essay about death of a son by njabulo ndebele

The Sitting Bee

Short Story Reviews

Death of a Son by Njabulo Ndebele

In Death of a Son by Njabulo Ndebele we have the theme of grief, resilience, loss, doubt, acceptance, responsibility and renewal. Narrated in the first person by an unnamed woman (mother) the reader realises from the beginning of the story that Ndebele may be exploring the theme of grief. The narrator and her husband Buntu have yet to grieve the loss and killing of their son. They have been busy trying to recover their son’s body and as such grief is coming late to them. It is also noticeable that both the narrator and Buntu are resilient when it comes to retrieving their son’s body. They will not give up even though what is happening to them may be a result of corruption within the police. A possible failure on the police’s behalf to take responsibility for killing the narrator’s son. There is also a sense that due to the circumstances that the narrator finds herself in she is reliant on others, the police, lawyers, newspaper to help her get her son back. Which again may suggest that there is a degree of corruption within the police. They are after all responsible for killing the narrator’s son. Firing randomly from the Casspirs. It may also be case that the narrator has doubts when it comes to Buntu. Some of which may have grown from the time she was assaulted on the streets and Buntu did not react apart from saying ‘the dog.’ After her son is killed the narrator distances herself somewhat from Buntu.

Whether this is because she may be in shock over the death of her son is difficult to say. It is possible that the narrator is displeased at the circumstances she finds herself in and Buntu though he is being proactive in trying to get their son’s body back is not a man of action. And it may be action that the narrator is seeking. It is as though Buntu has a responsibility to the narrator to get their son’s body back but instead of personally taking action he is looking towards others to help him. Which may be the point that Ndebele is trying to make. At the time the story was written it would appear that the levels of corruption where so high in the police that in order to get a loved one’s body back. The police had to be paid. This may seem bizarre to some readers however that may have been the state of affairs in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Where black people had no rights or where not supported by those in authority (white people).

It is also possible that Ndebele is exploring the theme of acceptance. Throughout the story there is a sense that the narrator accepts what has happened to her. Though again whether this is just shock is difficult to say. There is no anger in the narrators tone as she is telling her story which suggests that she accepts not only the death of her son but also how her son was killed. Forces that she has no control over and who appear to be unanswerable to anybody are the real cause of the narrator’s pain yet she accepts that this is what life in South Africa is (at the time the story was written). The sense of avenging herself when she was attacked three years previously is non-existent though what has happened the narrator is far worse than being pushed to the ground. Throughout the story the narrator remains calm and logical. Even though what has happened to her (and Buntu) is horrific. It might also be a case that the acceptance that the narrator has is part of her grief. She may be fully aware due to the circumstances she finds herself in that the best she can hope for is the return of her son’s body. She will not defeat the police as her voice will remain unheard. Which in many ways is ironic considering that the narrator is a journalist.

The end of the story is also interesting as Ndebele appears to be exploring the theme of renewal. As the narrator is lying on bed there is a sense that she is being to not only accept what has happened to her but that she is also looking towards the future. She knows that she has lost her first and only child however she also knows that she can have another child. Though some critics might suggest that the narrator is quickly forgetting her son it is unlikely that this is the case. Instead the narrator though still grieving the loss of her son knows that what was lost can also be gained. If anything there is a trace of optimism appearing in the narrator’s life. For the first time in the story the narrator is looking at things through a positive lens. There is nothing stopping her being a mother again. She will still carry the loss of her son but she can still have a family. Life may never be the same for the narrator but all has not been lost. The scars of what has happened may be real but they do not always have to show.

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The role of the narrator

The role of the narrator in this particular story appears to be to tell the reader a story about the events that have occurred. To try and allow the reader inside the narrator’s mind (and heart) in the hope that the reader will realise just how difficult things are for the narrator.

Who is the journalist? Is it the wife or Bunty?

