A reflection on prose

This discussion is premised on the belief that an essential precondition to the establishment of a free and non-racial cultural community in South Africa is the adoption of a holistic approach towards South African society. This approach helps us avoid the traditional trap of evaluating the success or failure of South African society primarily from the perspective of the social behaviour of the white population. According to this traditional approach, derived as it were from the flawed concept of 'dual economy' in South Africa, there are two distinct societies in that country. One society is built around a traditional, subsistence economy, while the other is founded on a modern capitalist economy. The former is characterized by stagnancy, backwardness, technical primitiveness, and is black; the latter, on the other hand, is dynamic, advanced, technically modern, and white. The appropriate ascription of positive and negative values, of connotations of success and failure, is obvious, and so is it also understood that the legitimacy of assigning the tributes belongs unquestionably to the 'successful' white sector.

The fact of the matter is that, within a unified social structure tightly held together by complex set of historical circumstances, the relative 'success' of one social sector is a function of the 'failure' of the other. This is more evidently obvious in a country such as South Africa. Previously, the traditional focus on white society assumed an identity between South Africa and white society. Now; when we focus our attention on the black majority, we should not be thought to be exercising an arbitrary and reflex alternative choice, but we want to study and evaluate its structural situation within the total national context as a way towards focusing on the entire national entity. When we do that, we invest in a total national concern.

This position, which is a direct negation of apartheid's approach to things, has immense epistemological and political value. From this position we can assert that the relative technical achievement of South Africa is not, by itself, a sufficient index of social success. It has to be accompanied by an equally successful sociological environment. Without that, 'white' South African technical 'success' is merely a spectacular fireworks display. After the breathtaking brilliance, there is left only a lingering memory that will itself dwindle into the vast and largely indifferent historical time. The challenge of the future in South Africa is the creation of a common national spirit that promises the realization of a higher and historically stronger national potential. But this cannot be done without a comprehensive understanding of the condition, that this potential of the vast majority of the South African society can only be evaluated against the quality of life of the majority.

When we look at the history of prose in South Africa, we are struck by the discovery of the same kind of contrasts as those alluded to above. We witness, on the one hand the plenitude of writers, written materials, and readers (both specialized and general) and, on the other, relative scarcity. Yet, when we actually discover the effort by black South Africans to contribute to the history of the written word in South Africa, we cannot but conclude that we are looking at a vast potential decidedly held in check. We are struck by the sheer force of enthusiasm, of the desire to learn, to inform, and to influence, to record, if only to affirm existence in history.

Before proceeding, let me clarify the perspective from which the subject of prose is approached in this discussion. Prose, for the purposes of this discussion, is understood in a very broad sense. It is understood to cover the entire range of writing in both fiction and non-fiction. This approach is helpful for two reasons. First, prose fiction represents only a fraction of the total prose output by black South Africa; second, we will be enabled to grasp the extent to which literary culture as a whole is a feature of general cultural practice in South Africa. That line the extent of the development of that aspect of literary assess its role and impact in shaping general social attitudes. Because prose, in all its forms; is easily the most available form of reading, our resulting understanding should also give us a sense of the level of social and cultural development in South Africa today.

In the nineteenth century, I.W.W. Citashe wrote a poem that has become quite well known:

Your cattle are gone,

My countrymen!

Go rescue them! Go rescue them!

Leave the breechloader alone

And turn to the pen,

Take paper and ink,

For that is your shield.

Your rights are going!

So pick up your pen,

Load it, load it with ink,

Sit in your chair-

Repair not to Hoho,

But fire with your pen.

This poem records a painful attempt by the poet to come to terms with the ultimate reality of conquest. Africans had lost the battle over their land. There was possibility of the kind of victory in war that would have any significant, long-term benefits for the defeated Africans. The poem signals a tragic realization on the part of Citashe and his contemporaries of a dramatic and incontrovertible end of an era. No more the heroic wars and battles of old. In their place new forms of struggle, new techniques of survival, had to be invented. What Citashe and some of his contemporaries recognized was the beginning of the effective of the African peoples of South Africa; of their functional the periphery of human history. They would be there, but effectively invisible. Citashe's insight recognized at least one seemingly unavoidable implication: the written word, perfected in the isolation of the study, which itself perhaps represents a form of strategic marginalization, may be the only viable bearer of witness, the one last act that would provide proof of existence.

