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Terwille van die Afrikaanse letterkunde, spraakvryheid en taalregte
Let Andile Mngxitama speak his mind
MEDIA RELEASE BY PRETORIA PEN, RE ANDILE MNGXITAMA’S COMMENTS ON MAIL & GUARDIAN COLUMNIST JARED SACKS
PRETORIA PEN supports freedom of speech and expression and therefore sees nothing wrong with Andile Mngxitama’s castigation of Jared Sacks, including a threat to beat him up.
The following is the problematic phrase from Mngxitama’s Facebook page which has triggered the current polemic in the media: “I believe if there are any real bikoists out there, whenever we see that white little bastard called jared sacks we must beat the shit out of him.”
This phrase must be seen in context. First of all, Mngxitama is known for his polemical and sometimes controversial statements. He writes a column in the Mail & Guardian and has written regularly for City Press and The Sowetan, putting forward so-called “black consciousness” views. Many editors, organisers of conferences and so on, solicit Mngxitama’s views, knowing that he sometimes comes across as a “radical”.
On the issue of violence, Jared Sacks – against whom Mngxitama is reacting – is not entirely a pacifist either. In his opinion piece published in the Mail & Guardian, he states: “Would the Biko of 1977 have voted for Ramphele in 2013? Not a chance. Biko did not believe in black messiahs or managers in a neocolonial capitalist system. Quite the opposite: he genuinely believed in the black masses and in their ability to lead the revolution and collectively build a wholly new society. The mineworkers, shack-dwellers and farmworkers of this country stand diametrically opposed to everything Ramphele believes in.”
Indirectly, Sacks is also calling for violence in the form of a revolution against the “neocolonial capitalist system” led by the “black masses”. In fact, he is advocating nothing less than some kind of Maoist revolt in the style of the “Cultural Revolution”.
Mngxitama astutely reminds him that he is, in fact, not a member of the black masses. Neither may he, as a white, arrogate unto himself the function of privileged interpreter or exegete of Steve Biko’s black consciousness philosophy.
Within the context, “beating the shit out of him” could also be a metaphor, meaning: “defeating his pseudo-black posturing in an argument about what Steve Biko really said”.
Verashni Pillay, deputy editor of the Mail & Guardian online, admits that “it almost sounds like an invitation to a jolly bout of fisticuffs”, as opposed to Jared Sacks’s rather more sinister clarion call for revolution which, within a multiethnic society like South Africa’s, might spiral into mass violence and even genocide.
Until such time as Andile Mngxitama really assaults Jared Sacks, which is criminally punishable in South Africa, he should be allowed to speak his mind, also on radio where he is apparently being denied the opportunity to respond to his critics.
Issued by: Dr. Dan Roodt, President
PRETORIA PEN is a literary society.
Posted in Mediaverklarings, Nuus | Tagged Andile Mngxitama, Dan Roodt, freedom of speech, Jared Sacks, Pretoria-PEN
South Africa’s chains of the mind (media release)
MEDIA RELEASE BY PRETORIA PEN, FOLLOWING ON WRITER RIANA SCHEEPERS’S PUBLIC COMMENTS
Since 1989 violence in South Africa has almost constantly increased to a level where the country today resembles a war zone. In fact, civilian casualty rates in South Africa are higher than in Afghanistan and many other countries officially at war.
Authors and literary critics too, have not been spared. Pieter Pieterse, Lisbé Smuts-Smith and Louw Rabie, brother of Jan Rabie, were brutally murdered. Last year novelist and script writer Chris Barnard was held hostage and tortured. A week ago the elderly parents of Riana Scheepers were attacked and almost killed, leading her to remark in the Johannesburg daily Beeld: “The country is in a state of moral decay.”
South Africa is the country with the highest incidence of rape in the world, even higher than in war-torn countries. However, after describing an interracial gang rape in his novel Disgrace, Nobel prize winner J.M. Coetzee was accused of racism and many think that criticism by former President Thabo Mbeki contributed to his decision to emigrate to Australia, a safe haven for many South Africans fleeing local violence.
If anything, South Africa today represents a dystopia that in any other country would have led to at least some literary or philosophical reflection. As evidenced by Riana Scheepers’s guilt-ridden protestations that “my mother and father are not two racists living in a white tower” (as if racists deserve the death penalty), authors are petrified of even referring to the factual reality, let alone venturing into the minefield of describing sadistic practices and ethnic torture in books.
Whereas political correctness in other countries may be the subject of jokes and satire, in South Africa it has almost become a religious dogma. Just two weeks ago, the seasoned and respected Afrikaans poet Breyten Breytenbach who spent eight years in prison for plotting the overthrow of the previous (white) government, remarked: “Political correctness all over the world is a disease, multiculturalism is worse than the Black Death of the Middle Ages!”
In a national living out of the Stockholm syndrome, journalists and even ordinary people on Facebook are quick to castigate and vilify anyone who dares to ascribe moral responsibility to the mostly young, Clockwork-Orange-like perpetrators, who are usually seen as the unfortunate victims of poverty and broken homes. Those intrepid novelists, such as Gustav Venter, who have tried to render explicit some of the underlying fears, neuroses and paradoxes around violence that proliferate in our bizarre ex-British colony, have not even been reviewed. They find themselves in a twilight, underground world of electronic samizdat, unseen by critics and pundits.
Breytenbach’s comments on political correctness and multiculturalism, although echoing those of Chancellor Angela Merkel a few years ago, probably also represent a bridge too far. It is quite possible that he will be “uninvited” from the Woordfees and other festivals where authors are censored or even banned from the premises for broaching taboo topics around murder, rape and torture.
South Africa is repeating the totalitarian mental structures of many twentieth-century societies, especially in Eastern Europe. In imagining itself as an ideal society, a multicultural democracy after the American model, it is refusing to acknowledge its own, increasingly dark side. It punishes or censors those who dare to speak out or depict in their works the often innocent victims of social, criminal and political violence.
Whereas the gulag of Solzhenitsyn was physical and – although hidden – visible enough to be eventually exposed in broad daylight, our chains are those of the mind. In the kind of “Western masochism” described by French “new philosopher” and novelist Pascal Bruckner, we engage in endless self-flagellation and guilty rituals, instead of being open to the new and often ugly reality we see all around us.
Not only the violence and dehumanisation, but also the venality, the ostentation and spendthrift ways of the South African elite, are phenomena betraying the amoral values of our society.
Who will dare to portray South Africa’s agony and decadence, at the risk of the cliché: publish and be damned?
Issued by: Dr. Dan Roodt, President
PRETORIA PEN is a literary society.
Posted in Mediaverklarings, Nuus | Tagged Breyten Breytenbach, Jan Rabie, Lisbé Smuts-Smith, Louw Rabie, media release, political correctness, Pretoria-PEN, Riana Scheepers, violence
Pretoria PEN and the new occult censorship
I belong to a writer’s organisation called Pretoria PEN which has been affiliated for the past six years to PEN International, a world-wide network of authors and journalists. Some of the people who have been presidents of PEN chapters or “centres” as they are called, have been famous writers such as Günter Grass, Václav Havel, Salman Rushdie and others.
However, since October last year I have been embroiled in an increasingly ugly procedural and quasi-political wrangle with a group of Cape authors who have hijacked Pretoria PEN. Yes, I know, lots of people in South Africa get hijacked all the time, usually facing an AK-47-wielding hijacker demanding their motor vehicle. Many also get killed or wounded in the process. Sometimes the hijackers kill their victims just for sport.
So immediately, as is our wont, I can hear a chorus of voices piping in: “Regard yourself as lucky. You are still alive!” That’s normally what people say to a hijack victim who has merely lost his car or pick-up truck. Or to a rape victim. Present-day South Africa is, after all, famous for all the wrong things, being the so-called “rape capital” of the world. We are also way up there with Colombia and a few others in the murder stakes. If only our rugby and cricket teams could maintain the same consistent standards as our murderers, we would have won the last few rugby matches against the All Blacks of New Zealand.
