The Keeper of the Kumm

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. 
There is no time for despair, 

no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. 
We speak, we write, we do language. 
That is how civilisations heal. 
Toni Morrison.

Sylvia Vollenhoven has been hard at work helping us to heal. I saw her plays My Word, Redesigning Buckingham Palace and Cold Case at the Baxter a while ago. The former went on to London’s West End, garnering four stars from The Times of London.  

I was excited to see The Keeper of the Kumm, which had played to critical claim at the 2016 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. The Keeper of the Kumm is a multi-media project comprising the play (a dance drama), a novel and a documentary film. Kumm is a story told in the extinct /Xam language which is represented on our coat of arms*.

The play, starring Quanita Adams, Elton Landrew and Dawn Langdown, with original music by Hilton Schilder,  tells the story of Betjie Petersen, a hardened apartheid-era journalist who grapples with her identity. She reluctantly responds to a calling from her ancestor, //Kabbo, a 19th century rain-maker who went on a quest to the Cape to find people who would record the stories of his people.

The deeply autobiographical story crosses boundaries of time and place, and delves into religion, mental illness, tradition and the spiritual. Betjie finds healing for herself when she accepts her calling. 

In one scene which resonated with me, //Kabbo urges her to write the stories of the “prison of Colouredness”. Sylvia’s calling will no doubt help many to find healing. I look forward to experiencing the other aspects of this project. 

For more on The Keeper of the Kumm:

http://www.thejournalist.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-Keeper-of-the-Kumm-Aug-2014.pdf

*South Africa's motto, written on the SA coat of arms is a /Xam phrase: !ke e: /xarra //ke, literally meaning: diverse people unite.  

Discovering Stories of Slavery

I finished reading Andre Brink’s Philida a while ago and it’s taken a long time to process the violence of the relationship between slave and master in the Cape during the 19^th century. I remember hearing that the slaves in South Africa never had it has bad as their counterparts in America.  Of course, I knew that this was propaganda along with other things we were told about the benign nature of our history. However reading the details of rape, whipping, impaling on top of the humiliation of being sold/auctioned, objectification, and the cruelty the slaves were subjected to, was nothing short of distressing.

Brink was inspired by the story of a relative who had owned the farm, Zandvliet, which is now Solms-Delta*.  Francois Brink had fathered four children with his father’s slave, Philida. He had promised that he would marry Philida but the farm is in trouble and his father orders him to marry a white woman from an important family in Cape Town. It wouldn’t do to have reminders of his former transgressions. So Philida is sold and separated from Ouma Nella, the only mother she has known.

The story unfolds in 1830s just before emancipation. Brink, the writer, skilfully juggles with religion, the tensions between the English and Dutch, and relationship between the landowners and the slaves. There were places in the book, though, where I wasn’t sure that a woman would say something quite in the voice that he uses.

There’s a poignant scene in the book which has stuck with me. Slaves were not allowed to wear shoes and one of the slaves on Philida’s new farm secretly makes a pair for each of them so that they can celebrate the emancipation with shoes. And celebrate they do, “…running up and down the street…singing and dancing and kicking up the dust...from now on everything will be different.” Of course they weren’t really free as they were forced to spend a further four years serving an “apprenticeship” on the farm.

Andre Brink was the first Afrikaans writer to have a book banned by the South African government during the apartheid era. He challenged the policies of the Nationalist Party through his writing in books such as A Dry White Season and A Chain of Voices. He died almost a year ago today, aged 79. Philida was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2012.

Philida reflects near the end of the book that “Ouma Nella’s stories… are all that remain now. Perhaps, when the end comes, they are all that can go on living.”

*When Mark Solms bought the farm in 2002, he set about uncovering its history, revealing not only the foundations of the first house built there, but also the remnants of a Stone Age site dating back about 5 000 years ago, and the story of Philida. A museum has been established to preserve the history of the farm as well as the musical heritage of the Cape. 

Orpheus in Africa

South Africa’s rich legacy of music can be traced back to the 17th century when the indigenous Khoi people first played European folk songs on a ramkie, the guitar-like Malay instrument, and fashioned their dances on those of the Dutch. Country estates had orchestras made up of slaves. In fact, music was a highly valued skill which could ensure a higher price for a slave. The Malays, who were brought to the Cape from the East Indies by the Dutch, blended their music with Dutch colonial ballads. Coloured labourers brought to work on the diamond mines in Kimberley combined their own music styles with that of Africans who they came into contact with. 

The Lutheran missions and the Salvation Army contributed to the development of African choral traditions, the most famous example of this heritage being Enoch Sontonga’s Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika which came to symbolise the struggle for African unity and liberation in SA. The fact that the missionaries offered free musical education was a major attraction. 

