n.4 v.2 june 2020

est. 2004 bkomagazine . c o . z a

poetry & literature magazine

21 17 8 mmpushpush nntabenitabeni tshepotshepo madlingozimadlingozi kolekole omotosoomotoso The beginnings of the Fighting colonial pariahdom & Exploring the leader roles historical novel in southern reclamation of worldliness in of Mhudi & Things Fall Africa: Mhudi Mhudi Apart

27 ttumeloumelo mmotaungotaung This blab about nothing: Re–reading Mhudi in a time of a pandemic

65 phehellophehello mofokengmofokeng Cosmopolitanism in Mhudi: moropenelethabo @ 100 years is a long time, but Mhudi is still relevant

42 illustration maleselamalesela stevesteve lebelolebelo

Finding Mangaliso: A desire cover to rediscover the ‘real’ Robert Sobukwe a narrative for the ages MHUDI: A century later

features | prof kole omotoso / dr tshepo madlingozi / mphuthumi ntabeni / sabata-mpho mokae thato rossouw poetry | athol williams / angie chuma / tj dema / diketso nkukane / marukgwane moremogolo peter horn / raphael d’abdon / flo the poet j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2

17 deeply personal essays from South African women who who lost their husbands while they were still young hence; 'Untimely Beginnings'. These july 2020 issue 4 number 2 heartfelt narratives are told with honesty and clarity of mind. They chronicle women's journeys with death, grief and grieving and navigating life on their own with children and the process of reliving their lives The compiler, Nandi 1 2 3 4 Manentsa, got widowed six months before her 30th birthday. Place your pre-launch order on www.gekopublishing.co.zawww.gekopublishing.co.za BOOK LAUNCH BOOK SPECIAL mhudi & global poetry book reviews fiction pandemics Poems from TJ Dema, Diketso Rolland Simpi Motaung read Ngozichukuka Chukura is one R280 Sabata-mpho Mokae reflects Nkukane, Moemise Motsepe, The Eyes of the Naked, while of the founding writers for on this edition and how Mhudi Peter Horn, Raphael d’Abdon, Vuyo Mzini appreciates BKO. The Story of the is an important point of Angie Thato Chuma, Athol Nthikeng Mohlele’s Michael K: Shattered Rainbow is a R220 reflection in the midst of this Williams, Flo The Poet and A Novel classic and it is re-published. global pandemic simliar to the Mphutlane Bofelo one that happened in 1918 5 6 7 8 main feature critical thought zimology & book eXtracts Prof Kole Omotoso evaluates Prof Tshepo Madlingozi discourse Enjoy an extract of Plaatje’s the parallels between Mhudi evokes a discursive discourse Sabata–mpho Mokae lays out all-important, pioneering and Things Fall Apart, while in Mhudi and Phehello J the historical importance of novel, Mhudi taken from Mpush Ntabeni retraces the Mofokeng traces Mhudi and Sol Plaatje in the Geko’s Centenary edition and genesis of the historical novel cosmopolitanism in the timeline of world literatures, Phehello J Mofokeng’s in southern Africa century-old story while Sabelo Mnciziba does upcoming Sesotho novel Di Ya something for the enviroment Thoteng for his birthday

literature & poetry magazine since 2004. july 2020 bko literature & poetry magazine is published and issue 4, number 2 joburg, mzansi, issn 2226–0447 owned by Geko Publishing (Pty) Ltd. It is a tri–monthly thought– leadership literature publication, devoted to imaginative work. It Editor & Creative Director Contributors & Poets publishes short stories, poetry, experimental, flash fiction, essays (non–fiction) and other forms of creative non–fiction. We phehello j mofokeng steve maesela lebelo encourage original, brave, thoughtful and imaginative literary work Publisher/Created tumelo motaung that pushes the boundaries of genres; emphasising stepping out of tj dema(Botswana) phehello j mofokeng the quotidian and encouraging writers to be political, opinionated For angie chuma (Botswana) geko publishing (pty) ltd and inventive in their storytelling. athol williams 2226–0447 Guest editor diketso nkukane issn bko literature & poetry magazine sabata–mpho mokae prof peter horn (Posthumous) ©All rights reserved, 2020. Poetry editor vuyo mzini rolland simpi motaung All work herein is copyright of each individual author. No part of marukgwane moremogolo mphutlane bofelo this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in Associate editor flo the poet any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or gugu lourie tshireletso motlogelwa other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written marukgwane moremogolo Cover illustration permission of the publisher or author, except in the case of brief nandi manentsa quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non– moropene lethabo raphael d’abdon commercial uses permitted by copyright law. @moropenelethabo sol t. plaatje Features ngozichukuka chukura We are cautious about the environment and small carbon footprint. Please share this copy or dispose of it responsibly. sabata–mpho mokae Layout/design mpush ntabeni geko publishing dr tshepo madlingozi Printing by dtp 2 print, geko publishing (pty) ltd, honeydew, joburg, sa thato rossouw alberton, gauteng, mzansi www.gekopublishing.co.za | [email protected] prof kole omotoso sabelo mncinziba

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e d i t o r i a l

Mhudi an epitome of raison d’être for the existence of the African writer

words sabata–mpho mokae guest editor intellectual / author, ga ke modisa @mokaewriter

Mhudi was completed in 1920 by the Plaatje had described Mhudi towering Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje. This as “a love story after the manner edition of BKO is an official opening of the of romances, but based on celebrations of Mhudi’s impressive effect on historical facts”. literati and mere mortals the world over. Very much aware of how important writing this novel was, Mhudi was written in 1919 and This edition of BKO is special Plaatje wrote in the foreword: 1920 by the towering Solomon because it pays a massive “South African literature has Tshekisho Plaatje (1876-1932) tribute to a narrative that hitherto been almost exclusively during his second stay in defined the legalised land European”. This agrees so England. It was the first English dispossession of black South much with Chinua Achebe’s novel by a black South African. Africans in their land of birth by assertion that the African writer This edition of BKO is an official an unjust government. exists because the telling was done about him, he did not opening of the celebrations of Though completed in 1920, Mhudi like the telling and decided to Mhudi’s impressive effect on was only published for the first literati and mere mortals the time in 1930 by Lovedale Press. do the telling himself. In the world over. Mhudi came hot on the heels of famous tale of the hunting These celebrations include the another perennial book of Plaatje’s where praises are heaped on publication by Jacana Media – Native Life in South Africa. the hunter because the lion of a volume essays later this Native Life decries the passing of had no storyteller, by writing year titled Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi: Native Land Act of 1913. Mhudi and other works Plaatje assumes the role of the lion’s History, Criticism, Celebration, Set in the 1830s, Mhudi is a own storyteller. In other words edited by Brian Willan and romantic story of Mhudi and Mhudi epitomises raison ‘dêtre I; with contributions from Ra-Thaga, against the backdrop for the existence of the African imminent scholars including of a bloody war between writer. Antjie Krog, Chris Thurman, Mzilikazi’s Matebele and Zakes Mda, Karen Haire and Barolong in Kunana (present- In many ways, Mhudi is a Lesego Malepe. day Setlagole in the North West). sequel to Plaatje’s Native Life

4 P/5 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 in South Africa. It is also an important book in us that Achebe’s Things Fall Apart passes the Archive, or Nkuku says the historical timeline of literature in the world. In classic muster of an African novel that is set so the introduction to the 2019 Strandwolf edition of high by Plaatje’s Mhudi. Phehello J Mofokeng tj dema Mhudi, Matthew Blackman argues that “the novel (Sankomota: An Ode in One Album) searches for academic & poet – the careless seamstress (univ. of nebraska press, 2019) is in many ways a repository of Plaatje’s socio- cosmopolitanism in Mhudi and in many ways political thought”. agrees with Tshepo Madlingozi’s assertion that But woman’s work was never out of season – I wanted to be lost in the herd. Not between In Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi: History, Criticism, Mhudi opens an intentional discursive discourse Sol T Plaatje church and stove. To walk untethered of landlessness and colonial oppression that alongside the men and cows headed out. Celebration Brian Willan writes that the “evidence I. suggests that there is a close connection between continues to this day. Belonging. the two books, Plaatje was working on both at the Tumelo Motaung’s essay is light-hearted but not Nkuku says my obsession with naming is what I wanted to run and gather the wild with the boys – same time, and drafts of each appear in the same coy. In fact, she represents the voice of Mhudi (the will kill me. Se sa feleng, I say to her. She throws but woman’s work was never out of season. notebook”. character) very well in this centennial celebration. her voice across the fence, Mma D! Mma D, ha re utlwa ngwana wa gago. You must let language IV. Willan adds that the novel “represents a fictional Steve Lebelo’s analysis of Thami ka Plaatjie’s exploration of the political campaigning evident in book on another African giant, Mangaliso Robert speak through you, child. Listen, listen to it or you Years later, when my supervisor says the poem his journalism, and in his famous book, Native Life Sobukwe, is fitting and apt. can never bend it meaningfully to your will. Her is more movement, wisdom is upending, unwritten. Still it winnows more pattern than rule, in South Africa”. Mhudi is a prophetic book and As a guest editor, I appreciate the effort of the self as threshed grain. I mean that despite I picture Nkuku’s hands, her swift thumb. It was a creative means of dealing with pariahdom and my fellow guest poetry editor of this edition, surviving in the mouth, it is treated with suspicion she who taught me deliberate impoverishment of black Africans. Marukgwane Moremogolo for his choice of poems but with age I am learning to return for more. That The flight of the swallow. Quite often a question has been asked about in this edition. I also acknowledge the work done last morning she greets me first and as though by several scholars who have put in a lot of effort How Plaatje’s decision to write Mhudi in English and I were my father, Dumelang Sebata. We have not his mother tongue of Setswana, for which he in researching, writing and delivering lectures on to knit the rekindled the fire and swipedmogoru repeatedly Plaatje’s works over the years; Brain Willan, Tim shield, had put up an intellectual defence. through bubbling millet before she will say Couzens, Stephen Gray, Maureen Rall, Karen the python’s back Few scholars of language and literature, including anything more than mphe selo seo. Haire, Sekepe Matjila, Janet Remmington and RM Malope, Shole J Shole and Eilleen Pooe, had and palmleaf. Bheki Peterson, among others. II. gone further to suggest that Mhudi is “essentially How to make mokola turn line–like to form a a Setswana novel” and that it needed to be BKO is an example of what is possible when All her life has been an allegiance to all manner of basket, he way a poem moves to make room retranslated into the author’s mother tongue. African creatives, literati and people in general kings and their errand boys, to sun and soil. She is for whatever is coming. While the case for the repatriative translation come together to advance their own agenda. It is all faith. Her need to kneel, a dance. the culmination of multi-disciplinary convergence V. holds water and the derivation from Plaatje’s Why? linguistic archive in Mhudi is unmistakable, the of intellect and talent that should be replicated all Far away from home and long after she is gone, a I let the question take shape, half–bend to sweep author was intentional in writing it in English and, over the continent. student is weeping at my door. the yard. She places a wrinkled palm on my spine. in the foreword, stated the reason for such: A case of double consciousness, her mouth Steady, steady until my sand strokes are perfect. Mhudi is an African narrative for the says. For a moment I think I see Nkuku’s khiba The question shifts. “The book has been written with two ages and we cannot wait for others to slip quietly between doors in this country she objects in view, viz. (a) to interpret to the celebrate its importance before we realise How? had never been to. I hear her beads rattle softly, reading public one phase of ‘the back of its gold standard. Potso ga se mathata mme mathata a tlhoka potso. Nkuku here, working the mind’s eye. No longer the Native mind’; and (b) with the readers’ The trouble, our little archivists you think you are uncertain money, to collect and print (for Bantu Being a guest editor of this issue was a tiring, yet the first woman to become a question,she says. I lead the wide–eyed pupil in and hear myself say – Schools) Sechuana folk-tales which, with fulfilling effort that I would perform again if invited III. You must be the basket the spread of European ideas, are fast to do so. It is said that those with beautiful hands and the one who harvests the fibre and if I have being forgotten. It is thus hoped to arrest do not die. I resign myself to a day without answers, carry a taught you anything this process by cultivating a love for art in tin cup of madila, sugar clutched child–like in my Plaatje is alive, through Mhudi and many of his you will know to be the grain and the bird, palm when Nkuku finally turns to me to say,Your the Vernacular.” other works. hungry, as she watches her nestlings. instincts are right, the sweet goes with the sour. Knowing there is no choice but to be It is interesting that this centennial celebration sabata-mpho mokae To live beyond the moment is to move the one who moves and sits still. happens in the middle of a pandemic. In his Guest Editor but to move well you must first sit still. essay, Mpush Ntabeni (A Broken River Tent) You must happen and be the memory of reminds us that, in 1918, Spanish flu pandemic happening. - just two years before the completion of Mhudi notes - gripped the world. Ntabeni takes us back to I think I come here to listen but Nkuku prays me The epigraph and line ‘But woman’s work was never out of season’ the beginning of the historical novel in southern into being. I thought it a punishment as a child– is taken from Sol T Plaatje’s ‘Mhudi’. The line ‘need to kneel, a dance’ is a variation of a line from Africa; while Kole Omotoso (The Combat) assures stillness – Denise Levertov’s poem ‘Of Being’.

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It is one’s pleasure to recall a number of charity by other missionaries and Sisters of Mercy, instances when these gentlemen at work at the same time in the same field, one intervened, at a critical moment in the could be allowed to mention the self-sacrificing life of a sick native, an intervention that interest in the welfare of our people shown by, often meant the saving of at least among others, the Rev. Father Blackman, Mr and another native life. Mrs V. Teychenne, the Rev. E and Mrs Muller, and the Rev. Mr. Poulsen, but for whose ministration I may add that the colour blind sympathy shown many a living native would this day be lying by our members of Parliament and most City “beneath the cold grave sod” to swell the number Councillors, by the heads of De Beers Company, of those who were taken away in the appalling and of the Board of Health, seems to have been mortality of the month of October; while, but for emulated by such volunteers and employees as I them, many who succumbed would never have have met during the scourge. had a decent burial. Their action not only justified, but it also enhanced When the epidemic abated, and some of us got the reputation, for tolerance of colour, for which laid up with weak hearts as the result of three or the Europeans of this city are justly noted among four weeks of anxiety, of strain and of shocks, then the natives of South Africa and the Protectorates. the strength of some of these missionaries came I think it will be possible occasionally to refer to into prominence, as if to attest that the character the noble work done during the epidemic by and stamina of missionaries have not Church dignitaries, such as the Lord Bishop, the deteriorated by one iota since the wild and Archdeacon, the Chairman of the (Wesleyan) strenuous days of Moffat and Livingstone. I am, The Natives and District, and other clergy; but it is doubtful if future etc. employers of native labour will ever understand to Sol T. Plaatje the Epidemic what extent we are indebted to the local band of missionaries who, between them, managed to Kimberley, Nov. 11. save the lives of many a native. solomon tshekisho plaatje words: Even at the risk of omitting some noble services of author / intellectual / politician

1918. poetry 12 November 1918. and Mrs Colin Lawrence, were noticeable among the volunteer and other helpers (including the The soul I know Letter to the Editor, Location Superintendents), who carried medicine themba zulu Diamond Fields Advertiser and comforts to the native sufferers long since condemned to a life of squalor by degraded environment and low wages, both of which factors Life is an antelope of death Even when sucked into the dry sand Sir, accentuated their suffering. Always hunted Nothing comforts, not the streaming tears Death is prescient with time Nor inconsolable grief and the infinite questions It is satisfactory to note in your issue of to-day that It is as impossible to mention the names of all our Sooner or later a native correspondent has the good sense to benefactors, as it was difficult to witness more I do all this for you, maybe for me thank at least one white man – Mr. McDonald – for than a little bit of their self-sacrificing and I cannot touch you with my fingertips Even when I knew you would depart his work in the locations. It is to be hoped, dangerous work of conveying relief to native I could not extend the last handshake I would not have been strong enough however, that your correspondent will not be patients in their huts. And missed hearing the playful laughter Knowing you’ll be released from the coil of love understood to mean that only one white man has A shining lead was given them in this direction by Nor the whisper of your terminal breath And be alone beneath the ground helped the natives during the recent epidemic. the heads of the Board of Health; by Mr. G. J Boyes, Was carried by wind and rung in my ears The scarf of death does not suit you We are overwhelmed by the kindly spirit and Civil Commissioner; and by Mr. Alpheus Williams, To wither my grief and wipe off the tears You are supposed to be alive humane fellow-feeling shown by the Europeans of Chief of the Administrative Services, who, with the These words are meant for you With beaded eyes and a walk of an angel this city during our recent plight. The splendid Deputy Mayor, may be termed the “worthy sons of Although can no longer be heard Death is not supposed to bestride action that characterised His Worship the Mayor two worthy fathers” among employees of labour in These tears will run after you The ramp of this world and his worthy Deputy, as well as the Mayoress the industrial life of Kimberley. It always will be, the most unwelcomed

P/8 P/9 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 m a i n f e a t ur e Against this emptiness, Mongo Beti sees the crimes of colonialism against which Plaatje and Achebe must write. After 1884/1885 Africa was divided into areas of influence. Later these spaces belonged to Portuguese Africa, and to French Africa, and English Africa take on names like Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, South Africa and so on and so forth. But African literature is not in the African continent alone. African literature is in the African Diaspora of North America, South America, the Caribbean Regional aspects for African Africa, Middle East Africa, Western European Africa, Eastern European Africa, Asiatic Africa. A sigh for Africa! literature: The leader roles By the time African writers were writing the continent had acquired regionally peculiar histories of ‘Mhudi’ by Sol Plaatje and which gave them peculiar characteristics. Arab North Africa, French and English West Africa, Uhuru East Africa and Afrikaner English domestic ‘Things Fall Apart’ colonisation in South Africa.

What about Central Africa of the Congo and prof kole omotoso euginio mazzonne words: image the Lakes? academic / scholar @eugi1492 The West Africa region

Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart against the background of the West African novels of Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene and Joyce Cary. The novels are Heart of Darkness in 1902, The In one of the African varieties of the dance. Like the be “colonialism and its crimes”. When you write in English you end up Heart of the Matter in 1948, and Mister Johnson in elephant and the egungun To a large extent most of African sounding like the English. Substitute novels the problem 1939. dance, African literature has literature, even in African any language, European or African, to At about the same time fellow West Africans and of total vision arises. many aspects. languages has been about arrive at the same result. fellow Nigerians were publishing short stories and How do you as a colonialism if not about its novels. The languages of African crimes. So, whether you are spectator or searcher literatures This is why a list of books in the colonial language after truth get to see reading the protest writing of of the African writer grounds the work of the Mongo Beti published Cruel City in 1954. It is in Black Arabs complaining about this novel that Mongo Beti published the essay; everything? Right from the beginning of African writer. In the case of our two authors we African literature has there been writing in Arabic or English, would list the West African English writers for Romancing Africa already alluded to in terms of a debate about the language of colonised Africans designing an Chinua Achebe and the South African English colonialism and its crimes. There is the story of the so many African literature. Can African African English to contain their writers for Sol Plaatje. Camara Laye published Black Child in 1953, and blind men going to know an literature be written in anything stories, the contestation, even The geographies of African literatures Radiance of the King 1954. elephant. Each of them gets hold else than in African languages? when it comes to the narratives Cyprian Ekwensi published People of the City in of its one particular concluding Anyone writing in European of the colonial experiences, is There was the African continent, singular, solid and 1954, Amos Tutuola published Palm-Wine that that is all an elephant is. languages, warned Obi Wali in with language. A comparative according to Jonathan Swift in his Gulliver’s Travels: “So geographers in Afric maps. With Drinkard in 1952 and Simbi and Satyr of the Dark The other pictures a person at a 1964, was pursuing a dead end. study of the language aches of Savage Pictures fill their gaps and o’er Jungle in 1955. T.M. Aluko published One Man, crowd event coming to watch But in an essay published in Joseph Conrad and Chinua uninhabitable downs place elephants for want of One Wife in 1959. egungun dance. That person 1955 Mongo Beti insists that the Achebe teaches one language towns.” Mongo Beti takes on some of the writers such as must move around to see the subject of African literature must lesson no one wants to learn.

