By Shandukani Mulaudzi and Mfuneko Toyana , Qunu – Eastern Cape
Tears, song and cheering filled the marquee where the people of Qunu gathered to bid a fond farewell to their late neighbour and former president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.
Although the mainstream media reported that some members of the Qunu community were disappointed they could not attend the funeral, Wits Vuvuzela found many who contradicted these reports
Hundreds – both young and old – gathered at the Nelson Mandela Museum where they could watch the funeral. Even those who had watched the first part of the programme on their televisions at home headed up the hill to share in the last few moments of the funeral with their fellow community members.
When the procession, led by the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), moved towards the burial site some cried while others sat silently and watched.
When the 21 gun salute started the people ran forward to watch the SANDF planes fly over the hills of Qunu. Many raised their fists in a silent salute.
After the screens were turned off the people sat down for a while before heading home.
In Mvezo, where Mandela was born, people were at a public viewing marquee long after the screens were switched off. While children played and dogs ran wild, the elders spoke under the tents and the young men and women leaned against fences chatting.
Diniso Mzikayise was born and raised in Mvezo. He said even though they could not attend the funeral they were happy that the screen was put up so they could share the moment together as a community.
Mzikayise said he did not know of any people who were hurt because they could not go to the funeral. He said if those people did exist, they probably internalised their frustrations.
Mthatha-residents Billy Johnson and Luxolo Ndabeni said they would have happily attended one of the public viewing tents in Qunu fitted with big screens and offering a free lunch after the service.
Unfortunately, Johnson said, they needed to make an urgent delivery that morning, and more importantly, they needed the money.
Ndabeni said he respected Mandela because he had not “abandoned his town like other leaders. But he expressed disappointment that Mthatha residents were not able to attend Mandela’s funeral.
He lamented that only certain could benefit financially from projects intended to develop Mthatha.
“It’s not like in Joburg, here only if you have van then maybe you can make some money. But even then when there are projects only those with connections get the work,” Ndabeni said.
“If you want money but your family aren’t rich and connected …” he added before trailing off.
With the huge tent where the funeral service was being held peering over a slope behind them, Johnson tapped his wrist with two fingers.
“uMandela besimthanda kodwa kufenekile siyenze imali (We loved Mandela but need to make money),” Johnson said.
A picture of Nelson Mandela greeted guests to the Wits University memorial in honour of the late statesman on Thursday night. Photo: Mfuneko Toyana.
Wits University’s memorial service in honour of late former president Nelson Mandela was not a somber affair.
Nor was it bogged down by strict decorum. Instead, the vast and iconic Wits Great Hall auditorium was transformed into an intimate scene where a few of Madiba’s closest comrades sat together and shared fond memories of the great statesman.
Constitutional Court deputy chief justice and Wits chancellor Dikgang Moseneke facilitated what he termed a “fire-side conversation” with Advocate George Bizos, who defended Mandela at the 1959 Rivonia Trial, and liberation stalwart Ahmed Kathadra, a close confidant of Mandela on Robben Island.
Together, they took the 1000-strong audience, gathered inside and outside the Great Hall, on a leisurely stroll down memory lane, effortlessly evoking the mercurial spirit and humour of their former comrade and the nation’s father.
[pullquote align=”right”]”We have failed to live up to Mandela’s egalitarian vision”[/pullquote]
Moseneke, the younger of the three on the stage, told the audience his first encounter with Mandela was under less “illustrious” circumstances than those of Bizos and Kathadra.
Ahmad Kathrada, a contemporary and confidant of Nelson Mandela who spent many years imprisoned on Robben Island with Mandela. Photo: Wits Communications.
“It was on Robben Island … I used to be a runner for them, delivering newspapers to Mandela and other comrades … I used to cut out all the rubbish like advertisements and then smuggle them in.”
The smile, a somewhat despairing one, in Moseneke’s voice as he conducted proceedings radiated from his words and into the audience, as if the larger than life portrait of a half-smiling Mandela at the entrance of the hall had silently lifted darkness of loss from the hearts of all of those present.
Advocate George Bizos who defended Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia Treason Trials. Photo: Wits Communications.
Bizos and Kathrada took the turns to join in the mock irreverence.
“I met him in 1948 right here,” Bizos chuckled. “He was always [dressed] in a suit and shiny shoes,” said Bizos, wondering out loud where Mandela could have possibly found the money to look so dapper.
