Staffrider

Njabulo S Ndebele: SA Literature and Nationhood Mongane Waliy Serote: in Search of Light Keorapetse Kgositsile: Culture as a Site of Struggle Victor Matom: Sleeping with the Enemy UfFirnd] Volume 10 Number 4 1992 Contents Comment. . . Andries Walter Oliphant An Old Man's Lament Stories Richard J. Maseko BUI Propaganda By Monuments EH Madikana Ivan Vladislavic Sadiki Alex Naka EMI Amin E9i The Mystery of Love in Nature Jiggs David Phoshoko EBJ In Happiness and In Sorrow WfM Bra Danny's Treat Kaizer Nyatsumba Richard J, Maseko EM The Unlucky Time Essays /toy Blumenthal a^i S.A. Literature and the Construction WHOM Blues For Mama Afrika of Nationhood Thokozani Mthiyane Njabulo S. Ndebele E9 The Entrepreneurial Spirit W5M In Search of Light /fur? Donald Mongane Wally Serote CM How Many More E3 Culture as a Site of Struggle Steven Brimelow Keorapetse Kgositsile H9BS Promotion W8M The Politics of Publishing in South Africa Thembe Peter Zwane and What it Means for Writers ffSBI Munna Orenna Krut Sadiki Alex Naka W?M The School Library in Comtemporary E3B No Peace In South Africa South Africa Lmda C. Saunders Sandra Braude mm Mike Hamlyn EB Writing Prose During Transition £/ne/ Abrahamse Kaizer Nyatsumba UJUj Two Poems Seitlhamo Motsapi EB Sedikwa-Ke-Ntswapedi Poetry Menge Lehoke !• Black Sabbath, White Christmas ES Shriek Samson Kodibona Lumkile Mqhayi KTM Melba J23B Epigram Two Uriel Abrahamse P/ied* Tlhobolo BUI Two Poems JEM Stay for the Reject Moment Mpho Nawa RoyBlumenthal EBB Two Poems IBM Riot in the Ghetto's Fvette Christianse Johnny Rasta Mash EEH No Man Will Ever Control Me Again Sizakele Nkosi My Letter to You Paintings and Graphics It's About Time Menzi Ndaba EHi Now the time has come... Lungile Phambo EM Two Poems EH Untitled Walter Kefuoe Chakela EH Untitled Barney Nkosi •***• Three Poems Petrus Masombuko EH Collision Ike Mboneni Wangu Muila Erika Hibbert VWM Maseko M EH y Mother's Heart Painful Hands Letters Valley Maponya Dumisane Khumalo gjQH Silence and the Beggar QH Untitled Arja Salafranca Gillian Solomon W^M Two Poems WEM Venus Revisited Anne Marie Grindrod Af.F. Ledimo EH Ruminations of the Wretched Sean O'Toole EH Tw0 Poems

Sandra Braude STAFFRIDER EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE EH Two Poems General Editor: Andries Walter Oliphant fir/q/t Walter REGIONAL EDITORS AND DISTRIBUTORS EH The Holy Land Transvaal: Lance Nawa, Steve Kromberg, Matthew Krouse Frank Meintjies Two Natal: Ari Sitas, Pearl Jean Gorrie, Jabu Mkhize EH Poems Western Cape: Hein Willemse, Mario Pissarra, Donald Karen Press Parenzee, Anette Horn Free State: Cingani Phaku, Patrick Nyezi, fSIW Two Poems Grant Tsimatsima i4//an Kolski Horwitz Eastern Cape: Susie Mabie, Michael Barry EH Mmbwa Dza Muvhuso EDITORIAL ADVISORS: Naledzani Bernard Rasila Njabulo Ndebele, Nadine Gordimer, Mongane Serote, Kelwyn Sole, Paul Weinberg, Gary Rathbone, Achmat EH Awaiting Birth Dangor, Christopher van Wyk, Gcina Mhlophe, David Ethelwyn Rebelo Koloane, Nise Malange, Luli Callinicos. EH Three Poems Typesetting: Shereen Usdin ESMJP Pare/ Design: Shereen Usdin and Andrew Lord Illustrator: Andrew Lord {31 The Poem is a Temporary Shelter Marketing and Distribution: Matthew Krouse Mary Ferrari Stajfrider is published by the Congress of South African EH Three Poems Writers, P.O. Box 421007, Fordsburg 2033. Copyright is Kaizer M. Nyatsumba held by the individual contributors of all material, including the visual, photographic and graphic material 131 Two Poems published in the magazine. Anyone wishing to Timothy Holmes reproduce material from the magazine should approach EH Four Poems the individual contributors c/o the publishers. Ear/ fieaft Contributions and correspondence should be sent to The Editorial Collective, Staffrider El Thendo Maswiswini P.O. Box 421007, Fordsburg, 2033. Ramaite Mashau All contributions should be accompanied by a stamped, EH Evening in South Africa self-addressed envelope and a short two-line biography. Marie Ferrari Printed by Creda Press Repro by Graphic Set Photographs Front cover: Lungile Phambo EZS3 Sleeping With The Enemy Back cover: Vusi Nkwanyana Victor Matom (text by J. Masiza) BD Over the last four decades a significant shift has taken ciety. It isolated them from the vital strands of an place in contemporary societies. Since the 1950s there emerging democratic culture and trapped them in a has been a move away from the large concentration of white supremacist laager where conservatives and workers within the manufacturing industries as more liberals competed as to who is the most 'cultured', and more people were absorbed in the emerging infor­ 'civilised' and 'refined' to rule over the rest of the mation and communication networks. This led to the population. growth of what is currently referred to as the Informa­ The implications of this is spelt out in Njabulo tion Society. Along with the growing automatisation Ndebele's essay published in this edition of Staffrider. of manufacturing, underpinned by a vast network of The current faltering process of change will, when the information and knowledge, fewer people were able to minimum objective of establishing a viable democracy produce more commodities. The computer is now the is realised, be seen as a turning point in the history of driving power, and information the fuel of social this society. This, as I have said on other occasions, development and economic growth. calls for a fundamental reassessment of literature and In societies where these developments are taking culture in South Africa. The time has come to place the place it is accompanied by an increase in the level of shield of privilege and the cliches of supremacy under education amongst the population as a whole to ensure scrutiny. that all individuals have equal access to the sources of Furthermore, while the long term growth and sus­ information and the means of communication. Where tainable development in all spheres of life within the older social formations were characterised by sharp context of democracy is unthinkable without an effec­ class division flowingfrom the underlying agricultural tive education for all South Africans, the current or industrial relations of production in society, the new government is engaged in an incomprehensible exer­ Information Society has seen the concentration of cise of injecting further chaos into education. While information in the hands of new electronic elites. hundreds of schools stand empty and more then fifty In South Africa with its long history of differential percent of the population is illiterate, teachers are empowerment in education the scene is set for the made redundant and educational institutions are being continuation of inequality on a different level unless closed. The method is madness. decisive interventions are made immediately. One is The essays of Orenna Krut and Sandra Braude repeatedly struck with horror by the educational disas­ look at the role of basic information institutions such ter apartheid education has inflicted on South African as publishers and libraries in education and the devel­ society. The damaging effects of Bantu Education opment of a literary culture. Two of South Africa's have been commented on ad nauseam. At times the illustrious poets, Wally Serote and Keorapetse Kgos- pity displayed by certain sectors of society towards the itsile, once again remind us of the cultural challenges victims of this education are nothing more than thinly confronting this society. There are stories and poetry disguised pretexts for indulging in a sense of superior­ and visual images to stimulate, provoke and delight. ity. What has however escaped many commentators This edition was compiled with the assistance of and analysts is the extent to which Christian National the Transvaal Editorial Collective. Thanks to every­ Education and white education in general ironically one who contributed. Q debilitated the privileged sector of South African so­ Andries Walter Oliphant Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 I Poetry

<0> Black Sabbath, White Christmas

And so the children of the African National Congress Whilst laughter like sonatas shattered the night Gathered in multitudes And first crackers blazed multi-coloured sparks, To bury their slain Marking the birth of a prosperous new year, To comfort their widows Theghettoes licked their wounds and counted their dead. Like a swarm of locusts in search of new fields They had no reason to be happy, or for that matter, They filled the graveyards to lay the heroes to rest. To be sorry for themselves. Unlike locusts they were not in search of food This was the price uhuru demanded. But of solutions to escape the hunter's snare. t>2 AK 47, SPM Limpit mine and Mkhonto. Amandla They could not miss the festivities, Became a military salutation. Nor the shebeens their profits. 53 Neither could they sing Christmas carols CO Medal and honour Nor welcome the new year To those who had paid the ultimate price What was there to celebrate? Laid side by side on a monumental structure. Their names could have stretched from the Limpopo Right down to the tip of South Africa.

This was the Black Sabbath. Written in the calendars by the blood of the martyrs Ground into history books By those who sought no personal glory, But a place under the sun for blacks.

Christmas carols filled the air. The smell of fillet and steak permeated white kitchens. Wine and beer overflowed from caskets Like a river after torrential rain. Symphony orchestras rendered heavenly music, Beautiful sounds that could have brought smiles to all And man nearer to God, But no saints came marching in.

It was a White Christmas, all right, With its traditional abundance of veneer holiness, Excessive merry-making, socialising and visitation — A Christmas not to celebrate the birth of Christ But the annihilation of the oppressed. c

7 /Z

T^ s

Q & O w Q

PQ U i—i K BY CL, < O Ivan Vladislavic MONUMENTS Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 I Propaganda By Monuments

1 Grekov

avel Grekov paused for a moment in without saying that these rarities never originated in the overheated lobby of the apart­ Everyday Services, but rather in the Ministry of Culture, ment block to turn up his coat collar or Foreign Affairs, or even Sport and Recreation, and and smooth down his hair. He glanced they were so scarce that he was able to remember them sceptically at his watch — five to two all without effort. - and then at the pinched face of the city He remembered them now, in chronological order, as behind the glass. He would have to hurry, which he hurried through the snow-struck city. His career had he was not in the habit of doing, but at least a started auspiciously with an exchange of telegram s about brisk walk would get the circulation going. He pulled on an inheritance and an itinerary issued by a travel agent in his gloves, jammed his fists into his pockets and shoul­ Kingston, which he could have sworn was in code — dered through the door. although this notion may have been put into his head by He walked with his head pulled down into his collar the security restriction stamped on the docket. In any and his eyes fixed on the toes of his boots. He saw from event, this scoop had been followed by a dry spell of above the tentative splay-footed gait foisted on him by an several years, until at last he was called upon by Culture icy pavement, and was not amused by it. The streets were to translate a menu for an official function. How many almost deserted. Did it get this cold in the Transvaal? he people could there be in Moscow who knew what a wondered. Did it snow? Probably not, it was too close to madumbi casserole was? Then another drought. More the Tropic of Capricorn. Then he pulled his right hand recently the tempo had started picking up: he'd done out of his pocket and pressed three fingers to his chest, several love-letters full of double entendres and a set of where a letter from those unimaginable latitudes was instructions for assembling a Japanese exercise bicycle stored in an inside pocket. He might have been taking the (and suspected that one of the love-letters and the bicycle letter's temperature through the thick cloth, or trying to were intimately connected). There had also been poems feel the patter of its heart above the pounding of his own. by a Malawian dissident and the lyrics of a song by a band Get more exercise, Grekov! he lectured himself. Out called The Dead Kennedys. But nothing had gripped his from behind that desk! imagination like the letter he now carried over his heart. Grekov was a junior translator in the Administration It had washed up in his in-tray a week ago, and its for Everyday Services, an English specialist. Slowly but contents struck him as so unlikely that at first he thought surely over the years he had established an interdepart­ someone higher up was pulling his leg — probably that mental reputation for his command of a fractious and Kulyabin character in Housing. Just the day before, somewhat eccentric English vocabulary. In recent months Kulyabin had made faces at him in the men's room and he had discovered his forte: rendering broken English in told him to keep his pecker up. indestructible Russian. In the departmental estimation But the letter proved to be genuine. The Chief con­ this was a highly desirable skill, and there were rumours, firmed it: the translation had been requisitioned by none of which had made an impression on Grekov Foreign Economic Relations. Still Grekov wasn't con­ himself, that he would soon be transferred to Foreign vinced. He phoned the Ministry himself, on the pretext Affairs. He would have leapt at the opportunity. of finding out how urgently the translation was required, The fact is that Grekov was bored. In the course of and got hold of a certain Christov, the aide whose nearly five years in the same position no more than a signature was on a covering note pinned to the envelope. handful of interesting documents had crossed his desk, Christov was adamant: the letter had come all the way precious messages in bottles carried to him on a tide of from the Republic of South Africa, signed, sealed, and mundane communiques and news clippings. It goes delivered. He hadn't actually opened it with his own two Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Ivan Vladislaviif i

hands, but he had seen it done with his own two eyes. suddenly regretted that he had spoilt the envelope by Grekov knew where South Africa was, of course? Of scribbling on it. He put the letter away with a sigh and course. went along the embankment towards Borovitskaya As he neared the river Grekov became anxious that he Square. had somehow lost the letter, or left it at home, and he had The people he passed were like himself, bundled up to lean against the parapet and fumble it out of his pocket. in their own thoughts, and he saw nothing out of the The envelope was green and edged around with blue and ordinary until he reached the end of Prospekt Marksa, orange chevrons, and it was grubby, as if it had been where a dozen middle-aged men — tourists, to judge by dropped on a dusty floor. In the top left-hand corner was the primary colours of their anoraks — were standing a pale blue rectangle containing the phrases PER LUG- together in a frozen clump gazing at the outside of the POS, BY AIRMAIL and PAR AVION in a tidy stack, and Lenin Library. He was struck firstly by the fact that they beside it, in a smaller orange window, some sort of were all men, and then by the more remarkable fact that winged mythological creature, a crude representation of every last one of them wore spectacles. Pegasus, perhaps, or a griffin with a human face. In the He went up Prospekt Kalinina, looking out for the right-hand corner were three stamps, crookedly affixed: park that was his landmark, and when he found it turned the largest, apparently the most valuable, depicted a left into a side-street. He became aware of a high-pitched pastoral scene, with herds of fatted sheep and cattle buzzing in the distance, like a dentist's drill, and felt grazing on fertile steppes; the smallest symbolised ener­ reassured that he was going in the right direction. In the gy and industrial progress in a collage of cooling towers, middle of the next block he came to an even narrower dynamos and pylons; the other was a portrait of a man— street, a cul-de-sac called Bulkin, and at the end of that a politician, he assumed, or a king. All three were was the nameless square that was his destination. shackled together by a postmark that read PRETORIA— The square at the dead end of Bulkin Street was 6.01.92. surrounded by apartment blocks. In the middle of the The address was in blue ball-point pen, in a hand that cobbled space, on an imposing pedestal, was a large had something childishly precise about it. The letters stone head. Not just any old head—a head of Lenin. And were all flat-footed, as if the writer had ruled lines in not just any old head of Lenin either. According to Roads pencil to guide him and rubbed them out afterwards. The and Pavements it was the largest head of Lenin in the city wording itself suggested a touching faith in the reliability of Moscow. If Roads and Pavements were correct on that of the postal service. It read: score, Grekov speculated, why should this not be the largest head of Lenin in Russia, or the broken-down The Ministir of Foreign Affairs Union, or even the whole out-of-order world? P.O. Kremlin The eyes in the head of Lenin looked straight at Moscow Grekov. Russia ('USSR') On this particular afternoon, as expected, two work­ ers in overalls were standing on Lenin's bald pate, one If he hadn't been wearing gloves Grekov would wielding a noisy pneumatic drill and the other a gigantic probably have taken out the letter and read it for the iron clamp. A ladder rested against the cliff of a cheek, hundredth time. Instead he held the envelope up to the and at its foot a third worker was lounging against the light to see the rectangular silhouette of folded paper pedestal. A lorry surmounted by a crane and braced at inside. He turned the envelope over. On the back, in each corner by a huge hydraulic leg with an orthopaedic pencil, he had jotted down Christov's telephone number. boot on the end of it stood to one side. Grekov judged that He had also taken down some directions given to him by he was in good time, and so he crossed to the opposite an acquaintance in Roads and Pavements. He studied pavement, which had been shovelled more recently, them now, plotting his course to the monument, and slowed his steps and strolled on at a leisurely pace, his Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 I Propaganda By Monuments usual one, enjoying the progressive revelation of detail. watch the first monuments fall. Looking about at the Naturally, the stone head loomed larger the closer he empty square, becoming conscious of his singularity, he got. The features, at first indistinct, now clarified them­ felt an uncomfortable sense of complicity with the selves. The eyes were still looking straight at him, even overalled figures and their vandalising equipment. though he had changed pavements. On a smaller scale The driller finished his trepanation and called for an this phenomenon might have qualified as a miracle; on eye. This turned out to be a huge metal loop with a this scale it was undoubtedly a question of perspective. threaded shaft. It was toted up the ladder by the lounger They were kindly eyes, if not quite grandfatherly, then from below, and the same man brought down the drill. more than avuncular; but as the mouth came into focus, The man balancing on the ear secured the eye with the beneath the sculpted wings of the moustache, the whole clamp and screwed it into place. Three similar eyes face changed, it became severe and irritable, it took on already protruded from the skull, and the fourth complet­ the cross expression of a bachelor uncle who didn't like ed the all-seeing square. The man with the clamp now children. And then, quite unaccountably, as he came climbed down, leaving the driller alone on the summit closer still, the face foreshortened into friendliness again. with his hands on his hips and his nose in the air, like a The workers clambering about up there made the hunter dwarfed by his trophy. monument seem even more colossal than it was, and The clamp, lobbed carelessly onto the back of the Grekov couldn't help but admire their gleeful daring and lorry, woke up the crane operator, who had been dozing their lack of decorum. The one with the drill was skating unseen in his cubicle. Under the clamper's directions the around on the great man's icy dome like a seasoned operator began to move the boom of the crane so that its performer; and even as Grekov watched, the skater's dangling chains and hooks could be secured to the eyes. companion, the one with the clamp, slid audaciously The lounger, still carrying the drill, shooed the chil­ down the curvature of the skull, unloosing a shower of dren away to the other side of the square and then came scurfy snow from the fringe of hair, and found a foothold and sat on the bench next to Grekov, who at once tried to on one of the ears. strike up a conversation. Along one side of the square stood a row of empty 'Another one bites the dust,' he said cheerfully. benches, five in all, and Grekov made his way there. 'Seven this month,' came the gruff reply. With a characteristic sense of symmetry he chose the one 'You don't say! Where do you put them all?' in the middle, wiped the slush off it with his cuff and sat 'Scrap-heap...of history.' down, tucking his coat-tails underneath him. He gazed 'No, seriously,' Grekov insisted, and demonstrated about the square. Two little boys had climbed up on the his good faith by taking off one glove and offering a lorry and were using the crane as a jungle gym, dodging cigarette, which was gladly accepted. 'What happens to the snowballs thrown by their earth-bound companions. them? I'm a student, you see. I'm making a study of The yells of the children clanked like chains against the monuments.' frozen fagades overlooking the square. There were a few 'A man after my own heart,' said the worker, adopt­ smudged faces at peep-holes in the misty windows, but ing a tone that was ingratiatingly earnest. 'Let's see now. apart from the workers, who presumably had no option, First, the bronze ones. The bronze ones are melted down Grekov was the only grown-up who had ventured out to and reshaped into useful objects like door-knockers and watch this monumental lump of history toppled from its railings. Then the ones of stone: those are crushed into pedestal. The workers themselves, in their oversized gravel and scattered on the paths in our public parks so mufflers and mittens and boots, looked to him like that the citizens don't come a cropper. Now for the children dressed up in their parents' cast-offs. marble ones — not too many of those — and the ones of How soon people become bored with the making and display-quality granite: the beautiful ones are sliced up unmaking of history, Grekov thought, remembering the for tombstones and carved into monuments of the new hundreds of thousands who had taken to the streets to heroes — only smaller, of course, to accommodate the Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Ivan Vladislaviif i

new noses and ears. But the ugly ones, like this one, have spine twisting from the concrete, marked the spot where to be kept, or rather preserved, because they were made the head had stood. The head of Lenin. It was hard to by famous artists long ago, whose names escape me for imagine something else in its place. But that's the one the moment, and they have to be cleaned up and put in certainty we have, he thought. There will be something museums. There's a heap of them at Vnukovo, behind the in its place. bus terminus.' He sat down with his back against the pedestal and 'At Vnukovo, you say.' took the letter out of his pocket. He examined the winged At that moment the crane's engines began to roar and beast again, and failed to identify it. Then he took off his drowned out the conversation. gloves, opened the envelope and spread flat the sheet of The head wouldn't budge. The chains sang like white paper it contained. Although Grekov had almost rubber bands and the lorry rocked on its hydraulic legs, forgotten the fact, this was not the original letter, but a but the bone and sinew of that stubborn neck held fast. version of it twice removed. He had dared to keep the The pedestal shivered. Then there was a crack like a envelope, but keeping the letter itself had been impossi­ whiplash, a ruff of white dust burst from under the jaw­ ble. Instead he had made a copy of the letter in his own bone and the head tore loose and bobbed wildly at the end hand, and this was a carbon copy of that. The original of the chains. It was so startling to see this gigantic object English was there, word for word, but there were also bouncing playfully on the air, like a child's ball, while notes of his own, in parentheses and footnotes—guesses the lorry swayed perilously on its legs, that Grekov at meanings, useful turns of phrase culled from memory recoiled in fright. and the dictionary, corrections of spelling mistakes. This The head was lowered onto the lorry and secured with was a translation method he had devised himself, in the a multitude of cables. It was made to look backwards, but absence of tape recorders and word processors, and whether by accident or design Grekov could not tell. A although it was primitive he was proud of it. fifth worker, who had been sleeping in the cab, now came There were also speculations—contained in a series to life and drove the lorry away down Bulkin Street. His of marginal notes and questions — that exceeded the comrades posed on the rigging around the head like bounds of his responsibilities as a translator and partly revellers on a Mardi Gras float. One of them had his foot explained why the seat of his pants was stuck to the plinth propped in a dilated nostril, another scratched his back of an empty pedestal in a public square on a Sunday on the tip of a moustache. But despite all these little afternoon: Who is this man Khumalo? Is he serious? distractions, these buzzing flies, the eyes gazed back What does he really want? Will he get it? Who will help unflinchingly, and there was such a forbidding set to the him? Me (of all people)? bottom lip that Grekov took his hands out of his pockets Grekov read the letter through again, although he and stood up. The lorry turnedright at the end of the street practically knew it by heart. In a dimple in the middle of and at last the stony gaze was broken. the sheet his eye came to a tight spring of black hair. It The children had gone indoors, the watchers had was in fact a hair from Boniface Khumalo's head, which withdrawn from the windows and the peep-holes had Grekov's brisk walk had dislodged from a corner of the misted over again. Grekov was alone. He went to the envelope and shaken into the folded sheet. But Grekov, pedestal and walked around it in both directions. There understandably, failed to recognise it. He blew it into was no inscription. A single thread of iron, a severed space in a cloud of steam. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 I Propaganda By Monuments

2 Khumalo to the Ministir (With selected notes by P. Grekov)

'Boniface Tavern' P.O. Box 7350 Atteridgeville 0008 Tvl [Transvaal — peruse map] 5th Jan[uary] 1992

TO WHO[M] IT MAY CONCERN

Re: SURPLUS STATUES [in the matter of/concerning]

I am greeting you in the name of struggling masses of South Africa, comrades, freedom fighters, former journeymen to Moscow — you may know some ... [Never met a military trainee, but believe they existed.] Also in the name of boergious countrymen known up and down [business 'contacts'? class alliances?] here at home. I myself am very much struggle [struggling — infamous Apartheid]. My particular personality is illustrious. I am doing many things well: initially gardening assistance, packer O.K. Bazaars [so-called 'baas'], garage attendance, petroljoggie [prob. brand-name cf. Texaco], currently taverner and taxi-owner, 1 X Toyota Hi-Ace 2.2 GLX (1989) [Japanese motor vehicle] so far —- 'See me now, see me no more'. But especially now I am going on as Proprietor (Limited) Boniface Tavern, address above-mentioned, soon revamped as V.I. Lenin Bar & Grill. This is my very serious plan. You must believe it! Hence it is I am taking up space to search out whether spare statues of V.I. Lenin are made available to donate me or if necessary I would be obliged to purchase on the most favourable terms (lay-by). [In a nut-case: His overweening desire is to buy a statue of Lenin. One can't help but bravo.] Please state prefference [one f], down payment, interest rates, postage, etc. etc. Apartheid is crumpling as you know. Recently you visited a New South Africa to espy trade opportunities. [Trade Missionary to S.A. — check w. Grigoriev.] Here is one! I mean business! Fantastical benefits may amount to all of us. V.I. Lenin Bar & Grill is opening (1st May for publicity stunts) with unheard parties and festivities, free booze, braaid sheep [barbecuedmutton], cows [beef], chipniks [prostitutes], members of themedias (TV 2 and 3, Mnet [!]), Lucky Dube [sweepstake?], Small Business Development Corporation (SDBC) [Grig?], wide-scale representatives from organisations (SACP, ANC, PAC, ACA, FAWU, MAWU, BAWU, etc. etc.). [Check] It will be a big splash [make a splash — attract much attention] for tourism and international relations. As far as I'm concerned nothing can prevent my request to pass. I have pedestals galore and many other statues to compliment my favourite V.I. Lenin. Also recognition to be attached viz. [videlicet: namely] 'This Beautiful Monument was donated to Working People of Atteridgeville by Kind Masses of Russia, unveiled 1st May 1992 (Is there time?) by Jay Naidoo (for example).' After three weeks and no reply has forthcome I'll write again, not meaning to plead to you. Amandla! [interj. Power! Usually A. ngawetu]

Yours faithfully,

Boniface Khumalo Proprietor (Ltd)

PS If you are not the right person please forward this letter to the same. Thank you.

