According to Egudu (1978), while the modern African poets who wrote about colonialism were concerned with a past problem and that their poetry, like yam shoots, flowered out of the corpse of colonialism, the South African poets have painted and are painting from life, Apartheid, their model, is before them and very much alive in all its ugly aspects, terrorising the poets as they write and demonstrate various attitudes towards that enemy. Apartheid is a hydra-headed beast, which more than colonialism, brutalised and dehumanised the black South Africans. This situation of racist oppression – Apartheid - has forced South African poets to write poems depicting its gory aspects to the world, in a bid to muster world disapproval for it, which would lead to its dismantling (Okon, 2013). In the words of Orhero (2013), in Apartheid South Africa, where the white rulers segregated the blacks, the rulers instituted racially discriminatory laws which limited the freedom and total life of the black South Africans. They were not allowed to go to the same schools, attend churches and live in the same places with whites and were not allowed to vote or to be voted for. The aboriginal blacks were reduced to mere occupants in their own land. Some South African poets wrote to address these divisions and talk to the conscience of the white oppressors. Most of them were harassed and detained. Their themes included segregation, racism, oppression, protest, pain, inequality, etc.
The major technique of the Apartheid poets was the protest form, critical and socialist realism, imagery and symbolism (Orhero). Poets in this tradition include Mazizi Kunene, Lewis Nkosi, Dennis Brutus, Oswald Mtshali, Wally Serote, Richard Rive, Njabulo Ndebele and others. According to Okon (2013), oppression, brutality, pain and unmitigated suffering of the masses is aptly depicted in Dennis Brutus’ “This sun on this rubble”. Physical battery and torture are here highlighted:
… Bruised though we must be
……….
Under jackboots our bones and spirits crunch forced into sweat-tear-sodden slush
- now glow-lipped by this sudden touch:
But in spite of battery and torture, the people are unyielding, resilient, and with the hope of revenge upon their white torturers:
… our bones may later sing
or spell out some malignant nemesis Sharpevilled to spear points for revenging (Nwogu, 2008:58)
3.4.1 Themes and Techniques in “Just a Passer-by” Oswald M. Mtshali
Ishaku (Undated) discussed Mtshali’s poem, “Just a Passer-by”. The poem will be analysed thematically and stylistically so that the theme of the poem can be discussed and he poetic techniques employed by the poet can as well be identified. Oswald M.
Mitshali is one of the black South Africa’s most talented poets. He was born in Natal and was a victim of the Apartheid system which denied him admission into the University of Witwatersand. However, this did not diminish his desire for literary
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progress as he published his first volume of poems titled Sounds of the Cowhide Drum (1971) which established him as a significant poet.
Mitshali’s poems are about the people and their life in a hostile society which he is part of. The theme of survival in a defiant and hostile society runs through a number of his poems. The quiet control and the colloquial tone is noticed when the poet writes of his peoples’ sufferings. There is no venom of hatred expressed but most of the themes are conveyed through distilled lyrical verses and ironic humour. Similarly, irony and cynicism are the main characteristic features of his poetry as can be seen in the poem below:
“Just a Passer-by”
I saw them clobber him with kieries I heard him scream with pain
like a victim of slaughter;
I smelt fresh blood gush from his nostrils,
and flow in the street.
I walked into the church and knelt in the pew
“Lord I love you.
I also love my neighbour. Amen.”
I came out
my heart as light as an angle’s kiss on the cheek of a saintly soul.
Back home I strutted past a crowd of onlookers.
Then she came in – My woman neighbour:
“Have you heard ? They’ve killed your brother.”
“O! No! I heard nothing. I’ve been to church.”
This is a very ironic and sarcastic piece of poetry through which the poet expresses the helpless condition of many blacks in apartheid South Africa. The poem incorporates a number of themes besides describing the gruesome incident of brothers being
‘clobbered’ while he (the poet) passes on by without rendering any help. The poet draws an ironic parallel with parable of the Good Samaritan. The religion of the whites (Christianity) that preaches one to be his brother’s keeper is itself the cause of violence.