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Camara Laye and condemns his type of writing as The themes of Mhudi and Things Fall Apart feminine element in the male is abused and pandering to sentimental readers in France. repressed. Unoka, Okonkwo’s father, is condemned The two most crucial themes in these two novels and devalued as if there is no place in society for It is possible to say that when Things Fall Apart are the theme of community and the theme of appeared in 1958, it arrived to the company of music. It is to be noted that it is this so-called gender. Each novel in its own way explores the feminine aspect of society that the incoming novels and novelists already in the market. It was greatest possibility of each theme going forward. discussed in the light of what had been written colonial power exploits to overcome Okonkwo’s Ultimately, the theme of community is far more much-valued male dominance. and published by men who had been at important in the two novels than that of gender. Government College Umuahia and University But yet, it is the female line that saves Okonkwo College Ibadan. Gender when he needs to go into exile. It is the mother’s place of origin which provides him an alternative In a world where teenagers question their God- place of survival. “Okonkwo was given a plot of What set Things Fall Apart apart from given, or rather nature-endowed gender, it is ground on which to build his compound, and two ultimately a matter of little importance to look at the novels being written at that time? or three pieces of land on which to farm during the the primary state of gender relationships in Mhudi How has it been possible for it to sell over coming planting season. With the help of his and Things Fall Apart. In a state of male, female twenty million copies and to be translated mother’s kinsmen he built himself an obi and three and transgender, what we find in both novels are huts for his wives. He then installed his personal to forty-five languages? totally pre-modern. While the gender relations god and the symbols of his departed fathers. Each described in both novels might be revolutionary in of Uchendu’s five sons contributed three hundred The South African region their times, compared to the world of today, they seed-yams to enable their cousin to plant a farm, are not earth-shattering. The challenges that Is there any significance in the fact that the for as soon as the first rain came farming would community poses in these two novels are still English translation of Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka begin.” (p.95, Things Fall Apart, Modern Classics unresolved in our present situation and looking appeared the same year, 1930, that Mhudi by Sol edition). into the future. Plaatje was finally published? Or was it a mere The possibility of rebirth was hidden in the open In Mhudi gender issues are turned upside down Ngwetsi Olive Plaatje; Sol Plaatje’s daughter named after coincidence with no significance? for Okonkwo to see but he ignored it. He went and presented to the male characters to take on. author, Olive Schreiner. Ngwetsi Olive succumbed to the Mhudi is labelled a romantic epic deriving most of headlong for the male valuation and it destroyed Sol Plaatje was not just a student of the struggle Spanish flu. its style and language from William Shakespeare him and Umuofia. for African citizenship in the multiracial South about not following the feminine way so as not to and John Bunyan. The South African region is Africa that was evolving, he was part of the be misled. What example does the colonial novels of the time perhaps the most complex and most difficult to revolutionary situation he was writing about. One provide for Sol Plaatje and Chinua Achebe? This is analyse. A timeline from 1924 to 2005 can give you A more touching example of the challenge of the example is enough. The issue here is the future of a mixed example. As far as Mhudi is concerned, a year-by-year book publication by English, feminine intelligence has to do with the implications the Barolong. According to Mhudi “on the first day novels such as Nada the Lily (published in 1892 Afrikaans and Black African writers. With what of freedom at home when the revolutionaries get we met, you said the Barolong were exterminated written by H. Rider Haggard) have nothing to instrument does the critic analyse all these home and the husband demands that the wife and their name shall be known no more. I refused teach the author about gender. On the other hand publications? The novels of Rider Haggard behave in a traditional manner and the wife insists to believe it. You know, I don’t know where, but The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner published in 1887/1888 are supposed to be the that both of them had just arrived from a somewhere in this vast country, at a place called published in 1883 is a different kettle of fish. Olive models for Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi. demonstration for equality and camaraderie in Motlhan’oapitse, Sehunelo’s tribe – the Seleka Schreiner was an example that inspired Sol everything. Superior argument might be on the side Like Things Fall Apart, Mhudi charted the way branch of the Barolong – is still intact.” (Page 49, Plaatje so much that he named his daughter after of the wife but traditional responsibility demands forward for the African novel as a result of its Penguin; Modern Classics edition). the author of The Story of an African Farm. that she provides the dinner for her husband. blending of patently African storytelling with basic In something as fundamental as the future of the There are various essays written about the characteristics of the English novel. Sol Plaatje tribe, the feminine voice trumps the male voice Compared with Things Fall Apart, influence of William Shakespeare and John and Chinua Achebe led the way forward in with superior argument. Mhudi’s position is not Mhudi is miles ahead of the gender Bunyan on Sol Plaatje but nowhere is there designing and putting out the African novel, the simply something felt in the bone but something to argument. There is not one single female detailed study of the influence of The Story of an novel that combines protest with subtlety, the be argued and won in the intellectual field. Ra- African Farm on Mhudi. In terms of gender matters writing that would expose, according to Mongo character that stands out, carrying Thaga’s acceptance of superior argument here this novel is far more relevant to Sol Plaatje than Beti “colonialism and its crimes”. forward the possibility of gender equality and in the more popular example usually cited, is into the future of the struggle in the Shakespeare and Bunyan. Response to Mhudi was delayed because of the a novelistic solution for a problem that would novel. The Story of an African Farm “was written during politics of South Africa, a politics complicated by two remain in the African struggle for freedom into the the era of first-wave feminism and is recognised settlers at each other’s throat with the addition of the 21st century. I mean the example of the African At every turn, the female voice is repressed. And for its revolutionary feminist politics.” (Wikipedia). Africans fighting both racial groups one at a time. proverb which Mhudi turns over its head, the one because of the over-valuation of the male ego, the This is a piece waiting to be written. In terms of

P/12 P/13 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 leadership thinking, Mhudi indicated the way Rather than expand the European From the first sentence of Things Fall Apart form of self-assertion. We see a lot of this practice forward. Things Fall Apart did not question the community, mind became smaller and “Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine in Things Fall Apart. Ogbuefi Ezeudu narrates an gender situation of West Africa the way Mhudi did smaller until the Union of South Africa villages and even beyond.” He was famous in example. “It is indeed true, they have that custom in southern Africa. became Orania! Umuofia, his place of birth and place of spatial in Obodoani. If a man dies at this time he is not identification. This is the primary community that buried but cast into the Evil Forest. It is a bad The theme of community in Mhudi and Things An initial community of African tribes united for the Fall Apart Chinua Achebe explores in this short novel. Unlike custom which these people observe because of purpose of fighting British and Boer racist state Sol Plaatje whose identity is recognised by Boer lack of understanding. They throw away large As an introduction to this section of this essay, it is formation. It is possible to say that the destruction settlers and British colonialists, white potential numbers of men and women without burial. And necessary to indicate what community would of Kunana, the capital of the Barolong, was due to a missionaries and colonialists dismiss Chinua what is the result? Their clan is full of the evil mean here. In addition, the possible kinds of lack of unity among the African tribes. In order to Achebe’s people ab initio primitive and barbaric. spirits of these unburied dead, hungry to do harm community will also be mentioned. It is against regain their capital and be a nation again, they The argument that Things Fall Apart has to make to the living.” (p24). these mentions that the achievement of each must unite. But unite with whom? is different from the one that Mhudi has to make. novel will be measured. Understanding what the stranger says is self- What remains of the Barolong found accommodation Umuofia is a community within a larger community defeating ridicule. Unless it is understood that we “Community” implies both a promise and a threat: in Thaba Nchu under the protection of King of nine villages, including itself. According to are as much strangers to them as they are a promise of safety and collective protection as Moshoeshoe of Basutoland (today Lesotho). Boers Uchendu, Okonkwo’s uncle in Mbanta, “People strangers to us. This is the situation of interpretation well as a threat of exclusion. also found space in Thaba Nchu. It was from here travelled more in those days. There is not a single of languages here. There is not a hint of language The greatest possibility of community can be seen that the allied forces of the Boers and the Barolong clan in these parts that I do not know very well. learning among these communities. in “an inclusive expansive” terminology. This term set out to fight the forces of Mzilikazi. Aninta, Umuazu, Ikeocha, Elumelu, Abame.” (p101). “When they had all gathered, the white man began emanates from Kwame Anthony Appiah’s These are five of the nine villages. If we add Uncle What are the instruments of community to speak to them. He spoke through an interpreter Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, building? Uchendu’s village on Mbanta and the village of his who was an Igbo man, though his dialect was published in 2006. Appiah uses partial in-laws Umuofia, he is familiar with seven out of different and harsh to the ears of Mbanta.” (p106). cosmopolitanism “to describe the productive Sports and games are crucial. In Mhudi the nine- the nine villages. tension between loyalty to the local, specific mile race takes place against the process of “Whenever Mr Brown went to that village he spent Umuofia has the necessary community-building community to which we belong and an awareness preparing for war. In Things Fall Apart wrestling is long hours with Akunna in his obi talking through institutions including the maintenance of law and that this must not come at the expense or the rallying call of the villages: an interpreter about religion. Neither of them order. Sports and games are organised regularly. exclusion of loyalty to all humanity.” The rejection succeeded in converting the other but they learnt “Who will wrestle for our village? Wrestling is the most popular and it is the means of of small spaces and the pleasure in larger more about their different beliefs.” (p130). Okafo will wrestle for our village. Okonkwo’s fame. There are periodic feasts such as gatherings is a sign of lesser fear and a greater Has he thrown a hundred men? the Feast of the New Yam which brings people from But do they learn enough about each other’s sense of security. He has thrown four hundred men. surrounding villages. Weddings and burials also beliefs to which to know more? Unfortunately no. It The primary community is defined by biological Has he thrown a hundred Cats? bring people crossing from one village to another. is this rendering African language in English specifics and marriage. Invariably such biological He has thrown four hundred Cats. equivalent instead of using a cultural equivalent War and peace-making are crucial in the specifics determine our spatial identification. Next Then send him word to fight for us.” (p37) that leads to what the French West Africans would existence of these nine villages. One of the most call ‘blockage’. Interpreting makes conversation to these are ethnicity and race. They also enlarge The second important instrument of community memorable, even unforgettable characters in impossible. This is what happens when Ajofia, the community along the line of biological building is language learning. Over and over again Things Fall Apart is Ikemefuna. Okonkwo went on who spoke egwugwu tries to address Mr. Smith specifics and spatial identifications. Ra-Thaga repeats the typical statement of a war or peace mission to Mbaino on behalf of before the destruction of the church: The further basis of community are cultural multilingual speakers that you don’t understand Umuofia. It was a successful mission. affiliations and languages. In the South African because you don’t speak their language. Even “‘The body of the white man, I salute you.’ ‘The situation there exists the community of British between himself and his wife, Ra-Thaga repeats So, Chinua Achebe makes his case when body of the white man, do you know me?’ Mr Smith colonial subjects as well as the Cape Colony the same formula. Mhudi cannot understand the he says that his people did not have to looked at his interpreter, but Okeke, who was a citizen. In the bitter experience of representing the Boer tolerance of cruelty to Black and Coloured wait for the coming of white people to native of distant Umuru, was at a loss.’” (p138) Africans’ case in the matter of the Natives Land servants. Interestingly, Ra-Thaga does not know about culture. A polite rendition of the situation is unacceptable Act, the British government reneged on the matter comment on this aspect of his friends’ behaviour in to Ajofia. “We cannot leave matters in his hands of British colonial subjects. In the multiracial Cape spite of speaking their language. Until the new Coming to the vaguely defined “and even beyond”, because he does not understand our customs, just qualified franchise, residents of the Cape constitution of South Africa in 1996 multi-lingualism we read about travel and the fame of magicians as we do not understand his. We say he is foolish qualified as voters “based on a universal was not introduced to South Africa. Something that and native doctors who practised their art beyond because he does not know our ways, and perhaps minimum level of property ownership, regardless was so fundamental to a multilingual society was the border of the nine villages. The medicine-men he says we are foolish because we do not know of race” the British reduced rather than extend the only introduced more than a hundred years after it of Umuofia have this kind of reputation. his. Let him go away.” (p139) model with the advent of the South African Union. was taken for granted in Mhudi. Holding up to ridicule the customs of others is a This is the end of dialogue. The elders and people

P/14 P/15 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 of Umuofia burn down the church but it is a African Farm, is recognised as one of the most spite of the writings of Sol Plaatje and others all that and Boers, against the Matabele. pyrrhic victory. Their community is bursted and powerful writers on feminism as well as being one existed and persisted were negative depictions of their affairs fall apart. of the most radical women writers of her time. This Africans. Primitive, barbaric were adjectives that Proverbs function within this large is a writer after whom Sol Plaatje named his came easily to the pens of Joyce Cary (1888 – 1957) structure as the locomotion of the English imperial models of the English novel daughter. Could he have ignored her writing? This author of Mr. Johnson, and Joseph Conrad (1857 narrative detail. It is not an easy matter to try to imagine what is after he has created a female character who is – 1924) author of Heart of Darkness. clear about her role as a female and human being. Unlike previous use of proverbs converted to influenced the writing of a novel published more general sayings, proverbs move the narrative than fifty years ago (Things Fall Apart), not to talk Yet, in all the volume of writing on Sol Plaatje and Chinua Achebe made it his duty to his novel Mhudi no one has bothered to look at the democratise English literature by forward because these proverbs are not static but of one (Mhudi) published more than a hundred revolutionary. years ago. The fact that we still read these novels relationship between Olive Schreiner and Sol providing robust African characters in today, the fact that they continue to amaze us and Plaatje. Unfortunately, this issue came up too late the literature. The best example from Mhudi is the one Ra-Thaga amuse us are enough reasons to attempt to do in this project to be able to even touch lightly on it. recalls “which his comrade used to quote, viz., He and his critics have always assumed that his these difficult things. ‘Never be led by a female lest thou fall over a Suffice to say that Sol Plaatje is a student mission was to correct the negative image of the precipice.’ “And so Mhudi warned him against this Critics continue to take for granted Sol Plaatje’s of English literature from as far back as African characters in English literature. What powerful headman he put it down to some self-education which made it possible for him to Shakespeare to Olive Schreiner. could be more barbaric than Okonkwo drinking idiosyncrasy peculiar to women, which would no the point of such wide and deep reading in palm-wine from a human skull? Or more primitive doubt wear off in time.” (p27 – 28). Here, the English literature that includes Robinson Crusoe Mhudi, his novel, is a great beneficiary of that than killing a teenager in the way of settling war proverb is not a mere decoration of the words of by Daniel Defoe published in 1719, and The Story English literary tradition. When we come to speak quarrels, a young man who knew nothing about the narrative. Rather, it is a necessary cog in the of an African Farm by Ralph Iron (Olive Schreiner), of his use of African proverbs in the English novel, the war between Umuofia and Mbaino? What locomotion of the narrative. published in 1883 in the tradition of English it will be possible to speak of his radical utilisation Chinua Achebe provides is the rationale for the It is the same format we see when Mzilikazi gives women novelists such as George Eliot. of these proverbs. actions of his anti-hero Okonkwo. Within the the extended proverb of the Zungu. Too easily have early critics dealt with the Chinua Achebe was admitted to the University ordered community in which Okonkwo achieved “The Bechuana know not the story of influence of William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) College Ibadan to study medicine but he changed his greatness these actions were critical to that Zungu of old. Remember him, my people; and trope of lions in his plays for Sol Plaatje to to do a degree in English Literature. The English achievement. This is no different from the long he caught a lion’s whelp and thought that, imitate as well as John Bunyan (1628 – 1688) with literature programme, until well into the 1970s, excuse of Richard lll at the beginning of if he fed it with the milk of his cows, he his journey of Christian to imitate. That Sol Plaatje included a second year devoted completely to the Shakespeare’s play of that name. Here the would in due course possess a useful chose relevant tropes to use from the various texts English novel. It is therefore to be assumed that character provides his excuses at the beginning. mastiff to help him in hunting valuable of these major English writers is not to be Chinua Achebe knew a lot about the English novel. The styles of the novels specimens of wild beasts. The cub grew wondered at. His novel does not amaze because of what he up, apparently tame and meek, just like an Any one with the least capability of reading page made of the English novel he had studied. One major stylistic addition to the English novel by African novelists Sol Plaatje and Chinua Achebe is ordinary domestic puppy; but one day after page of texts could do it. What is wonderful is True, his liberal use of what his contemporary the use of the novel. With Sol Plaatje, the use of the Zungu came home and found, what? It had the literary discrimination and even sophistication Wole Soyinka, winner of the Nobel Prize for proverb is revolutionary. It is only someone like Sol eaten his children, chewed up two of his that allowed to make some thing greater than the Literature in 1986, has called the National Plaatje, well-grounded in English and a few other wives and, and in destroying it, he himself trope he took. Let us look at Robinson Crusoe and Geographic style of, peppering the texts of his African languages, who can be familiar with the narrowly escaped being mauled.” As if to his character Man Friday. He is rescued from novels with, for example: proverb as a narrative locomotion, something that let you know how the story will continue slave hunters and made a slave. But Mhudi, saved until today Mzilikazi tells us: “They (the from the jaws of a lion almost three hundred years “Among the Igbo the art of conversation is takes the narrative forward. In a situation where the African novel lacked a strong plot to carry the Boers) will despoil them of the very lands later, develops into a self-asserting woman of the regarded very highly, and proverbs are the they have rendered unsafe for us; they will twentieth century. palm-oil with which words are eaten.” (p6) story forward, the proverb mechanism moved the story forward. entice the Bechuana youths to war and to the chase, only to use them as pack-oxen; While such introductions would be unnecessary if This is not an advance in twentieth century Mhudi is moved forward by the three wars fought yes, they will refuse to share with them the Chinua Achebe was writing for an Igbo audience, English literature but an advance in in the novel. The initial destruction of the capital of spoils of victory.” (p178 – 179). English literature of all time. engaged in writing for a foreign audience such the Barolong by the Matabele is followed by the introductions would be necessary. folly of the desert misadventure of the impis of In the hands of a narrative master, a mere Again, critics take for granted Sol Plaatje’s self- decoration of words becomes a motor for the What Chinua Achebe took and used for the benefit Mzilikazi. It is difficult to read this section of the education that leads to not only what to read but narrative. of the English novel of African origin was the novel without thinking of Stalin’s misadventure also what to discard in the amount of publications absence of robust African characters. Chinua later in his invasion of Russia in winter. The last of the 18th and the 19th centuries on feminism. It is true that none of the contemporaries of Achebe surveyed the English novel and saw that in war is the one between the allies, the Barolong Olive Schreiner (Ralph Iron) of The Story of an Chinua Achebe deploys the proverb at all. Neither

P/16 P/17 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 the British novelist of African novels such as It is true that when Mhudi was published in 1930, constitution in 1996 that 11 of the languages in equipped with fire-arms …” Joseph Conrad of Heart of Darkness (1902), people wondered why the author opted to write in South Africa were made official languages. These Already, before the outcome of the present unity is Graham Green of The Heart of the Matter (1948), English when everybody knew that he was a great languages need to be taught in schools and known, another unity that is against one of the Joyce Cary of Mr. Johnson (1939) and George authority in the Setswana language. spoken at home to ensure that they would survive partners of the present unity is being planned. Orwell of Animal Farm (1945) nor the African to reconcile the peoples of South Africa. And a third party is joining against the Boers. novelists of African novels such as Mongo Beti of Sol Plaatje decided to write his novel in The second contribution of Mhudi and its author Cruel City (1954), Camara Laye of Black Child English because it came to him in English. “On Tauana’s terms,” said Chief Moroka, to the nation-building challenge in South Africa is “I too am prepared to help, with the (1953) and Radiance of the King, Amos Tutuola of the matter of unity and disunity. At the time of Sol In the same way, Chinua Achebe decided to write further condition that, while you all share Palm-wine Drinkard (1952) and Cyprian Ekwensi of Plaatje and the African National Congress the in English because his argument went beyond the the lands at present occupied by the People of the City (1954) use the proverb in their ideal preached was the unity of all the African Igbo-speaking audience that would have read the Matabele I remain at Thaba Nchu and novels. To that extent Chinua Achebe use of the nations against all the two white nations of book in Igbo. In the same way more people were continue in possession of my present proverb was new. But his use of the proverb was English and Boer. The two white nations used beginning to read in English than in Polish when territories” (p141 – 142). static and while it was a decoration of the words legalese to create a whites-only functioning Joseph Conrad decided to publish Heart of used, it did not carry the narrative forward. nation-state. At the same time they insisted on So, going forward, unities and gangs – up for and Darkness in English. Even the proverbs which did not apply in the creating bantustans of one language only for against are the ways forward in the Union of situation in which it is used, still did not carry the Is the argument of publishing in English language black people. In the Union of South Africa, English South Africa. story forward. An example is this: “Looking at a king’s still going on? I do not think so. More books are and Afrikaans were the official languages. As for the novel ending or not, it is a moot mouth,” said an old man, “one would think he never being published in English because more books question. The motor that keeps the plot going is sucked at his mother’s breast” “…The old man bore are being written in English. The collapse of Sol Plaatje cancelled their single there in the one-tunnel vision of Mzilikazi. The no ill-will towards Okonkwo … But he was struck, as publishing in Nigeria as an economic business language states for African tribes. unity that made his moving on is still available to most people were, by Okonkwo’s brusqueness in makes it impossible to publish in Nigeria. keep others going. The unity that moved him on is dealing with less successful men.” (p20). Publishing in the rest of the English-speaking He put into operation one group learning the there to move others on. world especially in Africa cannot be different from language of the other group. But far more dynamic Controversies occasioned by the contributions the situation in Nigeria. is the idea of unity and disunity among ethnic The story goes on until the type of of Mhudi and Things Fall Apart to English groups and against ethnic groups. In Mhudi the literature In terms of the contribution that Things Fall Apart selfishness that made apartheid collapse made to English literature, mention has been made Barolong united with the Boer against the teaches every ethnic group, every racial The writings of Chinua Achebe and his of the creation of robust African characters in Matabele and drove the people of Mzilikazi out of group that one group taking everything contemporaries inspired Obi Wali’s scathing English literature. At a time when no one was bold the southern part of South Africa. Within that unity, to the exclusion of others will never article ‘The future of African literature’. His enough to create characters in English literature two of the tribes are already planning a unity work. Sol Plaatje said so more than a conclusion that English is not the language of living their lives in the African jungle, Chinua against the Boer. hundred years ago. African literature is opposed by Chinua Achebe Achebe wrote novels in English celebrating such When Tauana laughed at Potgieter’s idea of with his statement that the English language is men as Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart. taking all the land and giving all the cattle to the For now the unity of some natives with some white groups against some natives and some white adequate for his literary work. And the conclusion The contribution of Sol Plaatje in his writing natives, Potgieter asks: “What will you have then?” groups as expressed in the Democratic Alliance of Ngugi wa Thiong’o of Kenya that he would generally is massive and it is still to be realised. “I will go on one condition only,” replied (DA) has not succeeded. But it does not mean that never write in English again. He would write only His contribution in the solution of the problem of Tauana. “If we succeed to dislodge it will not succeed next time in another in his mother tongue Gikuyu. nation-building in southern Africa is enormous. Mzilikazi, I want the land of my fathers combination of natives and whites and other back. The Boers would keep all the land to natives and other whites. The possibilities are Obi Wali concluded that writing in More than a hundred years ago, Mhudi the east, but I want the whole of the endless. And success is guaranteed at some point English was a dead end for African solved the language problem by showing Molopo River and its tributaries. I have in the future. literature. But is this the case? The how each group learning the language of asked the Griqua king to send an army to debate and the discussion continues. the other group leads to mutual help us in the expedition and he was generous enough to agree to come and As long as African languages are not taught in understanding. help me (emphasis placed) in the recovery prof bankole “kole” omotoso African schools and African universities, writing is a Nigerian author It is a fact that at the end of the novel (and as to of my lands.” will continue to be done in English, French and and intellectual best known for his works of fiction the question whether the novel really ends will be and other work dedicated to a socio-political Spanish in African homes and schools. Nobody “After much wrangling and arguing the discussed at the end of this essay) every language reappraisal of Africa and respect for human has taken the statistics yet but it is true that more Barolong, terms were accepted by the group and racial group go back to their tent- dignity. He is also the father of author Yewande is being written in the English language than in, Boers and communicated to the Griqua wagons waiting for the next land war. It was only Omotoso and filmmaker Akin Omotoso. say the Yoruba language. king who sent two hundred horsemen at the production of the first democratic

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Plaatje’s discursive battle against standards and often white uncivilised behavior. deprivations of belonging must begin with a He thus closed this booklet with the following frontal attack on colonialist discourses. colonial pariahdom and reclamation parting shot: Such an attack would be geared towards of worldliness in Mhudi: A century later “And as it is true that white men refusing a discourse that legitimises brought Christianity and civilisation to colonisation, dehumanises conquered Bechuanaland, it is also true that the people and produce them as outcasts of first authenticated cases of rape, murder the world and pariahs of global and suicide in Bechuanaland were the humanity. Plaatje recognised this work of a white man”. imperative.