Another influence on local music was minstrelsy, which took hold after McAdoo’s American Jubilee Singers toured SA at the end of the 19th century. Their influence can still be seen in Cape Town’s annual coon carnival. But it was jazz that would influence and shape most black music, from mbaqanga, marabi (shebeen music) to the penny whistle or kwela craze.  Rather than simply copying American jazz, Ian Smith (musician and director of the Delft Big Band) believes that the Cape Town sound evolved from the minstrels, the slaves, and the Malay choirs. [extract from paper on music as resistance]

In his book In Township Tonight! David B, Coplan, paid tribute to the musicians and composers who contributed to the cultural and spiritual quality of black life during apartheid, giving expression to the their lives under apartheid. His book explores the history of music in SA from indigenous traditions, slave orchestras, gumboot dancers and minstrels to the birth of jazz. 

I missed it earlier this year, but David Kramer's Orpheus in Africa returns to the Fugard Theatre on 22 September. It tells the little-known story of Orpheus McAdoo, who toured South Africa in the late 19th century with his Jubilee Singers. It runs until 31 October but the first season was sold out so book early.

Jacob Lawrence and the Migration Series

The migrants arrived in great numbers - Panel 40

"Having no Negro history  makes the Negro people feel inferior to the rest of the world...I didn't do it just as a historical thing., but because I believe these things tie up with the Negro today." 

Jacob Lawrence 1940

This quote sprang out at me from the wall of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). It is the reason that I need to start writing the stories of growing up in Cape Town during the 1960's and '70's. I was inspired by the simplicity of Lawrence's series of 60 paintings which records a significant era in American history.

One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series and Other Visions of the Great Movement North is currently on at the MOMA as part of a programme exploring the legacy of the Great Migration and its impact on American culture. From 1915 to 1970, almost six million black people fled the rural South for northern and western cities in search of a better life, thereby indelibly altering the demographics of the USA.

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) grew up in Harlem, New York but both his parents had been part of the mass relocation from the impoverished South to the urban, industrialised cities. He was greatly influenced by the colour and vibrancy of the community in which he lived and set about recording the songs, stories and experiences of his parents' generation through his art. 

By the time he was 23 he had completed the paintings which make up the Migration series. In 1941, at the height of racial segregation in the country, he was the first African American to have his work exhibited at the MOMA. 

A long table with a row of tablets giving access to a multi-media website, occupied the centre of the exhibition room. It soon attracted a group of school children tasked with a summer project of choosing their favourite painting to write a poem about...21st century technology providing the bridge to history. 

                                 

This painting illustrates how effectively Lawrence has captured the loss and suffering brought about by the human rights abuses during this period of American history. It's what he has left out of the picture which is most striking. 

The exhibition is on until 7 September. 

View the Migration Series here 
Image from Migration Series from MoMa website, click here 

Discovering Noni Jabavu

One of the treasures of going back to university must be the licence to read and discover as much as I could without feeling like I wasn't working. Taking the African non-fiction literature course was like going back to learn history the way the apartheid government tried to stop us from learning. History has always been recorded by those who had the money and power to commission paintings, tapestries, maps and books which filled libraries and museums. It was Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian writer, who said that "until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter". 

One author who I was excited to discover during the course was Noni Jabavu. Our course reader included an extract from her book, Drawn in Colour. I was so taken with the memoir of the first 'black' South African woman to publish a book (in 1960) that I tracked down the out-of-print book and her second, The Ochre People, at Clarke's Bookshop in the centre of Cape Town (established in 1956).

I had never heard of this writer whose book had been reprinted five times in the first year of its publication and had been translated into Italian in 1961 and reprinted in New York in 1962. She was one of the first successful female African writers and journalists, becoming a weekly columnist for the Daily Dispatch (under the editorship of Donald Woods) and a presenter and producer for the BBC. It would take 20 years before the book was published in SA.

Noni Jabavu was born in Eastern Cape to Professor Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu, the first 'black' professor at the University of Fort Hare, and Thandiswa Florence Makiwane, the founder of Zenzele Woman's Self-Improvement Association. Her aunt, Cecilia Makiwane, was the first registered professional 'black' nurse in SA. Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in the Eastern Cape was named after her.

Her grandfather, John Tengo Jabavu, was a founding member of the SA Native College, later renamed University of Fort Hare and became the editor of the first 'black'-owned newspaper in 1884.

At the age of 14 she was sent to live with friends in England to be educated. She later married and settled there but travelled and lived in Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe). The Ochre People is the story of her trip back to visit her family in 1955. The book offers "scenes of a South African life" (the sub-title) that challenges the images of 'black' South Africans the apartheid government tried so hard to propagate and ensure by keeping us separate. Having lived in the UK, Jabavu looks at the tribal customs and traditions with sensitivity and respect and paints portraits of a rich culture and family life  that I was delighted to see through her eyes.