PSS Toyota 10-seater is blood-red. MVM325T. Thanks. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Ivan Vladislavic" i

3 Lunacharski and Lenin (an off-cut)

66 Lunacharski and Lenin

and in 1918 Proletkult declared that the proletariat should assimilate existing bourgeois culture and 'recast the material in the crucible of its own class-consciousness'.7 Lunacharski himself argued against gimmicky experimentation: The independence of proletarian art does not consist in artificial originality but presupposes an acquaintance with all the fruits of the preceding culture.'8 We may assume that as Commissar of Enlightenment — he had become head of the People's Commissariat for Education and the Arts (NARKOMPROS) in 1917 — Lunacharski knew only too well that experimental work would be incomprehensible to the illiterate masses. In the coming years Lunacharski and Lenin would clash over the position of Proletkult, with Lenin trying to subordinate it to NARKOMPROS and the Party, and Lunacharski arguing for a measure of independence. These differences notwithstanding, Lunacharski looked back on the immediate post-revolution­ ary years with some nostalgia. In 1933, the year of his death, he recalled Lenin's scheme for 'Propaganda by Monuments' and sought to revive it. His reminiscences tell us something about the complex relationship between the two men and the vexed question of the role of art in the revolution. How did 'Propaganda by Monuments' come about? According to Lunacharski, the idea was sparked off by the frescoes in Campanella's La Citta del Sole [The City of the Sun). In the Utopian state depicted in this work, frescoes were used to educate the young. Lenin, mindful of the straitened circumstances in which many of the artists of Moscow and Petrograd found themselves (the latter would be renamed Leningrad only in 1924), but mindful too that frescoes would hardly suit the Russian climate, proposed that artists be commissioned to sculpt 'concise, trenchant inscriptions showing the more lasting, fundamental principles and slogans of Marxism'9 on the city walls and on specially erected pediments, in place of advertisements and posters. 'Please don't think I have my heart set on marble, granite and gold lettering,' Lenin went on (in Lunacharski's reconstruction of their dialogue). 'We must be modest for the present. Let it be concrete with clear, legible inscriptions. I am not at the moment thinking of anything permanent or even long lasting. Let it even be of a temporary nature.' 'It's a wonderful idea,' Lunacharski said, 'but surely what you propose is work for a monumental mason. Our artists will become bored if they have to spend their days carving inscriptions. You know how they lust after novelty.' 'Well, it happens that I consider monuments even more important than inscriptions: I mean busts, full-length figures, perhaps —what do you call them? — bas-reliefs, groups. And let's not forget heads.' Lenin proposed that a list of the forerunners of Socialism, revolutionists and other heroes of culture be drawn up, from which works in plaster and concrete could be commissioned.

It is important that these works should be intelligible to the masses, that they should catch the eye. It is also important that they should be designed to withstand our climate, at least to some extent, that they should not be easily marred by wind, rain and frost. Of course, inscriptions on the pedestals of monuments could be made — if such trifles are beneath your artists, perhaps the stonemasons will oblige us — Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Propaganda By Monuments

Lunacharski and Lenin 67

explaining who the man was and so forth. Particular attention should be paid to the ceremonies of unveiling such monu­ ments. In this we ourselves and other Party members could help, perhaps also prominent specialists could be invited to speak on such occasions. Every such unveiling ceremony should be a little holiday and an occasion for propaganda. On anniversary dates mention of the given great man could be repeated, always, of course, showing his connection with our revolution and its problems.10 Lunacharski was consumed with the idea and immediately set about putting it into practice. Some inscriptions were set up on buildings, and quite a few monuments by sculptors in Moscow and Petrograd were erected. Not all the monuments were successful. Some of them broke. Perhaps the artists had misjudged the climate after all. A full figure of Marx by Matveyev cracked in half and was replaced by a less impressive bronze head. Other monuments were simply too ugly, and here the artists were definitely at fault. Moscow's statue of Marx and Lenin in 'some sort of basin*11 was the most notorious failure. The citizens dubbed it 'the whiskered bathers' or 'Cyril and Methodius', because it made Marx and Lenin look like a pair of brotherly saints emerging from a bath-tub. The modernists and futurists ran amok. Korolev's statue of Bakunin was so hideous that horses shied when they passed it, even though it was hidden behind boards. It proved to be 'of a temporary nature'. No sooner had the statue been unveiled than the anarchists, incensed by its depiction of their hero, smashed it to pieces. But although the manufacture of monuments left much to be desired, 'the unveiling of monuments went on much better'.12 Taking to heart Lenin's suggestion that *we ourselves could help', Lunacharski himself unveiled a string of monuments. A contest was organised to choose a design for a statue of Marx, and both Lunacharski and Lenin participated enthusiastically in the judging. A well-known sculptor proposed a statue of Marx standing somewhat acrobatically on four elephants, but it was rejected — after personal adjudication by Lenin — as inappropriate. In the end a rather splendid design by a collective, working under the guidance of Aleshin, was chosen. It showed Marx with his feet firmly on the ground and his hands behind his back. The group built a small model of the statue in Sverdlov Square in time for that year's May Day celebrations, and Lenin approved of it although he didn't think it a good likeness. The hair in particular was not very well done, and Lunacharski was asked to tell the artist to 'make the hair more nearly right'.13 The torso was also too stout: Marx seemed about to burst the buttons of his coat, and some subtle tailoring was called for. Later Lenin officiated at a ceremony in the Square to 'place the podium'14 and made a remarkable speech on Marx and his 'flaming spirit'15 — but the statue was never erected. Lenin was disappointed by the quality of the monuments erected in Moscow, and not reassured to hear from Lunacharski that those in Petrograd were better. 'Anatoli Vassilievich,' he said sadly, shaking his head, 'have the gifted ones all gathered in Petrograd and the hacks remained here with us?* And so 'Propaganda by Monuments' petered out. A decade later, when Lunacharski tried to revive the scheme, he used Lenin's own words (although he closed his ears to the echo): I do not as yet expect marble and granite, gold lettering and bronze — so appropriate to socialist culture. It is too early as yet for this—but itseems tome, a second wave of propaganda by monuments, more lasting and more mature, also more effective, could be instituted by Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Ivan Vladislavic' i

4 Christov to Khumalo (translated and annotated by P. Grekov)

Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations 32/34 Smolenskaya Sennaya Moscow 121200 28 January 1992 My dear Mr B. Khumalo, It is with rather a great deal of pleasure that I pen this missive, reactionary to yours of the 5th inst. Some weeks may have passed, indeed, as your request flew from subtropical Pretoria, administrative capital of the Repudlic of South Africa, to our correspondent temperate urbanity, and henceforward overland to various ministries and departments, videlicet Foreign Affairs — to whom it had been addressed on the bottom line, so to speak — Trade, Tourism, Defence, and Foreign Economic Relations, where it still resides and from whence this missive now therefore emanates. I am a member of the same Ministry, sad to say in a somewhat subsidiary position (Protocol Department), but nevertheless by good fortune required to acknowledge the landing of your letter of the 5th inst. [I, contrarily, am a respected colleague of Everyday Services Department, City of Moscow, which we write 'Mockba'.— Tr.] I am instructed to inform you that your letter is receiving considerate attention at many and various levels, local and national/international. Soon we will pen additional missives to impart the final decision-making process and details. [Feeling overwhelmingly cocksure that your request re: SURPLUS STATUE will meet with a big okey-dokey fairly forthwith, I make bold to expand the range and scope of the instructions by informing, firstly, that the surplus statue videlicet 'Head of V.I. Lenin' which is in mind for dispatch to you is somewhat a national treasure. Materially it is stone. Proportionally it is large, without laying it on thick one says 'colossal', being by estimation 7 (seven) metres high, chin to crown, and 17 (seventeen) metres in circumference, at hat-brim level (but has no hat). Imperial equivalences for convenience: 23 feet by 56 feet approx. Will this serve? It will necessitate Herculean efforts in the transportation, but well worth it. On a new thread. What is doing in the Transvaal? Do the cows and sheep graze on the veldt nearby free from harm? Much has been said and supposed vis-d-vis socio-political machinations of reformism in your motherland of which I am always an amateur or eager beaver as they say. But the horse's mouth is what you are. Your tidings have captivated me boots and all. Please correspond. — Tr.] We look forward to hearing from you in the near future. [And who knows how long ago hence we may eat beefsteaks and drink vodkas — our patriotic highball — in V.I. Lenin Bar & Grill of Atteridgeville! — Tr. Tr. is for 'Translator', being me, Pavel Grekov, same as below.]

Yours faithfully,

A. Christov Tr: P. Grekov

Postscript: Please correspond to me personally at 63-20 Tischenko Str., Apt 93, Moscow 109172. No doubt it will suffice. Conclusively, do you question why the monuments, large and small, have no hats? The head of Lenin in history was fond of hats, precisely caps. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 I Propaganda By Monuments

5Kh

oniface Khumalo put the letter in the distance it looked like a ghost town. Where was every­ cubby-hole along with the tub of Wet body? He thought of the stream of people that flowed up Ones. On second thoughts he took it out 5th Street from the taxi-rank and cast his regulars up on again and slipped it under the rubber mat his doorstep. on the passenger side. Then he caught Khumalo buckled his safety-belt. He tweaked the his own furtive eye in the rear-view ignition key and the engine sprang to life. He goaded all mirror, and asked himself why he was six cylinders with petrol, and then let them idle. The playing postman' s knock. There was noth­ advertising was getting to him: he could almost hear the Bing compromising about the letter. The Total Onslaught engine panting. was over, even if a stale scent of danger still wafted from He gentled the car over the ruts at the edge of the tar the exotic landscapes of postage stamps and the unex­ and accelerated, watching the rev counter. It was a pected angles of mirror-script print. He retrieved the Sunday afternoon and there was not much traffic. He envelope again and put it in the pocket of his jacket, flew past a bakkie laden with crates of vegetables and a which hung from a hook on the door-pillar behind his mini-bus called * Many Rivers to Cross', one of Mazibu- seat. ko's. The car practically drove itself, as he liked to tell That everyday action dispelled the threat and left his envious friends, just the way the tavern ran itself and nothing in the air but the caramel tang of new imitation the taxi paid for itself. One of these days I'll retire, he leather and the cloying lavender of the Wet Ones with said, because there won't be anything left for me to do. which he had just wiped his hands. He checked that his Made redundant by progress. fly was buttoned. He checked that his door was locked. The Boniface Tavern was Khumalo's pride and joy. Then he looked out of the window at the drab veld of the He had started the shebeen ten years earlier in his garage, valley dipping away from the road, straddled by electric­ adding on a room here and a room there until it was larger ity pylons with their stubby arms akimbo, and dotted than the house itself. The 'Tavern' of the title had been with huge, floppy-leaved aloes like extravagant bows of prompted by the medieval ring of his own first name — green ribbon. On the far slope of the valley was a sub- his late mother had named him for St Boniface, English economic housing complex, a Monopoly-board arrange­ missionary among the Germans, martyred in 755 at the ment of small, plastered houses with corrugated-iron ripe old age of eighty. roofs, all of them built to exactly the same design. The The Boniface Tavern had certainly been unusual in planners of Van Riebeecksvlei had sought to introduce its day, but lately all licensed shebeens were being called some variety into the suburb by rotating the plan of each taverns. T was ten years ahead of my time,' he would successive house through ninety degrees, with the result boast to his patrons, 'I was a taverner long before the that there were now four basic elevations which repeated Taverners' Association came along.' Secretly, the change themselves in an unvarying sequence down the long, made him unhappy. Now that every Tom, Dick and straight streets. Harry had a tavern, the Boniface Tavern lost its special Khumalo had driven past Van Riebeecksvlei on his flavour. He began casting around for an alternative. way to Pretoria a thousand times. But he was struck now, A new decade dawned. On the day Nelson Mandela for the first time, by the fact that he could tell at a glance walked from the shadows into the glare of daily news, it was a white suburb, even though there wasn't a white Khumalo decided that his establishment needed more face in sight. Was it because the walls of the houses were than a change of name to face the future in; it needed a pastel plaster rather than raw face-brick? Or precisely change of clothes. It happened that the taxi he'd acquired because there was no one to be seen? Even at this a few months before was proving to be lucrative, and he Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Ivan Vladislavic" 1 was confident that he would soon be in a position to 'Vladimir Illyich' in full was a sure sign of satirical finance the new wardrobe. intent — the idea struck a chord with Khumalo. The style he settled on had a touch of the 'taverna' about it: he wanted red plush, wrought iron, vine leaves, SURPLUS STATUES lashings of white plaster and crowds of venerable statu­ Calling all enterprising businessmen! ary. He saw the very thing in Nero's Palace, a coffee shop The import opportunity of a lifetime pre­ in the Union Hotel, and that became the model. He made sents itself. The Moscow City Council has a few enquiries about Nero's decor, and one Saturday decided to dismantle the hundreds of mon­ afternoon went out to Hyperplant in Benoni, a nursery uments to Vladimir Illyich Lenin which that specialised in garden statues. It was expensive — a grace its crowded public buildings and common or garden gnome would set you back R44—but empty market-places. Cities throughout he came away with two disarmed goddesses, several the crumbling Soviet Union will follow cement amphorae with cherubim and seraphim in relief suit. We ask you: Where else in the world upon them, sufficient numbers of caryatids and atlantes is there a ready market for statues of Lenin to prop up a canvas awning over the courtyard, and a but in South Africa? Jump right in before bench with mermaid armrests. He stockpiled his pur­ the local comrades snap them up for noth­ chases in the backyard, where the elements could age ing. them while his funds recuperated. So far so good, except that the new name continued Khumalo parked his car next to a building site in to elude him. He thought of exploiting the obvious Prinsloo Street. An entire city block was being demol­ political angle by honouring a popular leader. But in this ished, and all that remained of the high-rise buildings capricious epoch how could you tell who would be that had occupied the spot was one ruined single-storey popular in the new year? In any case, the old guard was facade with an incongruously shiny plate-glass window getting on. The way of all flesh was fleeting, whereas in it. It had once been Salon Chantelle, according to the decor had to last. He looked further afield: The Riche­ sign. The departed proprietor had written a farewell lieu? Never mind The Napoleon! He was still undecided message to her clients on the glass in shoe-white: We when a new possibility bobbed up unexpectedly in the apologise to all our ladies for the inconvenience caused pages of the Pretoria News. by demolition. Please phone 646-4224 for our new One evening he read on page two that the Moscow location. Thank you for your continued support. XXXXX. City Council, in concrete expression of their commit­ C. ment to the reforms sweeping through the Soviet Union, Khumalo got out of the car. The building site looked had decided to take down 62 of the 68 statues and other as if it had been bombed, and the impression of a city memorial structures in the capital devoted to V.I. Lenin. under siege was borne out by the empty streets. He 'All Lenin memorials in schools and other institutions suddenly felt concerned for the welfare of his car. It only for children also will be removed,' the report concluded. had 12 000 ks on the clock. Then he heard a metallic What other institutions for children are there? he won­ clang, and traced it to an old man with a wheelbarrow dered. Orphanages? Hospitals? Reformatories? And then scrounging among the collapsed walls. Perfect. He could he thought further: What will become of all those keep an eye on the car. Khumalo called out to him, in statues? I could make good use of a couple myself, to several languages, but was ignored. In the end he had to string some coloured lights from. go closer himself, through the gaping doorway of Salon That's probably as far as the fancy would have gone, Chantelle, stepping carefully over the broken masonry had the editor not chosen to comment upon the statues in in his brown loafers. the editorial column of that same newspaper. Although The old man was salvaging unbroken bricks and tiles the tone was mocking — the simple act of giving from the rubble. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 I Propaganda By Monuments

'Greetings, Father,' Khumalo said. said. 'Give way, Strijdom! If you don't, this car, this car The man glared at him suspiciously. which has no wheels, will ride over you!' In Khumalo's 'What are you collecting there?' mind Strijdom's face had never borne the serene, far- It was obvious. The old man spat with surprising sighted expression he saw on it now, as the bronze head vehemence and accuracy in the dust at Khumalo's feet, came into view over islands of greenery. Rather, it had picked up a brick with three round holes through it, a look of stupefied terror. It was the face of a slow-footed knocked a scab of cement off it against the side of the pedestrian, a moment away from impact and extinction, barrow and dropped it on the pile. gaping at the juggernaut of history bearing down on him. 'Are you building your own place?' This Strijdom is that Strijdom, Khumalo thought with a Another brick fell. smile. As secure on his pedestal as a head on its shoul­ 'Do you sell these things? I may have need of some ders. building materials myself one of these days. Are you a In front of the monument, where one corner of the builder?' billowing dome was tacked to the ground, was a foun­ 'This rubbish belongs to no one,' the old man finally tain: a thick white column rose from the middle of a pond said in a broken voice. 'It is just lying here. You can see and on top of it were four galloping horses, their hooves it yourself.' striking sparks from the air, their manes and tails flying. Khumalo gave him a Rl coin and asked him to watch Usually jets of water spurted up from the pond and the car. He pocketed the money non-committally, spat played against the column, but today they were still. again with conviction, and went back to work. Feeling Some crooked scaffolding leant against the yellowed as if he had been dismissed, Khumalo walked up Prinsloo stone, and the stench of stagnant water rose from the Street towards the State Theatre. slimy moat at the column's base. Khumalo sat on the dry At the Church Street intersection he waited for the lip of the fountain and looked at the limp agapanthuses robot to change even though there was no traffic. He and the grey river-stones embedded in cement on the looked right, and left, and right again towards Strijdom bottom of the pond. Square, and caught a glimpse of the dome like a swollen Then he looked at the head. His heart sank. Accord­ canvas sail over the head of J.G. Strijdom. ing to his calculations, the head of V.I. Lenin promised When the Strijdom monument was first unveiled a to him in the letter from Grekov was at least three times story had gone around that its unconventional dome larger than the head of J.G. Strijdom! The pedestal defied the laws of architecture, and therefore of nature. would hardly fit in his yard. Perhaps if he knocked down A group of city architects — the rivals whose tender had the outside toilet and the Zozo...but surely it would cost been rejected? — were so intrigued by it that they built a fortune just to build a pedestal that size. And who a scale model in perfect detail out of chicken-wire and would pay for the installation? What if he approached plaster of Paris. The model fell over. No matter how the SACP, or the Civic, or a consortium of local busi­ much they tinkered with it, it fell over. nessmen? Atteridgeville needs a tourist attraction, after The lights changed, and Khumalo crossed the street all, something with historical value. I'll donate it to the with the same jaunty stride as the little green man. community, he thought, they can put it up on that empty J.G. Strijdom had been leader of the National Party plot by the police station. My name can go on the plaque, in the 1950s and Prime Minister of the Union from 1954 I'll unveil the bloody thing myself! to 1958. He was one of the great builders of apartheid. Still, it would be a pity to give it away, when I've The details were on the pedestal. But though he had gone to the effort to get hold of it. Has he promised it to passed the monument often, Khumalo had never both­ me? I think he has.... But who is this Grekov anyway? ered to read what was written there. All he knew about Can he be trusted? On whose behalf is he speaking? He Strijdom he had gleaned from the words of a popular doesn't sound like a very important person. Although he political song. 'Sutha sutha wena Strijdom!' the song seems to know more than Christov, at any rate. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Ivan Vladislavicf i

Khumalo shrugged off his jacket and took out Grek- Afrikaans. He read the English version out loud in a ov's letter. Hedidn'tthinkofitasChristov's letter, ithad cracked impersonation of the old scavenger. been so ruthlessly invaded and occupied by the transla­ The monument had been unveiled by Mrs Susan tor. The fingerprint in ink from the typewriter ribbon, Strijdom on Republic Day, 31 st May 1972. The honour­ which was clearly visible in the top left-hand corner of able B.J. Vorster, then Prime Minister, had made a the page, may have settled the question of authorship speech at the unveiling ceremony. The sculptor of the once and for all, had Khumalo been able to check it Head of Strijdom was Coert Steynberg. The sculptor of against flesh and blood. the Freedom Symbol (the bolted horses) was Danie de He read the letter again. It had been typed on an old Jager. With an admirable concern for fair play, the typewriter and all the loops of the letters were closed, inscription went on to record the names of the architects like winking eyes. There were things he didn't under­ of the unnatural dome (Hans Botha and Roelf Botha), the stand. Colossal? Please correspond? He put the letter quantity surveyors (Grothaus and Du Plessis), the engi­ back in the envelope. The Cyrillic postmark read: Mock- neers (WJ.S. van Heerden and Partners, viz. Bruinette, ba. Kruger, Stoffberg and Hugo), the electrical engineers For a reason he couldn't put his finger on, Khumalo (A. du Toit and Partners) and, with disappointing ano­ felt better. He jumped up and paced out the dimensions nymity, the building contractors (Nasionale Groepsbou of the pedestal. He multiplied them by three in his head, Corp). and had to chuckle: the pedestal alone would be the size The sun was shining through the finely veined bronze of a double garage! He studied the poetic verse inscribed ears of Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom. on the salt-and-pepper stone but could not make head or Khumalo went and stood at a distance, upwind of the tail of it. His Afrikaans had always been weak. He stinking Freedom Symbol, with his eyes half-closed, walked around the pedestal and at the back discovered squinting. And after a while he began to see how, but not two more inscriptions, twins, one in English and one in necessarily why, the impossible came to pass. Q Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 I Poetry

