Che Guevara - A fond farewell forty years later!

As we grew up at the beginning of the 1960s, as young activists of the African National Congress, we drew great strength from the 1959 victory of the Cuban revolution. Its leaders such as Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara served as an inspiration and an example of what we had to do to achieve our own liberation.

At that time, one of the songs we loved dearly was "Day-O", about the hard life of a banana plantation worker in the Caribbean, sung by Harry Belafonte. Its second stanza says:

Work all night on a drink a' rum,
(Daylight come and he wan' go home).
Stack banana till morning come,
(Daylight come and he wan' go home).

We changed these and other lyrics in the song. In the place of the chorus line, "Daylight come and he wan' go home", we sang: "Take the country the Castro way". This was our own tribute to the young Cuban revolution and an affirmation of the relevance of the Cuban revolution to our own struggle.

It was therefore with immense shock and grief that we learnt in 1967 that our beloved hero, Che Guevara, aged 39, had perished in combat in Bolivia, not long after the death in strange circumstances of another of our heroes and esteemed leaders, our own President Albert Luthuli.

Two years earlier we did not know that Che had written a farewell letter to Fidel Castro on 1 April 1965 resigning from all his Cuban Party and Government positions, renouncing his Cuban citizenship and informing Fidel that he would be leaving Cuba.

In service to the wretched of the earth

In words that confirmed to us the Che we felt we knew, Che the revolutionary combatant for the oppressed of the world, he wrote:

"Other nations of the world summon my modest efforts of assistance. I can do that which is denied you due to your responsibility as the head of Cuba, and the time has come for us to part.

"You should know that I do so with a mixture of joy and sorrow...I carry to new battlefronts the faith that you taught me, the revolutionary spirit of my people, the feeling of fulfilling the most sacred of duties: to fight against imperialism wherever it may be. This is a source of strength, and more than heals the deepest of wounds."

Having spent some time with the then resistance movement in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Che Guevara went to Bolivia to offer his "modest efforts of assistance" to the Bolivian people. He was captured by a Rangers Unit of the Bolivian Army on 8 October 1967, having been wounded during a battle between his guerrilla unit and elements of the Bolivian Army. He was murdered the following day, 9 October, shot by one Sgt Terran, allegedly on the orders of the Bolivian High Command.

The moment of death

The following account of these events was given by one CIA Agent, Felix Rodriguez, who was attached to the Bolivian Ranger Units:

"1:30 p.m.: Che's final battle commences in Quebrada del Yuro. Simon Cuba (Willy) Sarabia, a Bolivian miner, leads the rebel group. Che is behind him and is shot in the leg several times. Sarabia picks up Che and tries to carry him away from the line of fire. The firing starts again and Che's beret is knocked off. Sarabia sits Che on the ground so he can return the fire. Encircled at less than ten yards distance, the Rangers concentrate their fire on him, riddling him with bullets.

"Che attempts to keep firing, but cannot keep his gun up with only one arm. He is hit again on his right leg, his gun is knocked out of his hand and his right forearm is pierced. As soldiers approach Che, he shouts, 'Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead.' The battle ends at approximately 3:30 p.m. Che is taken prisoner....

"Rodriguez enters the schoolhouse (in which the prisoner was detained), to tell Che of the orders from the Bolivian high command. Che understands and says, 'It is better like this ... I never should have been captured alive.' Che gives Rodriguez a message for his wife and for Fidel, they embrace, and Rodriguez leaves the room."

Another CIA report said: "Cpt Frado gave the order to execute Guevara to Lt Perez, but he was unable to carry out the order and in turn gave it to Sgt Terran, of Company A...Sgt Terran had fortified his courage with several beers and returned to the room where Guevara stood up, hands tied in front, and stated, 'I know what you have come for, I am ready.' ...

"Sgt Terran returned to the room where Guevara was being held. When he entered, Guevara stood and faced him. Sgt Terran told Guevara to be seated but he refused to sit down and stated, 'I will remain standing for this.' The Sgt began to get angry and told him to be seated again, but Guevara would say nothing. Finally Guevara told him, 'Know this now, you are [only] killing a man.' Terran then fired a burst from his M2 carbine, knocking Guevara back into the wall of the small house."

