Quotes - Sizwe Bansi is Dead

"Stop fooling yourself. All I'm saying is be a real ghost, if that is what they want, what they've turned us into. Spook them into hell, man!"

Find power in being a ghost, if they are going to oppress you and treat you like a ghost use it against them.

"Mister Bansi!"

First time experiencing respect (at sky's, Miss Nkonyeni).

"Grab your chance, Styles. Grab it before somebody in my line puts you in a box and closes the lid."

Friend of Styles encourages him to start working for himself, being his own boss (metaphor, your like a part on an assembly line, stop being that part).

"It was nice, man. Safety-precautions after six years.

All for show, hypocracy of those in power positions.

"You won't get that because of the bloody stamp in your book."

All options and ideas shut down.

"We own nothing except ourselves. This world and its laws, allows us nothing, except ourselves. There is nothing we can leave behind when we die, except the memory of ourselves. I know what I'm talking about, friends - I had a father, and he died."

All we can control is ourselves (inequality and oppression leave almost nothing to black South Africans to be able to control.)

"Buntu, you know what you are saying? A black man stay out of trouble? Impossible, Buntu. Our skin is trouble."

Born disadvantaged (racial prejudice and discrimination).

"What's happening in this world, good people? Who cares for who in this world?"

Breaking the 4th wall.

"Take your name back, Sizwe Bansi, if it's so important to you."

But if you are willing to be prideful and have dignity in your name you must always have pride, be prideful in life ( do not "run to him and lick his arse like we all do").

"I don't want to lose my name, Buntu."

Dignity.

"...and he walked out of here happy, man, self-made."

Education is power (education is rare for black South Africans, graduate vignette).

"When he came back they stripped him at the docks- his gun,m his uniform, the dignity they'd allowed him for a few mad years..."

His father fought for freedom for his country that he would never be awarded (father vignette = shift in tone, somber and deeply personal).

"Maybe. But if that book says go, you go."

Life does not belong to them.

"I can't read."

Literacy disparity (another way black South Africans were oppressed, no education).

"Dig gold for the white man. That's the only time they don't worry about Influx Control."

Mining is deeply rooted in history (workers are constantly dyings).

"Would you leave my lyings there, wet with your piss?"

Moral dillema.

"Something you mustn't do is interfere with a man's dream...Start asking stupid questions and you destroy that dream."

Motif, the power of dreams.

"Burn that into your head, friend. You hear me? It's more important than your name."

N.I. number (reduced to a number, inhumane).

"Styles, you're a bloody monkey, boy!"

No freedom or power, questions own manhood (his life does not belong to him).

"...put a man in a pondok and call that Independence? My good friend, let me tell you...Ciskeian Independence is shit!"

Not real, a facade (significant line * actors went to JAIL FOR A NIGHT for saying this line).

"Yes, it was a raid, I was just wearing my pants."

Pass raid, inhumane (middle of the night, brutal, unforgiving).

"General meeting under the floorboards."

Personification of the cockroaches (personification of the cockroaches, they are also symbolic of the constant adversity black South Africans face).

"Walk into the houses of New Brighton and on the walls you'' find hanging the story of the people the writers of the big books forget about."

Photography is a way to remember the oppressed.

"You must see to it that you are wearing a mask of smiles. Hide your true feelings, brothers."

Playing a part (surviving).

"You must smile!"

Pretending to protect family from truth (photo room scene, Sizwe and Styles).

"What I'm saying is shit on our pride if we only bluff ourselves that we are men."

Sacrifice, give up on pride if they're going to treat them badly regardless.

"White man."

Scene 2, Buntu's House, Buntu plays devil's advocate (repetition of white man emphasizes they have all the power, it is so complicated to get around the pass book - farse "simple").

"King William's Town is a dry place, Mr Buntu...very small and too many people."

Set up for failure.

"You think you know this place New Brighton? You know nothing!"

Sizwe is both literally and metaphorically lost.

"If I had to tell you the trouble I had before I could get the right stamps in my book, even though I was born in this area! The trouble I had before I could get a decent job...born in this area! The trouble I had to get this two-roomed house...born in this area!"

So much trouble, opposition and oppression even though this is his HOME (reppettion emphasizes this).

"Yessus, Styles, they're all playing your part today!"

Social status (class ladder, the hierarchy, everyone needs to impress their superior - the biggest boss).

Three hundred of us, man! We were so clean we felt shy! Standing there like little ladies in front of the mirror."

Solidarity, strength in numbers.

"He is here with us, and he's saying: 'Good luck, Sizwe! I hope it works.' He's a brother, man."

Strength in solidarity, brotherhood.

"That bloody book...! People. do you know? No! Wherever you go...it's that bloody book. You go to school, it goes too. Go to work, it goes too. Go to church and pray and sing lovely hymns, it sits there with you. Go to hospital to die, it lies there too!"

The book a like a constant dark cloud always hanging over them (suffocating them, oppressing them).

"...they put a stamp in my passbook which said I must leave Port Elizabeth at once in three days time."

The passbook is debilitating, no personal control over fate.

"Your life doesn't belong to you."

The white man has all the power (no identity or freedom).

"This is a strong-room of dreams. The dreamers? My people. The simple people, who you never find mentioned in the history books, who never get statues erected to them, or monuments commemorating their great deeds."

Their dreams are worth being protected and saved (impact of the apartheid).`

"Shit on names, man!"

Their names hold no power.

"When the white man looked at you at the Labour Bureau what did he see? A man with dignity or a bloody passbook with an N.I. number? Isn't that a ghost?"

They are dehumanized, invisible.

"They never told us it would be like that when they introduced it. They said: Book of Life! Your friend! You'll never get lost! They told us lies."

They masked the pass book as something positive, not something that would strip them of all their freedom.

"One...two...three...OUT!"

Turning a blind eye (Mr. Ford does not really care about the workers rights and safety as long as there is valuable foreign investment).

"But that's not easy, Nowetu, because Port Elizabeth is a big place, a very big place with lots of factories but also lots of people looking for a job like me."

Unfair chances (disparity in working opportunities

"We were watching them. Nobody was watching us."

Us vs them, everyone wants to look good for the big boss (preparing for Mr. Ford's visit).

"Daddy, if I could stand on my own two feet and not be somebody else's tool, I'd have some respect for myself. I'd be a man!"

What it means to be a man (Styles wants independence, generation gap exists, his father thinks having a wife and being circumcised are symbolic of being a man, "Talk about the generation gap!").

"There's no way out, Sizwe."

Zero opportunities because of the color of his skin.