The three Cape authors who hijacked or tried to hijack our literary society are Fanie Olivier, John Miles and Piet Haasbroek. Strictly speaking, Olivier is a poet and not from the Cape either, as he commutes between Poznań and Durban. Poznań, as you probably know, is a Polish city. In one of my favourite short French novels by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, La salle de bain, there are some Polish painters who disturb the main character while he he has taken up residence in the bathroom, reading books and listening to football matches broadcast over the radio.
I was not disturbed by any Polish painter, a rare species in South Africa, but by a Polish email informing me that these three gentlemen were demanding the keys, figuratively speaking, to our little societal Volkswagen. We held meetings, amended our constitution and invited any dissident members to make their voices or their votes heard, to enter into debate and reasonable discussion, to no avail.
After Poznań, the action moved to Stellenbosch where on 7 March 2012 Olivier delivered a speech where he, inter alia, denounced organ music. Now, it may interest you that one of the aftereffects of apartheid or Afrikaner rule in South Africa is that the whole country is littered with organs, especially German ones, being of good quality. Many postgrads in music have written theses about the church organs of small towns. Of course, many of those small towns now bear different names and some of them are awash in sewage as the new town councils are more interested in buying Mercedes-Benzes than in maintaining their water purification systems. Visiting such run-down water purification plants has become a form of tourism among some local activists, one of them being Mr. Jaap Kelder of the National Taxpayers’ Association.
But I digress. The point of Olivier’s denuncation of organ music was that it had some connotation with Christianity. One of the sins committed by Pretoria PEN was that we had actually contracted one of those postgrads, an organist from the University of Pretoria’s music school, to come and give a recital to us after our AGM in January, boycotted by Olivier and his friends. And that was not only a faux pas, but also decidedly politically incorrect. In fact, during Olivier’s rambling little speech in Stellenbosch, the mere mention of the organ elicited howls of ridicule and guffaws of contempt.
Perhaps some background is needed. Fanie Olivier, the poet laureate of a place called Durban-Westville, has spent most of his life teaching literature at segregated universities, situated in the notorious Bantustans or “homelands” of apartheid. His father, a powerful figure and high-ranking member of a secret Afrikaner society known as the Broederbond (the Society of Brothers), was the first principal of the Indians-only University of Durban-Westville, so it is quite understandable that the heir to the throne, young Fanie, was also appointed there where he debuted with the anthology, Gom uit die sipres (Glue from the cypress).
Later he was a professor of Afrikaans at the University of Venda, in the former homeland known as the Republic of Venda. I am unaware that he ever took up Venda citizenship, although he may have learnt the language. For those who know little about South Africa, the Limpopo province, where the majority of Vendas live, in the former Republic of Venda, is where most ritual murders take place. A few hundred people get killed every year, to make medicine from body parts. Children too. Of course, this is never put on our tourist brochures and few people dare to write about it, except some bored court reporters who may happen to stumble upon such a case being heard. Usually, such reports are anodyne, with the race and ethnicity of murderer and victim carefully omitted and published towards the bottom of the inner pages of newspapers where only the very curious ever venture.
The thing about ritual murders is that they entail a belief in the occult. Some hijackers also buy muti, or medicine, from so-called sangomas or witch doctors, before setting out on the day’s business, pistol or assault rifle in hand. But “occult”, for those who know Latin, also has another meaning: “that which is concealed or difficult to detect”. Now, I am not of the school that looks for “influences” in an author’s work, but perhaps Fanie Olivier did to some extent acculturate during his many years at the University of Venda.
He has an uncanny belief in the powers of obfuscation, the ruse, making simple things abstruse, even claiming that our society, Pretoria PEN, “ceased to exist long ago”, as if he were waving Harry Potter’s magic wand or throwing the bones in a dark hut in Venda while declaiming some powerful incantation that will change a man into a croccodile or cause someone to drop dead hundreds of kilometres away.
I know vampires are fashionable too. Or the girl with the dragon tattoo. But the next scene in Fast Fanie’s racy tale (a previous cricket player here had the nickname, “Vinnige Fanie”) shifts to South Korea where, during the annual congress of PEN International, he presents himself as not only the President of Pretoria PEN, having hijacked us by remote control, magically, as it were, by email from Poland, but also its chief name-changer. Now, it so happens that name changes are another touchy topic in South Africa. One day you may be driving down a street, and the next the name may be changed to that of some Party stalwart or some arcane figure from a non-existent past, such as the mythical Chief Tshwane who, legend has it, founded a lost city, more or less in the same place as present-day Pretoria and therefore deserves to be eponymously honoured.
In the book South Africa’s Brave New World, R.W. Johnson ascribes a lot of the current South African obsessions with gambling, palaces and lost cities to the influence of entrepreneur Sol Kerzner who built a series of such casino palaces and follies, replete with artificial waterfalls and lakes, even beaches, in another Bantustan, the Republic of Bophutatswana. Johnson states somewhere that SA has now become “one big Bantustan”. Not far from where I live, there is a Renaissance Tuscan village with a casino and shops inside and artifical stars twinkling on the ceiling. Very African, you might say.
In a Bantustan, by knowing the right people and oiling the right palms, you could become a millionaire, and go off to Las Vegas or the Bahamas and repeat the trick there. Just look at Sol Kerzner. Vinnige Fanie is a man of ambition who knows his way around any Bantustan, especially the Grand Bantustan that Johnson refers to. He is also a lawyer, an advocate at the Durban bar, so able to ensnare hapless authors in his byzantine legalistic strategems.
But let’s stick to our plot and get back to the city of Gyeongju in South Korea. This is also historical, for it must be the first name change in history that was decreed in a completely different country, in the Far East, where dragons and not kitsch concrete elephants usually adorn the palaces. Poor old Pretoria, poor old Kruger whose statue still stands – for the time being at least – on Church Square, Pretoria. There he gets polluted by pigeon droppings and some pieces of his bronze get hacked off, nay hijacked by entrepreneurial individuals,  who sell them to scrap metal dealers. And Church Street was found to be such an offensive name that it was changed to… what? I will have to look it up on Google, one moment…
This is all very confusing. Church Street in Pretoria was so offensively long, being one of the first streets laid out in the city, that its name had to be changed to four other names: Helen Joseph, WF Nkomo, Stanza Bopape and Elias Motswaledi.
The only name that I recognise among those ones, is that of Helen Joseph, who happened to be a communist and not some legendary chief of the city lost in the mists of time, out of Rider Haggard or Edgar Rice Burroughs.
There is such a thing as Cape Communism. Or the Stellenbosch school of Marxism, which is why the university there is sometimes referred to as Stalinbosch. It is also a place where authors get banned if they do not say the right things, like I was banned from appearing on campus in 2005 during the Woordfees festival but finally managed to participate in a panel discussion only because I had armed bodyguards protecting me from being attacked by rabid Red Guards who regarded me as a bad influence on the public. In fact, I have it on good authority that some zealots are pressing for my books to be removed from the library of the University of Stellenbosch for being sexist or racist or both.
One of the people who accused me of “sexism” was André Brink who writes barely disguised autobiographical novels boasting about the number of his female conquests and in his latest novel, Philida, makes liberal use of the ethnic slur, “kaffir”, for which people in South Africa normally get dragged before the Equality Court and fined or even imprisoned. See the logic there? I don’t.
But back to Gyeongju where Pretoria PEN became the latest casualty of the ANC government’s name change policy, no doubt because it was seen as an “offensive” name, as offensive as the capital’s name or Paul Kruger’s name whose statue is being slowly devoured by the clients of scrap metal dealers. According to Fanie Olivier, delivering his rambling speech in Stellenbosch, “Pretoria PEN” was a “random” name. (He used the Afrikaans word “lukraak”, which more or less means random.)