Depending on the kind of ammunition chosen, firing with the pen took several directions. In this chapter we are particularly concerned with the ammunition of prose. In this regard, when Citashe wrote his poem, he may very well have been giving legitimacy to a trend that had already begun. Between 1837 and 1900, several attempts had been made by Africans to fire with the pen. These attempts took the form of establishing newspapers and magazines. Given impetus by the Wesleyan missionaries back in 1837 with a paper called Umshumayeli Indaba, African journalism in the Cape never looked back. By the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, black South Africans had played a part in several newspaper and magazine ventures such as Ikwezi (1844), Indaba (1862), Isigidimi samaXhosa, Imvo Zabansundu (1884), and Koranta ea Bechuana (1901), to name but a few. The history of written prose in South Africa was well underway.

One of the first tasks of the missionaries was to ensure that those African languages that had no written script were reduced to writing. Having done that, the next major task was to produce competent African converts who would help in the translation of the Bible and other major religious writings. These two tasks were performed with a satisfactory degree of success. It was this crop of African converts that took up the challenges of the written word with great gusto. Beginning their apprenticeship in missionary presses, they gained enough experience to enable themselves to set out on their own. In South Africa, the names of Tiyo Soga, William Wellington Gqoba, John Tengo Jabavu, John Knox Bokwe, Sol T. Plaatje, and Azariele M. Sekese of Lesotho come immediately to mind.

The socio-political environment of these early writers was not free from tension. The history of conquest followed by an insidious process of discrimination (which was destined to become total) meant that our early writers could not be entirely Free from the ambiguities of their situation. A total immersion into the demands Christian charity was not possible in a climate of increasing and consolidated dispossession. Their writing, therefore, was a mixture of Christian advocacy and protest, much encouraged in the latter by the support missionaries generally provided in defending the rights of the Africans from the rapacious onslaught of white capital. While reflecting the anthropological interest of their mentors in African customs these early writers also saw their responsibility as assisting in the preservation of their way of life. Thus, many of Tiyo Soga's articles in indaba ‘were didactic and moralizing, although they had a typical humorous twist but he also published recordings of oral art, fables, legends, proverbs, praise songs and genealogies, of which he was an eager collector' [Gerard. Four African Literatures].

From this time onwards, black South Africans produced a steady stream of writing in both English and such African languages as Xhosa, Sesotho, and Zulu. Indeed, we witness phenomenal development of writing in African languages: Tiyo Soga translated Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress into Uhambo lomhambi about which A.C. Jordan has written; '(it was) almost as great an influence on the Xhosa language as the Authorized Version of the Bible upon English' (Gerard). Thomas Mofolo was later to follow with his classic novels. Although numerous other writings in African languages were published at the time, there is evidence that much of African writing may have remained unpublished. Much writing appeared in the newspapers, where considerable debate was generated, and many poems and short stories published. In this context, journalism helped create and sense of prose as a vehicle of learning, debate, and political assertion. Below is a summary the modes of prose writing black South Africans have produced in the 100 years.

Books

Books production by Africans was more likely in African languages than in English. This is because the missionary presses were more willing to publish books in African languages than were the white commercial publishers who were generally afraid of taking such risks as publishing a book by a black author in a racist society. Publishing in African languages was later to be dominated by Afrikaner publishers who produced largely for a school market. In this field mostly novels were published. Other kinds of books were generally lacking.

Newspapers and Popular Magazines

This has been the predominant method of expression in print by black South Africans. Newspapers have catered for a variety of literary forms: essays, letters, news, short stories, and poetry. So have popular magazines such as Drum, Bona, etc.



Journals

By far the most famous of these has been Classic, founded by Nat Nakasa and Can Themba. The main professional magazines that have appeared with any regularity are those sponsored by the government for African teachers under Bantu Education. Beyond that, black scholarly journals remain a rarity.



Pamphlets

The strong tradition of political struggle in South Africa should be expected to produce a rich, endless supply of pamphlets. A history of pamphlets in the political history of South Africa has still to be written.

