NOMA Awards, at the Cape Town Book Fair
18 June 2006
During May 2006 we launched of an African World Heritage Fund through which
African governments committed themselves to the preservation, protection and
promotion of Africaâs heritage. The sight of the launch was the state of the
art information centre at the Cradle of Humankind, outside Strekfontein.
Paleo-anthropologists believe that it was there that a group of creatures,
our common human ancestors, evolved from among the higher primates. From the
time they embarked on their long walk into the future our ancestors could not
be certain of what lay ahead. The walk into an uncertain future had many
hazards but each time they fell, they found the courage to pick themselves up
and to continue. As they progressed their numbers grew until they became so
numerous that they inhabit every part of the world. As they multiplied they had
become more diverse evolving into a vast family of many hues, colours, hair
textures, heights and weights. But bound by their common ancestry they
possessed the same abilities and shared common ways of doing things.
Every human society uses the experience of its older members as the
foundation on which to build. Since the birth of the human race our ability to
pass on our knowledge of the world, our experience in life and our achievements
to our offspring has enabled the human family not only to survive but to
prosper. Observation was probably the first means by which we instructed our
young. But as our offspringâs powers of comprehension improve, human beings
educate and socialise their young through speech. The faculty of speech found
only among humans is extremely versatile. We use it to command, to comfort, to
instruct, to express affection, to express anger, to communicate fear, to
convey anxiety, to express joy as well as sorrow. Constant communication and
the exchange of experience have given us an incomparable competitive edge over
other species.
The human family is unique in its ability and desire to externalise itself
through acts of creation reflecting on its experience, its environment, its own
life as a species and its imagination. The human animal sings, dances, sculpts,
carves, paints, recites poetry, tells stories and records its memories. The
human is obsessively curious, always posing the question: why? By consistently
posing that question the human animal arrived at a second and perhaps more
significant one: why not?
The search for the answer to that second question stirred our species to
change and constantly transform our environment and by so doing we have made
and re-made ourselves. Artistic creation is an important dimension of our
search and of our urge to remake our world rather than merely adapting to
it.
The earliest attempts to render the words, thoughts, ideas and feelings of a
human as writing were executed on African soil, along the Nile River valley.
The invention of writing, one of the most profound cultural revolutions
experienced by humankind was extremely empowering. From then on communication
was liberated from the constraints of time and space, the thoughts, opinions,
emotions, beliefs, values and experiences of people acquired infinite mobility,
even immortality.
Africans have recorded their thoughts and emotions in verse, rock art,
sculpture and writing for centuries. The act of recording made these art
objects eminently transferable from one place to another from one time to
another, from one environment to another, from one people to another. Reading
and writing the cornerstones of literacy empowered those who read and write
even further as the custodians of cultural heritage.
It cannot be regarded as a coincidence that the major social revolutions
around the world have been associated with literary movements. As Chinua Achebe
explained through one of his characters there is much more of crucial, social
significance to storytelling in our era, the writing of books than mere
entertainment. Reading, writing and books as literary and cultural artifacts
have become an essential part of our heritage. That makes it imperative for
government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the private sector to
work together in partnerships that will create greater access to reading
materials writing potential and publishing for more Africans. The importance of
cultural expression, the full creative potential of the reading, writing and
publishing sector will only be realised when all the diverse people of our
continent have reasonable access to the means to write, to read and to be
published. This imposes extremely serious obligations on African
publishers.
The 20th century African writers living through the long transition from
pre-colonial, to colonial and then post-colonial states have often portrayed
the situation of the African as tragic. African writers, poets, artists and
other leaders of thought had indeed experienced the modern era as highly
ambiguous. The extremely destructive elements such as national oppression,
economic exploitation and colonial racism were invariably interwoven with very
constructive ones such as modern education, modern science, the transfer of
modern skills and technologies. The excruciating ambiguities of modern times
multiplied as urbanisation on the continent accelerated. The post colonial
experience during which progress has often been purchased at the exorbitant
price of freedom then rolled back in gory internecine conflicts; has compounded
the African writersâ perspective on the modern world with the infusion of
extraordinarily contradictory elements and unanticipated tensions.
Ambivalence, obliquity and dissonance consequently are prominent features of
the idiom evolved by Africa's modern artists. Our continent's anguish has found
its most poignant expression in the works of the post-colonial writers many of
whom have been the victims of censorship, government disapproval and sometimes
active persecution.
The continent is now decisively living through a post-colonial era. Africans
are governing and mis-governing themselves. The independence of the continent
is undermined not so much by military might as by devastatingly inequitable
economic relations. While Africa is firmly entangled in the global economy it
features more as a victim than as a beneficiary. Africaâs relationship to the
modern world might well explain why a few among her intellectuals have been
tempted to lend an ear to the siren songs of a backward looking âintegrisme,â
which they present as "authenticity" or as affirmation of African culture. But
its adherents still have to explain the features of "authenticity" as revealed
many times on our continent. The people of the Congo lived through three
decades of gross depravity the Seso Seko Mobutu regime of Zaire (present day
Democratic Republic of Congo DRC), where a post colonial indigenous elite,
sheltering under the cloak of âauthenticity,â shamelessly plundered the
national wealth in an orgy of cleptocracy. âAfrican cultureâ and its
affirmation have also been invoked as a pretext for perpetuating disgraceful
feudal practices that degrade human beings especially African women.
The more visionary among the generation of writers, poets and playwrights
who came into their after the Second World War, demonstrated that instead of
wallowing in their alienation or seeking refuge in the past the cause of the
African writer is better served by integrating oneself with the common people
and active engagement in political and social struggles for freedom,
independence and social progress.
As we march into the third millennium there are a number of important
lessons African intellectuals can derive from Africaâs 20th century experience.
We expect the writers of the continent, where necessary, to unsparingly and
rigorously critique our recent past and our current performance. We expect them
also to be the foremost advocates of freedom of expression, rooted in an
appreciation that truth, beauty and good are elusive, extremely elastic and
have be defined and redefined in the course of human history and therefore are
best sought in an environment of untrammelled contestation and debate among
differing opinions. The best in the modern African political tradition has
preferred secularism and advocated pluralism, not only to nurture and preserve
diversity but also for their intrinsic value. African writers and publishers
have a shared interest in supporting these values.
Ulli Beier, an early chronicler of modern African creative arts, dubbed his
literary journal âBlack Orpheusâ. If the Black Orpheus is ever to win back his
Eurydice, who was swallowed up by the Hades of slavery, colonialism and
apartheid, like his classical namesake he must march forward and upward into
the light of the 21st century. He would be wise also to heed the admonition
against looking back in nostalgic longing lest as in the classical tale,
Eurydice is called back and is reclaimed by the darkness of Hades.
Thank you!
Issued by: Ministry of Arts and Culture
18 June 2006
Source: Department of Arts and Culture (http://www.dac.gov.za)