One month after the meeting in Gyeongju, shortly after asking for Fanie Olivier’s address as it seems that this little exercise, plagiarised from the writings of Franz Kafka, will now go to court, I receive a laconic email from PEN International stating the following:
“We are writing to inform you that on 14 September 2012 the PEN International Assembly of Delegates at the 78th PEN Congress in Gyeongju, Korea voted to change the Pretoria PEN Centre’s name to PEN Afrikaans.
Following this decision, Pretoria PEN no longer exists as a Centre of PEN International.”
How curious. So our legally constituted literary society, founded in the real city of Pretoria, not some fictional realm of the imagination or the ANC government’s commissars, may be vaporised without even consulting us. No right of appeal, nothing.
Talking of commissars, is it any coincidence that the South African Minister of Higher Education also happens to be the leader of the Communist Party, that old blade runner, known as Blade Nzimande? Logically, those academics down at the University of Stellenbosch where the new “cloned” but rebranded Pretoria PEN is ostensibly headquartered, have to kow-tow to their minister who has wide powers to appoint and dissolve university councils. So now we understand a bit better how so many intellectual champions of apartheid and the Bible have now converted to another Book and find organ music execrable.
However, if literature is becoming more and more state-controlled in our de facto one-party state (65% of the population and 90% of black people vote for the ANC and its SACP alliance partner), there are also the corporate powers to consider. Often the big corporations and government work closely together, especially when contracts are awarded. It is generally accepted that the “New South Africa” is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Not for nothing have we coined the term “tenderpreneur” to describe people doing business with the state.
Add to this mix the National Intelligence Agency whose white, Afrikaner members are apparently so desperate to keep their jobs amid rampant affirmative action that they will do anything to ensnare their own people in acts of high treason, conspiracy and sex scandals. Facebook and the commentary sections of South African web pages are apparently rife with NIA trolls who sow dissension, ridicule and slander. Public figures seen to be “dissidents” or “outspoken” are regularly vilified.
Quite a few members of Pretoria PEN, such as myself and singer/writer Steve Hofmeyr, have been subjected to whole campaigns, also in the media. Several people regularly posted a satirical poem that I had written as a 20-year old everywhere he could and also sent it to thousands of people by email, completely disregarding any copyright I may hold over the poem. One such person was apparently an English-speaking member of a far-right group who considered me to be a danger to society for having written such scabrous satirical poetry in my young days.
Is it pure coincidence that while Fanie Olivier is waging his behind-the-scenes email campaign against Pretoria PEN, there should be another group of trolls on Wikipedia publishing half-truths and distortions about me? When I enquire about their identity, I get promptly banned from Wikipedia! The anonymous literary critics on Wikipedia have also ascertained that I suffer from mental retardation, being insufferably stupid, and that all my books put together contain “nothing of any merit”. At least these Wiki-writers, even if faceless, are not ambiguous.
Part of Fanie Olivier and his henchmen’s approach was to “leak information” to friends, journalists at the Cape Town daily Die Burger and other Naspers publications who would then try to stigmatise me and others. Naspers tabloid Sondag went so far as to draw a completely spurious association between me and a supposed adult-dating site, suggesting that I was a pornographer. Naturally I complained to the Press Ombudsman of South Africa, who ordered the newspaper to publish an apology on its front page. The newspaper lodged one appeal after the other, but each time the original decision was upheld. In a final desperate attempt to stall the apology, the newspaper is suing the Press Ombudsman, a historical first in South Africa.
The journalist from Die Burger who had published Fanie Olivier’s “leak” was also ordered by the Ombudsman to publish an apology to me and Pretoria PEN at the beginning of 2012. That was before Naspers got around to the idea that it could bully the Ombud through lengthy court cases.
Only a few months ago, as president of Pretoria PEN, I testified before the Media Commission about press freedom in South Africa and mechanisms for keeping the Naspers group, which has a total monopoly in Afrikaans media, under control without curtailing freedom of the press.
I strongly suspect that the takeover attempt by Fanie Olivier, John Miles and Piet Haasbroek is being financed by some Naspers entity, such as one of their book-publishing concerns down in Cape Town. An unnamed “sponsor” paid for three people to fly to Gyeongju. At the very least, the name of this sponsor should be revealed, for the sake of transparency.
In the meantime, the Naspers propaganda machine is destroying authors’ or performers’ reputations, almost at will. This is the new censorship in South Africa which, in deference to Fanie Olivier and his fellow travellers, I would call “occult censorship”. It is vague, but no less insidious and effective.
In the old days we had the staid Judge Lammie Snyman and his fellow censors who saw it as their prerogative to protect us from communist or terrorist propaganda and obscenity. They were easy to deal with and almost counter-productive. They made heroes out of people like André Brink or Nadine Gordimer whose books were banned for a few short months or slightly longer before they were unbanned on appeal. Today, we are caught between Scylla and Charybdis, the state that wants to control everything according to the East German model, and the Naspers media monopoly that prides itself on being able to make or break anyone’s reputation. If you had deep pockets, you could take them on in the courts, or otherwise through the Ombudsman. As I have found out, even the Ombudsman will only give you a Pyrrhic victory as Naspers sees itself not bound by any adverse decision from the so-called “self-regulatory body”.
When the Naspers Sunday paper Rapport published the infamous interview with another Pretoria PEN member, Annelie Botes, on 21 November 2010 I immediately saw all the hallmarks of another character assassination. Preying on Annelie’s honesty and concern about crime and violence in South Africa, they focussed on one sentence where she spoke of her inner fears as a member of an ethnic and racial minority. The context was completely disregarded and she was immediately calumnied as xenophobic, even racist.
Annelie Botes is probably the most popular literary author in South Africa. Locally, she far outsells André Brink, Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee or any of the big names in South African literary fiction. She addresses difficult and courageous themes, such as autism, incest and child abuse in her works. The public loves her for it.
However, as a result of the Rapport interview, the K. Sello Duiker award was taken away from her and just yesterday she confessed on Facebook that her latest manuscript had been rejected by her publisher. In this way, another talented and widely-read author is being silenced.
I see on the CV of Annelie Botes that she also has a teaching licentiate in classical music – the piano – and was at one time a church organist. As a result, she will never be acceptable to any PEN Centre down in Cape Town, least of all one that meets on the campus of Stellenbosch University, with Philistine Fanie as its president.
Let’s make the organ our new resistance symbol, I feel! And the pen, of course, which may just be mightier than the hijacker’s AK-47, even in this country where violence and revolution have been romanticized for so long.
I receive quite a bit of fan mail, despite being banned in Stellenbosch. The other day I got a note from a young hacker who offered to hack the ebooks of all my literary enemies and upload them to the Swedish Pirate Bay and similar websites. That way no one would have to buy their books ever again; they and their publishers would make losses. I declined his offer, being something of a victim of piracy or “hacked” and dismembered works myself.
However, I thought to myself afterwards, have things become so desperate that such extreme measures, sabotaging or pirating the books of others, should be considered? Indeed, there is a sense of “living on the edge” in South Africa. We are locked into a struggle for survival, and in some respects our whole world is caving in around us. Whether it is the Marikana mining massacre or just another everyday xenophobic killing of an immigrant from another African country, or a farm murder, we are living in an “age of iron”, to borrow a phrase from J.M. Coetzee. The latter preferred emigration to Australia.
The theme of fear that Annelie Botes broached in her interview is becoming more and more palpable. Another colleague and Pretoria PEN member, Gustav Venter, has just published his novel Die amigdala van Alrina Smal in which a woman goes almost insane with fear after a sexual assault. Will it even be reviewed by the printed press, I wonder? It also deviates from the post-card multicultural paradise that everybody sees in South Africa and for that reason might fall victim to the new occult censorship.