A matter of interest

On 9 October 1967, the then US Defence Secretary, Walt Rostow, wrote a memorandum to US President Lyndon B Johnson in which he said:

"Mr President:

"This tentative information that the Bolivians got Che Guevara will interest you. It is not yet confirmed. The Bolivian unit engaged is the one we have been training for some time and has just entered the field of action.

"President Barrientos at 10.00 a.m., October 9, told a group of newsmen, but not for publication until further notice, that Che Guevara is dead...

"Presencia, October 9, reports capture 'Che' Guevara...General Ovando reportedly proceeding to Vallegrande today at head of investigating team for purpose of identifying guerrilla dead and captured."

On 19 October, the US Department of State Director of Intelligence and Research sent a memorandum to the Secretary of State which said: "Che Guevara's death was a crippling - perhaps fatal - blow to the Bolivian guerrilla movement and may prove a serious setback for Fidel Castro's hopes to foment revolution in 'all or almost all' Latin American countries. Those Communists and others who might have been prepared to initiate Cuban-style guerrilla warfare will be discouraged, at least for a time, by the defeat of the foremost tactician of the Cuban revolutionary strategy at the hands of one of the weakest armies in the hemisphere."

But whence these voices of triumph?

A message from Che

In a Message to the magazine Tricontinental in 1966, Che had written: "Twenty-one years have already elapsed since the end of the last world conflagration...There is a climate of apparent optimism in many areas of the different camps into which the world is divided.

"Twenty-one years without a world war, in these times of maximum confrontations, of violent clashes and sudden changes, appears to be a very high figure. However, without analysing the practical results of this peace (poverty, degradation, increasingly larger exploitation of enormous sectors of humanity) for which all of us have stated that we are willing to fight, we would do well to inquire if this peace is real...

"There is a sad reality: Vietnam - a nation representing the aspirations, the hopes of a whole world of forgotten peoples - is tragically alone...

"The solidarity of all progressive forces of the world towards the people of Vietnam today is similar to the bitter irony of the plebeians coaxing on the gladiators in the Roman arena. It is not a matter of wishing success to the victim of aggression, but of sharing his fate; one must accompany him to his death or to victory...

"America, a forgotten continent in the last liberation struggles, is now beginning to make itself heard through the Tricontinental and, in the voice of the vanguard of its peoples, the Cuban Revolution, will today have a task of much greater relevance: creating a Second or a Third Vietnam, or the Second and Third Vietnam of the world...

"How close we could look into a bright future should two, three or many Vietnams flourish throughout the world with their share of deaths and their immense tragedies, their everyday heroism and their repeated blows against imperialism, impelled to disperse its forces under the sudden attack and the increasing hatred of all peoples of the world!...

"Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons and other men be ready to intone the funeral dirge with the staccato singing of the machine-guns and new battle cries of war and victory...

"Africa offers an almost virgin territory to the neo-colonial invasion. There have been changes which, to some extent, forced neo-colonial powers to give up their former absolute prerogatives. But when these changes are carried out uninterruptedly, colonialism continues in the form of neo-colonialism with similar effects as far as the economic situation is concerned...

"When the black masses of South Africa or Rhodesia start their authentic revolutionary struggle, a new era will dawn in Africa, or when the impoverished masses of a nation rise up to rescue their right to a decent life from the hands of the ruling oligarchies."

Create one, two, three Vietnams

Che wrote in these terms about Africa, Asia and Latin America because while humanity had, for 21 years, avoided what would have been a catastrophic thermo-nuclear World War III, intense and difficult armed and mass struggles were taking place in the Three Continents. The most difficult and heroic of these was undoubtedly the Vietnamese struggle to defeat US aggression. As Che said, because of its heroism, Vietnam came to 'represent the aspirations, the hopes of a whole world of forgotten peoples.'

The US had to commit huge numbers of men and women, enormous quantities of materiel and bucketfuls of money in its effort to win this long, complex and immensely costly war. It was in this situation that, drawn from Che's Message to Tricontinental, the slogan evolved, seeking to inspire all anti-imperialist and anti-colonial forces to action, each in own theatre of struggle - Create one, two, three Vietnams!

This captured exactly what had inspired Che Guevara throughout his youth and adulthood. More than anything else, his was a life dedicated to the genuine independence of all countries, the true liberation of each people in all countries, and social progress within all countries, emancipating the working people from the scourges of poverty, hunger and underdevelopment.

