STAND UP FOR INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES

NELSON Mandela is said to have often annoyed the US. As revered as the elder statesman was, he would often land the US president at the time, Bill Clinton, or certain members of Congress in a precarious position as he pushed a particular line which often was in contrast to theirs.

Cuba, Libya, Palestine and Iraq were all principled policy positions that Madiba took in order to ensure that the new South Africa’s foreign policy would not be determined by anyone but South Africa.

In October 1997, the US administration, then still under Clinton, who counted on Madiba’s support during his impeachment process, let it be known that it would be very disappointed if Madiba pursued his visit to Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. Madiba responded: “How can they have the arrogance to dictate to us who our friends should be?”

The relationship between South Africa and the US became frostier once Clinton and Madiba left office. There was no working relationship between Dick Cheney and Jacob Zuma as there had been between Thabo Mbeki and Al Gore. It does not seem that the US-SA Bilateral Commission, initiated under the Mandela presidency, has been championed by Kgalema Motlanthe, Cyril Ramaphosa or Joe Biden.

The article, “How the US and South Africa became friends again”, published by the Mail and Guardian in September 2014 on US-SA relations since 1994, drew a strong rebuke from Mbeki in his response, “Suggestions of SA-US conflict are a fabrication”. Mbeki was at pains to explain the very cordial working relations his administration enjoyed with the George W Bush administration in particular.

In fact, contrary to popular belief, Mbeki suggested that instead “… the three most challenging differences between us (South Africa) and the US arose during the years of the Clinton administration…” and not the Bush years.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), from which South Africa benefits but which certainly has come under review, was one of these three differences.

Fast-forward to this year, and we have another Republican president heading a US administration. President Donald Trump’s interaction with South Africa, and Africa in general, has certainly come under scrutiny, as has his comments about what he thought of African countries as well as his tweet about South Africa’s land reform process.

At the same time, the administration, from a much broader perspective, has indicated that it certainly will assess and amend, if needs be, the relationship it has with countries it supports with trade and aid but which don’t support the US, especially at international forums such as the UN.

Already, South Africa has been pointed out as a country with a very low record of supporting the US, a continuation certainly of the Madiba independent foreign policy, and this record will come under more scrutiny as South Africa takes up another term on the UN Security Council. However, what all of this does seem to spell is that, unlike the Bush Jr administration, the Trump administration does not seem to take Africa seriously.

For example, Mbeki pointed out that while Bush had initiated Pepfar (US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief), his secretary for health and human services at the time, Tommy Thompson, came to South Africa in 2002 and worked with Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, our minister of health at the time, in order to agree to and implement “a comprehensive joint programme against HIV and Aids…”. This was the finer detail extent to which the Bush administration was interested in.

Africa, though, does not seem to be high up on the agenda of making America great again. While Trump’s foreign policy hitherto seems to have been to reconfigure alliances and trade agreements, Africa has been shelved. The recent talk of the nomination of a luxury handbag designer as the US ambassador to South Africa indicates the sobriety, or maybe lack thereof, with which the Trump administration views our country.

Patrick Gaspard, the last US ambassador, now serves as the president of the Open Society Foundation and, prior to his departure for Pretoria, was a well-known White House figure, as well as having served as executive director of the Democratic National Committee from 2011 to 2013.

Since 1994, South Africa has had eight US ambassadors: six were political appointees and ranked high in the echelons of political circles in the US. The rumoured new ambassador has studied ballet and it is yet to be verified if she actually played tennis at Wimbledon. The only experience she has of international relations is probably her international business and that she has lived in Bermuda, while having been born in East London. She is a neighbour of Trump in Palm Beach, California.

One can’t see how the US is even attempting to thaw its relations with South Africa through this appointment. Meanwhile, a former head of the CIA and now secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is on a “fact-finding mission” to “study the South African land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large-scale killing of farmers…” – a premise devoid of any truth.

