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 The
Johannesburg newspaper, The Star, often does not publish interesting
and critical letters, due to its politically correct and Africanist
slant. As usual, PRAAG has taken it upon itself to support
freedom of speech in South Africa and reproduce them here.
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Steven
Roper, 23/02/2002: Nigerian Art displays Western influence
Dear Sir,
In his letter 21 February,
"Lack of knowledge about our forefathers leads to
fallacies", Mr. Sunday Ogunronbi sadly displays the lack of
knowledge he laments. A visit to the Nigerian museum in
Lagos would cast a different light on what he calls
"missionary zeal and the outcomes of colonialists' work in
Africa".
Many fine sculptures, dating from
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, reflecting the marked
influence of Portuguese traders, are exhibited there. The
balance of great Southern Nigerian art works happily resides in
European musea, such as the British Museum. Kalabari
memorial screens, known as duan fobara, made from wood
that was supplied by European ship's carpenters, as well as oboto
masks, are on display there. They all reflect the
presence and welcome influence of Europeans. Are these objets
less than satisfactory, one would like to know? I
presume Mr. Ogunronbi would argue so, since Europeans were so
"backward" then.
Robert Thompson, an art historian,
solicited and recorded 200 words most frequently used in Yoruba
to describe a number of sculptures with reference to various
criteria. One of these was tutu, being the desire
to remain expressionless. As a result therefore, cheap
celluloid dolls obtained by trade enjoyed equal esteem from
their onlookers, which explains the easy acceptance of a foreign
artefact. Quality and age were considered to be of no
importance.
If it were not for European
conservation efforts, most of what Africans produced would not
have existed today.
Steven Roper.
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Johann
Wingard, 22 February 2002: A most insensitive act
Dear Editor,
In his speech in the Northern
Province Legislature Premier Ramathlodi referred to the question of
name changes in his province and said that the main aim was to free
the languages that were shackled by colonmialism and apartheid.
"This is nothing less than an act of self-affirmation."
With carefully crafted and
flowery words, he tried to give credence to a most insensitive act of
intersocietal exploitation or domination, a demonstration of cultural
chauvinism to the extreme; certainly an unacceptable abuse of power.
This action reflects officialdom’s false perception of a right to
expand their own power into socially sentive areas, causing dissent
and hoping to gain popularity for a few officials by playing this race
card before the next election.
Instead of dealing
with the problems of the people, they deal with a politically more
visible task of stripping the white minority of their heritage.
Governments certainly have the legitimate powers to change the names
of new administrative units under their control, as was the case with
the names of the new enlarged municipalities, the new provinces, state
assets such as dams, tunnels, game reserves, national topograhical
features such as rivers, mountains etc.
But in a democratic
country, as we are supposed to be now, only the persons directly
involved and affected have a legitimate right to change the name of
their town, as parents have the sole right to name a child, or
property owners to name their building, farm or even their residential
area. Although a government may assume the legal right to do so, no
government, institution or any other third party has a legitimate
right to change that name, whatever their own interpretation of their
powers may be. They are the servants of the people, not the other way
round.
Similar actions that
took place in post colonial Africa in a time of a legal vacuum, cannot
and will not legitimise similar name changes in South Africa, a
constitutional state, where the rule of law ranks higher than
political rhetoric or arguments, as a constitutional state must
protect and guarantee the cultural and physical interests of all the
minorities in its charge.
The Afrikaner
minority is entitled to the same common law and human rights
protection as pertains to all indigenous minorities according to
international law, which considers it to be illegal and unacceptable
for majorities to view minorities as their legitimate prey.
Names of towns
founded by Afrikaner, Sotho, Venda and other peoples, for instance,
provide ethnographic and linguistic evidence of a region’s
historical development, however the current generation may regard such
development in the political climate of the day. Sotho communities
have no legitimate right under the Constitution to change the names of
the residential areas of Venda or any other minority communities and
vice versa. Affirmative action, aimed at targeting some communities
for protection and upliftment, and which is legalised by law, is a far
cry from a campaign which is targeting a community for humiliation and
relegation. But it would seem that some politicians categorise
Afrikaners as ‘settlers’ with the view of attaching a stigma of
illegitimacy, expendability and some second rate citizenship to them.
