Читать книгу Sol Plaatje's Native Life in South Africa - Jacob Dlamini - Страница 13

‘If Plaatje were alive in current day South Africa, what would he do?’ This was the question posed by Athambile Masola in the Mail & Guardian against a backdrop of the country's varied, deeply felt, sometimes problematic centennial reflections on the Land Act in 2013.³⁹ In writing of the intense vulnerabilities of those living in informal settlements and of ‘the poverty continuing unashamedly today’, she makes connections between her reading of Native Life and the contemporary situation to interrogate the relentless persistence of the past in the present, and to insist upon a new reality from current government.⁴⁰

While there is an understandable focus on apartheid's bitter inheritance, South Africa's socioeconomic legacies have deeper roots too of course, as has been highlighted in energised student activism in 2015 and beyond. Looking to South Africa's colonial past, as well as to the phenomenon of apartheid, the #RhodesMustFall decolonisation initiative and its ripple effects across South African institutions – and to others abroad such as #RhodesMustFallOxford – have heightened the public discourse about the normalisations and continuities of history's inequities and the erasures of violence. Solidarities have been expressed with protest movements such as #BlackLivesMatter in the United States in confronting racism's sometimes ‘whitewashed’ historical underpinnings that inform contemporary manifestations.

To some extent, Plaatje has been invoked in revisiting South Africa's colonial past and African resistance. For example, Duncan Buwalda's play Hinterland imagines a Kimberley setting at the turn of the twentieth century that brings Rhodes and Plaatje into the same discursive space, creating ‘a situation where art and life segue and become a cipher for reflection’.⁴¹ In a milieu of historical interrogation, a re-revaluation and commemoration of Plaatje's Native Life seems particularly fitting. While some attention has been given to ‘recover[ing] the roots of debate and engagement’ through research and heritage endeavours, many pre-apartheid black leaders from South Africa and other parts of Africa are less well covered and less well known than figures of the mid-to-late twentieth century, in spite of the ANC's centenary celebrations in 2012.⁴² Hlonipha Mokoena argues that encountering the ‘blank spaces' of South Africa's past and filling in the gaps of black history is the undertaking of new generations.⁴³ In this light, contemporary South Africans negotiate their subjectivities to some degree in relation to the claims and impacts of pioneering figures such as Plaatje whose words live on. In the struggle for equal rights and opportunities for the black majority, Native Life makes no insignificant contribution. It was a book of its time, but arguably is also for all time, in attempting to understand South Africa's past, weigh up its present and imagine its future.

NOTES

1 Kader Asmal, ‘Foreword: A Second Look at Native Life’ in Sol T Plaatje, Native Life in South Africa (Johannesburg: Picador Africa, 2007), xi.

2 Plaatje, Native Life, xi.

3 Nick Shepherd and Steven Robins, ‘Introduction’ in Shepherd and Robins, eds, New South African Keywords (Johannesburg: Jacana/Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2008), 11. See also Moeletsi Mbeki and Nobantu Mbeki, A Manifesto for Social Change: How to Save South Africa (Johannesburg: Pan Macmillan, 2016).

4 Jason Robinson, Jonny Steinberg and David Simon, ‘South Africa in Transition: Introduction’, Journal of Southern African Studies 42/1 (2016), 1, citing Jo Beall, Stephen Gelb and Shireen Hassim, ‘Fragile Stability: State and Society in Democratic South Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies 31/4 (2005), 685. See also Sarah Jane Cooper-Knock, ‘Continuity, Change and Crisis: Mapping South Africa's Political Terrain’, Journal of Southern African Studies 42/1 (2016), 149–61.

5 Richard Pithouse, ‘Introduction’, Writing the Decline: On the Struggle for South Africa's Democracy (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2016).

6 Founded in 1932, the year of Plaatje's death, The Bantu World became the leading black newspaper of the 1930s, filling the gap left by the ANC's Abantu Batho (The People's Paper). See Les Switzer, ‘Bantu World and the Origins of a Captive African Commercial Press in South Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies 14/3 (1988), 351–370; Bhekizizwe Peterson, ‘The Bantu World and the World of the Book: Reading, Writing, and Enlightenment’ in Karin Barber, ed., Africa's Hidden Histories: Everyday Literacy and the Making of the Self (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 236–257.

