launch of Heritage month, at the Kwalanga Indoor Sports Stadium, Langa, Cape
Town
8 September 2007
Programme Director
Ahmed Kathrada
Members of Parliament
Members of the Portfolio Committee
The National Poet Laureat, Kgositsile
Poets and Writers present
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
We are gathered here tonight to celebrate one of the oldest and most
enduring of the art disciplines practiced on the African soil, poetry. Because
it is so evocative, poetry has been used in every known human setting as one of
many means of artistic expression, employing on of the faculties that
distinguishes us from other animal species, the faculty of speech.
The spoken word â which we use to instruct, to inform, to comfort, to mourn,
to order, to woo, to repel, to invite â is probably the most flexible and
adaptable of the human faculties. Not surprisingly it has been employed by
human beings since time immemorial to convey ideas, emotions and meanings which
ordinary speech cannot do justice to.
The poet is more than a mere wordsmith. The poet employs language and words
in ways that are not ordinary, because he/she discerns meanings in them that go
beyond what is readily evident. Because the spoken word has these numerous
hidden properties, it can be used in a multitude of ways that can touch the
heart and awaken the soul. It is no coincidence that some of the major
political revolutions around the world, especially in Africa, have been
accompanied by interesting poetic movements â some good, some bad, some
indifferent. Poetry proved particularly attractive in the African context
because our continent has a rich orature, much of it still alive in the
villages and hamlets of rural Africa, to which the modern poet could turn for a
means of highly emotive expression.
The art of the bard was about memory. It was by honing and developing
his/her skill to compose and perform highly memorable poetry that a poet
established a reputation. Orature â the systems of oral transmission of
information â was probably humanity's first means of mass communication. Once
the art of writing had been mastered, human beings acquired an even more
flexible means of transmitting information. Since the first hieroglyphic was
inscribed, humanity has evolved amazing ways of recording, storing and
transmitting information.
Memory thus became not solely a function of the human minds, but could be
mechanically assisted first by producing symbols representing words, until we
evolved the means to mechanically reproduce and preserve the actual spoken
words themselves! Therefore it could be said that it is through memory that we
have been able to make and re-make ourselves as a human race. Memory too will
help us to scale the heights of achievement and create a better world.
The pursuit of the African Renaissance is the lodestar of South Africa's
domestic and foreign policy whose immediate goals are pushing back the
frontiers of poverty, led by a developmental state pursuing a sustainable
economic growth path. We want to create the space for the countries of Africa
and other developing countries to assume responsibility for themselves and to
offer indigenously evolved agendas in pr3eference to those devised by
others.
The ancient wells of African wisdom, past achievements and present
aspiration will continue to inspire us as we confidently stride into the
future. The people of our continent today thirst for the fresh clean
reticulated waters of modernity and progress, water that will wash away the
encrusted degradations of the past. Clean water that will nourish our hopes and
give them the strength to strive for the realisation of our dreams.
Africa's poets have throughout her history been the agents for the
recording, preservation, the transmission and the restoration of the hopes of
her peoples. We call on our poets to continue in that noble pursuit. Speaking
at the University of Columbia, a century ago, a young African graduate, named
Pixley ka la Seme invoked the idea of an African renewal, referring to it as a
new civilisation: "The most essential departure of this new civilisation is
that it shall be thoroughly spiritual and humanistic â indeed a regeneration
moral and eternal! O Africa! Like some great century plant that shall bloom in
ages hence, we watch thee, in our dream. See in thy swamps, the prospero of our
stream, thy doors unlocked, where knowledge in her tomb hath lain innumerable
years in gloom. Then shalt thou, walking with that morning gleam, shine as thy
sister lands with equal beam."
Wherefore then, sing Africa poet, and nurture our souls as we gird our loins
for the struggles that still lie ahead.
Thank you
Issued by: Department of Arts and Culture
8 September 2007
Source: Department of Arts and Culture (http://www.dac.gov.za)