Theophilus T. Mukhuba, Ph.D., Principal Tutor in English in South Africa, University of the Witwatersrand

Writers of protest fiction write from an artistic viewpoint that Ndebele seeks to debase because he objects to the content of their works. He would obviously assert that his whole argument is based on the universality of literary art — that its broad acceptance derives from true human reflections and not from specific geographical, social or political situations. It would also seem that he implies that the most vital art in a literary work comes when the writer deals with wholesome emotion in human relationships. Such emotion, he claims, Kemal does to perfection. Ndebele argues that, unlike Kemal, protest fiction writers are excessively preoccupied with urban culture and its concerns. This implied avoidance of rural life in fiction constitutes for Ndebeie an unawareness of the richness that such portrayals may yield to literary art. Ndebeie concludes his argument on this point by pointing out that

In general, writers in the cities seem to be clear about one thing: that their writings should show of themselves and their writers, a commitment to political engagement. [1984:43]

This statenment is by inference an attempt to drive black South African city writers to the closed morality of conventional artistic literary beliefs. For the sake of upholding the artistic quality of literature, a writer must portray his reflections in a certain way and thereby maintain the conventional form of literary writing.

If Ndebele insists on his tireless propagation of a type of literary tradition in South Africa, he must clearly see that literature is so wide and varied that to try and confine it to a particular tradition for whatever reason, would be like trying to confine the wind to a particular direction.

It is also interesting that Ndebeie makes no mention whatsoever of black South African writers who write in the vernacular. I think he omits mentioning them precisely because their writings largely concern rural life. If he mentioned them he would have had to acknowledge that rural life is portrayed in black South African literature and that there are many streams of literary art. Or are we to surmise that so-called conventional literature can only be produced in English?

The fact that city writers write in English and that others, both in the city and the rural areas, write in their vernacular, can only be ascribed to the readership. The reading public available to the city writer who writes in English is a literate readership. The city is also a home for different ethnic groups, black or white, and the English language plays a major role in communications between the different ethnic groups who live together in the city. It would be pointless for a writer who wants to address city dwellers and non-city dwellers to write in Zulu or Sotho, for instance. It is all a question of who the intended reader of a particular literature is.

Ndebele also overlooks the fact that literary art is best appreciated when the writer does not pre-plan his subjects and the manner of portrayal. Like any other art, a literary product must be the end-result of something which began with an inspiration. And what can better inspire an artist than his most pressing emotions or feelings? As the artist is rooted partly in his concrete material existence, he will definitely be influenced by his surroundings, which serve as an unlimited source of inspiration. Otherwise, we will be forced to create a literary art trapped within the confines of conventions that therefore deny ourselves the right to be different and do things differently in terms of literary expression.

Taking note of his critics, Sipho Sepamla says in an interview about protest fiction: 'They must take cognisance of the historical perspective that is governing the present-day writer'. He goes on to say: 'It is important to be aware that the present-day Black south African writer always expresses immediate experiences. Your Dostoyevsky, your Kafka are people we are not exposed to. And again it should be borne in mind that writing relates to tradition' (1981:43). Sepamla obviously means that protest-fiction writers base their writings on a tradition they have created in the circumstances within which they found themselves. Sepamla's argument can be advanced if one adds the fact that no literary tradition is complete in itself. Every tradition includes some elements of other traditions. To stress a particular form of literary art at the expense of another, as Ndebele does, is to do an injustice to the general trend of literature.

In response to the complaints of Sepamla, Tlali and Mutloatse about the criticism they have received from certain critics, Ndebele appears to contradict himself when he attempts to assert his critical position. He acknowledges that Tiali, in her novel Amandla, was 'not just reporting, she was telling a story' (1984:47). However, he goes on to criticize her for agreeing with what Sepamla said in the same interview when he asserted the importance of the reader. What Sepamla actually said was: 'We must go to the people, for it is the man in the street we must listen to' (Ibid.). A blurring of positions? One wonders.

Ndebele next argues that the three writers seem to have established a premise that fiction that has overt political content is what "the man in the street" really wants to read, and how right he is! Surely Ndebele would agree that the literate black man who can be regarded as the reader of literary works, is largely found in the cities. This is not to say that one cannot find literate black readers of literature in the rural areas, but the black man who can identify with the experiences portrayed in protest fiction is almost invariably urban. After posing the theoretical question that if Sipho Sepamla were to listen to the man in the street, he would hear something different from what he claims, Ndebele claims another sort of mandate from the man in the street. This mandate derives from his assertion that black people have a tradition of storytelling which is not necessarily informed by the struggle against apartheid.