The above modes of writing generated various forms of prose. The span of forms is relatively broad. Random examples are given below. This outline needs to be fleshed out into a comprehensive history of black South African prose: a task that should be undertaken without delay.



Social/Cultural Criticism

Black South African writers have always sought to stimulate and to inform social debate. Frequently, they could not resist the temptation to wear the mantles of adviser, preacher, and guide; they tried in various ways to increase the common person's intellectual understanding of the socio-political illness of apartheid. In this effort they have attempted a range of subjects.

The Colonial Impact

Jacob Nhlapo's Bantu Babel: Will The Bantu Languages Live? [Johannesburg: The African Bookman, 1944), grapples with one aspect of how colonialism may affect African society. This anxiety has spawned discussion in several important directions. The focus has been:

Descriptions of African customs and mores

The distinguishing social fabric of African society Religion and morality

The importance of education to social advancement and political struggle

The future of African art, music, dance, etc.

Advice of various kinds in facilitating acculturation

The Oral Tradition

The major thrust behind writings of the oral tradition has been the attempt to rescue it from total loss. There was a strong desire to record a passing tradition for posterity. Collections in the following areas are common:

Proverbs

Sol T. Plaatje, Sechuana proverbs (London: 1916)

Praise Poetry

Z.D. Mangoela’s collection of the praise poetry of the Kings of Lesotho is a case in point.

Folk Tales

Political Writings

Naturally there is an established history of political literature. Several themes are common here:

Protest

Advocacy

Exposure and Indictment

Sol T. Plaatje, Native Life in South Africa (London: P. D. King and Son, 1916) performs all three functions above.

Courtroom testimonies

Some famous courtroom political dramas have been published in book form and make popular reading.

Nelson Mandela, The Struggle is My Life (London: International Defence and Aid Fund, 1978).

Steve Biko, I Write What I Like (London: Heinemann, 1979).

The Freedom Charter

SASO Manifesto

NECC Resolution on people’s Education

History

Biography

John Knox Bokwe, Nisikana, The Story of an African Convert (Alice; Lovedale Press, 1914]

Msweli Skota's The African Yearly Register: Being an Illustrated National Biographical Dictionary (Who's Who) of Black Folks in Africa [Johannesburg: R. L. Esson and Co., 1930)

R.R.R. Dhlomo on the lives of Zulu kings

Autobiography

A. Luthuli, Let My People Go (London: Fontana, 1963)

E. Mphahlele, Down Second Avenue (London: Faber and Faber, 1959)

B. Modisane, Blame Me on History (New York: Dutton, 1963)

E. Khuzwayo, Call Me Woman (London: Women's Press, 1985')

The Diary

Very little of this kind of prose by black South Africans has come to light. Sol T. Plaatje's The Boer War Diary of Sol T. Plaatje: an African at Mafeking (London:

Macmillan, 1973) is the only major example.

The Travelogue

Tim Couzens in his study Widening Horizons in African Literature notes the emergence of 'travel literature' in South Africa towards the end of the nineteenth century. These were descriptions of both local and overseas travel by Africans.

This nascent form unfortunately does not appear to have developed towards greater refinement.

There is another example of travelogue that has a potential for development. This is Lesotho's lifela, a poetic form developed by Basotho miners in which they relate their experiences of travel away from home. They are a kind of folk biography.

Letters

This form of personal history has seen a recent effort by Chabane Manganye to bring together selected letters of Eskia Mphahlele published as Bury Me at the Market Place (Skotaville, 1982). As a prose form affording readers a special insight into the mind of influential people, letters are particularly invaluable in bringing home to readers the human dimensions of fame and heroism.

Journalistic Commentary There are some particularly popular examples of this kind of prose. The lively ch names as John Tengo Jabavu, Sol T. Plaatje, and H. I. E. Dhlomo provides some examples of outstanding forerunners. More recently, there have been Can Temba, and the memorable Nat Nakasa's column in the Rand Daily Mail,” The World of Nat Nakasa', and the current, provocative "Just Jon' by Jon Qwelane in the Sunday Star.

