Hi

There's a missing link between the so called Intellectuals and Writers in the Black world. There is an increasingly gaping chasm between these educated people and the masses of people on the ground, the ones who due to many circumstances could not enjoy the knowledge derived from books and lecturers. I am hoping to create spaces where the knowledge can be shared and also to adress the challenges of education in our country Azania/ South Africa.

But first, the teachers have to be willing to share and to be taught...only then ca Africa Arise and meet the challenges of the century.

This following short essay is for the people who have not read Marx, Engels and their buddies.

Speaking Revolutions, Rebellions and Race

“Racism originates in domination and provides the social rationale and philosophical justification for debasing, degrading and doing violence to people on the basis of colour. Many have pointed out how racism is sustained by both personal attitudes and structural forces. Is the Racism can be brutally overt or invisibly institutional or both. Its scope extends to every level and area of human psychology, society and culture. Racism is the ocean we swim in and the air we breathe.” - ? (M. Magubane)

Earlier this evening, I attended the Time of The Writer festival, as usual we were all stimulated by the creative and intellectual fun of hearing some well known and less well known authors speak about the writing life.

I can safely say that I experienced the best of many worlds. Among those who have made a deep impression on me were a Zimbabwean academic and a famous French novelist. The intelligent feminist professor /academic who is largely influenced and informed by European (read Eurocentric) thought was quite witty and intriguing in conversation. She shared that after returning to her motherland in order to write, found herself unable to do so due to what she observed as the stifling psychology of her countrymen. As much as she continues to write internationally and with a local newspaper, she felt that she could not produce any creative or fictional works dealing with the situation of Zimbabwe.

She says that it has become infuriating to keep answering questions about her troubled and troubling country.

What was concerning was her observation of her people which although subjected to her Eurocentric spectacles renders her frustrated by the sheer weight of the peoples suffering or daily challenges. The writer who sat next to her on the panel was also a Southern African woman writer who is very successful and has won many awards for her children’s literature.

She seemed rather surprised by almost every detail that ends up being attributed to her work, claiming that she really doesn’t intend to place the signs and codes that readers find in her work. All fair and well, I say, since I know that the writing process is part intellectual endeavour and part inspiration (divine and environmental).

But when we consider that this person of obvious giftedness is actually writing for a large number of young impressionable minds, is it the done thing to just leave all ones insights to chance?

We have to ask ourselves is this apparently and admittedly unintentional writer involved in informing future African minds through her stories or is she merely writing because she just can and it obviously pays the bills?

Let’s return to our charming half-Zimbabwean sister; I must say that I was very impressed by almost everything she said concerning her place in literature, her definition of feminism and the manner in which she tackles political issues in her country via her writing, but above all else, I found it really disturbing that a person of her calibre could sit there and basically describe Europe as a kind of utopia or just an ever so slightly tarnished and tribal heaven while the homeland and its people are viewed as self absorbed and two dimensional citizens of dystopia. All based on current levels of access to modernist resources such as the internet and quality of city life. This is alright if one is an ordinary person whose pen does not inform thousands if not millions of people, but such one sided prejudice is closer to self loathing than it is to self expression.

This is the kind of self contempt that stems from what Franz Fanon spoke of in his famous treatise Black Skins/ White Masks.

At the surface it was a lively chat between writers and a receptive audience, but given South Africa’s and the rest of Africa’s past and present injustices, it is difficult to not cry foul. There are matters that require addressing in our world and among them is the self image of Africans, especially the youth who must forge a new society out of the debris of the ruinous past.

The other thing I must point out is that we need to review the meaning of modern city, the roles of intellectuals and what really informs their desire to write. Aside from the seemingly natural propensity to write in order to tell a fine story, there seems to be an acquired reluctance to deal with ordinary people’s daily struggles.

The stories may be created by using the characteristics of ordinary folks, but the fact that not enough effort is made to create environments where these tales can be shared and reviewed or enjoyed in the open (not in festivals and universities) shows that many writers are still writing in order to impress the masters (European language speaking audiences, at home and abroad). Perhaps to find humour and hubris in the absurdities of life is the academics way of dealing with the weight of knowledge.

The writers on tonights panel all share a common love for reading. The y may be informed by various and different thinkers, but it is obvious that these are clearly people who read a whole lot.

It is in their use of language, their skill in articulating their thoughts and answers to questions. What is increasingly disturbing is something that was already touched upon.

Can writers with all their intelligent and creative writing skills revolutionise the way the masses of their readers view themselves as individuals and as a society?

It appears as if they can, it is a gradual process but they can.

I for one did read a lot of Njabulo Ndebele’s earlier books and essays, but when we he rightly expressed his frustrating with the misuse of the words such as Racisms, especially by the political regime, I thought that there was a better way to put it. I agreed with the sentiment but what I do not agree with is that after just 16 years of propaganda and multiracialism, it’s still not time to bury the spear and forget about racism.

When then will we be able to deal with the social stratifications and racially based economic systems, I don’t think that we should do away with Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment just because there are people who find ways to misuse it. To not talk about race is just like censoring dissent in any society. South Africa is absolutely not ready to stop talking about race. Ndebele’s suggestion that obvious acts of racism should be viewed or treated as merely individual acts of youthful foolishness which should be dealt with by the whip rather than through open conversation.

This is a severe error of judgment, especially coming from a writer and intellectual who is also a ‘former’ Black Consciousness activist.

Perhaps he and many others who have now embraced this multiracial front spent too much time over asserting their Blackness that they became exhausted with the rhetoric; and herein lies the danger of being a revolutionary writer, while it is good to allow change to occur and acknowledge it through ones writing, it is also important to bring about a future vision through ones writing, but that can be done by naming things as they are and not shying away from irritating problems. Intellectuals need to come back down here on the ground and become organic instead of technical or ultra-organised producers of stories. It must also be noted that not every writer is really an intellectual and not everyone who does not read European literature has anything to say about the world. Africa must tell her and his story and there are many ways to do it, the book is just one method. TBC

Menzi Maseko (c)