Ndebele conveniently neglects to tell his audience about the other side of this issue. In his effort to prop up his argument, he leaves out a crucial dimension of the debate. What he conveniently forgets to add is that the storytellers and their audiences were part of the masses and were subjected to the same inhuman treatment as any black person in South Africa. He apparently also forgets to point out that the little time they had for entertainment was spent on moments that create an illusionary world which by the very essence of the joy it gives, mirrors their cruel and sad existence. It was a form of escapism which allowed for a fleeting expression of happiness. The moment they left the sanctuary of their illusions (the buses and the trains), they were once again confronted with the existing reality in a country governed by those who were hell-bent to make their lives intolerable.

In his claims and examples, Ndebele tries to use pieces of different jig-saw puzzles to complete a new jig-saw puzzle. In fact, the man in the street prefers the type of literary works written by those whom Ndebele criticizes. The man in the street wants to read about something with which he can really identify, something he can recognize, something that mirrors his own perceptions and his deep feelings. It is this reinforcement of his feelings and emotions that builds his resilience, if anything. Besides, in those stories that Ndebele claims appeal to the taste of 'the man in the street', the black man, contrary to Ndebele's claim, simply recounts some of his daily experiences — what he observes in the apartheid field of experience. He points out the absurdities of these experiences in the given situation in which he unfortunately finds himself.

In a paper delivered at the University of Bophuthatswana, entitled 'Actors and Interpreters: Popular Culture and Progressive Formalism', Ndebele also claims that the literary tradition of protest writers in South Africa has largely been influenced by its dependence on white liberal influence. He asserts that most of the literature produced by black South Africans is directed to the white liberal reader. This type of literature, he argues, serves the purpose of constantly reminding the white man about his attitude in the hope that he will realize this injustice and change for the better. When asked a question on this issue, Miriam Tlali refuted this assumption.

In my writings I never try to copy somebody or adopt principles set down by scholars... I have always remarked that I'd like to present my stories with the black audience in my mind and I have never really intended to write for a white audience. [1984:43]

Her pronouncement should serve to remind critics to do their homework first before going public with their criticism. Of course Ndebele would argue that Tlali's pronouncement is simply a defense against criticism of her work. But who really, for that matter, is Ndebele's intended reading public? If he can claim to write for a black audience, so can Tlali, because there is a great deal in common in terms of projection in their respective works, as will be shown in this article.

The many tales produced by black South African writers, Ndebele's included, show the startling conditions and effects of life in the then authoritarian, racially segregated South Africa. It was a world these writers knew intimately. It was a world, the reality of which ironically perhaps, white South Africans had been schooled to reject. Assuming that this is so, where then lies Ndebele's claim that protest fiction is directed towards a people schooled to reject it?

I do not want to ignore certain valid points Ndebele makes. Many of them are, in any event, common knowledge. It is true that black South African writers depended largely on white liberals to have their works published. After all many of these liberals owned the means of publication. But it it is false to claim that protest fiction was intended for consumption only by white liberals. In a paper entitled 'Njabulo Ndebele and the Challenge of the New', Craig MacKenzie looks at how Ndebele's 'ideas inform his own fiction'. On the issue of black South African fiction and its intended readership, he writes:

Ndebele evokes the sense of the writer's accountability to the majority African population, even if, as he acknowledges, the writing itself lands up in most cases in the hands of a white liberal readership. [1990:6]

This is so only if by 'accountability' Ndebele means that this type of literature serves to advance the black man's case in South Africa and as such becomes the political mouth-piece of the apparently silent majority. No wonder most of it was deemed undesirable and banned.

The silent majority were definitely the intended public of the protest fiction writers'. This literature was banned precisely because of that. It served to propel the black man to stages of awareness about himself and life in South Africa. And if this public willingly appreciates what it is fed, the critic should ask himself why this is so. The black readers consume this type of literature for entertainment and to whip up emotions in themselves which will probably make them overcome their sense of fear, powerlessness, distrust and lost spontaneity.

Therefore, the answers to the question what constitutes acceptable literary art in South Africa, are varied and they should all be accepted as such. In a broad-minded evaluation of literary art in South Africa, Nadine Gordimer succinctly puts it thus:

I think that if you accept that for the writer, writing is his terrain..., because that is what he can do best, the question of protest writing — what it is, why anybody does it? - simply falls away and does not exist. Because to paraphrase "the poet is in the poetry", I think the protest is in the people. And if you write honestly about the life around you, the protest comes out of that. It is not a goal on its own (Source unknown).