prof tshepo madlingozi words: The main insight of this essay is that with Mhudi, Back to Plaatje. To the best of my knowledge, academic Plaatje sought to carry on his advocacy against Plaatje was the first theorist to expound on @tshepomadlingo1 the situation of pariahdom that he bemoaned in constitutionally-sanctioned pariahdom. He did Native Life in South Africa. We would recall that in this in the context of demonstrating that the Native Life, Plaatje argued that land dispossession Natives Land Act was pivotal to the realisation of and perennial dislocation had reduced black life the objectives of the constitution that founded into a form of life worse than slavery. South Africa in 1910. To be a pariah, as Plaatje saw it, reduced a Plaatje’s unique contribution was to recognise that human being into a non-entity – a non-entity is the ultimate aim of settler colonialism, in contrast worse than being property/slave. It is to be a to colonialism without settlement, is to shatter the nothing. In his language, to be selo hela – a autochthonous worlds of the indigenes and in The aim of this paper Plaatje sought to show that history and to affirm his people’s cosmic hobo. This is why in Mhudi, he emphasises their wake to impose that of settler-invaders. is to situate Mhudi his people fit the story in order to establish the fact that his people had a home and that in Plaatje’s broader Aristotelian criterion of historical belongingness and homing was key to being/becoming. Unlike the colonialist, the colonist leaves argument against being human, namely; worldliness. On the other hand, home with no intention of returning; he endowment with rationality. Plaatje, similar to Caliban in Not only that, he shows that to be a colonial pariahdom. or she aims to create a new home Aime Cesaire’s A Tempest and to human being is to be humane and that a elsewhere. Thus in the Preface, Plaatje Friday in Daniel Defoe’s key to being humane to others was to declared that his objective was, Robinson Crusoe, used the self- display hospitality to strangers. In these uneven processes of very violent de- “to interpret to the reading arrogated tools and norms of homing and homemaking, settler-invaders seek to public one phase of ‘the back of western modernity (rationality, In Mhudi, Plaatje has one of the Barolong Chief displace, delegitimise, and suppress indigenous the Native mind’”. More literacy, equity and natural explain this hospitality as follows: “my home is his perceptions of the world, ways of knowing, Plaatje’s decision to write the specifically, Plaatje used Mhudi rights) to expose the paucity of home, my lands his lands, my cattle his cattle, and relationship with the surrounding environment, and first-ever English novel by a to demonstrate that before the the much-proclaimed British my law his shield.” Settler colonialism negates all spiritual anchorages. In a phrase, the settler aims “Black African” was impelled by arrival of settler-invaders, his sense of fairness and to this. The settler leaves his home to establish a to efface “the native’s” way(s) of being in the world. an aspiration to counter and people (the Barolong) had excoriate the colonial legal order home elsewhere. In this process, the settler More than that, if ‘the world’ is understood as, “…a debunk a dehumanising already constituted a civilised for its inherent duplicity. Thus in creates “the native”, de-homes the natives and form of relating or being-with…” settler colonisation discourse aimed at depicting society and had an unwritten 1921, Plaatje published a booklet ultimately, and constantly, physically and and its Manichean logic produce “natives” with the African people as a people constitution that was geared titled The Mote and the Beam: psychically dislocates the native. This is what it intention of expelling them from the world of fellow without history, religion, art, towards ensuring societal An Epic on Sex-Relationship means to be a pariah. humans (Cheah, 2008). As Plaatje understood it, the political jurisprudence, and most harmony, that was opened to ‘Twixt White and Black in British The point here is that Plaatje understood that to Natives Land Act accelerated and perfected importantly; a knowledge system. assimilating edifying foreign South Africa. Plaatje challenge constitutionally-sanctioned pariahdom, colonisation understood as dehumanisation and influences, and that commanded appropriated the title of Jesus’s Plaatje wrote Mhudi (Setswana he had to produce works of fiction and non-fiction the production of “natives” as pariahs of “the new that non-nationals must be discourse on judgmentalism to for fog) during a three-year that contested and undermined the discourse that world”. treated with hospitality. make the case that behind sojourn overseas with the under-girded this constitution. This is the first It is with this understanding in mind that Plaatje colonialist discourse, its intention that it was to be a On the one hand, Plaatje, insight that we can draw from Plaatje’s critique. mobilised the lexicon of natural rights and the civilising justification and legal fictional accompaniment to therefore, wielded the sword of For the aforementioned reasons, the insight here discourse of rationality to resist his people being system lay bad faith, double Native Life in South Africa. literature to rebuff the coloniser’s is that struggles against settler colonisation and cast as outcasts of the world. Plaatje was aware

20 P/21 that at the heart of the afore-mentioned worlding Their reasoning for the latter proposition was that f e a t u r e and de-worlding processes was the eruption of colonised peoples have contributed as much as western modernity into the world of the conquered. any British subject to the making of Great Britain and the western world. Towards this end, very Western modernity is that long fifteenth much like Caliban’s appropriation of Prospero’s century phenomenon whose condition of language in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, possibility is the violent expansion and Plaatje appropriated the legal and literary universalisation of Europe and language of the British to resist invisibility as well Eurocentrism; and at the other end, the as constitutional attempts to produce him as a dispossession, dislocation and, ultimately, pariah. Plaatje was, therefore, aware that his Mhudi and the beginnings ‘invisibilisation’ of the rest of the world. narrative of resistance had to extend beyond simply countering colonial laws and their impacts. of the historical novel in In the logic of western modernity, the colonised To be effective, his account had to challenge the are ‘colonisable’ because they are not endowed whole gamut of colonialist discourse since it was southern Africa with thinking capacity (Ramose, 2002: 526). This is this discourse that produced “natives” and the because in this logic, unlike Descartes “non- latter creatures’ specific form of life: a pariah life westerner” does not think and, therefore, he or she divested of worldly belongingness. Plaatje was words mphuthumi ntabeni is not (Maldonando-Torres, 2007). This is also the thus unambiguous that his, writer/author: a broken river tent condition of possibility for the expulsion of the … appeal is not on behalf of the naked hordes @mpushntabeni colonised from the world of the Same. of cannibals who are represented in fantastic According to colonialist discourse, “non-western” pictures displayed in the shop windows in populations (“savages” and “primitives”) can only Europe, most of them imaginary; but it is on be in the world of humans as dispensable tools of behalf of five million loyal British subjects who western modernity. However, and more shoulder ‘the black man’s burden’ every day … importantly, colonialist discourse is always (2007: 18-19). To make this review relevant to our era of suffused with an ethic of horizontal and vertical In contesting the Natives Land Act, and thus the the Covid-19 pandemic, I ransacked my differentiation. This ethic holds that “non-western” Union constitution indirectly, Plaatje thus staked peoples can never be as human as people of the literary mind trying to think of African his and his people’s belonging to a common west; and at the same time, following the logic of writers who wrote about a pandemic humanity and a shared imperial citizenship. divide and rule, that some “non-western” people they experienced in their lifetime. I came or “tribes” or castes are better than other “non- The genius of Plaatje was to show that a radical back with a blank cheque. westerners,” and can become westernised refusal of settler-colonial constitution and its laws through western tutelage (Acheraïou, 2008: 216- would involve a radical challenge of their 217). It is this latter group of “natives” that underwriting discourse. It is important to Sol Plaatje was one of the Nelson Mandela was born in about a quarter of its working appropriate Christian mission philosophy and the remember that this discourse is based on a major writers who lived 1918, the time the pandemic population to their graves. But values of the Enlightenment to resist invisibility dichotomising system (savage versus civilised, through the pandemic called was razing down the rural to my knowledge Plaatje never and what I am here calling de-worlding primitive versus modern, human versus not-yet- the Spanish flu, which people of Transkei. People wrote about the scourge, discourses. human) that underlined nineteenth century amaXhosa pertinently referred who worked in the cities, as anthropological discourse. choosing, later on, to say his The point here is that more than just simply to as umbathalala – that which migrant workers, and the ones historical novel, Mhudi, was protesting the Act, Plaatje and members of his floors you, because one of its who were fresh from the dedicated to the memory of his group – all Christians and western-educated – symptoms was making you trenches of occidental tribal daughter, Olive, who died from undertook their deputation to the imperial prof tshepo madlingozi is one of South Africa’s extremely tired. About half a wars history referred to as it. Perhaps the experience was government to resist their interpellation as sub- top legal minds with a keen interest in African million South Africans died World War I, sowed it in the too close to the bone for him to humans and outcasts of the world. literature, decoloniality and constitutionalism. from it – the global figure went rural areas. Plaatje himself tackle it objectively, and, as is Madlingozi is Director of Center for Applied to fifty million. Among those almost died from the evident from his writing, he Even more critically, they also sought to remind Legal Studies at Wits University. He is a who died during the pandemic pandemic when Kimberley, was not a fan of brooding citizens of the metropole that colonised worlds ferocious reader. was the first prime minister of where he lived, became one of introspection. and colonising worlds are co-constitutive. the Union of South Africa, the major towns the pandemic General Louis Botha. severely affected, sending

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Plaatje’s novel, Mhudi, was written in 1919 and Bangela, who were sent to collect Mzilikazi’s tribute though physically strong and brave, is not a very ways to rescue her husband from a lion’s mouth 1920. It is lauded as the first full-length English from their tribes. Notto, a wealthy chieftain and good judge of character. She influences every – literally and metaphorically. novel by a black South African. father of Ra-Thaga, sent the two men to chief major decision he makes as a sensible voice and Tauana when they first appeared at his compound. conscience of pan-Africanism. Not even going to the battlefield is out of It is also the first historical novel in Subsequently, the indunas were brutally stabbed It’s apparent that Plaatje deliberately made her bounds for her – a blasphemy for women southern Africa that looked, mainly, at the by the Tauana people who made as if to escort smarter not only to complement Ra-Thaga naivety then – when seeking to make sure her historical events of land dispossession from them. Mzilikazi could not let this pass and needed but to be a bullhorn of a feminist drive against husband is safe. black people. to set an example of the Barolong that would teach general African patriarchal tendencies also. Ra- other vassal tribes an unforgettable lesson in Thaga’s weak and needy character becomes She’s wonderfully head-strong and resourceful in One of the crucial elements in the human psyche subsidence, while at the same time demonstrating blatant when they meet up with the Boers whom making sure she never loses her loved ones again. is the need for belonging, to have a story, a the fatal consequences of refusing to pay homage he fawns over to Mhudi’s irritation. Ra-Thaga sometimes feels humiliated by her narrative, not only as an individual but as a nation to their master. His idea was not just to punish solicitations, especially around other men, but he also – complete with its legends and myths. Barolong but to eviscerate them, lest the incident That attitude is more warranted seeing also had deep reverence and love for her. They loved In southern Africa, the organic progression of our set a wrong precedent for other vassal tribes. Plaatje make it apparent that the Boers, each other with unswaying and unconditionally though compelled to regard them as deep love that survived all their tribulations and cultures and customs was partly disturbed, almost Historically this occurred around 1832 in Kunana. truncated in other instances, by colonialism and allies, generally looked down on them trials, and there were plenty of those. The few from the Barolong who survived the attack below themselves, even if not at a lower apartheid regimes. And our written histories, for were subsequently scattered as wanderers all far too long, we’re told from a condescending level than other savage ‘kaffirs’. Much of what is beautiful in the novel is over the hills and fields of the region, as far as when it dwells on their love and lives. position of prejudice. Hence you now find in us the Thaba Nchu and Lesotho. Eventually, they formed Even Phil Jay, with whom Ra-Thaga strikes a growing thirst for historical fiction, told from a the core of the wounded tribes who came into an budding friendship of mutual respect, can’t totally The novel also addresses the intricacies of land point of view that respects our values and ways as alliance with recently arrived Trekboers, escape his racial past, something that continually dispossession from an African point of view. The people, without the othering empathy one finds themselves victims of Mzilikazi, to organise an act creates tensions between them. Other Boers effects and extent of tribal warfare are sometimes from white writers who are sympathetic to our of successful revenge against Mzilikazi. think their friendship is profane and make no black cultures. exaggerated and reshaped to fit Western Their first defeat of Mzilikazi was in the battle of attempt of hiding it. When Phil Jay is not around sensibilities. Like that of making white saviours Battle Hill (Vegkop, 1836). The final battle where they treat Ra-Thaga in the same derogatory who made it possible for great African tribes to be We’re eager for the telling of our stories they managed to disperse Matebele (Plaatje’s manner as KhoiSan people who are at their cruel and historical events from the point of view established and coexist away from the inter-tribal spelling) of Mzilikazi was in Mosega three years employ. For one he’s refused the use of white warfare. that makes sense to our inner lives and later in 1839. people’s utensils when they need to drink and intrinsic cultural and intellectual identity, eat. When Phil Jay marries, with Ra-Thaga According to this narrative, great African with voices that understand the intricacies Mzilikazi never recovered from this, ‘he encouragement, a yarpie meisie she sees in nations like amaNdebele, Basotho, and of our native languages and proverbial flew with his tail between his legs’ to Mhudi, not a friend, but a trusted nanny. This amaZulu would not have been founded wisdom. Plaatje was answering this need establish a new kingdom in the north, becomes apparent when they separate to go without the help of white settlers. when he wrote Mhudi. with Bulawayo as his capital. their different ways at the end of the war. To date, the tale has not gone bankrupt as you may Plaatje described the book as a romantic epic set The Boers reward them with an old The victors shared the spoils of Mzilikazi’s empire, bartered wagon to raise their status into have noticed, in social media superficial arguments in the first half of the nineteenth century. It opens cattle and land, among themselves. In a way, it in particular, where opinions are naked and raw in with a violent military attack by the impis of what would eventually make them black was more of recuperation of everything he had middle class, or aristocratic blacks. the brave stupidity of sophisticated ignorance. You Mzilikazi on Kunana (Khunwana, near present day taken from them. Ra-Thaga, the prince of would have seen that when you mention the Setlagole in the North West): Barolong, was among the leaders of that attack, In his real-life, Plaatje was part of the black middle tragedy of black land dispossession, there will pop “Kunana, near the present boundary having survived Mzilikazi’s brutal attack that class whose political battles he fought led him to a white smart-alec somewhere reminding you that between Cape Colony and Western vanquished his tribe to become a wanderer until become one of the founding members of the South white settlers fought and worked for this land while Transvaal was the capital city of the he met up with Mhudi, the eponymous heroine of African Native National Congress (later the African the natives were busy killing each other. I call it Barolong, the original stock of several tribes, the book, herself recovering from the loss of her National Congress). Shaka Syndrome. who also followed the humdrum yet emaciated family and tribe. As I indicated, Mhudi as a character is strong and Historical fiction is the point of intersection interesting life of the Bechuana natives...” They forged a survival relationship that quickly resilient, often rebelling against many of the between literature and personalised memory of writes Plaatje on the novel. turned into a romantic affair and a customary customs of her times and circumstances. The historical facts. Its strength is in exploring the The Barolong had just brutally murdered two marriage. Throughout the novel, Mhudi has a far circumstances of her life often find her making inner lives of characters in whom events that will Matebele induna tax collectors, Bhoya and better sense than her husband Ra-Thaga who, new means of living, of surviving when thinking of eventually become history happen to.

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It is the art of giving broad appeal and Their task is to churn the flowering of historians historical fiction. It brings about the depth of fury religion), got hijacked by the imperatives of non- dynamism to the static facts of history. into delicious sweet honey for the general public. with an invincible tone the truth always acquires. culturised Christian ideology.

My slight beef with Plaatje’s novel is that this is not Importantly, a historical novel must construct a Historical fiction leases real emotions into coherent narrative of the past, creating a world that historical facts in ways that reincarnate their life This is understandable only because always done to a higher literary standard. The ubuntu – which is what I mean by narrative voice of the book is disjointed has passed to show the readers how that would and meaning. Like the biblical prophet Ezekiel it relate to the one they’re living through. Plaatje’s tries to answer the perennial voice of God in African humanism – shares many values sometimes. The characters have little to no stream with Christian doctrine, so the transition of introspective self-consciousness that allows us novel fulfils some of these standards, which is why history: Son of man, can these bones live? And it is as readers to get into the bones and marrow of it is still relevant today; beyond its appeal for the one of the most brilliant ways of indexing memory. must have felt seamless to them. their personalities. unresolved issues emanating from the legacies of Hence the historical novelist requires the strength land dispossession in southern Africa. of balancing the demands of fact against the Historical novels can never be a comfort blanket of The heavy missionary editorial hand that dizzying power of the imagination. history because their success depends on them bowdlerised the formative Pan-African views of The genre of the historical novel is also most suited being transgressive. Because, by necessity, they Plaatje is also to blame for this. That part of Plaatje’s for periods of nationalist soul and identity searching, During Plaatje’s epoch, South Africa was speak through, or to addressing the gaps left by thought is more apparent and bolder in his earlier because how we deal with history also informs our undergoing one of the most tumultuous transient known historical facts, or where contradictions – a book, Native Life In South Africa because it was identity. It offers unique ways to talk about the processes in its history. Our era is supposed to be platform for drama – occurs. published outside the country and so had no tensions and antagonisms that roil the political a peaceful transient period of legitimate land condition of a particular age and nation. Because repossession for the majority. overriding concerns for the censoring hand. Successful historical novels are also usually national identity is a collage of domination, the These are moments when cultures compete for In the meantime Mhudi has an inorganic Christian historical novelist sometimes has to refute the driven by the compulsions of tragedy. gestalt that artificially emboldens themes, hegemony, where traditional customs are sanctity of received opinions of the victors. dissolved by the inventions of a new language, especially from the actions of Ra-Thaga, with Hence they are the last refuge of memory of those Historical novelists are often quick off the mark politics and demarcations in favour of new ways blatant designs to fit the clever native narrative. who have witnessed history from the position of the because, unlike historians, they also work by of thinking, mostly fed by universalism that defeated. There lies one of the compulsive appeals intuition and informed imagination, especially sometimes suspends or dissolves those very Plaatje’s strong views about land, when they for the novel Mhudi to me. The fact that it respects when historical facts collapse as they often do due traditional identities. pop in this book, do so in a flavourless, the Homeric-instituted literature imperative of to lack of evidence or something. chewed up neutral way, or are disjointed to telling things in fairness from all sides, even from the overall structure of the books – always a Novels are supposed to be great vehicles for the opponent’s adversarial point of view. tell-tale sign that some passages were cut out. When a historical novel is done well it capturing all this span and stratification of doesn’t betray history, instead it opens it up cultures, especially fragmented ones because Plaatje knew what he was doing when in the end he Perhaps the motivation was not necessarily for introspection by lending a voice of the they must speak to the deeper fragmentation tells the story of Mzilikazi’s defeat with compassion nefarious, more like they were scared the book past to the future. of political imagination of their times. and care, though his protagonists were part of the might end up being banned. The second book was victors then. This is why, to date, our academics, politicians and published after and against the discriminatory I found Mhudi lacking in this regard of depicting all often open their lectures and talks with the The memory of victors is usually diminished 1913 Natives Land Act, in London. So it is bolder the inner strife towards the intellectual flowering opening paragraph in Plaatje’s Native Life in South and as such had a far and wide global mobility of our African humanism. Plaatje, in my opinion, in dramatic worth because of the boasting Africa: “Awaking on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, that reached even the United States under the missed the opportune moment here because the demands of the triumphant ego. the South African native found himself, not actually auspices of the prominent African-American W.E. influence of African humanism was still greater a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.” B. Du Bois before it came to South Africa – it was and fresh in our people’s mannerism, having not Hence, the telling of so-called historical facts is published here, only in the late apartheid period. Not only are you able to feel the deep hurt, anger yet superseded by occidental influences. But he mostly unsuccessful when dramatised into a historical novel. The power the historical novelist The ultimate goal of a historical novel should be to and haplessness of being black at that time, but wasn’t able to delineate it in a manner that gets most of the time is in siding and recreating provide inner life to historical facts; fill – through Plaatje sends us a lightning bolt of consciousness transcends and supersedes the fracturing effect events from the emotional power of the defeated, informed imagination – the gaps of authentic from his age, for us to imagine how desolate of foreign influence. things felt to a black person of that age and, must giving their side of the story what the moment of telling by interrogating unhealthy silences of In fact, as the black middle class of his era, Plaatje have been grey grimly morning. He also makes their humiliation meant to them as they chronicle, history; confront the bias of interpretation while kowtowed to Western sensibilities as the superior this cascade through the canyons and dongas of from memory, the events that led to their defeat. putting flesh and blood to the dry bones of history. of our natural ways. He saw them as the light that time into our generation also, to be a river of pain This is almost impossible from a victor’s point of was delivering us from our dark ways to the Stimela sings about that must flow through the view without the Homeric storytelling powers Historical novelists are not supposed to neglect of what is good and superior from our ages until our land is restored to its rightful Plaatje also leased for that part. This power is culture. This was a common attitude the black compete with historians; instead, they’re in a owners, or black people disappear in this country, beyond those of a mere event recording by a middle of that era held. They, almost all of them symbiotic relationship, like bees to flowers. whichever comes first. That is the power of writer of history. (including those who didn’t profess Christian

P/26 P/27 p o e t ry It requires spiritual participation in the born-again prejudices of the past as fake actions that create history, what was demands of higher art. It is dangerous for writers religiously termed a prophetic spirit because to fall for this trick because it castrates them from here you also have to depict memory as a their authentic task of standing with the truth at Tender pen The celebration Dance of Tjobolo (for Neo Magdaline Maphalla) means of representation and identity. whatever cost. Instead, they want writers to be themba zulu peter horn loyal only to their wallets by betraying their phehello j mofokeng The English had Shakespeare who accomplished vocations for the rewards of mammon. this for them, dramatising the political anxieties of the Elizabethan era and ancient history, and the Writers, like the truth, must be Who shall write my history A buzzing of flies. Time bears a torch likes of Hilary Mantel to mine their Tudor past. subversive and refuse to be turned into To scan Africa’s juggernaut The sand rustles across the for the long road of memory Before that, the Greeks had Herodotus to make cyphers for the system. Draw lessons with a tender pen cement. and with fragile fingers fresh their myths, and Thucydides to report from But not tilt the quill Somebody forgot to turn the we dot your name on the sky the battlefields of their world in transition. The They must be the spearhead of a revolt against Nor cast a blank of silence streetlights off. With prayers trapped behind Scots particularised the demands of historical the triviality of habitual thought and the monotony Over uncomfortable truths There he was, dead in the trembling teeth fiction to reinvent their culture and traditions that of conventional morality. For facts to fit fiction streets. I walk with your dreams were destroyed by England through Walter Scot. nestled in my fearing palm All artists, for that matter, must strive to be free to Who speaks of me The TV crews were not explore life in all its varieties, including political the shy autumn wind blows us In the native voice interested. to where Senqu empties gentle We have Sol Plaatje also who reminds and ones. Enter imagined realms and open us to our teaches us how to mine the facts that made From deep and dark recesses The police gave him the once sorrows highest aspirations. Their main concern must be Of a forgotten ancestral dialect over. us pariahs in our land. Who gives us your sun has set about their craft, turning the raw material of life For once say things You can’t solve the problems of ammunition to rise from that pariah state, child of my mother experiences into art. If right all the drunks found stabbed tonight the stars weep first – in Biko’s language – by killing the To applaud on the morning mentality of oppressive colonial The only demand we must make of art is that it tears fall into Mother’s tea must be useful to the progress of the ideals of our If in error after the night of the great black swan of my Mother’s domination in our minds before enacting humanism, even if sometimes, because of that, We revise celebrations. real actions. your moon is red tonight they cannot avoid being political. Both fiction and Not to hesitate, nor retreat Viva *Bafana Bafana Viva! darkness spills over your day non-fiction are political. The difference is that in But forge on The luxury of history is that it affords us a chance The city lying in wait. and you fly on the wing of a song fiction a writer creates a universe, and in non- When others searched the to learn about the world beyond the confines of Mineproof buffels march feet heavy with ambition fiction, they’re making an argument, as Arundhati forbidding terrain our immediate experiences. This provides us with across the bare spaces the dream of a scar the shape Roy once alluded. an opportunity to understand where we fit in the Others lived here before between the matchbox houses of a crescent moon across your greater scheme of universal things. That’s what What’s important is the writer’s ability to make art Painting on pathways of life of Khayelitsha, and strange belly My destined history history does best, to locate and help us through whatever material they choose. If they unicorns of the military fantasy, charred faces of children understand how we got here, and why things are decide to reimagine uncomfortable truths of our Words unsaid must meet the proudly swinging their cannons, buried in the seams of books the way they are. Historical novels, in particular, historical past by dramatizing them into a light sprung from what mythical unwritten, unread position us, in ways more pleasurable than historical novel, especially if it means prompting When nature confesses new savannah? overdue academic study, into the companionship with past us to move away from the comfort of our false transcripts A sandy plain with no green. the noise came from here events and characters. positions, to learn from the past, so be it. Undigested from archives of A dark sky blown by a South– at the water’s edge What I now often worry about are the talks that This is what we must learn to be the legacy of Sol memory Easter. the gale-pace of the blind years like the sound of footsteps make writers too frightened of being political, to Plaatje in literature. A trembling of strings drawn taut, when you plant your feet in the the extent that they sometimes feign foolish a low murmur from the drum. neutrality on important topics of the day. Plaatje sky and the stars mark your refused to cower under this trick, which by the way We will lay him to rest. name is usually promoted by those who benefited from the summer’s breeze mphuthumi “mpush” ntabeni the injustices of the past. is the author of A the ash heap Broken River Tent (2018) and the winner of the next to Mother’s pillow Now, for the comfort of their conscience, they wish University of Johannesburg Prize for South like the burnt wing of a moth to reduce writers into mere creators of feel-good African Writing in English – Debut Prize. He is an products that must slip easily down the reader’s expert in the historical Frontier Wars of the Xhosa notes dreamless in the silent night motjodi sings your name throat to fortify their confirmation bias of skewed people and an ardent reader of history, literature *The Bafana Bafana (Boys Boys) are the South African national soccer team And tjobolo flaps away hegemony that still survives by the back door, and philosophy.

