Knotted memories of a betrayed sacrifice: Rethinking trauma and hope in South Africa

Different groups within South African society express disillusionment with the present through a discourse of betrayal in relation to the liberation movement-cum-governing-party of the African National Congress. This article focuses on a particular articulation of this discourse within two memory communities in the Western Cape (Bonteheuwel and Crossroads) who were embroiled in violence and political struggle during apartheid and continue to suffer conditions of structural violence in the post-apartheid era. It analyses the shared memory narrative of a ‘betrayed sacrifice’ to demonstrate a proposed theoretical concept of ‘knotted memories’ which describes the way in which past and present memories of suffering knot together to produce a lived affective condition of despair. It further considers what these everyday experiences of ‘knotted memories’ mean for re-thinking the nature of trauma and hope in relation to post-apartheid despair.

A Stylistic Analysis of Ṣeun Ògúnfìdítìmí’s Songs

Ṣeun Ògúnfìdítìmí is a traditional Yorùbá artiste of Oǹdó extraction. She is a promising and prosperous female artiste, who explores the richness of African values in creating her lyrics. Her songs are rendered in Oǹdó dialect. Oǹdó, a dialect spoken by the Oǹdó people of Southwestern Nigeria, is a dialect of the Yorùbá language. There have been multiple studies on traditional African songs. Such studies have engaged traditional African songs mostly from the non-linguistic perspectives. Such studies have investigated the historical and philosophical values of Yorùbá songs. Studies on songs rendered in dialects of Yorùbá language are very scanty. Dearth of studies in this regard has prevented the propagation and documentation of dialects of Yorùbá language. This study examines the discourse stylistic import of the sociocultural values in Seun Ògúnfìdítìmí’s songs with the view to describing how contextual issues are negotiated in her songs. Recorded songs of Ògúnfìdítìmí constitute the data for the study. The audio compact discs of her songs were collected and played repeatedly. The songs were transcribed and translated into the English language. The translation process took the form of one-to[1]one translation in order to avoid distortion of meaning. The artiste resorts to the use of discourse analytical tools in creating her lyrics. The songs reflect political, social, cultural and religious ideals of the Yorùbá traditional African society. The contextual issues expressed in the songs include the importance attached to the child as success indicator, the significance of marriage, love, conspiracy and the place of detractors, corruption and embezzlement, 184 Temidayo Akinrinlola supremacy of God, social degeneration, gender inequality and the cyclical nature of life. Ṣeun Ògúnfìdítìmí is an advocate of social and cultural revival of traditional African values.

Thematizing Marriage in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple hibiscus: The Dynamics of Modern African Marriage Relationship

The task of this paper is to highlight some of the marriage relationship tendencies that have changed in the modern African Marriage, in relation to the traditional norms, as manifest in two texts of two African Feminist writers. The study thus examines how Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes and Chimamanda N. Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus explore the marriage institution in Africa and unearth the changing dynamics in it, as it pertains to the modern or post-modern African society. The study concluded that though the dignity of marriage coupled with its necessity as a social institution is unquestionably maintained in our focused African texts, its dynamics, in modern society, must yield to positive change, at least, to reflect the emerging socio-economic trends in African society today.

Otherness in Buchi Emecheta’s Second-Class Citizen: A Postcolonial Rendering

In postcolonial discourse, the concept of the “Other” represents someone who carries dark human traits such as stigmatization, subjugation, domination, socio-political or cultural misrepresentation. The “Other” represents one of the main postcolonial concepts in literary studies because there is indisputable evidence that the term is a colonial construct. In essence, colonialism has left a permanent mark in the minds of the colonized people and this imprint has significantly manifested in literature. This analysis, thus, aims to explore how the colonial “Other” is represented in Second-Class Citizen (1974), one of the prominent postcolonial novels written by Buchi Emecheta, an author from the colonized African society. This study adopts textual analysis in which context-oriented technique is used to understand the character traits of the colonial “Other” in the two selected texts. The analysis draws upon Postcolonial theory, particularly Edward Said’s Orientalist approach. We show that Emecheta represents the colonial “Other” as backward, inferior, and of lower social class. Also, this representation is based on economic and socio-cultural differences as well as conflictual relationships between African indigenous people and British citizens.

Influence of Women in Leadership in the African Society: A Case of Women Characters in Selected Kiswahili Plays.

Research suggests that women in leadership positions pose different and extra challenges as compared to their male counterparts. Yet, the number of women leaders has grown but they are still a small group that is appreciated. This has made the list of their numbers be still relatively low. Leadership studies have focused on the upbringing and traits of a leader, decision making, psychology of leaders, and so on but less work has been devoted on the influence of women in leadership in the African society as portrayed in written literature. Literature is the greatest asset in any society this century. There is a rich literature base on women in leadership. Surprisingly little research has been devoted to their portfolio influence. Due to this insufficient attention, this study has built profiles of four selected women leaders in Kiswahili plays. It has paid attention to the uniqueness of women leaders and analysed their role and how they are challenged as officeholders on account of their sex. The theory of feminism- a look at the African society was used to help achieve its main tenets like gender equality, gender issues, characterisation based on traits, and thematic focus on plays was used to study this objective. The purposive sampling design was relevant because it proved to provide reliable data for the study by homogeneously analysing written Kiswahili plays. The literature texts used contained few relevant cases where in-depth analysis related to the central issue was studied. The study concluded that women leaders have a great role and have made great strides in leadership, especially in changing the negative perception the continent has on them, that they cannot lead while men exist.

