African Book Development Council, Cape Town
17 June 2007
The Director of Ceremonies,
Your Excellencies Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Since the invention of writing, literature has been a critical vehicle for
the socialisation, politicisation, conscientisation, education and
entertainment of human beings. Writing and reading have since then been the
means whereby knowledge, information have been passed down from era to era,
from place to place from one group to another, from one society to another. As
a repository of knowledge and the transmitter of information, writing and
reading were sources of power. For centuries the ability to read and write was
the monopoly of a few in all societies. Indeed, it was against the law to teach
certain classes of people these skills, precisely as a means of keeping them
ignorant of the society and the world they lived in, as a direct means of
social control.
The first recorded example of humanity's capacity to reason abstractly is a
tiny clay tablet, presently on display at the National Assembly in Cape Town.
This piece of clay contains abstract geometric designs and was found along the
west coast of the Cape. The first attempts to record human experience through
writing comes from the other end of the African continent, the Nile Valley,
where an ancient African priesthood invented hieroglyphics, or holy signs, that
recorded the ideas, thoughts and emotions of humans and thus gave them
permanence.
Our forebears, who mastered the art of writing, acquired an extremely
important instrument. Writing freed communication amongst people from the need
for personal contact. The written word made it possible to receive the words of
those who went before us; to receive the words of those who live in the
present; and to pass down to the future our own words.
Literature emancipated humanity from the constraints of time and space.
Having learnt how to write our thoughts, opinions, emotions, beliefs, values
and experiences these became timeless. They could be transferred from one place
to another; they could be transported from one time to another; they could be
carried from one environment to another; and they could be carried from one
people to another.
The invention of writing was probably the most profound cultural revolution
experienced by humankind. Its consequences have shaped, reshaped and in the
future will reshape the world we inhabit in ways that no one can
anticipate.
Among the amaRharabe clans, living at the western borderlands of the Xhosa
kingdoms, a young father of substance began experiencing visions that exhorted
him to convert to Christianity. The visions also instructed him to read. His
name was Ntiskana, the son of Gaba of the Cirha clan. Bearing a wooden cross of
his own construction, Ntiskana began preaching around the year 1806-9. As he
had no bell, he used his voice to call his followers to prayer. Known today as
Ntsikana's hymn, the song he chanted represents an interesting convergence of
cultural change executed through traditional expression. Chanting like an
Islamic muezzin or azhan, Ntsikana used a traditional mode of African cultural
expression, bearing a message of change and the call to embrace of a new
world.
Ntsikana's hymn, like his mission represents the van of an African modernity
that values and seeks to preserve those aspects of African tradition and
culture that have universal significance. Ntsikana was not a subjugated
colonial subject seeking solace in the faith of his conquerors. He and his
growing band of followers were free people, exercising a conscious choice to
embrace and adapt to their own uses the skills and the technology that the
White colonial society possessed in such abundance. Christianity, freely chosen
rather than imposed, represented the ideology and the lifestyle of the
modernist.
Ntsikana's vision instructing him to read, many say stimulated, the drive
for literacy amongst Christian Africans. By the middle of the 19th century,
this African Christian community had grown to an extent that they had become
known as the 'school people,' distinguished from the rest by literacy,
adherence to Christianity, and sometimes an independent income or a
professional salary.
As a cultural figure Ntsikana represents the face of an indigenous African
modernism, concealed within the cocoon of the Christian faith. In social as
well as religious terms he was a prophetic figure as a portent of the future of
both African communities in South Africa and Christianity among the Africans.
The secular cultural impact of Ntsikana and the movement of Christian converts
he led is that they pioneered of modern education, literacy, training and were
the inspiration of an African cultural movement rooted in modernity.
The introduction and dissemination of writing and reading, originally
pursued as an means of proselytizing Christianity, had the unintended
consequence of opening up a new world to the indigenous African. To Ntsikana
and his followers the book, the written word, and literacy were the gateway to
the 'Fountain of Knowledge.' Books have since occupied an important place in
our lives both as an educational tool and as recreation. Hence the importance
of an event like tonight's.
It cannot be regarded as a coincidence that the major social revolutions
around the world have been associated with literary movements. The first
African writers in South Africa regarded themselves as the heralds of a new era
of great expectations for the African people. Literacy, they believed, would
open up the doors of world culture and the immense storehouse of human
knowledge to our people. Those who sought to exclude Africans permanently from
such vistas, in turn tried to devise various means of ensuring that we remained
as non-literate, innumerate and as uninformed as possible. As a government that
takes seriously the challenge of making the 21st century an African century, we
are determined to ensure that all our people have access to literacy.
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 artefacts, have become an essential part of our heritage. That makes
it imperative for government, non-governmental organisations and the private
sector to work together in partnerships that will create greater access to
reading materials for more of our people. 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 country and the
region have reasonable access to the means to write, to read and to be
published. This imposes extremely serious obligations on our publishers.
The greater availability and promotion of literature should contribute to
nation building and the furtherance of the African Renaissance. It should raise
awareness of the works of quality that have been produced over the years in
previously marginalised languages, not only among those fortunate enough to
have been exposed to the literature of their own culture, but among all South
Africans. The possibility of exploring and expressing the entire spectrum of
human experience in indigenous African literature can only enrich the cultural
life of South Africa.
Tonight's launch should be the starting point of a sustained campaign to
actively promote literature by inspiring a culture of reading amongst South
Africans. All this we can do by widening the access our people have to
literature and by making them aware of literature and its great virtues. A
number of surveys and studies tell us that poor performance in reading among
both learners and adults owes much to the absence of reading material in the
African languages. These same studies suggest that people can most readily be
encouraged to read when there is material available in the languages in which
they have the greatest facility.
We want to remedy that. We therefore envisage the dissemination and
translation of outstanding works in our various languages. To achieve this we
will enter into partnership with publishers' associations, writers'
associations, our universities, and the Department of Education.
Books are the bridge that spans gulf between the past and the future. They
are "�the memory of peoples, communities, institutions and individuals, the
scientific and cultural heritage, and the products through time of our
imagination, craft and learning. They join us to our ancestors and are our
legacy to future generations. They are used by the child, the scholar and the
citizen, by the business person, the tourist and the learner. These in turn are
creating the heritage of the future."
We will open up this vast treasure house to all our people, by bringing
these repositories of centuries of learning and culture to them in words that
they can most readily understand.
To stimulate and spur on the culture of reading I have instituted a number
of literary prizes. We have a prize for original work in the indigenous
languages. This prize shall be given a name so as to lend it prestige and to
give it an identity.
We also have a prize for new work in the indigenous languages, all nine of
them, which we hope will encourage the many talented and gifted young writers
out there to set out their hopes, dreams and ideals in the languages they speak
at home.
We also offer a prize for literature in translation, from anyone of South
Africa's official languages, to another.
Because the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) does not have the capacity
to manage all these on its own, we rely on the support and commitment of our
tertiary institutions and that of our writers themselves to provide the panels
of judges and readers who evaluate the works and award the prizes.
So from this podium, let the word go out to all who write, if you want to
write or think you can write - this is an open invitation to you. We want to
see your works in print. Let today be the commencement of a movement to enrich
and nurture a truly South African literary tradition.
I feel extremely privileged to have been assigned this tiny role in what
could evolve into a Renaissance in literature not only here is South Africa,
but in our region, and indeed on the continent.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Arts and Culture
17 June 2007
Source: Department of Arts and Culture (http://www.dac.gov.za/)