AFRICAN NOVEL PROJECT

This project aims to encourage new forms of narrative writing in the indigenous lan­ guages. COSAW Publishing is searching <0> Melba for a new novel in any indigenous language, other than English or Afrikaans. This is a the journey west publications project and not a literary is what u called it and award. It aims to create publishing oppor­ <3 tunities for new popular forms of literature we have been terrorised in the indigenous languages that will assist wherever we've been, in building an adult readership in the Afri­ 2 usaid can languages. the journey and the terror The criteria for publication will be based on brought to mind the following: the exodus — It must be a novel for an adult readership. 5 only, -- It should have a strong story line this time, -- It should have a well-structured plot without divine guidance •- It must have rounded convincing charac­ ters this time -- It must be a highly readable story it is OUR journey -- Preference will be given to an adventure even though story or a thriller — at times — -- It should appeal to a broad readership not we have had to limp necessarily interested in social protest broken under shackles and political relevance. walk with the step of an ox; Manuscripts submitted will be evaluated by we have learnt the COSAW Editorial Collective. All sub­ to dance missions must be accompanied by a letter to step light indicating that it is an original and unpub­ and skip joyfully lished novel. — triumphantly — forward All manuscripts must be sent to: The Afri­ can Novel Project, Congress of South Afri­ 09.01.90 can Writers, P.O. Box 421007, Fordsburg 2033. The closing date for submissions is 30 March 1993. For further information con­ tact A.W. Oliphant at the above address. ^ y Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry i

Mpho Nawa Two Poems Meaningless

Wheelbarrow bumping along The long rocky road to the well The solitary figure at the well Over a Makeshift Morgue Engages in a to and fro movement Of the artistic hand that Birds hovering far away Ensures water supply to the drums Black birds circling a dense forest Birds of patience Mirage forms abundance of water at the distance Birds of prey Three black and white figures come wobbling Darkening an orange sun In the water. Unaware of the deep sea Presenting a dark image Engulfing them. Their hands form Of the future that is gloom Extended caps protruding from their skulls Yes it's true, soon the birds will Like chameleons Land down with their rasping wings They make their pace out of the water With their sharp squeaky beaks To devour yet another victim of violence School is out, infants cry out In a makeshift morgue that is our country Mothers shout back. A boy passes Whistling a tune, a fragmented one, Happy to be on his way home A car screeches to a halt Melancholic bells toll The recipient is weary and ignores it # # • Silence means negative, the bottlegger Slowly but surely passes on to the next delivery

Birds are singing as always There is a distant sound of music I am sweating. Everything is still The place is an uninviting landscape Soon to be filled with smoke

Life goes on. Everybody is content They are happy to be alive. • • • Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry

Yvette Christianse Two Poems Spring* for Martha

Speak softly heart when you walk amongst stones, and already the station is chugging with the homebound stones hear. They have nothing else to do. who blow on their hands in impatience. Stone upon stone. Can stone break a heart? Other children, other kitchens come to life Can a heart break like glass and when the sun comes down and curtains close on which rain has fallen, rain that breaks it is like the fine parting of connecting tissue like sweat, sweat like fear? The short life that holds a limb in place, keeps a face alive. riding trains through how many dawns. Do poets sing That train crashes like a demon that spins houses these heavy dawns that sit on a woman's chest with its tail; they jerk upright like a child in bed all day like a sunset that sits in her eyes jerks out of a dream of blackness and spiders at her and does not let her see where she is going throat; until it is dark and there's just the water tap all the houses shoot upright like fresh faced policemen with the bucket queues, faces numb as hers? starched to the law; those houses shrink and thin They call her name as she arrives, a name she remembers. like grey old gravestones that chink 'Martha, Martha'. It is like a swallow that comes once a year. iv A wide, white cloud shores up the sky. Somewhere These children. I give them my heart. else Summer, winter, every season, every day it will be rain. She never gave me pens, no books, my hands are their mother's hands, not even a photograph remains. We bury our dead. my voice their lullabies and sweet money. And carry them — when they are faceless — forever, At the school gates I say to the other mothers, but swallows fall where they must, no law will hold there, that one is mine, I iron her dress them up until it is a piece of blue sky with white clouds, or put them down. They find those fluid ribbons I wash her blue ribbons and her plaits are kite tails. scrolling, looping around the world and from where No other child will fly like her, my child. they are, But, tssss.... This school of white faces.... all houses must be very small, and policemen with One day they will give her a certificate their dogs and a heart of stone. just ants as the sweet warm melodies of continents hand low iii as warm breezes on summer days when there are trees That train, that piece of paper—a hunk of squealing metal alive a small white square in a neat brown envelope, and quadrangles to weave through, and children run the loud official stamp she wears like a scar; laughing that small white weightlessness after those perfect wings. could be burnt, torn; tears things as you say goodbye Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry i

Heads You Win, Tails You Lose

Son to father, daughter to mother let us rewind the world and see if the tail keeps up with the head. But tails move slowly and holes dug once to sink a tank go on growing to sink the world instead.

Don't go there my son, Tokoloshe waits, with long thin nails — he'll scratch your laughter thin. But there, my mother, what is it that's already taken our smiles? Yes, tails in smoke coil sideways now under the houses, under the beds.

Mother to mother to daughter to son, father to father to husband to wife pick up the morning at the train's first stop, put down the day when it's finished with you. Children run laughing like rain on bright glass. Take-a de knife, cut-a de neck. <0> No Man Will Ever

From the salt in old laughter, Control Me Again from the sand in old shoes, from songs and postcards •** No one will call me his little girl again the heartsick can't use, ^ On the streets I see very old men, the sour heads drag their baggage of tongues *fc£ Backs hunched, failing and fading and those slow cutting, low cutting armoured-tipped tails. ^ to shadows of their former selves Well, they're still not done. ^ You did your disappearing act ^ before your calcium went bone-dry Yvette Christianse £j exploded inward ^ before I could say: stay

The census tells all about men leaving superior woman-stock to go it alone A husband shortage is expected A father shortage, even more so. No wonder women fall for older men No one will call me his little girl again Fikile • Now the time has come, the mighty will fall. And the wind of change will blow sweetly like the morning breeze • Pencil on paper SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF

how it has affected them, and how it may have affected teaching aid. That us'. This is a literature emerging will happen when the relationship from a society that has perceived South Africa is the between a state of affairs and its itself as history's primary agent in one country where social and po­ origins can no longer be directly the South African context. Political litical contradictions are so stark that perceived. I want to suggest in my agency ended with the first question: the influence of politics on other brief contribution this evening that what have we done to them ? We have social activities, and vice versa, has the state of literature in South Africa conquered them, and now it is our been most easily observable. Many also mirrors in a very fundamental task to build and shine the light of pious denials of the relationship have way the larger historical imbalances civilisation. actually turned out to be proof of its in the country and that lasting an­ Since then, the human interest in existence. How often have we been swers to some of our literary prob­ the conquered 'Other' has not evolved told that sport and politics don' t mix, lems are to be found in the manner in significantly beyond the parameters when the distribution of sports op­ which the larger strug­ portunities in the country, as a result gle for liberation is ^a© eg of deliberate political intervention, finally resolved. ensures that sport and politics do Gloria Emerson, i mix. The same has been for the rela­ an author from the tionship between the history of de­ United States, made the following of military objectives. Keep the con­ bate on literary standards on the one comment, back in 1985 at a writer's quered 'Other' at bay. For the State, hand and, on the other hand, the symposium at Northwestern Univer­ the domination of the 'Other' posed social distribution of opportunities sity in Chicago: 'The trouble with no major moral problems, only mil­ for artistic development. the most brilliant people in itary ones. This resulted in a State If at some future date in South America...is that things don't hap­ management culture, an aspect of Africa the relationship between art pen to them. They happen to other which became preoccupied with its and society becomes blurred, as it people, and then they discuss what own methods and techniques of dom­ has in many western countries, due has happened.' This seems to de­ ination. This situation has spawned a to the mediation of many complex scribe adequately for me that phe­ profoundly insensitive society. effects of economic and technologi­ nomenon known as 'South African If art plays an adversary role in cal development, the world will have Literature'. It is primarily a litera­ society, asking disturbing questions, lost, in this country, a very useful ture of 'what we have done to others, revealing unsettling feelings, atti- Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 1 Literature and Nationhood tudes, and experiences, then we will reality represents both the limita­ understand why it was writers who tions of that literature as well as its went further to ask the next two lasting relevance. questions: 'How has what we have From that edified position, this done to them affected them? How literature then became a standard has it affected us?'. It will be imme­ against which other literatures could diately clear that the 'us' in the last when the system bam lV^Cl III eir books, be measured. Thus came into being question does not include the Other, I am certain that it entertained a two literary phenomena. The first for the writers are trapped in their grudging admiration for their world­ one was called 'writing in the indig­ own society. They were born within wide acclaim. I am certain that South enous languages', while the second it; it sent them to well equipped African diplomats, albeit embar­ became known as 'black South Afri­ schools; it provided them with pub­ rassed by thebannings, nevertheless can literature' which implicitly did lishing opportunities; it sanctified shared in the international glory of not include 'writing in the indige­ their language through legislation their compatriots or, at worst, con­ nous languages'. 'Black South Afri­ and language academies; it gave them descended towards their 'misguid­ can literature' because it was written theatres, museums, art galleries, con­ ed' artists. in English or Afrikaans, qualified to cert halls, and libraries; it arranged If thus far I have talked about be called literature, but was a special for them special salary scales that 'writers' and the 'Other' in general non-standard literature called ensured access to a range of cultural terms, it is because I have steadfast­ 'black'. This setting apart of this facilities as well as the ability to buy ly avoided the intellectually debili­ literature confirmed its alien char­ books and newspapers; it created tating sign-posts all South Africans acter. For some critics, this litera­ literary awards to honour them; it will habitually expect. I have chosen ture became the COS ATU of litera­ also made possible for some of them rather to imply the sign-posts. But ture: something with pretensions to to become critics and reviewers who now, the moment we have been wait­ literary status but essentially naive, influenced literary taste and declared ing for: where does all this fit explic­ crude, untutored, inexperienced, and standards; it protected them in law itly in the racial environment? Here ultimately incapable of defining a against the claims of the 'Other', by we go. South African literature is literary culture. Yet to others, it was assuring them of the privacy of res­ 'white' South African writing ex­ the ANC of literature: personable, idential areas legally inaccessible to pressing a limited range of concerns worthy of being understood, but of­ the 'Other', thus ensuring them that within a particular set of historical ten times quite frustrating. they are socialised among them­ circumstances. It is a literature con­ We can say that within the struc­ selves; it gave them passports to cerned with what happened to the ture of domination in South Africa travel, they could meet other writers 'Other' produced by writers who this literature, as a sociological phe­ internationally; it sought to make were existentially unable to experi­ nomenon, effectively oppressed oth­ them take for granted the elevated ence what the 'Other' went through. er literatures. Of course, this was a status of their citizenship and its Indeed, the best of it represents the situation not personally intended by attractive resulting comforts. Since artistic achievements of the era of writers, but was a result of the politi­ they were concerned about the 'Oth­ apartheid. The fact that it stood in cal sociology of 'white' South African er' and the effects of the 'Other's' moral opposition to that era does not literature as already characterised. plight on their own humanity, theirs effect that objective historic reality. I am reminded at this point, of became a bi-polar existential reality It owes its achievements to the spe­ the significance of our participation of moral abhorrence accompanied cial legitimising opportunities as in the Olympic games at Barcelona, by a physical inability to escape the well as to the agonies of the con­ which occasioned a lively debate in conditions of that abhorrence. Even science that nurtured its growth. This the evening phone-in programme of Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Njabulo S. Ndebele i

Radio Metro. Many callers declared quickly interpreted by a large section operation between the State, that strictly speaking South Africa of our population as letting them off publishers and book distributors in did not return to international sport, the hook. They become comfortable order to ensure greater accessibility but that we were actually and start to make arguments and and affordability of books for a participating for the first time. They demands that have the effect of greatly increased reading public; in were making a distinction between reinforcing their privileged status. which literary awards are freed from South Africanism as a hoped for Unfortunately for them, sooner or the culture of 'white' writing; in national attribute, universally later, 'white writing', to use J. M. which African languages are distributed, as against South Coetzee's expression, like apartheid, vigourously promoted; in which Africanism as a powerful concept of may become exhausted. With the cultural institutions are more domination narrowly distributed and 'Other' having attained their available and accessible; in which applicable to one moment in our freedom, 'white writing' may run most people enjoy good health and history. The latter represents an out of a central and sustaining decent housing. All this has got appropriation of nationhood by a philosophical and moral focus. Its everything to do with literature and powerful racial group. In this concerns may become marginal. The all the other arts. It has everything to connection, 'white' South African irony is that the future of that do with a new sense of nationhood. literature of the apartheid era should phenomenon known as 'black' South The transitional period, if it is not be seen as a universally African literature has been too long, is likely to exacerbate the representative phenomenon, but as questioned for similar reasons. With condition of cultural crisis, resulting the manifestation of a dominant the monster of apartheid gone, what in a blurred vision of liberation. It literary or intellectual trend running will black writers write about? This seems to be the intention of the through a particular historical era. question thus far has been thrown at Nationalist party to engineer and Where does this all take us? I black writing. 'White' writing has then take advantage of this situation think I am attempting to highlight thus far not been able to recognise its in order to hang on to the dead end of the ultimate impossibility of arriv­ own precarious position. It has been 'white' history for as long as possi­ ing at a timeless definition of South busking in the self-confidence of ble. This is a reflex response on their African literature. If the era of apart­ one who has a habitual right to ask part, for they are incapable of acting heid is part of South African history questions of the 'Other'. any other way. This means if they as that history paradoxically stretch­ What we are likely to have in our cannot fall from the trees on their es into the future, then 'white' South hands is a general loss of focus. And own, they need to be plucked from it. African literature will represent a there lies the crisis of culture in our Whatever the case might be, the moment in the history of South Af­ country. Central to the resolution of future of literature in our country is rican literature. From this perspec­ that crisis is the achievement of a inseparable from the future of de­ tive, South African literature will be genuine democracy in our country. mocracy and the difficult tasks of seen to be made up of a variety of In practical terms it means the working towards it. Writers and art­ intellectual trends in history. It is not creation of a society that can throw ists of all kinds need to be centrally the definition that matters ultimate­ up new creative problems for writers. located in that struggle for democra­ ly, but the understanding that in­ It means that the possibilities for cy. The nurturing of their imagina­ forms it, and the social context from new writings are inseparable from tions and new artistic skills will take which that understanding emerges. the quest for a new society. It should place within that struggle and will be Now, I have had to learn very be a society in which everyone is informed by it. Q entitled to education for which the quickly since February 1990 that This paper was presented at the an- any attempt at a non-judgemental State must assume responsibility; in nual Weekly Mail Book Week, 6 Sep­ understanding of our history is which there will be much co- tember 1992. Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry

^ An Old Man's Lament

Maybe I was wrong when he is supposed to choke on to force myself to venture this far the bitter green fed to him into African politics by 0} »n those old men sitting in a circle the skies are blue I sour faced and intent the trees are green stare at the speedy progress of time how could one spy this s and the fierce rulers of the day gh teary blurry eyes. •g they are tired of the carnage and the torture of the innocent all they can do is weep.

Here where they are confined beyond the barbed electric fence of memory lane they dream and scheme maybe they don't maybe they were just like Christ a sacred sacrifice their noble warrior blood to sooth the wounds of their ft heirs to come.

They bravely pay for crimes of the mind they did not commit *§> Madikana maybe they too just like my Lord Madikana suffer from the hate and trivial wishes .3 Pudi e ya lela sakeng, of the greedy Madikana these hate and kill to halt progression I E elea e bitsa modisa, die patriots waste and rot in gaols of the desperate Madikana their place in society .3 E re modisa e tla o nkgolole, is in the people's thoughts and hearts. Madikana Nkgolole ke ye thabeng, The masses yearn and long Madikana yet in the wheel of social hierarchy e Ke yo fula le tse dingwe they are abused to they watch their beloved land hawked bit by painful bit they grieve who could in his right right mind clamp shut his mind

llMli Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry I

<§> The Mystery of Love in Nature

Motherhood — you are like the hammerhead's nest 5 Like the old hunter now at rest in the cave Recollecting the great days of his prime When he met the spirit of Earth and Heaven in ecstasy

The mould that forever assembles and protects Yet took a sudden blow Aims to destroy the shrine Behold the harsh truth of nature Just like Ocean The womb of both life and destruction Whose wave shall never cease nor withdraw

Therefore if you are deep in trouble, oh man You shall not hate the night For you shall share its song with a peaceful Owl And the frogs in the reeds of the flowing stream Not until then will you know That death is our everlasting friend

Hatred is a never-ending chain <§> B Treat Yet you can't hate the blessed hand — Death

Me and b in fact we were Saturday we went to his dressed to kill, Florsheim shoes and I the Molls were a thing to see; Maphephas and human hair exhibitions, s tears and stories everywhere. "2 Everyone seemed to know Ou Danny's biography. After the whole Wele-wele locomotion, we heaped him up, 5 took our jackets, rushed to the nearest spot and got stinking drunk. That was what bra Danny would have prescribed if it was me: drink himself into a stupor. Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 41992 I Poetry

<0> The Unlucky Time

The unlucky time comes to me while my eyes avert * to carefully pretend a search of slums a guilt reaction dragging me alert

into biblical shadows of valleys of death while the unlucky time runs on pitter patter tiptoe, I dally ^ Blues for Mama Afrika in her cemetery and stare at tombs Bright days are dead stones rising in transparent wonder, The sunshine, the green and black... psychic chimneys sucking clouds under Pale shadows of grief encompass us; the crisp ground where grassroots divert Life is never affable my stare and freeze it: stones inert When the tree of a nation stands Rootless on blood soaked soil suckling on grass placenta wombs There are mirages of love where this time is sprinkled for stillborn suns. In the kingdom of hate... The raven's laughter over cries of a dove... Thokozani Mthiyane

<§> The Entrepreneurial Spirit

Lazing in his lake of silver self-pity 5 I see the pavement pauper, s* The wise man of the market place, © Holding out his hand for all the wealth in the city.

IK From dream to fantasy to fantasy He trails his upside down smile. a From hope to hell he travels Always on the boundary of paradise Yet he will cry when he reaches heaven, And his Lucifer-snake frown unravels. JIGGS

I firstme t Amin in 1973 when I became co-ordinator for we would have to phone Dorothy, the social worker in the AMDA Bosmont Project. Shit was he difficult! The charge or even get her to come down because he would typical non-white civil servant in charge of the Commu­ not open the hall or a particular room. These fights went nity Centre, carrying out his duties according to the on for weeks and months. Every week the same scene regulations, which if anything, stifled community devel­ with children and tutors waiting for a room to be opened opment. For some reason the slaves always imitate their and him refusing unless we had the appropriate authority. masters and Amin was full of shit. Amin was the Sometimes he would even be difficult to the point of caretaker of the centre, but was totally in charge after holding everything up until I arrived with the excuse that hours and on weekends when we operated. Sometimes 4 the person in charge has not arrived yet\ After a while Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Amin

he cooled down a bit, but always correct and very formal. consider myself a 'highbuck' or educated, but it was all If a group went on after five or we had a meeting or were to no avail. a bit delayed in finishing off, trouble would start again. After that we became regular friends and drinking Didn't we realise that he also wanted to enjoy himself, partners for a couple of hours every Saturday evening. that he also wanted time off, that as long as we were there Amin was a tall man, although almost completely grey, he had to be on duty! I offered him a solution. he looked much younger than his age. Strapping, very fit, 'Give us the keys, we will take full responsibility and with glasses. A good looking chap, with his hat on all the when we are finished we will drop the keys at your time. I sometimes wanted to ask him if he slept with it on cottage,' which was at the back of the centre. as well. His children were married and he was a grand­ He refused. I decided to go and see Dorothy and talk father. He was a robust character, energetic, with a great to her about it. Dorothy agreed as long as I took full sense of humour, cigarette continuously hanging in his responsibility. She was worried about Amin as he had a mouth. He became very supportive of the programme heart condition and tended to get over excited. I said it and would offer to assist us. would make his life much easier and he wouldn't get so He would spend most of Saturday sitting with me at aggravated. The next week he reluctantly handed over the table in the open from which I co-ordinated the the keys when I got there. For the first few weeks he was programme. All the rooms of the community centre always waiting when I brought the keys. Always correct, would be opened when we arrived and even if I or the always calling me 'Mr Smuts'. One evening he offered teachers were late, he got to know which group started me a drink. I accepted. That started us going. He went to from which room and would direct the children to the the kitchen and brought out a tray with abottle of brandy, appropriate rooms. He was very helpful and after the water and two glasses. I noticed the brandy was half-way. programme ended would assist us in clearing up. I would No wonder there was always the sound of a shuffle and keep telling him to relax and he would say he was pause when I knocked before the door was opened or he enjoying himself working with others and besides we said, 'Come in'. Pretty soon he was telling me that he at were helping him getting the place ready for the religious first thought I was 'stuck up' like the other 'highbucks'. and other groups that used the centre on Sundays. Occa­ I told him I wasn't a 'highbuck', the term for a township sionally he would suggest a 'dop' and I would say after bourgeois. the programme has closed. Now and then he Would 'Well, I mean like "educated people".' wander off to visit his son or a friend but always at the end I replied that I was not 'educated', I had only passed of the day he was there for us to have a drink together. matric. One night something went wrong with the electricity and 'But Mr Smuts....' him, Robbie and myself tried to fix it. It was hilarious, as 'Call me Jiggs,' I said. all three of us were flying and we ended up with the hall 'But Jiggs you are in charge, you seem so educated, switch lighting the kitchen, the kitchen switch lighting you're in charge of all these teachers'. the office and the office switch lighting the hall, until we 'Well its more to do with ideas and responsibility,' I decided to give it up and Amin would call in an electrician. replied. And then my father died. I went back to the centre 'But you're in charge of Mr Michaels, and Geoff and after the funeral. I was in a totally morbid, depressed all those others,' he said. state. Amin was very sympathetic. He noted that in over 'Yes, but that doesn't mean I have to be a "highbuck" a year of running the programme this was the first or educated,' I replied. Saturday that I had not been there. We drank and drank 'But you are a Smuts, whose your father?' he asked. and drank. Three weeks later I resigned from my job and 'Chairman,' I replied. registered as a trainee teacher with the Bellville Training 'Well then you are a "highbuck",' he responded. College in Cape Town. I had been engaged in a dispute We both laughed. I tried to explain why I didn't with the director of the African Music and Drama Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Jiggs i

