The document discusses the contributions of South African poets Sipho Sepamla and Mafika Pascal Gwala to protest poetry in apartheid South Africa. It provides biographies of the two poets and discusses how their poetry was used to raise critical awareness among black South Africans about their socio-political oppression under apartheid. The poetry probed issues like racial attitudes, black identity, Christianity, and capitalism. It aimed to agitate and motivate readers to react against the racist system. The presentation analyzes some of Sepamla and Gwala's poetry to show how it conveyed messages of protest through innovative language techniques.

1. Contribution made by South African poets in protest
poetry.
By Rasetlhapa N.C
2016

3.  Black South African literature has been associated with politics. A certain range of
political subjects has occupied Black writers; subjects such as the land question,
labour exploitation, the living conditions in general, protest and the liberation
struggle.
 The poets Sepamla and Gwala used the medium of poetry as a discourse to probe
issues of racialist attitudes, identity of black people, Christianity, white liberalism,
non-white class. Poetry as discourse enabled the poets Sepamla and Gwala to
agitate, incite, polarise and to motivate their readers to react against the racist
colonial, and capitalist apartheid system.
 This presentation postulates that the contribution made by the following poets to
South African protest poetry: Sepamla and Gwala to create critical awareness in
the oppressed black people about their socio-political status in South Africa.
 The presentation provides autobiography of both the poets, defines protest poetry,
and finally provides inside information on contribution of both poets to protest
poetry.

4.  Sipho (Sydney) Sepamla (1932-2007)
 Born in West Rand Consolidated Mines Township near Krugersdorp (Mogale City),
Sipho Sepamla, a trained school teacher, contributed to the return of a black protest
voice after the suppression of dissent and the banning of black writers in the ‘silent
decade’ of the 1960s.
 Together with Matthews, Mtshali, Serote, Gwala, Madingoane and others, he was
influenced by the rise of Black Consciousness and was a prominent figure in what was
termed the New Black Poetry of the 1970s or Soweto Poetry. Avoiding direct
statement as assertion of resistance he combined his commitment to the destruction of
apartheid with innovative shifts of language-register, image and rhythm ranging from
contemplative verse to wicked irony, from global reference to tsotsi-taal in the
collections Hurry Up to It! (1975), The Blues is You in Me (1976), The Soweto I Love
(1977) and Children of the Earth (1983). Selected Poems appeared in 1984.
 Sepamla was also a cultural activist, who in 1978 was instrumental in establishing
the Federation of Black Arts (FUBA). As a novelist, he published The Root is One
(1979), A Ride on the Whirlwind (1981), Third Generation (1986) and A Scattered
Survival (1989).

5. Mafika Pascal Gwala (1946)
Born on 5 October 1946 in Verulam, outside Durban. The second of five children, his
mother was a domestic worker and his father was a labourer on the railways. Gwala
matriculated from Inkamana High, a Benedictine mission school in Vryheid,
KwaZulu-Natal. He held various positions, including factory worker, legal clerk,
secondary school teacher and industrial relations officer. Although he initially
sacrificed his studies in order to serve the Black Consciousness Movement, Gwala
went on to complete an M Phil at the University of Natal, studying the politics of
development in Third World countries. At the University of Manchester he extended
his research into the field of adult education.

6.  Protest poetry does not have specific meaning. Poetry has as many purposes as
life, as language. Protest poetry cries against a wrong to be set right. Most of the
wrongs are not new.
 All poets attend to, injustice, to conflicts of ideas, to relationships of the real and
the ideal, to politics. Poets voice their own exploration and vision of truth, of
truths larger than themselves.
 Architects of Apartheid protest poetry may mean, amongst other things,
insubordination, ungratefulness, subversive and even “ungodly” propaganda
(Chapman, 1982:66). Protest poetry aims at making the reader aware of the
racial incongruities that characterise the system of apartheid and the detrimental
and turbulent effects, particularly on the black community.

7. In political or protest poetry, they use traditional poetic forms and they break free of forms.
Smiley-face rhymes don’t suit segregation, apartheid, hunger, infant mortality, racial
discrimination, oppression of freedom, destruction of the environment, gaps between the haves
and the have-nots, the causes and consequences of climate change.

8.  In this presentation, the poetry of Sepamla and Gwala is regarded as discourse
because it addresses itself to issues that affected the lives of black people. These
issues are: racialist attitudes, culture of black people, Christian religion,
capitalist exploitation, non-whites, white liberalism, Bantustan institutions,
literary criticism, anger of Black masses and the state violence.
 “Conscientization” is undoubtedly a familiar concept to many students of South
African politics. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, South African activists
used this term to describe the process of spreading political awareness. As such,
conscientization is linked to protest, and a community’s readiness to engage in
political struggle is seen as the degree to which it had been successfully
‘conscientized.’