Kathrada, in a low voice, told the audience he had met Mandela two years earlier, in 1946, before eventually being imprisoned on Robben Island with him.
The panel, however, did not shy from using Mandela’s passing to assess how far the country had come in its liberation.
“I get upset when people say nothing has changed,” Bizos chided. “Look at the panel here. Look at the student body.” Bizos said that you would not have kind of diversity during apartheid.
Commenting on the current leadership of the country, he lamented: “We have failed to live up to Mandela’s egalitarian vision… We have failed materially in many respects.”
Bringing an end to proceedings, Moseneke echoed Bizos’ disappointment saying the country had a long way to go. The optimistic tone, however, returned.
“There will be many good men to us through these tempestuous times … We are a nation of good people,” Moseneke said.
Watch a video of the memorial provided by Wits Communications:
RELATED RESOURCES:
Wits University: Mandela Memorial (photographs, audio and video available), December 2013.
BIRD’S EYE: A view of Nelson Mandela’s memorial from the top tier of FNB stadium where this reporter met Junior. Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
Nelson Mandela had a genuine, well-documented soft-spot for young children. In them, he saw an innocence untainted by the wrongs of the adult world, as well hope for the future of our country. On Tuesday, one young boy named Junior attended his memorial, while this older boy watched on.
It all started with a pen that slid down between the sodden aisles of orange flip-seats. The finale: a makeshift safety belt fashioned from an ANC scarf, at about the same time Brazilian president Dilma Russeff took to the podium and the PA system really went south …
Seated on the uppermost tier of FNB stadium, sheltered from the pouring rain by the cavernous mouth of the concrete calabash, little Junior’s exuberance mirrored that of the small battalion of Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), on the opposite end of the stadium.
Both could not be contained, but only the latter irked MC Cyril Ramaphosa to the point of clenched-teeth madness.
Junior’s mother, fearing her son would skip over the ledge, and heading paternal anxieties of a fellow mourner that young Junior would “follow Mandela to the grave”, promptly restrained her son by using her black, green and gold scarf to bind him to the orange chair.
Problem solved.
When a different section of the crowd, this time clad in South African Defense Force (SANDF) fatigues, breached acceptable levels of raucousness by chanting “siyaya ngomkhonto wesizwe (we go forth with the spear of the nation)”, Junior took Ramaphosa’s silence as invitation.
He co-opted his sister into finger-counting the soldiers, as if breathing in the sight of bravery. Consequently, he loosened the scarf around his torso and flung it over his head in a Rambo-style bandana.
There was plenty of seeming non-events around the stadium for the young boy, barely over seven years in age, to feed his wonder. Cameras with jumbo-size lenses led to hand-clapping and earnest discussions with his mother, as well as whispers to his elder sister.
While protocol was being implored on stage, Junior wasted none of his time on formalities.
When “Mandela yoh, my president” rang out during president Hifikepunye Pohamba’s address, Juniour joined in until a flurry of umbrella activity below proved a fatal distraction.
Shortly after, Junior offered me his juice while Ramaphosa again pleaded for discipline. Had Ramaphosa’s finger-wagging inadvertently led to this act of kindness? Or was this instinctual defiance?
Only Junior knows.
A closed-eye game. Junior is inventor and sole participant, spinning round and resting a tiny index finger on a random stranger.
“Hayi maan basemsebenzini (Stop that they’re working ),” scolds his mother.
Junior, in my direction, retorts: “Kamampela usemsebenzini (Really you’re working)?”
The answer leads to another game. Junior points out to his mother everyone he spots doing the frenetic notepad scribble, asking: “Mama, naloya? Bheka mama, naloya. Naloya?” (Mom, him too? Look mom, him too? Him too?)
However, and unfortunately, this eye for obscure detail is not destined for a newsroom and carpal tunnel syndrome.
“Ngifuna ukhuba yipoyisa ngibambe abotsotsi (I want to be a policeman and catch bad guys),” Junior says.
The pen he rescued from a shallow puddle symbolised nothing. Except, perhaps, plain simple good will, and a life lived in wonder of the world around him.
Junior. Mandela. Junior Mandela? One can only hope.
Doris Malinga, a 70 year-old resident of Kliptown, Johannesburg recounts her memories of Nelson Mandela.
