In the African Resistance Movement, besides the African National Congress and the Bolshevik Pan-African Conference, white people opposed to segregation also committed acts of sabotage. Activists were arrested in simultaneous raids in July of 1964. The activity of the African Resistance Movement came to light from the documents and statements in the possession of those detained. Max, who changed jobs very frequently, belonged to a group of white sympathizers of the movement who took part in the disruption. He was caught and brought to trial.
An adjustment disorder is caused by an important life change and a stressful existence. Intense personal events such as school attendance, employment, moving, marriage, divorce, unemployment, and severe illness among others, become the antecedents to the ailment. Max’s marriage/divorce and employment/unemployment went wrong because he formed links with the underground organization. Max was incapable of adjusting to society and finally, he selected death.
When Gordimer explains insurmountable mental conditions, she uses medical expressions to resolve the problem. Mental arteriosclerosis or a narrow and rigid mentality pollutes the living quarters of the white people. As a result, all the people of South Africa are subject to the vagaries of such an attitude. The output of the reading brain named “space and time” to express an infinite state bounded by the politics and laws of South Africa of that time interacts with the combination of the writing brain consisting of the motivation for a new regime and the adaptive ability to prevent mental arteriosclerosis.
花村嘉英訳（2018）「シナジーのメタファーの作り方」より translated by Yoshihisa Hanamura