service of Prof. Mazisi Kunene, Durban City Hall
19 August 2006
Greetings
Today marks a sad day in the literary and cultural research calendar of
South Africa. We have assembled to mourn the death of one of our literary
giant, the Poet Laureate, Professor Mazisi Kunene. We have come to mourn, with
a full knowledge that Mazisi Kunene enriched our lives through literary outputs
pitched at the level of the best in the world.
We have come to mourn the end of the life of a genius .We have assembled to
celebrate creativity, both intellectual and physical. When people in our midst
pass away, we are often afforded an opportunity to re-assess life, its meaning
and its bare elements. By so doing we afford ourselves an opportunity to
understand that our individual lives are but part of a long chain of
inter-connectedness, for no human being is an island.
Literary Maestro
There is a space in the life of every home, every community, every region and
every nation, for creativity to flourish. Creative writing, creative expression
and creative analysis are godly, for they put before our naked eyes and
feelings, experiences that have otherwise continuously evaded us. Today we are
afforded, through the passing away of one of our dearest friends and comrades,
an opportunity to witness the completion of literary genius and excellence. Oh!
Death where is thy sting? Oh! Death where is thy victory? Mhlaba kawunoni.
Ziyofa izinsizwa kusale izibongo.
There is sometimes a temptation in the life of every family, every
community, every region and every nation to dismember heritage and creativity,
and in so doing dismember the orchestra of life. This is particularly the
saddest of all consequences of slavery, colonialism and apartheid which once
bedevilled our lives on the African continent and elsewhere in the Diaspora.
But now we are free people, and it is our duty to immortalise our thinkers, our
poets, our researchers and our inventors of knowledge. Mazisi Kunene has shown
us the way.
Mazisi Kunene was a genius, a thinker, a writer and a researcher. As a
genius he sometimes wrote and said things which were simply beyond our ordinary
comprehension. We loved him. As a thinker he dedicated his time to making
thinking a full time occupation, and its products a fine art of life
expressions. By making thinking so close to everyday life he sometimes scared
us, for the very thought of thinking about thinking and its consequences is
scary to most of us.
Giving value to words
As a writer he established and sustained value for both the spoken and the
written word, and reminded us that in terms of how the world has functioned
over the past four to seven thousand years, it is the written word that lasts.
This explains why he saw value in committing Zulu oral history to text. As a
researcher, he was reluctant to take things at face value, and sought to dig
deep into the source of things through systematic enquiry and analysis. Such
are the dynamics of a complete life.
His death marks a major loss to his family, to his friends, to the
relatives, to the province, the country, the continent, the world and the ANC
family. His genius was characterised by humility, a virtue that needs to be
crafted among all people for it represents the finer details of civilisation.
He was equally at ease with Kings, Princes, Presidents, Heads of State,
academia, business gurus; as he was at ease with common people and the down
trodden, nameless and faceless masses of the hoi polloi. That is a rare gift,
and most at his level would have preferably stuck with the Kings, Princes and
Presidents once he tasted their company. He chose versatility.
He fearlessly struggled against apartheid and the elements that sustained
it. He would not succumb to the confines of apartheid scholarship and its
narrow definition of literary beloved country, went to exile and represented
the African National Congress at various levels as the movement navigated
through a long and windy struggle for liberation. At the end he won, the
liberation movement triumphed and on 27 April 1994 the people of South Africa
were freed.
Government intervention
How do we remember him? The Government of KwaZulu-Natal, through the office of
the Premier, has started with a project called the IsiZulu Language and
Literature Heritage Project. This is an African Renaissance project and flows
from the inputs which came from some 400 academics and intellectuals who
assembled in Durban for the African Renaissance and African intellectuality
Summit in May 2006.
This project is seeing the collection, documentation, scanning, and
digitisation and putting on display of all old literary works in isiZulu, about
isiZulu and about the people and province of KwaZulu-Natal. Writers, alive and
those who have passed on are being profiled and immortalised. We are accessing
the best technology for this project. On 8 September 2006, we are holding a
Provincial Colloquium on this subject. We have established that we will fund
this effort to run between now and 2009.
Some of our best writers like Dr J.L. Dube, Prof. B.W. Vilakazi and Prof.
Sibusiso Nyembezi will soon come to life, once more. This tally well with our
project to eliminate illiteracy in the province by 2008.
This research, combined with the technology outlay will cost in the region
of R10 million over three years, lays the foundation for The Mazisi Kunene
IsiZulu Language and Literature Hall of Fame which we will soon found. It is to
be housed in the KwaZulu-Natal Multi- media Heritage Museum to be erected as
part of the new King Senzangakhona Stadium, so that come 2010, our visitors
will experience a complete picture about our collective accomplishments in the
literary world. This is to be our major repository for the renewed woks.
Ngalamazwi ngithi siyisifundazwe saKwaZulu-Natal, isifundazwe sakho
Mntimande. Sithi lala ngoxolo, lala uphumule. Uyilwile impi yosiba.
Uzusivuselele singaphumuli.
Amandla!
Enquires:
Thulani Sithole
Deputy Director: Media Liaison
Tel: (033) 341 3428
Cell: 082 317 3727
E-mail: sitholtn@premier.kzntl.gov.za
Issued by: KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
19 August 2006
Source: SAPA