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If you are asking what else I’ve Mhudi, a young Bechuana friend about debt, I asked what reread, the answer is maiden who finds herself alone his biggest accumulations were, This blab about nothing: Essentialism by Greg McKneown. and orphaned in a foreign land. “Car, wife, creche,” his response. The re-reading ruined the book At least this is what I said, fifty– I struggled with him counting his Reading Mhudi in a time for me because I had not six pages on, when a colleague wife among his debts. forgotten enough from the first asked what the book was about. of a pandemic read to learn anything new. But I Boy, was I mistaken. Mhudi, who “I took out a loan to pay tell you, the book is a must read later inherits the title “mother of lobola.” if what you need is to focus on sorrows” is not as much at the I wanted to bang my head what’s important at the present centre of the plot as she is a part against a wall. moment. of it. At the centre of the novel is I will not forget the words of Speaking of which… the issue of land. another friend some years ago Yes, I’m still on the land issue, but So here I am re–reading Mhudi while we sat under the shade of a what my second read of the book – some of which I’ve forgotten thatch and shared his lunch box. because my last read was back did was make me think about “Bathong, dijo tse di monate in 2016 – and if anything, I’m how toxic manhood can be. byang,” was me appreciating actually irritated that what part “Manhood can be a cage,” is tumelo motaung the hands that made the food, words of the text is doing is rehashing what Darnelle L Moore said this “Akere ke rekile mosadi,” was his student/book clubber what is happening right now in week in conversation with @areadblackgirl smug response. I remember my the world (what has always been Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane. He eyes staying shut a second too happening, if you think about it). was talking about how trying to long, while my eyebrows looked do everything on his own and Mzilikazi killing off entire nations to the sky as my lips pursed. I always come out top denied him just so he can show off the might of wanted to swear. What the of happiness, how it isolated him his throne, just as America is wont actual hell! to do. The Boers tying Hottentots to and left him wanting. I am one of those seasons, just not in order. Now, the recurrence. And although I But imagine Ra-Thaga, on page the wheels of wagons and flogging I’m thinking here about the ideas between “working from home,” feel that life is too short and 174 of the AD Donker edition of people who tells a them to near death, also America. that men, and women, have now minding two children (I should there’s too much to go around to the book, trying to hold down his story the long way The Moshoeshoes, like Martin about companionship. I mean, actually give the credit to Netflix even be doing the latter, I rely anger at seeing Mhudi walk up around. I don’t think Luther King Jr, advocating for just one sitting of Sunday here), studying for seven exams very much on my amnesia to get to his war camp: I mean to, but I find it while taking online classes for a me through the second, non–violence. evening Mzansi Magic is the best way to get all programme I initially took for the sometimes the third try. Why do I enough to make my heart sink. ‘Have you come to show us human interaction, and checking do it if I hate it this much? Okay. Black lives the facts in ... or not. matter. I should move on I’m just like, can we please stop how to kill the Matebele in on everyone (something I don’t being copycats; can we please Mhudi? Could you not Because, perhaps like right? Like we’ve moved usually do for the very fact that it get over archaic constructs that have trusted us men to do voting for the ANC, we on before? Look away, can take anything between two mean nothing today; can we the work? Now, sit down hope to learn a different like this is not our story minutes and two hours), I made stop with the fake stuff! and let us hear how you time to re–read Mhudi by Sol T. lesson with each ballot. too? Okay… Okay! And in the same breath I’m just going to do it.’ Plaatje. It could also be that I Mind you, Mhudi is the second Only until another national like, who am I to judge? Right? needed a distraction. As proud a man as he is, book I’ve read in the past month lockdown, right? Until another The point here though, is that I’m prouder is he of the union he It’s fine … you can clap. (I know right? I’m also rolling Collins Khosa. But also, have you tired of watching men swallow I’ve been blessed with a few has with this stubborn person he eyes at the contradiction), imagined what being in their own tongues to prove to the friends who pay enough attention I just want to briefly get into my calls a wife. to answer when I ask, “why am I philosophy on re-reading books, having just re–read Sisters of Palestine must be like right now? world that they are worthy of the telling you this again?” and re-watching movies, re-ordering the Yam by bell hooks with Ngozi Let me read you some of what I title. I’m also tired of women Mhudi, although a damsel in everyone else is usually as lost as meals I really enjoyed… pretty Chukura – who is in Botswana. wrote about the book when I first feeding into that narrative with distress when she meets Ra- I am and ends up accompanying much doing everything again. When this girl makes it big, and I read it: the way we raise our boys and Thaga in the second chapter of our ideas of love. the book, has prior made a name me to the end. So, because Re–starting relationships applies. know she will, I’ll be that person Judging from the title, one would for herself as the heroine of everything is related to everything I try to put as much space going “She’s my friend! I know assume that the novel was about Recently, while chatting to a else, my episodes often end as between the first occurrence and her!” in Biggie’s voice. Motlhaditse. And if you look

P/30 P/31 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 closely at the text, you realise that as honour? Should we even still p o e t ry p o e t ry it is from the moment Ra-Thaga be looking to men to allow us encounters this woman that he space to be? Hesitation finds his way in the world after That last answer should be a no, hiding in the veld for days on end. themba zulu Blues For right? But do we still not aspire It thus is fitting for him, to give this to marriage? A lot of us do. But is advise to Phil Jay on (p171): “A the idea of marriage today what Jazz Rappers man was not made to live alone. companionship should be? In I should have left a long time ago I deferred, a near–fatal move Had it not been for Mhudi, I don’t many ways, I don’t think so. But I could have died in a boiling tub (For Robo The Technician & Lesego Rampolokeng) think you would have known me at how do we change this? all. She made me what I am. I feel Writhing not having tried certain that your manhood will Perhaps now that we’ve lost a lot To save the only life I have mphutlane bofelo never be recognized as long as of what it meant to exist within I stayed because you provide you remain wifeless.” set norms, as Mhudi and Ra- You pay the rent and food Thaga had after the desolation What I protected nearly cost my I am not as naïve as to accept of Kunana, we will re-evaluate life from what I’ve seen and heard our lives and what it means to Courting the angel of death that relationships where the When the world has alternatives be a human who loves another ladies and gentlemen! a hatchet job for the gods it’s no beats from the box, sir parties are truly equal, don’t exist human without the usual i will not observe any protocol of poetry for pleasure it’s hearts pounding against the (I wish I could stick an example Love cracks like fire, constraints of gender, tradition, to me hierarchy is the foundation too many punches and no lines odds from the top of my head here). but this is not love and all the other ropes around It is violent, too much poison of tyranny they slaughter literature life hip and hopping There are not enough of these. I our necks. I’ve been meditating pat me not on the shoulders googled beats & pirated at the grassroots feel – more and more men, now To wake up each morning on If the World Was Ending, by And not recognize my own face no ovations for me melodies for the ambience we rap the blues more than ever – that many men JP Saxe and Julia Michaels – a i am not part of the propaganda the gullible are in trance from the ground think there is a need to reassert timely jam. The violence of our home machine perhaps it’s time for a séance thunder, the wind & the ocean their masculinity by suppressing Hid beneath the swathe of i have no regard for your orders play our kind of jazz ... Did you ever think that at some summon the ghost of Cesaire and abusing the women in their mascara my regards are on the shop-floor on that note of kinds & all that jazz point in your life you’d be living call the presence of Count Bassie lives, when in actual fact we Because I stopped being pretty my credibility is in the ghetto the word is clear invite the Mahlathini roar should all be working together to through a pandemic? Neither to you the pavement is my alter there is only one cry bring on Mahotela Queens, build relationships that do not did I. I also didn’t think working Now constantly fearful to the masses i bow the language of love Dark City Sisters; Nina Simone perpetuate traumas. from home would come this soon As a beaten woman will be that’s the only god i know and resilience is universal (I’m kinda living my dream here), the underground is my heaven an orchestra of voices human experience has one voice I mean, just think about the or that I’d be re-reading Sol Once I was the loving dove rebellion is my religion from the under-belly the difference is in the accents number of times that Mhudi has Plaatje’s Mhudi. But because Comfortable in the little cage the mainstream is the hell i we come wailing you can rave to the rhythm & poetry followed her instincts, defied nothing makes any sense When opened I flew free–miles refrain from with bob and the wailers of throbbing hearts convention and did the best for anymore, it seems just alright to away sorry mister corporate and on the Pharaoh Express croon it from the soul herself, for her marriage, and rewrite all the rules, especially When the sun set I returned to missus government bavino sermon a jeremiad jazz it up with poly-rhythmic ultimately her family. Think about those we’ve used to cage the door keep your podiums against gutter education sounds the many arguments she ourselves. It’s also fine to do this I felt safe: it felt like home and it high tables, circus stables no histrionic choruses was home rock & roll with it on the dance- pursues with her husband, not repeatedly until something, red carpets for puppets it’s a rage against clones & their ‘Til I knew I was waiting to be blood in the wallets masters floor because she wants to be right, anything, makes sense because slaughtered By the ungrateful the sting is in the conscience no mastering needed for this rap and shoot it from the hip but because she has a point to life is suddenly much shorter make. About the number of times husband emotions on sale, psalms for rent sound-track chant it as pop or freedom songs than we used to pre–empt. hum it as the spirituals when Ra-Thaga allowed her to some count cents for sense it is beats pumping against the Overrating his love for the kids sing it as the gospel truth assist him despite his ideas of for the rands they are the red ants killing of life Yet spit at the womb that formed throw heretics off the stage no bane robotics, sir or in raga style what a man is. How different a tumelo motaung is a spiritually them to clear the way for the market you may wrap the moods character in this book would she some went mechanic with the sound inclined sapiosexial emapth. An Who to run to for consolation silence in the theatre others technical with the word truth in expansive colours; have been, had she not asserted avid reader with an insatiable When family reminds of vows in it’s not police sirens robo lyrical with the technique it all amount to the same thing herself, both forcefully and with appetite for learning, who happier times but the voice of the poet a return to the verbal the yearning for love consent from her partner? Would aspires to a simple life. doing a judas/brutus against conscious music a freedom- in its many facets Plaatje have given her the title Rap Master Supreme weapon lethal in one word we call it blues

P/32 P/33 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2

deal with most issues facing the equipment to sanitise shared arts industry. As to how practical items like microphones, stands, Keeping jazz alive is some of the proposals, it is yet headphones, just to mention a to be seen. The second one is few. There will be a need to the positive energy that carries update the health and safety during COVID–19 most of the members. A lot of the regulations shortly after the talks are around celebrating lockdown period. However, the victory over COVID–19. I believe majority of the forward–thinking pandemic this is a good thing and each studios have already started post on this topic helps retain reviewing their regulations and the high spirits in the group. they are budgeting for David Lephoto, a seasoned implementation accordingly. event promoter and colleague May I hasten to indicate that from World Sound Concert, in while artists and musicians have

it has to be jazz one of the many discussions that all these brilliant ideas, they wo r d s : we usually have, he pointed out need to take the necessary @ ithastobejazz the significance of keeping the precautions in ensuring that spirits high. they are in line with implementation and furthermore As at the time of writing this article, COVID–19 His reasoning is that managed accordingly. is suspected to have claimed the lives of when people recover from over 4 jazz legends whose immeasurable the aftermath of the So, why did this article make pandemic, the number of the It Has To Be Jazz® project contributions to jazz extends to all the review? robson hatsukami morgan people who will want to go continents. It is indeed a sad state of affairs. i m ag e : @ robsonhmorgan out is likely to increase. COVID–19 is by no means selective in its trail of This is good for the industry and destruction, but it is like a reset of course the recovery of the arts button that requires each industry as a whole. responsible individual in the arts One should not be too naïve to space to act decisively and The measures put in place by Just when we thought International together to do what is now considering what we can expect imagine that the return to live quick. The purpose of this article different governments to combat Jazz Day had been dealt a blow, commonly known as ‘Lockdown after the lockdown. Better yet music venues will be instant. is to provide as much information the pandemic seemed to have they came up with a brilliant Sessions.’ A few of such once the COVID–19 is a thing of There is likely to be some as it is possible so that artists hit jazz where it hurts the most; idea and that is the virtual sessions have already taken the past! element of doubt and a trial and can make informed decisions so, we thought! But human celebration which is place via live streaming over I suppose there are many ways error period as venues upgrade and plan properly. Stay safe and resilience is such a special tool accommodative of the social social media platforms. There is of looking at the positive impact their premises to prepare for keep healthy. We can hardly wait because it continues to help us distancing precautionary yet another opportunity that jazz of the lockdown. Right at the top prevention of the virus from for the live performance of all go past our current adversity. measures as stipulated by most musicians are exploring and of the list is obviously the lives spreading. The major outlets are your creative work that will come governments. I agree it is not the exploiting. that are likely to be saved and We do not have the luxury of already practising this new after the COVID–19. best scenario but it is the next there is no doubt about that. But allowing ourselves to dwindle It appears that the lockdown lifestyle. into the sunset without an effort best thing considering that the period has created a spare time there is yet another angle to this, the it has to be jazz® project to save what we have worked so worst would have been to be which we all must have needed which is what I call ‘the period of Without a shadow of doubt, without any celebration at all. creation!’ I have picked up some is a self-funded international hard for; jazz being one of them. before. This time is now being life after COVID-19 is no project with a key focus in jazz Fortunately, the new virtual used for recording music and of the ideas shared by a social longer going to be the same, The most creative jazz media group called Im4TheArts. documentation and archiving. celebration has given us an new ideas. I have been especially for the arts It is managed and run by jazz minds went back to the opportunity not only to test its receiving – on average – about This platform has focal points industry. drawing board and never disciple and aficionado, Ray possibilities but the successes 3 video or music clips from which can be put into 2 Maseko. before have I seen creativity as well. A few of the groups, not various jazz musicians. This is categories. The first one is unity Let me share some examples. put to so much good use. exceeding 10, have come an amazing use of time and a consolidated front that will Studios are likely to install

P/34 P/35 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 safe. p o e t ry Stay Tell her!

Make jazz music. flo the poet #FlothePoet #FloMokale

Tell her that Prince charming is dead. Tell her: She is Light, that needs no Armor to shine her night. Her cries of help are Roars of war, misheard. She is the wake up call when sleeping She is a flaming Dragon, not the joyous caged little Beauty waits up bird. Her reflection in the mirror, is gravely misled. all night and finds sleep in alcohol. She Tell her that her beauty is not decided by is comfort to soles something someone said. when Cinderella realises that her glass She is perfection beyond the classification in all slippers no longer the tales she's read. shine and a younger girl Tell her that "Knight in a Dress" was is in her stall. changed and, "Damsel in Distress" took She is the self belief when its stead. There's more to her life, than modelling agencies tell the Queen waiting to be wed. that, she's too old to get call. She is Tell her that she is not a flimsy Natural pride when Rapunzel's hairline flower that warms the Heroes bed. starts to fall, and she weaves into wigs She is a dulled typhoon believing to cover it all. something someone heard or She is self love when Snow White has read. bleached her skin, and realise that no Tell her that non but her should man wants a broken doll. decide her value or grade. Day She is that protection order, change of dreams kept her clouded in the name and address, when money cant hide belief that, she is the weakling in the beast in the Beast. Cracked ribs, and the stories they misread. busted lips refuse to hide under the shawl. Tell her that Roses are red The mirror sold the same reflection, and left from the blood her heart bled. them to their marvel. Violets took the blues from COVID–19 is by no means Stay safe and keep healthy. tears her spirit shed. selective in its trail of We can hardly wait for the Neglecting that, every wrinkled Queen was once a Princess, made to believe that her beauty will destruction, but it is like a live performance of all your Tell her, that there is no give her all. reset button that requires creative work that will come happily ever after when each responsible after the COVID–19. Charming gambles with individual in the arts space Tell her that any crown bestowed on her, can money for bread. Most flowers to act decisively and quick. easily fall are given when you wed and when you're dead. Tell her its ok to cry when she's hurt, but even Mary rose after she wept. There's no breakfast in bed when you handwash the bedspreads. TELL HER POWER BACK

wwww.ithastobejazz.co.za [email protected] image ricardo velarde P/36 P/37 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 q o t s o y a p a l e – bosehla ba dipalesa tsa meduwane, dithung– latele. O ne a sa batle tsa moo a tswang teng di thung tsa difate tsa ditholwana, botalana ba qhapaletse tse ntjha tsa moo a neng a lebile teng. madiba hammoho le ho hlaka ha lehodimo – e A itlhlotlhora bohome bo neng bo mo mamaretse. ne e le bopaki ba bokgabane le botle ba naha A ntsha lesela, a phumula dieta tsa hae – tsa ena e amohuweng Basotho. benya hang–hang. Basotho ke hore batho ba sootho; ba batshwana A boya a sheba tselana ya maoto e mo fihlisitseng Di ya ba ditjhaba tsohle tsa Tlatlamatjholo. Ho thwe ha mona, sebakanya, a tebisa maikutlo a inahana batho ba ne ba eme lekgalong, ba buwa le motsotso o molelele. A furalla moo a tswang teng, Thoteng leqosa la Morena Moshweshwe ho kopa tjako; a sheba pele moo a yang. A hlapanya hore o entse ho thwe morena e moholo o ne a botsa hore na tsohle tse matleng a hae ho siya bophelo bahae batho bao, ba sootho na? Haeba ba le sootho, ba kgale hona moo. A leba pele moo a yang, a Morena Moshweshwe o ne a ba amohela dumella maoto a hae a mo ise pelo–borata. tjhabeng sa hae, hore e be batho ba hae. Ka mora ho nka mehato e se mekae, a fokotsa Ke hona puo ya Sesotho e nonneng tjena, e ena lebelo a nanya, e ka o tsamaya hodima mahe phehello j. mofokeng wo r d s : le mantswe, meetlo le ditsebo tse ngata ho feta kapa mahare a sehang ha bohloko. A utlwa eka ho @ mrpublishersa tsa ditjhaba tse ding. Feela, ba amuhuwe naha lla molodi o bohale ka tsebeng tsa hae, le lerata la – motlotlo le sesosa se sehlohong ho Basotho. ho tsikitlana ha meno. A nka mehato e mmalwa Ha ho thwe re sootho, re tshwantshwa le mobu hape, yaba oema hape, a hlaselwa ke mehopolo e Mohlankana wa tjharola wa motwaitwai wa lefatshe lena leo re le amohuweng ka mengata. A tiisa mehlare, a swenya sefahleho; a o hlahile lekgalong ka mora ho tsamaya dikgoka le ditumellano tseo re sa ditsebeng. Re tsielehile. O ne a se a amohetse hore ehlile tshwantshwa le lefatshe lena leo re le dikgopolo tsa hae di tseba ho iketsa sera sa hae nako e telele. Boputswa ba dieta tsa hae le tsamayang. Ebile ho thwe re sootho tjena ka nako enngwe. Motsotsong oo, hlooho ya hae ya bohome bo neng bo mamaretse diqola tsa hobane re entswe ka selokwe sa Ntswanatsatsi, roroma ke dipotso, a sa nepe le hore na o ho kae, borikgwe bahae, di ne di paka seo. ka tsopa la lefatshe lena. Ke hona lefatshe le le o batlang moo. Menahano ya qala ho mo lwantsa, bohlokwa ho Basotho – bohle ba sootho. e ka selalome se batla ho phonyoha. Kelello le Tlatlamatjholo, monahano di mo etseditse lerata le se nang Mmopi; Seabi–sa–mahlohonolo tekanyo. Kgabareng ya setsokotsane sena se neng Kgora ya ba lapileng se tsukutla menahano ya hae, nako le tsohle tsa Letlotlo la bafutsana ema tsi! A se ke a sisinyeha le ho sisinyeha – a ema A fihla a tsamaya ka bo’nya; hlooho e imelwa ke hlokomela ha o mo shebile hantle, kapa ha e le Senesa–pula, hore a imamele; a hopole, e be motho hape. dikgopolo le ditabatabelo tsa moo a yang – le hoja motho eo o mo tsebang ka botlalo. Naledi ya Mphatlalatsane Kamora ho ema motsotswana o molelele, a utlwa a ne a sena bonnete ba hore pheletso ya hae e tla O qhileditse jwalo ho fihlela a atamela moedi wa Mokokotlo o sephara wa Mmabaledi ekare kelello e kgutlela madulong. O ne a se a ba hokae. O ne a koboteditse hlooho, eka e ya mo terata ya polasing e ka pela hae. Makgowa – beng Matsoho a maroba a robakilwe ke ho bopa maseya fumane leqheka la hore a ka kokobetsa menahano imela, kapa hoja o ntse a bala lehlohlojane la ba mafatshe ana – ba ne ba arola naha ya bona ka A matle dipoporopotlwana tse sootho ke mobu ena ya hae jwang ha setsokotsane sena se fihla. lehlabathe la tsela, le mahlokwana a jwang bo tsela ena. wa selokwe. Hangata, o ne a ema tsi! A leke ho hema ka metseng tseleng; moo a neng a tsamaya teng. O ne makgetlo, a tutubetse, a ituduetse jwaloka ngwana! a sa tsebe hore tsa pele ke dife, hore bokamoso Naha ena – ka dibata, dinyamatsane, le A phahamisa mahlo, a alahlela pejana – a bona bona bo botjha bo mo fuparetse dife. matekwane a yona – e ne e aroletswe makgowa naha ena e namaletse le ho feta. A bona tsela e feela ka tsela ya boqhekanyetsi, le bohanyapetsi bo tswedipana mose ho moedi wa terata sebakana Sepapaela–dithota sena se ne se batla ho boholo, ho tloha kgale. Basotho ba neng ba ruwile le moo a neng a eme teng. Terata e ne e netefatsa hore se furalla tsa maoba le maobeng. O Di ya Thoteng, lefatshe, ba ne ba le amuhuwe, ho le fa makgowa. hlephile, ho hlakile hore batho ba bangata ba ne a batla ho netefatsa hore tseo a kileng a ba ka Phehello J Naha; ke lona feela leruo la nnete la Mosotho – tlola hona moo. Maoto a mangata a ne a entse tsona, o di siya morao, a di furalle. Mofokeng (Geko, hobane ha ho na moruo o ahilweng marung. tselana–butswa e kgathaditseng moedi ona. 2020) is available on O tsamaile jwalo ekare monna ya nang le Moruo ke naha – ya ho jala, ho alosa, ho dumella Tselana ya maoto ene e fella moo, e be e tswela pre–order at www. maikemisetso a maholo. Motsamao wa hae o ne o manamane ho thala, ho aha metlotlwane, ho pata pele mose, ka nqane. A atamela, a inama, a tlola. gekopublishing.co.za ena le boikakaso bo itseng; e ka ke motho ya seng a bafu, ho epela badimo. Naha ena, ene e namme, e Eitse ha a qeta ho tlola, a tlelwa ke kgopolo. Yaba for R200 excluding bone tse kgolo; le hoja a ne a hlotsa hanyane, e kare batalletse jwaloka moseme o adilweng ka o ya hetla ho sheba moo a tswang teng. O ne a motho a tsamaya ka maoto a sa lekaneng. O ne a batla ho inetefaletsa hore dikeng–keng tsa hae delivery; or at major bokgabane. Ha e ne e talafala, e ne e etsa botle bookstores. qhiletsa – hanyane feela – ha hore o ne o ka mo bo makatsang – bo kopantseng mebala ka mefuta tsa mehleng, di sala hona moeding oo; ha di mo