7 Violet Plaatje's poem was published in two landmark, late apartheid anthologies: Mothobi Mutloatse, ed., Black Reconstruction: 90 Years of Black Historical Literature (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1981) and Tim Couzens and Essop Patel, eds, The Return of the Amasi Bird: Black South African Poetry 1891–1981 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1982). James Molebaloa worked closely with Plaatje and others in attempting to protect Barolong land rights; Khumisho Moguerane, ‘Black Landlords, their Tenants, and the Natives' Land Act of 1913’, Journal of Southern African Studies 42/2 (2016), 257.

8 Originally published as John L Comaroff, ed., The Boer War Diary of Sol T Plaatje: An African at Mafeking (London: Macmillan, 1973); the latest edition is John Comaroff and Brian Willan, eds, The Mafeking Diary of Sol T Plaatje: Centenary Edition (Cape Town: David Philip, 1999).

9 For more on this, and a record of the interview with Lloyd George, see Brian Willan, ed., Sol Plaatje: Selected Writings (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1996), 131 and 257–264.

10 S T Plaatje, Sechuana Proverbs with Literal Translations and their European Equivalents (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd, 1916).

11 S T Plaatje [transl.], Diphosho-phosho (The Comedy of Errors) (Morija: Morija Printing Works, 1930). A second Shakespeare translation was translated posthumously: Dintshontsho tsa bo-Juliuse Kesara (Julius Caesar) (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1937).

12 S T Plaatje, Mhudi: An Epic of Native Life a Hundred Years Ago (Lovedale: Lovedale Press, 1930). A number of editions have been published since then. For a review of the circumstances surrounding its publication, see Brian Willan, ‘What “Other Devils”? The texts of Sol T Plaatje's Mhudi revisited’, Journal of Southern African Studies 41/6 (2015), 133–147.

13 Eddie Roux, Time Longer than Rope: A History of the Black Man's Struggle for Freedom in South Africa (London: Gollancz, 1948).

14 Peter Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa: The African National Congress 1912–1952 (London: Hurst, 1970), esp. 49–52.

15 Monica Wilson and Leonard Thompson, eds, The Oxford History of South Africa Vol II, South Africa 1870–1966 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 130 and 440.

16 Timothy J Keegan, Rural Transformations in Industrialising South Africa: The Southern Highveld to 1914 (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1986), 188.

17 Peter Delius and William Beinart, ‘The Historical Context and Legacy of the Natives' Land Act of 1913’, Journal of Southern African Studies 40/4 (2014), 667–688. The extent of African land purchase in the two decades after the Land Act was documented by Harvey M Feinberg and Andre Horn in ‘South African Territorial Segregation: New data on African farm purchases, 1913–1936’, Journal of African History 50/1 (2009), 41–60, and more recently in Harvey M Feinberg, Our Land, Our Life, Our Future: Black South African Challenges to Territorial Segregation, 1913–1946 (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2015).

18 Plaatje, Native Life, 151.

19 Op. cit., 20.

20 H I E Dhlomo, ‘An Appreciation’, in Umteteli wa Bantu, 25 June 1932.

21 T D Mweli Skota, ed., The African Yearly Register: Being an Illustrated National Biographical Dictionary (Who's Who) of Black Folks in Africa (Johannesburg: R L Esson & Co/The Orange Press, 1930), 245. The entry on Plaatje was probably written by Dhlomo who produced another profile on Plaatje, see H I E Dhlomo ‘Introducing some African Authors' in The Good Shepherd 12/21 (1938), 11–13.

22 S M Molema, The Bantu Past and Present (Edinburgh: W Green & Son, Limited, 1920); D D T Jabavu, The Black Problem: Papers and Addresses on Various Native Problems (Lovedale: The Book Department, 1921), 5; D D T Jabavu, The Influence of English on Bantu Literature (Alice: Lovedale Press, 1944), 6–7.

23 Z K Matthews, ‘The African National Congress’, Unpublished paper c.1952–53, B4.17, Z K Matthews Collection, University of South Africa, 3. In 2004 sociologist Bernard Magubane described Native Life in similar terms: ‘The brutality and injustice of the Land Act were memorialised in Sol Plaatje's book, Native Life in South Africa. Overnight, he wrote, African people became foreigners in their own country, and thousands of squatters were evicted from white farms.’ See Bernard Magubane, ‘Introduction: The Political Context’ in SADET, The Road to Democracy in South Africa (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2010), 23.

24 Mphahlele suggests that Peter Abrahams's Wild Conquest is a re-writing of Mhudi. See Es'kia Mphahlele, The African Image (London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1974), 213–214.

