Amagama Enkululeko! Words for Freedom

Description

Why did African men leave their homes to work on the mines of the Witwatersrand? How did a woman searching for her husband make a life in the city? What happened to a family or community forcibly removed from their homes or their land? How did racial classification destroy families and communities? What thoughts went through a detainee�s mind during their long hours in prison? How did black people in South Africa manage to keep the fires of resistance burning under such harsh social, political and economic conditions? How did people born into such a hopeless present keep their dignity and resolve? With a foreword by Zakes Mda, and a mixture of famous and seemingly forgotten struggle writers, this anthology tackles the history of colonialism and Apartheid from the ground up. Through a blend of history and story-telling, it opens a window onto the ways ordinary, everyday life was shaped by the forces of history. It displays the anger, suffering, love, joy, courage and enduring humanity of ordinary people and communities striving for dignity, freedom and justice.

Sujets

• History

Informations

• Publié par: Cover2Cover Books
• Date de parution: 06 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 4
• EAN13: 9781928346388
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

AMAGAMA ENKULULEKO!
WORDS FOR FREEDOM: WRITING LIFE UNDER APARTHEID
Text the contributors
Collection Equal Education
All rights reserved. You may not reproduce or transmit any part of this publication in any form without written permission from Equal Education ( equaleducation.org.za ).
Published by Cover2Cover
85 Main Road, Muizenberg, 7945, South Africa
ISBN (print edition): 978-1-928346-35-7
Cover Photograph: ‘Migrant Worker, Dalton Road Hostel, Durban, 1986.’ by Omar Badsha
Foreword: Zakes Mda
Project managed and edited by Joshua Maserow and Daniel Sher
Digital production: Fire and Lion
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
1 COLONIALISM AND RACIAL CAPITALISM
Context
RRR Dhlomo
The Death of Masaba
Liz Abrahams
An extract from Married to the Struggle
Modikwe Dikobe
An extract from Marabi Dance
St J. Page Yako
The Contraction and Enclosure of the Land
Adelaide Charles Dube
Africa: My Native Land
Nontsizi Mgqwetho
They’re Stealing our Cattle on Misty Plains!
Oswald Mtshali
Reapers in a Mieliefield
Oswald Mtshali
The Miner
Oswald Mtshali
Going to Work
2 THE MAKING OF APARTHEID
Context
Dugmore Boetie
An extract from Familiarity is the Kingdom of the Lost
Nat Nakasa
Oh, To be an Anonymous Houseboy!
Nat Nakasa
A Visit to Pretoria
Don Mattera
An extract from Memory is the Weapon
Solomon Linda
The Pass Office
Stanley Motjuwadi
Taken for a Ride
Oswald Mtshali
Pigeons at the Oppenheimer Park
Sipho Sepamla
To Whom it may Concern
Adam Small
But O...
3 ‘BLACK SPOTS’ AND FORCED REMOVALS
Context
Richard Rive
An extract from ‘Buckingham Palace’, District Six
Don Mattera
An extract from Memory is the Weapon
Eric Miyeni
My Life
Mafika Gwala
Promise!
Sipho Sepamla
The Start of a Removal
Fhazel Johennesse
Living in a Flat in Eldorado Park
Mbulelo Vizikhungo Mzamane
South of the Border
Modikwe Dikobe
These Black Hands
Nkathazo ka Mnyayiza
Forgotten People
4 REPRESSION AND POLITICAL QUIET
Context
Jennifer Davids
Location Fires
Oswald Mtshali
The Detribalised
Sipho Sepamla
Detention
Stanley Mogoba
Two Buckets
Dennis Brutus
Today in Prison
Ronny Kasrils
Before Interrogation?
Ronny Kasrils
Assurance from the Justice Minister
Ben J Langa
For My Brothers (Mandla and Bheki) in Exile
Es’kia Mphahlele
A Poem
Bessie Head
The Prisoner who Wore Glasses
5 BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SOWETO UPRISING
Context
Fhazel Johennesse
A Young Man’s Thoughts Before June the 16th
Oupa Thando Mthimkulu
Nineteen Seventy-Six
Mongane Wally Serote
City Johannesburg
Mongane Wally Serote
White People are White People
Mongane Wally Serote
My Brothers in the Streets
Mongane Wally Serote
What’s in this Black ‘Shit’
Mbulelo Vizikhungo Mzamane
The Day of the Riots
6 EMERGENCY AND REVOLT
Context
Gladys Thomas
One Last Look at Paradise Road
Andries Oliphant
When Scavengers Descend
Zubeida Jaffer
An extract from Our Generation
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks are due to everyone involved in creating this book. Firstly, the Equal Education Gauteng reading group of 2014 – Freddie Mathekga, Kholwane Simelane, Tracey Malawana, Charity Sebopela, Tshepo Motsepe, Lerato Mohlabi, Doron Isaacs, Adam Bradlow, Lerato Morotolo, Sfiso Molo, Daniel Sher, Nombulelo Nyathela and Joshua Maserow – gave the editors a glimpse of how fictional works could be used to inspire political and historical debate and education.
The potential value of this project was re-affirmed by equalisers and facilitators who attended EE’s 2014 end of year camp. Equalisers read and debated some of the selections that found their way into the book for many hours, often running beyond the allocated time. It was this passion for textual analysis and discussion that vindicated the decision to create this book.