P/38 P/39 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 o p i n i o n lump down my throat up now. I am not going to It’s the temporary vulnerability a black male feels cry! No, you are! No, I won’t. You are. I am not, on behalf of his black daughter, says my feminist monna. Am I? friend Tjipo Loeto. That terror captures me in the Like Brenda Fassie, Aretha provides the perfect form of deep sadness that masquerades as a outlet for the bleakness and beauty that is black macho sense of physical presence – a gun, ‘Retha by preferably one with a double-barrel. Therein lies womanhood, the terror, torture and bliss all rolled into one. I am saying that now but it’s in the crux of the matter. Opera House retrospect. Malcolm X once asserted that a Negro could not But I was fighting that lump. I had fought such claim American citizenship. Not to the full extent of chunks before, and I was not going to lose to it. what that lofty concept and its applications in real- Like every African man raised in the rigours of life entailed. tshireletso motlogelwa toby cannell proper African masculinity, I fought the lump. words image In a way, the firebrand civil rights man was journalist/poet/filmmaker @tobycannell_ Swallowing it. But the piece was not moving. Whenever the lump moved an inch up the throat, making a point that blackness follows you. possibly from the oesophagus towards the actual You encounter it not just in the streets of New York, mouth, it placed pressure on the eyes. where Eric Garner met it in the form of a 15-second My eyes threatened to bulge, and the dam walls chokehold by a police officer of State Island Police were about to burst. I tried to swallow that thing. Department in July 2014, or if you are a black Writer, poet and journalist Tshireletso Motlogelwa arms. It should have been a Sitting in economy class strapped to the chair, I South African, in the form of a Nobel Leaurate FW De Klerk letter dismissing the labelling of recalls the week his daughter was born seven moment of celebration even on had to ask the lady next to me to make way, so I that plane, but a bleakness apartheid as a crime against humanity. The years ago. He wonders why what should have rushed to the toilet. Meanwhile, ‘Retha was insisted on accompanying me. wailing in my ears, all the way to the bathroom. I outrage, as exemplified by TV show host “JJ” been bliss turned into dread, and instead of There was a sense of dread that yanked the door, shut it, shut the lid, sat on it and Tabane’s eight-minute rant against the entire glee, he found himself crying. This is in sharp at the time, I could not decipher. let the lump express itself. episode and what it signified. The reawakening of the pains of blackness in southern Africa. contrast to the day his son was born, marked I promise I was fine until Aretha by an absolute assuredness and even self- Franklin’s terrified whine pierced I sat there, my head in my hands, tears I encounter it in airports where random searches confidence. my ears, as she now took a all over the floor. often point to me from a long queue. You never know how ‘random’ those searches are until you chokehold of the bridge of the I was landing in Australia a couple of weeks after the pass western capital airports often, it’s a random Paul Simon-written Bridge Over birth of my daughter, and a moment of celebration custom randomised to pick you. We may be black, Troubled Water. The first minute had turned into sorrow. Why was ‘Retha doing this to It is in March 2013. we will become weightless as but at least we are men, and that can be a she just almost cajoles the song, my moment of welcoming my daughter? The lump builds in my throat we make for the sunset-red let it simmer led by the keyboard, consolation, because this capitalist Western-led with sudden aggression. We are drenched city. The lump gets drums and that menacing organ. A week earlier, I had sat down with a sharp- world, is a “man’s”, as Brown would put it. thicker. I am landing in minded comrade of mine attempting to decipher now above Australian metropolis At least I held it together. But if blackness is a burden what if it’s laced with of Sydney, and the captain lets Australia’s biggest city on my his own predicament. When his daughter was yet another layer of permanent misfortune – the metallic bird slow down to an way to Brisbane, my wife’s home The entire entourage from born, he had the sneaky feeling to buy a gun. A femalehood. Women live a miserable life overall almost complete stop. It’s a town, to see my newborn Retha’s voice, the horns wailing double-barrel one he said. So over mokwetjepe except in the most progressive of countries. moment before we plunge. daughter Azania for the first, a in the background and and phaleche we were attempting to understand especially the piano. The sax In the meantime, the Queen of week after her birth. this phenomenon. As I write this, the corpse of a woman lies meandering around her Soul Aretha Franklin assails my When she was born, I had been somewhere in Brisbane, charred. Hannah Baxter, murmurs and occasional cooing. Why was I so terrified? And why was I so emotional? being. We are at the very last in Botswana, awaiting my visa a Brisbane woman, died in hospital a few days It turned out to be an emotional few minutes of a 12-hour haul which had been delayed. You Then it hit me: I was sad because of ago, after her husband Rowan Baxter doused her hit job on my masculine from OR Tambo International see with the Australians, you what bringing a Black woman to this and their children in petrol and set on fire. calmness. Her voice in Airport. Now the entire jet goes have to work hard for your visa if In Tlokweng, a five-minute combi ride from where conjunction with the city below world meant for me. For the first time, I dead quiet as if pondering the you are like me. I am writing this, two years ago, a young woman with the Opera House as it was facing the full spectre of black onerous task of plunging down was found among the bushes, murdered. She had And now in a matter of three emerged from the blood-red women’s existence and experience with to the paraphernalia of a been beheaded, and her head was missing. Her hours, I would hold one of the waters around it, the all its related pitfalls, from racism to cityscape below. Anytime soon distraught family had to bury her body without its most important women in my weightlessness was forcing the patriarchy to poverty.

P/40 P/41 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2

head, with police officers unable So often, perhaps to debrief, we b o o k r e v i e w to locate it in time for the funeral. would chat over tea to cool off maternal dread out of the song. A young man was later after the trauma of planning And for the moment you think arraigned for the murder. meetings. As we were talking, my ATI will leave it at that. But just then editor revealed that his when you thought the song is So there is my problem, for a done, ATI adds, a gruff almost The Eyes of the Naked, minute I am a black woman, at biggest worry is that he is raising his daughter the best way he can. adlib at the end, where least on behalf of my two-week completely confessionally, he by Litha Hermanus old daughter and the pain is Still it just may be that he is raising them for a brute to one takes the position of a man in unbearable. My father has a regret, as if a criminal about to evening just slap over trivial rolland simpi motaung theory. hang for his sins. words matters. He says that gave him writer He says as men we are dread. So the fear for our He adlibs over it, almost guttural cowards, women are made daughters is not from extreme in his delivery, and ends with the of solid stuff. love per se, but rather from the line, “Ke ne ke sa reetse batsadi, realisation that it is a brutal world living life faster than the speed I agree with him, I have watched we men have created for women, of sound.” my wife go through labour once, especially these African women There is something very poignant BOOK TITLE AUTHOR YEAR PUBLISHER ISBN and I have been traumatised we are bringing into this world. The Eyes of the Naked Litha Hermanus 2020 Penguin 978-14-15210-079 since then. But if women are about that moment in the song, in strong, you have to imagine how Botswana soul star Mpho a way ATI, perhaps inadvertently, strong black women have to be Sebina has a song called Tjuele, confirms the basis of the dread Written when he was play in shaping society’s view of are the cultural politics of life especially when intertwined circumcision schools; sexual just to exist in this world. And which borrows heavily from a underpinning the song, that it is doing his MA degree with political agendas; and how abuse; sexuality and Western therein lies my fear too, that this Setswana folk tale of the same us, men like him, and myself, who in Creative Writing title. The story is about a young have created this world, into career ambitions are suppressed beliefs versus African – or little girl here, would need to at Wits University, by sexism and racism. isiXhosa beliefs in particular. possess that Herculean strength girl who wouldn’t listen to her which women have to live. And Litha Hermanus has The other and main storyline is Nakedi’s masculinity was just to remain alive, and I am parents’ advice and ended up often die. That is what my tears produced a thrilling driven by Nakedi Solomon, ex- challenged on a few occasions. sad for her for no human has to paying the ultimate price, being were about, I hope. novel about a man who husband to Kele and father of For instance, as a Xhosa male, he go through that just to be. abducted by giants. It features a flawed man of Botswana music, is not only running their six-year-old son Donavan. was circumcised in a hospital tshireletso motlogelwa Nakedi is on the run after being and not at the initiation school, Tjipo says my tears were based the irrepressible ATI. There are is a away from law but entangled in a hijacking and therefore in the eyes of his peers on something even more sinister, two versions of that song, one is poet and an award winning also from himself. “You know that you men are investigative journalist with murder of a Japanese couple he was not a “real man”. He was recorded in Mpho Sebina’s This three-hundred pager has dogs”, she says bluntly. I agree. cross-continental work and an and a Ghanaian doctor in running away from a murder he debut album, Neo. two storylines running parallel My fear is the fear of men. In a Johannesburg. didn’t commit! Was he a coward? expert on Botswana politics. but which eventually converge at Mpho Sebina did a music video His fugitive mission takes him to Overall, this book offers an way, my sadness is from the fact the end of the book. The first for the track and quite wisely left his birthplace in the Eastern interrogation of what really makes that she faces the prospect of storyline is driven by Kele ATI out of it, and in there Cape; where he reconnects with a man. Is manhood defined by meeting men, men not unlike me. Solomon, an ambitious young appears to be a mother cuddling his family but soon however he is circumcision? Does taking the radio producer who is determined One winter morning at Mmegi, sent to search for his missing moral high ground or expressing her young daughter. There they to craft a name for herself in one of Botswana’s biggest brother-cousin Buntu. your vulnerability make one less of are, these two Batswana women, South Africa’s media industry by newspapers, we hung around the a man? Does having a child really just holding each other, one the breaking a story on the imminent Nakedi is taken on an newsroom for a chit chat with the make you a man? The profound mother the other a daughter. xenophobic attack brewing in unexpected journey where he reporters just after our planning Tat’ Velelo even stated: “Lost men There is vulnerability from the Mandelaspruit, Johannesburg, meets intriguing characters such can only breed what they are; lost meeting. Planning meetings mother’s caring grasp, but there however, she is deceived by as Leontien; a free-spirited children.” Could this be a reason made for sobering experiences is determination too. But ATI, those close to her. feminist and her father, the as we went through all the leads sagacious Tat’ Velelo. This roller- we have such a damaged perhaps the closest to 2Pac that Key themes brought out by Kele’s from various reporters, and the coaster journey challenges society? Botswana ever got, released plot include the struggles of a Nakedi’s patriarchal views of gory underbelly of our society another version of the same single mother and divorcee, what is really the definition of rolland simpi motaung is a reveals itself through tales of the parenting while climbing up the song in his seminal release manhood and fatherhood. lecturer and a literary theft of billions siphoned off by Envelope. ATI lets Mpho Sebina media industry, corporate ladder; Further, other themes explored connoisuer and reader of note. the elite. cajole that tender sensibility and the role that media organisations

42 P/43 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2

b o o k r e v i e w Let your art feed you!

words motlatjo seima poet/banker

It was The Star; in the process standards that apply to black education, the of paying a compliment to fact of irrelevance has caused the present revolt. The matter of self-discovery and being the late great Afrikan teacher has never been a feature of the present system. that said, “If Mandela is our Nothing in it has to do with our condition as black people; it says nothing about the world political star, Mphahlele is his It was a further requirement to be baptized and as in the value chain to producing a poem? the school child returns to after school: poor literary equivalent.” we know from the story of the biblical Nicodemus, living conditions, poor transport, low wages, A while ago, I provoked a discussion with my be born afresh in the water of everlasting life – dwelling houses that are matchboxes … I am erstwhile friend and publisher Phehello Mofokeng cease to be a pagan (African) and accept ‘Christ trying to reveal by implication how Eurocentric and advanced the allegation that there is the Saviour’. education is for both whites and blacks in this empirical evidence that poetry as an artform is country. It is pathetic to observe a Matric class This is a phenomenon that Ngügí wa Thiong’o unable to sustain its practitioners! battling with Shakespeare’s language with an tales out in all its gory details in his epic offering, I went further and culled from Smith’s Wealth of Elizabethen comedy, both so far from their The River Between. Nations to make the claim that in the absence of experience while completely ignorant about the So, to learn in formal education, the African child goods and commodities, necessary not only for literature of their own sub-continent, let alone had to unlearn – if not annul – his very own consumption possibilities, poets are incapable of the rest of the continent. Indeed I would identity and enter the world of education as a appearing in the public without shame. recommend that departments of English be brand-new entity, neither African nor European. I continued the analogy to say in the absence of a scrapped and made departments of Literature.” Disciplines like Geography, Mathematics and life worth living, poets resort to strange conduct Students of logic would tell us that in an “if” Among others, I understand Mphahlele to be Science were to be accessible to the African child they elevate as enlightenment, characterised by only through the foreign language of English. The statement, the latter proposition is dependent on talking about education as the source of extreme bitterness, substance abuse and a fit of irony of course, as one of my friends would recently the former being true. Mphahlele’s contribution to dislocation for the African child, if indeed general anger towards the society they hold remind me, only the Bible was translated into more history is thus arrogantly subjected to that of the expression is borne out of what one learns. It African languages than any other book! accountable for their depravity and existence in one ‘good native’. I have little doubt that the man therefore follows logic; that the dislocation will not absolute squalor. Their rhymes are dark and sad himself would have been, as was he wont, be limited to the learning, but it will permeate There needed to be a counter-assault and the and without hope and unable to resonate with early poets assailed this ‘othering’ quite indifferent to this conditional exaltation from The through expression too! their audience. Thus we are fed the explanation Star. He cared less for such things. beautifully. The one good native himself was randomly that they are deep, hence we are incapable of accessing their prose. But what did Mphahlele himself say at all? In the named Nelson on his first day of school as But what is the role of the poet in 2020? year 2005 in a speech titled, ‘Africanising South an African child needed a European name What responsibility does the poet have to himself Of course, this was not a monologue and I was Africa Education’ he had the following to say: to learn at the then missionary schools. and to the reader? Who is the reader if it is to be challenged to explain, inter alia, why our “Even more than simply the inferiority of

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b o o k r e v i e w government would remunerate Cassper Nyovest’s Whether by design or accident it would seem the thirty-minute set with R250 000 but offer a poet R5 People’s Poet understood his target market, 000 for his lines over the same duration? I was whether he carried out a SWOT analysis or not, K Sello Duiker’s Thirteen told it is those sapiens devoid of melanin that turn the audience was ready for the work he produced. to find ways of monetizing the fine arts better than By 1994, it would seem that the national palate for Cents turns twenty us. Kgositsile and Mnyele were resurrected to poetry changed. But of course, the self- appointed prove that the artform was once great and it must oracles of poetry would to this day insist this is not have been failed by us not creating some so. They would insist on prescribing what their words siza nkosi imaginary systems to make sustainability possible. audience or target market should be consuming, poet/scholar – real poetry! How presumptuous and arrogant! Why should anyone need a dictionary to It’s, therefore, no surprise that the market is read, understand and relish a poem written answering back very loudly with its pockets or feet by not only your contemporary but also but are they being heeded? But then again you Kabelo Sello Duiker was born on April 13, 1974 in don’t find many poets in any business school to Soweto. This novelist and screenwriter adopted his kinsman? Does this perhaps not create second name Sello (also his grandfather’s name) learn market segmentation techniques, so shit is an exclusive society of the illuminated. apparently because Sello is a poetic name. hardly surprising! Azure enhances the view from the street by using Duiker’s debut novel Thirteen Cents was published isicamtho – a combination of Sesotho, Isizulu, Still unlike the Illuminati, this collective is broken, Lebo Mashile’s spoken word offering of 2005 in 2000, making this year its 20th anniversary. In his English and Afrikaans. Isicamtho brings the reader indigent and economically desolate. So why not packaged as a music album remains a good introduction of Thirteen Cents, Shaun Viljoen quotes closer to Azure’s daily street kid’s life of survival in use everyday language and accessible phrases to starting point, as a case study, if poets are to Duiker on his definition of his second name “… it South Africa. He lives in Sea Point, fathers a nine- produce still beautiful pieces? Why can’t poets achieve commercial success without altering the means lament! Someone who always cries out year-old naughty boy Bafana, helps to park cars for credited with creativity as there are, find artform. about things he sees — like injustice. It is a name money, takes a bath in the sea and sells sex to innovative solutions to their very own plight and that is very tied to ancestral voices.” Ironically, his Alternatively we could phrase the question mainly white married men. Duiker presents a society great-grandfather had changed his African name to cease burdening Foundations and other donors differently. If any (other) poet can #FillUpTheDome, through Azure’s eyes that is still challenged with Duiker to be classified as Coloured for better with their own livelihoods yet writing about what then Cassper does not deserve to be paid his issues of inequity. employment opportunities and preferential everyone else ought to do? R250 000. treatment. That was at the height of apartheid when The novel is written in the first person, with an Poets usually have a shit load to say about South Africans were racially classified and innocent voice of a child. Azure who also likes everyone, so let me break it down for them just this Either poetry remains an expression hierarchied. looking clean like ‘grown ups,’ takes a bath in once. seawater. He meets a lot of older people who are full against the internal continued Duiker suffered a nervous breakdown in 2004 and of stories and only interested in exploiting him for The dislocation I kicked off this offering with, was dislocation or there is a rethink and the was admitted to a mental institution. It is believed money, sex and power. The sexual scenes are as understood by Mphahlele and his ilk and thus a that the medication he took suppressed his consumer becomes integral to the process violent as the racism, police corruption, drug abuse response was crafted around protest poetry. creativity. Unfortunately he ended his life in January of development and marketing a product and the bullying he survives on the street. Hughes, Neto and Neruda among many others called poetry 2005 just before turning 31. Apart from Thirteen espoused this brand of poetry. Lesego Cents, Duiker also penned two other novels; The Azure is demonstrated as a strong and self-reliant young man who can make choices about his life, for Rampolokeng, Mafika Gwala and Lefifi Tladi in Quiet Violence of Dreams and The Hidden Star. In If not, am afraid there is a lot of motherfuckers out instance never to use drugs. However, it is when he South Africa assisted me to achieve Thirteen Cents Azure the protagonist, introduces there whose art will never feed them; thus their saves money to buy ice cream that the reader is consciousness around the dislocation eloquently himself in the first few lines of the book, giving the cavorting with words will remain incestuous, reminded that he is only a child. Towards the end of described by Mphahlele. reader his physical description and background: between them and their immediate families! the story, the reader gets into a whimsical world of “My name is Azure. Ah-zoo-ray … I have blue eyes wet dreams with women, of conquering, of hope and a dark skin … I lost my parents three years ago. and of spirituality. Azure gets away from the city and By reading their work I became aware Papa was bad with money and got Mama in trouble. motlatjo seima is an investment banking eagle spends three days on the mountains, meditating …“I that I was the ‘other’ and has been The day they killed him I was away at school. I came and a poet. He is an ardent golfer. He lives in know what fear is … I have seen the centre of ‘othered’ by the dominant, male, white back to our shack only to find them in a pool of blood.” Joburg. darkness... My mother is dead. My father is dead.” and Anglo-Saxon culture. Azure tells the story of his street life with an honest Though the novel was published 20 years ago, the voice and simple ordinary images that cause issues Duiker presented through Azure are still a Why is it that Mzwakhe Mbuli, who is considered discomfort to the reader. The simple voice and reality today. whack and not a poet by the self-appointed images help the novel to carry the heavy politics of oracles of poetry, remains one of the all-time most identity and language, sexuality, poverty, racism commercially successful poets in South Africa? and mental illness that South Africa is still grappling siza nkosi is a poet. She is also a lecturer at Sol with, 20 years after the novel was first published. Plaatje University

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elderly men, killing elderly women, The distinction made between historical being an actual being even cows and sheep, even corresponds to ka Plaatjie’s amathamba and amagogotya, Finding Mangaliso: children too”. They made the respectively. It is also about distinguishing between the song to seal Nongqawuse’s fate, uncompromising and total rejection of colonial imposition as A desire to rediscover claiming she presided over a opposed to seeking forms of cooperation with colonists. Such was 19th-century genocide. Such the contrast between Ndlambe and his prophet Makana on the one the ‘real’ Robert misguided understanding of hand and Nqgika and his prophet Ntsikana on the other. At the risk Nongqawuse is unfortunate. of oversimplifying Robinson, amathamba renounced actual being Sobukwe Repeating what are blatantly for historical beings as did Ndlambe and his prophet Makana. settler-colonial prejudices about Amagogotya, on the other hand, opt for actually being in a state of forms of anti-colonial struggles formal obedience as colonial subjects, a model pioneered by deemed an affront to colonial Nqgika and his prophet, Ntsikana. malesela steve lebelo words sensibilities perpetuates The dispersal of the amathamba (those who embraced Nongqawuse intellectual/writer historical epistemicide. and historical being) helped spread the paradigm across the region, For over thirty years, inspiring later generations in anti-colonial struggles. black radical scholars The possibility exists then that in the fifty years between have shown a great deal of the cattle-killing drama and the 1906 Bambatha admiration and respect for Rebellion Nongqawuse’s paradigm was nurtured in Nongqawuse as a theme Sobukwe’s birthplace and beyond. in black studies. Yet Sobukwe’s historical purpose would be to carry the unbreakable thread thirty-five years later, of Nongqawuse’s paradigm, of historical being, from the cattle-killing Nongqawuse’s mutilation BOOK TITLE AUTHOR YEAR PUBLISHER ISBN drama to the Sharpeville massacre. A discerning graduate student The Making of a Thami ka Plaatjie 2020 KMM Review 978-06-39902-425 continues. could even explore a research study with the evocative title: “From Pan Africanist Leader Writing in 1983, black radical Nonqgqawuze to Sharpeville: A century of ideologically non-secular scholar CJ Robinson remarked forms of anti-colonial struggles in South Africa”. and self-preservation to establish an independent Sobukwe biographies are not that in anti-colonial struggles Nongqawuse’s renunciation of actual being for historical beings Afrikaner state” (p.5). In the shadows of this town abundant. Thankfully, Thami ka “there was the violence of course. can be traced back to Ndlambe and his prophet, Makana. Their grew Masizakhe, a township where 3 000 Plaatjie is not claiming that “the Fees But in this tradition, it most often response to the rise of modern terror provoked the Fifth Frontier war survivors of the famine resulting from the cattle- Must Fall Movement” or “the Rhodes was turned inwards: the action of 1818 to 1819. Nqgika, on the advice of his prophet, Ntsikana, killing rebuilt their lives in 1857. Sixty-seven years Must Fall Movement” or “Data Must Fall against the passive or as was the cooperated with colonists. Tiyo Soga – son of one of Ntsikana’s later, Sobukwe was born in this township. The Movement” inspired his biography of case of Nongqawuse of 1856, the converts, along with authors and poets like SEK Mqhayi, JJ Jolobe, circumstances of his birth offer mouth-watering Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe. community against its material RM Chaka, LT Manyase, JP Yako and HM Ndawo – is the medium possibilities for establishing the link, subliminal or aspect. This was not ‘savagery’ through which Sobukwe is exposed to the history of resistance. otherwise, between Sobukwe and Nongqawuse. as the gentlemen-soldiers of the Some historians also claim that Soga was the father of African Yet ka Plaatjie perpetuates the demonisation of 19th and 20th-century European His was the consuming desire to rediscover the nationalism. Others even assert that he propagated the black Nongqawuse and is determined to distance armies arrogantly reported to “real” Sobukwe. A compelling reason for a renewed consciousness philosophy. Sobukwe from the “19th-century false prophet”. their beloved publics at home. An search is Sobukwe’s gross under-representation in So, 19th-century anti-colonial struggles, particularly in the Xhosa It would have been appropriate that if ka Plaatjie external object did not inspire liberation struggle historiography. However, the society, are critical in understanding the political philosophy of invokes Nongqawuse in a biography about “the this violence; it was not biography raises more questions than it answers. Sobukwe. The accounts of these chroniclers are foundational in the making of a Pan Africanist” leader, to simultaneously understood as part of an attack construction of African nationalism. The inclusion of Ntsikana and This review shines a spotlight on some of the rescue her from posthumous mutilations visited on the system or engagement Soga in this genre suggests that ka Plaatjie represents the critical questions and proposes answers. It also upon her. Instead, ka Plaatjie mobilises the Xhosa with an abstraction of oppressive transmission lines of the 19th century model of anti-colonial struggle recognises and seizes the opportunity to set the society across the Eastern Cape in denouncing structures and relations. Rather it as running along the Nqgika-Ntsikana-Soga axis. In abandoning record straight on numerous themes related to the Nongqawuse. He asserts that “years later a song of was their Jonestown, our Nongqawuse in the devastation of 1856, ka Plaatjie succeeds in historiography of the liberation struggle. lamentation for the tragedy of Nongqawuse was Nongqawuse, the renunciation of taking out the model transmitted along the Ndlambe-Makana- It all began in Graaff-Reinet, ka Plaatjie tells the composed and became very popular in the Eastern actual being for historical being.” Nongqawuse axis, the struggle for historical being, out of the reader. It was a settlement of “trekboers inspired Cape” (p.11). It thundered: ‘Hayi Nongqawuse, This formulation is esoteric, even equation in the making of nationalism and a Pan-Africanist leader. by the nationalist sentiments of self-determination daughter of Mhlakaza, destroyed our nation, killing for ka Plaatjie.