Translation

As already observed, one of the earliest translations was of Bunyan's the Pilgrim Progress, done by Tiyo Soga, published in Xhosa as Uhambo lomhambi (1867). Sol T. Plaatje translated Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, Julius Caesar, and others into Setswana. More recently we have seen such masterly translations Kakhulu, Sibusiso Nyembezi's translation of Cry, the Beloved country which seriously rivals the English original.

Textbooks

Textbooks by black professional academics in various academic disciplines have been relatively rare. Major achievements have been in the field of African languages in which various books on grammar were produced. The grammars of Sibusiso Nyembezi (Zulu), S.M. Guma (Sesotho), and B.M. Khaketla (Sesotho) come immediately to mind. More recently, though, some outstanding scholarly works have emerged, particularly from South African scholars in exile. We recall here the works of Eskia Mphahlele, Bernard M. Magubane, Sam Nolutshungu, Daniel Kunene, Lewis Nkosi Harriet Sibisi, and Mokgethi Motlhabi, and others.

Other Kinds of Prose

Collections of jokes

Recipes

How-to/instruction manuals

The erotic

The arcane/mysterious/magical

Prose in these forms still exists largely in the oral tradition.



Fiction

Prose fiction has received much attention with numerous scholarly studies. The bulk of prose output is in this area in terms of the sheer number of books published in all languages. For a long time South Africa has been known in Africa as the land of the short story. Quite easily, in the novel and the short story, the names of Thomas Mofolo, B.W. Vilakazi, A.C. Jordan, Alex la Guma, Bessie Head, Lewis Nkosi, Can Themba, and others loom large. It is not essential to document the history of fiction to quite the same extent as above. Is there a common thread that runs through all these writings? This is not a question that can be answered casually. But there do seem to be some tentative outlines of a recognizable historical development. In this outline may be found the makings of an intellectual and cultural character that may typify a general South African outlook. It reflects a diversity of thought, feeling and preoccupation all of which indicate the nature and character of particular moments in the intellectual history of South Africa. Roughly, the history of prose reflects something of the following about the intellectual response of black South Africans to the drift of history around them:

1. The desire to learn, and to absorb new forms of experience and knowledge

2. The desire to prove ability and successful acculturation

3. The need to define an authentic self

4. The steady growth of self-confidence

5. Concerted protest

6. Defining the enemy (index of self-confidence)

7. Determined assertion

8. Celebration

9. Critical questioning and the quest for, and enhancement of, self-knowledge

10. The quest for the future.

These attributes of South African prose, manifested in the various kinds of writing over the decades, suggest that acts of writing and reading can be viewed as significant social phenomena, yielding clues to definite forms of social knowledge and insights that tell us much about how people have sought to make meaning out of their individual and collective experiences. We see a definite posing of questions and a groping towards answers and solutions within the Context of a vigorous, challenging, increasingly complex, and often extremely painful, historical development. The various meanings of that development through the testimony of prose remain largely locked up in the intellectual dungeons of apartheid.

With the possible exception of prose fiction, the history of black South African prose does not reveal much quantitative and qualitative development after the efforts of the illustration pioneers in the various prose forms. Prose fiction developed much faster possibly because of the timeless, widespread social habit of story telling. Other prose forms would require more conducive conditions under which to flourish. They would certainly call for more socially entrenched intellectual habits that can only result from a purposeful, free and intellectually more open society, as well as from levels of economic and social development that make leisure more possible. They assume a more comprehensive universal education; the kind that would result in the broadening of intellectual interest such as would be reflective of the complexities of a modern industrial society. Beyond that education in South Africa was not designed to encourage such among Africans as would enable them to problematize their creative and critically constructive ways, whatever nascent African intellectual tradition was there was decidedly left out of the African classroom. Thus, the problems of prose in South Africa reflect the problems of lire in that country.



Looking into the Future

It is crucial prose be defined as broadly as possible. To do so would be to approach the study of literature, in general, from a more comprehensive perspective. Such a perspective, for the vast majority of the South African population, is an essential antidote to the divisive epistemology of apartheid culture. It emerges as the very essence of a new humanism. To make this possible, several measures should be attempted. In this regard cultural education in the schools, colleges, and universities must become a much more serious and more creative undertaking than it has been up to now. As far as literature is concerned, it must be properly contextualized within the entire range of cultural activity. The various roles and functions that literature plays in society should be fully explored and understood and the discipline studied from that emerging perspective.