Association, over the fact that I didn't get the full time Dad had worked for over forty years, and my two administrator's post of the organisation. I was unhappy brothers had worked for several years. After he died I with the allocation of resources and his neglect of the realised I hated the firm. I felt that he who had started project. One of the problems I had was from parents with the two owners had been exploited, they are both paying for instruments, in this instance violins and not multimillionaires today and my Dad had been a worker receiving them after many months, despite the fact that all his life. Although when I used to speak to him about I paid in membership and instrument fees weekly to the it, he felt that he had done alright and had brought all of head office. Together with the teachers we decided the us up on his wages in reasonable comfort. I had this idea previous August that we will not pay in the membership of starting an educational programme using cultural or instrumental fees, but open up a bank account from disciplines for educational objectives. The other option which we succeeded in purchasing all the instruments. It was to become a journalist. The next two months I spent was also agreed that all of us would work voluntarily and going around the various organisations from the Chris­ if there were sufficient funds from the membership fees tian Institute to Black Community Programmes outlin­ we would pay ourselves the honoraria due to us. Howev­ ing my plan. I was also interviewed by Gavin Anderson er, this was not necessary as AMDA continued to send of the Rand Daily Mail. He promised that if I got the job our cheques monthly despite the dispute. The day I left I would be one of the first black trainee journalists to do for Cape Town I closed the bank account and handed the the 'cub-journalist course' a hitherto white perogative. money over to the director of AMDA. Did he mess me And then a friend told me about The Open School and around. Anyway, on my way out of Johannesburg I had Clive Nettelton who was the Director. to go and say goodbye to Amin. Meanwhile back at the ranch I was totally broke. But Three months later I was back in Johannesburg I was determined not to take any job until I had found having been expelled from the teachers college for being what I wanted. Survival was tough. I lost a lot of friends. Subversive'! I had used up all my money and was flat Whereas at the start I could ask to lend ten bucks. Now broke. I had received one grant from the CADS of R300, as I approached the response was, 'Hell Jiggs, I'm sorry of which, except for R36 in cash, the rest was deducted I'm broke!' What amazed me was that people always for fees and books. Before I left Cape Town I made it my offered one a drink, never a plate of food. Sometimes I business to return all the books. This did not help as the would be so hungry I would get billious from the first practise of the Coloured Affairs Department and all the drink, I would excuse myself and go to the toilet to puke. ethnic educational bodies at the time and for a long time I would come out and get offered another drink. I was after was to throw the book at the Subversives' and staying at St Ansgars on the West Rand. I had a little charge them for the entire three-year grant. They would bungalow which cost twenty-five bucks a month. In fact often take the students to court and would end up with a some of the characters who didn't like me tried to get me court order requiring the student to repay the grant in full out. It was only through knowing Dale White, that I with costs. You were really punished for daring to managed to stay. So I had to find juice money, rent and question the system. Fortunately I had given addresses in food, not forgetting cigarette money. If I scored I would Cape Town and Johannesburg at places I no longer make it to my Mom's place in Troyeville where I got a stayed at. It is eighteen years since, and I am still decent meal and ten bucks. Mom would cry and say I'm receiving letters of demand from the CADS threatening becoming abum. My younger brother would shit all over to take me to court and adding on the costs of this over me and then give me ten bucks. But from my so called all these years! friends, besides the perennial booze, the average I would In order to get back to Johannesburg I had to ask my score was two bucks. This would mean one rand petrol mother to send me R100. That damn trip will cost R500 and the other rand would go on a loaf of brown bread, a alone for petrol today. I was determined not to go back tin of pilchards or some bacon and of course cigarettes. to Afgate, the steel works I had worked for, and where my The attitude of my buddies really fucked me up. I used Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Amin

to be very gregarious, lots of en daar's kak met sy vrou!' buddies. Money never meant However, it turned out that a thing to me, if I had a in addition to his regular job hundred bucks and nobody his son was a drummer in a had anything I would blow band and that of course meant the lot. No wonder I had so late nights and admiring la­ many friends! This exercise dies over the weekends, not taught me two lessons, the forgetting the booze and par­ value of bread and friend­ ties after dances! ship. Needless to say, I lost, It was obvious that his or shall I say dumped, a lot daughter was his favourite of friends once the period as he always spoke very af­ was over and I had paid back fectionately of her. She had all my loans. However, one converted and married a person stood out in all this christian priest. She and her and that was Amin. husband had become politi­ Whenever I called he cally involved, something would insist that I have a that pleased him. He told me meal, and a really slapped up meal. Sometimes he would about his involvement with the New Age, an ANC paper even cook for me if there was no cooked food available. in the fifties that he distributed. When I pointed out to He would also open a bottle of brandy and always give him that from what he had told me about himself when me at least ten bucks, always offering more. He would he was younger, it sounded as if his son was just like him, allow me to use the Community Centre phone to call my he totally denied it, stating that he was always responsi­ wife in Cape Town and remind me at least once a week ble and did what was necessary and even if he had a 'jol that I should phone her. I would feel quite guilty and if bok' he was discreet about it, not the whole world I could help it I would call on him once a week. However, knowing about it. And nobody knew him as a dronkie, he at times I needed to get to an interview or was desperate could hold his liquor! Believe it or not but during this for juice, food, rent or cigarette money, I would go and period of hassling for bread, going hungry, drinking and see him. He was always the same, welcoming me, just puking, I even managed to get laid a couple of times, but being so nice. Our rap had become extensive and would that's another story! range from the struggle and the system to religion, After two months of this lifestyle two job offers marriage, children, music. Sometimes he would put on a finally came through. One was from the Open School and record and show me his lang arm dance 'styles' and I the other from the Rand Daily Mail. I had to think about show him mine which I had mainly learnt from my Dad which offer to take. The Open School was offering two and Mom who were great dancers. He would tell me hundred and fifty rands per month and the Mail three about fasting, he was a born Muslim, but from what I hundred bucks. I had been earning four hundred and gathered, not a practicing one. He would drink and eat thirty bucks at Afgate. My wife was pregnant. I made the and if he went out, he would put on his kof fia and on the decision. Writing and the idea of being a journalist bus to 'lyk nugter and honger soos al die anner slumse interested me. However, at the Open School they were want mense as hulle weet ek eet en drink sal hulle se ek going to pay me for my ideas. The decision was not too is a water slums!' He was generally critical of the clergy difficult. As there was just under a month to go before I and what he called 'the higher ups'! would start at The Open School I went along to Afgate He was worried about his son as he felt, 'Hy drink te and asked if they would employ me for a couple of weeks. veel en hy hou van die cherries, ek dink hy het 'n jol bok Pleased to say they agreed to at my old salary. The weeks Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Jiggs

were spent sitting around attempting to look busy espe­ cigarettes. Amin got into the party spirit and was in no cially when management went by. Because of my expe­ time chatting up the third and unattached women, whom rience the Afgate management had asked me to trouble he had no problem identifying. shoot in some departments where they were having Eventually she said, 'Jiggs, Jiggs asseblief se vir die problems. However due to the culture in the organisa­ Oupa hy moet ophou, ek hou nie van ou toppies nie!' To tion, the incumbent staff felt so threatened by my pres­ which Amin replied, 'My Dear don't get confused with ence that they wouldn't co-operate. I really didn't want my grey hair, I'm the same age as Jiggs, it's just that with to get into any hassles with the guys as I was to be there the grey hair I look older!' To which we all killed for such a short while and told them that they better ourselves laughing. overcome the problems as they knew the management. A few months later I arrived at the Centre and Amin If things didn't improve they would simply fire them. comes out of his house, hat and glasses on, holding his When asked for reports I told management things were cigarette, as was his custom, with thumb and index finger improving and the chaps were doing a good job. For the with the three other fingers over the cigarette and says, rest of the time I sat on the phone talking to friends in 'Let's go to the shebok, I want to tell you something!' On Cape Town. What thrilled me was that I had a job offer our way he says 'Ou Jiggs, ou Jiggs ek gat ook a pa vis, in which I was really interested and that I only had a net soos jy!' couple of weeks at Afgate. This feeling gave me a God this news hit like a thunderbolt! It turns out that positive high! in July his wife had gone overseas with his daughter and With the Afgate cheque in my pocket and starting at son in law. He had started having an affair with this The Open School, I began getting myself organised in my woman, who was in her late thirties and that he had since bungalow, with decent food and household goodies. I divorced his wife and married this younger woman who started paying off all the many loans I had made. Suffice was now pregnant! After the shebeen we went back to his to say that once I had completed paying some of these so- house and I met his new wife. I had not noticed the called friends, I have since hardly ever seen them again. absence of his wife during my many calls at his place as The thing that really pissed me of f is that all this time they besides being aware that she was overseas in July, both were either never listening to me or simply did not his son and daughter lived next door to each other further believe in me or my ideas! Maybe they just liked my up in Bosmont and very often she would be there. The old company and thought I was a great bullshitted rascal, I was with him so often and all this was going on I continued to see Amin at least once a week. How­ and he kept it all to himself! ever his generosity never ceased. At least now I could During the next two years we kept seeing each other turn up with a bottle or we would go to a shebeen and I at least once a week, drinking, rapping and just gaating would insist I pay. He totally refused to take back any of on. One day I turned up and he was gone. There was anew the money he had given me. I had notes on every penny caretaker. Amin had been retired and had moved to I had received from everyone. We reached a compromise Coronationville. Just like Amin and the new wife, he had that we would alternate the payments for drinks whenev­ never said a word! er we met. As he was so well-known in the shebeens in And then '76 happened. And Jesus things just got so Bosmont, whenever we went drinking we would get a busy, there was no time to socialise, what with seven special place in the kitchen or some nook away from the hundred kids on the plant, kids on the run, having to find other boozers. One Sunday after an all night party, a safe houses for them. Kids leaving the country, it was just friend of mine and three females, we ended up with not chaotic! I hardly ever saw Amin again. The total upheav­ a drop to drink, a cigarette to smoke or any bread amongst al with the students just went on and on and being us. Fortunately there were a couple of cans of food and involved meant that one was all over the place, twenty- some bread to eat. Off to Amin we went. After hearing five hours a day, eight days a week! Amin died in 1981. of our 'plight' he promptly organised a bottle, dash and He was seventy-eight years old. 0 Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry

-A- How Many More

07h45, Arkwright Avenue A man came and told us Alexandra. to look at his house, We were on the beat, He said they came at 7 the night before The pool said Alex was quiet they'd shot his dog I but we went in anyway. and left two puppies SKY NEWS looking for pictures. to frollick around it, We saw a Casspir and a crowd of people. they'd put six bullets Wet tyres squeaking on dirty ground through his window we jumped out and ran to the scene. and I found some A collapsed shack glowing embers cartridge shells smoking and hissing at the rain. AK47, others found The smell of cooked meal, and thick smoke. Rl, R4 and 9mm shells. The smell of burnt flesh. 6 people killed in that I couldn't make it out at first, little attack, nobody told me it was a charred body, The charred body, it was just like, the wife of a husband I knew. who was shot and killed. It looked like a roasted lamb, yellow bone sticking out of burnt meat, I didn't hear about it on the news, and the intestines, still pink certainly didn't see it on SABC like strung sausages hanging out. How many more times. It was when I saw the skull, white ash and bared teeth, it was then that I turned away. And somebody said in the cold rain and smoke 'How many more'. And then the morgue van came and they lifted the body into a stainless steel stretcher, it seemed to flop almost as if it wasn't charred to stone. Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry

^ Promotion

Bababulele Bababulele.... Dear parents, brothers and sister, Balubeka uju emehlweni abo. Judas and you too.... Ubumnandi nokunambitheka koju. Bear this in mind: Nampo sebencinda iminwe Classification is not similar to Respect. Destroyed is the nation. Classification is apartheid — breaks love and faith. They sit in camera Yes respect your job, Private conversations, As well as other's. — Discussions. He whispered, who is the culprit. How hard and painful it is, If you tell me — I will keep it a secret. To watch your parents hooked. That's between us. Stand up and fight for your rights. Yes! boss I'll keep an eye. Do you wish your son to suffer like you. g No! a big NO I say. Boss, but.... Watch out for promotion, What now, there's no problem, Watch out for unfulfilled promises. You tell me the instigator. I give you two things, Money and promotion. A fish line and a hook — poor soul. Yes, yes, yes boss I will tell.

Oh! you are promised promotion, Not in black and white. You are hooked to destroy — your leaders, your own child. <^ Munna Remember no more ten cents bread. Your son is striving Macjala tshakhuma, For his rights and future. Tshakhuma muhali, Muhali ndi vhuswa, How hard it is to have an obstacle Vhuswa vhu a liwa, Obstacle being your father Vhu si na tshigolo, Obstacle being your mother. Nna ni vhona ni, Oh! it's worse when it's Judas. They do all this because of your promotion. Munna muyeni, Maemo, Maemo. Muyeni madzhafitha, Madzhafitha khwali, CO Khwali ya fhufha, Mavhala a sola, A sola mugeni, A vo ri dzi-da. HIBB RT fill

• Hold On and Pretend • Pencil on paper • • Untitled • Pencil on paper • • History Has Landed On My Lap • Pencil on paper • Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Poetry

<§> No Peace in South Africa A Song of War

c<3 When heads have been battered ^J And lives have been shattered, ^ Families scattered Sj As if nothing mattered, S Do you still wonder C/2 That streets are blood-splattered? . That weapons are clashing? O That pangas are gashing? Q Assegais flashing? *5S Bricks and bombs crashing? •** k^ How can you knock now when you've kicked down the door? Tell us to make peace, when you started the war? The weapons we laid down and handed to you, You pass to our brothers, so they'll kill us too. You banned us, imprisoned us, slandered our name; Then, when forced to release us, you get the acclaim And the world pats your back, shakes you by the hand, You can fly on the Concorde, eat a Big Mac, Join the Olympics, run on the world track.

Now all the world's smiling and welcoming you, You, who had all the pie, now get the cake too —

But our hearts have been battered Our livelihood shattered Our nationhood scattered Oh, we never mattered....

It'll be years before bones which you've broken can heal, Years before nerves you've cocained can feel.

Oh ja, sure, we have much now we've not had before — (thank you) But we'll never forget that you started the war. s South Africans we can claim two things about history: we have contributed the word 'apartheid' to human culture and civilisation. Like the middle pas­ IN SEARCH OF sage and the holocaust, apartheid has left a blot of blood on civilisa­ tion. South Africans are unique in this contribution. That is one way in which we will from now on, relate to history. The other way is that as a people, we did in time live the day to day life of the slogan: 'Freedom or Death'. Like millions of other peo­ ple in history and in the world we have had to claim life by being con­ temptuous of death, and now we will become part of civilisation. We will not be forgotten in the backyard of time, and also, it is now known that we will not let this happen. In my country there exist two cultures. There is the culture of the oppressed, who are in the majority. There is the culture of the oppres­ sors, who are in the minority. It is not so long ago, in fact it is yesterday, when the culture of the oppressor in its defence coined the slogan: 'Total On slaugh t', and that of the oppressed Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 In Search of Light

said: 'Freedom or Death'. the resources of the country to main­ ability. It also says that all must In search of light, from where the tain this domination, as it also trained defend the right of others to express electricity does notreach, from where its police, army and security forces themselves. The Freedom Charter poverty is not only seen or smelt but to repress blacks and to defend was the source of freedom for South can be touched, from where there whites. A culture evolved.then, which Africa, and since then the ANC is were deliberate and conscious ef­ permeated every aspect of South committed to the Bill of Rights, and forts to deny education, from where African life. This culture is intrinsi­ we were inspired by what humanity life was made cheap by crime, po­ cally, and inherently violent, intol­ has achieved in this regard. lice brutality and disease, in the town­ erant, racist and seeks to express the In its international relations, and ships and rural areas of South Afri­ best ways and methods of dividing when it sought support from the in­ ca, the oppressed evolved a culture the South African nation to the mi­ ternational community...for the just to claim humanity, not only for them­ nutest detail. That is what 'Total course of the oppressed by associat­ selves but for all South Africans. Onslaught' sought to defend and to ing itself with the UN, the OAU, the 'South Africa belongs to all who live protect. It was a culture expressing Non-Aligned Movement, the ANC in it, black and white....', we said in total intolerance to life. It neglected was not only claiming freedom, or 1955 in Kliptown. and ignored the fact that life will locating our country into civilisa­ It is against this historical back­ always express the close relatedness tion, but as a people, we were recon­ ground that the Department of Arts of peoples. By propagating white firming the fundamental rule of life, and Culture (DAC) of the African domination, the Nationalist Party and that change is constant to life. National Congress (ANC), searches Government denied life for forty May I report to this important for the links, relationships and con­ years in our country. gathering that we are deeply con­ nectedness of the life of all South The onus was on the oppressed to cerned by the fact that white South Africans. Culture, which expresses undo this, to reject an absurd life and Africans seem to be oblivious of this history, is informed by and informs to claim civilisation for all the peo­ extremely important fact. They still life. Culture is dynamic in a society ple of South Africa. It is eighty years want to cling to the backward cul­ organised for democratic expression, now, that through lobbying, delega­ ture of dictatorship, discrimination, or is pregnant and waiting birth in a tions, boycotts, sanctions, armed repression and oppression. They want society organised for oppression. struggle and mass action, we not to cling to the past. They refuse to For forty years the Nationalist only brought the best methods of accept that history will always un­ Party and Government did every­ claiming freedom for all, but life for fold new elements to inform the thing in their power to entrench op­ black and white South Africans. This future. They are unable to come to pression. At the one end of the apart­ struggle for the life of the South terms with the fact that one other heid spectrum, apartheid articulated African people, has in 1992, explod­ role of history is to allow all people itself by punishing a black and a ed and laid bare the reality to its to learn from the past, so that they white for kissing and sought its courts people, pulling them out of the dark can learn from previous mistakes to define whether the kissing was ages and locating them into the eve and progress. platonic or passionate. On the other of the twenty-first century. Our coun­ I am here indicting De Klerk for hand of the spectrum the apartheid try is non-racial, it is multi-lingual, scuttling what the South African system mobilised and nationalised it has a diversity of cultures, from people have achieved: CODESA. Africa, Europe and Asia. The strug­ The nation had put on the agenda for gle for freedom as expressed by the itself, through struggle, that South Previous page: Freedom Charter, has claimed the Africa must change. Dumisane Khumalo right of all, to express their culture In 1992, as we meet here, the Painful Hands • Acrylic on paper and who they are, to the best of their deadly culture of apartheid — vio- Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Mongane Wally Serote i lence — has reached full blown ex­ wall, that as this violence did spill will always need each other. This is pression in our country. Daily there out of Natal, into other areas of the what world culture articulates over are reports of massacres on trains, country, if it is not curbed by all and over. We shall bring to the world, buses, in townships and villages. South Africans, it will overflow into through democratic practice, and by Innocent and unarmed men, women and engulf all South Africans, not having set in motion the processes and children are butchered either Xhosas and Zulus only, or the ANC which will eliminate all forms of because they belong to the ANC or and Inkatha only, but black and white discrimination, and build on the di­ to create an atmosphere where free South Africans. versity, complexity and vibrancy of political activity cannot take place. Therefore, the onus is once more our nation. The South African media, which on the oppressed. History repeats Our music, the guitar, the saxo­ is either owned by the government, itself. Through their organisations: phones and voices of singers, will or by white business, whether TV, the unions, youth and women's or­ articulate, as they have done so elo­ radio or newspapers, accustomed to ganisations, civic, religious, cultur­ quently in the past, the state of the excluding seventy-five percent of al and sport organisations and many South African nation. South African the population and being blind and other formations of struggle, the music, like literature, sculpture and deaf to its plight, is still steeped in black oppressed majority must once paintings, have forged a South Afri­ apartheid culture, and articulates it more put change on the agenda of can voice in the world. The music eloquently. It calls this violence ei­ the South African nation. The ANC and theatre performance of the ther 'black-on-black violence' or a shall return to mass action. Amandla Cultural Ensemble, which war between the Zulus and Xhosas, In this way we shall weaken and for over two decades traversed the or between the ANC and Inkatha. By destroy apartheid culture, but also so international community, has two stubbornly clinging to apartheid, and that we can once more claim elements in it: it wails about oppres­ refusing to see black people as peo­ civilisation forall thepeopleof South sion, but as it does so it is brave and ple, and not Xhosas or Zulus, or Africa. We did so thirty-seven years courageous in its search for a voice refusing to come to terms with the ago. In the early seventies and late of a united South African nation. fact that although the majority of eighties, black people made it clear The South African Nobel Laureate, supporters of the ANC are black to our white compatriots that we are Nadine Gordimer, in her writing, people, and that is because histori­ no longer prepared to be ruled under has continuously searched for the cally, blacks are oppressed because apartheid. In the nineties, having thread which binds the South Afri­ they are black, the ANC is claiming learnt the lesson of history that can people as people. She is today, a freedom for all the people of South freedom fought for must be defended, writer of the world. Africa, black and white. we will ensure that when we once Mbogeni Ngema, through Sara- The reporters and journalists, the more sit as South Africans to fina, a musical which is uncompro­ editors and sub-editors of the white negotiate, it will be about the right of mising in slating apartheid as a crime dominated South African media, are the individual, black or white, and against humanity, has also, eloquent­ unable, three decades and a half later the right of all to a livable life. ly articulated the joy of life in our into the history of struggle, to hear In the near future, we shall come country, through song and dance. and see the truth. They are deaf and back to our fellow human beings in Before the painter and sculptor, blind to reality. They are unable to the international community, hav­ Dumile Feni, died recently, he ex­ think objectively through the fact ing, through our music, writings, pressed the morbidness of apartheid and reality that the violence which is paintings, in short, through arts and in a manner which left us asking — now devastating life in our country culture captured the reality of our how did we allow ourselves to live is expressing apartheid culture. They country to share it with you. We will so that we are portrayed in a perpet­ are unable to read the writing on the contribute to the belief that people ual frenzy of relentlessly tearing life Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 I In Search of Light apart? However, inherent in his work, besides humour, human race rededicate itself to be totally intolerant of the is resilience of the human spirit. middle passage and the holocaust. I have also told you This is the tip of the iceberg of our life. I promise that how history has relentlessly taught all of us that freedom soon we shall enter the world as only South Africans can. belongs to all. Soon as a people, we will join the world I told you about our unique contribution to civilisation. to defend and protect this truth. £J It is not only us who must never forget the terrible nightmare of apartheid. That nightmare must make the Stockholm, 01.07.92

<^> MikeHamlyn ^ askus

^> We joked i sd life j!3 about you §• & u didn't listen getting your arse ^ i sd sphinx shot full of buck-shot & u smote mah cheek

2 We did not & while sankore sprouted me imagine what flowing muses/sage ebonies it would be like S u caved yr horizon ^ seeing your body into a prehisteric blob carried away in a plastic bag £ #5 for whetha scar or scum Neither did we C/5 still the moon wd spear/spew u imagine to yr dank hole the pool of violent crimson blood on the floor dense with the clamour of fangs while so slowly When that sight did come ever so slowly on a cold winter's morning u fell to the purple scythes we of obduracy were the disease of elephants so unprepared for it gore on that clank yourself the rust we of the ovens couldn't even cry i'll ride the sun

06.01.85 Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 g Poetry

fayam

the plowers plowed upon my back i write they made long their furrows from beneath the foot Psalm 129:3 of time's perforated intestines & as these scrawls or scrolls the skies were belligerent hasten into their air or earth when we slid across the skies are once more cluttered the bleeding belly of the limpopo — this time the rusting steel of knee-bending dialectics overhead metal formations piling slaves beyond the sun cast their geometric shadows & the promised bread on the scraggy battlefields straggeling to her sixfifty mouldy six feet rest on the ground geography knotted our defences into maluti & sprawling shrub because now our spears call for surer rends six miles out i send you chitepo vorster's nine-headed dogs his fire singing other roars kept their noises down beside handshake snuff-sniff sniff-snuff what temptest the cadres in the seething red & the orange eye just beyond hell of township of the tower beckoned chanting new storms was it light an i for an i — we asked — to new life an h for an h or was it fight perhaps an ass for an ass quickfire stutter skirmish a t for a t & raining lead have we come home to this so we blurred thru rhodesia a bruise in the heart the dozing flags of monomotapa cap in the hand cankered in their bellies hole in the head

farther out & for them to botha us the talking drums of tanganyika into dungeon forever were opening up ancestral sanctuaries like this? for david motsamai for our lord is a man of law Seitlhamo Motsapi Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 I Poetry