In Africa, Asia and Latin America, the decade of the 1960s, which claimed the life of one of the great human beings of the age, Che Guevara, was indeed characterised by many struggles and was driven by the hope shared by billions across the globe that they would achieve the goals to which Che dedicated his life.

Bolivia, where Che died a prisoner of war, is named after the historic liberator of Latin America, Simon Bolivar. To conduct the struggle for liberation from Spanish imperialism and colonialism, Simon Bolivar obtained military supplies from the government of liberated Haiti, the first Black Republic in the world, emancipated by African slaves, against the fierce resistance of triumphant France, under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte.

From Toussaint L'Ouverture to Evo Morales - the right to be respected

On 22 January 2006, Evo Morales, an Aymara drawn from the indigenous people, who constitute the majority of the population of Bolivia, was sworn in as Bolivia's first ever indigenous Head of State. During the 500 years when Spain first invaded and then colonised Bolivia, the indigenous majority had been excluded from power, systematically impoverished and denied all benefits from the exploitation of the natural resources of their native land.

Bolivia became the poorest country in Latin America. When he visited our country after his election, Evo Morales told me that for 500 years the indigenous Bolivian majority had, like our people, been oppressed and exploited under a racist system of apartheid. It was this centuries-old reality of immense suffering for the Bolivian people that took Che Guevara to Bolivia, there to sacrifice his life for the all-round emancipation of the deprived and marginalised of Bolivia and the world.

At his inauguration, President Evo Morales said: "I wish to tell you, my Indian brothers, that the 500-year indigenous and popular campaign of resistance has not been in vain...We are taking over now (for) the next 500 years. We are going to put an end to injustice, to inequality."

In an interview published in "Democracy Now" on 22 September 2006, Evo Morales said: "(Spanish domination) excluded (us) for over 500 years, exploited (us),...(while) for over 500 years (the Spanish settlers)...had full rights...So there is this strong feeling of excluded people, discriminated peoples, to unite, but not for revenge against anybody nor to oppress or to subordinate anybody, but rather our struggle that recognises we have obligations that our rights be fully respected. The thinking of indigenous peoples is not of exclusion... We have been called everything. We have been called animals. Manuel Rocha once called me the Andean Taliban. But, fundamentally, we want our rights to be respected. That is our struggle."

This is the struggle that Toussaint L'Ouverture of Haiti waged. It is the struggle that Simon Bolivar conducted. It is the struggle for which Albert Luthuli was persecuted and died. It is the struggle for whose victory Che Guevara sacrificed his life. It is the struggle which Evo Morales is determined to continue, even for 500 years.

The uses of adversity

The exiled Duke in Shakespeare's As You Like It, exposed to the merciless elements in the Forest of Arden, says:

"Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference; as, the icy fang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say, -
This in no flattery; these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

Apart from what has been reported, we do not know what else went through Che Guevara's mind as he faced his assassin 40 years ago, determined to die standing. We do not know whether, like Shakespeare's exiled Duke, he felt that his adversity would serve to liberate the despised, proving that, after all, like the toad, ugly and venomous, it too wore a precious jewel in its head, as in fact it did.

Perhaps informed by a sense of foreboding, one year before he died, he had written his epitaph in his Message to Tricontinental - "Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry - our every action is a battle cry against imperialism - may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons..."

This epitaph commanded that we must inscribe on our banners of struggle the strategic imperative he and his comrades of the July 26th Movement, which liberated Cuba, honoured in struggle - from every defeat, advance to a fresh victory: from every victory, advance to new victories!

The close friend, comrade and fellow combatant of Che Guevara, President Fidel Castro, spoke for us and millions across the globe when, marking the 40th anniversary of the death of Che, he said:

"I make a halt in my daily struggle to bow my head in respect and gratitude to the exceptional combatant who fell in combat on October 8th, forty years ago; for the example he passed on to us as leader of his Rebel Army Column.... He built a new awareness in our America and the world.

"I thank him for what he tried and failed to do in his home country (Argentina), because he was like a flower prematurely severed from its stem...He was elegant, swift and true to every detail of whatever happened to cross his mind. He was a predestinate, but he did not know it. He still fights with us and for us."