Effectively, Annelie Botes, Steve Hofmeyr, Gustav Venter, Fransi Phillips and all the other innovative and courageous authors depicting our contemporary reality in their works, together with me, have been excluded from PEN International without due process or any right of appeal. The censors of Stellenbosch and the media monopoly have spoken.
Yet we do need to organise ourselves to confront our imminent exclusion from the literary community, in South Africa and abroad. Already Fanie Olivier is making legal threats to us if we continue to exercise that right as we have been doing since 2004. He claims to have the support of the London management of PEN International.
But we have the right to associate with one another, as well as the right to communicate with other authors and NGOs all over the world. Let no one intimidate us into surrendering that right, nor into giving up the fight for free speech in South Africa.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Annelie Botes, Censorship, Dan Roodt, Fanie Olivier, Gyeongju, John Miles, Paul Kruger, PEN Afrikaans, PEN International, Piet Haasbroek, Pretoria, Pretoria-PEN, statue
‘n Zombie van die Nuwe Suid-Afrika
Posted on February 12, 2012 by admin
Ek het so pas Fransi Phillips se roman, Net ‘n lewe, wat verlede jaar die eerste prys in Lapa se romankompetisie gewen het, op een slag klaar gelees. Op die eerste bladsy word die hoofkarakter in ‘n “relatief ordentlike moord” vermoor:
“Dit was ‘n relatief ordentlike moord, gemeet aan Suid-Afrikaanse standaarde. Haar lang, skraal vingers, wat vir my haar beste bate was, is nie afgesny nie en haar gesig is nie vermink nie. Net drie skoon skote deur haar hart.”
Die res van die boek bestaan uit ‘n vertroulike dagboek – die Franse het ‘n mooi woord daarvoor, ‘n journal intime – wat sy gehou het, asook enkele inleidende opmerkings deur haar vriendin, Heleen. In haar testament het sy die dagboek “om een of ander duister rede” aan Heleen, wat reeds in Australië woon, bemaak.
In die kort gedeelte oor “Die erflating”, vertel Heleen:
“Die laaste keer toe ek haar uit Australië gebel het, het sy my vertel dat sy nou net so bang is vir die polisie as die kriminele, omdat ‘n mens nie meer tussen die twee groepe kan onderskei nie. ‘Die polisie verhuur deesdae hulle uniforms aan die kriminele,’ het sy geskreeu van die lag.
My humorsin was nie heeltemal robuust genoeg om dit te akkomodeer nie. ‘Jy moet wegkom,’ het ek geroep. ‘Wat doen jy nog in daardie land?’
‘My lewe is net ‘n lewe,’ het sy gesug.
‘Die lewe is die kosbaarste ding wat bestaan!’
Sy was skielik somber. ‘En ook die nietigste.'”
Só, sommer met die intrapslag, plaas Phillips ons vierkant in die eksistensieel-politieke vraagstuk van die Nuwe Suid-Afrika: om te emigreer, of om te oorleef in een van die gewelddadigste lande op aarde waar anargie op soveel gebiede reeds heers.
Telkens in die boek verwys die reeds ontslape vertelster na haar “dooie taal, Afrikaans” waarin sy teen wil en dank aanhou skryf. Phillips se toon is voortdurend ironies, aweregs, plek-plek selfs kru.
Die blote feit dat hierdie teks met sy gestroopte styl en ontnugterde blik op ons land ‘n romanprys in die huidige Suid-Afrika kon wen, spreek vir my al boekdele, by wyse van spreke. Baie lank is die Afrikaanse letterkunde, ook vanweë die kulturele manipulasie van die Nasperskoerante, deur figure soos Antjie Krog en André P. Brink oorheers wat uit wit skuld en die stereotipering van hul eie mense vir ‘n buitelandse of Engelse gehoor kuns probeer maak het. Nou kom Phillips en toon aan ons ‘n wêreld soortgelyk aan dié wat ons elke dag beleef, waarin menselewens deur geweld verwoes word of waar witmense nie meer geredelik werk kan kry nie.
Om Net ‘n lewe as “polities onkorrek” te beskryf, laat egter nie reg geskied aan die veelkantigheid van Phillips se perspektief op ons tragedie nie. Want die tragedie van die “relatief ordentlike moord” wat die heldin se lewe kortknip, is ook metafoor vir ons almal se lewens wat op soveel maniere deur ‘n onhoudbare maatskaplike toestand geraak word.
Wat die boek verder interessant maak, is hoe ons die onlangse geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika en van die Afrikaner deur die oë van die vermoorde ervaar. Sy is ‘n skryfster wat huweliksprobleme opdoen, teen haar man se wil in die filosofie en Afrikaanse letterkunde belangstel, asook uiteindelik sukkel om werk te kry. Sekere politieke of geskiedkundige gebeure word hier en daar aangestip. Daar is egter ook ‘n sterk elment van outobiografie, met die vermenging van feit en fiksie. Bekende Afrikaanse skrywers en digters, asook politici en akademici, maak op verskeie plekke in die roman ‘n buiging.
Deur hierdie persoonlike geskiedenis, wat plek-plek ‘n lydingsweg word, word die treurige verhaal van die Afrikaner se afgang ook vertel. Dit betrek veral die verhouding tussen skrywers of kunstenaars en die volk, daardie verhouding wat sedert die sestigerjare en die rusie tussen Verwoerd en Van Wyk Louw oor Die pluimsaad waai ver so problematies geword het. Tydens haar studentedae by Tukkies is die heldin deel van ‘n linkse avant-garde-groep. Op bladsy 97 verwoord sy die naïwiteit van die destydse jeug en haar geloof in die mag van kreatiwiteit:
“Party mense dink seker dis cute wanneer ek my volk uitkak in die liberale kampuskoerant. Maar die enigste ding waarin ek regtig glo, is kreatiwiteit. As die ANC aan bewind kom, sal ek vir hulle my staatsfilosofie-taak stuur oor die grondwet wat gebaseer is op kreatiewe vryheid. Ja sure, hulle sal dit dadelik implementeer en dan is die land se probleme opgelos.”
In hierdie sardoniese paragraaf beskryf Phillips eintlik die onnoselheid en wêreldvreemdheid van ‘n hele geslag Afrikaanse skrywers, ons geslag, wat wou “oulik” wees en in die proses as bruikbare idiote tot die magsoorname van hierdie eienaardige, argaïese en kwasikommunistiese bewind bygedra het. Ook in ander passasies kan ons Net ‘n lewe lees as ‘n vorm van literêre en ideologiese selfkritiek.
En dit is iets wat vir my gesond en nódig is. Ek weet nie wie dit gesê het nie, maar ‘n klein kultuur kan nie bekostig om verdeeld te wees nie. Groot lande en nasies kan binne hul grondgebied revolusies of langdurige verdeeldheid tussen Katoliek en Protestant, Links en Regs, oorleef. Maar soos ons onlangse geskiedenis aangetoon het, lei verdeeldheid in eie geledere tussen skrywers en politici, of die versplintering in wedywerende partye en organisasies op die duur tot ‘n soort selfvolksmoord waarvan ons vandag vele van die meer makabere manifestasies beleef.
Iewers beskryf die hoofkarakter haarself insgelyks as “‘n kleptomaniese spook” wat poog om haar lewe van ander kant die graf “terug te steel”. Sy is met ander woorde ‘n soort lewende dooie, ‘n zombie – daardie populêre term vanuit die Negertoorkuns van die eiland Haïti – wat boonop in ‘n “dooie taal”, Afrikaans, skryf.