This is the position that 'protest writers' have subconsciously assumed and have been forced to defend against attacks on their art by the likes of Ndebele.

For the moment, I wish to confine myself to showing the inappropriateness of Ndebele's criticism by analysing and showing the similarities between his fictional works and some fictional works of those he criticizes. In so doing, I hope to prove that his fictional works, if anything, fall within the same parameters of classification as the works of Mutloatse, Tlali and Sepamla.

Ndebele's major fictional work to date is undoubtedly the much acclaimed Fools and Other Stories for which he was awarded the Noma literary award. Fools and Other Stories contains five stories which deal with different experiences of black people. The first, entitled 'The Test', portrays a young black boy's world and how he relates to this world and those around him. In this story, minor but significant issues become major points of contention. The protagonist has to prove himself in a challenge against one of his friends. He has to prove himself by endurance. It is a test of strength against his rival to see who can best withstand the ferocity of the weather — in this case, rain and cold. An important dimension of this story is that of social commentary. Ndebele excels in depicting the lives of small boys in a dusty township through a particular event. Perhaps, by centering the story on small boys and exploring how they deal with their fears and troubles in a black township, Ndebele wishes to show the power of the seemingly helpless and innocent.

In the story, and in line with the tone of his criticism, Ndebele demonstrates the strength behind endurance and the satisfaction that can be derived from rising to the challenge to face hardship. Ndebele describes the boy after he had met the challenge thus:

He felt dry, but cold as he slipped into the blankets. He felt warm deep inside him, and as he turned over in bed looking for the most comfortable position, he felt all the pain. But, strangely enough, he wished he could turn around as many times as possible. There was suddenly something deeply satisfying and pleasurable about the pain. And as he slid into a deep sleep, he smiled feeling so much alive. [1983:29]

The protagonist obviously feels gratified at having overcome the odds stacked against him. It is likely that this is a literary assertion of Ndebele's critical perception that biack South African writers should write as 'storytellers' — as he must himself presumably be doing in this story. He contends that, on the contrary they are glaringly political in their writings.

Later this essay will show how Ndebele contradicts himself in this regard and other points of disagreement shall be raised. For the moment let us simply concern ourselves with analysing his stories.

'The Prophetess', the next story in the sequence, is written in much the same vein as 'The Test'. Ndebele achieves the same objective with this story as he does with 'The Test' — he celebrates the power of simplicity. The story is set in a township and revolves around a boy who is sent by his sick mother to a prophetess to fetch 'holy water', which she hopes will heal her. On his way home with the water the boy gets knocked down by a man riding a bicycle and the bottle with the 'blessed'water breaks. When the boy gets home he fills another bottle with water and takes it to his mother. She thinks the water is blessed and after she has drunk it she immediately says she feels better. In this story Ndebele accurately portrays not only a township setting, but he celebrates the power of the mind — that belief has a healing power of its own.

The third story, 'Uncle', is related by a small boy. In telling the story through the consciousness of a small boy, Ndebele excels in the portrayal of the simplicity of innocence in the midst of suffering. It is the story about the relationship of the boy (the narrator) and his uncle whom he holds in high esteem. The boy's uncle is a musician, and he visits the boy and his mother after a long time. He teaches the boy all the values central to their lives: the roles of the family, the ancestor's ethics, morality, sex and racial pride. The story is rather long and seems to have been deliberately inflated with apparently unnecessary descriptions of the township which make it approach the length of a novella in scope.

'The Music of the Violin,' which subjects the black man's values and attitudes to scrutiny, is a story about withdrawing from reality in favour of a world of artificiality and falsehood. In the process there occurs the distortion of people's existential modes as they substitute reality with artificiality. The story concerns a small boy, Vukani, his father, a school inspector and his mother, a nursing sister. They clearly belong to the aspiring middle-class and are proud of their status in society. Vukani does not like playing the violin because to him it is a source of constant humiliation and embarrassment.