52nd National Conference

Branches prepare for Polokwane

With just over two months until the ANC holds its 52nd National Conference, at the University of Limpopo in Polokwane, there is increased activity in ANC branches in preparation for this important event.

While structures have been involved in political and organisational discussions since early in the year, the weeks ahead will see almost 3,000 branches convene general meetings of members to discuss draft resolutions, make nominations for the National Executive Committee (NEC), and elect the delegates who will represent them in Polokwane.

This exercise is an essential component of the ANC National Conference, reaffirming the democratic practice of the movement by ensuring that the general membership is actively involved in developing the ANC's programme and determining the direction of the organisation.

The branch is considered the most important unit of the organisation, the one structure in which every ANC member can participate and contribute. It is for this reason that 90% of the voting delegates at National Conference are sent by branches. For these delegates to represent the views of the membership, all members need to be involved in the months of preparatory debate.

Branches are therefore continuing with discussion of policy issues, specifically the reports and recommendations emerging from the ANC Policy Conference held in June. These discussions cover the revised draft Strategy and Tactics document, recommendations on Organisational Renewal, and reports from sectoral commissions.

These branch discussions will be consolidated at a provincial level. Provinces are expected to submit draft resolutions to headquarters by the end of October.

On the basis of their discussions, particularly on organisational renewal, structures will be forwarding proposed constitutional amendments. These will be consolidated by the Constitutional Committee, and distributed to structures for consideration. The NEC is required to give at least one month's notice for any Constitutional amendment. Any amendments to the Constitution shall be by a two-thirds majority of voting delegates at Conference.

Allocation of delegates

The allocation of delegates has been finalised. Around 5,000 participants will be present at Conference. These will include voting delegates (4,000), non-voting delegates (400), observers (200) and guests (200). In addition to ANC constitutional structures, public representatives and deployed cadres, participants will also include representatives of allied organisations and fraternal parties from the rest of Africa and across the globe.

The allocation of branch delegates to Conference has been completed. It is based on a physical audit of ANC membership conducted by the National Audit Task Team during the months of August and September.

The team established the total number of paid-up verified members per branch and determined which branches were in good-standing as at the cut-off date of 30 June 2007.

Since the ANC Constitution refers to membership in general, all paid-up members were counted - even those from wards in which there were no ANC branches. However, only branches in good standing are able to send delegates to conference.

The audit established that the ANC has over 620,000 members nationally and that there are around 2,700 branches in good standing. The detailed results of the audit will form part of the Organisational Report to Conference.

The process for determining the allocation of branch delegate spaces is guided by the ANC Constitution. It is done in two stages, first by allocating branch delegate spaces to each per province, and second by allocating those spaces to the branches in good standing within each province.

The number of delegate spaces allocated to each province out of the total of 3,675 is in proportion to the province's total verified paid-up membership. So if a province's membership is 10% of the national membership, then the province gets 10% of the branch delegate spaces

Then the delegate spaces allocated to a province are divided among all branches in good standing in that province.

The allocation is calculated as follows:

• Each branch in good standing is allocated one space.
• The remaining spaces in the province's allocation are divided among the branches in the province in proportion to their membership.

Because the allocation is done in two stages (first to provinces, and then, within that, to branches) the number of delegates a branch gets is dependent not only on the size of the branch, but also on the total members in the province.

Branches have been informed of the number of delegate spaces they have been allocated and begun convening Branch General Meetings (BGMs) to elect delegates.

NEC nominations

Other important process currently taking place in branches is the nomination of people to serve in the NEC, the highest decision-making structure between Conferences. The Conference will elect the six Officials' positions and 60 additional NEC members.

An Electoral Commission, consisting of 12 senior comrades, has been established to oversee the nomination and election process. The names of the Electoral Commission will be submitted to Conference for endorsement and they will then be reinforced by a representative appointed by each provincial and league delegation. Members of the Electoral Commission do not make themselves available for election.

Only branches in good-standing as at 30 June 2007 are entitled to make nominations. Nominations by branches take place at quorate branch general meetings (BGMs). Branches may nominate one individual for each of the six Officials' positions through a process of discussion, motivation and voting by show of hands. Branches may nominate up to 60 additional NEC members through a similar. The branch formally nominates only those candidates who get more than 50% of the vote of members present at the BGM. Branches may nominate less than 60 people if they wish.