Maar soos Lazarus uit die dode opgestaan het en soos Afrikaans in die negentiende eeu begin herleef het nadat selfs die NG Kerk volkome verengels is, wéét ons dat Phillips se slagoffer van ‘n “ordentlike moord”, ten minste op skrif, nie heeltemal dood is nie, want sy spook steeds op ‘n skerpsinnige en indringende wyse by ons. Sy is (was) ‘n Afrikanervrou uit die tussenin-wêreld vóór die revolusie, daardie “interregnum” waarvan die Italiaanse kommunis Gramsci gepraat het en wat Nadine Gordimer in haar gewone bewondering vir alles wat Marxisties is as motto by haar novelle July’s People aangehaal het:
“The old is dying and the new cannot be be born; in this interregnum there arises a great diversity of morbid symptoms.”
Maar die heldin van Net ‘n lewe sweer by die God van Kreatiwiteit, iets wat telkens in die boek herhaal word. Uiteindelik, dink ek, wil Phillips vir ons sê dat die skeppingsdaad en selfs letterkunde die potensiaal van bevryding inhou.
In Suid-Afrika is “bevryding” reeds ‘n geykte en verdagte woord, veral besmet deur sy gebruik deur die ANC en SAKP as ‘n “bevrydingsbeweging”. Hoewel Phillips ‘n onthutsende blik op ons sosiopolitieke werklikheid bied, sou ek nie haar boek as “betrokke literatuur” wou beskryf nie, omdat daardie begrip ewe seer besmet is deur sy betekenis van “in ‘n verhouding tot die party te staan”. Soos soveel kommunistiese skrywers van die twintigste eeu wat hul naam en hul kuns aan ‘n politieke party, veral die Kommunistiese Party, vasgeketting het, het ‘n hele geslag plaaslike skrywers hulself as werktuie vir die ANC aangebied. Tot my stomme verbasing het André P. Brink nog onlangs in die Londense Financial Times sy matelose bewondering vir Oliver Tambo as iemand met “morele krag en filosofiese diepte” bely.
Sonder die ANC sou André P. Brink – of Nadine Gordimer en soveel ander – nie oor ‘n identiteit beskik het nie. Fransi Phillips staan in haar nogal postmoderne taalgebruik en lewensbeskouing ver verwyder van die tradisionele Afrikaanse letterkunde van, sê maar, die Dertigers. Tog sluit haar wonderlike vars boek met sy ironiese ontluistering van ‘n hele klomp van Mandela se heilige koeie al bulkend doer uit Qunu aan by die totale voorafgaande tradisie, as ‘n uitdrukking van ‘n bepaalde, inheemse Afrikaneridentiteit. Om Afrikaner te wees, is nie net om Die Stem te sing of om braaivleis, rugby en ander dinge te geniet nie, maar ook om soos die protagonis van Net ‘n lewe verknog te wees aan Marc Chagall of Paul Klee, of om klassieke musiek, kunsgeskiedenis of Westerse filosofie te waardeer.
By al die identiteitsvernietigende hoon wat daar vanuit die Kaapse enklawe en sy magtige media vandag teenoor die Afrikaner uitgegiet word, bespeur ‘n mens tog die herstel, die heling wat ‘n boek soos Net ‘n lewe bied. Dis sekerlik gebroke, elegies en geskied in ‘n mineurtoon. Dis kamermusiek – teenoor die bombasme, die Triomf (die Stellenbosser Marlene van Niekerk se links-fascistiese werk) wat soos rap-musiek vanuit ‘n uitspattige motor in een van ons vervalle middestede dawer.
Ons lewens – en ons kuns – is so nietig in ‘n filistynse land wat om twee ander K’s draai: korrupsie en konsumpsie. Nietemin is die uitsig wat Fransi Philips vir ons bied op ‘n nuwe soort letterkunde, anderkant wit skuld en politieke clichés, so opwindend dat ‘n mens nie anders kan as om te dink dat boeke en woorde dalk tog, soos Van Wyk Louw se “beiteltjie”, klippe en rotse en lande en selfs die aardbol middeldeur kan kloof nie.
Ons lewens – en ons kuns – is so nietig in ‘n filistynse land wat om twee ander K’s draai: korrupsie en konsumpsie. Nietemin is die uitsig wat Fransi Philips vir ons bied op ‘n nuwe soort letterkunde, anderkant wit skuld en politieke clichés, so opwindend dat ‘n mens nie anders kan as om te dink dat boeke en woorde dalk tog, soos Van Wyk Louw se “beiteltjie”, klippe en rotse en lande en selfs die aardbol middeldeur kan kloof nie.
Fransi Philips. Net ‘n lewe. Lapa-uitgewers, Pretoria, 2011. ISBN 978-0-7993-5160-6. Prys: R170.
Posted in Nuus, Resensies | Tagged Afrikaanse letterkunde, André P. Brink, Fransi Phillips, Nadine Gordimer, Net 'n lewe, Van Wyk Louw
Onderhoud oor Pretoria-PEN op LitNet 9 Desember 2011
Posted on December 11, 2011 by admin
Naomi Meyer het met Dan Roodt, president van Pretoria-PEN, gesels.
Wat is jou betrokkenheid by Pretoria-PEN, nou en in die verlede?
Ek was van die begin af betrokke. Trouens, die gedagte om ’n PEN-sentrum vir Afrikaanse skrywers te stig was my idee. Ek was ook die eerste president van Pretoria-PEN. Tydens ’n buitengewone algemene vergadering op 18 November vanjaar is ek as president herkies. Tans is ons besig om ’n jaarvergadering op 20 en 21 Januarie 2012 te organiseer wat deur ’n bekende skryfster uit Nederland geopen sal word.
Op Pretoria-PEN se webwerf staan daar dat die organisasie verbind is tot die bevordering van letterkunde, spraakvryheid en taalregte. Wie het hierdie doelstellings geskryf? Wat beteken dit vir jou?
Ek het oorspronklik daardie doelstellings geskryf en dit het algemeen byval gevind. Intussen het ons ietwat meer breedvoerige doelstellings bygekry, as deel van ons hersiene grondwet, wat op ons splinternuwe webwerf te vinde is. Maar in breë trekke stem daardie drie oorspronklike doelstellings ooreen met dié van PEN Internasionaal.
As ons praat van die bevordering van letterkunde, dan gaan dit juis daarom om skrywers– en uitgewersbelange te bevorder, maar ook om die breë publiek in te lig en ’n smaak vir letterkunde in ons land te kweek.
Onder spraakvryheid verstaan ons elkeen se reg om homself uit te druk soos hy wil, met dien verstande dat daar nie haatspraak of oproepe tot geweld behoort plaas te vind nie. Soms skryf of sê skrywers dinge wat ander afstootlik vind, maar spraakvryheid beteken juis dat ’n mens andersoortige menings of standpunte of beskrywings moet verdra.
Oor die afgelope dekade of langer is die meeste Afrikaanse skrywers en intellektuele begaan oor die agteruitgang van Afrikaans en die vertrapping van ons taalregte deur die owerheid en deur die privaat sektor. Maar ook PEN Internasionaal beskik oor ’n vertaling- en taalregtekomitee wat taalregte bevorder en ons sou wou sien dat Suid-Afrika afsien van sy koloniale “slegs Engels”-houding en kennis neem van die ontwikkeling van taalregte oor die afgelope twintig of dertig jaar.
Daar bestaan reeds ’n PEN South Africa-organisasie. Wat is dan die relevansie of nodigheid van ’n Pretoria-PEN-organisasie, en is dit slegs vir Afrikaanse skrywers?
