isiXhosa literature needs to break free of its fetters
http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3888524
June 18, 2007 Edition 1
It is widely accepted that the only book that sells in indigenous languages
is the Bible. If this is so, then isiXhosa literature has lost its sense of
place, its sense of spirituality, of providing mature commentary on the
society within which the language exists.
This is the result of the continual oppression and trivialising of
indigenous literatures that has led to their unnatural development,
resulting in lack of identification with the indigenous word by speakers of
African languages.
This restricted the full development of an indigenous South African
identity.
isiXhosa literature was initially oppressed and controlled by missionaries,
resulting in the loss of independence of the book in terms of thematic
repertoire.
Many years later, isiXhosa literature was more severely suppressed by
apartheid's corrupt and generally conservative language boards operating in
former homelands which advised publishers on manuscripts to be published
that would be prescribed in schools.
The commissioning editors for isiXhosa publications in mainstream publishing
companies, at the time, were initially white and monolingual.
The readers who vetted the material were isiXhosa speakers, often
conservative writers who upheld the apartheid status quo.
And so, a cycle was created which fed "law-abiding" and conservative
material, perspectives and attitudes into the school market, limiting the
full and natural development of isiXhosa literature.
The Department of Arts and Culture, the Department of Education and the Pan
South African Language Board are faced with the mammoth task of implementing
the constitution which allows for the equal treatment of all official
languages.
However, the effect of implementing this policy has yet to play itself out
fully in the literary and publishing world.
The lack of visibility of implementation at government level, where most
politicians have, for example, capitulated to the use of English in
parliament, does little to convince the speakers of indigenous languages of
their worth.
Publishers then do not see the value of publishing in these languages,
except for the school market.
Political changes since 1990 also liberated authors, reasserting literature
as an "articulator of freedom" and potentially restoring literature as a
symbol of nationhood and identity.
Since the 1990s, black-run printing presses such as Skotaville, Vivlia and
BARD published works by popular authors such as Welile Shasha, Ncedile Saule
and Mandla Matyumza.
Black directors began taking up positions in previously white-owned
companies. Black commissioning editors were employed and began working in
their own languages.
There were major cutbacks in terms of spending on books by the new
Department of Education, the lifeblood supporting isiXhosa literature, but
mainly at schools. This affected the publishing of creative works.
The imaginative prose genre, for instance, in isiXhosa writing had yet to be
established though it had existed in its oral forms of epic and oral poetry
as well as folktales for centuries.
Oral literature was largely unhindered by suppression, political censorship
or manipulation. The spoken word in the form of izibongo has retained some
autonomy in expressing socio-political commentary - even during apartheid.
The imbongi has constantly been transforming. First, the move from praising
chiefs to praising God, and then the move to praising trade union movements,
political parties and popular leaders.
Unlike the book, easier to control and censor, the word remains a powerful
barometer of freedom of speech.
Nelson Mandela's first imbongi, the late Bongani Sitole, provided critical
socio-political commentary of the complexities of the early 1990s.
This is contained in a book entitled Qhiwula! Return to the Fold! which was
re-issued by Nasou Via Afrika Publishers in a second edition in 2006.
But, there is a certain silence, which is still evident in isiXhosa
literature. A silence which represents an emptiness created by strict
apartheid censorship laws which needs to be filled. We are only now
beginning to see isiXhosa literature grapple with contemporary issues and
debates.
The characters and settings in isiXhosa literature can be grouped as country
or rural characters; migratory characters who move between shanty towns or
locations in urban areas and rural family homes, and those who are born in
the urban black areas and who have no rural association.
Migratory characters and first generation urban dwellers have been referred
to as having an "unresolved dialogue between urban and rural space" which
may be resolved through the normalisation of South African society, which
will hopefully be reflected in new isiXhosa literature.
amaXhosa can now occupy urban spaces that they were previously excluded
from. The natural development of the literature will involve cultural
flexibility, a mixing of tongues, of discourses, of cultures - for all South
Africans. Essentially this is what should feed isiXhosa literature, thus
broadening thematic repertoire.
It is truly a sad day when a nation's literature depends on prescription for
a school market in order to survive.
There is clearly little or no adult readership. If anything, numbers of
people reading in isiXhosa have dropped.
It is only political intervention coupled with a change in attitude by
speakers of isiXhosa themselves which will change this.
# Professor Kaschula is head of the School of Languages at Rhodes University
in Grahamstown. He will address a seminar based on the topic today at the
Cape Town Book Fair.
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