The post-colonial writer: Non-commitment and the betrayal of the African revolution

Jameson Maluleke

Presented at the joint AUETSA-SAVAL-SAACLALS conference at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, July 2004.

Introduction
The purpose of this paper is that it should be the clarion call for all revolutionary writers to rise up and deliver our people from the abyss of darkness and ignorance into the light of wisdom, justice and democracy.

Exactly ten years into the post-colonial era, the light which should be guiding South African society to peace and security is hazy. The wisdom of the sages has been diluted to mere gossip, while clear visions of the prophets have become shadows and lies. Post-colonial writers who should be following in the footsteps of the struggle writers write in muted and tamed tones. Their fountain pens, once mightier than the sword, have run out of ink.

What has gone wrong? What has silenced the voices of reason since the advent of a democratic country? Why is there lack of criticism for countries which abuse human rights and democracy like Zimbabwe? With the death of apartheid, have the stories, the news, the wise words dried up? Are the intellectuals bereft of topics? Has the arrival of democracy removed opportunities for social commentators to ply their trade?

A call to serve
When South Africa was baptised and christened a democracy a decade ago, many of us shouted from the rooftops - much like the Romans after the death of Emperor Julius Caesar and the French during the Revolution of 1789: "Liberty, Freedom and Franchisement. Tyranny is dead!" We bade farewell to starvation, to unemployment, to landlessness. We looked forward to a joyous life, a life of prosperity, progress and peace.

Yet, despite the fact that Africa is free of its colonial shackles, it still finds itself chained by the social ills of poverty, of disease, of war. This time the manacles are self-imposed, locked in place by the rulers of the day.

The social and economic conditions prevalent in the colonial era remain largely unchanged or, in some cases, degenerate. In Orwellian language, "the soil of Africa is fertile, its climate is good. It is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater number of people than now inhabit it." Africa boasts all natural resources known to man, yet it continues to be the continent of starving children and beggars.

And our post-colonial leaders, emulating the oppressive style of colonial governors, have little to offer. They often come into power on the surge of emotion at a longed-for freedom - but without experience in running a country. Soon they become estranged from those they represent, no longer listening to the cries of their people.

Zimbabwe and the impoverished Kingdom of Swaziland are salient examples of the countries which abuse human rights and democracy. In 2002, the King of Swaziland Mswati 111 had arranged for the purchase of a luxury jet worth $50 million amidst starvation in his country. While the inflation rate was well beyond 150 percent in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe decided to build a retirement home on three acres at the cost of $9 million and gave himself a salary increase of 600 percent.

Nkadimeng (2001:48) observes that post-colonial expectations in Africa have been thwarted by the tyranny of power of those who claim to represent the oppressed people:

These post-colonial leaders have betrayed the democratic forces of change and transformation, becoming political hypocrites who govern their own people with an iron fist. Most favour a one-party political system, with dictatorships and military rule characterising the leadership styles of many post independent rulers.

Amid these injustices, we would expect to hear the voices of the continent's intellectuals instilling hope in the hearts of the oppressed masses. Instead, the intellectuals remain strangely silent. Jonathan Jansen, the dean of Education at the University of Pretoria, bemoans the absence of intellectuals from the national debate:

The voices of black public thinkers have been noticeably silent over crucial issues such as the presidential position on Aids, the government's response to Zimbabwean crisis, the manufactured plot against the president, the so called Xhosa Nostra in political appointments and the racist music song of Mbongeni Ngema (Saturday Star, January 10, 2004).

Perhaps intellectuals need to understand that the idea of liberation does not end with the advent of democracy, but rather it is the start, something that has to be guarded jealously.

You're the light of the world
Why criticise the silence of the writers in the post-colonial era? What makes a writer so special that he or she could be seen to be influencing change in society? How could a pen-wielding intellectual combat the forces of evil? Would it not be more appropriate to direct this call to a squad of specially trained warriors to confront the tyrannical, greedy and corrupt rulers? Logic demands that strong-arm tactics would be needed to combat such leaders.

But public thinkers are the light of the world; they are the pathfinders and pioneers on whom the masses rely for guidance and leadership. Napoleon Bonaparte, who came to power on the back of the French Revolution, described "men of genius as meteors, intended to burn to light their century". In this way they would be able to bridge the gulf that exist between them and the nation - illuminating through their teachings. They should act as the spokesmen of their age, carrying the messages from the gods to the community and foretelling the future of the nation, like true visionaries.