But the irony of what the poet considers an escapist religion is that the poet instead of helping his brother from ticklers goes instead to the church to pray for the brothers’
soul. The poem is indicative of the height of violence and the helplessness of the people in the society the poet lives in (Ishaku, Undated).
In his “The Master of the House”, Mtshali takes a satirical look at the apartheid system in which the white minority are the masters while the black majority are the servants, doing degrading menial jobs. But even under this condition the blacks have learnt to survive and outwit the inhuman system:
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Master I am a stranger to you But will you hear my confession?
I am a faceless man
Who lives in the backyard/of your house I share your table/so heavily heaped with bread, meat and fruit/it huffs like a horse drawing a coal cart.
The master’s luxury contrasts sharply with the deprivation of the persona; a situation not unlike the Biblical parable:
As the rich man’s to Lazarus,
the crumbs are swept to my lap/by my Lizzie:
‘Sweetie! Eat and be satisfied now, Tomorrow we shall be gone’.
The last two lines demonstrate the precariousness of life for the blackman in South Africa, and also bring out the South Africans’ seeming consciousness of time (Okon, 2013). Nonetheless, the Blackman seems in someway to live with the system by outsmarting and spooking it, but this also underscores his consciousness of the time element:
So nightly I ran the gauntlet, wrestle with your mastiff, Caesar, for the bone pregnant with meat and wash it down with Pussy’s milk.
I am the nocturnal animal
that steals through the fenced lair/to meet my mate and flees at the break of dawn
before the hunter and the hounds/run me to ground.
(Mtsheli, 1971:55)
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
Discuss some shortcomings of African independence as portrayed in various African poetic responses.
4.0 CONCLUSION
The poetry of disillusionment of the 1960s was coloured by the experiences of independence. The prospect of independence and self-rule brought high expectations when Africans thought that self-rule would bring forth an Eldorado and the continent would transform into a utopia. Unfortunately, this was not the case. African leaders became grossly corrupt and dictatorial and the people’s expectations were shattered and this result to disappointment which later metamorphosed into disillusionment. The poetry of this period was socio-political and poets decried the corruption of African leaders. On the other hand, the South African poetry is usually related to the apartheid political system. The tone of some poems like those of Dennis Brutus’ Letter to Martha are critical and defiant while others like Mtshali’s Sounds of Cowhide Drum, are cautious in their criticism. Others are revolutionary, fire-breathing poems like Keorapetse Kgosile’s Spring Unchanted and Sipho Sepamla’s The Soweto I Love.
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5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit you have learned the followings:
• The concept of disillusionment poetry with illustrations from Christopher Okigbo’s “Hurrah for Thunder”
• The concept of Apartheid poetry
• The themes and techniques employed in Oswald M. Mtshali’s “just a passer-by”
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT Read and answer the questions below:
• Explain the concept of disillusionment poetry
• Analyse Christopher Okigbo’s “Hurrah for Thunder” as a poem of disillusionment
• What is Apartheid poetry?
• Discuss the themes and techniques in “Just a Passer-by” by Oswald M. Mtshali 7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Eldred J. The Essentials of Soyinka. In Introduction to Nigerian Literature, ed. Bruce, King, Lagos, Evans Brothers, 1971.
Isidore, O. Oral Literature and Written African Literature. African Literature:
Anthology of Criticism and Theory. Australia. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2007.
Kehinde, A. (2004). “Post-Independence Disillusionment in Contemporary African Fiction: The Example of Meja Mwangi’s Kill Me Quick”. Nordic Journal of African Studies 13(2): 228–241
Nwogu, D. West African Verse. England: Pearson.2008.
Obiajunwa, W. “The Dead End of African Literature”. African Literature: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory. Australia. Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
Okon, F. (2013). “Politics and Development of Written African Poetry”. English Language and Literature Studies; Vol. 3.No. 1
Orhero, M. I. (2017). “Trends in Modern African Poetic Composition: Identifying the Canons”. UNIUYO Journal of Humanities Volume 21, No. 1, January – December, 2017 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321776494.
Accessed on 08/08/2018
Mtsheli, O.M, (1971) Sounds of a Cowhide Drum UK: Oxford University Press
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UNIT 4 AFRICA’S CULTURAL CRISIS/CULTURAL REDISCOVERY