In the centenary year of two of the country's foremost writers and intellectuals, Mandla Nkomfe examines the outstanding contributions of Dr BW Vilakazi and Dr AC Jordan.
This year marks the centenary of the birth of two of South Africa's foremost intellectuals. Dr Benedict Wallet Bambata Vilakazi and Dr Archibald Campbell Jordan were born in the same year - Vilakazi on 6 January 1906 and Jordan on 30 October 1906. Vilakazi passed away in 1947 and Jordan in 1968. Both left a huge intellectual legacy in the development of indigenous languages and earned themselves an important place in modern literature. They pushed the boundaries of the vernacular languages to express the complexities of African life.
Both used African settings and languages to engage and connect with modernity. They wrote first and foremost in their mother tongues and in some instances translated their works into other languages. Their writings transcended regional and national boundaries and appealed to a wider audience. In 2000, Prof Ali Mazrui initiated a programme of compiling Africa's top 100 books of the 20th century, including in the list Vilakazi's Amal'ezulu and Jordan's Ingqumbo ye Minyanya (The Wrath of Ancestors). The Department of Education has recently included Vilakazi's Amal'ezulu into the top 10 South African books.
They were the trailblazers for an approach to African literature that has been taken up by the likes of the esteemed Ngugi wa Thiongo. For more than a decade Thiongo has been writing in Kikuyu instead of English. Speaking at the fourth annual Steve Biko Memorial Lecture in 2003, Ngugi wa Thiongo spoke about the contribution of BW Vilakazi and the Senegalese intellectual Cheikh Anta Diop: 'We must hearken to Diop and Vilakazi's call when they tell us to use our language as vehicles for thought, feeling and will. We must produce knowledge in African languages and then use translation as a means of conversation in and among African languages. We must translate from European and Asian languages into our own, for languages must not stay isolated from the mainstream of progressive human thought in the languages and cultures of the globe'.
Since the 1950s the state of writing in indigenous languages has been deteriorating in South Africa. Centuries of systematic exclusion and marginalisation of books written in our own languages by missionaries, colonisers and subsequent regimes of white rule have ensured the relative low status of indigenous languages. This is coupled with the fact that even writers of note have chosen to write in English. The reason being that English has a broader appeal. The resources that have been put into this area have historically been very minimal.
Dr BW Vilakazi's main works include three novels and poetry collections Inkondlo Ka Zulu and Amal'eZulu. He was inspired by Dr John Langalibalele Dube, who was the founder of the Ohlange Institute and the first ANC President. He was the first African person to teach at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was employed as a 'language assistant', but was in fact a lecturer - the race laws of the day did not permit him to be called a lecturer in a white institution. While teaching at Wits, he obtained a PhD in literature. Vilakazi immersed himself in poetry and literature in general. During his lifetime Vilakazi helped to develop isiZulu and siSwati in written form and helped develop the isiZulu dictionary.
Dr AC Jordan taught at the University of Fort Hare and later the University of Cape Town (UCT). He subsequently left the country on an exit permit to the United States. He was involved in a number of organisations particularly in the teaching fraternity. These included the Orange Free State African Teachers' Association and Cape African Teacher's Association. He became involved in the politics of the time. Thus he was a member of Non-European Unity Movement. He was also a founder member of the Society of Young Africa.
His most famous work is Ingqumbo ye Minyanya (The Wrath of the Ancestors) published in 1940. He later translated the book from isiXhosa into English.
Another important work was Toward an African Literature, published in 1973.