OKONKWO TO ODILI: READING CHINUA ACHEBE’S HEROES POSTCOLONIALLY

The paper examines the situations and actions of Chinua Achebe’s four heroes, who stand as the epitomes of struggle in their society: Okonkwo, Ezeulu, Obi, and Odili from the first four novels of the author— Things Fall Apart (1958), Arrow of God (1964), No Longer at Ease (1960), and A Man of the People (1966). These heroes foreground the struggles of their clan people that are brought by the colonizer and the Nigerian ‘corrupt’ rulers in postcolonial time. This paper aims at applying six postcolonial theoretical approaches: Otherness, Ambivalence, Mimicry, Hybridity, Decolonization and Neocolonialism to analyse the time and tasks of the four heroes comparatively. Through the lens of ‘Otherness’, this study throws light on Okonkwo, who becomes an ‘Other’ in his clan because of colonial interventions. The paper examines Ezeulu’s role as an ambivalent protagonist along with his tragic ending. This study analyses critically the Mimicry and Hybridity exhibited by the third hero, Obi. Moreover, this paper shows the action of Odili as a decolonized intellectual who struggles against corruption in postcolonial African society. This study endeavours to explore how Achebe represents the perspectives of colonized people as well as the people of the neocolonial age by portraying the story of the four heroes.

Woes of the African Society: A Stylistic Analysis of Parallelism and Semantic Deviation in Philip Obioma Chinedu Umeh's Ambassadors of Poverty

Corruption has been one of the main challenges bedeviling the African society. Most artistic works in the form of writing and craft have dealt extensively with this canker of corruption. The poem ‘Ambassadors of Poverty’ is one of such works that touches on corruption in Africa. The present study seeks to examine the communicative implications underpinning the use of parallelism and semantic deviation in the poem. The study is situated within the linguistic and stylistic categories framework by Leech and Short (2007). The findings of the study identify forms of parallelism (noun phrases, prepositional phrases, simple and complex sentences) as well as forms of semantic deviation (metaphor, personification, irony, sarcasm, paradox, oxymoron and symbolism). The findings further unveil a preponderant use of varied shades of parallel structures to juxtapose the impoverished state of the ordinary African with the corrupt and luxurious lifestyle of African leaders while forms of semantic deviation are used to encode the unpatriotic attitudes of African leaders in figurative terms. The study concludes that literary works such as poems are potent instruments that are subtly used to expose and condemn the ills of society. The study has implications for research, theory and practice.

Unmasking the enduring legacies of apartheid in South Africa through Phaswane Mpe’s Welcome to Our Hillbrow

Prior to the dispensation of democracy in South Africa, the country was presided by a system of apartheid that perpetuated colonial policies that discriminated against non-white (South) Africans. Nevertheless, the democratic jurisdiction dethroned and succeeded the apartheid regime in 1994. This galvanised South Africa to undergo a political transition from segregation (autocracy) to peace, equality and unity (democracy). The political emancipation engineered a shift of identity and also made a clarion call for South Africans to subscribe to a democratic identity branded by oneness and harmony. However, as South Africa sought to redress herself, it unearthed appalling remnants of the apartheid past. Twenty-seven years since democracy took reigns in South Africa, the country is still haunted by the horrors of the past. It is the apartheid government that has bred hegemonic delinquencies that encumber the South African society from extricating herself from discriminatory identities such as racial tension, division, inequality and socio-economic crises. This qualitative study sought to scrutinise the vestiges of apartheid in South Africa. It has hinged on the literary appreciation of Phaswane Mpe’s Welcome to Our Hillbrow, which reflects on the menace that the enduring legacies of apartheid pose to livelihoods in the democratic period. Mpe’s post-apartheid novel is chosen for this study by virtue of its exposure and protest against apartheid influence in the newly reconstructed democratic South African society. Scholarly attention has been satisfactorily paid to the implementation of socio-economic transformation in the country, however, there seems to be an inadequate scholarship to explore the pretexts or the genesis of socio-economic transformation setbacks, which this study aims to unmask.

The Relevance of Theology and Legal policy in South African society in connection with violence against women

The theological question raised in this article violence against women theologically, drawing and incorporating the South African government’s response to it in terms of legislation and policing strategies and the need for greater participation of communities to combat gender-related crimes. The caretaker approach of the church as the custodian of the Hebrew Bible was also highlighted. Even though a church-based care approach may be limited, it still has the potential to support the efforts of law-enforcement agencies. When women in communities do not feel safe and fear violence at the hands of men, they are forced to resort to the state to provide protection. Crime, including crime against women, draws on insecurities about the level of safety and well-being in communities. It cannot be prevented or eliminated by the police alone but by the concerted collaboration of the private sector, NGOs, faith-based organisations such as churches and the community itself.