Completed branch nominations forms are placed in sealed envelopes and placed in a sealed box at the provincial office. The Electoral Commission opens the sealed boxes and total the nominations for each person for each position.

A Provincial Nominations Conference is then called, reflecting the province's representation to National Conference.

The 60 nominees who received the most branch nominations will automatically become the provincial nominees for additional NEC members. Proposals for changes to the list may be made if more than 50% of delegates agree to the change.

For each of the six Officials' positions, the four people who received most branch nominations are presented as possible nominees. Additional names may be added to the ballot if 25% of delegates support the addition. The merits of each candidate are debated before the delegates choose the provincial nominee for each position by secret ballot.

For the purposes of NEC nominations, the ANC Constitution regards each of the leagues as having the same status as a province - they are entitled to make nominations. They will follow a similar nominations process, culminating at a national, rather than provincial, level.

All nomination forms from the provinces and leagues must reach the Electoral Commission by no later than 26 November.

The Electoral Commission will conduct an audit to determine the validity and establish the availability of nominees. It will consolidate all provincial nominations for the Officials' positions and the 60 NEC positions, and present these to Conference.

Conference will have an opportunity to make further nominations, before all positions are put to a vote by secret ballot.

All these processes are designed to ensure that the policies and programmes that emerge from Polokwane, and the decisions around leadership, reflect the broad views of the membership of the ANC, having been widely canvassed and intensively discussed. This is one of the enduring strengths of the movement, and a key factor in its ability to lead the people of South Africa in the struggle to attain a better life for all.

More Information:

• Policy Conference reports and recommendations
• NEC Nominations Process 2007

Nodal Economic Profiles

How to stimulate economic development in poor areas

In 2001, government formally launched two initiatives, the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme and the Urban Renewal Programme. The aim of these two programmes is to systematically work towards overcoming the problem of poverty and underdevelopment in 21 identified districts and townships, or nodes.

The uneven development outcomes that manifest themselves in the endemic poverty which afflicts these nodal municipalities was decisively shaped by policies of pre-1994 governments. It is apartheid spatial planning which left us saddled with such an overwhelming number of economically derelict areas.

This week we launched yet another milestone in the ongoing national effort to transform our country into a better place for our people to live and work in. This step signals our commitment to strive unremittingly to reverse the legacy of marginalisation and exclusion.

According to impact assessment studies conducted in 2006, these two programmes have contributed significantly to fast-tracking service delivery and changing the lives of the people for the better.

For instance, in Maluti-a-Phofung in the Free State, backlogs in water, sanitation and electricity have been halved between 2001 and 2006; there are 46,000 new water connections and 30,000 new electricity connections.

In the Alfred Nzo district municipality in the Eastern Cape, 69% of households now benefit from free basic water provision. The number of households with access to free basic electricity has improved from 5% to 33% ­- all this, in the space of two years, from 2003 to 2005.

Another feature of achievement in the nodes is the local economic development (LED) projects that have since taken off. However, these are not delivering jobs at a large scale. Most of the jobs are created through the infrastructure investment programme.

The progress we have realised so far, limited as it is, is actually very impressive given the fairly short order in which it was made. However, it leaves us seized with an ambivalent feeling: a mixture of celebration and trepidation. Clearly, for as long as these local spaces remain characterised by low or almost non-existent levels of economic productivity, there can be no sustainable livelihoods to speak of.

This then is the context in which the collaborative effort between government and the Business Trust was born. As government and business, it is in our common interest to pay attention to the task of redressing the structural imbalances in our national economy. These internal imbalances are reflected, in part, in the fact that the growth of domestic demand remains subdued, relative to the growth of potential and actual output. It is a problem which cannot be allowed to persist, given its dire macroeconomic implications.

Sustainable economic development requires the necessary co-presence of two interrelated sets of conditions:

• a growth perspective which is shared by a wide spectrum of leadership across all sectors; and,
• the interactive effects between localised growth factors and the strategic needs of trans-local actors.

