History Matters:

Getting down to the roots, an interview with writer, Mtutuzeli Matshoba

By Tumelo E. Phali | Posted: March 09, 2005

It’s a lovely, sunny Saturday morning around the Newtown Cultural Precinct when Mtutuzeli MATSHOBA suddenly appears behind me with his wife as I nervously take out my jotter to finish my line-up of questions for the interview. They are both a bit short of stature – that immediately makes three of us. In a fawn sweater and blue denim jeans and spotting a neat hairdo, Bra Mtutu is clearly looking forward to the interview; a bit excited in my assessment - something that unsettles me because I hate to raise expectations! We both agree to look for a quieter spot amid the bustling street allies. Craftsmen hurdled along the pavements with their handcrafts, hoping to capitalize on the money that often overflows this time of the month.

The mini-market opposite the lofty facade of the celebrated Market Theater is teeming with theater-lovers checking out today’s line-up and shoppers looking to expand their collection of artistic merchandise – sculptures, paintings, pottery, fabric, movie videos, DVDs and an array of African handicrafts on sale and display – a welcome distraction for his wife who is looking to get something nice for herself. After a bit of a search Bra Mtutu and I settle at ‘Cup and Muffin’ a small café tucked away round the corner of the busy cultural center. We’ve hardly wiped our seats to sit when a white lady, the waitress, quickly rushes to our table - there’s hardly any customer at the rest of the tables. In a foreign accent she asks if we would like to have anything, a menu snappily follows the question. I politely ask her to give us time while we decide – she retreats with a smarmy smile.

There’s a man displaying handicrafts in front of the restaurant – I’m tempted to ask about the merchandise but I’ve got to act professional and wait till we finish the interview. The batteries that I have just bought would not work on my camera. I decide to prepare my dicta-phone for the recording.

The white lady is staring, tapping her pen against her little order book – a not so subtle reminder that she is waiting for us to finish deciding. Realizing that peace will be at a premium until we have ordered something, we place an order of a light meal and an accompanying drink each. Ah, a semblance of peace at last. Then Bra Mtutu asks if he can rush for a cigarette. What’s happening, I’m the one who is nervous here. He’s soon back and finds me still busy fiddling with my camera – it seems my nervousness has rubbed off onto it.

Can you say something about yourself?

I'm Mtutuzeli Matshoba, a short-storywriter-turned screenwriter from the seventies and eighties era of protest writing.

It seems like he can’t blow his own trumpet, so I’ll blow it for him: The man is beyond doubt an accomplished writer and his honours in the literary field will leave you green with envy - his CV can attest to that. He is a researcher of note, producer, copywriter - his work is known world-wide and has been adopted as learning material in a number of academic institutions both here and abroad.

I noted your passion about the subject of history when I first met you - where did it all begin?

First I’ll provide a background to this; It all began when my mother took me to a primary school in my village to enroll me as a pupil there. The teachers refused to register me because I didn’t have a ‘school name’.

In order to foist Christianity among the natives in South Africa, Black people were forced to adopt Christian or English names, called ‘school name’ at schools governed by missionaries.

My mother had to go and bribe the local Catholic priest to provide me such a name and issue a certificate saying I was baptized a Christian. At school I was told to use my new Christian name from then on. I didn’t understand what was wrong with my Xhosa name and this haunted my young mind. Years later when I had gotten to higher primary, I learnt during a history lesson about two natives, Ndlambe and Ngcika,( later corrupted to Gika) who were leaders in their villages. The narratives claim that Ndlambe was hostile to the European settlers and got his men to steal their livestock and bring them to the native communities. Ngcika on the other hand welcomed and collaborated with the white colonists. Our teacher asked us who, between the two leaders was a good man and a hero. When pupils answered that it was Ndlambe for he fought for the natives rights against the settlers, the teacher punished them and said Ngcika was the hero because he was a good man who loved peace.

After school the class bully asked; “who of the two characters was a hero?’ When the pupils answered that it was Ngcika, the bully slapped all of us and said Ndlambe was the good one because he took back what the white settlers had stolen from the natives.

These experiences raised puzzling questions which sparked my interest in history. I began to question the merits of what happened in history and what our educators forced us to believe.