Seventy year-old Doris Malinga remembers more than one version of her first meeting with Nelson Mandela. She describes each with such faithfulness to the joy and the despair of the experiences that you can hardly dispute that both ‘first times’ really did occur. A case of Madiba magic? Perhaps.
“uMandela ngamthintha kwathi ngakusasa kwakhona ngawina… angazi besi dlalani ngaleso skhathi… (short pause) Oh ya! Amahashi! (joyous guffaw) Lapha eTurfontein. Ngawina”. (I touched Mandela’s hand, and the next day I won … I don’t remember what we were playing in those days. Oh yes! Horses! In Turfontein. I won.)
Standing between the side buildings and the main hall of a now mostly empty Regina Mundi Catholic Church, in a sliver of brave sunshine, Doris Malinga recounts her experiences of Nelson Mandela as if watching them flicker across the screen of memory for the first time.
“Bagcwele amambhunu la ngaphandle, sabalekela la eRegina Mundi. Silele ngezisu abokhile amabhunu nezinja ngaphandle… 1976!”. (A lot of Boers where outside, we ran and hid here in the Regina Mundi church. we lay flat on our stomachs while the Boers waited for us outside with their dogs … 1976!)
This past Sunday, three days after Mandela’s passing, Doris attended a service at the church dedicated to the late, great statesman.
In a corner to the right of the pulpit, a large wood-framed portrait of grey-haired “Tata” leaned against the wall, watching as joy and despair rippled through the congregation dressed in powder-blue and others in deep-purple uniforms.
Doris said pride rose up inside of her as she sat in the pews and listened to the pastor speak of Mandela’s life and work.
Her own path to this famous church, she said, was paved in the black, gold and green colours of Mandela’s ANC.
[pullquote align=”right”]”I’m going to wear ANC because Mandela saved us when the Boers were after us.”[/pullquote]
She explained that years after the days of seeking refuge away from apartheid police in the church, she eventually “gave herself to Roma”, at around the same time as Mandela’s release from prison in 1990.
A thumb-and-pinky telephone helps her explain why she came to the service dressed head to toe in ANC regalia rather than the required uniform of a long-time member of the congregation.
“Namhla angeke ngigqoke ijoin mina (Today I’m not going to wear uniform),” she said re-enacting her conversation with a fellow member. “Ngizogqoka iANC ngoba uMandela wasi kipha amabhunu asigijimisa. uMandela ngiyamgqokela (I’m going to wear ANC because Mandela saved us when the Boers were after us. I’m wearing this for Mandela).”
So proud of her outfit, Doris insists on the “best” picture being taken of it adjusting it with bright-coloured cloths and scarves from a seemingly bottomless black plastic bag at her side, to obtain a verisimilitude with the reverence she expresses.
Doris Malinga remembers the times she met Nelson Mandela. Photo: Dinesh Balliah.
A little later, with a gift of two queen cakes and a styrofoam cup of sherbet-orange juice, Doris recalls the other version of her first encounter with Nelson Mandela.
“I had two sons. One was an ANC member. Both died during apartheid. One was shot near Orlando Station by police on his way back from school … The other was killed near Kliptown. His body was thrown into that river (the Kliprivier).”
One of her late sons left behind a young boy-child, whom Doris raised. He is now 20 years-old.The previous proud overflow of joy slows as despair tinges Doris’s voice.
She remembers a day when she knocked off work in town and went to collect her grandson from a near-by daycare center. She took him to Luthuli House, the ANC headquarters on Sauer street, where Mandela was addressing a large crowd.
“Bengimuphethe emahlombe. Kugcwele kuthe! uMandela wambona. Wamuthata wambekha emahlombeni akhe. (I had him on my shoulders. It was jam packed. Mandela saw him. He took him and hoisted him onto his shoulders).”
In living colour: A portrait of late president Nelson Mandela on a side-walk inVilakazi street, Soweto, Johannesburg. Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
Nelson Mandela’s former home on the famous Vilakazi street in Orlando West, Soweto, was a powerful magnet today, attracting hundreds of people hoping to celebrate the life of the former president and pay their respects to the late icon.
Although entry into the pristine red-brick house, now a museum, was temporarily barred, many people milled around its gates taking pictures, signing messages on a large portrait of Mandela hanging from the fence. Visitors also laid flowers and lit candles at a steadily growing memorial under a sign reading “Goodbye Tata.”
