ERASURE AND THE CENTRALITY OF LITERATURE'S IN AFRICAN LANGUAGES
E. Kezilahabi
Unconventional
Abstract
Let me start by narrating two incidents that I think reveal the nature of the complex problem Africa is facing today in the area of literary production and consumption. In October 1980 I was invited to attend the African Writers Symposium in Frankfurt during the International Book Fair. It was at this Symposium that Miriam Bâ received the Norma Award for her novel Not so long a Letter. The big names in African Literature were there. It was during one of the breakfast times when one of the African writers writing in English turned to me and asked, ‘Are you also one of the African writers?’ I said, “Yes”. “In which language do you write?” ‘I write in Swahili. I replied’. He looked at me, and in a voice bordering a chuckle said, ‘then why are you here?’ This was a puzzle. Why was I there? The second episode happened in 1990 in Tanzania where I have always thought I should be. After the publication of my short novel Nagona, I gave one of my six copies to a friend to read and give me his comments. After two days he brought it back and said as he tossed it in his hand, “this is a very good novel probably your best so far, but why didn’t you write it in English?” This was a second puzzle. The multiple implications of these two episodes are many and I would not like to pre-empt them through authorial intrusion. But it all boils down to one thing – the question of erasure. It is this question that I would like to discuss in this article, be it in a language that may raise a third puzzle for I have several times been asked why I sometimes write about African languages
in a foreign language.
1.0 Voices
of Speaking Subjects
The word ‘voice’ is a household word in literary discourse. It is often used with reference to the
marginalised, exploited and oppressed members of society, to cultural pluralism and class antagonism. Philosophically it is identified as conscience since it is closest to the self. Textually it is used with reference to point of view and intertextuality. Most of us (intellectuals) are used to voices of writers writing in foreign languages. The creators of what I call a literature of gossip – gossiping to the ‘other’ about the people for whom and on whom their works are supposedly written; a literature that dances in the peripheral corridors of western discourse; a literature that seems to have sacrificed African being for the pursuit of the universal. Mine is a simple voice of a writer writing in an African language. It is one of the voices of the creators of a literature I would call a literature of the speaking subjects, not of “Calibans.” A “caliban” writer having been taught language struggles to answer back to the colonizer, the oppressor and addresses the elite leaving the majority to exist in a state of erasure. Let me take some time here to explain what I mean by erasure in the context of this article.
Let us take the example of CNN World News. Africa rarely features in the news. Africa in this context exists in erasure. But when an American Embassy is bombed, Africa suddenly exists. Erasure means existing in non-existence. African writers writing in African languages exist in erasure. They only emerge into sight when budding scholars look for topics to write on for their dissertations, and when their texts are studied abroad they are mainly used as texts for language
proficiency.
As Gibbons et al. (1994:4) have observed ‘knowledge is always produced under
an aspect of continuous negotiation and it will not be produced unless and until the interests of the various actors are included’. In the literature of the “Calibans” interests of various actors are there but it is the important element of continuous negotiation that makes it wanting. The literature of the speaking subjects is more interested in direct dialogue with the people. The literature of the speaking subjects is assertive. It says ‘we are.’ The fact that we are there is what irritates and challenges the oppressor. Language is the first and foremost assertion of being, likewise the literature created in it. In this type of literature the people exist in a
“presencing” to whom unconcealed truth is set to work.
2.0 Counter-hegemonic Discourse
Paradoxically, an African literature written in a European language is likely to be a more accurate barometer of fluctuations in national circumstances and mood than a literature written in an African language. One of the ironies of multilingualism in Africa is that the extraordinary number and variety of languages in most sub-Saharan nations make communication across ethnic and international boundaries difficult in anything but a colonial language (Lindfors,1997: 135).