From his accounts of his childhood education to his formative years as a literary activist, it is impressive how vividly Bra Mtutu remembers the events and their accompanying details; the titles of books and their respective authors and the names of people who influenced his path - almost like they happened yesterday.

Like many political legends in South African black history Bra Mtutu also got his grounding in political history at the Loveday Institution, near Fort Hare – the cradle of black resistance against colonialism.

At boarding school in the Eastern Cape he was introduced to the writings of Professor Jabavu -‘the originator of black newspaper’ and Mcayi’s poem, “The making of a servant”– a condensed history about how blacks were made into servants. He was also exposed to writers who were, though not directly so, trying to preserve history in the form of poetry.

But why history, does the past really matter?

We are all a product of history. History is a nation’s CV. Every nation is judged by its history. People with a history earn the respect of those without. That’s what it meant to our forebears and it should mean the same to us.

Bra Mtutu believes that parents in black communities, who bore the brunt of the apartheid force and kept the flames of our black history burning, deserve honours.

Our parents, much as we thought them illiterate, nestled the true stories of our past for posterity and we must thank them for encapsulating useful knowledge into little stories. Folklore and animal stories with philosophies in mind made us - in a sense - understand ourselves.

He laments the lack of knowledge and interest amongst the youth around Southern Afrikan historical heroes like Shaka of the Zulu nation, Chief Sekhukhune of the Bapedi tribe and King Moshoeshoe of the Basotho nation whose wisdom stabilized most of the Southern Afrikan region during Lifeqane, (a period of battles amongst black tribes in the region) and territorial battles against white settlers.

… and what inspired you to get involved in “the past”?

Through out my schooling I had been force-fed an overdose of ‘heroic’ stories – both fiction and factual - heavily featuring Europeans as main characters. Yet we had true stories past down from our grandparents telling us of brave native men and women who defended their territories with basic weaponry, amid murky clouds of smoke from guns and cannons, against colonizing intruders. I felt that through our education system we were being historically shortchanged. We know more about them (European heroes) than they do about us.

That’s when I started exploring history – our true history.

In my knowledge apartheid oppressed free thinking and the Afrikan philosophy as a whole. ... how did you go about exploring your true history then?

True. The censorship of Afrikan principles and propagators thereof led to an underground literary phenomenon here in South Afrika. We feverishly wanted to lay our hands on material that was taboo and didn’t praise the apartheid grand plan. We secretly listened to recordings of Marting Luther King’s speeches; essays of Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko’s consciousness ideals. We also read novels by activists such as E’skia Mphahlele, Anton Lembede, Alex La Guma and so on…” Such material spoke of “the other” world – the revolutionary world that the system was prohibiting us to explore.

How did u come to be in the art?

I realized the power of the media – the power to inspire the imagination of the written word. Civilization started when people started exchanging stories and modifying them to their own advantage. People don’t read much, but the media is a powerful, compensatory tool that we can always harness to convey these philosophies.

His art rides on the crest of this ‘powerful’ wave to reach the shore where he needs the liberating message delivered. Throughout the interview Bra Mtutu keeps harking back to the subject of the imperialist phenomenon that etched European consciousness on the impressionable minds of the less conscious amongst blacks. The self-centered system that gave birth to what I call “euroheroes”.

Why can’t we have an epic about King Moshoeshoe and put flesh onto the dead bone that is our heroes now? My passionate involvement is to do exactly what I commend our parents for - identify stories and enable youngsters to go into those stories that honestly talk about their origin and thereby articulate their aspiration for the future. We must forget about the Greek Achilles and find the Afrikan counterpart.

At this point I sympathize with the man’s passion – a noble desire to convince the young minds within his race that their roots can still grow deeper even without foreign nourishment - unfortunately, people like him are found among the already converted flock.

Has advance in technology within the media replaced the oral tradition?

I don’t think it will ever replace it. Technology can only complement the tradition. Cinema reaches a much larger proportion of people – just like radio – but a concept always starts in the mind and articulated in the imagination. Technology can only become the media of dissemination.

But, amongst your target group, the media is largely used to pander to their obsession - not for history lessons.