He is torn between his desire to free himself from doing what he does not like, that is, playing the violin, and what he regards to be his duty to his parents; to obey and please them. A critical point in the story occurs when his parents want him to play the violin for their visitors, Dr Zwane and his wife, Beatrice. In a final act of defiance, the boy refuses to play the violin and his mother is shocked. Vukani's sister adds insult to injury by accusing her mother of pomposity, artificiality and selfishness.

All the stories in this collection except the title story, 'Fools', are told either in the first- or third- person, and the protagonist is a school boy on the brink of adolescence. In all the stories the boy is weak, timid, nervous and frequently humiliated, either by other boys or his mother. He is set apart socially from other boys in the township by virtue of his parents' education; the mother is a nurse in all the stories and the father is involved in school education. Ndebele's boy protagonists in these stories celebrate victory by defiance, endurance, and fulfilment — the boy refuses to play the violin, he takes an unauthorized, risky run in the rain, he is disobedient, and he sheds all belief in the supernatural. Each story ends on a note of triumph and fulfillment.

'Fools', perhaps Ndebele's best short story, tells about a middle-aged teacher, Zamani, who disgraces himself in the eyes of the community by raping a schoolgirl and embezzling church funds. The teacher's interactions with the girl's brother, Zani, gradually propel him to self-realisation. Zani comes to the township of Charterston fired up with radical political ideas and a mission to make the people aware of the oppressive system to which they are subjected. He wishes to prompt them to do something. Zamani, on the other hand, yearns for perpetual darkness. He lives life as it comes and tries to extract whatever he can from it for the sole purpose of satisfying his desires.

Whilst Zani is thwarted in his immature acts of protest, Zamani is rescued from his miserable and humiliating existence by the encounter with the aggressive white man at the picnic ground that provides him with the ultimate test of his existence as a black man. In a dramatic about-turn, he triumphs over brutality and emerges a mature man with increased awareness of himself and the terrible conditions of his existence.

'Death of a Son', another of Ndebele's short stories to which attention should be drawn, is about the cruelty of injustice. A man, Buntu, is stripped of his dignity as a person by his failure to stand and face the system. Buntu's son is killed by the police, and he is humiliated before he can get his son's body from them. It seems here that despite Ndebele's attempts to distance himself from much contemporary black South African literature, his stories in Fools and 'Death of a son' ascribe to Sipho Sepamia's idea of literature. In a personal interview in which Sipho Sepamla was asked what his central concern was in his writing, he responded: 'I write about the condition of man'.

The previous synopsis of Ndebele's stories shows that Ndebele also writes about the condition of man, more particularly, of the black man in South Africa. The subjects of apartheid and the necessity for struggle is not avoided in his stories. For a man who preaches the universality of artistic literary expression, he seems to have done very little to represent his ideas in his art. His stories include a strong component of overt politics.

In his writings he gives personalised accounts of the biack man's condition in South Africa — his humiliation, his fears, racial pride, his weaknesses and his strengths, and above all, the necessity to overcome. All this is portrayed as a direct consequence of the brutality of the apartheid system. Ndebele, like the writers he criticizes, obviously bases his stories on specific events.

He does acknowledge though, as do those he criticizes, that a writer cannot write in a vacuum. In the 'Turkish Tales...' article, in which he exalts the literary abilities of the Turkish writer Yasher Kemal, he admits:

What so readily seems to undercut the autonomy of art is its subject matter: the specificity of setting, the familiarity of character, recognisable events in either recent or distant history, and other similar factors that ground a work firmly in the time and space. [1984:44]

The target of this criticism, in my view, are works like those of Sepamla and Tlali. It should be pointed out here that the two short stories, 'Fools' and 'Death of a Son' in particular, are stark evidence of Ndebele's apparent confusion in the treatment of theory and practice especially when compared and contrasted with the works of those he criticizes.

He clearly does not practice what he preaches when he writes about the literary position he opposes. To him the pre-occupation of the black South African writer with the African experience has been largely superficial. This superficiality, he writes,

Comes from the tendency to produce fiction that is built around the interaction of surface symbols of the South African reality. These symbols can easily be characterized as ones of either good or evil, even more accurately, symbols of evil on the one hand, and symbols of the victims of evil on the other hand. [1984:44]

And because of the black writer's pre-occupation with this type of literary projection, he precludes one of Ndebele's most cherished ideas about literary art &mdfash; that of the writer as a storyteller. The component of storytelling must of necessity, according to Ndebele, always prevail in artistic fiction.