What may be needed is a consolidated curriculum of cultural studies in which culture is seen as an elaborate system of social meaning, including books, film, television, newspapers, fashion, architecture, theatre, music, video, the magazines, comic books, cookery books, languages, art, etc., incorporating also the possibilities of modern technology.

A coordinated search for primary materials in the various categories has to be undertaken resulting in a comprehensive history of prose. In this regard, it is significant that Rev R.G.W. Shepherd, back in 1955, remarked how every week he received several manuscripts by African authors in the vernacular or in English (Barnet:9). It is highly likely that there are countless trunks hiding away all kinds of manuscripts. Selected primary materials must be introduced into the national educational curriculum, from school through colleges, to universities. At the moment, very few South African writers of note are part of literary studies in South African schools. The inculcation, in children as well as in adults, of a democratic attitude towards linguistic plurality is an absolute necessity. An essential aspect of this democratic attitude is the necessary translation of much of the best writings of the world into African languages. This calls for the production of language-learning materials such as dictionaries, tapes, and grammars, to facilitate inter-African language learning. There is a strong precedent for such a requirement. The early newspapers tended to be bilingual. There are some newspapers that carry on this tradition even today.

Publishing Outlets need to be significantly increased within the context of a broad national publishing policy. The task is to provide a variety of reading matter with the intention of meeting as well as broadening the social interest of the average South African. It may be argued that at the moment there are books available in South Africa covering almost every subject imaginable. The privileged sector in South Africa may very well attest that much. But their books and other cultural amenities represent an isolated and restricted social interest. Here, we are concerned with the vast majority of South Africans who see no future in the privileged concerns of white South Africa.

The reading range of the average South African is most likely to be very restricted. The availability of reading matter may vary according to whether one is in the rural areas (where there may be relatively very little to read) or in the urban areas (where there will be much to read). But reading in the latter case will also depend on a number of variables: on whether one is in a position to purchase reading material; whether one can have access to a library; or, whether one has the requisite standard of education coupled with a sufficient reading interest to want to read what may be readily available. The fact that there are such numerous as reading variables in such a highly industrialized and technically advanced society as south Africa, and that consequently, for the vast majority of the South African population, it is difficult to predict regularity of reading opportunity, indicates the high level of intellectual deprivation in that society.

It follows that if the reading range of the average South African is limited, so also will range of his writing. The average South African who reads will read a newspaper. Black South Africans have produced very few books. It follows that the vast majority of South Africans are unable to retrieve information for a variety purposes: refreshing memory; re-enjoyment of pleasurable passages; checking facts; or for research purposes, however casual that research may be. Newspapers are not easy to keep. After they have been read, the paper may then need to be used for a variety of purposes. The reflective capacity of a society will be greatly assisted by an enhanced capacity to retrieve information. The most easily available method of information retrieval will be through books. So publishing policies, and the particular area of book production and information retrieval facilities are not matters to be taken too lightly. The press must be allowed to flourish as an instrument for the encouragement of national debates ' written word. That way, an informed and critical public can be ensured.

All the above cannot be realized without extensive and well-coordinated literacy campaigns to ensure the spread of the skill of reading.

It is clear from the foregoing that the history of prose is inseparable from the history of society and the manner of its organization. The availability or scarcity of reading and writing materials is a reflection on the level of social development (specifically on the distribution of opportunities for self-improvement] in particular societies.

Writing in South Africa has predominantly been influenced by the history of struggle. If, as has been briefly indicated above, it requires fresh energy and new directions, then that is also largely because South Africa herself requires new directions into the future. The possibilities to be offered by the long fought for, the long awaited, freedom in South Africa also promise the flourishing of a new intellectual culture. The social basis of the development of prose is a sound democratic educational system (there, the writers will be trained): the growth of the reading public (publishing houses that coordinate their activities); a dynamic and committed press; the enhancement of social debate through the libraries, theatre houses, concert halls, etc; and the growth of a creative social imagination. All these promise the consolidation of social confidence in a viable future.