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The legacy 19th-century anti-colonial struggles bequeath But the Rebellion also acted as a birth. The Industrial Workers dropping charcoal bombs on Some chiefs, sensing the to 20th-century resistance politics is the struggle for actual filter for the two divergent Union organised the work white society. In 1921, after growing popularity of UNIA, being, a paradigm transmitted through the Nqgika- paradigms that characterised stoppage. Similarly, ka Plaatjie nearly two years of a standoff, joined chapters of the Ntsikana-Soga axis. 19th-century anti-colonial makes a feeble attempt to Prime Minister Jan Smuts sent in movement. struggles. Elements transmitted implicate the ANC in the All- an army, which killed 163 The impact of “the up from slavery” experience of Jim Crow in When the Wellingtonian along the Ngqika-Ntsikana-Soga Africa Convention’s opposition Israelites in what is known as America and the rise of the New Negro in the making of African Movement declined at the end of axis found their way into the to Hertzog’s Natives Trust and the Bulhoek Massacre. nationalism in South Africa cannot be underestimated. Yet ka the 1920s and early in the 1930s founding conference of the Land Act of 1936. It is a truism of Plaatjie fails to explore this resource as a factor in “the making of a Throughout the 1920s the saw other similarly structured South African Native National history that in the quarter of a Pan Africanist leader”. Wellingtonian Movement, led by formations emerging. For much of Congress (SANNC) in century between the end of the Wellington Buthelezi, set up the 1930s Prophetess Nontetha The performances of American Gospel Singers, the Virginia Jubilee Bloemfontein 1912. Elements First World War in 1919 and the chapters of UNIA in Natal, the mobilised communities in a Swingsters from 1890 to 1892 and again in 1895 to 1898 politicised transmitted through the end of World War II in 1944 the Eastern Cape and eastern parts movement seeking land to the Natives who interacted with the casts. They sang and performed Ndlambe-Makana-Nongqawuse ANC was moribund. of Lesotho. These chapters establish schools and churches. biblical spirituals that were mainly based on the theme of axis were deflected into the The quest for historical being, undertook campaigns She too spoke of divine emancipation, which even the President of the Transvaal could Native sphere to be overlooked deflected into the Native sphere demanding land from colonial intervention to end colonialism. relate to in respect of encroaching British imperialism on the eve of entirely in the construction of the at the end of the Bambatha authorities and chiefs to build She died at Kgosi Mampuru the Anglo-Boer War. historical narrative of the 20th Rebellion, resurfaced their schools and churches. Prison in 1937. The movement she It is in this context that African christians linked to the African century. intermittently during the first Mgijima’s nephew, Gilbert inspired endured until 1941 when Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) established the Ethiopian Church thirty-two years of the ANC’s Matshoba, had reported to him the last of its projects shut down. of South Africa (ECSA). The ECSA became the 14th Chapter of the Ironically, it is for existence, 1912 to 1932. In 1919, “that Garvey had predicted that being the face of the the Israelites, a religious the blood of wars is about to AME. At the end of the Anglo-Boer War, the British colonial malesela steve lebelo is an author, struggle for the community outside Queenstown arrive. Matshoba seemed authorities became hostile to African-Americans in South Africa, thinker, theorist and a pan– historical being ideal led by Enoch Mgijima occupied convinced that UNIA would soon blaming them for radicalising natives. At the centre of the alleged Africanist. He lives in Joburg. politicisation was the ECSA’ fixation on the message implied in that accounts for Crown land and refused to move compel European colonists to Psalm 68:31. Sobukwe’s gross when ordered to do so. The leave Africa”. Colonial under-representation in Israelites believed that African authorities in towns and cities Princes will come out of Egypt and Ethiopia will stretch the liberation struggle Americans of Marcus Garvey’s petitioned the national her arms to God. historiography. United Negro Improvement government to intervene when Association (UNIA) were going confronted with demands for The text was interpreted as a reference to Ethiopia as an ancient There is very little of the SANNC to descend in aeroplanes land from chapters of the UNIA. African Christian kingdom that symbolised African independence. that ka Plaatjie reflects on in the Colonial officials demonised the ECSA as seditious; blaming them for period between its formation in just about any intransigence to colonial rule, including the Bambatha 1912 and the creation of the p o e t ry Rebellion of 1906. In 1905 editor of the Christian Express David African National Congress Youth SMILES and BUTTERFLIES Sharing is the only outlet. Hunter claimed that black-owned newspaper and a mouthpiece of League in 1944. The absence is Some of the words you read or the AME, Voice of Missions “embodied Africa for the Africans ideal”. no fault of his. The SANNC, When I write I flood my eyes, heard is how I bled. This resource, it seems, played no role in the making of Sobukwe, a When the which was renamed the African Honestly its not all smiles and My pain is lead, Pan Africanist leader, despite the mouth-watering possibilities of National Congress (ANC) in 1923, weight butterflies. Sometimes too heavy for a book his family’s link to the AME and Africa for the Africans’ ideal offer. accomplished little in that Its a shield shattering battle to carry. The Bambatha Rebellion is, therefore, a watershed between forms period. Apart from the settles in between my truth and my lies. Emotions so big, no six feet of anti-colonial struggles of the 19th century and those of the 20th delegation sent to Westminster In essence, these words are my grave could bury. cries. century. to protest the Natives Land Act flo the poet There is staring into the abyss of 1913 and the appeal for Every letter is a pool of tears self defeat, and the sweet scent recognition considering from my soul’s eyes. of deceit. Many pages are mud made of Equally concerning is the absence of the Bambatha Africans’ support for the British Some selling out with no receipt. ink, Rebellion in a discourse about the transition from 19th in World War I, it did little else. century anti–colonial struggles marked by spear–wielding In which with every thought I Most are acknowledgement that ka Plaatjie embellishes its profile think I sink. I am weak. Amabutho or warriors to 20th–century resistance politics when he links the ANC to the Its an endless ocean with no There’s also smiles and led by Thembeka Ngqukaitobi’s “Ama–respectables.” work stoppage in Bloemfontein brim or brink. butterflies in 1924, the year of Sobukwe’s Your ears are my sink.

P/50 P/51 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 o p i n i o n to search through, having lost themselves as subjects – not months of solitude, falls in love its malleability to the stringent just objects – of history, there with a man she would spend the need of those telling it to portray are a few black writers in South rest of her life with.2 themselves as conquerors and Africa’s troubled history whose The African in Plaatje’s work liberators, is only accessible to work has helped lift this veil. is alive, and her life counts for Writing Black Lives them through the biased lens One such writer, whose work more than just her ability to dig of white narration; while the has remained relevant for into the earth or clean after other future, which is also driven by many generations, is Solomon people’s children. As a result, into History the objectives of white narration, Tshekisho Plaatje, known to the African, in Plaatje’s work, relies on the shaky hope of the many as Sol T Plaatje. is more than just an object on Sol Plaatje and future success of capitalism and Born October 9, 1876, Solomon which history happened. Rather, having corruption-free political his role in etching Plaatje, having published she is an actor in its violent governance, two aspects of African lives multiple books and other literary drama, playing her own role in modern life that have caused as works documenting the lives of determining the route it takes. into the annals much harm as they have helped African people during the early in propelling humanity to the Because most of Plaatje’s work of South African stages of the development of the was written during the early heights it finds itself today. Union of South Africa, is one of a history stages of the Union of South few African writers whose work As a result of this, the Africa and covers periods has helped shine a light on the present, for many black leading up to its development, thato rossouw African faces who, otherwise, words people, can only be most of it makes evident to the would have been left behind by essayist/writer reader the foundations on which understood as the result of white narrative. history and future that many of today’s problems were When reading his work, which built. From the passing of laws oladimeji odunsi are, fundamentally, white. image includes the famed Native Life that turned many African people @oladimeg To find traces of themselves in South Africa (1916) and Mhudi into vagrants (Natives’ Land Act, With its absurdities, made possible only by in history, many black people (1930), one always finds that, 1913), to battles that separated the present – if looked scrutinising the past and turn to the mostly academic unlike other narratives of the many families and nations (the at with an impartial preparing for the future. In narratives that were written time, Plaatjie’s work was driven war between the Matebele and more about them than they eye – is nothing more order for one to understand by a need to give life to the the Barolong), his work links why things are the way they are for them. These narratives than an amalgam of all black bodies that had lived on together the broken pieces of are today, why people act the once exhumed from the aged the pages of white narrators for history that many black people that was, coupled with way they do and say the things canons of academia, reveal many years as empty vessels have struggled to put together for the possibilities of all they say, they first have to know black people, at least in the incapable of growing out of their many years. that could be. what was said and done in eyes of those writing them, primal instincts. Furthermore, due to his role the past, while simultaneously as nothing more than objects as a political leader (he was That is to say, the now preparing for what people plan of anthropological inquiry, As a result, when reading the founding Secretary of the we currently inhibit, to say and do in the future. people to study and analyse, Plaatje’s work, the reader South African Native National if studied with honest instead of subjects capable of is certain to find the But, burdened with distorted Congress, known today as the intention, will be found self-determination and self- pasts and uncertain futures, African people living in African National Congress), actualisation. to be nothing more than many black people in South them attributed the most of Plaatje’s work also had a collection of every Africa find it difficult to gain Because of this, black people emotions, faculties, and political motives. human act ever enacted, any sort of understanding of have, for many years, seen intelligence they deserve. For instance, by writing Native both good and bad, the unfortunate present they themselves as being without The African in Plaatje’s work is, Life in South Africa, Plaatje coupled with every act find themselves in. agency in the course of our intended to do more than just country’s history, making amongst other things, a parent man plans to enact in For many black people, document the effects the Natives’ it difficult for them to see who mourns the loss of a child the future. looking into both history Land Act of 1913 had on African themselves becoming actors they had to bury under the dark and the future in order to people in South Africa after its Because of this, the task of in both its present and future. cover of night because of a law gain an understanding of passing. Rather, he planned to making sense of the present, However, even with the veil of that had forced them out of their the present can be a futile 1 use the findings documented in while having proved itself white narrative still denying homes ; and a lover who, after exercise. In most cases, it to make a plea to the Imperial elusive for many people, is black people a chance to see 1 This is taken from one of the many stories the history they have Plaatje tells in Native Life in South Africa (1915). 2 This is taken from the plot of Mhudi (1930).

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Government to ‘end the suffering South Africans have learned act that will lead to them not only ONLINE RADIO of the native English subjects of that their history is not as void seeing themselves as a necessary one of His Majesty’s colonies of dignified, courageous, and part of the present, but also a due to an unjust act passed by its’ loving figures as they were led necessary one of the future. parliament’.3 to believe. They have learned

As a result, Plaatje’s work not only that the African was not always thato rossouw established African people as docile and submissive; that the is a Law student social beings, it also established rebellious fires that burn in each at UFS. He is an ardent reader, them as political ones. of their chests were sparked by passionate debater and the fighters for the liberation that discussant. Together with his colleagues came before them and that the from the South African Natives present and future, as white as National Congress, Plaatjie they may seem at present, are fought to have African people theirs for the taking! p o e t ry included in the colonial parliament, arguing that they When reading the history documented in Plaatje’s work, had just as much right to be in it Warrior love in the as everyone else, especially if the the mist that hides the true decisions it took affected them cause of black suffering lifts, forest – Mhudi’s song the way they do. and the white mask that covers the present and future falls off, marukgwane moremogolo Nevertheless, even with revealing the black face that lies beneath. When reading it, his political career Let me see if you can love me the sources of the chains that thriving at the time, have shackled black people for for if, it is a dream Plaatie’s work as a many years are revealed, and it wake me not, writer did more to becomes clear to them who they rather you, my joy not killed imprint African lives need to defeat in order to free but if you are real into South Africa’s themselves. kill me a beast history than his political Plaatie’s work might not be the Love me in the forest career ever did. only one that has successfully surely with the beast slain, written black lives into South our universe, His work as a writer helped Africa’s history, but its meticulous we shall rebuild establish a foundation on which focus on the daily lived in your hands, passions reside many African writers after his experiences of Black people has ooh badimo, bless me a man that time built their own, unique brought to it a layer of life that cooks narratives, and it carved a path many lack. through which many continue to Love in our universe walk today. Because of this, his as the branches of your tree Through reading Plaatje’s work, work transcends time your current refuge, many black South Africans and continues to remain the city of Tholo shall rise have come to understand how relevant years after its as the spirits destined and why our country got to the first appearance. ooh badimo, let this be love at state it currently is. They have first sight come to learn the injustices In the end, the reading of their ancestors had to endure Plaatje’s work by black people is Love me the warrior I am under the crushing weight of the not just an act of learning. Rather, in my independent soul colonial West, and how many it is a politically charged act and well–trimmed hair, stood to fight against it. Through through which they raise from the not intimidate, reading his work, many black dead the black bodies that were your shallow masculinity left in the canals of South African 3 Taken from Bessie Head introduction, “Look- ooh badimo, can I have his ing Back: Foreword to Raven Press edition of history! It is a politically charged children Native Life in South Africa, 1982”. literature + jazz www.jazzrepublic.co.za 54 P/55 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2

o p i n i o n / z i m o l o g y trees in the school for the green Teachers are ill–equipped to After finishing our water, it was and scientific reasons but also deal with special needs and in time to go to Observatory. for a very social function that is under–resourced schools, it Our visit to Observatory was I woke up early today After finalising a few things artwork from a self–taught the need for shade. There is one sadly means we are keeping brief as it was on our way to the because it is going to leading up to the final parent of one of the kids that tree in the school that is not children until they're officially CBD to collect friends for some paperwork on Wednesday attend the school. It became very hedge that is fencing the trees. adults at 18 then they are no be a long day given much needed mind–body morning, I now sit comfortably apparent that this artist requires The Principal likened the longer the school's fault but workout. We had previously how much I had to do with a confirmation of 70 trees, support to get their work out to clustering of students under this society's at large. The need for suggested going for a walk in preparation for the 35 each to be split between the the world and I call on my one tree to sheep, I understood special programmes in the (really a hike) at the foot of Table Green Birthday on two partner schools. friends who are artists, curators only too well what he meant as I absence or in addition to special Mountain. The sun was still Wednesday. I spoke It was time to visit the schools and artist managers to avail have seen this from sheep teachers is needed. The scorching so we sat down for a themselves to help this most seeking shelter from harsh appreciation for the medium of to the South African and my connection to the snack and drink to boost energy schools was more than eager to talented painter. The Principal weather. play as a learning tool is cut too and wait for the sun to grow National Biodiversity facilitate the meet up with the will invite them to be part of the The principal and teacher suddenly in formal schooling tired. Tired it grew and up the Institute (SANBI) and principals. I am blessed to be Green Birthday on Wednesday. concluded the formal and children learn in ways that slopes of Kloof Street we went through them, other leveraging on a strong There is a mural on the school discussions and escorted us to are not in accordance to their through the curious suburb of partners that will relationship here between the premises of comrade Ashley the rest of the school to natural development. Higgovale with majestic and Kriel inspired by Nadine Angel donate trees towards school principals and my friend brainstorm where we would There is virtually no music in the monumental houses shaded by who is a retiree that worked on Cloete's phenomenal plant the trees. We will require classroom, it is perceived as canopies of trees. my Green Birthday. the education programme on documentary of Ashley Kriel. I the help of SANBI to advise on noise whereas children learn a The struggle against the Robben Island where I have wish more schools screened this each tree and its characteristics lot through audio–visual media. I temptation to compare this leafy beneath and above the soil was happy to see a fantastic neighbourhood to Langa and (roots and branches) so as to reading club with learners Bonteheuwel was overwhelming My feet are hot but I am getting determine the suitable spots to shared by award-winning writer and we gave in with endless plant without risking the Lidudumalingani. I will connect comparisons dressed in black underground infrastructure. with them to share their secret humour, the real function of it ahead of myself by starting As it turns out, the school had and partner with other being to make you laugh so as applied to SANBI for a donation communities where possible. not to cry because that would be with the end and on Wednesday they were Sadly, and this we must admit, the real response. As we walked going to meet and perhaps this parents too often see reading through Tuscany and Dutch to many ties to that place from fantastic documentary film for words sabelo mncinziba would help expedite things once clubs and such programmes as modern and futuristic design Autshumato to Maqoma to their learners and beyond. I will writer/activist the faces behind the names sites to dump their children homes, we were met, perhaps Sobukwe. The first school we – through my growing network meet. Another request to friends while they go on about their confronted with gazes and visited was Bonteheuwel High –suggest this to schools. The visit with experience in landscaping other preoccupations and times smiles from what we can only and we were received with to the next school was across the to help this school curate its to pick up kids stretch for hours presume to be the owners and to warmth. I was introduced and I road to Langa, Silimela. huge bare grounds. I will help and what is joyful turns these we shall return. spoke to the idea behind my The first impression one gets of them apply for benches and park burdensome. We walk by heightened ivy walls green birthday to the delight of this school is that this is a school bins for the kids to have a proper We are yet to change the with cameras steadfastly the school principal who thought that already upholds the ethos of courtyard experience that is mindset of parents in ghetto suspended on the trees so that it necessary to bring the Head of a green environment as they shaded, green and humanizing. schools that schools are not these same trees perform the Department and Natural Science have tree fencing and a beautiful After both school visits, with a holding grounds for children or double function of continuing subject teacher. We met both lawn at the face of the school. tremendous sense of fulfillment, places where they evade their the gaze after their primary teachers and their immediate Upon meeting the most endearing it was time to have some water responsibility of parenting the function of forming a barrier excitement could barely be teacher whose smile never left with yet another beautiful soul child beyond feeding them. from sight by passers–by. After contained. We brainstormed on the face any longer than two whose heart bleeds for children. Better skilled people will surely the uphill road, we appear at the the logistics of the day and successive blinks, she introduced We immediately went into the do this work – I hope it is sooner foot of Table Mountain as we concluded amicably with great us to the Principal and we practice of teaching and than later – to break this cycle had promised ourselves. We anticipation and enthusiasm for presented our idea for the Green learning in the local schools and and foster the full cycle of decide to do more than we had Wednesday. On the walls of the Birthday. The Principal and the picture is quite woeful. learner–parent–teacher. promised ourselves because the school principal is captivating teacher spoke to the need of

