A successful function was held at an Art Gallery, the Spin Street Restaurant, Cape Town, on 28 July 2022 at 5pm. The guest list included family members of Betty Govinden and Ronnie Govender, friends and colleagues from universities in the Western Cape. There was also a large online presence with national and international guests. 

The first part of the function was the award of the English Academy prestigious Gold Medal to Betty Govninded for a lifetime of service to English. The function was directed by Rajendra Chetty, President of the Academy. The award was presented by Sindiwe Magona, Patron of the Academy, and Rosemary Gray, Honorary Life President. Betty's response to the award was poetic and inspiring. 

The second part of the function was the Ronnie Govender Memorial Lecture delivered by Niren Tolsi. A recorded reading of a short story by Ronnie Govender was read by the great South African actor, Pat Pillai. 

REMEMBER TO RE-MEMBER - MEMORY IS A WEAPON

 

She trudges on narrow footpaths to school[1]

invisible young [wo]man

but with   teachers

who inspire that the sky is limitless

 

A child of the dream

She wants the earth and the stars

And the beautiful heavens

She wants to be free

And she wants the possibilities

That freedom brings…

She does not want to be defined

She does not want to be limited

She does not want to beg for 

her humanity^[2]….

 

She is shunted   to The Island^[3]

a discarded military barracks

where the sky is overcast

the stars distant

 

This at the time of “The Dark Years”^[4] on that other Island

Seagulls over the lime quarries

Country of my Skull^[5]

When there are No More Lullabies^[6]

 

She listens on the steamboat

to   the Heart of Darkness[7]

The Horror the Horror

Forever haunted   in the fallow years that follow

 Consuming the years of plenty

 

She slowly learns to    breathe Fanon’s prayer

in different ways over times and spaces

Oh my body, make me always a [wo]man who questions^[8]

 

Following the insider outsider warrior woman[9]

she writes of Sisters

In search of “Home” Homing Homecoming

Lives of Grace and Grail 

Writing back to the Beloved Country

 

Sisters

who

REFUSE the longing

for ancestral shores but carry their

homes on their backs

REFUSE

to be tongue-tied

Manacled in grid-iron

Living in the false cocoons

of the oppressors’ lies

 

REFUSE

to mirror back

the grotesque images  

that kraaled body and mind

into allotted spaces

 

who living and writing against the grain

see Freedom’s cause

the Pain of Being

as their identity

who have much to teach us each living day ^[10]

 

She journeys From Freedom to Canefields^[11]

goes in search of her grandmother

crossing the kala pani

living in a state of familiar temporariness ^[12]

permanent sojourner in the land of her adoption

the land she tills toiling for tea for Empire

 

She returns to other Seedtimes^[13]

Planting in the back garden with her father

Where are the green fields where she used to roam

She remembers the tamarind tree in her grandfather’s garden

Allured by the girmit days of a fellow traveller in far-off Fiji^[14]

 

She goes in search of more mothers’ gardens

Sojourner Truth Mary Prince  Eva Krotoa  Saartjie Baartman Monica Wilson  Pandita Ramabai  Miriam Tlali Charlotte Makeke^[15]

And listens more intently to the ancient song-lines

Womanspirit across time and space

Lives of Love and Courage^[16]

rediscovering the ordinary[17]

the daily rounds of heroism

in backyards and across neighbours’ fences

from Katlehong[18] to the Casbah

from the Castle to the Cape Flats

She writes a song for Sarah

A canticle for the many Sarahs across the land

 

Come let us praise our mothers of yesteryear

Mothers valiant in the time of our desolation

Refusing the badge of slavery

Borne by the haunting of ancient oceans

tossed by the winds

Tilling the orchards and vineyards

You sang the Lord’s song in a foreign land

The land of your birth

As you struggled to live a difference

that has no name 

and too many names^[19]

 

Mothers in lamentation

weeping for your Absaloms^[20]

bereft at street corners

searching for dreams elusive

in the land that denied its own offspring

Living, loving, lying awake, longing,^[21]