ANC Mkonto weSizwe Miltary Veteran’s Association (ANCMKMVA) member Oupa Mabe, who first met Mandela on Robben Island in 1987, described the atmosphere as “ambivalent” while struggle songs rose up from the streets outside Mandela’s former home.
“People are having mixed feelings about this … Others are sad and others want to celebrate. If you say we should be sad then you are trying to undermine the contribution of a legend, what he has left for us a unifier and as a great leader.”
Mabe, dutifully signing coordinating the signings of the large portrait-print of Mandela and handing out markers to children eager to pen goodbye messages to the late president, recalled that the first thing Mandela said to him on the first day of his 28-year sentence: “Young man go and learn. Go and educate yourself so that one day you can lead.”
Former press secretary for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Rose Nkosi, echoed Mabe’s sentiments as she haggled with a vendor over the price for a book of portraits of Nelson Mandela.
“I am disturbed as our father has passed away.” Nkosi said despite this sadness that we were feeling, Mandela’s passing was an opportunity to renew faith in the principles, especially education, which he lived for.
Rubbing a hand over Mandela’s face on the cover of her newly purchased book, Nkosi said the written word and pictures provided a powerful tool for teaching future generations about the man and his “dedication to education”.
Letlogonolo Mogapi, a Unisa student from Pretoria, dedicated her pursuit of an engineering degree to Nelson Mandela.
“If it was not for Mandela we would not even be in school right now… [pullquote]Ga ne re gola, if you were black, it was either you studied nursing or you were a teacher.[/pullquote] You would never find an engineer back then. He was not struggling for freedom [alone] he fought for education and we thank him for that.”
Teach One: Letlhogonolo Mogapi and Thutelo Refilwe came from Pretoria to say goodbye to Mandela. Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
Even as the rain clouds gathered and threatened to unleash another violent Highveld storm, the singing and dancing in celebration of the life of Nelson Mandela continued on Vilakazi street.
Last Bath: Hillbrow Public House has been closed for over two months. Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
On Kotze street in Hillbrow, one block west of the Esselen residence, there is a street beggar named Albert. Every day, wrapped in rags heavy with filth and smiling through a yellow-toothed overbite, he stands in front of a hair salon beseeching passersby: “Hello, ngiceli R2. Hello, ngiceli R2”.
Even as he speaks, the pseudo-smile does not leave his lips.
Sinking Ship: Laundry lines are bare and sinks have had their pipes ripped out. Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
Around the corner from where he stands, on Edith Cavell Street, is the Hillbrow Public Bath House, which has been closed for a while.
Albert said he’d never seen nor heard of the bath house.
Ali Seshone, operational manager in charge of maintaining the bathhouse said it had been closed since last month due to vandalism.
“We’re buying material for it to be fixed but it takes time you know,” said Seshone.
The bath house, one of two in the city, was built in 1996 and is managed by the Johannesburg Property Company (JPC) on behalf of the city.
No Show(er): Copper piping and brass fittings have made the communal showers a target for thieves. Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
All entry points are padlocked shut; hand-written notices on the doors announce “Out of Order”, and the barbwire above the fences snares litter like a fly-trap. Inside, the desolation is unambiguous.
Holes in the walls reveal where copper pipes have been ripped out of toilet stalls and shower stations.
The caretaker who introduced himself as Joseph, pointed out where the ceiling had been ripped open and windows kicked loose, explaining that thieves regularly forced their way through the zinc roof in search of the copper and brass fittings. Recently, a thief was apprehended with handfuls of plumbing from the bath house.
Joseph said the case was on-going but none of the “big-wigs” had attended court dates.
Public Relations and Communications Officer of JPC Brian Mahlangu was gloomy about the situation, seeing it as a decline in community and pride.
“We’d appreciate it if the citizens of Joburg could take pride in these spaces because we build them for their convenience.
There are plans to open more of such things but we are being hindered by the people themselves,” Mahlangu said.
Late Mozambican journalist Carlos Cardosa was honoured at the Power Reporting 2013. Photo: Emelia Motsai
Remembering the guerrilla typewriter
The talk honouring the work and memory of Mozambican journalist Carlos Cardosa, who was gunned down in November 2000 after his investigative reporting threatened to reveal the full extent of multi-million dollar corruption involving the Mozambican government and the state bank.
