Article
Colonial protest
The Ndebele Past Revisited
December 20, 2006
Any reading of Ndebele protest poetry quickly reveals themes that revolve around the human condition in a situation of oppression: the need both for self-determination and for individual space in which to operate freely without the oppressive colonial presence. Nonetheless, a closer, more analytic, reading suggests that Ndebele experiences have changed little over a century of occupation, as if history keeps repeating itself. Jerry Zondo’s poem ‘Asingek (‘We cannot pull down our shacks’) refers to the 1941 Land Husbandry and the 1943 Land Apportionment Acts, colonial acts that relocated the Ndebele to less hospitable, less productive agricultural areas. In independent Zimbabwe in 2005, there has been a similar dispersal of the Ndebele (together with other tribes of course) in a government initiative entitled Murambatsvina (literally “casting out the dirt”). Murambatsvina has violently ejected people from urban and semi-urban areas and unceremoniously sent them to rural areas where most of them have had no rural home or base. During these acts of dispossession, both governments made promises of a better future and justified their actions in these terms.
While the ten poems featured here have the colonial regime as their subject, the reader is constantly reminded of contemporary Zimbabwean situations and actions. Dion Nkomo’s poem ‘Ubuzw laments the acculturation into English mind-set and English patterns of behaviour through an English education and the consequent loss of traditional Ndebele mores. It hints at dispossession and mental loss. The critic will find an interesting parallel to the contemporary experiences of a large Ndebele population that survives under trying conditions in Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, the USA, Great Britain and elsewhere as political and economic refugees. Nkomo’s poem ‘Abaphangi’ clearly points out the excesses of the white man who robbed the Ndebele of their birthright, but the reader today is ironically reminded of the post-independent Shona-colonisation of Matabeleland. The coloniser is now the black man who through his numerical superiority, and the use of the notorious Five Brigade during the period of Gukarahundi (1983-87), has subjugated a fellow black man of a different tribal and linguistic group in order to acquire and maintain total political control. It is these interesting undercurrents within this poetry that provide it with a timeless freshness, though we have to ask ourselves why history keeps repeating itself with such regularity.
Stylistic forms
The poems interweave a third-person narrative with that of the first person. The use of the former emphasises the collective experiences, the feelings and attitudes of the Ndebele nation. The poet focuses on the fate of the entire group and surrenders his own feeling to those of the group. A poem will then shift to a first-person narrative, where individual experiences become the poet’s primary focus. Nonetheless, even these subjective experiences provide a reflection of national consciousness. Traditional Ndebele poetry makes much use of the rhetorical question, the hyperbolic expression, irony and contrast and all these stylistic devices may be found in these poems. Individual stylistic differences are, however, discernible. Ndlovu’s poetry consists of open descriptive forms with much longer verses; Dion Nkomo’s poetry is also descriptive but his lines and verses are shorter and tighter, and a line may consist of a single word. Neither poet makes use of repetition, using instead compilative lines where each new line contributes a new idea or an extension of the previous idea. Sometimes, a discernible rhyme scheme is utilised as in the first four lines of Nkomo’s ‘Ubuzwe bami’. The direct rhyme of the first four lines is later realised as alternating rhyme in lines six and eight. Ndlovu also introduces proverbs into his poetry, occasionally even within quotation marks.
Most of the poetry survives on lines of verse with each verse carrying a separate meaning as a separate statement. A statement might run over two or more lines where it will have a form of development but rarely will it go over four lines. The dominant factor is the couplet or triplet set of lines. Gudugwe Mlilo’s poetry is slightly different by virtue of the poet’s maturity as well as his attachment to the Zulu linguistic usage. His verbs dominate the -zo- Zulu future tense morpheme instead of the more dominant -za- Ndebele form. There is the absence of /r/ in his forms typifying older Ndebele speech. Part of his vocabulary includes the alternative forms to Ndebele like iketango (chain) for iketane, abafo (enemies) for izitha. Mlilo’s poems are much shorter than for the other poets who have written much longer forms.
Africa’s past
Zondo’s poem ‘Isicwaningo refers to Africa’s past and offers a humble statement in the interpretation of that period. The poem does not project a romantic image of that past, but alludes to its difficulties and discomforts, as well as its violence – the violence produced by Africa. It is a past of bitter memories, tough survival, limited capacities and endless challenges. It is a past that should be recalled and compared to that of the colonial occupation. The poet attempts to project an objective interpretation of Africa in order to compare it with its colonial experience, and he does so with a hard clear eye.
