Emergency Continued The Problematic of a Liminal Subjectivity

Abstract

This paper focuses on the themes expounded in Richard Rive’s novel, Emergency Continued. The novel is set in the heat of the State of Emergency sanctioned by the Apartheid state in the 1980s in response to the uprisings in Black and Coloured townships. Andrew Dreyer, a teacher and writer, is the protagonist of the story and is at odds with his sense of self, his belonging, his personal and social history, and his political agency. Using the
theme of an uncertain subjectivity, this piece discusses the uneasy problem that befalls the Coloured subject. There is a great deal that needs to be unpacked regarding Rive’s hint at an uneasy, traumatic and personalised past that his characters are at odds to face. These characters do, however, recognise that a historical reckoning is nonetheless necessary if any semblance of being is to be achieved. Colonialism and oppression have scared
and corrupted the Coloured subject’s sense of self, belonging and political agency. This discussion has relevance to the Coloured subject in a post-apartheid context as many of the complexities, histories and experiences that these individuals face are yet to be grappled with today. From a broader stance, this discussion is linked to theories of Afro-pessimism and the negated ontology beset upon Black bodies. The Coloured subject is however unique in that there is an implicit post-humanist aspect to being mixed race--the supposed product of colonial interaction. What is to be made of the unique experience of Coloured subjectivity? Can a sense of being be achieved through the seemingly impossible odyssey of historical reckoning?