25 Mphahlele, African Image, 213.

26 Francis Meli, A History of the ANC: South Africa Belongs to Us (London: James Currey, 1989), 47–48. For similar sentiments expressed about S E K Mqhayi, see A C Jordan, Towards an African Literature: The Emergence of Literary Form in Xhosa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 112–114.

27 See Bernard Magubane, The Political Economy of Race and Class in South Africa (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1979), 82; ‘Resistance and Repression in the Bantustans' in SADET, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, 2 (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2006), 749; and ‘Race and Democratisation in South Africa’ in Macalester International, 9, After Apartheid: South Africa in the New Century, Fall 12–31 (2000), http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl. See also Ellen Kuzwayo, Call Me Woman (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1987), 20; Francis Meli, A History of the ANC, 41–42; Mzala (Jabulani Nxumalo), Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda (London: Zed Books, 1988), 23; and Don Ncube, Black Trade Unions in South Africa (Johannesburg: Skotaville, 1985).

28 Bernard Magubane, My Life and Times (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2010), 4.

29 Mothobi Mutloatse, ed., Reconstruction: 90 Years of Black Historical Literature (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1981). The volume also include Violet Plaatje's poem ‘What's in a Name (In Memory of Sol T Plaatje)’.

30 See the following editions of Staffrider: 2/2 (1979), 53 and 5/1 (1982), 12; and Sol T Plaatje, ‘Flight in Winter’, in Staffrider 5/2 (1982), 33–35.

31 Kuzwayo, Call Me Woman, 15. Kuzwayo recalls that her grandfather Jeremiah Makoloi Makgothi ‘worked closely with Sol T Plaatje’ and ‘[i]t is in this book that Grandfather is mentioned as an interpreter at the Dower Meeting held at Thaba 'Nchu racecourse on Friday, 12 September 1913’. See Kuzwayo, Call Me Woman, 61 and Plaatje, Native Life, 112.

32 Njabulo S Ndebele, ‘Noma Award Acceptance Speech’, in Staffrider 6/2 (1985), 39.

33 Ibid.

34 Njabulo S Ndebele, Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture (Johannesburg: COSAW, 1991), 74. See also Hlonipha Mokoena, ‘The Black Interpreters and the Arch of History’, in Xolela Mangcu, ed., The Colour of Our Future: Does Race Matter in Post-apartheid South Africa? (Johannesburg: Wits University Press), 169–183.

35 Umteteli wa Bantu, 12 June 1937.

36 Jabavu, The Black Problem, 74–75.

37 H I E Dhlomo, ‘The Evolution of the Bantu II’, Umteteli wa Bantu, 21 November 1921.

38 For discussion of the treatment of B W Vilakazi at the University of the Witwatersrand, see Bhekizizwe Peterson, Monarch, Missionaries and African Intellectuals: African Theatre and the Unmaking of Colonial Marginality (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2000), 89; on Archie Mafeje at University of Cape Town, see Fred Hendricks, ‘The Archie Mafeje Affair: The University of Cape Town and Apartheid’, in African Studies 67/3 (2008); and Lungisile Ntsebeza, ‘The Mafeje Affair and the UCT Saga: Unfinished Business’, in Social Dynamics 40/2 (2014); on Malegapuru Makgoba, see M W Makgoba, Mokoko: The Makgoba Affair: A Reflection on Transformation (Johannesburg: Vivlia, 1997) and James M Statman and Amy E Ansell, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Makgoba Affair: A Case Study of Symbolic Politics’, in Politikon 27/2 (2000); on Mahmood Mamdani at UCT, see Mamdani, ‘Is African Studies at UCT a New Home for Bantu Education’, http://cc.ukzn.ac.za/files/mamadani.pdf, accessed 20 January 2016.

39 Cherryl Walker, ‘Commemorating or Celebrating? Reflections on the Centenary of the Natives' Land Act of 1913’, Social Dynamics 39/2 (2013), 282–289.

40 Athambile Masola, ‘Native Life in South Africa’, Mail & Guardian, 26 August 2013, http://thoughtleader.co.za/athambilemasola/2013/08/26/native-life-in-south-africa/, accessed 1 March 2016.

41 Cited in Robyn Sassen, ‘The Human Face of Colonialism’, Mail & Guardian, 17 April 2015, http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-16-the-human-face-of-colonialism, accessed 1 March 2016.

42 For a retrospective highlighting the contribution of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century black South African leaders, see André Odendaal, The Founders: The Origins of the African National Congress and the Struggle for Democracy (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2012).

43 Mokoena, ‘The Black Interpreters and the Arch of History’ (2015), 169.