You kept alive  heart and hearth 

waiting for your prodigals

wandering in search of tomorrow

and tomorrow

and tomorrow

Come let us praise our Mothers

who carried us on their backs

as they stooped at the rivers of blood

Mothers who sang hymns

the freedom songs of our ancestors

Sacred Songs and Solos^[22]

Hymns of solace for believers

From the Valley of Mercy

To the limestone mountain plains

You never lost faith

In the wilderness of our long sojourn

You did not eat the bread of idleness

you gathered fynbos and lavender

during the time of famine

strength and dignity were your clothing

You opened your mouth with wisdom

and the teaching of kindness

was on your tongue

Now that the winter is past

The voice of the turtledove is heard in the land

And the vineyards are in blossom

Your face no longer graces our table

But your spirit lives on

In the children who sing your praises at the gates

And in the wind that blows over the motherland^[23]

Kindred womanspirits have come to take you  home,

Where the ancient mountains shout out your name^[24]

You must be born again she hears

And she is born again

And again

Innumerable times

With water and with fire

From the haunting of the Heart of Darkness

Of her earlier years

She journeys to the forest

ventures into the deep

And enters the Heart of Redness[25]

Learning to live in the past in the present

 

At once belonging and not belonging

Led by the  stars across the Southern sky

writ large with criss-crossings of Negritude and Coolitude ^[26]

on the waters below

forever dispersed buffeted

Scattered in the gales of continents

In the currents of colonies^[27]

She refuses to corral the coral  imaginary

In a perpetual voyage in and voyage out

the incessant need to belong 

to belong to the nation

to Return to her Native Land^[28] 

a home so deeply riven so precarious 

time of the dark Firebird^[29]

Time of the Butcherbird^[30] 

and to re-create a single planetary home                              

and to live the bond of the Blood Knot[31] ….

*****

The Programme Facilitator, Prof Rajendra Chetty, Family and Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen,  I am deeply honoured  to receive the Gold Medal Award from the  English Academy of Southern Africa. Thank you to the Academy family - Prof Rajendra Chetty, The President; Prof Rosemary Gray, The Honorary Secretary; and all the members of Council. I have been greatly enriched through my sharing in the life of the Academy.

Thank You to the past Academy presidents, with whom I have worked closely – Prof Mbongeni  Malaba, from UKZN; the late Professors Colin Gardner [from the University of Natal, and UKZN]  and  Stanley Ridge [from UWC].

I must acknowledge the wonderful support the English Academy has enjoyed in KwaZulu-Natal - support from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the Durban University of Technology, the Consulates of India and the United States in Durban, Maritzburg College; and more broadly,  from  the 1860 Heritage Centre,  the Durban Municipality, and the Minara Chamber of Commerce. Among some of the Academy highlights have been commemorations of Shakespeare, Tagore, Professor Margaret Lenta, Lewis Nkosi, and Aziz Hassim; and Teachers’ Conferences at Maritzburg College.

I am deeply grateful to all those who are here tonight, and those who are joining in virtually. You have all, in different ways, journeyed with me, and it is something that I greatly value.  A special Thank You to Mr Thayalan Reddy, and Dolly Reddy, for inducting me into the world of the English Academy.

On this occasion, I wish to remember my late husband, Herby, who was always there, at Academy events, and to thank my beloved families for their support  in all I do.  I also thank the Imbongi, Mawande Tshozi, for his dramatic Praise Song, which included my parents and grandparents.

I wish to share this Award with my wonderful grandchildren, Mira and Seth, who are here this evening, and Leah and Adam, who are joining us virtually from Johannesburg. The other day, my grandson, Seth, said at the dinner table: “Mummy, Mummy, I won a prize”! And I was tempted to say,” That’s very good my boy! Now, eat your carrots!”[32] 

I would also like to mention young Aaryan Pillay, who is with us this evening.  And dear Ronnie and Kay Govender’s grandchildren – there are 10 of them - as well as their 5 great-grandchildren.^[33]

YOU are all THE CHILDREN OF THE DREAM, that Ben Okri writes about, and whom I quoted earlier.

