February 5, 2006
By Sandile Ngidi
The heated dispute between the Zulu writer Benedict Wallet Vilakazi ("BW") and Herbert IE Dhlomo, the Zulu dramatist, remains instructive. On the 100th anniversary of Vilakazi's birth, South Africa continues to grapple with the role and place of indigenous language in the wide rainbow canvas called South African literature.
From June 1938 to July 1938, a dispute took place in the pages of the journals Bantu Studies and The South African Outlook.
Vilakazi was the first African in the country to receive the degree of doctor of literature, and, in 1935, the first black academic to be appointed Bantu languages assistant at the University of the Witwatersrand. Dhlomo was the first black editor of Ilanga laseNatal and also a formidable dramatist.
An issue much debated at the time was the zealous use of rhyme in Zulu poetry, and this was tackled in Vilakazi's MA thesis submitted to the University of the Witwatersrand in 1938, years after he had published his poetry in Ilanga laseNatal and the Native Teachers Journal.
Vilakazi's concern was that there was "a feeling among European critics that Zulu can achieve only a limited success with rhyming, since most of the words in Zulu end in unstressed vowels, and thus do not permit the variety of sound that makes successful rhyming possible".
Dhlomo labelled rhyme a "cold tyrant" and dismissed Vilakazi's poetic scheme as "rigidâ inflexible and crippling". But he also said "one may almost say that the greatest gift of Africa to the artistic world will be and has been rhythm".
Dhlomo was himself wrestling with the poetics of his intellectual project as a dramatist. David Attwell, chair of modern literature in the department of English and related literature at Britain's University of York, said he was attempting to develop "literary drama". As the tone of the dispute turned ugly, Vilakazi disregarded Dhlomo's historical dramas for using English as their medium.
"By Bantu drama, I mean a drama written by a Bantu, for the Bantu, in a Bantu language. I do not class English or Afrikaans dramas on Bantu themes, whether or not these are written by Black people, as contributions to Bantu literature. I have an unshaken belief in the possibilities of Bantu languages and their literature, provided the Bantu writers themselves can learn to love their languages and use them as vehicles for thought, feeling and will."
It is the complexity of the question posed and the vehemence of the response that has made the Dhlomo/Vilakazi debate a legendary event in South African intellectual history, says Ntongela Masilela, the United States-based South African literary scholar.
In 1997, Professor Bhekizizwe Peterson, of Wits university's African literature department, succinctly described the Dhlomo/Vilakazi row as the "poetics of the crossroads". In his 2005 book, Rewriting Modernity, Attwell says this episode was "about where one's loyalties lay in the struggle for racial and national affirmation".
With Vilakazi entering the proverbial hut of Zulu literature, this marked the beginning of the end of Zulu literature written by missionaries and a few native speakers, such as Magema Fuze and William Ngidi, who wrote primarily to teach the Gospel. His was an ambitious literary project that sought to present a black person's perspective on South African society and hit hard at the appalling working conditions of black miners in Johannesburg.
In 1998, Oracle, a publication of the Université de La Réunion, writer Njabulo Ndebele was quoted as citing Vilakazi as one of the writers who had inspired him to write poetry. "This demonstrates very clearly that had the Zulu language been stronger than English as a language of education, of conversation on the school premises, of law and commerce, I would have most probably continued to write in Zulu without being aware of making a choice."
The centenary year of Vilakazi's birth is also about commemorating the literary legacy of a pioneering figure in Zulu and African literature, says author Professor Deuteronomy Bhekinkosi Ntuli.
"His outstanding contribution was in the sphere of poetry. His collection Inkondlo kaZulu has been recognised as a classic in this category."
The main event on October 7 will be held in Groutville, near kwaDukuza in KwaZulu-Natal, where the father of Zulu literature was born on January 1 1906. The event is being organised by the Usiba Writers' Guild, the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Language Services, the IsiZulu National Language Body, members of Vilakazi's family and the Dukuza district municipality.
As per his request in his poem, Ngimbeleni, Vilakazi is buried at the Mariannhill cemetery, "where the grasses grow/ below the weeping willow trees." He died on October 24 1947.
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