Under Construction @ Keele 2016 Volume 2 Issue 1 | Page 42

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Political Death and Neo-racism: Styles in Sizwe Bansi is Dead
Chitra Jayathilake
(PhD English, awarded 2015, Keele University/ University of Jayewardenepura)
In his lectures in 1975-1976, Michel Foucault conceptualised the
inclination to commit murders in political circumstances, and delineated it
as ‘political death’ (2003).1 Such killings encompass both corporeal and
psychological execution exercised through diverse means, for instance,
murder, manslaughter, genocide, social ostracism and exposure to deadly
environments. Apparently, today political death is implemented either
through implicit biopolitical stratagems or overt violence by those who are
already in power or those who attempt to gain power, and is prompted
through phenomena such as racism, patriotism and xenophobia.
This paper aims to examine ‘political death’ prompted by racism,
and interrogates the ways and means by which these murders are
actualised and rationalised, but ultimately rendered invisible in society, as
represented in Athol Fugard’s Anglophone play-text, Sizwe Bansi is Dead
(1972). Set against the backdrop of the apartheid epoch, Fugard’s play
focuses on the regulation and coercion of black populations by Afrikaner
rulers in postcolonial South Africa. By analysing the play through Frantz
Fanon’s, Foucault’s and Achille Mbembe’s lenses on biopolitics and
racism, I argue that the concept of political death offers perspectives on
biopolitical frameworks that foreground non-normative killings; disembodied deaths. The discussion creates a space to reflect meaningfully
and critically on ‘living-dead’ conditions encountered by many populations
today.
Key words: biopolitics, racism, political death, Fugard, Sizwe Bansi is Dead
This article explores the representations of political killings exercised through the
weapon of racism, as represented in Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston
Ntshona’s play, Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1972).2 It focuses on a close textual
investigation of Styles – one character in the play.
In his lectures (1975-1976), Michel Foucault explained the inclination to
commit murders in political circumstances:
When I say ‘killing’, I obviously do not mean simply murder as such, but
also every form of indirect murder: the fact of exposing someone to

1

Michel Foucault, Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the College De France 1975-76, trans.
David Macey, eds. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana (New York: Picador,2003).
2
The play-text used for this analysis appears inTownship Plays (Oxford edition, 1999) which mentions
Fugard as the playwright of Sizwe Bansi is Dead.