P/56 P/57 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 energies are still high so we love for the social environment perhaps especially – the largest b o o k e X t r a c t continue beyond the foot of which after centuries of sector of their unemployed Table Mountain. We reach what colonialism, seems impossible to demographic which go by their would perhaps be the ankles of tame as evidenced by our renowned nickname of horns, ran almost wild and multiplied as prolifically Table Mountain. The official presence beyond what should housewives! But of course some Mhudi as the wild animals of the day. Work was of a photograph of Cape Town to have been our psychological are not wives but ‘children of perfunctory nature, for mother earth yielded her visitors is before us and we are border. Trusts’. Whatever unfortunate bounties and the maiden soil provided ample words sol t. plaatje looking into it as though we are group they come from, they sustenance for man and beast. We walk beyond the knee and writer/translator/politician peaking in when in fact it is the first member of our team seem to eat and drink endlessly. But woman’s work was never out of season. probably looking at us rather signals fatigue, the domino Eating is surely the concern of all image ian kiragu curiously, for extending ourselves including those who live far from In the summer she cleared the cornfields of weeds effect is instant and we turn @_kiragu_ beyond what should have been around to try to reach ground them, who work for them and and subsequently helped to winnow and gamer the a psychological barricade in our before the sun is completely at who smile for them. crops. In the winter she cut the grass and helped to minds. rest. We reach ground and the Let me end where I began – that book eXtract ‘mhudi: centenary edition’. geko (2020) renovate her dwelling. In addition to the inevitable foreword sabata–mpho mokae cooking, basket–making and weaving, all the art– We proceed further up the side city has changed. The mass of my feet are hot. They are flesh on painting for mural decorations were done by of this Wonder of the World and brown bodies have evacuated rubber with body weight exerted women. unmistakably wonderful it is in the city to the outskirts the eye on them with the sun on my Two centuries ago the Bechuana all its justifiable and boastful cannot see from the foot of the back. tribes inhabited the extensive Childless marriages were as rare as freaks, so, early and late in summer and winter, during years natural glory. glorious mountain. areas between Central Transvaal and the Kalahari Desert. Their of drought and of plenty, every mother had to Far from the foot and well off the As we walk down to Kloof Street My feet are hot because I nourish her growing brood, besides fattening and ankle of Table Mountain, we towards its lower part, one inherit the burden of entire world lay in the geography beautifying her daughters for the competition of reach now what must be its knee cannot help but notice the buzz history that keeps Langa covered by the story in these pages. eligible swains. if you grant me a stretch of the in all the restaurants and they and Bonteheuwel as Fulfilling these multifarious duties of the household metaphor. In this terrain, the are exceedingly more than a Langa and Bonteheuwel was not regarded as a drudgery by paths are narrower, the sounds handful. The restaurants are in order for Kloof and In this domain they led their patriarchal any means, on the contrary, the of nature in water, insects and filled with white folk and in a few Higgovale to remain life under their several chiefs who women looked upon other natural animals are loud. of them, white folk are even Kloof and Higgovale. owed no allegiance to any king or marriage as an art; A curious phenomenon ensues willing to stand in a queue, a emperor. They raised their the daughter of a rare sight. At this point we are maize corn which satisfied well–to–do that any black person who has My feet are hot because they hiked once or twice will notice extremely concerned by this their simple wants and peasant, are charged by the high voltage when not engaged in and it is this: white people are crisis that the government is not of the currency of justice and hunting or in pastoral uncharacteristically friendly in taking seriously. The crisis is this love in the face of indulgent duties, the peasants narrow paths. – white people are not eating in indifference. whiled away their their homes because they do not They greet first, certainly and My feet of flesh, are actually feet days in tanning skins have food. loudly, enthusiastically and of clay, which will all soon be or sewing This obvious cry for help is nervously albeit masked too well mud if this country is not magnificent fur rugs. always ignored because a lot of except that we have seen all compelled by justice to right its They also smelted you are mistaken to think it is a their masks. They are friendly wrongs; historic and present iron and sign of wealth to eat at – very friendly. Now you can which smog and fog the future manufactured useful restaurants but at this rate, assume that it is because of fear. with the explosion that Langston implements which perhaps we need to revise our today would be You would not be wrong too Hughes writes about when a thinking. There might be a crisis pronounced very many times given that fear is the dream is deferred. primordial motif of engagement of hunger in the white crude by their semi- with black South African society community and the public westernised descendants. on the part of white South Africa. displays at restaurants are a sabelo mncinziba is a pan– It could also be that white people desperate cry for help because Cattle breeding was Africanist and a social activist. white people, whatever hour of the rich man’s calling are friendly in the wilderness He lives in Cape Town. because their love for the natural the day, are always eating and and hunting a national enterprise. Their cattle, environment far surpasses their drinking. This includes – or which carried enormous

P/58 P/59 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 surrounded by all the luxuries of her mother’s of drought the majority went short of porridge. At length the Matabele established as their capital commanded some young men to take the two to home, would be the object of commiseration if she Strange to relate, these simple folk were perfectly the city of Inzwinyani in Bahurutshe territory, the the ravine and “lose them”, which is equivalent to were a long time finding a man. And the simple happy without money and without silver watches. Bechuana inhabitants being permitted to remain a death sentence. The tax collectors were dragged women of the tribes accepted wifehood and on condition that their chiefs should pay tribute to away without notice and almost before they transacted their onerous duties with the same Abject poverty was practically unknown; Mzilikazi. Gradually enlarging their dominion, the realised their doom they were stabbed to death. satisfaction and pride as an English artist would they had no orphanages because there were Matabele enforced taxation first upon one and ‘I am told’, said the narrator, ‘that, before his the job of conducting an orchestra. no nameless babies. then another of the surrounding Bechuana clans, death, Bhoya, with his hands manacled, Kunana, near the present boundary between Cape including the Barolong at Kunana, whose chief at When a man had a couple of karosses to make he gesticulated and cried: “You dogs of a Western Colony and Western Transvaal was the capital city the time was Tauana. breed, you are going to suffer for this. You shall of the Barolong, the original stock of the several invited the neighbours to spend the day with him Perhaps the new administration might have cutting, fitting in and sewing together the sixty pay with your own blood and the blood of your tribes, who also followed the humdrum yet worked well enough; but, unfortunately, the children for laying your base hands on the courier interesting life of the other Bechuana natives. grey jackal pelts into two rugs and there would be conquerers not only imported a fresh discipline intervals of feasting throughout the day. of King Mzilikazi. A Matabele’s blood never They planted their stations in different directions but they also introduced manners that were mingled with the earth without portending death over scores of miles; and it was often easier to kill On such an occasion, someone would announce a extremely offensive even for these primitive and destruction. Kill me with your accursed hands, wild animals nearer home than go to the cattle field day at another place where there was a people. For instance, the victorious soldiers were you menial descendants of mercenary post for meat. Very often the big game ran thalala– dwelling to thatch; here too the guests might in the habit of walking about in their birthday garb hammersmiths and you have sown the seed of motse (when wild animals continued their frolics receive an invitation from a peasant who had a thereby forcing the modest Bechuana women and your own doom. Do you hear me?” straight through a Native village) when there stockade to erect at a third homestead on a children to retire on each appearance of Matabele would be systematic slaughter of antelopes and subsequent day; and great would be the men. This hide–and–seek life, which proved more ‘He was still speaking when Rauwe stabbed him orgies of wild–beef eating. expectation of the fat bullock to be slaughtered by inconvenient than accommodating, was ill in the breast. He fell forward, gave a gasp and a groan, rolled up the whites of his large dull eyes Barolong cattlemen at times attempted to create the good man, to say nothing of the good things to calculated to inspire respect for the new authority. be prepared by the kind hostess. Thus a month’s and after uttering a dread imprecation, sank back a new species of animal by cross–breeding Needless to say, this outrage so shocking to local lifeless. between an eland and an ox. One cattle–owner, job would be accomplished in a day. susceptibilities, was resented by the original named Motonosi, not very far from Kunana, But the anomaly of this community life was that, population and became a perpetual source of ‘You can well understand’, said the emissary, ‘that raised two dozen calves all sired by a buffalo. while the many seams in a rich man’s kaross discontent. Still, the new discipline was not stern; Mzilikazi is not going to take such treatment lying The result proved so disastrous that Barolong carried all kinds of knittings – good, bad and and as long as each chief paid taxes each spring down; consequently the chief counsellors decided tradition still holds up his achievement as a indifferent – the wife of a poor man, who could not time in acknowledgement of his fealty to Mzilikazi, to take immediate steps to make amends. But as masterpiece of folly and attempts at cross– afford such a feast, was often gowned in flawless the Bechuana were left in undisturbed possession the chief would probably refuse to apologise, it breeding thereafter became taboo. furs. It being the skilled handiwork of her own of their old homes and haunts. One of Tauana’s was decided to summon home from the cattleposts all men of influence, to attend a tribal picho and These peasants were content to live their husband, the nicety of its seams seldom failed to righthand men was a wealthy chieftain, Notto by arrange a settlement before it is too late.’ monotonous lives and thought nought of their evoke the admiration of experts. name. Besides his home in the capital he owned overseas kinsmen who were making history on Upon these peaceful regions over one hundred three cattle stations and many cornfields in the Accordingly, Notto issued word that all men of the plantations and harbours of Virginia and years ago there descended one Mzilikazi, king of country. His son, Ra-Thaga, minded one of the importance should leave their fields at once and Mississippi at that time; nor did they know or a ferocious tribe called the Matabele, a powerful herds at a place called Mhuhucho. accompany him to the city. Two days later, a care about the relations of the Hottentots and usurper of determined character who by his sword One day, Notto set out to spend some time in the contingent of men, some walking, others mounted the Boers at Cape Town nearer home. The proclaimed himself ruler over all the land. country with his son in order to fulfil his pastoral on oxen (young Ra-Thaga among them), might topography of the Cape Peninsula would have had Mzilikazi’s tribe originally was a branch of the Zulu duties, such as earmarking the lambs and calves have been seen making their way in the direction no interest for them; and had anyone mentioned nation which Chaka once ruled with an iron rod. and braying skins and riems. of Kunana. the beauty spots of the Cape and the glory of Irritated by the stern rule of that monarch, One morning, while Notto was engaged in these So, towards evening, about six miles from the city, the silver trees on their own sub-continent they Mzilikazi led out his own people who thereupon occupations at the cattle-post, two men came the party was met by a large number of fleeing would have felt disappointed on hearing that broke away from Chaka’s rule and turned their from Kunana who walked like bearers of very women. The fugitives told them that Kunana was they bore no edible fruit. To them the limit of faces westward. Sweeping through the northern important news. After greeting him they related being attacked and the would–be interceders had the world was Monomotapa (Portuguese East areas of Port Natal, they advanced along both this startling information: ‘Two Matabele indunas, to abandon peace and forthwith arm for the fight. Africa) – a whiteman’s country – which they banks of the Vaal River, driving terror into man Bhoya and Bangela, had come to Kunana to To speak the truth, Ra-Thaga and the other young had no ambition to see. Of monetary wealth and beast with whom they came in contact. They gather the annual tribute. They duly announced bloods were glad. Old men liked to recount their they had none except their flocks and herds. continued their march very much like a swarm of the object of their visit and asked that six young wondrous deeds of valour in the wars they had A little bartering was done with neighbouring locusts; scattering the Swazis, terrifying the men should be supplied to carry the Barolong fought and young men were always pining for an tribes in exchange for other commodities and Basuto and the Bapedi on their outposts, they tribute for them and lay it “at the feet of Mzilikazi, opportunity to test their own strength in a really none could be so mean as to make a charge drove them back to the mountains at the point of ruler of earth and skies.” good fight. for supplying a fellow tribesman with the the assegai; and trekking through the heart of the ‘Chief Tauana’, the messengers went on, ‘received The young people had been complaining that necessaries of life. When the rainy season was Transvaal, they eventually invaded Bechuanaland the visitors with indifference and without these Zulus from the East were having things too good everyone had too much corn and in years where they reduced the natives to submission. informing his counsellors in any way, he much their own way and should be checked.

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Hence their delight on hearing that the two armpit; he could not pull it out again so he left him old place. The huts, the cattlefold, like the whole p o e t r y nations were at grips. But it must be confessed with it, saying as he did so, ‘Feel what these terrain from Kunana to Mhuhucho, bore gruesome that Notto held views of quite another character; mothers have felt, you vampire and may the spirits traces of the ravages of the Matabele in the shape yet how little did they dream when the fight began scorch your soul hereafter: of dead bodies, burnt huts and destroyed crops. The last border that evening in the twilight, that they were about to ‘I couldn’t tell’, he used to relate; ‘how long our Up to that time he had seen no sign of a living make their last stand together; or that Ra-Thaga after john dos passos struggle lasted, but eventually I found myself alone being, only abundant evidences of death. would never again set his eyes upon the man who raphael d’abdon gave him life. amongst a number of corpses, groaning men and After pondering for a while among the ruins, he expiring women. made for some adjacent kopje and surveyed the They all stood waiting for Notto’s orders when a country from the crest of the highest hillock. He remembering south of the river melancholy shout rent the evening air in the bush ‘At length I rose and searched through the field of carnage’, he said, ‘then came upon my father’s saw parties of the victors reconnoitring on the mold grows hard by. Not having reached the town, they were below the billowing waves body which lay lifeless between pools of blood. He plains, under the direction of others who were till then not aware that they were in the thick of the as willow leaves was dead. “My father, O my father”, I cried. “I signalling from the hilltops; Now and again he fight already; but women began to scream in the blow tears into the stream bush around and they could hear the Matabele wonder where and how mother is:’ observed a number of Barolong in full flight and hordes of Matabele at their heels. It was not swords at work. Notto gave the order to fall to and ‘Not far from there lay a woman between two dead an old girl difficult to divine the result of such a chase. they hurled themselves into the bush from which children. She was suffering frightful agonies, sweeps the leaves emanated the sickening wail. having fallen with her head bent down beneath Ra-Thaga travelled nearly two months without piled behind the door It was clear, from that moment, that the sun of the her body and being too weak to straighten herself. meeting a single soul. The loneliness was frightful. her promised heart peace–maker had set, never to rise again, for, by I straightened her out which eased her pain a bit During his flight and when he thought of the like chimes the faint light of the new moon, they noticed with and she lived just long enough to tell me what had devastation of the country, he often wondered lingering on a jeweled staircase horror that the Matabele were not fighting men happened; and that was the only story I ever what had become of the chief. He fully believed only; they were actually spearing fleeing women what corner of the heavens is she from? heard of the origin of the massacre and the that he, too, was killed with his wives and children and children. Ra-Thaga saw one of them killing a conflagration in the city. It was clear that she was and all his people. woman and as she fell back, the man grasped her sighs of stupor plunge into not far from the door of death; so, thinking of my little baby and dashed its skull against the trunk of signs written on stones mother and sisters, I decided to return to the fires forgotten a tree. The sight almost took his breath away. The sol t plaatje published the first novel in English – next moment a woman fell beside a tree, her fall burning city to learn something about them. Mhudi – in South Africa in 1930. It was completed along the last border hastened by a stab from behind. She carried her ‘On the way I heard two men coming from the in 1920. Plaatje was a founder member and first beyond the long sunset baby in a springbok skin, strapped to her back. opposite direction, speaking in undertones, in our General Secretary of the South African Native a female rain The skin loosened as she fell and a Matabele tongue and so I knew they were not enemies. I National Congress (SANNC) (later known as has gathered laughter and withdrawing the assegai from the mother’s side, African National Congress) spoke and they replied that they too were hurrying leans against the bamboos pierced her child with it and held the baby away to discover the fate of their women folk. transfixed in the air. “Kunana is in ruins,” they said, “the Barolong are Thinking nightmares mountain bones Maddened by these awful scenes, the Barolong wiped out and their home shall know them no cut their way peter horn (d. 2019) hurled themselves against the enemy and fought more.” Nevertheless, I decided to risk a journey through memories of home like fiends possessed, The bush, by this time, was into the burning town. At the Chief’s court, hordes screams rhyme the shots a howling pandemonium and what was seen and of Matabele soldiers were dancing round a and the tin of the taxi their deserted shadows heard made the survivors almost delirious with bonfire; evidently celebrating the avenging of one bullet stuck in the pots inside water songs… grief. Looking away they saw the flames shooting Bhoya’s death. The crossings and passages of the lady with the green maxi up from hundreds of blazing huts at Kunana and between the huts were full of dead bodies of licking the air in a reddish glow that almost turned friends and enemies and many of our women and the dance of the blood speeds the night into day. Then Ra-Thaga recognised his children. In our quarters, I saw none of our folk. through the arteries and veins father in the turmoil, holding a number of The corn in the mud bin was still smouldering, so, broken bones in the yellow weeds Keeping teddy bears assegais. He had evidently done much already for removing the parched grain from the top, I took pieces of brain on black skeins flo the poet he was panting heavily. out from underneath some good sound corn, the silences are like forgotten lies carried this in a knapsack and left the hideous We hugged cactuses for comfort ‘Charge and kill these beasts of prey!’ the between the corpses on the street place as quickly and as quietly as I had entered it.’ (We) kept teddy bears made of stone headman cried. the dogged hum of green flies to rock any nightmare that would dare Just at that moment a woman ran past him and a Ra-Thaga then made for the cattle–post which he around the now decaying meat Matabele from behind a tree, close by, speared and his father had left the day before. Arriving her also. Ra-Thaga drove his assegai into his there next morning, he could hardly recognise the the evening sky has lost its vital red #flothepoet #flomokale its cloudless white mourns our dead

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home. In the dream, she turned at what he was up to through when I looked at him, sleeping p o e t ry b o o k e X t r a c t her face to look at me and did the window. I never spoke to so peacefully, I could not bring not say anything. We knew her. Mbulelo about this. myself to spoil his sleep. As I In the morning, we sensed that walked down the stairs, I Who are we On Friday 27 March 1992 he the dream was a bad omen realised that I had not I visited his friends and came moemise motsepe and were both puzzled by kissed him goodbye, True back very late at night. It must what it could mean. The dream like we’d do, each have been just after midnight. bothered him so much so that time we parted I was fast asleep. He said: happiness he had inquired about it a week ways, and to ask who we are “Honey, there is something I later and he explained it to me. turned back. we want to tell you”. With my eyes I still did not understand its I looked at the people who call africa home nandi manentsa jessica felicio still closed, I suggested that he words image interpretation; he desperately him, he was whose heartbeat is the drum of tell me the thing in the morning writer/corporate leader @jeka_fe wanted us to do something so serene. africa’s lifeblood rather, before I left for Saturday about it but, we both did not to ask who we are classes. There was urgency in BOOK TITLE AUTHOR YEAR know what was to be done. in the face of the deficits & defects Untimely Beginnings: Nandi Manentsa (ed.) 2020 his voice, and he responded, from which we suffer Memoirs of Women A week later, as I scrubbed a “Honey, please remind me Who Defied Fate blot off the carpet and I had my tomorrow”. What was strange who are we black wrap dress on, Mbulelo is that not once did I open my might be a question less apt PUBLISHER ISBN chided me for wearing it. It was eyes to look at him as he was than the one which seeks to know Red Soil Publishing 978–0–620–85712–3 the manner in which he did it talking – ordinarily I would. I what we are was going to get married to my that I found bizarre. It was like would have wanted to know My husband, what we are steady boyfriend back home. he had seen something spooky. what was distressing him so Mbulelo, died aged us He chuckled at my response. He asked me to change it and much, why it was so urgent. It My intention was to make up twenty–nine, just five Our relationship only started the not to ever wear it again. This was like he had experienced for it after classes. In any case, these creatures that are happiest months away from following year. He later told me was odd as I had worn it before, a strange occurrence. he had come back home late when altogether removed from the his next birthday. We that he thought that I was naïve. and he did not have an issue He conceded the previous night and I did not core of self met at the University Lobola discussions started in with it, I nevertheless changed and urged want to interrupt him. It was like a knot undone of Fort Hare in 1982. 1989 and we got married on 01 it. Out of the blue he said,” You me to please rather unusual that he also did our being severed surgically from I remember on the December 1990. He was dark, know, honey, some of my friends remind him in not wake up while I showered, the essence that we might have first day of the handsome with a beautiful set are yours by association”. And the morning. I opened and closed cabinets been fresher’s Orientation of teeth and a physique to die also, that we needed to visit my promised to do so. and dressed up. What was even had we had the spine and good friend, in Dawn Park, Boksburg. sense to become Week, we were for. He had a mischievous grin Saturday 28 March more unusual was that he was He also just blurted, “Your ex– that which creation had willed us walking out of the when he was up to no good. I 1992 was a an early riser, no matter the boyfriend was going to marry was happy to be lost to such a beautiful time he had gone to bed by. The to be science lecture block you!” towards women wonderful man. autumn day. staircase was carpeted, so my the forebears of civilisation footsteps were softer. I retraced lords of the universe residences for our So many unusual events I did not understand where all I woke up to my steps downstairs, locked progeny to the gift of genesis lunch break. occurred in the last two weeks of this was coming from. What he get ready to the house and left. Little did I witnesses to the birth of the rest his life. During that final week, was saying, and his reactions attend classes were very peculiar. That week, at Crown know this was the last time I he kept singing in the shower what have we become I noticed that there was a Mines. I was to see him alive – asleep, He walked alongside me and the gospel chorus “Lihle izulu”, what are we but serfs who serve stranger in the neighbourhood. took a peacefully. asked what my name was. I every morning. I found this lesser nations There was a man who appeared shower and told him and he asked where I choice rather strange because minions who wait on minor mortals absent-minded. His face was dressed up. was from, I told him that I was he was not into gospel music. and with hands cupped in painted with calamine-like I thought from Mdantsane, even though He used to sing Frank Sinatra’s. Excerpt from Untimely shameful deference substance. He used to hook a whether I my family had relocated to Port “My Way” (It’s Finally Friday), Beginnings, Memoirs of Women we beg for the droppings of the sack on a stick and carry it on should Elizabeth three months before. imitating Radio 702 morning who Defied Fate compiled ample abundance his shoulder. I saw him every remind talk show hosts every Friday, or by Nandi Mjo Manentsa. that is ours to return to the core I just remember getting day after work that week, nearer him to embarrassed as he was the only some rhythm and blues song. Published by Lorraine Sithole; the town house. I am usually tell me Red Soil Publishing,Publishing 2020. what we are guy walking with a throng of girls One night, I dreamt that there brave but, for some reason, I what he Available at all major bookstores what have we become on my account, towards women’s was a naked woman standing was nervous about him and I wanted to tell or at www.gekopublishing.co.za residences. I dismissed his with her side profile towards me would get in the house and look me the night before but, Friday, 05 April 2012 overtures and told him that I in one of the bedrooms at his 2h30am, Johannesburg

64 P/65 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2

the store, and there; a glimmer too, is exhausted. He doesn’t is a serpentine movement in my s h o r t s t o r y / f i c t i o n of real warmth. I am reassured blame me; he doesn’t blink. stomach. I recognize this feeling of humanity. I see the ember His shoulders, though, are and smile. After breakfast, he under the ash, the ember that heavy with my words. He nods, sits across from me, nervous. I glows a little less brightly with slowly and stretches his arm don’t know why we often made A story of the the passing of the years. How across the table. He opens his arrangements to meet like this, sad. I pick lint from my coat, palm and I hold his hand. He for breakfast here. I ask him and walk, with the others, to understands; he knows that what the matter is; is there shattered rainbow where I am going. it’s been hard for me, too and something you want to say? that we were a bright, beautiful , 2012. I used to love him, but now I “Lesego, will you marry me?” flame that licked and burned oct don’t. The words come from my “Yes, Thato. It will be a

in lips matter–of–factly. There is and ate itself up. , beautiful journey.” no emphasis, no pause. Our I see a tear and I feel my bko

He reached across the table

in marriage was, for a time, a own roll down my face. I lick and I took his hand. A ray of ngozi chukura vivid flame, a tango. It’s not, my lips, the tears are salty. I words light caught my new watch, writer artist anymore. Dr Reteng says that & kiss his palm, it is fleshy and casting shards of rainbow into our relationship has become warm. I stop at a street vendor. published

our future. toxic and we are constantly Mmangwane greets me, we image oladimeji odunsi first manufacturing violent exclaim about the cold. She is @oladimeg behaviors; that we are feeding wearing a white hat. I buy one ngozi chukura is a journalist, each other’s masochism. We loose cigarette from her. Yes, ke communications professional enslave each other. Thato tla tsamaya sentle auntie. I am and an artist. She live in doesn’t protest I think that he, almost at the bridge now; there Gaborone, Botswana.

