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ARTicles vol. 6 i.3b: Elections and Erections
FEB 1, 2008
Pieter-Dirk Uys introduces his show, Elections and Erections.
Someone suggested that my show to play at the A.R.T. in April 2008, called Elections and Erections, must be about Hillary and Bill. A tantalizing thought but not a very long performance.
Elections & Erections refers to the two things that were illegal during my life as a young South African growing up in apartheid Cape Town. Elections did happen and white people voted for white people to represent white people in a white government that ruled over a voiceless black majority. So democracy was a virtual experience. We knew what it was supposed to be and pretended we were. Erections happen. As a young man I also discovered that there were areas of sex that were as illegal as freedom. The Immorality Act made all sexual contact between blacks and whites punishable by imprisonment. Homosexuality during apartheid was also against the law, as well as the Word of the Calvinist God, and not always in that order. But common sense in a brainwashed society always seeks refuge on a backseat when things get really hard. And during sex they do. So by following erections, I was led into minefields of danger, tinged with delight and occasionally discovering hope.
When a relationship developed with someone my own age in the 1960s it was a new chapter of growing up. There followed secret meetings on a secluded beach and surprisingly long hours of conversation. I was also discovering a life across the railway line separated by a fence, fear and apartheid. He was black. It was illegal. Not only would we go to jail, I would go to hell! Actually no, I went back for more. And so more and more I was exposed to the lies that dominated my life as a supposedly decent educated person. Everything in South Africa around me, be it education, religion, culture or entertainment was based on and dictated to by legalized racism. It was wrong. It was strong. It could not easily be changed.
Was I ever in real danger? No. I was white and Afrikaans with relatives in the right places. But the responsibility was chilling, knowing that if we were caught the other young South African would disappear in chains and probably lose his life. Because he was black and loved me.
When I discovered humour as my weapon of mass distraction for the first time it seemed possible to confront fear and make it less fearful. Politicians, no matter how grave, how moral, how frightening they are wielding total power, will always be like monkeys. The higher they climb the pole of ambition the more of their arses we can see. So when the arseholes in power painted themselves into a corner with their apartheid laws, the laugh was on them.
They became the best scriptwriters I could wish for. Who could make up laws of such hilarity combined with such pain and affront? They put the words into my mouth. Hypocrisy became their vaseline of political intercourse. Some of them were laughed out of power. But little did I know what lay ahead after apartheid, in the world of true democracy and freedom. In today’s thirteen-year-old rainbow confusion called the New South Africa, I don’t pay taxes. I pay royalties.
The government of the day writes me my material. Not just in South Africa but also in the U.S.A., thanks to the impaired creativity of the prime clown, George W. Bush. He discovered the wisdoms of my erstwhile bread and botha, President P.W. Botha. Our apartheid icon said: “He who is not for us is against us.” He used the phrase “war on terror.” He frightened us into giving him full power while W was still a bush baby on daddy’s farm. It is now a logical step to stand on an American stage, celebrating the virtual freedoms of the world’s only superpower and reflect an equally frightened and traumatized society ready to say: “Enough! I’m sick and tired of this and I won’t take it anymore!” A presidential election is an ideal way to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This U.S. baby holds the soap. Do the American people have an erection for this election? If so, maybe my show in Cambridge in April is about Bill and Hillary, Barack and Rudy, Osama and George. Me and you.