Sedikwa-Ke-Ntswapedi

Ba rle Sedikwa ke ntswa pedi ga se thata Ba e opa lonakeng Ngwana wa ga mantsho a sutlhelela A sutlhelela naga e e boferezere le boatla Shriek ^ A fitlha kgotleng a e fuduwa A e fuduwa ya tlolatlola le naga We plant and nourish consciously kgosi tau a kgaotswa go puruma ke mmutla like a cat that cherishes and begets Mmutla a sa bolo go gatelelwa with the scent of love Yet we kill and destroy unconsciously Mmalo nna we! koma ya bagale e monate jang We love and nurture patiently kana e sa le ke efeletsa tala..., j*> Thiboga! wena ke ope — ope ka leoto like the serene air that conducts the Re gaufi le go tsaya mmu wa rona rhythm of trees Aferika e ne e kile ebile e tla nna gape Yet we hate and squander hastily

Kana badimo ba ka re sotla fa re sa lwe ^3 We pregnantly reach out and counterbalance Ba kare 'Ra tsala, Ra tsala magatlapa! like the current that goes through Kopano ya rona ke tlholo the people Magatlapa a godimo matlung a dinonyane Yet we are unobserving Fa e le nna le bomiandela re egaka We see and touch Isaya mogala o leletse mapatshe like an unprogrammed fly that Tlhalosa ka bothaga gore magokonyana a kotsine persue life on the edge Sediba sa botlhale jwa bona setshele Yet we blindly concede to nostomania Kuduo le lenyora di jetse mme le ngwana Bodimo ba ja batho ba rudile Moswang o ile borwa jwa Aferika Kelengketla! go lela tshipi ya kgololesego Tswitswi! nonyane tsa loapi di a paka <^> Epigram Two Morubisi ga o bone O tla bona kamoso Love is up for sale Re tshwere kgololesego we are raising the flag of Eve I came upon a bevy of girls chanting Ten years ago or more I fell in Love and now I fall out of love Like a child born into a dustbin. Phedi Tlhobolo STRUGGLE

KEORAPETSE KGOSITSILE Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Culture as a Site of Struggle

ithin the Movement customs we have no concept of a and resist. Their very existence pro­ —and here I'm talk­ stepchild and we have no indigenous poses an alternative culture. ing about the ANC, language that even today carries such Likewise, in the production of in whose defense and a social aberration. literature, whether you are conscious protection I am not This backwardness becomes even of it or not, when you write you about to hesitate to more perplexing, at times very infu­ oppose, propose or affirm certain sacrifice my very life, riating, when you consider that Sol values and thereby you define your­ iWf need be, any day (and if you think Plaatje, the first Secretary General of self and your national, group or class I'm a fanatic you know where you the ANC, was a leading writer, trans­ values, essential interests and alle­ can go, for all I care), there is an lator, publicist, editor, capable sing­ giance. annoying, criminal backwardness er, and so forth; in short, not only was In the production of literature, about culture, generally, and its role he an outstanding figure in the top talent is not enough. In order to write in society at any given time. This is leadership of the ANC, he was also a anything of relevance, the writer must a backwardness on the part of my leading artist and cultural worker be informed; the writer must be leadership — the exceptions are too with a keen sense of social responsi­ knowledgeable. For instance, in the few to be of any significance to be bility. He was the first African to case of the collapse of the Soviet discussed here—and creators of our publish a novel in English. Mhudi is Union, the validity of ideas and prin­ culture. A seemingly weird contra­ a classic that continues to attract the ciples cannot be measured by the diction, I have to admit. If this is attention of literature students, errors or blunders committed in any clearly understood then one should knowledgeable literary scholars and attempt to put them into practice. A not have any problems understand­ critics alike. writer has to be knowledgeable ing why it took the ANC until 1982, The Communist Party, on the oth­ enough to examine or show whether a period of seventy years, to establish er hand, cannot be accused of such a the errors were, from the very begin­ the Department of Arts and Culture lack of understanding. Yet the Party, ning, an integral part of those ideas (DAC); and that was after the unar­ with its understanding, is doing noth­ or a consequence of the paths of guable success of the historic Cul­ ing to help us get out of this national action taken by those trying to put ture and Resistance festival earlier morass and, finally, sabotage. Com­ them into practise, to implement that year. rades, this is serk>u£and, if you see it them. Because of not being suffi­ But, even then, it was a kind of as an accusatio re correct and, ciently informed some of our writers compromise; for some years it re­ unapologeticaby, l| Thami Mnyele and critics—even among those who mained a sub-department of the De­ might have pu y it with bitter­ would want to be seen as progressive partment of Education. And after ness. We have slop to under­ — there are those who readily run moving back into the country last stand, and this in­ year, the leadership wasted time de­ cludes our leader­ bating whether there was still a need ship jikelele, th§tt . ~ for this department to exist as a de­ as Jeremy Cro||||| |^[ ^f|^ partment. Thanks to Steve Tshwete has tried to clarify: production of for fighting relentlessly to save this the very existence vital limb of the Movement from of the ANC, the amputation. Even now, as I'm writ­ very existence of the SACP and their ignorant mouths about Gor­ ing this, the DAC remains somewhat COS ATU, is an act of culture; it is an bachev's perestroika fiasco as proof like a tolerated, mischievous step­ opposition to the existence of the that socialism cannot work. child of the Movement, though in our racist, exploitative culture which we Writing, in all its seriousness — various indigenous traditions and have known and continue to suffer and it should be as demanding of the Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Keorapetse Kgositsile I

reader as it is of the writer and the the people with the help of the boers; level. critic — must be deeply steeped in that the De Klerk regime has not For literary art to be, and remain, reality, in life as it is actually lived brought about any change; that De of relevance, it must capture and, in now, as at any conceivable time, its Klerk and his ilk are more interested moving images, render some ges­ unarguable point of departure for in the sanctions being lifted than ture, some movement of life; the any hardnosed imaginative search or they are in South Africa being trans­ gesture beneath the fact; the spirit, if exploration. Writers, we insist on formed into the true Home of all you will, that informs fact, that im­ our right to demand that you render South Africans—none of that black- bues it with meaning or pertinent unto us the raw, ripening or ripe fruit and-white together limp-minded non­ question. of that labour. After all, when you sense liberals, black and white, hide So then, finally, at the risk of publish what you have scribbled, behind as they sedately consider their stepping on the toes of some of our whether you realise it or not, you are bulky bank balances; that we seem to goiterous, self-proclaimed literary telling us to stop doing whatever else have abandoned even our revolu­ critics, twiddling thumbs in their we might have preferred to be doing tionary language, like, when did you decadent, petty-bourgeois, prover­ for the length of time it would take us last hear anything about seizure of bial ivory or ebony towers, I will to go through your work — making power, and so on. At best you have make no secret of some observations love, playing with the children, vis­ become a poor would-be newspaper I have made regarding the bankrupt­ iting a friend or a relative, hanging reporter; no critic should honour your cy of our literary criticism. We have out just to relax, or whatever — toilet-bound nonsense by accusing more than plenty of irrelevant book because you want to share something you of being a writer. Literature is reviewers who can get away with with us, even if it be no more than not a mirror reflection of life. Mir­ their limp-minded 'reviews' because entertaining us. You are making it rors are passive. There is a dialecti­ there is no serious canon of criticism public; you are making it ours. If not, cal relationship between literary art that would have challenged their why don't you leave it to the 'gnaw­ and life. And a poem is neither a claim to relevance, artistically or ing criticism of rats' in the chambers condensed form of, nor an excuse socially, by no more than its very of your diary or notebook? for, anything else. The poem will existence. Also, you see, these ob­ So I insist literature is not, was stubbornly expose what does not scurantists masquerading as literary not, never has been, should never be belong to it, what is not intrinsic to it critics/book reviewers, can get away allowed to degenerate into being, no — in spite of the intentions, no mat­ with the poison they continue to more than a mirror reflection of life. ter how noble, of its creator. A poem spread because they wish to under­ If anything is worth that label it must is not a guerrilla warfare manual mine democratic institutions or bod­ offer us much more than what we either; it would be more worth your ies like DAC, COSAW, COSATU Cultural Desk, PA WE, and several other cultural formations. The presence of critics and literary literature, talent is not enough scholars like Mbulelo Mzamane, Lewis Nkosi, Njabulo Ndebele, Ampie see, and go through; that is the busi­ while to see your prospective mili­ Coetzee, Jeremy Cronin, Andries ness of reportage. If, as a supposed tary instructor about that. Nor is po­ Oliphant, Peter Horn — whose sen­ writer, as a producer of literary art, etry the poet's diplomatic passport sibility is deeply rooted in German you cannot tell us any more than that for trouble-free travel away from culture—and an insignificantly few Inkatha is terrorising and massacring social responsibility at the practical others, does not alter the bleak state j Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Culture as a Site of Struggle

of our literary criticism any more This paper was presented by than a few survivors of a disaster. (I Keorapetse Kgositsile at the have not included Bra Zeke here — African-Asian Writers Conference aka E'skia Mphahlele now — be­ in Osaka, Japan, 29 October, cause it would take a whole book- 4 November 1992. length essay to deal with him, and Gillian Solomon • Untitled • James Moilwa, whose admirably Oil on canvas sharp focus is on the producers of literature in Setswana literature, like the literatures in our other indige­ nous languages, is not known.) Further, I make no secret of the fact that, although I have done noth­ ing about it, I have had this concern for quite some time. For instance, almost two decades ago, I suggested to Alex la Guma, Wally Serote, Mandla Langa, Ronnie Kasrils, Bar­ ry Feinberg, and perhaps a few other writers in the Movement, that we, as cadres of the Movement who are writers — as distinct from writers who happen to be in the Movement, and you better believe me, there is a serious distinction here — should put together an anthology on litera­ ture and literary criticism. Such an anthology, hopefully, would force our critics, even those worthies, our petty-bourgeois gentlemen, and la­ dies, of letters, to do some serious work which their vocation should demand; and also, hopefully, that it would give the novice some essential grounding and guidance — at least a hardnosed, no monkey-business, ma­ terialist point of departure. Remem­ ber, no matter what the obscurantist or idealist, or the willful junior would be fascist masquerading as literary scholar or critic might want to say, the study of literature, which is a prerequisite for any would-be writer or literary critic, is a science. Q Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry 1

^> Stpy For the Reject Moment riot in the ghetto's

Stay for the reject moment -45 who would have thought and press your ear to the edge that it could happen? of your hand and feel but what does one expect the sighs sliding up the bannister. I from a smouldering volcano. Ballast. Take me to a different corner the fact that lies and make me face the other way beyond the fact, oh alarm I hear the car the act — is being taken away beyond the act. and let me yes yes let me S? shout out in my own rightful rage si fire on water, aah! cascade from my face has to hiss oh turn your eyes one time do not watch me in this werewolf tide or another. my sobbing is diminished aah! mephistopheles. the mind won't Take me awake to a new corner take on for long, let me watch a bloodshed what the body let my lips move as I read. can endure. Who is it dreads my presence? Go! GO!! bloodshed, violence, rampage! <^My Letter to You revenge, poverty, needs! My letter to you is pregnant With lillies, daisies, daffodils who is to blame, Expressive explosive me — Volcanic earthquake you. I It's mountains high white — 8 Rivers long black; Oceans deep or simply a personal matter? It's Romeo and Juliet Defiant, revolutionary Yes it's tranquil, comforting It's a rose on a soldier's helmet Ties the knot It's wedding bells It's hot, fire Mini-skirts, emotional Sweat dripping in ecstasy Its tongue full of honey N. F. Ledimo • Venus Revisited • Charcoal and pastel on paper

Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 In Happiness and in Sorrow

dreaming. The pinching hurt, alright; so I was not Sundays. I remembered that he was still not home when dreaming. And there in front of me lay the piece of paper I and the children finally went to bed the previous which had brought my misery. On it the message stood: evening, after we had waited for him until late at night. 'I have finally come to the painful conclusion that I must Had he come to bed at all? I was confused. I thought I had leave you and the children so that Jabulani and I can see felt him stealthily sneaking into the sheets next to me each other openly. Just as I once loved you, so do I love hours after I had gone to bed, reeking of liquor. I even him.' seemed to remember us making love that night. Those words! Oh, how much they hurt me. How Or, was I dreaming? It was quite possible that I was. much they pierced through my heart again and again. For one thing, Fetsi had not made love to me for many How much I cried. months then. I had even forgotten how it felt like to be And I am not a cry-baby. Neither do I have a penchant touched and loved. He had given himself to liquor and for exaggerating things. For me a spade is a spade and not spent every minute of his time with his friend, Jabulani. just a garden tool. That's me. If you have heard a story Oh, how it hurt! How it rent my heart into pieces and from me, then you should know it is true and that it has ached worse than a scorpion's sting. I would lock myself been told to you in the most accurate manner possible. in the bedroom and masturbate. I would lie awake in bed You will believe me, then, when I tell you I felt like next to my husband at night and imagine other men dying that Saturday morning. Although this happened possessing me. And on those nights when I was bold two years ago, it all seems like yesterday. I have only to enough to tell Fetsi what I wanted, he would simply shut my eyes and the day's drama will unfold again in brush me off and go on to sleep. front of me, with me one of the principle actors in it. But I don't want to bore you with my problems here. This is how it happened. From now I will stick to my story just like a postage It was around eight on a Saturday morning when I stamp does to an envelope; that I promise you. woke up. By all accounts I had had a good night. It was Where was I? I was still telling you about that fateful a very cold morning in the middle of June, and so I Saturday morning. As I was saying, the cold drove me instinctively and back under the blankets, but my thoughts soon drowsily turned over to turned to Fetsi again. Where was he? Could it the other side and fum­ be...could it be that something had happened to bled with my hands for him before he got home last night? Like other my husband, Fetsi. townships on the Reef, Katlehong was danger­ There was nobody ous at night. Our once quiet and tranquil town­ there. I took my head ship was in the grip of the violence which had out of the blankets and been going on in the country. For some strange looked at the side of the reason which I never knew, the month of June bed where Fetsi liked was always likely to be marred by violence, and to sleep. Nothing. The this had gone on from the time I was a high wintry cold bit into me school student way back in 1976.T had to find like a million needles, my husband. and I quickly covered I got out of bed, dressed in something warm my face again. and went to the lounge. There was nobody there. Where could Fetsi I proceeded to the kitchen, and again there was be on a morning like nobody. In the small bedroom the children were this? And he normally still asleep. Not wanting to wake them up, I woke up much later than retraced my steps to our bedroom. And there it me on Saturdays and was, on the edge of the bed on the side where Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Kaizer Nyatsumba

Fetsi usually slept. An unfolded piece of paper. I could not understand How did I miss it when I woke up? At least he what I had just read. has left a note, I thought, relieved. Like mathematics I did not read it immediately. I put it aside when I was still at and got into bed again. As you would expect, the school, it was all Greek blankets were warm and welcoming. Once un­ to me. Nevertheless, der them, I felt like I was in Fetsi's big arms. Oh, my hand became limp how I used to enjoy it when he drew me closer and the piece of paper to him and squeezed me. His hands...they were fell on the pillow where so soft and gentle. I remembered the early days Fetsi normally slept. I of our marriage. We were young, we were tried to think, but my innocent, and we were in love. As I rubbed my faculties took leave of thighs against each other under the blankets, I me. Everything became imagined myself in Fetsi's arms. I thought of the impenetrably dark. hours we spent frolicking in bed on Saturday and Even in that state, I then Sunday mornings. noticed for the first time Tut-tut! There I go again with my digres­ that our wedding pic­ sions. By all means do call me to order, dear ture which normally reader, when I get over-sentimental and divert hung on the wall in the from my story. Between you and me, I will bedroom was missing. admit that I do get carried away with my emotions, fears So, too, were a few other things, including Fetsi's and insecurities sometimes. Only sometimes. Other­ possessions. Dazed, I got out of bed and went to his wise, I am a well-balanced adult who regards facts as wardrobe at the corner of the room. It was empty. Not sacrosanct. I am a perfectly compos mentis person for even an underwear had been left behind. whom the saying Reps ipsa loquitur has a special mean­ The reality hit me squarely on the face: Fetsi was ing and significance. gone. My beloved husband and father of my two children And so back to my story. had walked out on me. Just like that. I sat on the bed and Although the blankets were warm and I was quite cried. Why Lord, I kept asking. Why would Fetsi do this comfortable under them, I could not sleep again. My to me and the children? mind was not at rest, and I kept thinking about Fetsi. I thought about his valedictory note, and the more I What had he written in his note? I thought of the possible thought about it the more I found it confusing. What did things he could have written. 'Darling, I have had to go he mean he wanted to be able to see Jabulani openly? Not to the depot this morning. See you soon,' was one of once had I tried to come between their friendship. them. 'Sweets, I have had to take Jabulani somewhere Indeed, given their closeness as friends, I had come to this morning. I love you,' was another possibility. There accept Jabulani as part of our family, and I did not were so many things he could have said, and I was not in complain when he and Fetsi spent all their time together. a hurry to find out. It did not matter much where he was, The last sentence of Fetsi's note bothered me. How as long as he was safe. could he compare our love and marriage to his friendship Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when with Jabulani? It struck me as odd that he could say he I finally read the note. Leave us? What did he mean by loved Jabulani in the same way as he loved me. that? 'I have finally come to the painful conclusion that Now, letme tell you about Jabulani. I hadknown him I must leave you and the children so that Jabulani and I for as long as I had known Fetsi. Wherever Fetsi was, can see each other openly. Just as I once loved you, so do there, too, was he. In fact, they were together when Fetsi I love him,' he had written. and I first met those many years ago. He had always StaffriderVol.10No.41992 In Happiness and in Sorrow

struck me as an effeminate and somewhat odd man. To did not feature in his otherwise impressive vocabulary. start with, he had pierced his ears and sometimes wore He lived alone in a flat in Johannesburg, where my earrings like women did. When he spoke—which he was husband often visited him. And he simply doted on our fond of doing — he inflected his high-pitched voice and, children, six-year-old Nonhle and eight-year-old Man- to make a point, often bent his hands at the wrists as galiso. He often brought them sweets, gifts, clothes and though he were handicapped. And he would laugh that toys. Since he was a close family friend, we had no girlish, seductive laugh of his which my husband found objection to his doing these things for the children. Our rather cute. To tell the truth, it was a cute, infectious children, he often said, were also his children. laugh, and I sometimes secretly wished I could laugh like He was Fetsi's bestman at our wedding about a him. decade ago. That day! It was so very special to me. There You see, I am one of those women with the rare and we were, in front of the priest, our friends, and relatives embarrassing gift of laughing aloud. I have known in the church, exchanging wedding vows. My heart beat people to close their ears with their fingers to keep out my faster when Reverent Motha asked me if I took Fetsi laughter. My husband Fetsi used to get embarrassed Gumede to be my lawfully wedded husband. But it whenever this happened, and he would look far away to skipped a beat when, in response to the same question give the impression that he was not with me and that he about me, Fetsi, in his baritone voice, said' I do'. Oh, that did not know me. One day he even told me I laughed like was music to my ears. And how handsome he looked that a hoermeid. Me a hoermeidl You can imagine how angry day! He and Jabulani looked like brothers. I was, and I did not talk to him for a full week. Neither And then we took the wedding vow: '....to hold and would I sleep with him. to keep, in sickness and in health, in happiness and in But that was a long time ago. Although I envied sorrow, until death us do part'. As I took the vow, I cast Jabulani his educated laugh, I went on laughing the way a quick glance at my former boyfriend Zakes at the end I was born to laugh. If something was funny, I laughed of the church hall. He had been pestering me right up to until I cried. Fetsi had to get used to this, and he the eve of the wedding, asking me to reconsider my eventually did. decision. I quickly looked away from him when he Just as Fetsi finally got used to the way I laughed, so, winked at me. too, did I get used to Jabulani's weird behaviour, and, as In happiness and in sorrow — that is the part of the my husband's friend, I accepted him the way he was and vow I liked most. It was to prove very helpful in years to still is. He soon proved to be a good family friend, and come. Whenever Fetsi and I fought, and at times even he was always there for Fetsi and me even long before we came close to separating, I would think of those words got married. It bothered me, though, that while he was and be recharged anew. Then the two of us would work always there for us, he never gave us an opportunity to hard to make our marriage work. We were going to stick be there for him. In fact, he did not seem to need help at together in happiness and in sorrow — until death parted all. us indeed. Whenever Fetsi and I quarrelled, Jabulani would play And I was a good wife, too. Throughout all those the indefatigable peacemaker. He, on the other hand, years of our marriage, my world revolved around Fetsi seemed to be in control of his life. He changed girl­ and my children. I lived for their happiness. I always friends like he changed underwears, but not once did he made sure that whenever Fetsi returned home from work appear unhappy or need us to help him get over a failed he found warm food waiting for him — and we did not relationship. Not once, I say. It seemed that his world have a microwave-oven until two years ago. revolved around us, and for as long as he had us as friends I must say some of my friends and my family were not he was content. entirely happy about my decision to marry Fetsi. You Throughout this period, he had not got married. see, I was more educated than he was, and my salary was Marriage, in fact, was one of the very few words which higher than his. My friends warned ominously that the Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Kaizer Nyatsumba I