Dis korrek, ja. Maar PEN South Africa is feitlik uitsluitlik ’n Engelstalige organisasie. Die voertaal is Engels en die fokus is op Engelse letterkunde. In die meeste tweetalige lande soos Kanada of België bestaan daar meer as een PEN om vir die verskillende tale voorsiening te maak. Streng gesproke is Pretoria-PEN nie uitsluitlik vir Afrikaanse skrywers nie, maar ons voertaal is Afrikaans en daarom sal diegene wat Engels verkies, seker eerder by South African PEN aansluit. In die toekoms mag daar skrywers van ander inheemse tale by ons aansluit, maar ons grondwet maak voorsiening vir tolk – en vertaaldienste indien dit ooit ’n beduidende omvang sou bereik. In die praktyk voorsien ons egter dat Pretoria-PEN se fokus Afrikaans sal bly, net soos wat South African PEN se fokus Engels sal bly. Trouens, ons beskik oor baie goeie verhoudinge met South African PEN en waarskynlik sal ons op sekere gebiede in die toekoms saamwerk.
Het PEN Internasionaal ’n grondwet waarin bepaal word hoeveel mense by ’n vergadering teenwoordig moet wees ten einde ’n voorsitter te kies? Hoe werk dit by Pretoria-PEN wanneer ’n nuwe voorsitter gekies word?
PEN Internasionaal beskik oor sy eie grondwet, ja. Maar elke PEN-sentrum ter wêreld verteenwoordig ’n outonome vereniging met sy eie grondwet en prosedures. Die grondwet van Pretoria-PEN bepaal dat daar minstens vyf mense by ’n algemene vergadering teenwoordig moet wees. Die verkiesing van ’n voorsitter of president geskied by wyse van ’n vooraf nominasie en daarna is elke lid geregtig om sy stem uit te bring, ook dié wat nie die vergadering kan bywoon nie en ’n volmag aan ander lede kan gee wat wel in staat is om die vergadering by te woon. In die praktyk neem die meeste lede dus sodoende aan die demokratiese proses deel.
Dis ook baie maklik om van die president of enige ander bestuurslid ontslae te raak, deur ’n gewone meerderheidsbesluit by ’n algemene vergadering. Selfs ’n klein groepie lede kan te eniger tyd ’n buitengewone algemene vergadering aanvra. Eintlik is dit baie makliker vir die lede om van die voorsitter ontslae te raak as wat dit is om ’n lid wat al die reëls oortree te skors! ’n Lid wat die organisasie ondergrawe of sy doelstellings dwarsboom, moet eers ’n tugprosedure ondergaan. Indien hy skuldig bevind word, kan hy ook na die algemene vergadering appelleer, dus is ons grondwet baie demokraties en regverdig.
Wat is die kriteria om aan Pretoria-PEN te behoort?
’n Persoon kwalifiseer vir gewone lidmaatskap van die vereniging indien hy ’n skrywer, redakteur, vertaler, essayis of joernaalskrywer is wat op grond van literêre meriete of sy oeuvre in aanmerking kom en wat hom neerlê by die vereniging se doelstellings, waarby inbegrepe is die handves van PEN Internasionaal. Daar word ook voorsiening gemaak vir assosiaatlede wat nie noodwendig aktiewe skrywers hoef te wees nie, maar bloot die doelstellings moet ondersteun. Assosiaatlede mag egter nie op algemene vergaderings stem nie.
Enigiemand wat belangstel om lid van Pretoria-PEN te word, kan ’n lid van die bestuur kontak by ons e-pos-adresse wat op www.pretoriapen.co.za verskyn.
Waarna streef jy as skrywer, onafhanklik van enige organisasie?
Ek streef daarna om die eienaardige werklikheid van hierdie eienaardige land in my boeke en geskrifte weer te gee, hetsy deur fiksie, hetsy deur niefiksie. Afrikaans was egter dwarsdeur sy geskiedenis ook ’n taal wat as instrument van bevryding vir die Afrikaner gedien het, juis omdat ons so lank onder vreemde oorheersing vanuit Brittanje gestaan het. Tans weer word ons deur die Afro-Saksers oorheers vir wie Engels ’n magstaal en -instrument geword het waarmee ons kultuur en identiteit aangeval word. Deur Afrikaans kan ons onsself bevry en weer heel word nadat ons as’t ware op die wiel van Engels gebreek is en in meer as een sin gebroke geraak het.
Op ’n meer persoonlike vlak is ek amper ’n skrywer sonder ’n oeuvre! Hoewel ek taamlik aktief op die internet en in koerante meningsartikels skryf, het ek tot dusver betreklik min romans of poësie gepubliseer. Vandaar my groot behoefte om iets van my wêreld met Afrikaanse lesers te deel. Ek voel in ’n sekere sin bevoorreg, omdat ek ’n baie goeie literêre opvoeding gehad het – op skool by Helpmekaar, asook later in Parys deur my ontmoetings met en ervaring van groot denkers en skrywers, tesame met my daaglikse gedrentel deur boekwinkels. Sommige mense sien die wêreld van die lettere as iets banaals of vanselfsprekends, maar toenemend vind ek dat daar werklik min goeie of interessante skrywers bestaan. As ek daarin kan slaag om myself af te sonder om nog ’n paar boeke of tekste in Afrikaans te produseer, sal dit vir my baie sinvol wees. Om te skryf is ’n synsaktiwiteit.
Ook wil ek een of ander tyd ’n lang filosofiese essay in Afrikaans skryf. Hopelik vind ek die tyd en die lus vir dit alles!
Hierdie onderhoud het oorspronklik op LitNet verskyn.
Posted in Nuus, Onderhoude | Tagged Dan Roodt, letterkunde, Onderhoude, Pretoria-PEN
Splinternuwe webwerf vir Pretoria-PEN
Posted on December 4, 2011 by admin
Geagte lid van Pretoria-PEN,
Soos u kan sien, het ons ‘n splinternuwe webwerf vir Pretoria-PEN laat opstel, waarna die vorige inhoud oorgedra is. Soos Martiens van Bart voorgestel het, is daar ook ruimte vir resensies en algemene nuus oor boeke en letterkunde geskep. Enkele resensies is reeds aangebring, maar ons wil u uitnooi om vir ons nog resensies te stuur, oor u eie boeke of oor ander wat u dalk gerenseeer het. Nuwe resensies sal natuurlik by uitstek welkom wees. Die webwerf sal bygewerk word met allerlei tersaaklike inligting en daarop sal u ook ‘n volledige rekord van ons mediaverklarings, jaarvergaderings en dergelike vind.
Die webwerf bevat ook ‘n forum, genaamd Pennevrugte. Hierop kan enigeen na hartelus deelneem aan ‘n gesprek oor boeke, letterkunde en alles wat daarmee saamhang. Al wat u hoef te doen, is om onder op “Log in” te klik, op die WordPress-stelsel te registreer en daarna kan u deelneem, asook u eie onderwerpe vir bespreking skep.
Binnekort sal die webwerf ook skakel met Facebook, Twitter en ander sosiale media sodat die werksaamhede van ons vereniging wyd en syd gekommunikeer kan word.
Kompliment van Cathal Sheerin van PEN-hoofkantoor
N.a.v. my verklaring oor die Wet op inligtingsbeheer, het Cathal Sheerin van die PEN-hoofkantoor só gereageer:
Many thanks for this great statement.
Nederlandse gasspreker vir jaarvergaderingdinee
Intussen is ons besig om met die Nederlandse skryfster te korrespondeer wat ons op 20 Januarie sal kom toespreek tydens die openingsdinee van ons algemene jaarvergadering. Sy is baie geesdriftig om te kom en wil sommer van die geleentheid gebruik maak om Suid-Afrika beter te leer ken. Sodra die onderwerp van haar toespraak gefinaliseer is, sal ons by wyse van ‘n mediaverklaring haar naam bekendmaak.
Die aand van 20 Januarie beloof om baie interessant te wees en hopelik net die begin van veel meer wisselwerking tussen ons en Nederlandse skrywers, asook natuurlik PEN Nederland.