Her recollections of the daily lives of ordinary humans, who just happened to have been born with a darker hue to their skin, make these memoirs a valuable addition to the stories of where we come from and who we are. Historical narratives are important, but not necessarily written by historians. It is the writer's voice which brings our history to life. Telling our stories is something we have to do so that the story of the hunt will also reflect our pain and our courage.

See also Celebrating Africa
http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/helen-nontando-noni-jabavu
Picture of the author from the bid-or-buy website.

Cold Case: Revisiting our History

The stage is set to tell the story of  Dulcie September 

One of the motivations for me going back to university was to equip myself with the skills to tell the stories of growing up in District Six and on the Cape Flats. Not only my stories, but the stories of many who cannot tell their own. We’re a deeply divided society, a country still trying to recover from an oppressive past. We cannot sweep it all under the carpet and expect to move on. There will always be a bump there to trip us up, to nag at us to pull it straight.

People need to be acknowledged. Maybe nothing will undo the hurt but at least it’s not being ignored, we’re not being told to get over it and move on. We need to listen to each other with respect, be slow to judge. We need to know that someone saw our pain and understands; only then can we move forward.

I am encouraged by the two shows I saw recently at the Baxter Theatre – Cold Case: Revisiting Dulcie September, which premiered at the National Arts Festival in 2014 and My Word! Redesigning Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace: District Six is, of course, the name of the novel by teacher and author Richard Rive, published in 1986. The tragedy of forced removals in District Six has been well-recorded. Less well-known is the story of anti-apartheid activist and ANC representative, Dulcie September who was assassinated in Paris in 1988.

The Baxter Theatre’s intimate Golden Arrow Studio provided the perfect backdrop to the personal stories of a childhood with an abusive father, a budding activist and a committed freedom fighter. Denise Newman is an accomplished story-teller who moved many members of the audience to tears, made us laugh at reminiscences of growing up in places like Athlone (where September was from). She held our attention for more than an hour, all eyes riveted on her one-person show … surrounded by the cardboard boxes which represent the cold case of what remains of the woman. 27 years later her killer has not been found. Theories abound, the mystery remains unsolved…

The biased history which we were forced to learn during apartheid needs to be balanced by stories such as these, giving value to our own experiences. The tens of thousands of people who attended her funeral, the street, square and boulevard named after her in Paris, make us proud of our struggle.

When I met Newman afterwards I couldn’t help enveloping her in a hug, I felt that I knew her, or at least the woman she had brought to life on the small stage. The run at the Baxter ended last night but look out for a couple of shows in August at the Artscape Theatre, to celebrate Woman’s Day.

Cold Case has won the Standard Bank Ovation Award and the Adelaide Tambo Award for Celebrating Human Rights through the Arts.

http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/richard-rive

http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dulcie-evonne-september

Walking through History - Celebrating our Heritage

I have no problem with Heritage Day turning into Braai Day. After all, cooking over a fire goes back to the days when man first discovered that fire might make his food taste better and cuts across many cultural boundaries - that's quite a heritage to celebrate. But I do believe that we still have a lot of work to do in order to get to know each other in this country.

In that spirit I was happy to see that Footsteps to Freedom City Walking Tours had joined IzikoMuseums and the Taj Hotel to offer free walks exploring the places of historical significance in the city centre during Heritage week. It seemed an appropriate way to spend Heritage Day and I invited an Australian visitor along. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the crowd of about 40 people who turned up consisted of mostly South Africans, eager to learn more of their own heritage. 

Traders on Greenmarket Square

Old Town House

We started off in Greenmarket Square, the second oldest public space after the Grand Parade, which served as a general meeting place and where water was collected from the public water pump which stood in the centre of the square. I didn’t know that the front door of the Old Town House, which stands on the edge of the square, is the place from which you measure distance in Cape Town. 

Pincushion Proteas or Waratahs

Next was the colourful flower market, Trafalgar Place, where there were beautiful pincushion Proteas on sale. My Australian friend pointed out that she knew them by a different name back home – Waratahs (yes, the name of one of their rugby teams). 

The City Hall

The Bell tower of the Groote Kerk

The Slave Memorial on Church Square

A slave memorial, consisting of slave names engraved on marble slate, has been erected on Church Square.  Slaves socialized here while their owners attended church services in the Groote Kerk. Opposite the memorial and church is The Slave Lodge which housed slaves, convicts and political prisoners between the 17^th and 19^th centuries. 

Government Avenue used to be the place to see and be seen.  