Lister titled her lecture “Guerrilla Typewriters: Fighting for Media Freedom before and after Liberation”, and deliberately set out to light the fire of revolution under the conferences delegates mainly comprising journalists.
The tactic was a success as the idea of a public service journalism, inspired by Cardosa’s work, stirred more passionate rather than clinical discussions, reflected in the words that came from the panel as well as from the audience as journalists.
Gwen Lister and Professor Anton Harber at the Carlos Cardosa Memorial Talk. Photo: Emelia Motsai
“There is a historical resonance between Carlos Cardosa and investigative journalism. To have Gwen Lister and Anton Harber under this photo of Carlos Cardosa is an absolute historical moment. Take out your phones and your cameras. Get the picture,” Prof Kupe enthused.
[pullquote]At an earlier session in the same auditorium addressed by investigative journalist extraordinaire Mzilikazi wa Afrika, the audience challenged the newspaperman and each other over the feeling that there was no fraternity amongst journalist.[/pullquote] One journo said she was disappointed when fellow journalists had not stood up for a BBC journalist when he kicked out of a press conference by then ANCYL president Julius Malema.
Lister’s address sought to sew together these fractures by reminding journalists of their revolutionary responsibility to creating democratic societies.
Reading from what sounded like a carefully written, emotive speech, Professor Harber picked up the thread.
After reminding the audience of Cardosa’s history as Wits SRC (Students Representative Council), president and his consequent deportation back to Mozambique by the South African government for his writing criticising the Lisbon Coup, Harber sought to draw out the meaning of Cardosa’s work as a journalist bent on exposing corruption to journalism today.
“We gather to remember Carlos not just as a fierce and brave investigative journalist, but as one who came to symbolise the spirit of public service that is at the heart of great journalism.”
Journalism is a passion and vocation
Gwen Lister upped the momentum as the keynote speaker, speaking of issues at the core of what many feel is wrong with journalism today. She tackled the role journalists in the fight for media freedom from the onset.
“I see journalism as a passion and a calling … and this is underpinned by freedom of expression. I call on all of you to be journalists on a mission to excellence and advocacy.”
She said this right was continually undermined on the continent, seen in the impunity with which violence against journalists was committed.
“We need to get out of our nationalistic boxes and feel the pain when other journalists on the continent are being killed,” Lister said.
She described Cardosa as a crusader against corruption, but not the only journalist who has had to pay with his life for this kind of journalism. For Lister, journalists were linked by this common pursuit for freedom to report on wrong-doing and abuses in their societies.
“The power is still in our pens,” Lister concluded her talk, short of raising her fist to the rousing applause.
SO DELISH: Students at the Postgraduate Office joined in for a feast of traditional Kenyan food. Photo: Pheladi Sethusa
Kenyan-born PhD candidate Linet Imbosa finds it sad that so much food in South Africa is over-processed. “When you make your own food, you build a fellowship with that food and it nourishes you.”
Rather than celebrating Kenyan culture by visiting a restaurant, the developmental psychology specialist invited Wits Vuvuzela for a “cultural picnic” to celebrate Heritage Month.
September’s associations with heritage, culminating in the public holiday on the 24th, posed a dilemma for Vuvuzela reporters: would we look at South African heritages and cultures and risk adding to the truism that South Africans are self-involved?
Or should we look at non-South African cultures and risk the accusation of treating heritages outside our own as inherently foreign?
The dilemma resolved itself when we sat down to a lunch of traditional Kenyan foods or kienjeli, with Imbosa and some for her colleagues from various parts of Africa.
She had prepared it the night before between her punishing academic schedule.
What a feast
The meal consisted of a number of dishes that were made of slow-cooked vegetables and natural food stuffs prepared with little or no oil.
“Every homestead in Kenya has a kitchen garden,” Imbosa said as she pointed us to sukumawiki, which translates to “stretch the week” in English – a mixed vegetable dish of shredded carrots, onions, tomatoes and lentils.
She explained that the name referred to the fact that meat was a luxury, so this cheaper vegetable dish could be enjoyed throughout the week.
[pullquote align=”right”]“When I first came to Johannesburg and my sister, who was hosting me, lived in a flat, she would grow herbs in buckets on her window sills.”[/pullquote] Throughout the meal and the conversation she referred again and again to the close relationship she felt to growing, preparing and slowly enjoying her food.