The Northern Province
claims to be the Province of Peace. But overnight it has become
the Province of Tension, of Division, of Dissent and of Civil
Disobedience.
Johann Wingard,
Box 1406
Warmbaths
topGerrit
Brand, 21/02/2002: Amazing monochrome dreamcoat
Burton Joseph
and his amazing monochrome dreamcoat: On place name changes
Burton Joseph (Letter
to The Star, February 20) finds the widespread resistance
against recent place name changes in the Northern Province
"incredible". If one's plausibility structure is so
clearly unable to cope with reality input, it is time to re-examine
it. Is it really so incredible that some South Africans will resist
the erasing of poetic, historical names in one of South Africa's
indigenous languages, like Soekmekaar and Naboomspruit? Is it so
difficult to believe that Afrikaners will resist the labelling of
their entire history, including the anti-colonial South African War
(Pietersburg) and the violent death of one of their ancestors
(Potgietersrus), as "colonialism"? Where in the world will
a minority accept without protest a state campaign against some of
their most highly valued cultural symbols? Afrikaans culture has
been part of the cultural landscape of our country for several
centuries. To wipe out all traces of its history in the name of
"reclaiming our African identity" cannot but be construed
as an obvious attempt to exclude this part of our national heritage
from the definition of "African", thereby betraying the
message of the Freedom Charter that South Africa belongs to all who
live in it.
Joseph draws a red
herring across our path by pointing, in this connection, to the few
feeble voices who also resisted the introduction of our new national
logo "!Ke e:/Xarra//Ke" some time ago, thereby falsely
suggesting that the issues at stake, and the people protesting it,
are the same. Had he reflected on the message of this logo,
"diverse people unite", for a moment, rather than parrot
the fascist, unhistorical rhetoric of the likes of Mathatha Tsedu,
whose most creative response to widespread resistance against
cultural genocide is to threaten with legal steps, he might have
been less enthusiastic about the racist chauvinism that is gradually
coming to dominate and thereby destroy the absolutely essential
project of transformation and nation-building. Had this Govan Mbeki
research fellow heeded the wisdom of the late Govan Mbeki, a lover
of the Afrikaans language and admirer of the Boer freedom fighters,
he might have realised that things do not become "racist"
or "colonial" simply by virtue of being Afrikaans. The
recent place name changes, like the ones which he and Tsedu suggest,
are a betrayal of African culture, with its spirit of botho
and respect for the ancestors. Moreover, had he done some basic
research about the history which he so shamelessly misuses for
ideological purposes, he might not have confused the 17th century
figure of Krotoa or "Eva the Hottentot" with Saartjie
Baartman, who lived nearly two centuries later, as a friend
perceptively pointed out to me.
There is absolutely no
reason why place names should be a cause of inter-ethnic conflict in
South Africa. In other multilingual states, like Belgium, official
recognition is given to different names for the same place in
different languages. Why can we not do the same? Furthermore, while
the map of South Africa already includes many place names in the
African languages, the creation of new municipal and provincial
structures provide ample opportunity for the introduction of new
names, without having to erase the names given to cities and towns
by their founders. In addition, a little creativity in the spirit of
reconciliation could have come up with combined names like
Makhado-Trichardt or Ellisras-Lengang. To prefer the conflictual
option over such internationally accepted solutions is deliberately
to invite anger and resentment. To be surprised when such anger is
forthcoming is simply disengenuous.
If our government is
serious about "reclaiming our African identity", an ideal
which I wholeheartedly endorse, they could start by carrying out
their constitutional obligations with regard to the protection and
development of indigenous languages in the public domain, rather
than by erasing a part of our indigenous culture from the collective
memory. Then, and only then, will the dream of the African
Renaissance cease to be just another variation on the age-old
imperial tune of economic globalisation at the expense of the local
and particular.
Africa for the
Africans!
Gerrit Brand
Fulltime researcher in
African theology and philosophy.