Klik sommer nou hier om die nuwe webwerf te besoek!
Posted in Nuus, Nuusbriewe
‘n Sprong na vernuwing
Posted on November 29, 2011 by admin
Oor die afgelope weke het ons hard gewerk om die hersiene grondwet te
finaliseer en ek wil weereens almal bedank wat hierdie proses
ondersteun het, ook deur volmagte vir die vergadering op 18 November
te verleen sodat die grondwet deur ‘n meerderheid lede aanvaar kon
Ons vereniging is nou op ‘n gesonde grondslag geplaas en intussen het
die nuwe bestuur nie gras onder hul voete laat groei nie. Die
tesourier, Gustav Venter, en ek het reeds vergader om ‘n finansiële
plan te bespreek en Igmar Rautenbach is op die finansiële komitee
gekoöpteer in sy hoedanigheid as geoktrooieerde rekenmeester om ons
met raad en advies by te staan.
Ons het ook reeds twee tentatiewe aanbiedinge van gassprekers uit
Nederland vir die openingsaand van die jaarvergadering op 20 Januarie
2012 ontvang, albei skryfsters en/of dramaturge en bekende figure in
die eietydse Nederlandse letterkunde.
Die finansiering van die jaarvergadering en gasspreker geniet tans
aandag. Ons het reeds met verskeie instansies hieroor kontak gemaak en
tot dusver lyk die vooruitsigte belowend. Sodra die spreker en ander
reëlings gefinaliseer is, sal ons die gebeurtenis wyd in die media
kommunikeer en ook diplomatieke gaste van die ambassades in Pretoria
uitnooi om die funksie op 20 November by te woon.
Die visie wat ek vir Pretoria-PEN het, is egter nie om bloot maar nog
‘n skrywersorganisasie te wees wat jaarlikse funksies reël nie, hoe
nodig so ‘n roetine ook al mag wees. Dat ons wyd met oorsese skrywers,
uitgewers, boekeskoue, ambassades, kulturele attachés, buitelandse
kultuurministeries, ens., wil skakel, spreek ook vanself. Dog die
wesentlike funksie van Pretoria-PEN gaan vir my om die vernuwing van
die Afrikaanse letterkunde wat reeds dekades lank sonder veel nuwe
energie of rigting stagneer.
Nou die dag val my oog op die beroemde Tel quel-bundel van Parryse
literêre teorie wat in die laat sestigerjare verskyn het en toentertyd
‘n wêrelodwye revolusie in ons siening van taal en letterkunde
veroorsaak het. ‘n Mens moet vandag glimlag oor sekere van die
aansprake oor die afbou van die subjek wat daarin verskyn, maar
destyds het dit met groot opwinding en fanfare gepaard gegaan.
Natuurlik – en elke gesoute neo-Marxistiese of historiese kritikus sou
‘n mens hieraan herinner – het Tel quel se revolusionêre program van
destyds saamgehang met die studenterevolusies van die sestigerjare.
Die verstommende is dat ons denke oor letterkunde en kritiek
sedertdien geen sentimeter gevorder het nie, hoewel die wêreld, die
tegnologie en selfs die demografie sedertdien drasties verander het.
In Suid-Afrika, meer as enige ander land, beleef ons ‘n revolusie wat
alle aspekte van die maatskappy, ons kultuur en ons menswees raak. Tog
word dit kwalik, indien enigsins, in ons letterkunde weerspieël.
Waarom? vra ek myself af. Is dit ‘n gebrek aan ontleding of ‘n vrees
om die minder positiewe of minder aangename aspekte van die
Suid-Afrikaanse revolusie te beskryf?
Dus, indien Pretoria-PEN hoegenaamd ‘n rol te speel het, benewens die
ooglopende funksies wat sulke PEN-sentra wêreldwyd vervul, sou dit
wees om ons skrywers, digters, dramaturge en essayiste te stimuleer en
aan te spoor om daardie vernuwende sprong te waag, daardie tree in die
onbekende in te neem.
Ons samelewing, in weerwil van sy geykte liberale slagspreuke, is nie
eintlik verdraagsaam teenoor nuwe denke of sienings nie. Andersheid of
afwyking van die norm word meermale as ‘n vorm van kettery gesien.
Moontlik is alle koloniale samelewings op dié manier onvolwasse en
word vernuwing of kritiek op die heersende ideologie altyd as ‘n soort
bedreiging vir die goeie orde ervaar.
Gegewe egter die sterk verbintenis wat ons in PEN wêreldwyd ten gunste
van vryheid van spraak aangegaan het, kan hierdie vereniging as
voertuig dien om wel ons skrywers tot groter waagmoed, asook nuwe
vorme en perspektiewe uit te daag.
In die internettyd met sy magdom publikasiemoontlikhede, gaan dit lank
nie meer om bloot publikasie te verseker of van sensuur te bevry nie,
maar veel sterker om die inhoud en hoe daardie inhoud tot mense
In dié opsig sal ek bly wees as mense hul idees vir projekte,
slypskole, besprekings, geleentheidsbundels of wat ook al aan my sal
kommunikeer. Ons beplan ook om die Pretoria-PEN-webwerf op te gradeer
na ‘n meer interaktiewe ruimte waar ons gedagtes kan wissel en ook
allerlei eksperimente van lede kan publiseer of wat u self kan
Mnr. Yusuf Abramjee van die SA redakteursforum het ons intussen bedank
vir die kritiese standpunt wat ons oor die Wet op die beheer van
Posted in Nuus, Nuusbriewe
Pretoria-PEN betreur toenemende onverdraagsaamheid in Suid-Afrika
Posted on November 25, 2011 by admin
MEDIA RELEASE ON 25 NOVEMBER 2011
Pretoria PEN regrets growing intolerance in South Africa
Pretoria PEN, the writers’ assocation, has regretted the growing intolerance in South Africa, as manifested in the ongoing controversy around the Protection of Information bill. “The bill and media reactions to it have created a rift between the ruling African National Congress and minority groups reminiscent of the polarization that took place in Zimbabwe a decade ago between ZANU PF and the opposition which ultimately led to the dissolution of that country,” said Dr. Dan Roodt, president of Pretoria PEN.
“Whereas the bill may be abused in order to silence or intimidate journalists, mere noise or protest will not reverse its passage through parliament where the ANC enjoys an overwhelming majority due to the centralised political system adopted in 1994. It is our view that government should heed its critics and amend the bill to save freedom of speech and access to information in South Africa,” Roodt continued.
Affiliated to PEN International in London, Pretoria PEN represents approximately forty Afrikaans-language authors in the north of the country. The association is dedicated to the promotion of literature and freedom of expression. The members of Pretoria PEN also subscribe to the PEN Charter which makes it incumbent upon writers “to use what influence they have in favour of good understanding and mutual respect between nations”, as well as “to oppose any form of suppression of freedom of expression in the country and community to which they belong as well as throughout the world whenever this is possible”.
As a banned author under the former political system in South Africa, Roodt “feels particularly strongly that freedom of speech in South Africa should be protected against all threats, not only from the government but also from the commercial media monopolies of South Africa and some narrow-minded journalists who regularly abuse such monopoly power by vilifying or besmirching public figures and stifling rational debate. The ultimate test of any liberal democracy is its tolerance towards minority views, both in an ethnic and moral sense.”
Contact Dan Roodt president@pretoriapen.co.za
MEDIAVERKLARING OP 25 NOVEMBER 2011
Pretoria-PEN betreur toenemende onverdraagsaamheid in Suid-Afrika
Pretoria-PEN, die skrywersvereniging, betreur die toenemende onverdraagsaamheid in Suid-Afrika, wat manifesteer in die huidige omstredenheid rondom die Wet op die beskerming van inligting. “Die wet en mediareaksies daarop het ‘n breuk tussen die regerende ANC en minderheidsgroepe veroorsaak wat aan die polarisering van Zimbabwe ongeveer ‘n dekade gelede herinner. Daardie polarisering het uiteindelik tot die ineenstorting van die land gelei,” het dr. Dan Roodt, president van Pretoria-PEN, gesê.