MY PLEASURE: Linet Imbosa enjoys the art of food. Photo: Pheladi Sethusa
“I grew up cooking, I was always with my mother and my grandmother and you learn the art of growing and harvesting food.” She explained this feeling of being “in fellowship” with your food as “almost metaphysical”.
Imbosa said the traditional food she shared with us reminded her of home, which is why she continued to go to places like Yeoville to source ingredients such as cassava and doga (fish fingerlings) and chapatti.
Perhaps finding the common ground was the point of the cultural experiment.
OFF THE HOOK: Rappers Themba Thwala, aka Mag, and Asanda Bikani, aka Nobody, explore new heights of expression. Photo: Palesa Radebe
Dramatic arts student Themba Thwala recorded a hip-hop single this weekend in the presence of a rapper he hopes to emulate in the near future. For now, he will have to settle for rousing Witsies from the slumber that sweeps over the campus and the city at this time of the year.
Mag, Thwala’s stage name, is Wits’s representative in Blackberry’s campus wide search for South Africa’s next rap star. The word-slinger is fresh off a weekend with Sama-award winning artist Khuli Chana. He was one of nine artists recording a single for a chance to perform it on stage with the Maf Town rapper.
Why Do You Rap?
Wits Vuvuzela spoke to other heads (colloquial for die-hards of hip hop) on campus in hopes of understanding the relationship between hip hop and their studies.
Asked what they were “officially” studying, the hip-hop enthusiasts went from light bewilderment to spouts of philosophy at this simple question.
Third year B.Ed student Asanda Bikani, or “Nobody” when he takes on his emcee persona, said for him it was about more than rapping and listening to hip-hop music. “It’s about propagating the things people need to hear…about motivation and telling people they’re beautiful even if they know it,” Bikani said.
“I love it here…people on campus are so apolitical that if you create a platform of truth people are immediately attracted.”Bikani said what he learnt in class influenced what he rapped about, giving him more ideas to dismantle and build on.
Hip Hop is a Mirror
Karabo Randa was unusually intrigued by the “what are you studying” question, the line between her academic education and what she’d learned through hip-hop fading at the mention of the distinction.
“A lot of my vocab and the music that I listen to was influenced by hip-hop…there’s a lot ideology behind it.”
The rapper and co-host of VoW Fm’s hip-hop show The Total Package said the metamorphosis of hip-hop from the 1990s up to now interested her: [pullquote align=”right”]“At that time the music was a mirror for the listeners to look at themselves. Right now in the music, it’s me having a mirror looking at myself. It’s very narcissistic”[/pullquote], Randa said.
“There’s a weakness in our taste [of hip-hop] that didn’t exist then,” said the 3rd year BA triple major, known as Arazen behind the microphone. She said hip-hop culture as it stood on Wits campus excited her and “awoke the beast that lived inside of all of us”.
Mag, who plans to make a career of hip-hop, said he had been studying drama and art since high school and it influenced the way he wrote his music and the references he made in his lyrics Hip hop versus studies? Mag was the quickest to answer, albeit after a fit of what seemed like cathartic laughter.
Pursuit of Happiness
“I study less because I’m pursuing music half of the time. For me, the happier I am in a space [doing what I love], everything seems to work out.”
All three agreed that Wits was in a unique position to do something with the raw energy hip-hop generated on campus, be it political, introspective, or merely “for art’s sake”.
The Market Theatre’s main stage was the platform where six diverse minds gathered to discuss migration, a topic central to all of their individual work.
The last day and the last panel discussion of the Mail & Guardian Literary Festival helped to make audience members and authors alike reflect on the movement of people in and out of cities and countries.
The poor accommodating the poor
Wandile Zwane from the City of Johannesburg’s Migrant Helpdesk, used an interesting anecdote from a conversation he had had with a woman, illustrating a point made earlier about migration being a situation where the poor are accommodating the poor. [pullquote]”…people migrate to places with a gravitational pull…”[/pullquote]
The woman talked about the hierarchy that existed when it came to where one slept in her house. As a young child one was in the main bedroom, the older one got you would move to the dining room and the kitchen to make space for the younger ones. Eventually one would land up in the outside room and from there move on to their own house with a spouse.
Unfortunately her marriage had not worked out so she had to move back to the outside room with her kids, but because there was an immigrant living in that room she had to go back to the kitchen. The story points to one explanation of the animosity that exists around migration in South Africa.