The nodal economic profiles launched this week provide us with the necessary ingredients for success in this regard. They give us a sense of how these rural and urban nodes feature in the national spatial perspective. They also communicate a message that for these areas to realise their potential, a variety of extra local resources will need to be mobilised. It behoves all of us: government in its various spheres, non-governmental organisations including the private sector, to locate this initiative within the national agenda of boosting productivity. The question before us is not whether, but how, should these nodes feature in a projected 6% headline growth.

The Business Trust has launched the "Shared-Growth Initiative", which aims to assist the municipalities to manage projects that will be rolled out as a direct outgrowth of the nodal economic profiling exercise. Together with Project Consolidate, the Business Trust initiative will reinforce the available skills set and encourage ongoing accumulation of managerial know-how.

These profiles therefore must be seen as a mobilising instrument. They will help us to mobilise government-wide resources and direct them towards the achievement of the goal of sustainable service delivery and economic development.

** Sydney Mufamadi is a member of the ANC National Executive Committee and Minister of Provincial and Local Government. This is an edited extract from an address at the launch of Nodal Economic Profiles, 11 October 2007.

Celebrating our heritage

The African cultural milieu and our common humanity

Despite the efforts of successive colonial and apartheid regimes to obliterate the African cultural milieu, orature and literature have served both as a shield and weapon of struggle.

This brief review examines the role of some Lu/Tshivenda language proverbs and names as constituting an antithesis to what seems to prevail as the dominant view about human relations. To the extent that this review projects such an antithesis, it provides us with an opportunity to realise a different kind of human relations, this time based on values of Ubuntu.

From the onset, we have to contend that the value that the Tshivenda cultural and philosophical milieu portends is equally true of all African languages as illustrated in the contributions of orators, poets and writers in various African languages.

PROVERBS AND AFRICAN HUMANISM

The binding thread of African humanism is expressed in some of our languages in the adage: "Muthu ndi muthu nga vhanwe" (Tshivenda) "Motho ke motho ka batho" (Se-Tswana and Se-Sotho), Umuntu umuntu nga bantu (Isi-Zulu), Munhu i munhu hi vanwani vanhu (Xi-Tsonga), Umntu ngumntu ngabantu (Isi-Xhosa) - A person is a person in virtue of other people.

The way in which human beings are realised as human, recognise their humanity in others, is illuminated in most of our proverbs and sayings. For example, many Tshivenda proverbs invite both young and old to interrogate their responsibility and value as members of society. They reflect people's attempt to master themselves and their environment, trying to come to terms with associated challenges and opportunities. The following proverbs illustrate the point.

• Nwana mula malofha mavhisi, thumbuni u onya hawe: One who feeds on raw blood invites constipation.
• Funguvhu le thilaiwi la fhira mudi lo kovhela: The crow did not heed advice against moving about at night, and as a result, flew past its home after dark.
• Muhulwane u kanda mupfa a tshi u vhona: A mature person steps on a thorn when they see that they are stepping on one.
• U kona gumba ndi u mila. Wa tafuna li a tshitshita: The best way to swallow a raw egg is without chewing.
• A dzimana ula malombe. Mukosi a a phalalana: Feuding parties do not invite each other to feast, but close ranks in times of need.
• Tshiliwa ndi tshika ya mano: Food is dirt for the teeth.
• Mulilo wa mbava a u orwi: Do not warm yourself at the fireplace of a thief.
• Thonga a ipfi ndo doba, ipfi ndo vhada: One does not pick up a walking stick, one makes it.
• Kholomo ya ndila a i fhedzi pfulo: A passing cow does not finish our own cow feed.
• Naho wa i viela phakhoni, mafunguvhu a do rura: Whatever you do in secret is bound to come out one day.

As part of a value system, proverbs, sayings, songs and stories mould people's consciousness around their provocative content. They provide as important a reference point as books do in people's daily struggle to master their environment and come to terms with their needs in the world.

The proverbs cited above project value systems which invoke fairness and justice, listening to other people's advice, the patience that comes with maturity and adulthood, solidarity with others regardless of how we feel towards them, self-reliance, sharing, and caution against folly.

Such sayings promote the adage expressed in the argument that "A person is a person in virtue of other people." Recollecting our proverbs certainly does not suggest, let alone imply, that African societies were without any trials and tribulations before the advent of colonialism and apartheid. Nor does our recollection amount to a nostalgic preoccupation with times gone by. Rather it re-asserts the humanity which ought to characterise our society.