“Terwyl die wet misbruik mag word om joernaliste stil te maak of te intimideer, sal blote lawaai of protes ook nie die goedkeuring daarvan deur die parlement ongedaan maak nie, gegewe die ANC se oorweldigende meerderheid weens die gesentraliseerde politieke stelsel wat in 1994 aangeneem is. Na ons mening moet die regering sy kritici in ag neem en die wet wysig om spraakvryheid en toegang tot inligting in Suid-Afrika te red,” het Roodt voortgegaan.
Pretoria-PEN is by PEN Internasionaal in Londen geaffilieer en verteenwoordig ongeveer veertig Afrikaanse skrywers in die noorde van die land. Die vereniging is verbind tot die bevordering van letterkunde en vryheid van spraak. Die lede van Pretoria-PEN onderskryf ook die PEN-handves wat skrywers verplig om “te alle tye die invloed tot hul beskikking te gebruik om goeie begrip en onderlinge respek tussen volkere te bevorder”. Skrywers onderneem ook “om elke vorm van onderdrukking van spraakvryheid in die land en in die gemeenskap waartoe hulle behoort teen te staan, sowel as orals ter wêreld waar dit ook al moontlik is”.
As ‘n verbode skrywer onder die vorige Suid-Afrikaanse bewind, voel Roodt “veral sterk daaroor dat spraakvryheid in Suid-Afrika teen alle bedreigings beskerm behoort te word, nie net vanuit die regering nie maar ook vanuit die winsgedrewe mediamonopolieë van Suid-Afrika en sommige benepe joernaliste wat gereeld sulke monopolistiese mag misbruik deur openbare figure te verguis of te beswadder en rasionele debat in die doofpot te steek. Die uiteindelike toets vir enige liberale demokrasie is geleë in sy vedraagsaamheid teenoor minderheidsieninge, wat sowel in etniese as morele sin opgevat moet word.”
Kontak Dan Roodt president@pretoriapen.co.za
Posted in Mediaverklarings, Nuus
Boerejode in die ABO
Posted on May 8, 2010 by admin
Die gemiddelde man op straat is waarskynlik nie bewus daarvan dat meer as 300 Jode aan Boerekant in die Anglo-Boereoorlog vir die vryheid van die Boererepublieke (Transvaal en die Vrystaat) geveg het nie. In hierdie verband het David Saks, navorser by die Joodse Raad van Afgevaardigdes, so pas sy nuwe boek, Boerejode – Jews in the Boer Armed Forces (1899-1902), by ‘n byeenkoms in die Sinagoge in Johannesburg vrygestel.
Volgens Saks volg hy, wat sy navorsing betref, in die voetspore van hoofrabbi (professor) Louis Rabinowitz, wat in die jare 1940 tot ’50 die rol van die Boerejode gedokumenteer het. Rabinowitz was veral beïndruk met die feit dat dr. DF Malan (eerste ministervan die Unie van SA, sedert 1948) die eerste staatshoof was wat erkennning aan die totstandkoming van die staat Israel gegee het. Hy was ook krities teen die Britse regering wat die daarstelling van die staat Israel tydens hulle bevrydingstryd teengestaan het.
Die Boeremagte se Longtom-kanonne is deur twee Joodse tegnici (Sam Leon en Leon Grunberg) nie net nagesien nie, maar was ook aan die hoof van twee werkswinkels vir die produksie van ammunisie. Die fabrieke was by Begbies Foundary en in die werkswinkels van die Nederlands/Zuid-Afrikaanse Spoorweë.
Sowat 300 Jode het aktief aan die oorlog meegedoen, wat – naas die Duitsers en Nederlanders – die derde grootste buitelandse komponent  in die Boeremagte verteenwoordig het.
Volgens Saks het die Boere wel uiteindelik teen die oormag van Engelse verloor, maar die oorlog bly vir die Boere se vryheidsideaal ‘n morele oorwinning. In die Boererepublieke was die verhouding tussen Boer en Jood warm en gesellig. Raakpunte is die rol van Israel in die Bybel en die Afrikaner se sin vir godsdiens.
Saks haal vir Jakkals Segall aan wat in 1943 verklaar het dat hy wat Saks is wel as immigrant hierheen gekom het, maar van oortuiging was dat hy sy man moet staan en as dit nodig sou wees, sy lewe vir die vryheidstrewe van die Boere moes gee. “Die outydse Afrikaners het geweet wat regverdigheid is. Hulle was die sout van die aarde.”
Die wedersydse samewerking tussen die SA Nasionale Intelligensiediens van generaal Hendrik van den Berg en die Mossad van Israel sal nog gedokumenteer moet word. Insgelyks is die nuwe SA beleid sedert 1994 uit en uit pro-Palestyns en anti-Joods. Daar moet ook opgeteken word dat beide apartheid en die Joodse Sionisme deur die VN as rassisties en ‘n sonde teen die mensdom gebrandmerk is.
Swaab wen Nobelprys vir letterkunde
Posted on October 9, 2009 by admin
Die Nobelprys vir letterkunde is vanjaar aan die Roemeens gebore Duitse skryfster Herta Müller toegeken.
Müller is op 17 Augustus 1953 in ‘n Duitssprekende dorpie Nitzkydorf in die weste van Roemenië gebore as deel van ‘n Duitse minderheidsgroep wat bekend staan as die Swabe van Banat.
Sy het haar literêre debuut in 1982 gemaak met ‘n versameling kortverhale getiteld “Niederungen” wat (persoonlike) laagtepunt beteken.
Sy het in 1987 in Duitsland aangekom, nadat sy vrygekoop is vir 8 000 mark wat die Wes-Duitste regering aan die Roemeense diktator Ceausesco moes betaal.
Die pas verskene roman, Atemschaukel (In Engels: Everything I Possess I Carry With Me) word as hoogtepunt van haar lewenswerk beskou. Daarin beskryf sy die lyding van ‘n 17-jarige seun, wat as gevangene na ‘n strafkamp in die Oekraïne gedeporteer word.
In al haar werke beskryf sy die leed wat mense aangedoen word waar hulle deur die staat onderdruk word. Sy vertel van die noodlot van vlugtende families, ‘n lewe vol van verraad en verraaiers, asook vrees, wat uiteindelik geen ruimte laat om meer vrylik asem te haal nie, maar ook van die onverskilligheid van diegene wat hulself in hierdie omstandighede inleef deur met die regime saam te werk.
Sy het eerstehandse ervaring deurdat sy gereeld die teiken was van die Ceausescu-diktatuur in Roemenië. Nadat haar boeke verbied is, sy haar werk verloor het en aan aanhoudende huisdeursoekings onderwerp is, moes sy en haar man hul geboorteland noodgedwonge verlaat.
Sy word al lank as kandidaat vir die prys beskou en die permanente sekretaris van die Akademie, Peter Englund, het haar geloof as ‘n woordkunstenaar wat fantastiese taalgebruik met die uiterste akkuraatheid kombineer.
Die toekenning van die prys aan haar is ook ‘n bekentenis dat kuns en etiek twee kante van dieselfde medalje is.  Dit verleen verder ook erkenning aan die diaspora-kultuur van die Banatse Swabe en hul grootste skryfster.
Herta Müller word die 12de vrou wat die gesogte literatuurprys wen, wat in 2007 aan Doris Lessing van die Verenigde Koningkryk toegeken is en verlede jaar deur J.M.G. Le Clézio van Frankryk verower is.
Posted in Nuus, Resensies | Tagged Herta Müller, letterkunde, Nobelprys
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