Nkosana Sibuyi

Posted by Nkosana Sibuyi: 23 June 2011

The official launch of the book, The death of our society by Mr Prince Mashele on 08 June 2011 at the University of Pretoria markedly invoked the centrality of reading, thinking, writing, analysis and reflection. The book implores society to appreciate the existence of antagonistic and non-antagonistic ambiguities seventeen years since the ushering in of a democratic aeon. Parallels could be drawn from Professor Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda (alias Zakes Mda) who recently launched his autobiography entitled Sometimes There is a Void. Since nature abhors the existence of nothingness, Mr Mashele has thrown down the gauntlet, assumed the colossal responsibility of shaping the public discourse and did the nation a great service by filling in that void.

The substance and methodological approach of the book has undoubtedly set the cats amongst the pigeons. The tome is a simile for a socio-political commentary reflecting that the ecosystem, orientation and consciousness of the South African society has gone through a hybrid of dynamic and static changes. Owing to the organic input to deepen the national discourse, it would, at worst, be acutely myopic to obviate the significance of the book’s contribution to society.

Owing to the Literary influences derived from the African Writers Series and Eastern Philosophy, the logical and practical question that arises in the national imagination and consciousness is: What are the benefits and pitfalls inherent in this book for a rapidly mutable South Africa and globalised knowledge society?

There is a welter of themes and telling analogies in the book that have been captured and interpreted in a manner that captivated and underpin one’s interests. These includes amongst others, but not limited to political profligacy, dearth of leadership, misuse of the national liberation struggle, proportional representation, heroism, avariciousness, corruption (alias Nigerianisation) nepotism, dependency syndrome, conspicuous consumption, herd mentality, blind loyalty, moral repugnance, societal norms and values, paucity of intellectual and scholarly thought, tribalism, racism, memory, party and state.

A thorough study and understanding of English Literature helps decipher relevance, appropriateness and meaning of the SIFT SEI method in the analysis of any literary work. In essence, SIFT SEI means and stands for Sense, Intention, Feeling, Tone, Style/Symbol, Emotion and Imagery. A critical study and utility of the SIFT SEI method in the context of Mr Mashele’s book reveals that eclecticism, dialectics, self-assurance, antagonism, resentment and ambivalence are some of the literary airhead(s) that define his analysis of the South African society in a given moment.

The SIFT SEI tools of analysis are not only applicable to English literature such as novels, poems, recitations, drama, essays and comprehension tests. It could also be used to examine and analyse political, philosophical and theoretical literature whose intention it is to improve or sully human development.

The book affords the country to engage in dialogue and thus promote open contestation of ideas. In the main, it imposes an obligation not only on those driven by ideas to think critically, critique, formulate positions and articulate the worldviews to transform the ecosystem of the country. To a remarkable degree, Mr Mashele is calling for the radical normalization of the South African polity. The book is a cornerstone of truth saying that stresses the avoidance and prevention of South Africa’s potential gravitation towards an accepted tragedy arising from the attendant socio-political decadence and moral repugnance. One theme which runs like a golden thread throughout this book is to engage in a conversation to change material conditions and circumstances that padlocked humankind to mediocrity. If not handled with the greatest agility, limp-wristed leadership, cupidity and mediocrity will be institutionalized in all spheres of governance.

In many ways, it highlights most poignantly the spinelessness and vulnerability of the South African society whilst at the same time recounting the necessity to shape the history and destiny of the country in the midst of adversity. Linked to the above, half-hearted attempts have been made to change the direction and destination of the bus. Undoubtedly, the country can and must device robust strategies to reconcile the extremes that are devoid of somnambulism.

The book is a metaphor for the decadence of politics, culture, values and norms, including the danger inherent in the manipulation of memory. The South African society has not died. In essence, South Africa has neither been Nigerianised nor transformed into the Croninian Zanufication including the concerns raised by some around the Guptarisation of the country. Without any doubt, all of these occurrences (or labels) are building blocks towards the construction of a society marching confidently towards its abyss and triviality. Professor Njabulo Simakahle Ndebele’s essay, Redefining Relevance from the book, Rediscovery of the Ordinary, argues that “one of the central tasks of an alternative ideology, in this situation, is to provide among other things, new ways of thinking about the future of the country”.