The ten Ndebele poems published here in January 2007 are representative of colonial or pre-independence protest poetry, though ironically, two of the featured poets are ‘born-frees’ i.e. born after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. The poems reflect aspects of colonial existence such as low wages, colonial oppression, land dispossession, emasculation and general de-humanisation, policies that will occur with any type of occupation. The poets reflect on the culture and political systems of that British colonial period. While the poems provide a consideration of the past, there is also a pre-occupation with the ideology of resistance and defiance. However, to regard these poems as simply protest poetry would be to overlook the nostalgia for an (imagined) past that threads its way through them, as well as the awareness that to romanticise or glorify that past is to evade its more negative features.
Thematic considerations Any reading of Ndebele protest poetry quickly reveals themes that revolve around the human condition in a situation of oppression: the need both for self-determination and for individual space in which to operate freely without the oppressive colonial presence. Nonetheless, a closer, more analytic, reading suggests that Ndebele experiences have changed little over a century of occupation, as if history keeps repeating itself. Jerry Zondo’s poem ‘Asingek (‘We cannot pull down our shacks’) refers to the 1941 Land Husbandry and the 1943 Land Apportionment Acts, colonial acts that relocated the Ndebele to less hospitable, less productive agricultural areas. In independent Zimbabwe in 2005, there has been a similar dispersal of the Ndebele (together with other tribes of course) in a government initiative entitled Murambatsvina (literally “casting out the dirt”). Murambatsvina has violently ejected people from urban and semi-urban areas and unceremoniously sent them to rural areas where most of them have had no rural home or base. During these acts of dispossession, both governments made promises of a better future and justified their actions in these terms.
While the ten poems featured here have the colonial regime as their subject, the reader is constantly reminded of contemporary Zimbabwean situations and actions. Dion Nkomo’s poem ‘Ubuzw laments the acculturation into English mind-set and English patterns of behaviour through an English education and the consequent loss of traditional Ndebele mores. It hints at dispossession and mental loss. The critic will find an interesting parallel to the contemporary experiences of a large Ndebele population that survives under trying conditions in Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, the USA, Great Britain and elsewhere as political and economic refugees. Nkomo’s poem ‘Abaphangi’ clearly points out the excesses of the white man who robbed the Ndebele of their birthright, but the reader today is ironically reminded of the post-independent Shona-colonisation of Matabeleland. The coloniser is now the black man who through his numerical superiority, and the use of the notorious Five Brigade during the period of Gukarahundi (1983-87), has subjugated a fellow black man of a different tribal and linguistic group in order to acquire and maintain total political control. It is these interesting undercurrents within this poetry that provide it with a timeless freshness, though we have to ask ourselves why history keeps repeating itself with such regularity.
Stylistic forms
The poems interweave a third-person narrative with that of the first person. The use of the former emphasises the collective experiences, the feelings and attitudes of the Ndebele nation. The poet focuses on the fate of the entire group and surrenders his own feeling to those of the group. A poem will then shift to a first-person narrative, where individual experiences become the poet’s primary focus. Nonetheless, even these subjective experiences provide a reflection of national consciousness. Traditional Ndebele poetry makes much use of the rhetorical question, the hyperbolic expression, irony and contrast and all these stylistic devices may be found in these poems. Individual stylistic differences are, however, discernible. Ndlovu’s poetry consists of open descriptive forms with much longer verses; Dion Nkomo’s poetry is also descriptive but his lines and verses are shorter and tighter, and a line may consist of a single word. Neither poet makes use of repetition, using instead compilative lines where each new line contributes a new idea or an extension of the previous idea. Sometimes, a discernible rhyme scheme is utilised as in the first four lines of Nkomo’s ‘Ubuzwe bami’. The direct rhyme of the first four lines is later realised as alternating rhyme in lines six and eight. Ndlovu also introduces proverbs into his poetry, occasionally even within quotation marks.
Most of the poetry survives on lines of verse with each verse carrying a separate meaning as a separate statement. A statement might run over two or more lines where it will have a form of development but rarely will it go over four lines. The dominant factor is the couplet or triplet set of lines. Gudugwe Mlilo’s poetry is slightly different by virtue of the poet’s maturity as well as his attachment to the Zulu linguistic usage. His verbs dominate the -zo- Zulu future tense morpheme instead of the more dominant -za- Ndebele form. There is the absence of /r/ in his forms typifying older Ndebele speech. Part of his vocabulary includes the alternative forms to Ndebele like iketango (chain) for iketane, abafo (enemies) for izitha. Mlilo’s poems are much shorter than for the other poets who have written much longer forms.
Africa’s past
Zondo’s poem ‘Isicwaningo refers to Africa’s past and offers a humble statement in the interpretation of that period. The poem does not project a romantic image of that past, but alludes to its difficulties and discomforts, as well as its violence – the violence produced by Africa. It is a past of bitter memories, tough survival, limited capacities and endless challenges. It is a past that should be recalled and compared to that of the colonial occupation. The poet attempts to project an objective interpretation of Africa in order to compare it with its colonial experience, and he does so with a hard clear eye.
© Jerry Zondo
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