The extent to which we learn from our own proverbs, depends, we should contend, on what we make of this one: "Udivha makhulu ndi u vhudzwa" - you know your grandparent because someone (usually your parents) has informed you.

NAMING AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

In addition to being some means of identification, names may be seen to reflect people's consciousness of themselves and society, their place in history, and the values a family and community would like to produce and see reproduced in society through the person so named.

The following 10 Tshivenda names and their praises are evocative of the social value in naming.

• Nya-Dzawela: Vhanwe na sea matshelo zwi do ni welavho (Nya-Dzawela: Do not celebrate the misfortunes of others, for they may befall you as well)
• Nyawasedza: phungo mulanda na iwe mukoma i do u yela vho (Nyawasedza: Defaming one's subjects, defames oneself)
• Ranwedzi: muswa mutshenela vhakule vha haya vha tshi sala maswiswini (Ranwedzi: The new moon glows for those far off whilst darkness greets us here)
• Tshakule: Tshakule tshi wanwa nga muhovhi (Also a proverb) (Tshakule: the one who harvests from afar)
• Nyasivhavhone: Mano u seya mbilu dzavho dzi panda mahe (Nyasivhavhone: do not be comforted by the teeth that grin for you, for you do not know what's hidden away in the heart)
• Nyatshinovhea: Tshi no vhea mudi ndi khana mapfufha a fhaladza mudi (Nyatshinovhela: The glue that holds a family together is the chest, talking with outsiders only breeds incoherence)

As with the proverbs cited previously, names illustrate the state of a community's outlook. Names may indicate memory of a family feud, a noteworthy event, a celebration or an incident. Many traditional riddles and songs go further to reflect the mode of production in which people lived their lives.

Names such as those cited above are today less popular than 'Christian', English and Afrikaans names. This is unsurprising for, as noted above, names are reflective of a society's place in history. One of the fundamental objectives of colonialism and apartheid was to fashion Africans in the image of Europe, albeit within a hierarchy at the top of which was white people.

The question arises as to whether the current discourse on name changes will reflect our deeper concerns about our humanity, its past, present and future. Or shall we continue to accept the deception (which even its proponents do not follow in practice) that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?

CONSCIOUSNESS FORMATION

The riddle below sought to promote vigilance amongst herd boys in tending livestock. To this end, it could be seen as emphasising the need for one to be conscious of one's surroundings and to be vigilant about factors that may be injurious to one's interests.

A connection can also be made between this discussion and the argument of the Black Consciousness Movement which sought to inspire consciousness about one's context and the need to reclaim one's rightful place in society.

TSHINONI TSHA NKUKU (NKUKU'S BIRD)

Lead Person: Iwe Nkuku wee!
Chorus: Tshinoni tsha Nkuku!
Lead Person: Kholomo dzi a tuwa
Chorus: Tshinoni tsha Nkuku!

Lead Person: Dzi tuwa na vhafhiyo
Chorus: Tshinoni tsha Nkuku!

Lead Person: Dzi tuwa na Malema,
Chorus: Tshinoni tsha Nkuku!
Lead Person: Malema madya vhathu
Chorus: Tshinoni tsha Nkuku!

Lead Person: Tserere nda lima ndila
Chorus: Tshinoni tsha Nkuku!
Lead Person: Tserere nda lima ndila
Chorus: Tshinoni tsha Nkuku!

(Attention Nkuku!
The cows are going
Who is stealing them?
Malema is stealing them
Malema the man-eater)

THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR GRANDPARENTS REVISITED

The metaphor invoked by the call to 'know one's grandparents' illustrates a collective striving against what might be referred to as a 'de-contextualised consciousness' which would have one moving about various perspectives without a socio-cultural home.

Knowledge of one's socio-cultural space enables one to engage meaningfully engage with other world views and provides for a healthy cross pollination of cultural perspectives.

This raises the question, are adults in our society, informing younger people who exactly are their grandparents? Are schools and universities in our society informing students of their heritage - intellectual, cultural and moral?

** Mukoni Ratshitanga is the spokesperson of the President of South Africa.

He writes in his personal capacity. This is the first in a series of articles from readers on the subject of African languages and literature.
More articles from readers will be published in future editions.

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