With quotations from Achebe and Senghor, Lindfors pushes this argument further. The main central issue is the idea that a literature written in a European language is more mature than a literature written in an African language. The reason often given is that there are certain ideas and concepts which African languages cannot handle. The problem of communication is often the trench behind which shells are directed toward literatures in African languages. Let us pose for a moment and ask ourselves, “How was the outcry for the liberation of Southern Africa communicated across Botswana, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania, Libya, and Cuba etc.?” Counter-hegemonic discourse is above the simple idea of communicating in European Languages. Some, if not the majority, of the liberation fighters could not even speak them properly. And do we need to evoke Derrida about the dangers of simplifying the concept of “writing” with reference to oral literature? Finally I do not think that we should place the destiny of the people in the vagaries of foreign languages whose axis operandi is not in the vicinity of our being. At one time in the history of African written literature African writers thought that foreign languages were languages of the “gods” and the only way to make them listen was to write in the foreign languages which they understood. They therefore, in order to be heard and understood, decided to write in foreign languages pushing aside the oppressive otherness contained in them. They were wrong at that time and they are still wrong at this time. The “gods” have throughout imperial history been mad. With the intensification of global exploitation they are now raging and stampeding dangerously with sharpened knives in their hands. The only language they have always understood is counter-hegemonic discourse that has always stood in their “path” and they in their madness have often knocked their “selves” against it. This solid block is the fact that we are there as speaking subjects not as Calibans. This is what was affirmed when we reclaimed our land and demanded for independence. Counter-hegemonic discourse is rooted in the intangible power of African languages that is inseparable from our being. Literature deals with understanding what we are, our “quiddity”(our whatness) and shows us to the rest of the world so that the world may see what we are. In literature we do not simply express ourselves but rather we reveal ourselves. It is my view that the best language to use is the one closest to us ontologically. This means that literature is first and foremost an ontological project in which human beings are seen moulded by society and social relations as they make history.African literature written in foreign languages is an epistemological project that deals with explanation than revealing, hence the excessive descriptive “anthropologism” in some of these works. A good number of them are repetitions in gossip of what we know with a low level of demilitarization .........
(Jarida hili litapatikana wiki Ijayo katika mtandao wa African Journals Online- AJOL)
E. Kezilahabi
Unconventional
Abstract
Let me start by narrating two incidents that I think reveal the nature of the complex problem Africa is facing today in the area of literary production and consumption. In October 1980 I was invited to attend the African Writers Symposium in Frankfurt during the International Book Fair. It was at this Symposium that Miriam Bâ received the Norma Award for her novel Not so long a Letter. The big names in African Literature were there. It was during one of the breakfast times when one of the African writers writing in English turned to me and asked, ‘Are you also one of the African writers?’ I said, “Yes”. “In which language do you write?” ‘I write in Swahili. I replied’. He looked at me, and in a voice bordering a chuckle said, ‘then why are you here?’ This was a puzzle. Why was I there? The second episode happened in 1990 in Tanzania where I have always thought I should be. After the publication of my short novel Nagona, I gave one of my six copies to a friend to read and give me his comments. After two days he brought it back and said as he tossed it in his hand, “this is a very good novel probably your best so far, but why didn’t you write it in English?” This was a second puzzle. The multiple implications of these two episodes are many and I would not like to pre-empt them through authorial intrusion. But it all boils down to one thing – the question of erasure. It is this question that I would like to discuss in this article, be it in a language that may raise a third puzzle for I have several times been asked why I sometimes write about African languages
in a foreign language.
1.0 Voices
of Speaking Subjects
The word ‘voice’ is a household word in literary discourse. It is often used with reference to the
marginalised, exploited and oppressed members of society, to cultural pluralism and class antagonism. Philosophically it is identified as conscience since it is closest to the self. Textually it is used with reference to point of view and intertextuality. Most of us (intellectuals) are used to voices of writers writing in foreign languages. The creators of what I call a literature of gossip – gossiping to the ‘other’ about the people for whom and on whom their works are supposedly written; a literature that dances in the peripheral corridors of western discourse; a literature that seems to have sacrificed African being for the pursuit of the universal. Mine is a simple voice of a writer writing in an African language. It is one of the voices of the creators of a literature I would call a literature of the speaking subjects, not of “Calibans.” A “caliban” writer having been taught language struggles to answer back to the colonizer, the oppressor and addresses the elite leaving the majority to exist in a state of erasure. Let me take some time here to explain what I mean by erasure in the context of this article.
