13 September 2012
Ka bokhutshwane, bagaetsho, nna ke Keorapetse Willie Kgositsile a Neo a Absalom a Moagi a Moagi a Tlhotlhwa. Ke phofu e tshetlha, Madibane; batho ba sa idiweng. O ba etse O tla wela ka lengope. Ke setlogolo sa Barolong le Matebele.
That is just a little taste of who I am, in a language that is, perhaps arguably to some, a major aspect of my living heritage; the aspect that makes me multiple. I was fortunate enough to be brought up by two strong, loving, at times stubborn, and very allergic-to-nonsense women – my grandmother and my mother. They are the ones, in that order, who nurtured and molded me into the kind of person I am today. They are the ones who planted the values that made me, as my own sensibility started to assert itself, able to understand the importance of individuality as distinct from, and essentially in opposition to individualism. Later I got to know and love my younger mother, who wrapped me unconditionally with love in the depths of her heart to her last day on this earth. (For those who might be wondering whether my father was polygamous, don’t waste your energy; he was strictly monogamous.) Those three women who shaped the sensibility of this little piece of humanity speaking to you are not with us tonight to participate in the honoring of their boy by UNISA; they are late. Since without them I would not have been here, please allow me to read a poem to honor and salute them:
REQUIEM FOR MY MOTHER
As for me
The roads to you
Lead from any place
Woman dancer-of-steel
Mother daughter sister
Of my young years
The roads to you
Lead from any place
I am
I do not know
If you hollered in delirium
Like an incoherent dotard
I do not know if you gasped
For the next breath
Gagging
Fighting to hold your life
In
I do not know
If you took your last breath
With slow resignation
But this I know
I dare not look myself
In the eye peeled red
With despair and impotent regret
I dare not look myself
In the ear groaning
Under these years and tears
I dare not mourn your death
Until I can say without
The art of eloquence
Today we move we move
As for me
I will never again see
The slow sadness of your eye
Though it remains fixed
And talks through a grave
I do not know
back to top
I teeter through
The streets of our anguish
Through this incontinent time and referent
And when I try to scream Vengeance
My voice limps
Under the cacophony of them
Whose tongue is glued
To the bloodstains in the imperial
Monster’s hallways and appetite
As for me
The roads to you
Lead from any place
Though I will never again
Know the morning odour
Of your anxious breath:
Don’t let the sun shine
In your arse my child
We do not do those things
Though I will never again
Know your armpit odour
Before the ready-for-work mask
Though I will never again
See the slow sadness of your smile
Under the sun
Woman mother daughter sister
The slow sadness in your eye
Remains fixed and talks
Even here where the amber bandages
Of the sun kiss the day
Before they disappear beyond
These whitehooded mountains and appetites
Earlier this year I was invited to the United States for a poetry reading and lecture tour. The programme was packed; on a few occasions I was at two or three institutions on the same day. What took me by surprise was the amount of attention my work gets in literature courses and literary scholarship over there. At Rutgers University, for instance, the programme for the day included a discussion of my work with a class of MA students studying it; a poetry reading, and responding to a panel of three professors from three different universities who’d delivered scholarly critiques of my work. There was more, much more, all over the U. S. What should have given me a sense of fulfillment ended up as a source of frustration. A stubborn little question kept needling me: Why is none of this happening at home?
As if in response to that question I received a letter from the Registrar, Professor Louis Molamu, informing me that the Council of the University of South Africa had decided that the degree Doctor of Literature and Philosophy (DLitt et Phil) (honoris causa) be awarded to me. I feel very honored. I accept this award with humility. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the Council and the rest of the leadership of UNISA for making me feel that this occasion is a major reception to finally welcome me home from decades of exile. I promise never to let you down. I promise to continue doing the work you have honored me for.
Here I am tempted to point out some things that should be taken note of by anyone who claims to be even vaguely interested in knowledge, in acquiring it or taking part in its production. University degrees, including doctoral ones, should never be allowed to be terminal, like an illness. The pursuit and production of knowledge, in short, learning, is a life-long pursuit, it does not stop with being awarded a degree. It can never be a destination; it remains, permanently, a road to be travelled. And that pursuit for knowledge can never be for its own sake; it must be used as an instrument to equip us to be of better service to society; an instrument to enable us to be instrumental agents of our historic mission, which is to create a better future for the majority of our people. Here I’m talking about praxis, the purposeful application or implementation of theory at the practical level.
And that brings me to the present, which has cropped up, here and there in my work as a dangerous place to live. The uses of whatever is produced in human action and interaction are never neutral. That applies as much to material as it does to social production. Which means that in the production of knowledge and ideas, where artists, intellectuals and the academic community are involved, any notions of neutrality are a dangerous illusion. This also applies to the state as an instrument of political power. The uses of that instrument can never be neutral.
That road logically takes me to Marikana. I am not idealistic enough to suggest that the artistic and intellectual communities should provide us with answers to the questions that I hope keep all of us sleepless. What I am getting at is that we should strive to at least pose some relevant questions. Whose interests were the police serving or protecting when they massacred those miners? Social transformation, whose beneficiaries would unapologetically be the majority of the people; a transformation aimed at the eradication, not the reduction, of poverty and exploitation – can this be achieved under capitalism? The good intentions of anyone who does not want to be made to feel uncomfortable are totally irrelevant here.
Let me not get carried away.
Professor Makhanya, and the Council of UNISA, let me once again thank you for the honor you have bestowed on me.
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