rosa finds it impossible to live with herself on any other terms, but Gordimer has chosen a path she lambastes in her novel--moral but not overtly political commitment. "There is an uneasy middle ground. I know because I live on it," she says. "You take all kinds of stands that you find ridiculous later. For a long time, I refused to own a house because I felt badly about owning something blacks couldn't. But every time I travel--on a segregated bus--or go to any cinema. I'm doing things blacks can't do."

Gordimer says she finds herself testing her commitment and her courage constantly. She talks about the time a prominent white liberal university in South Africa offered her an honorary degree. Although the university had fought against apartheid, it was supported by government funds. Gordimer did not accept the degree. "I received harsh criticism for that. Even friends said I was wrong. But I have to live my life and make these decisions by myself."

Reaffirming this commitment has placed great political tensions on her. "When I'm asked a question, I'm afraid to answer honestly, in case it might not be good for me at home. We've talked about this"--glancing quickly at her son Hugo, a senior at Columbia--"one might lose a passport. You're playing it by ear all the time with shivers up the spine," she says calmly.

Gordimer says she foresaw political harassment over Burger's Daughter, her most political novel to date. She included in the text of the novel a banned document from the Soweto riots in 1976. "I took certain liberties and I was afraid the government would ask themselves was she one of them? (Communists). She must have had access to early documents, perhaps she was in on it."

Despite a degree of political harassment and the humiliation and frustration of seeing her works banned, Gordimer protests she falls far short of Rosa's ideal. "I've never been named, and wouldn't be (naming is a form of punishment less severe than banning, but which restricts movement and visits). People are named as a result of direct political activity. It takes a lot of courage to do that," she says.

Gordimer does not choose Rosa's way--and you sense regret, self-condemnation, and a wry self-knowledge that she could not live Rosa's life. Nevertheless, she seems to have confronted and accepted her personal commitment as an artist. "I do my work. I tell the truth as I see it. I say what I think, here and there," she says, proudly.