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Act 1, Scene 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Children! My Africa!, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Protest, Dissent, and Violence
Apartheid, Race, and Human Connection
Education
The Future of Africa
Summary
Analysis
Isabel and Thami are studying for their literature quiz competition. Isabel starts telling Thami about the short biographies she’s prepared of various English writers, but she soon realizes that Thami isn’t listening. He says that he needs to talk, but he doesn’t know how to start. He doesn’t want to mislead Isabel or make her feel like he’s blaming her for anything—but he has a problem. Isabel tells him to just tell her what’s going on, and she guesses that he’s quitting the competition. He says yes, and she admits that she was kind of expecting it. She explains that even she is starting to see the institutionalized oppression in South African society and understand how it has taught her to look down on Black people.
The English literature quiz competition becomes less and less relevant to the real issues that Isabel and Thami face in their daily lives. Their true education appears to be happening elsewhere. For instance, since befriending Thami and Mr. M, Isabel has started seriously reflecting on the world around her, and she has realized how apartheid benefits white people like her at Black people’s expense. She now understands why politics seems far more urgent than school does for Thami.
Themes
Isabel asks how Thami plans to tell Mr. M about his decision to quit the competition, but he says Mr. M won’t have a choice. She asks if he’s at least willing to have a conversation with her about it, but he says there’s nothing to talk about, since everyone knows what’s happening. She calls it “unrest,” but he calls it “Isiqalo,” or “The Beginning.” Isabel asks what this has to do with poetry. Thami explains that the community (led by a group called the Comrades) has decided to go on strike and boycott the school. Mr. M doesn’t know yet—he wasn’t invited to the meeting—and nobody knows how long the boycott will last. Isabel asks if she and Thami will be able to eventually continue with the competition, but Thami refuses to answer.
Even though Isabel has started to understand how apartheid oppresses Black people, she and Thami still view the growing riots in Brakwater from entirely different perspectives. While Isabel’s white community sees them as “unrest,” or a bothersome challenge to the status quo, Thami’s Black community sees the riots as “The Beginning” of a longer fight for power, freedom, and democracy. The Comrades associate schools with the apartheid government, which explains why they are boycotting them. Namely, the school system is one arm of the government’s campaign to brainwash the population and subjugate Black people.
Themes
Isabel also asks if she and Thami can at least stay friends, but he doesn’t respond. She realizes that their friendship must have just been one of Mr. M’s “old-fashioned idea[s].” At first, she tells Thami that he can go ahead and leave, but then she yells for him to come back. She knows that her race is probably the issue, but she just doesn’t understand why they can’t stay friends. Thami explains that he doesn’t personally see any problems with their friendship, but word will get around in the community (for instance, through Isabel’s maid U’sispumla), and it could end badly for him. The Comrades have agreed not to mix with white people for the time being.
Isabel is devastated to think that her friendship with Thami might have been a charade put on by Mr. M. When she considers this possibility, the real question she’s grappling with is whether she and Thami could ever form a real friendship, given the racial segregation and volatile political situation in South Africa. Fortunately, Thami affirms that their friendship was always real, as it was based on their genuine curiosity and interest rather than an ulterior motive. In other words, while apartheid could not prevent Thami and Isabel from bonding as friends and equals, it nevertheless tears them apart out of political necessity.
Themes
Isabel asks whether Thami is really fighting for freedom by letting the Comrades tell him what to do. But just at that moment, Mr. M walks in. He’s calm and solemn, unlike in the past, and he’s been listening in on Isabel and Thami’s conversation. He tells Isabel to repeat her question to Thami, but she refuses, so he asks Thami directly. Thami explains that the Comrades’ temporary policy against meeting white people is about discipline. The government is taking way Black people’s freedom, he says, not the Comrades. And one way it’s doing so is by giving Black people a low-quality education. Mr. M agrees—in fact, he declares that he hates teaching the government’s Bantu Education curriculum and actively tries to sabotage it in the classroom.
Thami and Mr. M’s confrontation brings out their opposite views of the education system: Thami views it as primarily a source of oppression and Mr. M sees it as primarily a source of liberation. Both of them have to compromise certain principles for the sake of their loyalty to the greater good. Mr. M recognizes that the government curriculum is oppressive, but he teaches it because he believes that he can help his students anyway. Similarly, Thami stays politically loyal to the Comrades, even though they’re imperfect and force him to sacrifice his his personal loyalty to a beloved friend.
Themes
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Mr. M explains that he always wanted to help young students learn to think for themselves and resist the government, so Thami’s rebelliousness is a sign that he has succeeded. But Thami insists that Mr. M didn’t teach him anything: he really learned to think from the people in his community, not from school, and he has no need for “big English words.” Mr. M disagrees—he says that words are “magical.” They’re all that give people true power and separates them from animals. Rocks and bombs can’t stop an armored tank, Mr. M argues, but words can persuade its driver to switch sides.
Although Mr. M and Thami agree that the apartheid education system is oppressive, Mr. M still thinks that it’s possible to advance the cause of equality and justice from within that system. This is because, while the content of the government curriculum may have been oppressive, the skills that students can learn through education—critical thinking and analysis—will serve them throughout their lives, in a variety of contexts. If words are “magical,” then education is a way to capture this magic. Mr. M also points out a clear problem with the Comrades’ strategy: while violence can directly target the apartheid government, its scope is limited, and it quickly fades. In contrast, words can travel across space and time, multiplying their influence in the process. While Black freedom fighters are badly outmatched in terms of weapons, they are nonetheless white people’s equals in terms of reason and persuasion. This is why Mr. M so desperately wants Thami to go to college: he doesn’t just think that nonviolent protest is better than violent revolt, but he also thinks that it’s the only effective way to change society.
Themes
Mr. M asks Thami to convince his classmates to come to school despite the planned boycott, but Thami refuses: his peers made a deliberate, informed decision. Mr. M reveals that the government is asking him to make a list of the students who boycott school. They won’t be allowed to re-enroll, and he doesn’t want Thami on the list. Thami asks if Mr. M will really make the list, but Mr. M refuses to answer, so Thami says that he also has no obligation to answer Mr. M’s questions.
Mr. M’s dilemma is similar to Thami’s choice between his friendship with Isabel and his commitment to the protest movement. When the government asks Mr. M to collaborate with its policing efforts, he has to choose between protecting his beloved students or standing by his ethical commitment to nonviolent political methods. In turn, if he collaborates with the government, then students really will lose the chance to receive an education if they choose to participate in the protests. In theory, none of these dilemmas have to exist in the first place: where it not for apartheid, Thami and Isabel could remain friends while Thami protests, the students could attend school and go the protests, and Mr. M could defend his students by staying silent. But the tragedy in this play is, because of the political context, the characters are forced to make these difficult moral decisions between two options that wouldn’t otherwise conflict.
Themes
Mr. M explodes and screams that Thami is “a very, very silly boy” for giving up his chance at an education. Before Thami goes, he tells Mr. M that the neighborhood considers him a sellout and traitor who does the government’s bidding. Thami even tried to defend him. But now, Thami says, Mr. M can make his list and put Thami on top of it. He walks out. Isabel then yells, “this fucking country!” and also exits the scene.
This scene’s dramatic conclusion shows how politics finally tears Thami, Mr. M, and Isabel apart. The play’s three protagonists are all selfless and well-intentioned—they all want to dedicate their lives to serving their communities, including one another. But because of Thami and Mr. M’s disagreement—which leaves Isabel caught in the middle—the three protagonists are tragically torn apart.
Themes