And to re-phrase   Oodgeroo Noonuccal, the Aboriginal poet, whom I also quoted earlier:

“Let no one say the future is dead…

The future is all about us and within…

*****

In Conclusion, it is a special privilege to be sharing this occasion with a Memorial to Ronnie Govender. Herby and I were privileged to attend the Academy event at the Playhouse in Durban, when Ronnie Govender was awarded the Gold Medal, in 1999. Over the years, we had attended all his plays in Durban, as well as the many Retrospectives of them, superbly animated by Pat Pillai and Jailoshini Naidoo, among other.

I look forward to Niren Tholsi’s Memorial Lecture; I commend him for his astute and critical writings on Ronnie Govender in the Mail and Guardian. We also appreciate the scholarly work that Professor Rajendra Chetty himself has done on Ronnie Govender over the years. Special Thanks to him, UWC, and the English Academy, for all the planning for this very special event here, at this most beautiful Venue.

*****

Ronnie Govender was one of those writers who trusted his INTUITION,[34] which guided his sense of justice, in its different manifestations; and we celebrate that this evening.

Ronnie Govender taught us to REMEMBER …TO RE-MEMBER.

He taught us that MEMORY IS A WEAPON.

[DON MATTERA,[35] who, sadly died two weeks ago, taught us this in word and in deed.]

So I have chosen to conclude with words that speak to me personally, against the sediments of my own history and circumstance. They also reflect the mission of  Ronnie Govender, who urged us - against the persistent onslaught of apartheid and colonial denials of SELF - that your encounter with your submerged self, your submerged world, is deeply SACRAMENTAL.

This is the other meaning of living AT THE EDGE…[36] when the periphery becomes the Centre. This is a return to the Self, at a personal level, as much as a return to communal configurations we are challenged to constantly create and re-create…

This is also the RETURN that Lebogang Mashile passionately writes about..

“after they have…

Broken the seam of your sanity

And glued what’s left together with lies…”[37]

 

The moving lines are from  Derek Walcott, the West Indian poet and playwright and Nobel Literature Winner [1992]:

 

LOVE AFTER LOVE

“The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own front door,

in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s

welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who

was your self…

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

 

all  your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

The photographs, the desperate notes,

Peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.” [38]

 

This is a RETURN TO THE SELF

From the ZONE OF NON-BEING[39]

 

THIS IS THE SONG OF THE SOUL

THIS IS THE SONG OF THE ATMAN[40]…

 

………….

Thank You

---

[1] Attended schools in Kearsney and Stanger, Natal.

[2] Ben Okri. Children of the Dream, 2003.

[3] University College for Indians, Salisbury Island, Durban.

[4] Mandela refers to his Robben Island years [1963- 1990] as his “the dark years”…in his autobiography,  Long Walk To Freedom,  1994. Boston: Massachusetts: Little Brown and Company.

[5] Antjie Krog. Country of My Skull. Random House: South Africa. 

[6] Mafika Pascal Gwala. 1982/1998.  No More Lullabies. Ravan Press: Randburg:Johannesburg. 

[7] Joseph Conrad’s novella [1899], prescribed for study at Salisbury Island.

[8] In   Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press, 2008 [1952].

[9] The title, Sister Outsiders, is from Audre Lorde, African-American womanist, and civil rights activist, who addressed injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. Lorde’s Sister Outsider was published in 1984.

[10] Written and presented at The Time of The Writer, UKZN,  when Sister Outsiders  was awarded the UNISA Press  Hiddingh-Currie Award for  Best Academic Book  in  2010.

[11] Adapted from the title of Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie’s From Canefields to Freedom – a Chronicle of Indian South African Life. 2000.  Johannesburg:Kwela Books. 

[12] These references are from VS Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas, published in 1961. UK:Andre Deutsch.

