JOHANNESBURG -- Thirty years after playwright and actor Pieter Dirk Uys was vilified by the Afrikaner establishment for his "anti-Afrikaner, pro-black" plays, he has been awarded an honorary medal by the South African Academy for Science and Art.
But the outspoken human rights and former anti-apartheid activist declined the honor this week, saying, "Thanks but no thanks."
Uys attacked apartheid with his often hilarious political satire, such as in his one-man play "Adapt or Dye." But he was particularly well known for appearances as his much-loved drag character Evita Bezuidenhout, ambassador of the fictional black homeland Bapetikosweti, through whom he riffed on the absurdities of apartheid government's policies.
Although he gives the academy credit for "embracing democracy" since 1994, he said after decades of struggle against everything the institution had once stood for as a "key to apartheid culture," he could not now accept the award.
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