Affirmation of Unhu as Reflected in Selected Manyika Proverbs

Unhu/ubuntu is one of the important mainstays of black communities in Southern Africa. It emphasizes the connectedness of people and the need for them to work together and sustains families thus ensuring their continued existence. This paper thus argues that the vanhu/abantu (people) of the sub-region have employed proverbs among other ways to ensure that unhu keeps people going even when faced with daunting challenges. It asserts that through the use of some of these aspects of living heritage in the form of expressions like proverbs, unhu has been, and continues to be affirmed. Through an analysis of some proverbs of the Manyika, especially those of the Tangwena people on the border with Mozambique, by employing the speech act theory, this paper discusses how through proverbial lore the Manyika have buttressed and affirmed unhu in their communities, primarily among their children. The paper concludes by emphasizing that such gems of intangible cultural heritage need to be vigorously preserved, promoted and safeguarded through various means that include radio and online interactive platforms.

Not Yet Uhuru: Aspects of Social Realism in Vonani Bila’s Selected Poetry

This article analyses Vonani Bila’s selected poetry for its ability to produce an ‘air of reality’. The central argument of the article is that Bila embraces an aesthetic of realism, which essentially values unsparing, accurate and sordid representations of the psychological, social and material realities of postcolonial (and democratic) South Africa. Undergirded by the Marxist theory of Social Realism, the qualitative approach and descriptive design, this article purposively selected ten poems from some of the anthologies in which Bila published his poetry, namely; Magicstan Fires, Handsome Jita and Sweep of the Violin. Bila’s poetry can best be situated within the historical contexts that shape his texts, namely; the apartheid era, ideas about capitalism in newly democratic South Africa, the emergence of a vibrant immigrant community in South Africa and idealised notions of achieving equality and prosperity through education in South Africa. This article is mainly a critical analysis, and not a historical account of the apartheid era and democratic dispensation of South Africa. In the analysis, it was noted that Bila’s poetry generally manifests the literary categories of social and psychological realism, respectively. As a social realist, Bila explores the problems of economic inequality and captures the experience of both rural and urban life in a post- and neo-colonial context of South Africa. As a psychological realist, on the other extreme, Bila is concerned with delving beneath the surface of social life to probe the complex motivations and (un)conscious desires that shape his literary personae’s perceptions. The article concludes with the notion that, in his commitment to document the realities of everyday life in South Africa, both at social and psychological dimensions, Bila offers a penetrating insight into the repression, alienation, marginalisation, instabilities, and inequalities that structure post- and neo-colonial South Africa.

Empathy, Negrophobia and Rape in Zukiswa Wanner’s London Cape Town Joburg

This paper reflects upon two (un)related spectacular phenomena in South Africa: rape and black racism using Zukiswa Wanner’ London Cape Town Joburg (2014). It examines how the text uses irony to turn postapartheid optimism on its head, while refusing to uncritically borrow and use apartheid language of manufacturing difference. In addition, it makes connections between rape, intimacy and empathy in the contexts of sexual violence by examining the role of tactical empathy during the episodes of rape in the text. It concludes by suggesting that although empathy is an emotion for social good and transformation, it maybe co-opted and used to perpetuate uncanny/predatory masculinities and sexual violence on people perceived to be less privileged, weak and/or ‘deviant’. In addition, this work proffers that foregrounding vaginal discourses on discussions about rape in South Africa render other forms of sexual violence – male and anal rape – invisible/unthinkable.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Right of Access to Information Conundrums in Zimbabwe

The end of year 2019 saw the outbreak of a global pandemic, COVID-19 which is caused by the deadly and novel coronavirus. Zimbabwe was second in Southern Africa to declare a national lockdown and adopted measures such as surveillance, testing and contact tracing to fight and contain the virus. Efforts to fight and contain the pandemic globally led to intensified efforts of information dissemination in various languages and forms of communication. Against this background, this article examines the right of access to information conundrums during the COVID-19 pandemic with particular reference to ethnic minority language speakers, the visually impaired, the Deaf and hard of hearing in Zimbabwe. Data from document analysis of the statutory instruments regulating access to information, language rights and the right to healthcare, observations of the actual practice in as far as information dissemination on the pandemic was concerned and semi-structured interviews with purposively sampled participants showed that in Zimbabwe, the right of access to critical information on the pandemic was not evenly enjoyed, a problem which had a bearing on the right to healthcare and language rights. Some sections of the Zimbabwean society, especially ethnic minority language speakers and persons with disabilities endured information blackouts due to lack of access to information on the pandemic in the languages that they understand and in forms of communication suitable for persons with disabilities. These findings point to the dire need of an explicit information dissemination language policy which takes into account the language preferences of the people affected by governmental communication or measures.