It is the dead of winter. I sing: folded, elbows bent across always late. I think it’s because her huge breasts, (I wonder I must be a little bored with life; The flame of your your eyes speak with me Senzenina? “Summertime/ And the i have walked half-a-kilometre living is easy/ how she manages?) She peers the excitement of waiting for soul into my eyes and occasionally my dreams to come true was with my shoelace undone athol williams Fish are jumping/ And the unfolds her arms to take notes. eventually eroded by my waiting tshifhiwa given mukwevho and you inquire if it will not make The woman bent by sunsets cotton is high/ As soon as she drops her for my dreams to come true. me fall explains the stone, Daddy’s rich/ And your/ at the intersection you stop in the flat black stone she holds in hands, her stature deflates a Now, I make people wait for it is evening Mama’s good looking front me her fist. little. I find this hilarious. me. My psychologist has a the town looks almost deserted lean down and tie my shoelace It’s not a weapon, she says, but So hush, little baby, don’t Apparently, I haven’t developed term for that, too; but I forget … save for a drunk who prattles tears of affection glisten in my a reminder you cry/" a mature object relationship following us The city is alive, now. More eyes of an intimacy called pain. I I don’t know the other lyrics. I and we ignore him and this is causing me to and more people brush past for your gesture of tenderness frown, she continues. sing in the dead of winter. I have unrealistic relationship me, on their way to wherever you tell me about the tiredness has me confessing We all have this stone and hold sing in a resonant, sonorous goals, which in turn is why my they are going. I stop singing, that has come with hardship how I feel about you it close, and so voice. As the words form in my marriage is falling apart. I I don’t like being watched. I, it is out of question let the flame of your loving soul there is always just a little mouth, and I push them out always just thought that Thato however, watch the passers– a book from my heart you want dispel all darkness sadness within us. with my hot, moist breath, little couldn’t stand my propensity by avidly, reading the swing to read this love is love clouds of mist form. for getting things backwards. of their arms; the hanging Why not throw it? I ask. It It eventually drove him a little the flashing of an affectionate always comes back, The air bites my face. I always of their heads, I somehow smile mad, I think. I pull my coat a discern their stories. Their she says, when it rains or when get things backwards. I has never been intentional notes little tighter around my neck monochrome apathy belies it’s time to eat or don’t care; this is one of the Originally published in “It Was Getting when a man needs a woman to and glance at my watch. It’s the tapestry of techni– i try harder to live without regrets eccentricities about myself that Late”, by Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho, douse his flames. really a cheap watch, but I like coloured dreams that, like my a makeba painting on the wall Vhakololo Press (2017) I like. My psychologist quotes Sometimes the sadness grows, it because it refracts the light, excitement, were gradually glimmers at us Freud a lot, when we have our she says, so we throwing little shards of rainbow buffed to the grey that clings hourly sessions, once a week wear black; but most days we every time the sun shines on like soot to their personalities. in her office which smells like just hold it it. It is twentyfive past seven. I smile at an old lady I too many cigarettes. She sits and then at night, store it under I am half an hour late. I am recognize. I think she works at across from me, her arms our mats.

P/66 P/67 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 b o o k r e v i e w retreat to the earth, planting for the languid, I’d imagine him Dr. von Ludwig is the voice of pumpkin seeds and turning in his grave. What are all reason and logic in the story, watermelons, and living these people doing here? Who cautioning Miles against the underground. All the while are all these people, and why is flash-in-the-pan nature of Michael K: A Novel, realising that the best way to live the incessant interest in a life poetry. “Whereas most blazes of is alone and off the fruits of the committed to detachment? poetry burn straight to the heart by Nthikeng Mohlele earth. It is this incessant tethering that … the infernos of prose are the “A man who wants to live cannot Mohlele’s Michael K: A Novel that wildfires of being,” suggests von live in a house with lights in the battles with. Miles M, the Ludwig in one of his polemics in favour of the study of philosophy, vuyo mzini windows. He must live in a hole protagonist of the book, is words his own vocation. His is to share writer @vuyomzini and hide by day. A man must live enamoured by Micheal K’s so that he leaves no trace of his ability to disregard the protocols with Miles the delectations of living. That is what it has come to”. and expectations of sociology worldliness and companionship. BOOK TITLE AUTHOR YEAR PUBLISHER ISBN Sounds like wartime sentiments. and life as he sees fit. Miles Also to steer him away from the Michael K: A Novel Nthikeng Mohlele 2018 Picador 978-177-01047-92 But when one considers the yearns for an equal decluttering earthiness and loneliness of intrusions of contemporary life of his own world. We find him Micheal K. with its responsibilities and grappling with the trappings of a “You must watch it, my dear poet Michael K in JM uses Michael K as a muse in his 2018 published book. The Michael K novel reimagines the philosophies of the vagabond of Coetzee’s obligations just to “earn a living” poet stuck in the body of a – a life such as K’s cannot be Coetzee’s Life and creation in the context of the pressures of passion and purpose as the saying goes, the government official. He’s emulated or desired, for it is or Times of Michael that pulsate through a typical mid-life crisis. The remake creates a universality of Michael K’s thoroughly frustrated with the was K’s nature to be who he K is not the most new thought experiment on the divorce of excess and the pursuit of thoughts is hard-hitting. And mundane and mendacious was. He was born that way, with attractive individual. living life only in spoonfuls. weirdly appealing. bureaucracy of monitoring that cleft, the slow but not Throughout his hunt for solitude, immigration and border control. necessarily unremarkable mind, He has a cleft palate The main take-away from Michael K’s philosophy is the return of the Michael K. was captured by But equally insecure about the instinct for a nomadic life, soul to the earth. In the original story, K grows disillusioned with (or a hair lip; an society and its systems as they ambitions and aspirations of the urge for a life of seemingly human interaction and develops a bent towards mother earth and inapt description inserted themselves into his life. becoming creative. His eternal escapes”. solitude. His interactions with third parties are characterised by for the lurid lip Then along comes Mohlele, who entanglement with the The friendship between Miles abuse and bullying and at the most-unwanted charity. Administrative digs the poor man up from his necessities of modern-day life and Von Ludwig – one that is deformity). He is personnel denied him permits that he needed to navigate away ruinous hovel in Sea Point. He was a necessity by his own brimming with affection and gaunt for most of the from Cape Town CBD to take his mom to her place of birth in Prince places himself on Dust Island, a definition. French art films, lattes, endearment – hints at Michael Albert. Marshalls and police along the way stole what little cash he story. fictitious and sparse land in the architectural magazines and the K’s glint of hope for had and made him explain why he was carrying his mother’s ashes. Western Cape populated by a avoidance of the “… gradual companionship at the end of A tipping point in his adventure is when he escapes from the labour few people and the equivalent of deterioration in plurality and Coetzee’s book. camp at Jakkelsdrift. The captain of the Free Corps (Michael K, who a spaza shop. It is here that aesthetics of shoes and lives in a time of civil war South Africa) finds a gross lack of control Mohlele writes beautifully. The Michael K finally gets rest, underwear…” make his He is seemingly dim–witted. By in the guards of the camp. This resulted in three vagrants escaping long strings of sentences and passing away in the early aspirations to a Michael K kind all accounts he’s not the kind of and setting the town of Prince Albert alight. As punishment, the descriptions, sometimes chapters of Mohlele’s novel in of life seem near impossible and guy who should attract a lot of captain tears through the camp residents’ property and the guards clustering over 100 words while his personal solitude. But even frightening. admiration. In fact, he spends are banished to living with the masses they presided over before. executing word placement and post shuffling off his mortal coil, “And isn’t this cowardice, this most of his time trying to avoid The inevitable scuffle that ensues between former officials and the punctuation with the precision humanity accosts his remains insistence on a structured life, a any spotlight. Oddly enough, camp’s residents resulted in a stabbing. and exactness of a David Foster though, he seems to garner the and memory. Mohlele was sentiment Michael K would Wallace, take your breath away. interest of all sorts of high-profile When Michael K’s compassion for a fellow human being kicks in, brought to the imagined funeral of probably have frowned upon?” In attempting to unplug himself individuals. The committee that and he hurriedly tries to help, he is met with a cooling apathy from Michael K, a Nobel laureate. A he contemplates while being from the buzz and chaos of awarded him the Booker Prize his fellow tent dwellers. cameo by the highly-celebrated lectured by his friend, the curly Johannesburg, Miles recounts, that granted him his story back “[K shouted] ’That man has been stabbed … he’s bleeding …Take him JM Coetzee, who attracts – like haired Dr. von Ludwig, on the the genesis of how he came to in 1983 being one. Another to the gate, then they will take him to the hospital!’… Someone nudged gnats to an aged fruit – journalists economic contrast of joining the find staircases sensual in his being Nthikeng Mohlele, the K: it was one of the men from the other huts. ‘Leave them, let them look buzzing and humming with fraternity of “… poets [who] are first escape to Dust Island: inimitable South African author after each other’ he said”. This marks the decisive point for Michael, microphones and cameras. If it mostly paupers, rich only in of existential novels. Mohlele as he then escapes to an abandoned piece of land and begins his were not for Michael K’s penchant spirit.” “I must admit to, when my mind

P/68 P/69 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 didn’t drift to other planets or dreams of being a poet. The flow with a stoop and a bottle in his Cosmopolitanism recoil into knots, being seduced in the prose is brilliant. But at side pocket who mutter[s] all the by sights and scenes on my road one point, one reads fiction for time into his beard … tired of life trip; butterflies of all hues and less direct interactions with at the sea side and want[ing] to in Mhudi: 100 years sizes perching on welcoming these philosophies. The take a holiday in the country if flowers, sunrays bouncing off imagined places and spaces of he could find a guide”. is a long time, but black stones in darkened fiction allow for a broader and Mohlele’s Michael K: A Novel splendour, curious dogs that nuanced (by which I mean subtle beautifully extends on this trope Mhudi is still relevant sniffed Johannesburg scents on and subliminal) adventure into left by JM Coetze. my heels as I checked into these topics. Otherwise, you’d privately owned B&Bs, and every look to non-fiction. JM Coetze dissects, analyses distant throb of lust awakened and ultimately contrasts K. along by a brief copulation scene in Mohlele is a good enough with the precepts of the twenty- some political drama the title essayist as well. But in first-century living experience of The work of classical African literature pioneers such and details of which I never fiction, he seems to merely the poet Miles M and the established beyond being use plot and characters as philosopher Dr Von Ludwig. as Plaatje and Mofolo progressed the intra–textual/ alerted to the raw charge with wire coat hangers on intra–reflective complexities of the conditions of Africans in their time and beyond. In the process, it which the female love interest, which he drapes delicate vuyo mzini is reader-extraordianire Mary Anne, dictated to the docile garments of soliloquies. and a book whisperer. He lives became the new norm or aesthetic in the social milieu would-be intercourse partner and the emerging normative narrative. From a novel perspective, you in Johannesburg. saying: Forget the bed. I strictly start to question whether, in fact, get pleasured on staircases: the the emperor has any clothes on. phehello mofokeng mpumelelo macu discomfort, the risk of injury, words image As an example, the way he brings @ @ bruises inflicted by wanton author/publisher mrpublishersa mpumelelomacu in the actual novel Life and Times passion are medals worth of Michael K and its author into p o e t ry having for something so the same continuum as the sense-imploding.” character in his own book is Revelation The choice of these writers – to write in English most brilliant intellectuals of his time, and he had Reading more of his books; weird. It is a mind-bending time diketso nkukane or in their languages of origination – is a political audiences in droves. however, you get the idea that warp, characteristic of want in act. For Mofolo, it was simple and clear; he I think he opted for English as a way of Mohlele’s fidelity to journeys of storytelling. Head hollow on a pillow intended to advance Sesotho and make it a expanding his previous work; Native Life in the mind border on obsession. language of expression, of creative latitude and Mohlele’s craft is seemingly midnight shadows overwhelm South Africa, aptly published in response to He ventured into the depths of daylight sorrows of officialdom. the promulgation of the Natives Land Act philosophies, anthropologies more in contemplations and meditations than in For Plaatje – who was fully conversant in Setswana, of 1913 that officially disenfranchised black and sociologies. While microscopic ailments isiXhosa, Dutch and other languages, it was more Africans of their land. It will be a folly to take storytelling. plot our exit complex than that. He edited Imvo Zabantsundu Plaatje’s writing fiction in English as mere But the themes are the same our eternal perish in the absence of JT Jabavu and did an excellent cosmopolitanism because he succeeded in in all his books. Women and In Life and Times of Michael K, K spends most of his life chasing But the wrinkles of the soil job in a mostly isiXhosa publication. He translated fusing deeply into the fabric of his story, the their pleasures, music and its an uncomplicated and reflect a clear message William Shakespeare’s plays, wrote the canonical intellect of African folk-narrative and storytelling illuminations, language and uncontemplated existence. His is on the edges of profanity Native Life in South Africa, wrote the political technique with the dynamism in his English writing. That is to say, at the very core of the literature in all their a life of sparse prose and of ideology of the South African Native National Adhering to the rhythms of the Congress, which later became the African ethos and philosophy of Mhudi, is a genuinely sweetness, the crises of disconnection. And with that consciousness that oxidise ceaseless streams National Congress. This was indeed a polyglot, a Setswana narrative. brevity and spaces between his before we plunge into the rivers internal monologues. polymath and a genius. It is crucial to see Plaatje’s Mhudi as a meagre meals and his periods of of our screams It is Plaatje’s choice of producing work in torchbearer in African literature, albeit in the Michael K: A Novel is a (very) sleep – lies deep introspection Deeper than the abyss English – including his most famous fictional ‘wrong’ language of English. This means that long-form character analysis. It about what matters most: Because we know that the freedom. Simplicity. work; Mhudi – that is most curious. To assume I do wish Plaatje wrote his formative work in is an essay of the muse as it is a present is the time that Plaatje did this to pander to publishers and Setswana – as a way of not only establishing story about a guy struggling with In the end, he imagines making to castrate the shrinking balls of to appeal to a broad ‘market’ would be to simplify but of entrenching and formalising African quitting his job to follow his friends with a “… little old man silence a sophisticated choice. Plaatje did not have to languages literature. That it took a decade for pander to anyone because he was one of the Mhudi to be published is not entirely worrisome

P/70 P/71 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 but perhaps indicative of other socio-political In essence, Mhudi is a Setswana narrative were Plaatje’s peers. Ngcukaitobi suggests that He called to bear the letsema efforts of the issues of the time that I am not concerned with. trapped in the English language. Mhudi ‘the unfinished struggle for land can only take ‘native’ life and care for African children is Setswana through and through – in its place through a framework of law.’ Perhaps we The tradition of narrativising African stories in as there were “no nameless babies.” power dynamics, in its narration, its narrative can extend this by saying that Plaatje saw an English is also not a problem in itself; but to do it To take his cosmopolitanism and internationalism cardinality and in its very being. Because Plaatje even bigger gap – that we can also employ the at the expense of the language of origination is ahead, Plaatje compares his Barolong to the was such an acutely aware social and political ‘framework of culture’ to highlight, to foreground worth thinking about. Plaatje cannot be blamed enslaved Africans of Virginia and Mississippi, activist, his choice of English was not a mistake. and to complete the struggle for land. It is such for this because he did a lot of other impressive and the Boers of Cape Town and the advanced It did not merely entrench English. But it was a hump of irony that the same ANC that Plaatje and ground-breaking work in the development white-conquered lands of Monomotapa – also not just a rebuttal of the misdirected and helped form in its formative years is the very of Setswana. His translations are noteworthy, defined as the end of the world for Barolong. faulty western representation of his people. This entity that has relegated the land struggle/ especially of the iconic Shakespearian plays In this post-Difaqane world, Plaatje lays the is evident in his Native Life that came a few discourse and culture to the raw margins and Julius Caesar and Comedy of Errors. His fight foundation for peaceful setting of docile, years before Mhudi. fringes of the political and democratic moment. with the white establishment over the orthography ‘primitive’ Barolong – but their world is about to of Setswana is a critical milestone too. In fact, Mhudi is an extension of Native Life. It We cannot ignore Mhudi as one of the first be upended. historicises the usurpation of black people’s land normative texts of liberation. In fact, it is the Faultlines and tectonic plates of strife and war His political involvement stretched him and it gives it a face, a name – a head-strong, basis for formulating the human face of ‘the are at play rather very early on in the book. beyond a mere literary figure. It made warrior Motswana woman named Mhudi. downtrodden.’ Mhudi is the fictional equivalent Plaatje is graphic in detailing the brutality of Therefore, Mhudi is Native Life’s sequel – and of the political texts of the time. While ka Seme, him the leader of the ‘brain trust’ of the Matebele – in exaggeration for emphasis and this alone makes it acceptable as an English text. Msimang, Mangena and others pursued the liberation movement and its discourse. in the latter Game of Thrones way – we lose one But it is an English text that meets the Ngugian legal constitutionalism angle, Plaatje pioneered But let me return to his role in formalising of the protagonists very early on in Ra-Thaga’s terms of ‘molding the (foreign) language in our fiction in the expansion and humanisation of the father, Notto. literature written by Africans in any language. image.’ Mhudi locates the image of Africans in no liberation struggle. The importance of Plaatje’s Mhudi cannot be uncertain terms at the edge of the importance of There are no heroes in war – just less worse overstated. Mhudi became a pulamadiboho – a Plaatje’s astute political awareness also placed land ownership. Mhudi makes it clear that land off victims, who can pick up the pieces of their him at the edge of feminist discourse. He pioneering text in this complex animal we today – and all above and beneath it – are at the core lives and accept some of their losses. Plaatje was aware that the political emancipation call African literature. Attaching this label of ‘African of African lives. This is to say that to Africans’, the urbanises the Barolong settlement of Kunana and that was devoid of women liberation was no literature’ to Plaatje’s Mhudi is indicative of the new land is not property – it is a communal asset that calls it a city. This indicates a keen awareness emancipation. I am compelled to believe that intellectual’s arrogance. I doubt that Plaatje and of the advancement of African nations even defines the quality of life. It is a medium of spiritual this is the reason his central character became his contemporaries saw what they were doing and connection to our past and future generations. In after their lives were disrupted and their a woman – a woman who confronted the system writing as a formation and formulation of what was Mhudi, Plaatje extended his political role – of the histories disturbed by colonial occupation. This and challenged all facets of masculinity. to be known as African literature. anti-colonial agenda of the SANNC (later the ANC) interpretation of the plebeian African lives is What I want to believe is that Plaatje and others and other liberation efforts of that time. This does not mean Plaatje’s writing is vital because Plaatje elevates the African society above cattle-herding and monotony ascribed to were simply fulfilling their roles as bards – as One can surmise that in Mhudi, Plaatje extends devoid of masculine biases and trappings. us by the (evil) west. recorders of the African condition at that time. his generation’s anti-colonial/decolonial In fact, in some parts, he glorifies the unending In fact, I think they were writing at par if not in project. While his peers chose the hardcore The ravages of war have not abated in the duties of black women and mentions how these the transcendence of world literature. They saw political narratives, I think it is Plaatje who is last 100-years of writings. The devastation of themselves as role-players in the production of were ‘enjoyed’ by women. Yet his women are more successful because fictional narrative is the century-old Kunana is defined as an end not weak – and it is this fine gender-balanced literature – not some appendage of the category more attractive than political historical-social of an age and civilisation. Plaatje also goes that we have come to name ‘African literature.’ writing for an old-generation male figure that narratives. This way, Mhudi elevates fiction forth to use Ra-Thaga to delineate the rules of makes Plaatje a leading figure of his literary war and engagement; seemingly overlooked Maybe this is also my arrogance in writing – above history and politics. It affords the writer generation; where he does not disparage his the latitude to expand possibilities of history by in the brutality of Matebele. So terrible was assuming that this group of torchbearers wanted female characters or nullify their role in history imagining into existence possibilities that could Difaqane and the ravages of Matebele among to write better than white authors of that time. and in society. This is not what I am suggesting because that be missed or ignored by history. the Basotho people (Batswana, Basotho, Plaatje’s employment of capitalist concepts in will mean that our torchbearers failed to define Also, history – much like a legacy – is a Bapedi) that even today, all Nguni speakers themselves outside of the white literary space. defining the Barolong people is also exciting and are still referred to – somewhat sneeringly – as Instead, what I am suggesting is that they set problematic thing; a weapon in the hands of speaks of a sophisticated and astute literature. Matebele. themselves over and above this milieu. They the victor, yet fiction (especially historical Plaatje’s lexicon is advanced – writing in politics It is real and evident that Mhudi is the fictional and Marxism vocabulary like a man who is knew the power of the African narrative. They fiction) is a liberatory tool in the hands of the carbon copy of the land issue in southern Africa busy formulating the founding documents of a weren’t just writing a response to the ‘white gaze’. victim. It allows the victim to rewrite themselves that Plaatje had opposed most vigorously. The political society. He uses natives and peasants Whatever the philosophical reasons, what they into the narrative, boldly and bravely. ethos of Mhudi is that of Plaatje’s philosophy and interchangeably embracing class dynamics in have left us with is a history, work and narratives I think Mhudi extends Advocate Tembeka viewpoint of land dispossession. The language that will outlive our age. a very politically educated writer. Yet, he is not Ngcukaitobi’s thesis about the lawyers who of Mhudi reflects this too – in how Plaatje defines entirely or only western.

P/72 P/73 j u n e / j u ly 2020 4.2 ORDER R COLLECTOR’S R the scorched lands of Barolong. He described body. Mhudi expands the role of the black body COPY NOW 250 this in his letters and in editorial pieces that he as a pariah in its own land – violated, oppressed OR DOWNLOAD A wrote for his papers and other various media and excluded in and from significant political FREE PDF outlets that were owned by other Africans such discourses and decisions. This pariah status was as JT Jabavu’s Imvo. disguised as a sleight of hand moment in 1994 when the illusion of democracy came to life. And it The clarity of Plaatje’s voice and articulation of is to Plaatje that we must address all our gratitude complex politics of change in southern African because it is his political and literary efforts that in the 20th century is directly reflected inMhudi . brought us to this moment of near freedom. This observation is not new, but it should be amplified. Viewed in this way,Mhudi becomes Plaatje survived the Spanish flu pandemic of an essential and cardinal manifesto of liberation; 1918, but one of his children, Olive Ngwetsi did only in fiction. not. Mhudi is written in her loving memory. It is frightening and perhaps prophetic that we In the final analysis, Mhudi is a narrative about celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Mhudi (the war and peace, diplomacy and land ownership. book) during another global pandemic of the same It is a negotiation of opposing values and proportions as that of 1912. And much like Plaatje, interests. It is a perennial lesson in nationhood we must soldier on – in service of the ideals that he and state formation. It is a formative text on anti-colonial (or to use the term of the woke; stood for. Mhudi is such a rallying call. ‘decolonial’) agenda. It has fashioned itself as a wedge in the literary memory of the continent. phehello j mofokeng It is a memorandum for the continued fight for is an author and a publisher. African lands. It is a template for the future of His first non-fiction book, Sankomota: An Ode in One our narrative – in times of global pandemics and Album (Geko, 2018) chronicles the music of one of the extremities of violence visited upon the black southern Africa’s foremost music bands, Sankomota.

Glory days Warriors raphael d’abdon angie thato chuma 20-something, he glides through the There are women tables who have let truth fill their mouths sure-stepped, occasionally glancing like sunrise at the ladies. some of them, it is said, Women who have built homes dine there only to be served by him. in broken wombs the air is charged. when he stops to to mend what is lost loosen his hair, They are daughters of storms red-hot chilli peppers tattoos eye out his of the burning wind rolled up sleeves. the woman at the bar of a healing they have kept tells him it’s her favourite band. he asks under their skirts if she knows that 2006 album, the good under their tongues old stuff, you know. These are women she sips her wine and nods. she saw who have danced to an ancient pain them live in 1986. of memories passed down like blood her eyes big, blue, benign, are old They made a savior c e n t e na r y e di t i on pictures, hers. out of deep love they had three decades dance inside them, for themselves foreword by sabata-mpho mokae glorious, gone. for their skin for their heritage Celebrating 100 years of Mhudi, Geko Publishing is Get your collector’s copy by They have made freedom releasing a collector’s limited print-run, centenary ordering a pre-launch copy their breath. edition of the classical novel by Sol T Plaatje wwwwww.gekopublishing.co.za.gekopublishing.co.za

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