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Johannes A. Smit
his work. It shows a lack of integrity. But I am convinced that we all
have a role; we’ve all got a job to do in society, chiefly in the
transforming or even in the destroying of a given society. This
happens, not because we’re poets, hut because we’re people living in
the society.
… I would hate to go around the place telling people,
‘You’ve got to be committed because you are a poet’. I’ll say to
them, ‘We ought all to be committed, because we are people, we’re
all part of the same human environment’ (Brutus [1970] 2006:180).
He then reflects on the many forms his commitment took as social worker,
teacher, but also as religious person and prisoner, living under house arrest
and under bannings. As these were existential experiences, they would
become part of his poetry.
… [T]he moment it began to hit me, I reacted to it—not because I
imported it, but because it was now the stuff of my existence, it was
part of the fabric of my existence. To reflect what I was [in my
poetry], was to include it.
… I’m still asking certain questions about the nature of my
existence and certain theological concepts, if you like, religious
concepts. That is still there. I still write the kind of intimate,
personal, lyrical poetry—generally love lyrics and things like that or
for nature or for South Africa … (Brutus 1970:181).
And, on his attachment to South Africa, his argument is similar. If it affects
him existentially, yes, one can say that he is attached to South Africa, that he
knows the people and their own struggles and that would then coerce him to
remain committed to the country, its people and their cause. However, this
does not mean one develops and fosters a ‘ghettoized mentality’. One must
struggle against that. He says:
… one of the ways I managed not to become ghettoized myself, so
that I never became the typical subservient black man or for that
matter, the typical rebellious and frustrated black man, but something
in between, was because I said, “In fact, I am a citizen of the world. I
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