Rumour – and (Dis)-Unities of Blackness: A Reading of Globalization in Mia Couto’s The Last Flight of the Flamingo

This article examines how Mia Couto uses representations of rumour in his novel The Last Flight of the Flamingo (2004) as a literary medium for interrogating detachment and/ or attachment of the cultural object/ subject of blackness to modern institutions of Africa and the West through the idea of globalization. The article uses the qualitative research methodology for interrogating the efficacy of the representations of rumour in portraying the idea of globalisation. Through textual analysis, the article examines how the author uses the detached large male sexual organ, discovered outside Tizangara, an imagined remote Mozambican town, to encapsulate the rumour about the cases of some missing United Nations peacekeeping soldiers to the fictionalized idea of globalisation. The United Nations’ commissioned inquiry on the missing soldiers precipitates a parading of the local, national and the international delegation around the severed male sexual organ.

Subversion of Cultural Disparities against African Women: a Feminist critical analysis of Malatji’s short fiction

It is axiomatic that African women have been compromised by patriarchy for centuries, with culture used as a subterfuge. This paper, therefore, strives to subvert existing cultural adversities meted out against African women for African development. These unsavoury patriarchal tendencies are used to subjugate women by stifling their potential to make a meaningful contribution to Africa’s growth. The paper is, furthermore, based on a critical analysis of the dilemmas of women in Malatji’s short fiction from her text Love Interrupted (2012). It is underscored by African Feminism which is a transformative theory that seeks to popularise the emancipation of women from socio-cultural deprivation. directed by the qualitative research approach. Purposive sampling was employed to select the short stories from other short stories by the same author, and textually analyse them. The paper recommends that for Africa to flourish, she should empower women for equal participation in socio-cultural engagements.

Editorial: COVID-19 Chaos and Complexity in Universities

When the devastating COVID-19 pandemic struck the world, universities had to pragmatically deal with change and adaptation in order to survive. Up to now, our universities are still adapting to the change in every respect because of the pandemic which is still amongst us. We have witnessed remarkable ways in which students, staff and stakeholders have adapted to the complexities brought by the pandemic. It has been established that in organisations, there is a strong relationship between evolution, adaptation and survival. Keith Morrison in the ‘School Leadership and Complexity Theory’ discussion (2002) suggests ‘Complexity to be a theory of change and adaptation detailing how change occurs in systems as well as the principles and mindsets needed to flourish in turbulent environments’ that has not changed since 2002. Morrison’s theory is applicable to the situations our higher education institutions are in, especially now during the troubled time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Postcolonial Identities in Dinaw Mengestu’s Literary Chronotope

The critical discussion in this article is on postcolonial identities and it centres on Dinaw Mengestu's novels Children of the Revolution and All Our Names. It is contended that the term postcolonial identities is taken to mean the awareness of the subaltern as they try to negotiate who they are within the chronotopic hybridized African space in the postcolonial context. In the epigraph above, Gayatri Spivak describes the culturally oppressed, the subaltern, as having neither antiquity nor ability for speech due to the milieu of colonial production in which they operate. Important for the study, history and speech happen in time-space. Therefore, the identities of the subaltern, which Spivak associates to history and speech, come into being in the novel through fusion of time-space indicators. Cued by Spivak’s unique assertion, how Mengestu’s Children of the Revolution and All Our Names address themselves to postcolonial identities through fusion of time-space indicators is the central concern of this paper.

Heroes and Heroines in Zimbabwean Fiction

This paper was developed from a talk that I gave on heroes and heroines in Zimbabwean fiction at the now defunct Book Café in Harare, Zimbabwe. By the time they invited me, my hosts had already come up with a clearly demarcated guideline of who heroes and heroines are, and connected these heroes and heroines to what they called 'revered' values of 'our' society. My response was not to follow that template, but to create a separate deconstructionist taxonomy that questioned such an assumption. This deconstructionist adventure was based on the belief that heroes/heroines are not the same for everyone, especially in a post-independence Zimbabwean society characterised by conditions that are far removed from the promises of independence. Thus, in a country whose independence has been postponed because of various factors, including a leadership whose form of governance involves violence against its citizens in the name of protecting them, a monolithic view of heroes/heroines and revered values needs to be interrogated. Zimbabwean literature offers an inventory that refuses to pander to my hosts' template, and it is this inventory that I used to question the assumption that Zimbabwe was one, huge, happy and united national family because based on its many literary texts, what we have is a dystopian family still trying to find its way and define its heroes/heroines.

Intra-Gender Complicity and the Objectification of Woman in Djebar’s A Sister to Scheherazade

This paper considers the inhuman treatment women mete to fellow women using the character representation in A Sister to Scheherazade. It attempts to establish that women contribute greatly to their own oppression in the society by critically analyzing the actions of women characters in the narration. S. L. Barky's explication on the idea of objectification is employed to explain the relationship between female characters in the primary text and to establish the spur of oppression in the text, and by implication, identify the oppressors; whereas Patricia H. Collins's concept of binary thinking is used to describe the intentions of the identified oppressors. The analysis of the primary text reveals various needs of the major characters and how they attempt to achieve such needs of theirs by giving up the protagonist. It reveals further that the deeds of the major female characters in the primary text are the reasons the protagonist suffers. The paper, therefore, concludes that as in the case of the protagonist in the text, the objectified is not only used as a means to an end but is a victim of collective and intra-gender oppression.