Let us take the example of CNN World News. Africa rarely features in the news. Africa in this context exists in erasure. But when an American Embassy is bombed, Africa suddenly exists. Erasure means existing in non-existence. African writers writing in African languages exist in erasure. They only emerge into sight when budding scholars look for topics to write on for their dissertations, and when their texts are studied abroad they are mainly used as texts for language
proficiency.
As Gibbons et al. (1994:4) have observed ‘knowledge is always produced under
an aspect of continuous negotiation and it will not be produced unless and until the interests of the various actors are included’. In the literature of the “Calibans” interests of various actors are there but it is the important element of continuous negotiation that makes it wanting. The literature of the speaking subjects is more interested in direct dialogue with the people. The literature of the speaking subjects is assertive. It says ‘we are.’ The fact that we are there is what irritates and challenges the oppressor. Language is the first and foremost assertion of being, likewise the literature created in it. In this type of literature the people exist in a
“presencing” to whom unconcealed truth is set to work.
2.0 Counter-hegemonic Discourse
Paradoxically, an African literature written in a European language is likely to be a more accurate barometer of fluctuations in national circumstances and mood than a literature written in an African language. One of the ironies of multilingualism in Africa is that the extraordinary number and variety of languages in most sub-Saharan nations make communication across ethnic and international boundaries difficult in anything but a colonial language (Lindfors,1997: 135).
With quotations from Achebe and Senghor, Lindfors pushes this argument further. The main central issue is the idea that a literature written in a European language is more mature than a literature written in an African language. The reason often given is that there are certain ideas and concepts which African languages cannot handle. The problem of communication is often the trench behind which shells are directed toward literatures in African languages. Let us pose for a moment and ask ourselves, “How was the outcry for the liberation of Southern Africa communicated across Botswana, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania, Libya, and Cuba etc.?” Counter-hegemonic discourse is above the simple idea of communicating in European Languages. Some, if not the majority, of the liberation fighters could not even speak them properly. And do we need to evoke Derrida about the dangers of simplifying the concept of “writing” with reference to oral literature? Finally I do not think that we should place the destiny of the people in the vagaries of foreign languages whose axis operandi is not in the vicinity of our being. At one time in the history of African written literature African writers thought that foreign languages were languages of the “gods” and the only way to make them listen was to write in the foreign languages which they understood. They therefore, in order to be heard and understood, decided to write in foreign languages pushing aside the oppressive otherness contained in them. They were wrong at that time and they are still wrong at this time. The “gods” have throughout imperial history been mad. With the intensification of global exploitation they are now raging and stampeding dangerously with sharpened knives in their hands. The only language they have always understood is counter-hegemonic discourse that has always stood in their “path” and they in their madness have often knocked their “selves” against it. This solid block is the fact that we are there as speaking subjects not as Calibans. This is what was affirmed when we reclaimed our land and demanded for independence. Counter-hegemonic discourse is rooted in the intangible power of African languages that is inseparable from our being. Literature deals with understanding what we are, our “quiddity”(our whatness) and shows us to the rest of the world so that the world may see what we are. In literature we do not simply express ourselves but rather we reveal ourselves. It is my view that the best language to use is the one closest to us ontologically. This means that literature is first and foremost an ontological project in which human beings are seen moulded by society and social relations as they make history.African literature written in foreign languages is an epistemological project that deals with explanation than revealing, hence the excessive descriptive “anthropologism” in some of these works. A good number of them are repetitions in gossip of what we know with a low level of demilitarization .........
(Jarida hili litapatikana wiki Ijayo katika mtandao wa African Journals Online- AJOL)
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