Theatre and Cultural Struggle Under Apartheid by Robert Mshengu Kavanagh

Author:Robert Mshengu Kavanagh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: National Book Network International
Published: 2017-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

In the text this is translated as:

The fault of these men

lies in their ignorance, [p.27]

This is not, however, the words’ real meaning. In Xhosa oral tradition the three folk personifications, uAndazi (Mr I-don’t-know), uAsindim (Mr It’s-not-me) and uAlaziwa-mntu (Mr Nobody-knows), have a self-explanatory didactic function. Matshikiza is here looking with some understanding but also with criticism at the people of the community of which he is a part, and he admonishes them by referring to the three figures of Xhosa didactic literature. The majority in Sophiatown suffer, he implies, because they refuse to accept the responsibility of alleviating that suffering by taking action.

The effect of Matshikiza’s admonishment to his people is not the same as that of Father Higgens to Willie in No-Good Friday. Whereas Father Higgens made it clear that by taking action he meant no more than reporting to the police, Matshikiza addressed himself explicitly to blacks, all blacks (i.e. those who could understand the words), and did not predicate what he meant by action. This was in the best tradition of Xhosa satirical literature, in which trenchancy is cloaked in an imprecision only an ‘outsider’ would find imprecise, as the following stanza from a well-known poem by J. J. R. Jolobe illustrates:

I saw him hungry with toil and sweat,

Eyes all tears, spirit crushed,

No longer able to resist. He was tame.

Hope lies in action aimed at freedom.

I have seen the making of a servant

In the young yoke-ox. [Qanguie, p.9]

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