Media can be modified to relay relevant history. Afro-pop group Mafikizolo, for instance, have explored certain obsessions from the 50’s and have breathed new life into them for the benefit of their legion of young supporters. Now their followers know a bit about the life and culture then.

The 50’s in South Africa, as musically explored by Mafikizolo, for me represent the morphosis of black urban culture into microcosms of black American ethos of the period and not half as much about the history in question.

You were stunned by the inconsistencies in historical records which you say were shoved down your throat. That’s when you resolved to find out who you really are and search for what was hidden from you. At what point do you think your children, for instance, will start concerning themselves with who they really are?

That’s a difficult one. (finally I pose something difficult – he doesn’t realize my gloating. This is the time when I really feel the interview matters. Anyway, I just appreciate his honesty. )

The economy is still in the hands of the wealthy white minority. They are influenced by a first world which lives side by side with a third world - that's us. It’s difficult for them to be different under such circumstances. They say in my language ‘you brag in somebody else’s costume.’ (translated from isiXhosa – his mother-tongue.) Then they realize that the same first world doesn’t recognize their intrinsic values and the way they are – it is at that point when they realize they need their own platform. People get sick, people die or they need to get married – in many cultures this means going back to your home customs – that’s when you know where in the world you really belong.

Certain values are rooted too deep for one to go against – in custom-conscious communities within the Xhosa and BaSotho cultures, for instance, when there are feasts an old man who never went to initiation school cannot partake in a meal served for those who already have been initiated - even if they could be twenty years younger than him - in these instances adherence to custom gains one respect and earns one honours within society.

But one ironic fact strikes me: After so many years of spitting at what we call ‘English colonialism’, why are we still steeped in Europeanism? We have some countries in East Asia where parents are paying exorbitantly to have their children attend special schools to study the English language and culture.

Colonialism was enforced with violence. Theology, philosophy, modes of dress, etc. It’s the instinct of the conquered to adopt the ways of the perceived “better culture.” English has the biggest empire and citizens in such countries are well versed in the cultures and tradition of the English. We always go for those with stronger medicine than ours.

(He explains to me that since in our black culture we believe that every person is protected by their Gods (amadlozi) who are actually our ancestors, we always admire those whose Gods are the strongest. You know what I mean…?

We are interrupted by his cell phone ringing in his hand. It’s his wife… it seems she needs his opinion on something she would like to buy. He tells her he will join her soon and ends the call. Then he apologizes as he nestles the cell phone in his hand.

Um, where were we? Oh, ja. (he remembers) A majority of blacks speak more than three languages – therefore it gives them scope and broadens their understanding of the other foreign cultures - it’s okay, as long as they don’t neglect their being.

You got to trust him on this one because the man, although steeped in his Afrikan roots, has written works which have been prescribed for the English language department at University level and several of his books, like Call Me Not A Man, (a collection of short stories on urban black socio-political experiences of the 70’s), have been translated into major European languages for students in those countries.

We tend to follow the traditions of the powerful nations around us, it doesn't mean we have nothing unique to offer, does it?

Ubuntu has been overused and is cliché.

I’m glad you think so.

Yes,... so I’ll steer clear of the concept. What we have is the essence of our being. It’s an all-encompassing generosity as exemplified by the fact that Afrika is still a paradise if you abide by the definition of paradise in terms of the animal kingdom. Within our tribes we have clans associated with certain wild animals as their totems - Motloung, (the elephants) Mokoena (crocodile) Bakgatla (the apes) etc. This was to instill respect for those particular animals. It meant you couldn’t just kill any animal - it would be tantamount to declaring war on the clans associated with the particular animal.

A way of promoting conservation?

Yes. It was a clever way of instilling a sense of conservation and protecting our wildlife. A way of striking a peaceful co-existence with the animals. Conservation is not a foreign concept. It’s our concept.

He then relates to me a story of a certain white game warden who came to a village with his squad of hunters…

This time he doesn’t bother checking who it is. But I’m starting to feel bad for keeping him longer. He continues.

The phone rings. He answers.

Watch out for the continuation of this interview in the next issue of CaribbeanTales! in the Around The Fire sub-section.