Migration
Chinua Achebe’s book ‘There was a Country’ was the theme around which the conversation around which migration had to bend itself.
The panel consisted of writers who had threaded together stories and books, all zooming in on migration and themes central to resettlement. The panel discussion was largely based on the different writers’ works and their experiences of bridging political and personal narratives in their storytelling.
A young writer making waves in the literary world, NoViolet Bulawayo, said emergent personal narratives are based on political events, and that it was not possible to separate the two in one’s writing. [pullquote align=”right”]“Johannesburg is a migrant city”[/pullquote]
While the works of the six on stage were central to the discussion, engagement with audience members opened up the dialogue and brought up issues that were left out in the initial conversation.
Photographer and self-proclaimed book lover, Victor Dlamini (@victordlamini) made a poignant point from the floor, which steered the conversation to a meaningful point. He commented on people who are migrants themselves taking issue with people who migrate. He used Johannesburg as an example, saying most people who are in this city are not even from this city. “Johannesburg is a migrant city,” he added.
Panelist and writer, Achmat Dangor responded by saying that he agreed with Dlamini and pinned negative attitudes around migration on mechanisms of ‘othering’. He added that people migrate to places with a gravitational pull because of new ideas in that specific place. This is always the case with ‘big cities’, the activity and promise of economic emancipation lure people in, be it across borders or provincial lines.
Caroline Wanjiku Kihato, author of The Bookseller of Kibera, added to Dangor’s response, saying that human beings had a tendency of finding one another’s differences and using them to oppress one another.
Another audience member asked why was it that only Africans were considered immigrants. He did not understand why the Chinese and Europeans who come to this country were not treated with the same hostility that “our brothers” were.
In response Kwanele Sosibo (@KwaneleSosibo), journalist at the Mail & Guardian, simply said “we do it to ourselves”. He went on to narrate an anecdote about how people in an Eastern Cape community believe in measuring people according to certain pedigrees. Mining house recruiters divided them up according to body size, using pedigree determine who’d make best workers, exemplary of systematic ‘othering’.
Writing Invisibility
The Writing Invisibility e-book was launched. Some of the writers on the panel were contributors in the book which was a project done in collaboration with the Wits African Centre for Migration & Society.
SOLD: All the books discussed were on sale for audience members to buy during breaks. Photo: Pheladi Sethusa
An old acquaintance barely seen since primary school days, in a chance meeting recently complained that our country had yet to produce “the great South African novel”. With the 2013 Mail and Guardian Literary Festival a few short hours away, his observation was an attractive alternative to the small talk gnawing for attention at the corners of our conversation.
Appalled and mystified in equal degrees at the valid line of enquiry, I asked him what he meant by the “great South African novel”? He fired off a series of answers whose sum total escapes the memory of a mind that was blind with excitement at the prospect of three days immersed in South Africa’s finest literary offerings.
The great novel, as Dickens, or perhaps Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, was to the British? There was sense of this in my acquaintance’s response. Nigerian-born literary scholar, Aghogho Akpome, in a panel discussion chaired by South African Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer about Chinua Achebe’s Man of the People, made a remark along these lines.
On the second day of the festival in an airy under-construction Market Theatre, he recalled that his English-teacher father would refuse to engage him in literary conversation until he had read Pride and Prejudice. Our reading culture as Africans, and the canons which we instinctively reference, are inherently Western. A moot point Akpome acknowledged. What the University of the Free State research associate was getting at however, was that there did not exist one African story or one way of telling it that was more valid than another, and that its formation could take any number of trajectories.
LEGEND: Nadine Gordimer opens a discussion by outlining some of the major themes drawn from Chinua Achebe’s works, in tribute to him. Photo: Pheladi Sethusa
Gordimer herself could be said to have penned at least one the great South African novels. My acquaintance hazarded JM Coetzee or Antjie Krug as possibilities only to immediately reject them, saying the latter author was “too self-flagellating”. I thought of suggesting Njabulo Ndebele’s Fools or any works from the Sophiatown school of writers.
But after factoring in a few racial, proudly South African variables, and sensing that he was thinking of something more contemporary and light-hearted, I eventually suggested Chris van Wyk’s memoir Shirley, Goodness and Mercy. He had not read it but said he would. One might have also suggested the book by Gordimer and Akpome’s fellow panellist, Imraan Coovadia’s remarkable Institute of Taxi Poetry, which is about as South African as it gets.