African man who would live with in the lounge. The children were al­ that situation was not yet born. ready in bed. Fetsi and Jabulani were But I loved him deeply, and would excitedly discussing a march which therefore not let such trifles worry had been held by the Gays' and Les­ me. Admittedly, I was a high bians' Organisation of the Witwa- school teacher and he was a Putco tersrand in Johannesburg during the bus driver. I had registered for, | day, and I was sewing. They went on and obtained, a Bachelor of Arts and on about the march, and it soon degree through correspondence became obvious to me that they had with the University of South Afri­ been part of it. ca after I had finished my Second­ 'Did you two participate in the ary Teacher's Diploma at the J march?' I asked, putting aside the Soweto College of Education. He, I shirt I was sewing. The two men on the other hand, had only mat- looked at each other, but neither re­ ric. sponded. But what did all that matter? 'Did you, Fetsi?' I asked again. The man was intelligent and very 'Participate? Er...no, not really. I knowledgeable about many wouldn't say we participated,' he re­ things, and his command of the plied at last. English language was, I admit grudgingly, much better 'What do you mean "not really"? Did you or did you than mine. When he spoke, you would swear he was a not participate in the march?' I asked again, slowly graduate of one of our finest universities. Although he getting angry. was a bus-driver, he read newspapers and books more 'Well, Felicia darling, we merely stood on the pave­ voraciously than most graduates I knew of, and no one ment and watched as the marchers passed by. We also could tell him anything about politics. shouted one or two slogans in solidarity with them. I I also made things easy for him: I did not let the fact don't know whether you would call that participating in that I was more educated than he was, and that I earned the march?' more money than he did, go to my head. We didn't even I was flabbergasted. My husband had participated in talk about it. We discussed how, and on what, we spent a march by homosexuals! What the hell was happening? our money. And when we went out — which we did not Was he, perhaps, also homosexual? The thought sounded often do — he paid and it didn't matter whose money he so crazy. But when I thought of the day I found him used. caressing Jabulani in the car the thought sounded less and Despite my education, I am an old-fashioned African less crazy. Although Fetsi later told me he was merely woman. I accept unreservedly that a man must be the comforting Jabulani who had had a fight with his girl­ head of the family. Women's liberation, as I often tell my friend, the incident never completely faded out of my friends, is fine at the workplace but not at home. At work mind. Often I found myself thinking about it and asking I am equal to any of my male collegues, and would like myself questions, especially since Fetsi stopped making to be treated as such. I believe firmly that women should love to me. Could it be...? I couldn't bear to think of it. have the same rights as men, and be paid the same I must confess to you, dear reader, that nothing in our salaries as men with the same education and experience. marriage hurt me more than Fetsi's refusal to make love At home, however, I am a wife and a mother. to me. It blasted my pride as a woman into smithereens. As I remember now, only once has my education been Could it be that he no longer found me desirable, I asked an issue in this marriage, and that was last year. It was on myself. Was he, perhaps, seeing somebody else? I tried a Saturday evening and Fetsi, Jabulani and I were sitting all the tricks I knew of: I would send the children to bed Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 In Happiness and in Sorrow

early, dress provocatively, spruce myself up and even try different, Felicia. A person with your education should to seduce him — all to no avail. He showed absolutely no know that.' interest in me as a woman. On those rare occasions when 'Leave my education out of this, you hear me, Fetsi? he did respond, he would merely thrust half-heartedly Leave my education out of this.' once, twice or thrice before turning over to sleep. For 'The point I was trying to make is that one expects months and months this went on. educated people to be more sensitive to others' rights. My heart would bleed as he snored next to me. I would These people want to make sure that their rights are think of my principal at school and wonder whether I had protected and respected in the new South Africa,' he been wrong not to sleep with him. The man had been said. hankering after me for a long time now, and often told me 'And you? How do you get mixed up with them?' I he would recommend my appointment as Head of De­ asked, looking him in the eyes. partment if I went out with him. Only a few days earlier 'My dear Felicia,' he said calmly again, 'you don't I had even allowed him to fondle and kiss me in his office. understand. The phrase "none is free until we are all free" He had already undressed me and was about to take me is more than just a slogan. It is a truism. For as long as we when I stopped him. Should I have allowed him to make discriminate against those who are different from us, and love to me, I wondered as I lay next to my snoring allow their rights to be violated and arrogantly trampled husband, feeling rejected. upon, then we have no cause to complain when whites In the mornings I would spend hours in front of the discriminate against us because we are black, or when wardrobe mirror, looking at myself. Was I, perhaps, less women are discriminated against for no reason other than attractive now? Had the birth of Mangaliso and Nonhle that they are women. Don't you understand?' those many years ago left me disfigured and undesirable? 'But what they are doing is not normal, Fetsi. They Were there any wrinkles on my face and my stomach? want men to sleep with other men, and women with other These and other questions raced through my mind as I women. That is indefensible. It is unchristian. How can looked at myself in the mirror, wondering what to wear. you sit here with a straight face and say what you have There I go complaining again. I was still telling you just said unblushingly? Unlike blacks and women, these about my fight with Fetsi and his friend last year. He had people are just a minority which is an aberration to just told me he had participated in a homosexuals' society. They are...expatant,' I said, thinking of the march. What, I wondered, would my friends and col­ French word I had recently chanced upon in a book I had leagues say if they knew my husband had marched with been reading. homosexuals? What if they saw him with homosexuals 'It is not a question of numbers, my dear,' Fetsi said, in a picture in a newspaper or on television? The more I as cool as a cucumber. 'It is not a question of who are in thought about it the angrier I became. the majority and who are in the minority. Groups, no 'You shouted one or two slogans, you say?' I asked. matter how small — and, indeed, individuals as well — 'Yes, Felicia. In solidarity with the.../ should be free to do as they please and live their lives the To hell with solidarity, you hear me, Fetsi? To hell way they want, as long as they don't interfere with with solidarity.' others' rights. That, in essence, is what democracy is 'Felicia darling, listen,' Fetsi said calmly and coolly, about. An educated person like you should understand 'you may not agree with homosexuals and their sexual that....' orientations, but they, too, have rights, you know.' 'I said leave my education out of this discussion, 'Such as confusing our children, changing things please. I never stopped you from going to school. Don't from the way God wanted them to be, and getting you to keep reminding me of my education, and wanting to shout their slogans in....' make me feel guilty for it.' 'Such as getting married, adopting children and not I was angry then, and I spat these words with all the being regarded as less than human just because they are venom I could muster. Fetsi, pained by what I had said, Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Kaizer Nyatsumba

bit his lower lip but said nothing. As was the case I was beautiful. My husband stopped telling me that a few whenever he was angry, his eyes became small and he years ago. winked involuntarily repeatedly. I became ashamed of 'Mommy, what is it?' myself and regretted what I had said. I had not meant to It was Mangaliso's voice behind me. He had probably hurt him. heard me sobbing. I turned and looked at him. He was We looked at each other, but neither of us said with his little sister, Nonhle. anything. Pain was written all over our respective faces. 'Nothing, children. Go back to bed; it is cold,' I said, Embarrassed, I looked away, and my eyes fell on Jabu- trying to control myself. The children came closer. They lani. He was sitting on the edge of the sofa on my right- would not go away. I pointed at the note on the bed. As hand side. He had been quiet throughout our quarrel, and Mangaliso read it, I broke down and cried uncontrolla­ I had even forgotten he was there. bly. 'Er, I think I will go now,' he said, standing up. 'Where has Daddy gone to, Mommy?' Mangaliso Fetsi and I remained sitting. Jabulani, who looked asked. both angry and hurt, walked between us towards the door 'I...I...cannot tell you, children. P-please leave me leading to the kitchen. Once there, he turned to look at us, alone and go to sleep,' I said between sobbing. before leaving without saying anything. From that day 'What is it, Mangaliso? What is written on that onwards, he was to be very scarce indeed at our home. paper?' asked Nonhle. When he did come he did not stay long. However, he 'Daddy says he is leaving Mommy and us because he remained friendly to us all — myself and the children loves Jabulani,' Mangaliso replied. included. It was now Fetsi who often visited him, and I 'But doesn't he also love us like he loves his friend did not ask him any questions. Jabulani, Mommy?' Nonhle asked me. Until, of course, I found his note that Saturday 'When is he coming back, Mommy?' Mangaliso morning. asked immediately after Nonhle. After what seemed to be ages, I picked that piece of I was confused, and I did not know what to say. I paper from the pillow and read it again. Yes, I had read pulled the children closer and took them into my arms. it correctly. Nothing had changed, alright. The same Together we all cried. How was I going to tell them their message which had splintered my world into a million father was...er...gay, pieces earlier on was still there. Suddenly I felt giddy, and that after all and sat at the foot of the bed, looking at the sideboard these years he was mirror in front of me. leaving us so that he I sat there, sobbing uncontrollably. All I could think could freely love an­ of was that my husband had walked out on me—and for other man? another man! What would my friends and colleagues say I squeezed them when they came to hear of this? Indeed, what would the closer to me, and world say? How was I going to tell the children? whispered: 'H-he is Slowly I raised my head and looked at myself in the gone — for ever — mirror. My face was swollen and covered with tears. And children. He won't for the first time I saw wrinkles on my face. Were they — come — back — real or imaginary? I could not tell. My nose seemed to be again. He does not much bigger and out of proportion with my other facial love us any longer. features. I looked much older than I really was. Was I It is only Jabulani he ugly? I did not know any longer. How would I know? loves.' Apart from the principal at school and the many vermin­ And tears flowed ous men who pestered me on the streets, nobody told me from my eyes. Q Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry

Walter Kefuoe Chakela Two Poems Troubadour 4- Did They ask why You traverse the streets Oh! troubadour Can We Have a Witness Did They even look at your face Was there Or ask your name Any sign in the air Which presaged How The fateful night Did you respond Was there To the blankness Any warning Of their eyes In the glow of the sun Troubadour Or Their language The face of the moon Of guns Which prepared them Knuckles For the gruesome slaughter And boots Could This cup have passed them Or Had they been more vigilant Did you still Did any dark cloud Stubbornly hope Float over the camp The poetics of humanity Signifying an impending evil? Will permeate The desert There was no sign in the air Of their inhumanity Or on the face of the moon Wrought by years Nothing to make the night Of a cruel white winter Different from the one before

Troubadour The sun They Made its golden entrance in the East Might have emptied Beamed ploddingly across the sky Your pockets Into the starry embrace of the West But The North and the South At least Watched with cardinal indifference They left There was The poetry Nothing in the morning In you Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Poetry

Nothing in the day The busted doors Nothing in the evening And the wasted lives To make the residents Creep with paralysis Fight the allure of sleep On the mind the blanket of poverty The camp dwellers Gnashing their teeth When In grief and rage The creatures of the night The guilty are cloistered Descended on the slumbering squatters Behind polished doors Propelled in their mindless rage Relishing the carnage By the bile in their hearts Wrought by the predators Brandishing their tools of death Like prized trophies There was no sign in the air Did the moon Witness Or in the glow of the sun Their furtive approach? Maybe The commission should talk Maybe To the moon and the stars A jittery meteor High in the heavens Spotted the ominous band Did it shoot earth-wards And land with a bang On a shack To alert The men Women And children Or was the crashing noise That pierced the night That of a cracking skull Did the moon And the stars Grimace When an assegai Made another trip Through the guts Of a woman And the heart Of her unborn child?

The air Is thick with death In the camp Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Poetry

Ike Mboneni Wangu Muila Three Poems o In Memory of N.P. Muila

Rangani u thetshelesa mafuka duvha Vha muvhuya phedza dza nga Tshikwatamba tsha luranga Mavhele a Vhathu ponze i fa yo nambatela mulivho la tavha ni li ore For no reason Muoki wa lo Nga mutshekwa ni si luvhe nga mufyhetano to uncle Shangoni boy

Musi wa lo phalalani For no reason tsengela tsiwana Nga Mutshekwa fhasi dzi thavhani to my grandmother girl vhu ima mbidi na khongoni Muila matavhelo For no reason buka li sa ori duvha Nga Mutshekwa Muthannga musekene to my mother girl Mutamba na vhokunaho For no reason Muthannga a sa li vhutete Mavhele a vhathu nga u shavha For no reason u tetemela o liwa nga mini Wa thumbu For no reason i no pangwa o liwa nga pfene mutavha yaxa for no reason Muila thende ya lufheto pfene ndi nnyi a sa li phinimini For no reason Muila tshivhindi tsha nguluvhe pfene ndi nne Melting pot of love 16/01/1992 bring to light people who hurt others For their next meal and pleasures Muri u vhavhaho u bva tsindeni

Father, now that you are home the question of who deserves the crust or the crumbs of bread leaves much to be desired StaffriderVol. 10No. 41992 Poetry

Bloomer

Bloomer Madala Ek is ou Texan Terries Binne in die toene Change deurdlane o\

Bloomer Madala Jy is 'n ou nguluvhe spy tamtasie Ek ken jou haba we idala Haba stalavisto niks Bloomer MADALA

Bloomer Madala Ek spin in die toene eke ^ ^Mother's! Jy sal never nie skaf kry nie Check calaza hierso by of my beir Ek vang hulle is n< My m My charitab Die een is *n ou ma In my mother*1 Die ander een is 'n .3P A lulling comf e humming song Die laaste een is 'n A necessity m expulsion of my boredom. This formed the ent of the inseparability between Jy moet onthou Myself and m r. Skaf is 'n process This formed th of my being soothed by sounds Whereby cigarettes passes s2 When I was stil sleep in a cradle. From the owner to Bloomer Mada I grew up like a is flower in the garden So lovely as a /el. I still can re How I could er> Comforting he grown-ups Comfr of the butterflies in summer Com) also in summer r the summer

ading tadpole wadged its tail feebly like A bullterrier I lifted up my right foot Sdon I could start tumbling and dancing in reaction Meanwhile my mother acted as an activator She could commence clapping hands and chanting The song I never heard all along. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Poetry

^ Silence and the Beggar

What's chilling, and frightening, is the way he chooses to do it. It's a polystyrene fragment, moulded to cup money thrust into your face. A few dirty copper cents — he can't do much with them. You fight it, you resist raising your eyes, but he shakes it for so long, you're forced to look up, •g. confront his resentful eyes. The polystyrene jiggles again, forced to shake your head, to affirm that No, you're not going to give him anything. And down the bench he goes, forcing every head to rock from side to side — No one says a word.

He does not ask out loud. His begging consists of silence; it rattles those at the busstop. And when he leaves, drunkenly bumping into you, he leaves behind a silence, a shifting guilty silence, He leers away, checking his meagre fortune, that echoes from the closed mouths. you turn around, And it says, I'm not a bad person, Breaking the silence: but enough is enough. 'He should get a job,' — You both agree. He should be taken somewhere, But starting after the tired clothes a shelter perhaps...? and used-up body, And no one moves. the package of decay and wreckage, the time for his employment is long gone, Then he turns again, And so, the silence comes again. the muddied eyes throw a glance That famous declaration. that doesn't drive up and down your body, but stays rooted to your own eyes, Trying to pull out your sympathy, he extracts your revulsion. The diseased eyes are against him, Opposite page: the lost arm, the visible stump, Lungile Phambo the blackened teeth, the odour of despair. • It's About Time • You recoil. Watercolour on paper Knowingly, he leans closer.

Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 The Politics of Publishing

In this paper, I will try to address the able to society. Of course, other agen­ and that the writers whose work has politics of publishing. What power cies also affect what is published — been absent from anthologies, jour­ do publishers have? What are the governments and censorship boards, nals and bookshop shelves have a limits to their power? Through pro­ for example. But the publishing in­ right to be heard at last. viding a few brief answers to these dustry does have significant power Unfortunately for both writers questions, I hope to share some ideas over the spread of information, and publishers, though, publishers which may help writers to better knowledge, opinions and ideas. are not entirely free to publish what understand and change their situa­ To understand this power, it's they like. For despite the enormous tion. useful to imagine what would hap­ power they wield, in other ways In looking at the limits to pub­ pen if publishers stopped publish­ publishers' power is also very limit­ lishers' power, I will address some ing. Imagine, for example, if every ed by the context in which they of the difficulties which publishers publisher in the world refused to operate. face. In so doing, I may appear to be publish newspapers. How would rather too sympathetic to publishers people know what is happening The Context of who, after all, are in a considerably around them, or in other parts of the South African Publishing better position than most in South world? Africa, and who have often played a Or imagine if every publisher in Publishing is a business. Publishers very destructive role through up­ the world refused to publish the Bible. make a product, sell it and make holding a fundamentally unjust so­ What would the conseq \ be for either a profit or a loss. In South cial system. This paper is not meant Christianity? Imag novels, no Africa, the business of publishing is to let publishers off the hook — but dictionaries, no books of traffic weighted down by social and eco­ a separate paper is needed to address regulations, no textbooks™ nomic difficulties which are the leg­ their responsibilities and roles in the Publishers are political actors. acy of years of unjust, racist rule. context in which they work. They choose which ideas to spread, which informs or many writers, the What is Publishing? tion to expose, what to hide. They can choose publishing industry To publish means to make public. whether to publish pro­ Publishers take information, ideas gressive ideas or right-wing reac­ Here we look at some of the features or images and make them available tionary beliefs. And since most pub­ of our society which undermine the to the public. They put the informa­ lishing houses in South Africa are viability of a strong, indigenous and tion in a form which can be distrib­ owned and staffed by white, middle representative publishing industry. uted — a newspaper, pamphlet, class, educated people, publishing magazine, book—and then sell it. If houses tend to reflect the interests of Publishers Need Readers a publisher prints 10 000 copies of a that grouping. By making choices, novel and leaves them locked in a publishers affect what people know The publishing industry sells its prod­ warehouse, that is not publishing. It and what opinions they hold. ucts to people who can use them — is only when the novel is distributed For many writers, the publishing that is, people who can read. In that it can be said to be published. industry has historically been al­ South Africa, some nine million Publishers choose whether or not most closed. With some important adults cannot read or write. Research to make a work available to the exceptions, the industry has simply suggests that at least forty percent of public. This is where publishers' not published black and working black children never start school, power lies. They can determine what class writers. And writers are right­ and a quarter of those who enter information or ideas become avail­ fully insisting that this has to change, Grade One never read Grade Two. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Orenna Krut I

These millions of illiterate children lishing is part of social reconstruc­ made it exceptionally difficult for will swell the future figures of adult tion, of building a genuinely equita­ African-language learners to achieve illiteracy, and are being added to by ble and non-racial society. Yet the written proficiency in either the 'of­ more and more out-of-school children. financial truth, according to pub­ ficial' languages or their home lan­ The illiteracy rate is clearly a lishers both progressive and conser­ guages. major problem for publishers as it vative, is that if a publisher publish­ These different aspects of the limits their potential markets. It is es the same book (translated) in En­ language question add to the diffi­ significant that the giant Argus news­ glish and in an African language, the culties of developing a broad-based paper company is so concerned about English version sells more copies— readership for whom publishers could who will read (and so buy) its news­ including to people whose first lan­ publish. papers in the future, that it is inves­ guage is that African language and tigating running a major educational for whom English is a second or Publishing For Poor People programme in its various papers to third language. ensure that ten years from now, Most publishers can't afford to Publishers need people to buy the enough people will still be buying publish books that will sell in low books they publish. newspapers. numbers to small markets. The few­ The majority of South Africa's er copies of a book one prints, the people live in extreme poverty. Mil­ The Language Question more expensive each copy is, so that lions are unemployed, and most who if one prints for a very small reader­ do work are badly paid and have to Those people who are literate are ship the readers will have to pay share their money with other depen­ literate in different languages. Thus much higher costs for the same size dents. Books are not high on the the potential market for a book is not book than they would have to pay if shopping list of most South Afri­ just the literate population, but the the publisher could print more. cans. When money is scarce, people will buy food, clothes and shelter long before they'll buy a book. And while fundamental political change has historically been closed may not, we hope, be too far away, it is likely to be a long time before population literate in a particular This affects the publisher's abil­ economic conditions change sub­ language. South Africans speak sev­ ity to publish in some of the less stantially for the majority of people eral languages, and different lan­ widely spoken languages of this in this country. guages dominate different regions country. of the country. A further difficulty is that be­ Library Provision For various well-known reasons cause English and Afrikaans were English is politically and economi­ selected as the 'official* languages Libraries should be a market for cally dominant, despite the fact that of this African country, and because publishers, and should provide ac­ it is only the fourth most widely of the general neglect or undermin­ cess to books for poor and rich. In spoken language in the country. Pub­ ing of African culture, African lan­ South Africa, however, the library lishers have to face the political chal­ guages have been underdeveloped system reflects the same racial in­ lenge of publishing in African lan­ in South Africa. There is little writ­ justice that underpins all the other guages. Until now, African language ing, reading or publishing in African factors cited here. The vast majority book publishing has been almost languages, and government educa­ of the libraries are located in white exclusively confined to textbooks. tion policies governing language areas and their stocks tend to cater Extending African language pub- acquisition and use in schools have for the interests, languages and con- Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 41992 The Politics of Publishing

ers can' t keep costs—and therefore age reading in their communities. prices — low. Persuading friends and family to read Because poverty is so extreme, is one small step. But the real chang­ and because books are not necessi­ es will come through programmes ties, high prices can be as damaging which operate on a mass scale and to the publisher as they are to the according to democratic principles. reader. The facts suggest that the crucial campaigns are those which: What This Means For Local Publishers — advance literacy — build a culture of learning If publishing is a business, it's not a — build a culture of reading very healthy one in South Africa — extend library services to all today. Where people are poor and — provide free and compulsory ed­ levels of literacy are low, where ucation for all. publishing-related industries are monopolised and the education sys­ At the broadest level, writers should tem is in shambles, local publishers aim to give people the ability to cerns of white readers. are bound to struggle. read, access to books and the desire What this means is that libraries Five minutes in a bookshop will to read. don't provide much of a market for show you that with the exception of For these reasons, writers in this alternative publishers — including textbooks, we are reading the books country have an important role as those who might wish to make the of overseas publishers most of the social activists. voice of new young writers heard. time. Of course, this does not mean And since libraries tend not to cater that writers should simply focus on for the majority of the population, The Role of Writers community needs and ignore the having a book in a library does not publishers. The mainstream publish­ guarantee that one reaches the audi­ What can writers do about this situ­ ers in this country have tended to ence one wants to reach. ation? Is thereaway writers can help support, actively or passively, an support good, local publishing in apartheid society, and have much to Monopolies and South Africa? Can creative writers answer for. Certainly, writers must High Book Prices improve their own situation — can continue to challenge the publishers they help themselves to be published? and pressurise them to change their The book publishing-related indus­ The answer is yes. publishing practices. tries in South Africa are dominated This paper began by noting that But to achieve real, lasting by monopolies. Bookshop chains, writing is the first step towards com­ change, we will have to deal with the the paper industry and even the print­ municating. But a published work is problem at its roots. We will have to ing and ink industries are in large not necessarily the same as a work change the conditions under which part monopolised. The effect of this that is read. If writers want to com­ books and other media get made, monopolisation is that publishers are municate, if they want to be read, sold, distributed and read. Q forced to pay high prices for goods their goals have to extend way be­ and services and to give huge dis­ yond seeing their names in print. This paper is based on a discussion counts to retail outlets. In the end, Writers have the responsibility paper presented to the Congress of readers pay more because publish­ and practical motivation to encour- South African Writers. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 m Poetry

Anne Marie Grindrod Two Poems 4> For Nawal el Saadawi My Goddesses Return

I wish I could explain I've sought self expression to you words silenced, what it means I asked my body to speak for me to be a woman Then that too was silenced. trying to find myself in its messages shouted down, literature its audiences turned away writing out my heart My body has always spoken to me expressing all that i am And I have fought her, argued back. too hesitant to Now i've learnt to listen pour out to you. to me, and slowly the words are coming back: I can never stem the tide My Body is my Muse of words which and, once mute, I'd like to flow in your My Goddesses return. direction cooling between your toes bringing fragrant flowers upon the water to inspire you slaking your thirsts. <^> Ruminations of the Wretched I wish I could explain to you Wafting wordlessly distant what it means in an azure painted sky, to be a woman.... a swallow is a speck of black rhythm wonderously imitating that distant word constructed.

CO Wandering unseen across this world's blue page, subtle as it is silent the swallow mimes a thought that is slain on a page by this bloody ink. Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 41992 i Poetry

Passover Seder Sandra Braude Two Poems Jesus of Nazareth looked at his followers across the brimming kiddush-cup <0> and made the blessing on the crimson wine. Then, raising up the Matzo, spoke in measured and in sing-song voice about affliction.

'We once were slaves' he said 'in Egypt.'

Outside, the Roman soldiers tramped and swore. Tom This night- Passover night— He teaches how to live, A nurse checks we are free men!' this one. underneath the blanket where useless limbs are stretched, The passion A brawney torso fills and cleans the flushing tube. in his eyes the narrow cot, 'Watch for my girl', betrayed bruise-blackened biceps he warns and laughs, his serious intent— rest against the sides, a mournful sound, a vision a blatant scar then 'With a bit of rehab and a chair of high freedom. divides his massive chest. I should be fine.' 'they got me One acid-blinded eye opaquely shines, 'Let all those when I left my work', the other shrewdly glints who are hungry he smiles, and hints of fight still there. come and eat.' 'they grabbed the gun I carry in my belt. A battle scarred and bloody torn Of all those men I tried to get it back still hungers for the life to come. around the table, and hardly felt the shot.' Judas alone It tore inside toyed with his food. and lodged against the spine. 'If I had only got the swine!' Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Poetry 1

Brian Walter Violence Two Poems With their heads slashed off the aloes stood dumb, yet every flower still bleeding, each red tipped wound was a tongue

telling, from the angle of cut, the whip of a stick, the flick of wrist, the tight glee of destruction, a greed of selfhood, a pride of power.