According to Achebe, the African writer should be both a cultural nationalist, explaining the traditions of his people to a largely hostile world, and a teacher, instilling dignity in the people:

I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past - with its imperfections - was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God's behalf delivered them (quoted by Innes 1978:38).

The quotation illustrates Achebe's ambition to teach and educate people to accept their identity as Africans. Africa and its people can benefit from good teachers and philosophers such as Achebe. His views, which were published during the height of colonialism in the roaring sixties, are still relevant today.

By illuminating their society, intellectuals are indirectly ploughing back what they got from their society. No human being can live in isolation. Intellectuals were born into a society and draw their knowledge and experiences from that same society. "No man is an island, entire to itself, a man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main," John Donne reminds us. However, intellectuals have to go further than just educating their society; they have to examine critically the environment that surrounds them. The writer needs certain qualities in order to carry out his or her task: acute observation, courage, perseverance, leadership qualities, and the drive of a revolutionary to make the world a better place to live in.

A revolutionary writer is also a patriotic servant - someone who has the affairs of his society at heart. Such a writer does not need to be told what to write about. I write what I like, the title of Steve Biko's book, is just such an example. Biko did not feel bound to write according to other people's whims or agendas. Former president Nelson Mandela spent a day during the Rivonia Trial lecturing the apartheid legal fraternity about the need for Africa to be free - nobody told him what to say or write.

In The Writer in a Changing Society Ngungi wa Thiong'o argues that Africans should team together and combine their efforts to advance the cause of the African people:

African intellectuals must align themselves in the struggle of the African masses for a meaningful national ideal. For we strive for a form of a social organization that will free the manacled spirit and energy of our people as we can build a new country, and sing a new song.

Literature is traditionally defined as art, a form of entertainment, but for the worshippers of the African revolution, literature is a sacred duty for every patriotic citizen to serve one's country and its people.

Holy war
Literary purists prefer that intellectuals be divorced from the social life of the people, concentrating on matters of aesthetics only. They argue that writers must practise art for art's sake.

Far be it from revolutionary writers to deny these scholars their freedom of speech - on the contrary, it is the role of the revolutionary writer to defend their rights. Taking this argument further, African writers cannot afford to write about the daffodils and pastoral life while people starve, while people die of Aids.

Africa is a continent under siege and it is the task of the writers to bring this to the attention of all who will stop and listen. This is a call to arms - or rather, to writers to pick up their pens. There is a war that needs to be waged in Africa - a war against social and economic injustices, against tyranny, against ethnic cleansing and genocide. To quote Sir Winston Churchill:

Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and of our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.

Writing in the post-colonial era is essentially a Christian responsibility, a duty to improve the state in which all human beings live. May I therefore end my presentation by requesting each one of you to repeat what Alan Paton said way back in the forties:

I shall devote myself, my time, my energy, my talents, to the service of South Africa. I shall no longer ask myself if this or that is expedient, but only if it is right. I shall do this not because I am noble or unselfish, but because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie ... (1948:161).

The reason for us to recite these words of commitment is neither negotiable nor it is debatable.

Thank you.




References

Biko, S. 1978. I write what I like. London: Penguin Books.
Boas, Guy. 1966. Sir Winston Churchill: His Writings & Speeches. London: MacMillan.
Donne, John. 1624. Devotions and Sermons. Taken from "Meditation XVII"
Innes, C.C. and B. Lindfors. 1978. Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe. New York: Three Continents Press.
Craig, W.J. 1971. Shakespeare Complete Works. London: Oxford University Press.
Ndebele, N.S. 1986. Rediscovery the Ordinary: Some Writings in South Africa. Journal of South African Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2.
Ngungi wa Thiong'o Ngūgī Wa Thiong'o. 1972. The Writer in a Changing Society. Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics. London: Heinemann.
Nkadimeng, P.A. 2001. Language as Cultural Protest in African Literature: A Post Colonial Perspective. Potchefstroom University for CHE.
Nkosi, Lewis. 1965. Home and exile, and other Selections. New York: Longman Inc.
Orwell, George. 1945. Adapted from Old Major's speech (page 8) in Animal Farm. Hammondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books.
Paton, A.S. 1948. Cry the Beloved, Country: A Story of Comfort in Desolation. London: Thirty Bedford Square. Jonathan Cape.
The Citizen Newspaper.



LitNet: 8 July 2004

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