9.  The conscientization process was meant to open the eyes of black people so that
they could begin to see the nature of their oppression, subjugation, discrimination,
and marginalization. It is through the conscientization process that black people
were directly and indirectly informed that they were not free; they were made
aware of their inner strength that they could use to set themselves free.
 The ideological consciousnesses can be defined as the pre-formed collection of
values and beliefs that inform a person’s understanding of self and others through
the process of socialisation. This suggests that conscientisation can be a form of
psychological empowerment, the feeling that one has some power or control of
one’s life.
 Gwala operates from a Marxist rationale when he writes poetry. Sepamla was an
active member of Black Consciousness. Marxist theory of literature was deemed
as relevant for the analysis of the poetry of Sepamla and Gwala because it exposes
the workings of ideology in literary texts and in literary criticism.

10.  Sipho Sepamla's abiding concern was the legacy, on into the future, of the ‘Children of
Soweto'. Sepamla's poetry tends to be directed more towards the reforming views of
white liberals than towards raising the consciousness of black workers. For example,
in "Measure for Measure", Sepamla addresses himself to white officials and in an
ironic tone seems to comply with white policy:
 count me enough wages to make certain that I grovel in the mud for more food teach me just so
much of the world that I can fit into certain types of labour and when all that is done let me tell
you this you'll never know how far i stand from you.

11.  Sepamla's main talent lies in his ability to exploit language for humorous effects. He
combines a style of broken English with "township Xhosa" and "tsotsi-taal" to induce a
linguistic interplay which underlines his point. For instance, in "The Bookshop" the
speaker's good-natured banter is strengthened by his broken grammar and his
assertions of literacy and ironically undercut by the speaker's apologetic tone:
 Here I is
 Too literate to reads comics and the Bible
 I walks into a bookshop a newspapers in one armpit…
 The likes of me can be excused for being literate
 Besides a good sight is a literate me

12.  Sepamla's "Civilization Aha," reveals the ideological collusion between the explicitly
racist policies of the government and Christianity:
 i thought of a whiteman
 the first time i saw god's portrait
 i thought of a blackman
 the first time I met satan on earth
 i must be honest
 it wasn't only bantu education
 it was all part of what they say is western
 civilization.
 Even Christianity, the most well-intentioned aspect of white culture, is viewed as
detrimental to Black Consciousness and culture. By attaching a positive meaning to
"white" and a negative one to "black," white supremacist doctrine becomes fixed into
religious discourse.

13.  Mtshali, like Serote, Sepamla, and the rest, attempts to instil optimism, not
through shrill slogans promising the annihilation of the whites, but through
beautiful, succinct, and inspirational verses. The various cultural aspects seek to
give lasting and sustaining hope to the African people.
 Protest poetry is both angry and encouraging; it is both hopeful and desperate for
change. It exposes stereotyped behaviour and tries to speak for the victims of
oppression everywhere in South Africa while at the same time speaking to them.

14.  This presentation reveals that this poetic genre had far greater value than that of
entertainment. The poetic genre can be used as a tool to educate people on various
social issues.
 The aesthetic ideology that is reflected in the poems, is the content and form that
displays a striking realism that speaks to the consciences of the readers,
challenging them as individuals to act against the oppressor. The poets Sepamla
and Gwala succeeded in conscientizing black people by portraying a sincere and
honest picture of the experiences of the oppressed black people under the
apartheid regime.
 The poetry of Sepamla and Gwala was revolutionary and sought to revolutionalize
the way black people thought and looked at themselves and their surroundings.

15.  Benveniste, E, 1971, Problems in General Linguistics Miami: University of Miami
Press. 233 Cornwell, G. 1980.Evaluating Protest Fiction. English in Africa 7,1:51-79.
 Chapman, M. 2007. Sipho (Sydney) Sepamla 1932–2007, Current Writing: Text and
Reception in Southern Africa, 19:1, 2-2. Retrieved from:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2007.9678258. Accessed on (29 March 2016)
 Daniel, R.M. 2011. Black Consciousness and the Politics of Culture in 20th Century
South Africa. Kwazulu-Natal: University of Kwazulu-natal.
 Easthope, A. 1983. Poetry as Discourse. London: Methuen.
 Holland, L. 1987. A critical survey of contemporary South African poetry: The
language of conflict and commitment. Hamilton: McMaster University.
 Karis, T.G and Gerhart, G.M. 1997. From Protest to Challenge. A documentary of
History of African Politics in South Africa. Volume 5 Unisa Press Pretoria.
 Sibisi, L.Z. 2013. Conscientisation: A Motive behind the Selected Poems of Sepamla,
Serote, Gwala and MtshalI. Kwazulu Natal: University of Kwazulu Natal.

16. Questions, Compliments, Aesthetics or Criticism are
invited…