Banned poet Don Matera recently wrote an open letter to the white people of South Africa which cannot be published in South Africa. In it he describes some of the effects of being banned. Some extracts from the letter appear below:
> "I have chosen an Open Letter, because your Government has arbitrarily denied me my right publicly to express my feelings. My writings have been outlawed and nothing that I say can be published...
> "Since the crimes you and your government have perpetrated against my people are innumerable and since I lack the courage to rise up against you in their name, and most of all because I hate violence, I will confine this letter to the irreparable damage you and your Government have personally caused me and my family.
> "Until this day, I have ever been united with those who suffer, are poor and with the sick and the dying...
> "Yet for nearly six years now, with four more to follow, perhaps until I die, your Government has summarily cut me, and countless others, off from that very vital and life-giving force called HUMAN INTERACTION.
> "Perhaps your Government has told YOU why it took the criminal decision to deny and rob me and my colleagues of all social, political and human intercourse with our fellow-beings; making it a crime even to speak to a group of children.
> "I was given no reason whatsoever.
> "And did any of you ask your Government why I am prohibited from attending my daughter's birthday party? Or why I must wait outside a hall when my own son is being handed a trophy or a badge? Or why I have to ask your Chief Magistrate for permission to attend the funeral of a loved one or a friend or a great leader...
> "Have any of you ever been prohibited from weeping at a graveside?
> "Well, I have been.
> "Do you white people know what it means to be made a social outcast; a leper people are afraid to speak to or touch — even embrace though the urge to do so is there?
> "I know what rejection is, and so does Winnie Mandela, Lillian Ngoyi, Sheila Weinberg, Fatima Meer, and those many, many hundreds of my people your Government (in your name) has consigned to that Twilight World of loneliness and pain.
> "You have reduced their humanity as you have reduced mine.
> "And for that I curse you.
> "Have any of you white people experienced the horror of raids by the Secret Police? Do you know how humiliating it is to hear that loud and vicious banging at the door, and watch helplessly as armed police search the house, pulling blankets off the sleeping children? Searching, scratching and stamping, until the whole damn house is filled with hatred and anger...
> "I am not telling you these things out of self-pity. Nor do I want to be unbanned. These things are being said that you, unlike the German nation cannot tomorrow say: 'But we did not know' For you there must be no excuse. History will be the judge.
> "I don't think you can answer these questions unless you are a Helen Joseph, a Braam Fischer or a Beyers Naude. Or any of those white men and women who have stood up to be counted, and are dead or suffering as a result of their consciences.
> "Yes, day by day, bitterness and anger overwhelm me, robbing me of clear thoughts; transforming me to a near vegetable...
> "And today, my children, affected by this terrible change in me, reflect the bitterness I carry in my heart... my children... forever asking me why it is that I endure so much pain and humiliation. Or why the setting sun no longer moves me. Or why I have rejected Christianity.
> "They will find the answers.
> "And no doubt this letter will hurt and offend you and your Government, especially your Secret Police. If I know you, as I know your rulers, these words will spur you to vengeance and violence against me. Against my family. It has happened before but I do not care".