The lopped aloes headlined a wanton veld violence

carving down beauty, slashing the seed.

The Victoria Hall, Alice

The choir was august.

the conductor's hands drawing out, muting bass and tenor in Xhosa song, English folk, the Blues. The singers, in semi-circle, stood on dusty stage and low benches, dressed in black and formal white:

till five young choristers from Mdantsane bust rank, toyi-toyied to the centre, dancing out a song:

treading, treading, in tuxedoed shoes, 8111111 African dust. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry

The Holy Land

^ Look at me jewboy I'm understanding your case right now ^ I know you're tired from all those thousand *• Wandering years. It's me your great aunt speaking from the grave 2 I know your sins best of all. I watch you in your sleep. j^ You didn't always wander through the northern suburbs ^ Your soul was once clean and capable j* The old walking sticks were kind and poor ^ Their souls were cleaner than the city of Kuwait. ;jg And I bathed in the harbours of zion Q There were pearls I tell you. I paid for a pilgrimage j^g To my Mecca. I saw real bombers from home dressed in mud "^ These were other old ladies like the ones you know Normal old goats on tour eating out of tin cans Eating Israel paying huge South African sums To the Holy Land. They planted trees donated millions. Can you imagine the sad dream that's died. They were old people who got out of the camps alright. They still had those numbers tattooed to their wrists. I think they know how the Arabs felt. Yet they were running From the far hills to tell them in so many words That camps are camps and refugees are refugees Hunger is hunger and the soul is the soul. Me, I can't fight anymore. I've given. I'm spent. I am spent. Yet even so Saddam was good for us. At last there was really an Arab devil. I know. I gave my last clothes as he bombed us. It's a curse. We invested in Israel and I'm backing my horse. I'm Sharing my hopes on my Mount of Olives. And now Now I want to drink from my god's hand. I'll be there for the ressurrection. That's why I've given To that diet of rest and product. Here's to the afterlife. I know. I'm only here for this one stint then it's kaput. So I'm asking the Lord. Here I'm standing Lord Alone in my puddle of light. I'm terrified. I'm sick. I've lost my mother and I can't find my father. I came to my people, a blade to my foreskin, a noose around my neck. I ate christian crap in the name of the Son. Rasputin bled me like an ox I saw the inquisition with a candle up my arse. But I made good. Now I can't fight anymore. I can't fight anymore. I spent my last penny on Saddam. And so I'm late now. I'm late for the famine. I must go now. I don't want to see my true feelings As the real plastic Palestinian babies begin to die. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry I

Karen Press Two Poems

Welcome Summertime soldiers and stockbrokers The new South Africa's two years old shake hands: and more's been lost than we've been told. there are no sides anymore No jobs, no rain, no foreign aid, no hopes, no dreams, no victory parade. bananas are growing on the pear tree But one commodity's still around: Pik's moustache extends and curls the summertime white boys turning brown. a satisfied cat flicks its tail in the cream In blaring cars with surfboard racks, three black hairs float there with designer T-shirts on their backs, they come as they've done for twenty years volcanic sunsets bleed over toasting lovers untouched by doubt or political fears. the ice-cream man collects used condoms They're perennial holiday season flowers, the cars drive straight upward these summertime white boys turning brown. on the mountain sliding into the sea the speaking totem pole in the sky Despite the drought and the ozone hole is called Nelson they find enough beer and suntan oil to keep them bearing B. Comm fruit bananas are growing on the pear tree and growing to fit the manager's suit a yellow bag full of pink notes in every business in every town, sails down the cableway the summertime white boys turning brown. little hands open and close like venus flytraps black ones There's still enough time for them to buy the meat they need for the last beach braai, there's snow everywhere and the unit trusts and Kruger rands the roads are melting and investment stakes in distant lands welcome home, exiles and entertainers that they'll take with them on the autumn flight you get three shares in a pear tree as the nation fills up with brown boys turning white. a bullet and a banana to help you settle in: shake hands Preparations for CODESA non-stop« SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY PlhcDtogiraiplln^ tby Vfietorr IMatomm

Text by Jacqueline Masiza

Under our noses, 'n dry throats after smok­ kgontje in London, the ing. Their waist belts are jolly good times can be loosened so that they are sucked from a bottelkop. comfortable when pull­ Up in a puff goes the ing and skyfing. The bot­ worries, depressions and telkop is circulated and oppressions. Laities every member is given come in touch with the the opportunity to show weed when in custody, his skills in pulling as the or on the run, even at bottelkop is circulated. school. The only scamto Tula comes in all sorts when these Codesa mem­ of makes: there is Ger­ bers get together is Tula. man, Golf, Lizard, No- Die tjaroes are in even name Capsule and so number and the series of forth. They cost between pictures depict what is ten and twenty rand. Most called a Codesa non­ of the tjaroes are unem­ stop. ployed, some are scholars These guys are proud who are given money for of themselves. Their school but for whom tula minds are made up and comes first. Some even sell they can't be stopped. their clothes for one tula. Like the real Codesa, When their funds have every tool has been pre­ dried up they rob people in pared and set: a hammer, to tula or crush, spoegbucket, the neighbourhood. They get caught and end up in prison tarras with vika, bottelkop and mageu to dampen their which sets them on a spiral of ever increasing crimes. 13 •The judge sentenced the pill Hula' to be crushed • • Amongst the tjaroes sharing is common • • Undoing the safety belt • »Two sticks to destroy • StaffriderVol. 10NO.41992 Poetry

Allan Kolski Horwitz Two Poems 4> and ice puts my lips to chattering Swan of Lisbon and the hollow arm of friendship corrupts even as I gush my soul) To the blue swan once black as the depth of diamond/coal Come swan, whom I met gracing a cathedral in the cool of day under a vaulted arch another song of Africa while divine music played and the light where the howling wind was of timelessness cannot yet douse the drum and the tambourine; the lips (later at dusk gliding in a black canal of African women remain past a fort ribboning a hill full of love, full of pleasure I left my white canary to sing for you while I was gone And you swan with neck bent to Africa) and wings clipped — have you lost your gliding magic? now

SAY NO SAY NO SAY NO say I will sing another song of Africa to you who would leave as each revolution the blues are just a cloud hoists its flag over a burning, seething city floating momentarily for nothing is ever to you who would leave as the busyness over is ever complete of living and building gets underway is ever total is ever (as the business of buying and selling recognisable from the outside, begins) Oswan to you who sang to me of armour so swim from your White City arrayed for Holy Battle cross the oceans to Brazil and Angola (you swan with your wings and your oared feet in your White City splaying, splashing and driving forward) you sang to me and as you did we stood lips momentarily and greet my songster lips brushing battered and desolate but still (I could feel the warmth seeking the rare air, the sweetest of a fire I would never fully feel; are sweetest; (I sing still though I would never hold you a furnace burns my days to ash in the depth of night as one Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Poetry i never face the free beating of your wings again) so from Africa I send my other birds over the desert and the ocean # to enfold you for I am still lit by your kiss; your glittering grail

Empty Bellies Tremble

Bellies tremble and Passing trees and flower-beds; with hungering fingers deep-freezers stocked with meat and vegetables; passing the walls take out knives (such hope of these mansions of those wise -lessness); waiting for night, and worthy who still howl though for cloud, for quiet and sleeping sentries — enclosed with healthy children — we wait to fill ourselves a little. passing all these things,

May the night of sleeping dogs we, who have ignore our pad. next to nothing,

This night which covers sentries except(ing) whose cocked revolvers wake to jam us at the windows — thin frames too thick the throttled air for larceny. of hungering,

We walk we take out our knives (such hope -lessness). filling shack-towns, new planets, with our loot, our staples, our dream-machines; we, shack-dwellers of the end-zones, we take the last bus to zones of plenty; of green; of sharp-fanged dogs.

Warmer than tin shacks. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry

•A- Mmbwa Dza Muvhuso

Mmbwa dza muvhuso Ndi mmbwa dza muvhuso Ndi mmbwa dza matula ft* Ndi matula nama ndi matul/\ a khombo Matarelwa, mmbwa dza tshituhu "2 A vha humbuli vha tou humbulelwa Vha shuma nga ndaela, naho dzi tshi knonda £ A vha lali, a vha edeli -A- Awaiting Birth A3 Vha tshi linda muthu Na luphumo lwawe It seems each mental asylum morning 8 he stirs Sedzani matsimbi e vha hwala to a crypt. I Ni sedze mikumbu ye vha beba Then, highly-dosed saliva dripping, Vho tsireledza dzithoho limping rhythmically, A 8 stooping, Ngeno vha tshiya ulwa na vhahali, he treads the blind hospital paths towards, Vhahali vha si na zwithavhane A but never reaching, Dzi huvha nwedzi, nge dza vhenga tshedza the erect, red-pointed aloes « Dzi luma matombo, nge dza runwa u luma and fleshy flowers Dzi pandamedza muya, nge ngoho dza shaya of the surrounding, open veld. Dzi shuma nga ndaela, naho dzi tshi konda 'I need money to get married,' he smiles. Ndi mmbwa dza muvhuso, ndi mmbwas dza matula 'Would you like to buy some fudge, sister?' A 'Morning, doctor, Vha ya he vha si rambiwe shall I wash your car today?' U khakhisa mulalo na u tshinya vhudziki He returns later to the tomb where A vha humbeli, vha sokou amba other bodies dream of dead days. Tshavho ndi u kombetshedza Foetus-like, awaiting birth, Uri vha kondou rwa vha vhulahe he curls on a sofa to wait for the new, Vhunga maanda vho newa vho ingwa red-haired, Huno zwi khou fhela zwi khou dzama fleshy-mouthed, open-faced assistant nurse.

Opposite page: Barney Nkosi • Untitled • Oil on board r p^ n i VJ J \ji Introduction fective educational change. The strength of any society de­ 'Much education in the past South Africa is currently undergo­ pends on the quality of the individ­ has concentrated on the ing significant and inexorable uals living in that society and this is, memorising of factual knowl­ change. It is widely recognised that to a large extent, inherent in their edge; education today and some ofthe strains and tensions pres­ education. Effective education in tomorrow can, and must, con­ ently being experienced are related turn depends on access to books. centrate on developing the to the country's educational system. The Beswicks point out the im­ ability to think for oneself, Effective social change in South portance ofthe contemporary school critically assess the mass of Africa must of necessity involve ef­ library in the educational process: information, communication Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 1 The School Library in S.A.

and persuasion which sur­ a major educational aim in all soci­ medium through which knowledge rounds us constantly, and the eties. It should not be forgotten how­ has been passed down. The 20th skills of enquiry and research. ever that individuals are inevitably a century has seen both a massive in­ The school library, as a me­ part of the community, from which formation explosion and develop­ dia centre, will be a crucial neither they nor their education can ment in technology. Although the element in such work. We be divorced. Ruperti acknowledges book has not been superseded by the can, at last, concentrate on this fact when he says: new media it has become necessary education rather than instruc­ for the seeker of knowledge to have tion. In this way, our pupils The organised education of access to a wide and varying range will be better prepared for a the youth of a community is of information-bearing resources. lifetime in a world of uncer­ part and parcel of the culture With this in mind, UNESCO, in 1980, tainty, unpredictability and of the community.... formulated its School Library Me­ headlong change.'1 When one talks of educa­ dia Service Manifesto, with the fol­ tion, therefore, one is also lowing objectives: In the 19th century Matthew Arnold inevitably talking of commu­ commented that 'a power of read­ nity culture and cultural com­ 'Effective school library me­ ing, well trained and well guided, is munities.'3 dia service is essential both to perhaps the best among the gifts the achievement of the edu­ which it is the business of our ele­ By the 1930s the importance of the cational programme of the mentary schools to bestow'.2 school library in the education of the school and as a necessary Arnold's sentiments remain per­ child had begun to be clearly recog­ component of total library tinent to this day. The major func­ nised. In America, the Education service. An effective school tion of the primary (or elementary Policies Commission, with its goals library media service will: school) is to enliterate children, and of self-realisation, human relation­ what better way than to expose them ships, economic efficiency and civic • give continuing support to to the written word—to a 'power of responsibility, described the value the teaching and learning pro­ reading'? Books are crucial to the of the school library: gramme and provide impetus educational development of children, to educational change; and it is desirable that they should '(Education)... encompasses • ensure maximum access to have contact with books in their the whole life of the child and the widest possible range of daily lives — in the home, in the implies continuity of devel­ resources and services; classroom and in the library, wheth­ opment towards democratic • equip students with the ba­ er school or public. It is in the library citizenship. It demands the sic skills to obtain and use a particularly that children can move fusion of all school activities wide range of resources and beyond the confines of both class­ into a complete pattern of services; room teaching and their own experi­ social and learning experi­ • lead them towards a lifetime ences; it is in the library that they can ences, wherein the library as use of libraries for recreation, discover worlds of fantasy and ac­ one integral part shares these information and continuing quaint themselves with facts about objectives and assumes re­ education.'5 the environment. And this does not sponsibility for their achieve­ stop with the elementary school: the ment on an equal basis with The South African secondary school serves as an exten­ the rest of the school.'4 School Library sion of this process. Development of the individual is The book has been the predominant The importance of school libraries Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Sandra Braude i

has been recognised in South Afri­ only however after World War II dation and guidance pro­ can since 1896, when Sir Thomas that school libraries in South Africa grammes were established in Muir, Superintendent General of really began to progress. Pretoria; Education in the Cape Colony, wrote The picture of school libraries in • training courses were estab­ in his annual report that 'the lowest South Africa cannot however be seen lished for school librarians, ideal to be aimed at must be no at this stage as a totality. Parliamen­ and advisors began to visit school without a suitable library, tary legislation under Nationalist rule the schools to assist in library and teachers and inspectors are coun­ served to fragment the schooling administration; selled to keep such an ideal steadily system in terms of racial classifica­ • a Book Guide was published in mind'.6 tion. As a result children went to as an aid in the selection of In 1919 the Transvaal, with the school, not per se, but to schools books departments of Librar- exclusion of Johannesburg, decided allocated to the groups to which they ianship were established at to pool resources for school librar­ 'belonged' in terms of law, i.e. the colleges of education; ies. This was co-ordinated by the 'white', 'black', 'Indian' or 'co­ • an Education Library was Germiston Public Library, while the loured'. Control of schools in each set up in Pretoria, in order to Johannesburg Public Library as­ of these sectors was exerted by dif­ provide professional service sumed responsibility for schools fering and separate Educational De­ to all departmental officials; within the Johannesburg municipal partments and, to date, this control • a Model School Library, area. This approach, supported by persists. There was often little parity containing a copy of each the Transvaal Education Depart­ between the services or finances of­ book approved by the De­ ment, remained the most compre­ fered by the different Departments. partment was set up in Preto­ hensive in South Africa until the This affected inter alia school li­ ria. 1930s.7 braries, where a disproportionate In 1939 the Interdepartmental development took place in white In 1968 Groenewald's manual The Committee concluded that 'it has schools. School Library in Educational Per­ already been emphasized that the spective appeared.9 At the same time work of libraries should take the Libraries in White Schools both specialisation courses in school form of a campaign and that the librarianship, at the colleges of edu­ principle field for this lies among the By 1951 the Transvaal had taken the cation, and a central cataloguing younger members of the communi­ lead over the other provinces and service, in Pretoria, were initiated. ty. It is a truism that the reading established a fully functional school Schools with over 400 pupils were habit, once acquired in youth, is library service, divided between granted full-time teacher-librarians, treasured ever afterwards as an ines­ School and College Organisations and an audiovisual service was inau­ timable blessing.... For this impor­ and a Departmental Library. Up to gurated. tant work there are two principal 1966 the service developed consid­ The 1970s saw the introduction agencies available, namely school erably in the following ways: of differentiation and subject spe­ 8 libraries and public libraries/ cialisation, both of which imposed The Committee further decided • each government school was increased demands on the school that the school libraries of each prov­ given a library, which was libraries. ince should be co-ordinated by an integrated into the curricu­ In 1978 there was a major devel­ organiser, and that teachers should lum; opment with the establishment of be instructed in library usage. Here­ • centralised services for the the Education Library and Ancillary in lay the introduction to integration selection, processing, infor­ Audiovisual Service, and provision of the library in the school. It was mation retrieval, accommo- for the conversion of school libraries Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 The School Library in S.A.

into media centres. The Transvaal, of Education and Training is respon­ librarians, this programme now op­ over and above all the other provinc­ sible for library services in black erates throughout the country. A pri­ es, had taken a big step forward into schools within the Republic. It un­ vate organisation, well subsidised, it the technology age. dertakes a central programme for the has already established numerous li­ Libraries in white schools in the purchase of books, and publishes a braries in black schools, and provid­ other provinces followed a similar, if list of approved books for this pur­ ed many services to them.11 not identical, course of development. pose. In 1980 a substantial amount of READ describes itself as follows: The Transvaal Education Department money was set aside for the purpose may perhaps have been in the lead in of developing accommodation in this It is an independent, non-ra­ this area, butEducation Departments area, and in the same year 125 prima­ cial, professional organisation of the Cape, Natal and Orange Free ry schools received books to the val­ funded by the private sector, State paid good attention to the needs ue of R1,000. At the same time 30 which aims to help the people of white children, and libraries were secondary schools each received an of Southern Africa to read, both integrated into the schools and allocation of R10,000, and the seven write and speak with greater reasonably well used. black teacher's training colleges re­ competence. Because however of the split in ceived books to the value of R2,500. It was established in Jo­ the various Education Departments There has recently been talk of sig­ hannesburg 10 years ago and, in the country, as determined by dif­ nificant sums of money being direct­ since expanding its activities ferent Acts of Parliament, there were ed towards the supply of books for to the rest of South Africa in (and still are) differences in the ap­ black schools. The effects of this 1983, has worked with more plication of both education and the remain to be seen. than 1400 institutions, trained implementation of the school library The Department of Education and over 36 000 delegates during in relation to various sectors of the Training offers advice and guidance courses and workshops, dis­ community. The concept of 'Own to school libraries through a visiting tributed over half a million Affairs' extended (and still does) to inspector. Teachers' training colleg­ books and reached over 3,5 virtually every aspect of living. There es offer specialisation training, and million students. is no denying that both ideology and in-service courses are offered to economics functioned to the advan­ teachers. Further guidance is offered In 1986 READ held the Festival of tage of the white sector; as a result, by the manual, The School Librari­ Books and the Kalula Reading Com­ children coming from other sectors an.10 petition. It also organises conferenc­ were severely deprived of the bene­ In the final analysis however it es on literacy and librarianship and is fits of both education and well-func­ must be acknowledged that there is setting up career guidance sections. tioning school libraries. Social un­ no parity between the library servic­ Extremely successful, even in these rest contributed to this deprivation: es offered in black and white schools, times of stress, READ would appear not only were school library facili­ and that much needs to be done in to have rendered innovative and valu­ ties limited, but what was there was this area. able services in the sphere of black often subject to destruction. enliteration. READ Black School Library Services Evaluation of Some Aspects of An interesting and highly successful School Libraries in South Africa Despite the fact that South Africa is programme to black scholars is of­ rapidly moving towards a new dis­ fered by the READ (Read, Educa­ On 17 September 1986 Professor Dr pensation, separate Education De­ tion and Develop) organisation. In­ P.G.J. Overduin, in his address to the partments persist. The Department augurated in 1967 by Johannesburg SAILIS Conference, presented a Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Sandra Braude 1

comprehensive overview of the func­ their own Departments for an alloca­ education. Many school libraries of­ tioning of school libraries in South tion of books. This is in some re­ fer borrowing facilities only after Africa. In so doing he took into ac­ spects inimical to the rationale be­ normal school-hours, for a limited count the results of a research project hind libraries. Although it is accept­ period. In the high schools emphasis conducted under his leadership, the ed that the book stock in South Afri­ is placed on formal study, and prior­ report of which was published in can schools is on the whole excel­ ity is given to examination-related October 1986, and which describes lent, the system places limitations on subjects, e.g. history, where much the school library situation relative both pupil and teacher. The advan­ reading is required for matriculation to each Department involved.12 Sev­ tages lie mainly in the outlying ar­ purposes. eral of Professor Overduin's find­ eas, where libraries are assured of an Often book-education lessons ings are set out below. allocation of books of quality. The concentrate on such areas as the na­ An effective and active central disadvantages appear to be two-fold: ture and parts of a book, or use of the educational library service, which • teacher-librarians do not get prac­ Dewey system. Integration with the has the necessary initiative, profes­ tice in the critical selection of books, curriculum is given pre-eminence. sional advice and underlying assis­ and are not encouraged to do so, and Beswick agrees that the thorough­ tance services is an important factor in certain areas, particularly, contro­ ness applied to the factual side of in the effective functioning of school versial material is likely to be absent. user education is unquestionable, but libraries. To date the Transvaal Edu­ • The difference in the number of considers that more individual ex­ cation Department is the only de­ books borrowed per capita in the ploration and use of the library tends partment in the land that co-ordi­ various departments is manifest: not to be encouraged.13 In other words, nates all library and audio-visual despite an intensive integrated use, services. Number of books borrowed by pupils the school library would appear not The average number of books per over a year to be a significant part of the child's student in the various departments education in other ways. varies considerably: Department No. of books O.F.S. (white) 10 Conclusions Transvaal" 5 Average number of books per student Natal " 16 The school library has to be seen in Department No. of books Cape " 10 Indian 13 educational perspective. It is a sine O.F.S. (white) 10.4 Coloured 4 qua non that the child should be Transvaal " 8.9 Natal 12.8 Black 1 assisted towards his full develop­ Cape " 10.3 ment, and all aspects of his education Indian 5.5 It is interesting to note that the Trans­ should contribute to this process. Coloured 2.5 vaal, with its excellent school-library The question arises as to how Black 2.4 services for whites, indicates a rela­ effective the school library is in con­ tively low figure of borrowing, and temporary South Africa? Full effec­ In Natal and the Indian schools no the figures for coloured and black tiveness would seem to require a limitations are placed on the choice schools are particularly worrying. happier educational situation than is of books, but schools in the Trans­ currently present in the country, vaal and Cape must obtain approval School Library Usage where social flux is so clearly dem­ before obtaining books. 'Coloured' onstrated in the schooling situation, schools must submit lists of books A large number of school libraries and where so many children are pres­ for approval, and black schools and limit use during school hours to cur- ently either not getting a meaningful those in the Orange Free State rely on ricular media use and lessons in book education, or any education at all. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 The School Library in S.A.