Leendert
van Oostrum, 21 February 2002: Obliterating a heritage
Dear
Sir or Madam,
Obliterating
a heritage
Joseph
Burton, writing in The Star of 20th February, supports
the present programme according to which a dictatorial majority
purports to assert an African identity by demolishing the names
given to places by a minority.
I
find these arguments strange, incomprehensible, and infinitely sad.
According
to reports, the province that has claimed the beautiful name of
Limpopo will spend about R40 million on changing the names of about
a half dozen towns named by or after the early voortrekkers. The
purpose of this expense, purportedly, is to assert the African
identity of the majority governing the province.
At
the same time, the rich and unique languages in the province, which
carry the history of the people, have no recorded literature to
speak of. The meagre literature that exists in Tswana, North-Sotho,
Venda and Tsonga and their terminological foundations were
established at the initiative of the so-called "apartheid"
government, and funded by them. Due to the absence of a literature
these languages are not studied in other countries, unlike Zulu and
Yoruba, for example, which have developed a substantial literature.
Forty
Million Rand could found an academy to study, preserve and promote
those languages and their literature. To capture the tales of the
people now, before the old ones join their ancestors. To commission
poetry, dramas, novels, radio and TV dramas to bring these stories
to the children and their parents. Surely that would do far more to
establish the African identity of the region?
In
stead, I have been told by Sotho intellectuals that this work
effectively came to a standstill since 1994.
The
province of Limpopo includes some of the oldest cultures in our
country, and a unique and beautiful musical heritage that is
becoming extinct as the old people die. Right now!
Forty
Million Rand could establish an academy of music to record, preserve
and study that music, to promote it and to package it to transport
the culture of the people to every place on the globe where people
listen to music. At the very least, such funds could have supported
the work that institutions such as the University of Pretoria have
been doing in this field with few and dwindling funds.
The
archaeological significance of the area was established long ago, as
the architectural and technological heritage of the stone and
metalworkers is unveiled.
But
the more recent revelation of the glorious antique culture of
Mapungubwe can be compared with Schliemann's recovery of Troy. Forty
Million Rand could go far to establish a museum to house the
Mapungubwe collection in its home province, accessible to the
children of the province to identify with the achievements of their
ancestors and to bring in tourists. In stead, it is housed in an
Edwardian sandstone building at the University of Pretoria.
What
have the powerful rulers of the province of Limpopo done to preserve
and promote the treasures of Mapungubwe among the people and for
tourism? What have they done, for example, to promote the production
and marketing of certified replica's, in gold, of the antique golden
jewellery of Mapungubwe - to carry the culture of the people to
every corner of the globe where tourists unpack their bags? Greece,
Peru, Thailand and numerous other countries generate billions of
dollars every year in this manner and promote worldwide appreciation
and respect for their heritage at the same time.
In
the name of the African identity, the rulers of Limpopo spend Forty
Million Rand to eradicate a few voortrekker place names - Africana
in their own right. Yet, the precious heritage of the peoples of the
province lies unrecorded, unstudied, unpromoted and rapidly being
snuffed out for ever. What perverse mentality finds its identity in
demolishing that of others while a more glorious heritage bequeathed
by the ancestors lies forgotten and neglected?
Any
initiative such as those above to assert the African identity of the
province would have gained the agreement of the descendants of the
Voortrekkers and more: almost certainly, they would have given their
active support and co-operation.
In
stead, this morning, I received an email expressing the thoughts of
a young Afrikaner intellectual who serves the disadvantaged African
youth: "I am exceedingly
angry at the offence of a so-called 'frustrated majority'
who obliterates my heritage. I have finished with being bowed in
spirit. I despise these rulers, and no longer harbour any compassion
for them. If they begrudge me my history, let the world know that
they are tyrants who deny us not only a present, but also a future.
The ANC does not have to be demonised. They are doing a competent
job of that themselves."
My
feelings, exactly.
Yours
sincerely,
Leendert
van Oostrum
PO
Box 12332
QUEENSWOOD
0121
Tel:
012 331 5523
Fax: 012
331 1018
leendert@pestalozzi.org
21st
February 2001
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