The many possibilities created by the thought of “the great South African novel” beget an inevitable question, one that seemed a preoccupation of the festival as a whole if the theme, Chinua Achebe’s children: Africa’s suspended revolutions, is given due consideration.
What is the nature of the relationship between literature and society in societies on the brink of, or newly emergent from, revolution?
Chinua Achebe, the organisers seem to have been saying, had already written the great African novels. His choice as the spiritual conduit through which these questions and that of the continent’s “suspended revolutions” would be explored, then, set the scene for a confrontation: A joyful exorcism and harrowing incantation of the complexities of the times we live in. “[T]he fourth annual M&G Literary Festival aims to foster robust debate about political, social and literary revolution,” according to books editor at the Mail and Guardian Darryl Accone.
And the festival kicked-off on that urgent note with the presentation of newly installed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Witwatersrand Professor Adam Habib’s new book, South Africa’s Suspended Revoultion: Hopes and Prospects. In it, Habib suggests that “it is not the foibles or wisdom of our leaders” that will ultimately determine a prosperous future for the country. He advises rather, that it is imagination and commitment from the political elites and ordinary citizens that will forge a path to transformed society.
LET’S TALK: Investigative journalist, Adriaan Basson and Adam Habib spoke about “Hope and Impediments” in the South African political and social context in the first panel discussion of the day. Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
A score of other great South African publications and their authors were engaged on these and similar questions, with Achebe’s scorn for African leaders who have hijacked and short-circuited Africa’s revolutions as omniscient guide.
The great South African novel? Nadine Gordimer guessed the character of its author when she quoted Albert Camus: “The day I am no more than just a writer, no longer will I be a writer”.
The results of the 2013 SRC elections were announced today at the Wits Great Hall piazza.
Newcomers Project W got almost half the seats on the SRC. Last year PYA won 14 of the 15 seats, losing only one seat to an independent candidate.
In 2011 they won all the seats on the SRC. The percentage of students who voted in this year was 24%, a 3.5% increase from last year.
Election results paper with candidates and the number of votes recieved. Page 1
Election results paper with candidates and the number of votes recieved. Page 2
Reactions from organisations
While the PYA narrowly maintains its majority on the SRC, with only eight seats, their shock was evident.
“They got seven seats,” said current SRC external Joy Phiri (@Joy_Phiri) who is a PYA member right after the results were announced.
Project W’s Jamie Mighti (@thenextbarack) said the votes reflected what students wanted.
“The students have voted, we’ve introduced democracy and excitement around politics in the university,” said Mighti.
When his name was announced in eighth position Mighti walked across the Great Hall stairs to where PYA members were standing and mocked them. They booed him in response.
[pullquote]“The students have voted, we’ve introduced democracy and excitement around politics in the university”[/pullquote]
PYA’s Shafee Verachia (@ShafMysta) the incumbent SRC academic officer got most of the votes. He garnered 2967 votes, 3.6 % of the total votes. PYA supporters cheered loudly when this was announced.
“I’m quite happy, PYA will pride its self in serving students,” said Verachia.
“We gave up half way through,” said Daso’s Dikeledi Selowa (@DK_Selowa) who was visibly upset.
University registar Kirti Menon made the announcement of the results. Menon said the results were fair and free and she congratulated all the candidates, even those who did not make it.
Students react to results
Students who were interviewed by Wits Vuvuzela did not seem to have a problem with the results.
“Project W will sharpen the PYA. We should be celebrating, we have sound leaders. I’m happy with the SRC results said,” Mcebo Sisulu.
Another student said he would have liked to see a 100% PYA SRC but he was ok with the results: “it’s a wake-up call [for PYA], as long as there is representation on both sides.”
Verachia said he was happy that there was more diversity in the SRC: “We will work hard with Project W to serve students.”
Mighti also said a functional SRC was possible even if it was run by Project W and PYA members. “It won’t be broken, it will work,” he said. The New SRC will begin its term on November 1.
Since her announcement as the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille has dominated national headlines. In this bonus episode of We Should Be Writing podcast, hosts Lulah Mapiye and Bonolo Mokonoto dissect a media meet-and-greet with the mayoral hopeful. From her extensive political résumé to her controversial public utterance, we examine why the Democratic Alliance has chosen Hellen Zille as their candidate for the 2027 local mayoral elections. Additionally, […]