For advice on the title – AMAGAMA ENKULULEKO ! WORDS FOR FREEDOM : WRITING LIFE UNDER APARTHEID – thanks go to Oscar Masinyana, Yoliswa Dwane, Tracey Malawana, Raphael Chaskalson, Dumisa Mbuwa, Doron Isaacs and Alison Sher.
Vital suggestions on content were provided by Kylie Thomas, Meg Samuelson, Brad Brockman, Hedley Twidle and Kelwyn Sole.
Lamisa Naushin, Maryke Sher-Lun and Joey Hasson assisted with digitising and transcribing some of the literature from its source texts. Daniel Linde and Chandre Stuurman, of the Equal Education Law Centre (EELC), generously assisted with the legal side of the project. Whitney Cele, Gabriel Nahmias, Bhavya Dore, Doron Isaacs, Lyndal Pottier, Kim Tichmann, Kyle Bailey and Carla Goldstein and Neroli Price spent time fastidiously proof reading drafts. Arthur Attwell, of Electric Book Works , lent a steadying hand and sensitive vision to the design and layout of the book with his technical know-how and insider knowledge of the publishing industry.
Dorothy Dyer made useful criticisms, adding nuance and relevance to the questions accompanying the texts.
Patricia Rademeyer, Thabiso Mahlape and Alexander Matthews provided key information, publishing tips and connections.
We are very proud to have Zakes Mda and Omar Badsha lend their inimitable talents to this book. They were massively generous in writing a foreword and contributing the cover photograph, respectively.
The editors, Joshua Maserow and Daniel Sher devoted much time, energy, thought and passion to researching, writing, discussing, selecting, and editing this book into existence.
Leanne Jansen-Thomas
Head of Policy & Training at Equal Education
FOREWORD
Today’s equalisers are heirs to generations of resistance. Some of the voices of South Africa’s struggle for freedom from colonial and Apartheid rule are captured in this book. It is a rich collection with works ranging from a 1929, poignant story by RRR Dhlomo, to a 1964 Nat Nakasa non-fiction piece, to the poetry of Oswald Mtshali that gained popularity after the publication of his anthology in 1971, to the musings of the contemporary cultural commentator Eric Miyeni. These works speak eloquently of our past, but they also speak of our present, for indeed the past is a strong presence in our present.
Why do you keep harping on about the past? The past is gone, done and buried. Why can’t you just forget it and move on? You said you forgave the past, so why can’t you forget it as well?
These are questions we often hear whenever a project that explores the past, such as this one, is initiated. Some of us tend to think that forgiving and forgetting are either the same thing or should, of necessity, go together.
To forget the past is not only to have amnesia about where we come from but about who we are. Like all members of the human race we are who we are today because of who we were yesterday. We have been shaped by our past for better or for worse. Our very identities are tied in with our individual and collective memory. We are often reminded of the saying: you will not know where you are going unless you know where you come from.
Forgetting the past would be forgetting the legacy the writers in this collection have bequeathed us, and indeed all other legacies that have shaped our humanity.
However, we must not remember the past selectively. We often hear that history is actually the story of the victor. We only hear of the events in which those who triumphed and became the ruling elite participated, to the exclusion of all others who also played a crucial role in our struggle, and made those victories possible. We hear this history only from the perspective of the ruling elite, valorising themselves and toasting their heroic exploits with expensive champagne, while the masses look on and have only their saliva to swallow. The stories and poems such as we have in this collection remind us that the ordinary people who bore the brunt of colonial and Apartheid oppression are the true makers of history. We forget that at our peril.
The most important thing about remembering the past is not just to honour and celebrate those who fought for liberation, it is to reflect on the inhumanity of what was done to us, so that when we have attained some power we do not do the same to others. Alas, our memories are short and the arrogance of power knows no bounds. That is why quite often yesterday’s victim and survivor become today’s perpetrator and persecutor.
We must remember the past, yes, but we must not be steeped in it and live only for it. In that instance we become immobilized by perpetual victimhood. The heroism of yesteryear does not feed your stomach today. We do not want to be like a stuck car whose tyres keep spinning in the mire, unable to move forward. We move on, we act, we achieve, we hold those in power accountable as equalisers do every day. For we are working for the future. One way of working for that future is to keep a record – even if it is just a journal – of the present, of how things are and what you did to make them better for you and those who will come after you. Hopefully after reading the stories and poe