Furthermore, the office of the first lady of the US is often delegated the items that the administration is not too keen on. If the Trump administration is interested, as they are in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Nato, Russia, China and North Korea, then the president would visit those countries himself. Yet Africa is relegated to the office of the first lady, not even the secretary of state.

As much as Mbeki defended South Africa’s relationship with the US during his time in office, he also made known that South Africa kept to the principle enunciated by Madiba. We will determine our own foreign policy and, in particular, we will keep and make our own friends.

The US has shown recently that it simply does not want to be a friend of South Africa and, as a consequence, our foreign policy. We must be able to mitigate this, as we did during the days of Madiba.

Seale is a PhD candidate at Beijing University in China WHAT I am attempting to write will not, by any stretch of the imagination, encompass the whole man that is JJR Jolobe. To the country he is a renowned Xhosa poet – whose work stretches over 40 years – but he was “Dearie” to his life partner, Jeanne Buthelwa Jolobe, and she was his “Inyibiba” (my bird). To me he was “Daddy”.

Daddy was not just a poet or a writer, but also the “umfundisi” (priest) of the Congregational Church. His quiet reserve, seemingly unassuming manner and disposition made of him a difficult study.

Those qualities, I suppose, did not make him easily accessible to students of isiXhosa, who knew him. His deep philosophy on life revealed itself when he spoke or preached from public platforms.

Yet even then, only whiffs of Daddy’s sterling qualities can be caught – his sensitive nature, his interests, his deep faith in the ultimate goodness of man, his generous understanding of man’s failure to reach his highest destiny, and lastly, his profound simplicity.

The measure of the full stature of Daddy can thus only be fairly assessed through his writing – first as a poet and essayist, and then as a novelist, praise singer and dramatist.

Daddy was born to Christian parents, in the little town of Indwe near Cala in the Eastern Cape on July 25, 1902. His father, also James, was the minister of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. His mother, Emily Nobethu, born of Makhohliso, was also from Cala. She was a woman of strong religious convictions – a characteristic which left an indelible impression on her two sons, James and Lennox. Lennox unfortunately drowned in a swollen river he tried to cross it to keep a preaching appointment on yonder side. The family later relocated to Matatiele.

I do not want to dwell much on Daddy’s earlier years. Suffice it to say that they had a deep impact on his literary works later on in his life. Daddy translated many English works to isiXhosa. He also composed a number of hymns which became part of the Presbyterian Church Hymn Book.

It was while he was teaching at Mabhobho and later at Lower Mvenyane that his natural talent for writing was first awakened. It was a very lonely period in his life. To occupy himself, he turned to writing. Because of the Hlubi-Sotho influences of Matatiele and the Bhaca-Xhosa dialect of Mount Frere, among other things, his Xhosa at the time was imperfect! He confessed to this serious defect in his early writings.

His first manuscript had to be improved drastically by none other than SE Krune Mqhayi, the Xhosa poet laureate and famous writer of the classic, Ityala lamawele.

His first book of poems was Umyezo (I was blessed and honoured to be named Litha Myezo after his greatest works), and was published in 1936. Other pieces included Amavo – a book of essays written in a free, fluid style, artistic and uninhibited in expression. His first novel, Uzagula, was published in 1923. It was followed by Elundini lo Thukela, which is regarded as one of the best historical novels in isiXhosa.

I would be failing Daddy, and perpetuating the injustice that has been visited upon isiXhosa literature in particular, if I do not mention that indigenous languages are fast becoming extinct. We thought that with the dawn of the new democracy, indigenous languages would be promoted as part of redressing the sins of our apartheid past – but the legacy of the past remains the status quo.

The government also failed in honouring the likes of Daddy appropriately when National Orders were conferred for pioneering work in the development and enrichment of indigenous languages. It is time for the student of African languages today to rise up – to promote and develop indigenous languages.

The nomination of a handbag designer as ambassador indicates the sobriety, or lack thereof, with which Trump views SA

Jolobe is an academic and the son of acclaimed Xhosa poet JJR Jolobo