Our walk continued down Government Avenue past Tuynhuis where guests of the colony used to stay and which is now the president’s office. A blocked-up water channel which was originally dug by slaves runs in front of this house. We were reminded that the fresh water which runs down from Table Mountain was the main attraction of the Cape as a halfway stop on the way to the east. It seems a pity that we are not harnessing this water for use instead of letting it all flow into the sea. 

View of Table Mountain from the Company Gardens

Statue of Sir George Grey in front of National Library

The statue of Governor George Gray is the first statue of a person to be erected at the Cape. At the end of his term he donated his books to start the National Library. We ended our tour in front of St. George’s Cathedral which I remember as a safe place to gather during the apartheid years. Opposite the cathedral, in front of the Mandela-Rhodes building, is a piece of the Berlin Wall which was presented to Nelson Mandela on his first state visit to Germany in 1996.

Our guide was knowledgeable and fed us many interesting tidbits like the fact that the floor of the Groote Kerk was originally sand so that it could be dug up in order that members of the congregation could be buried there. 

I highly recommend this tour to locals and visitors alike. It was a worthwhile way to spend two hours. 

Celebrating Africa

This year Africa Day arrived with a renewed sense of pride and hope for me. I have been immersed in two electives - African Non-fiction Literature and Public Culture. African literature focused mainly on South African books post-1994 and in many ways it was a gift of history far removed from the history that I had been taught at school in the 1970s. While it was painful to plough through the accounts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I was enlightened by the behind-the-scenes revelations of the negotiation process and the run up to the first democratic elections. I was entertained and motivated by stories of growing up in Kenya and Katlehong –  stories which give life to communities, breaking down stereotypes and mass-labelling of people to fit into neat little boxes.  And I will look at Johannesburg with new eyes after reading Portrait with Keys, the tribute by Ivan Vladislavic.

It was Noni Jabavu’s books, published in the early 1960s, which were a special treasure though. They are a portrait of black life at a time when Verwoerd was introducing his draconian laws.  She provides an insight into the traditions, tribal customs and family life from a personal point of view. She straddled two opposing worlds – her roots in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, and her life in England, where she had been sent as a child.  She shows how we can use writing to correct the perceptions of the past, to record the voices of the past and to help preserve the traditions which, in SA, the government attempted to wipe out. I was very fortunate to find both her books at Clarke's in Long Street. This bookshop, established in 1956, is worth a visit if you're looking for South African and African books.

The Public Culture course looked at curating positive images of Africa and South Africa, to challenge the colonial stereotypes which abound. We focused on visual images along the theme of play and were exposed to photographers, archives and exhibitions, both past and present. I had the opportunity to look at the notion of music as a tool of resistance, at how it played a role in uniting and strengthening the community and how it flourished and developed in spite of oppression. 

I was struck anew at how jazz can be seen as a metaphor for the melting pot which is South Africa. It has a truly South African identity shaped by many influences - music of the African people, the Malays who were brought here by the Dutch, the slaves who were part of orchestras on the farms; visiting minstrels from the US which set the scene for the still-popular coon carnival, the  rich choral traditions and so on. It seems ridiculous now that there were laws governing details like whether black and white musicians could play together on a stage or perform to a mixed audience.

 We have developed a rich culture of music, writing and art, and people with spirit and values. What is often overlooked is what African people are doing to help themselves, rather than sitting back and waiting for others to come and solve our problems. Yes, there are starving children and disease, much suffering and oppression in Africa, but this is not the only narrative.

Sharing History

I first heard Elif Shafak speak on one of the TED talks. Her gentle, accented voice drew me in to her story. She spoke about growing up with her traditional Turkish grandmother who was a healer in the community. People would come to her with warts which they wanted to get rid of. Her grandmother would draw circles around the warts and, in time, they would shrivel up and fall off. She made the analogy that when we draw circles around ourselves, or build walls to isolate ourselves from others, we are at risk of shrivelling up and dying.

It struck a chord with me, having grown up in apartheid SA and experiencing the walls that the government built around our communities in order to cut us off from each other. If we don’t interact and learn from each other we run the risk of shrivelling up and dying – if not physically, then at least in our attitudes, beliefs and compassion for each other.

I was delighted to be able to hear her speak on more than one occasion last week in Davos. As a child she straddled two worlds – the modern, western world of her educated mother, and the traditional, superstitious world of her uneducated grandmother. In her books she allows space for both voices.

Many societies have a rich oral culture which is deemed to be “lesser” because it is women who are telling the stories.  History is remembered differently by different people and who is to say what is important enough to provide a window of understanding on what went before? 

Listening to her speak I realised that in SA there are many stories which need to be told so that we can get on with the process of healing and move forward. Sometimes all that is needed is for our experiences to be acknowledged, to feel that our voices have been heard. We all need a voice.