[13] Title of Omar Badsha’s book, Seedtimes,  from  Mafika Gwala’s book, No More Lullabies.  1982.                                                                                                                                                                                         [14] See Prof Brij V Lal. 2016. “The Tamarind Tree – Vignettes from a Plantation Frontier in Fiji.” In Fijian Studies: A Journal of Contemporary Fiji 14 [1], 35-50.

[15] I have published chapters on several of the women on this list. My Master’s study [1995]  was on Miriam Tlali.

[16] From the title of Pregs Govender’s memoir, published in 2007. Johanesburg:Jacana Media. 

[17] See  Njabulo Ndebele. 1991. The Rediscovery  of the Ordinary: Some New Writings in South Africa.  Scottsville: UKZN Press.

[18] See Jacob Dlamini’s Native Nostalgia. 2009.  Johannesburg:Jacana Media.

[19] In Trinh T. Minh’ha. When the Moon waxes Red –Representation, Gender and Cultural Politics.Routledge :New York.

[20] Biblical allusion [to Solomon in the Bible]; see, also, my poem on Phyllis Naidoo, whose son, Sadhan, was assassinated in Zambia in exile.

[21] See Magona, Sindiwe. 1991. Living loving and Lying Awake at Night. Interlink Books:New York .[Short stories on women’s experiences in South Africa.]

[22] Title of the hymn book that Sarah Jansen  used.

[23]Composed for Jonathan D Jansen’s biography  [with Naomi Jansen] of his  mother, Song For Sarah – Lessons from My Mother. 2017. Johannesburg: Bookstorm.  

[24] Line from the poem, “I Have Come To Take You Home”, by Diana Ferrus, written for Saartjie Baartman. 1998. Published in New Black Magazine [2007].    

[25] See Zake Mda. Heart of Redness. 2000. Oxford University Press. Historical fiction, linking past and contemporary challenges in South Africa.

[26] See my paper, “Two Oceans Marathon – Women from the South.” 2019. In Agenda – Empowering Women for Gender Equality. Vol 33, No 3, pp. 34-41. The paper narrates the story of my Grandmother,  and of Grada Kilomba, whose ancestral roots are in Angola, and São Tomé and Principe, off the coast of Equatorial Guinea; and the paper is  set against the background of Slavery and of Indenture. 

[27]  Carter, Marina and Torabully. 2002. Coolitude – An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora. Anthem Press: London, p. 25.

[28] From Aime Cesaire. 1939/1969. Notebook of A Return to my Native Land. Presence Africaine.

[29] Firebird was choreographed by Jay Pather, and is based on Igor Stravinky’s  ballet in a contemporary South African setting, with a powerful rendering of the challenges in the new democracy.

[30] Time of the Butcherbird is a novel by Alex la Guma. Heinemann Educational. 1979. The novel  looks at the question of dispossession in South Africa.

[31] Title of Athol Fugard’s iconic play, published in 1961; it depicts the struggle to find one another, across apartheid barricades.

[32]  See  JM Coetzee,  Nobel in Literature  Speech, 2003.

[33] Ronnie and Kay Govender’s  children are  Dhaya,   Pregs,  Pat  and Samantha. 

[34] VS Naipaul speaks of trusting his intuition, as a writer. See his Nobel Lecture [2001].

[35]Don Mattera is a South African poet and author. He wrote Memory is a Weapon, a story of Sophiatown, in 1987. This is a personal story, as much as a communal story - similar to Ronnie Govender’s At The Edge: Stories of  Cato Manor - of displacement [set in the mid-50’s].

[36] See Ronnie Govender’s At the Edge and other Cato Manor Stories. Originally published in 1996.

[37] See her poem, “Tell Your Story”. In In a Ribbon of Rhythm. 2005. Florida, US:Oshun Books.

[38] See Derek Walcott, Collected Poems 1948-1984.

[39] From Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. 1952/2008. New York: Grove Books

[40] See Ronnie Govender’s, Song of the Atman, published in 2006. Johannesburg:Jacana Media.