The true and committed educa­ South Africa there are problems re­ tern in Southern Africa, Pretoria: tionist must hope for and work to­ lating to school libraries that need to vanSchaik, 1976, p.6. wards a more equitable situation, be overcome. It is to be hoped that in 3. Ibid,p.3. and must consider each child as an the foreseeable future responsible individual, entitled to the same rights educationists will acknowledge that 4. The School Library. (Education to personal development, irrespec­ children, and not ideologies, are im­ pamphlet no. 21) (London): De­ tive of background, culture or co­ portant. partment of Education & Sci­ lour. It is clear that in certain schools, ence, 1967, p.6. Such a Utopian concept is not the black in particular, sufficient use 5. Carroll, Frances Laverne Recent beyond our reach. There are howev­ is not being made of the school li­ Advances in School Librarian- er basic problems that will have to be brary. READ would appear to be ship Oxford: Pergamon, 1981. overcome. Sectors of the community playing a significant part in the pro­ can be seen as promoting deeply motion of involvement with books, 6. Kesting, J.G. * South Africa, li­ rooted and often opposing and irrec­ and attention will have to be paid to braries in the Republic of,' in oncilable educational ideologies. development in this area. Encyclopaedia of Library and In­ Until a balance has been struck be­ The fact that, as things stand in formation Science (Vol 28) New tween such antithetical ideologies, South Africa at present, not all edu­ York: Dekker, 1980, p.201. South African education will contin­ cationists are prepared to recognise 7. Ibid, p.201. the full significance of the school ue to suffer. And this is where the 8. Ibid, p.201. importance of the school library library, should not detract from its comes in. value. Those who do should take it 9. Groenewald, 77te School Library The school library can be seen as upon themselves to protect, nay, cher­ in Educational Perspective Pre­ a stable factor in times of change. ish the school library, and promote toria: T.E.D., 1967 Books and other resources remain an understanding ofits value amongst 10. Musiker, R. Companion to South constant in their form and content, their colleagues. By doing so they African Libraries Johannesburg: and the library can represent an is­ will be working towards a perpetua­ Donker, 1986, p.49. land of stability in a sea of flux. We tion of democratic and lasting values have fortunately not reached that in South African society. ll.Ibid, p.4. Orwellian stage in which Winston Let us hope that all those sincere­ 12. Overduin, P.G.J. Skoolbiblioteek- Smiths spend their time restructur- ly interested in the children and the wese in Suid-Afrika: Verslag van ingrecords of human history. A writ­ future of South Africa will take up 'n Navorsingsprojek 1982-1986, ten volume remains a permanent ar­ the challenge. To repeat the words of Johannesburg: SAILIS Confer­ tefact, and one whose value should Sir Thomas Muir: The lowest ideal ence, 1986, p.l. not be underestimated. to be aimed at must be no school The school library offers the child without a suitable library.' g 13. Beswick, Barbara & Norman 'The access to human records, both writ­ strange case of South African ten and in other format. It offers school libraries' The School Li­ contact with the best of human References braries, 19 (1), March 1981, thought, and a sense of history. The p. 104. school library should be seen as an 1. Beswick, N.W. & B. School li­ 14. Kesting, J.G. 'Die Skoolbib- essential component in the entire brary Media centres in South Af­ lioteek as Faktor in die Ontplooi- educational situation, and not sim­ rica Bloemfontein: University of ing van die Geheelmens' South ply as a link in the curriculum.14 the O.F.S., 1981 p.10. African Libraries, 42 (3), Dec. As with education generally in 2. Ruperti, R.M. The Education Sys- 1974,pp.81-90. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry

Essop Patel Three Poems Amber Ceres Raindrops (Three haiku)

1. Lambda, Delta, Omega: Erotica soft raindrops falling — Entre en la gruta de las amatistas a farmer's daughter singing — Pablo Neruda under the shower a poet's pen 2. is a Soft ceres pink dusk shadows behind the curtains lambda foreplay on a screen dipping in an ink well 3. soft amber glowing — delta she curves like a guava in sexual ecstasy drawing your legs around mine like a broken The Poem is a Temporary Shelter ring 4> For Priscilla and Amory Houghton an

The poem is a temporary shelter omega X Far from home — not far From people being shot And thrown from trains On the way to work They cannot afford to stop. Pine Needles Slidding (tanka) Close to home the innocent are thrust Under the heading of * Unrest'. Pine needles glidding — Friends spend weekends attending funerals; chemise slidding down her back: Sudden mournings become unfathomable; simple nakedness — Funerals beget funerals; quivering on silken sheets Necklaces that burn have lost their value, wrapped in sweet adultery. As have people Unsheltered in this temporary home. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry

Kaizer M. Nyatsumba Three Poems

Words A question Regeneration on their own when the sun slowly they look like no longer shines the sun begins to shine lost sheep when the soul after a torrid heat on a precipice: is empty, starved and suffocating humidity meaningless and a smile is foreign a gentle breeze blows unimportant and vulnerable when what was and birds no longer is —once petrified and comatose but shepherd them and when love begin to sing again cull them carefully —rich and rewarding adorn and string them lies shattered together on the alter of pride and they will sing and its erstwhile flame merely flickers words are like our bodies: when all that once moved denuded or attired in tatters is now static they prick when fountains have dried up sharper than thorns they pierce and the river which flowed like a scorned mistress's tongue freely and melodiously and shame has become a desert their utterer without an oasis but draped in fineries and sings only to itself they soothe festering wounds like my heart: revive broken hearts smell sweeter than incense is there still reason and compliment to go on breathing? their source so clothe them presentably, my brother dust and wrap them graciously pick and match them tenderly with finesse for words well chosen Opposite page: are more precious Vusi Maseko • Collision • than diamonds Pencil on paper No matter what political vantage Gone is the certainty of yester­ timent that even here, too, somehow point one may be looking at present- day, and in its place is the uncertain­ things seem to fall apart as the centre day South Africa from, there is no ty of a future whose exact nature we fails to hold. denying that sweeping changes have cannot yet fathom. Some old 'truths' The changes which have taken taken place in the country over the and formally accepted conventions place in this country since February past two years. These changes, some­ no longer hold quite easily or as 2, 1990, regardless of their extent, times slower than some of us would firmly, and there is an ever-present scope or nature — about which we have expected, but often much faster need for us to constantly review and might disagree—have set in motion and abrupt for others, have left in re-assess positions we may have held various forces and their re-alignment, their wake a new and somewhat puz­ for ages. Indeed, there is a sense in and have led to new social and polit­ zling reality. which we can echo WB Yeats's sen­ ical configurations. And there is a Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Writing Prose During Transition

sense, in my view, in which there is, their various corners of the country their fears were much exaggerated. or has had to be, a re-evaluation of and in their various roles, have been Others, however, will certainly find stock responses to issues and some called upon to question and assess that their expectations were way be­ people in general. Indeed, there is a anew their old dogmatic positions yond fulfillment, and will then be­ sense in which there is an on-going and interpretations of things. It is a come disappointed, nay, disillu­ re-definition of one's friends and duty, I suggest, in which we dare not sioned. That explains why conserva­ allies, as yesterday's enemies be­ fail as a people. tives — and by definition a conser­ come friends and some of yester­ Yes, change is pain, as trouba­ vative is someone who is * averse to day's friends fall out and become dour Mzwakhe Mbuli avers. And rapid change', and the term has noth­ enemies. when people say change is pain they ing to do with one's race or the colour Although some of yesterday's do not, or should not, mean only in a of one's skin — find change much, villains remain villains and some of physical sense. They mean, or should much more painful than others. yesterday's heroes remain heroes, mean, also the fact that change leaves It is a common cause, I take it, there are also those who have gone to people somewhat fearful and full of that things are, and have been since and fro on that spectrum of villains anxiety, and some with perhaps a February 2 1990, in a constant state and heroes. I dare say that almost fear of the unknown. As the old pre­ of flux in this country. This, I submit, inevitably, given the nature of change dictability goes through the window has had implications not only for as a process, there are many others and unpredictability steps in, some political organisations and their lead­ who are heroes today who will be kind of disorientation results. ers, but also for many other people, villains before that process has come And this applies equally to every­ both laymen and professionals. The to an end, and vice versa. one, regardless of his/her race. This million-dollar question many South In short, nothing is static and is tempered or compounded, depend­ Africans have had to grapple with in certain any more. All South Afri­ ing on the individual's race and/or the past two years is whether, con­ cans, in political allegiance in this country, fronted by the new reality and new by what that individual expects to challenges, they are going to contin­ get from the changes presently ue doing things the same old way or taking place. adapt to the new situation. Each one When the pro­ of us has had to grapple with that cess of change question, whether consciously or un­ has run its full consciously. course, as it It is a question which we as a must, some people, both individually and collec­ will most tively, have to deal with. It is a likely question which we as writers assem­ find bled here today have to face head-on that and address. In this paper, therefore, I will attempt to answer just that question. But before we attempt to answer that question, let us take a cursory look at what black South African prose has been about over the years. Although some of what I will say now will apply to the 'Drum Gener- Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Kaizer Nyatsumba E3

ation' of writers as well, I will not soms when sun rises in the morning dwell on that period at all, for much and wilts or droops when the heat has been written about it. The period begins to scorch it during the day, I will talk about, the one with which this kind of writing — which was most of us will be familiar, is the meant for a certain purpose — tends 1970s and the 1980s. to date once that purpose has been Now the 1970s, as you know, was served. It is by no accident, I think, a period dominated by poetry. It was that the writers who have gone be­ a time when Black Consciousness fore some of us and have been quite was in vogue, and writers like Mbuy- prolific in prose-writing in the sev­ iseni Oswald Mtshali, Wally Mon- enties and early eighties, have been gane Serote and Pascal Mafika Gwa- so quiet over the past few years. la published their first poetry collec­ Certainly it is by no accident, I think, tions and became house-hold names. that new fiction has been conspicu­ It was a decade which saw the emer­ ous by its absence since February gence of Staffrider magazine, which tant function, this kind of prose tend­ 1990 compared to the period before has itself made a major contribution ed to be shallow and predictable and, that. in the evolution of black South Afri­ like the poetry of the 1970s, saw Both Lewis Nkosi and Njabulo can literature. black and white South Africans fall­ Ndebele have been particularly crit­ It was, as I have stated, a decade ing neatly into the categories of an­ ical of black South African fiction of poetry — but my paper today gels and monsters. It was a kind of over the years—and Ndebele' s Fools concerns itself with prose fiction, by prose which stunted creativity and and Other Stories stood out in the which I refer almost exclusively to imagination: to a large extent, the 1980s because it was so different as short stories. While someone like story was written for the black writer a work of fiction. Many of you will Sipho Sepamla has written quite a by his/her milieu. It is this responsi­ be familiar with Ndebele's views, number of novels, it is undeniable bility Matshoba spoke about when first expressed in his now-famous that the number of serious black nov­ he wrote: essay 'Turkish Tales and Some elists in South Africa can be counted Thoughts on South African Fiction', on one's fingers. 'I want to reflect through my which first appeared in Staffrider'. Whatever prose was written dur­ works life on my side of the Some may be less familiar with Nko- ing this period — and one has in fence, the black side: so that si's sweeping views, which I have mind here most of the short stories whatever may happen in the found still relevant right up to the which appeared in Staffrider, written future, I may not be set down end of the eighties. by people like Mothobi Mutloatse, as "a bloodthirsty terrorist". With characteristic harshness, Miriam Tlali, Mtutuzeli Matshoba So that I may say: "These Nkosi wrote more than two decades and many others—falls in the genre were the events which shaped ago: of a novelistic documentary or new the Steve Bikos and the So­ journalism, a genre I call expository lomon Mahlangus, and many 'With the best will in the 2 or journalistic fiction. This was prose others who came before and world, it is impossible to de­ 4 which tended to focus on apartheid after them".' tect in the fiction of black and its ravages on the black majority, South Africans any signifi­ and to record whatever was happen­ Important though it was, a writing of cant and complex talent which ing to blacks. this nature tends to be ephemeral. responds with both the vigour Although it fulfilled an impor­ Like a beautiful flower which blos­ of the imagination and suffi- Staffrider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Writing Prose During Transition

cient technical resources to have to do with creative writing? Is it vehement denunciation of those polit­ the problems posed by condi­ not, after all, it might be asked, a ical leaders with whom they disagree. tions in South Africa. question of being either talented in I think the challenge we are fac­ Where urban music, for writing or not talented? I wish it were ing as writers is to lead the way away instance, has responded to the that simple, because then many peo­ from the victim syndrome which has challenges of the disintegra­ ple here would no doubt thrive as solidly taken root among us as a tive tendencies of city life with writers. A good education and a com­ people, and to begin to see South an amazing suppleness and mand of the language in which one Africans as people. I am not for a subtlety, black writing shows writes are, in my view, essentials for moment suggesting that we now need the cracks and tensions of lan­ any writer. I think this short-coming to disengage completely from writ­ guage working under severe explains why our plots ing about the suf­ strain. Where African music as black writers are fering and gnashing and dance have moved for­ never complex, since The of the teeth in our ward, not through renouncing we prefer to create midst. All I am ap­ tradition but by fusing diverse characters who are ste­ challenge pealing for is real­ elements into an integrated reotypes with which isation of the fact whole, black fiction has re­ we are familiar, and to we are that we are much, nounced African tradition deal with the situation much more than just without showing itself capa­ with which we are only facing as victims, to the ex­ ble of befitting from the accu­ too familiar, instead of clusion of every­ mulated example of modern creating real, com­ writers is to thing else, we are European literature. To put it plex, human charac­ doing a grave injus­ bluntly, nothing stands behind ters and digging deep­ lead the way tice to ourselves as the fiction of black South Af­ er for inspiration. We away from a people. ricans — no tradition, wheth­ know no better: for us South Africa, er indigenous, such as ener­ the world begins and the victim some of my friends gises (Amos Tutuola's) The ends with apartheid abroad have told P'aim-wineDrunkardoralien, within the borders of syndrome me, is a country such as is most significantly South Africa. whose writers are at work in the latest fiction by As writers we are never in short sup- CamaraLaye.'5 now called upon to broaden our indi­ ply for material to write about, given vidual scopes and horizons and to the conditions we find ourselves in. I To reinforce these views, we need to begin to see not only one big forest, tend to agree with that observation. point out here that the average black but also the different trees within But I think that instead of doing what South African writer has at least that forest. We can still play as im­ we have done for years, we now need matric and perhaps a teacher's certif­ portant a role in future, and serve our to reach a certain level of creative icate or diploma by way of formal country in new ways. What our lead­ maturity as writers, and remember education, and his/her reading is quite ers do not need, and what South that despite our oppression over the limited. The average black South Africa can do without at this moment years, we can still laugh and love. I African writer wants his/her works of our transition from thp apartheid think we should begin to explore all to be published and read, but is reluc­ past to a hopefully democratic fu­ those emotions we have in the past tant to invest money in buying other ture, are sycophantic writers who been too ashamed of writing about writers' books to read. What, some fall all over themselves in their praise lest we were dismissed as hopelessly might say, does formal education of favoured political leaders and their sentimental romantics who sang Staff rider Vol, 10 No. 41992 Kaizer Nyatsumba

about roses and daffodils while adequacies of the culture of I don't think the point still needs others waged a revolution. protest in which writers re­ belabouring. In conclusion, howev­ I think we need to take a closer main preoccupied with pre­ er, let me warn that nowhere in Afri­ look at ourselves as a people, and senting readers with informa­ ca do writers enjoy close relation­ write the many potential interesting tion about the nature of op­ ships with their countries' govern­ stories that are there, waiting pa­ pression is now more valid ments. Even those writers who open­ tiently to be written. While we throw than ever. Similarly, Albie ly sided with the liberation move­ stones at 'the system' through our Sachs's call for cultural free­ ments in their various countries pens, let us begin to engage in some dom, despite his somewhat through their writings, have often soul-searching of our own! Let us simplistic and superficial as­ found themselves at the receiving engage in introspection. You will be sessment of South African lit­ endofthoseself-samegovemmentswhen amazed at the number of stories and erature and culture, must be they started singing different tunes. novels that are waiting to be written. welcomed for the autonomy it Many an accomplished African But not everything is as gloomy accords to the processes of writer, as you well know, has been as I might be understood to be sug­ cultural production. imprisoned, and many an African gesting here. Indeed, some voices In the light of this no the­ writer lives in exile, away from the have begun to be heard making ex­ matic or stylistic restrictions comfort of his/her country and home. actly the same kind of intervention I should be placed on writers The same could happen here. Q am making here today. Although the from any political point of References response from black South African view. The imperatives of po­ writers so far has, as far as I can tell, litical orthodoxy have to make 1. The Oxford English Dictionary of remained muted, it is encouraging way for the freedom to ex­ Current English, 7th edition. J.B. that such voices are beginning to be plore new themes as a means Sykes (ed.) Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982. heard. I quote now at length from of developing a new culture 2. Visser, Nick W. TheNovelisticDoc­ Andries Oliphant's essay on 'The in which the full range of hu­ umentary: The New Journalism. Gra- Renewal of South African Litera­ man experience and concern hamstown: Rhodes University, Doc­ ture', where he makes some similar could emerge. This freedom, toral Thesis, 1972, p.23. points. Oliphant writes: however, does not imply that 3. Carlean, Kevin A Case for South cultural production is a pro­ African TNew Journalism' in South­ The progressive streams in cess which exists outside the ern African Review of Books Vol. 3 South African literature and material actualities of social No. 3&4, issues 13 & 14, February- culture which have for so long life. While writers and other May 1990, p.36 been involved in an opposi­ artists are entitled to freedom 4. Matshoba, Mtutuzeli Call Me Not a Man. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, tion to apartheid, have reached from prescription, it does not 1979, p.x a point where the aesthetics of imply that their creations con­ 5. Nkosi, Lewis Home and Exile and protest and resistance belongs stitute trans-historical mo­ Other Selections. New York: Long­ to the past. This will have to ments unrelated to the world man Inc., 1983, p.131 make way for new proactive in which their cultural activi­ 6. Oliphant, Andries W. 'The Renewal and inclusive perspectives on ty occurs. Literary and cultur­ of South African Literature' in culture which go beyond a al production, reception and Staff rider Vol.9 No. 4 Johannes­ reactive concern with poli­ consumption are, after all is burg: Cosaw, 1991, p.32. tics. The criticism levelled by said and done, conscious hu­ An address at a seminar of the African a writer such as Njabulo Nde- man activities situated in so­ Writers' Association in Johannesburg 6 bele against the aesthetic in­ ciety. on Saturday, October 17,1992. Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry

Timothy Holmes Two Poems 4-

Lusaka Faces

Driving to the city every day, Walking on the crowded pavement Half the year through dust and flying filth, looking into people's faces The other half through rainy season slush wishing you were here: And always potholes, We cross the pullulating shantytown. Seeing only faces, faces, miracles are out of fashion And there, immaculate each morning you do not appear. Fresh from a bursted chrystalis, Amazing children, fresh as new images, Chewing sugar cane for breakfast, Hitch lifts to school and a future.

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Tel: With which issue do you wish to start? Summer Autumn Winter Spring Please allow 6 weeks for processing of your subscription Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 41992 Poetry I

Earl Bean Four Poems 4-

A Statue with Blinkers

You are a feminist, I am aware and thus align myself with your cause But so you should also expect, and allow, my moist lips to swallow your erect nipples. Lest your kisses merely drool me into a stallion on whose back you ride like a statue with blinkers, smudged map and impotent sensation To Fellow-Poets

Sometimes I feel we must dump all our solid metaphors into the sea and see how they would be punctuated by sand, salt, sea-weed, shells and sharks!

Superiors in Toilet

Lock superiors in a toilet of your mind Banality of Seduction where their huge profiles sprawl over naked seats and ankles which are, after all, choked by clothes dropped in haste. Then flush them with roaring Once, as a boy laughter I lay with a girl in a corn-field and came out dry as a cob — she rested her head on top of a recoiling mamba

Now, as a man I lay with a woman in a bathtub and still came out dry as marble — a pistol hissed at us through an open window Staff rider Vol. 10 No. 4 1992 Poetry

Thendo Maswiswini a U kovhela ha duvha Ndi u ya u tshani halo, Nyamulemalema u divha zw Mutambo wawe ndi wa maswi$\ Vhusiku ndi dinzwi la vhasiwafi lift

Ndi do renda tshi fhio tshirer Maswiswini murotheni was vhur Mano a tshi gekhana Ngeno vhana vha tshi nga mbong a* Ndau dzi tshi vhemba masiar;

Litshani ndi munune th Vhukati-kati maswiswia Vha do pfa, vha pi Vha sa pfa ndi do b muvhunda, <^> E in South Africa Vhusiku ndi do nwe Mitsindo yanga yo s;?: fca ya ndou. A I atej er in the sky Ni vhona nga mat h was a lightning sheet Vhanu vhana vha dc ike a southern flag. Vha do sengulusa zwino Huno zwino li tshee lo let served A A ish soup Tshi do da tshifhinga with broiled salmon Tshine thendo maswiswini and illuminated rice Dza do shanduka maluvha. each grain a piece •A. of city light

mango and mango mousse — small scoops lililliP of sun softened the edge of South Africa's darkening plate

This is Johannesburg among politicoes Saturday night Staffrlder Vol. 10 No. 41992 m Letters

Dear Comrades By way of introduction: I was a member of COS AW until I left Letters Cape Town to live in London three years ago. I am author of the book A Vision of Order which is referred to several times in the essay: 4Dugmore Boetie and South African Literature' footnote 8 (page 65) that I contradict myself by calling Simon by Mark Beittel in Staff rider, Volume 10 Number 2, 1992. co-author. This is not necessarily so, when we only have Although I understand and appreciate the underlying Simon's word for the extent to which he had a hand in it. principle, it is a pity that no information is given about the So I would like to add a personal note, which I did not feel contributors. Why for instance, in a South African publica­ had a place in my study. Perhaps I should have added it in a tion, does Mark Beittel refer to the American edition of my footnote. I first heard of Dugmore Boetie when he met my book (out of print) when there is a perfectly good South daughter now Shelley Power, who was then working for the African one (paperback) published by Maskew Miller Long­ Institute of Race Relations in Johannesburg. He said he was man in 1985 and still in print? working on a novel so she had him send it to me as I was then I would like to comment on the article and hope this will (and am still now) running a literary agency. The novel he add to the knowledge and understanding of Dugmore Boetie, submitted was a blood and thunder crime story gleaned from whom indeed I consider an important writer, and did not, as films and the comics. Buried somewhere under the ghastly Beittel says, mention 'in passing'. In a study of black South plot and writing, there was talent. We told him to throw it out African literature in English, stretching over a period of 66 and write about things of which he had first-hand knowledge. years and comprising 270 pages of text, almost 4 pages He did and took it to Barney Simon who gave unstintingly of devoted to one writer is substantial comment. his expertise, time, patience, and — most important, perhaps Unfortunately Beittel's quote on page 57 of Staff rider is — the financial support. When I compare the published book taken from a paragraph in Vision where a line is missing, and the other manuscript, I have to conclude that while Simon which escaped my notice, that of the proofreader, and of probably did not have a hand in the conceptual action and Beittel. His quote is therefore out of context, through no fault dialogue his contribution amounted to more than his claim of of his. The obviously missing portion would have explained directing changes here and there. Shall we say that rather than that Familiarity is the Kingdom of the Lost was not of seminal only producer, he was also script-writer for the novelist. importance, because, throughBarney Simon's co-authorship, it was not taken seriously in the same way as were the early Ursula A Barnett works of the black poets. London A little more about this co-authorship. Beittel says in 1 September 1992

The Editors

I wish that in his assessment of Mafika Gwala's poetry mindedly digs his elbow into his brother, to the latter's (Stqffrider Vol 10 No.2), Thengani H Ngwenya had referred annoyance. That's all, but so much! Such delicacy, such to a few of those early pieces of Gwala's that appeared, I seem conviction. to remember, in The Classic magazine and R. Royston's Nor are the larger reverberations absent. I don't know anthology, To Whom It May Concern (Ad. Donker). Surely about black humanism, but we have here a lovely true snap­ they were included in JoViinkomol shot of black experience — which is why that poem, that What I recall of those poems, with distinct pleasure, is poetry, is richly human (in no specific colour). their over-all character. They are fresh, concrete, intimate, I think Mr Ngwenya could have written less defensively witty, modest, substantial. if he had cited that early work. One that stays more particularly in my mind is 'One Small Boy Longs for Summer': a family in a township house on a Lionel Abrahams winter's night, huddling for warmth; the little boy is so absorbed in his fantasy of warmer days that he absent- STAFFRIDER MAGAZINE ••• ;

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