Mr Mashele’s book bears an uncontested testimony that there is no successful revolution that did not have intellect at its centre. It could as well be correctly argued that the intellectual antenna of this book compellingly depicts the past humankind inherited and the construction of the future to be created. The past and the present are interlocked in the future. The Achilles heel of the book is its inability to reflect or depict any shred of literary scholarship and is understandably devoid of literary theory. The book is hermeneutically challenged in that it does not have the savvy to deconstruct ambivalence, novelty of theoretical reflection and historical intertext. That is the major limitation inherent in the book.

Married to the above, Dr Mario vargas Llosa, Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate said “I am convinced that a society without literature or a society in which literature has been relegated-like some hidden vice-to the margins of social and personal life, and transferred into something like a sectarian cult, is a society condemned to become spiritually barbaric and even jeopardise its freedom”.

Owing to his prolific writing on literary criticism and journalism, indomitable spirit of resilience and profound contribution, Dr Llosa was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat.”

With all else being considered, Mr Mashele’s book is without doubt a concrete expression of a simile and representation of the South African society, including those on the underside of power. The death expressed in the book communicates the remaking of South Africa, regeneration of a new paradigm of thinking and the renaissance of who the country was and seeks to become. To borrow or rather paraphrase from Wole Soyinka, the past must address its present. To a significant degree, the tome dialectically analyses society in a multi-faceted manifestations. It is a call to action. Concretely, it is a no mean feat. The book calls upon those who are driven my ideas to read, think, analyse, examine, explore, investigate and express worldviews intended to construct a humane society.

The book bespeaks not of human physiology. It is an organic expression of human philosophy, development and civilisation. This does not discount the meaningful and active participation of humankind in determining the history and destiny of social change and transformation. It can as well be soul destroying to celebrate the emergence of pedestrian mediocrity whose pre-occupation is impervious to the dynamism of change in a rapidly changing socio-political environment. Such lethargy and ignorance militates against the enquiring minds, innovation, creativity, sense of purpose and direction.

Cass Sunstein’s book, Why Society Needs Dissent calls upon humankind to think, debate, argue and produce a product whose outcome is derived from eclectic and divergent worldviews. The product, born out of this experience would be an upshot that has been subjected to scholarly and critical scrutiny. Such a product would be embraced by all those who played a germane role in its evolution. It is a product worth to be defended by all including those who initially had misgivings about its viability, applicability and appositeness. Without any compunction, it constitutes a compendium of what can and must be done to create a society defined by values, principles and sinews that hold humankind together.

Like Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, Ivor Chipkin’s Do South Africans exits?, Rusty Benstein’s Memory Against Forgetting, Andre Brink’s Before I Forget, Don Mattera’s Memory is the Weapon, Mr Mashele’s book pulls no punches and is happy to perceive society as dialectical.
Given the torrents of criticism leveled against Mr Mashele’s book, it would be helpful to recall that Andrew Offenburger and Stephen Gray accused literary scholar, Professor Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda of duplicity and cribbing or plagiarism in The Heart of Redness. In disputing the charge or allegation, Professor Mda wrote that “when you attain a global stature you also learn that there will be minor writers and shallow scholars who will try to build their reputations by destroying yours”.

Similarly, the personal nature of the guillotine and attacks that the book has had to contend with to date, it makes functional sense to implore Mr Mashele to brush that like seborrheic dermatitis off from the ear and scalp by refusing to stoop to such a low level. To put it briefly and conclusively, Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s counsel on The Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People is instructive: Words and actions should help to unite, and not divide, the people of our various nationalities. To criticize the people's shortcomings is necessary…but in doing so we must truly take the stand of the people and speak out of whole-hearted eagerness to protect and educate them.

Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s guidance on the importance of words and actions is a telling analogy on the centrality of diversity is society. The South African society has not died. A proper reading and analysis of the chapter, Pitfalls of National Consciousness in Franz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, Sembene Ousmane’s God’s Bits of Wood, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Camara Laye’s The African Child, Peter Abraham’s autobiography, Tell Freedom and Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests depict the self-assuredness, hope and beauty of the scope and mastery of the African Experience. Beyond explanation and condemnation, Mr Mashele’s book edges towards a search for new direction for human progress, remaking the world and renewing ourselves.

Without any doubt, this will equip the nation with an understanding to knowing where the truth lies. Amen!