In this collection of essays Jordan demonstrates his profound ability for literary criticism. Reflecting on the issue of writing in vernacular, Mark Sanders said: 'Among intellectuals of the left, AC Jordan is exceptional for his times. While other left literary and cultural critics, such as Ezekiel Mphahlele who rejected Negritude, would associate ethnic self-affirmation with Bantustans, Jordan insisted on the resources of vernacular structures of feeling. Bifurcating along linguistic lines, his own work reflected this commitment. Like contemporary Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiongo, Jordan produced criticism in English, but wrote novels in the vernacular.' The 1940s were a period of intense nationalist revival in our political landscape. This movement was led by Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ashby Mda and Anton Lembede. In the same vein the literary scene was exciting and robust. Writers and poets penned their works in mother tongue and in English. Vilakazi and Jordan were part of this New African Movement. They contributed immensely to the development of African literature using isiZulu and isiXhosa in particular. The existence of modern Zulu and Xhosa literature can broadly be attributed to the contributions of Vilakazi and Jordan. They were both following in the footsteps of Thomas Mofolo and Sol Plaatje. Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi, a national poet of note, known as Imbongi Yakwa Gompo (The Poet of Gompo), inspired a generation of writers and poets, among whom were Vilakazi and Jordan. They regarded Mqhayi as the literary bridgehead between tradition and modernity.
At the heart of their endeavours was the attempt to assert and promote African languages as having adequate structures and possibilities for rigorous literary work. For them it was not the issue of translating from English to African languages but vice versa. In the seminal debate with HIE Dlomo that took place in the pages of the journals Bantu Studies and The South African Outlook between June 1938 and July 1939, Vilakazi argued thus: 'By Bantu drama, I mean a drama written by a Bantu, for the Bantu, in a Bantu language. I do not class English or Afrikaans dramas on Bantu themes, whether these are written by Black people, I do not call them contributions to Bantu Literature... I have an unshaken belief in the possibilities of Bantu languages and their literature, provided the Bantu writers themselves can learn to love their languages and use them as vehicles for thought, feeling and will. After all, the belief, resulting in literature, is a demonstration of a people's 'self' where they cry: 'Ego sum quod sum'. That is our pride in being black, and we cannot change creation.' Vilakazi and Jordan were leaders of the modern African literary thought. The legacies of Vilakazi and Jordan consist of having initiated a debate among writers on the continent about the wisdom of writing in vernacular, thus subverting the language of the Empire. This debate inspired writers such as Ngugi wa Thiongo and Mazisi Kunene about the possibilities of African languages.
The debate on the choice of which language each writer uses as a medium of writing continues to this day among writers in our country and the continent. There are those who reject the idea of writing in the language of the Empire and those who prefer to use English or French as a means of wider communication. The choice on whether to write in a foreign or indigenous language has been classified as a choice between a 'language of wider communication' and a 'language of narrower communication'. Many writers in our country and the continent have chosen to write in the language of wider communication.
This commitment to the 'language of wider communication' is best expressed by Njabulo Ndebele when responding to a question about poetry writing. He said: 'Yes, when I started writing, I wrote poetry in Zulu. The very first poem I ever read was of Zulu poet, BW Vilakazi, whose work we were studying in high school at the time. This demonstrates very clearly that had the Zulu language been stronger than English as a language of education, of conversation on the school premises, of law and commerce I would have probably continued to write in Zulu without being aware of making a choice, but then the rest of the syllabus was taught in English. There were more books available in English than in Zulu. So I read more and more in English, reading the poetry of Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Hardy, Hopkins, Elliot, Pound, Auden, and Dylan Thomas. Many of these I read beyond the normal syllabus. I found myself writing in English.' Since the advent of democracy, the South African government has gone a long way to affirm indigenous languages. The award of the title of National Poet Laureate to Mazisi Kunene by the Department of Arts and Culture signifies our commitment to the development of indigenous languages. Kunene has broken the glass ceiling the world over, purely on the strength of his uncompromising stance on telling South African stories in Zulu. His works have been translated from Zulu to other languages.
The department is establishing a project together with Skotaville Media that focuses on publishing emerging writers in all languages and across genres.
The aim is to promote the craft of writing, particularly in indigenous languages. The Department of Education has also put resources aside to help develop our indigenous languages.
Current and aspirant writers must dig deep into the works of both Vilakazi and Jordan to understand the foundations and genesis of modern South African literature. Their combined and individual contributions to language development, literary theory and literary criticism are immense.
Mandla Nkomfe is the ANC Gauteng Deputy Provincial Secretary and a member of the Umrabulo editorial collective.
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