A Critique of Njabuolo Ndebele's Criticism of Protest Fiction

Introduction
Ndebele's Literary Position: The City and Politics
Ndebele's Criticism and Counter-Criticism
Comparison and Contrast of Stories by Ndebele, Tlali, and Sepamla

Achebe, C. Morning Yet on Creation Day . London: Heinemann, 1975.

Cromwell, G. Evaluating Protest Fiction" English in Africa , Vol. 7, No.1, March 1980.

Gordimer, N. (Source unknown).

Hernadi, P. What is Literature? London: Indiana University Press, 1978.

Mackenzie, C. "Njabulo Ndebele and the Challenge of the New." (Unpublished paper)

Mutloatse, M.(ed.) Forced Landing . Braamfontein: Ravan Press,1987.

Nazareth, P. Literature and Society in Modern Africa . Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau, 1972.

Ndebele, N. Fools and other Stories Braamfontein: Ravan Press, 1983.

Ndebele, N. 1991. Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture . Johannesburg: COSAW.

Ndebele, N. 'Turkish Tales and Some Thoughts on South African Fiction', Staffrider , Vol.6, No.1, 1984.

Ngugi, T. Writers in Politics . London: Heinemann,1981.

Nkosi, L. Home and Exile . London: Longmanns,1965.

Okri, B. (Exact source unknown)

Sepamla, S. "Personal Interview with the Writer," Johannesburg, 6 May 1992.

Shava, P,V. A People's voice: Black South African Writing in the Twentieth Century . London: Zed Books, 1989.

Sole, K. "Culture and Politics and the Black Writer: A Critical Look at Prevailing Assumptions", English in Africa , Vol.10, No.1, May 1988.

Tlali, M. Interview with the Writer, 20 October 1993.

Vaughan, M. "The Writer as a Storyteller?" African Studies Seminar Paper. March 1988.

Wellek, R. A History of Modern Criticism, Volume 8. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.

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Berkley Center

A discussion with professor njabulo s. ndebele, chair of the mandela-rhodes foundation.

With: Njabulo S. Ndebele Berkley Center Profile

October 29, 2013

Background: South African scholar Professor Njabulo Ndebele is an outspoken South African educator with wide experience with the issues confronting both education and leadership in the region and the challenges his country faces in light of its history and especially the legacy of apartheid. His interests range widely, from history to literature to society to politics. Ndebele was part of the Black Consciousness Movement and has distinctive views about affirmative action in the United States and South Africa and about the impact of apartheid on contemporary politics and society. In this discussion with Angela Reitmaier in Capetown, South Africa, he highlights steps along the way of his ethical journey and its unfolding in the unique context of South Africa. The discussion took place in October 2013, shortly before the December 3, 2013 death of Nelson Mandela. He brings a challenging view to the much discussed concept of ubuntu . It had, he argues, profound effects on young scholars from Southern Africa and a mixed legacy. The joint realities of absent fathers and mothers working so hard that they left home before daybreak helped to shape their intense desire to see change in their societies. One result was that family life itself has become a political issue. He highlights the energy that flows from the juxtaposition of the two names—Mandela and Rhodes—that are part of the foundation he leads. His final thoughts are positive and optimistic: literature, music, and art are thriving, he argues, and make it impossible for repressive government to take hold in South Africa.

What excites you about being the chairman of the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation, a foundation in the names of a freedom fighter and a colonialist?

Being the chairman brings new responsibilities but adjusting to the role has not been that difficult given than I am one of the founding trustees. Thus I am working in a space of some familiarity. From the governance perspective, the chairman becomes a kind of public face of the foundation. This comes with its challenges. One of the most exciting ones is that I and my fellow trustees are conscious of holding in our hands the almost permanent resonance arising out of the contiguousness of the names Mandela and Rhodes in one linguistic space. It is a resonance the founder, Nelson Mandela, was fully aware of when he said: “The bringing together of these two names represents a symbolic moment in the closing of the historic circle; drawing together the legacies of reconciliation and leadership and those of entrepreneurship and education.” It represents a gesture of reconciliation between two historic moments: the moral ambiguities in the historical triumphs of colonialism and the transformative mandate of a modern democratic South Africa.

The two names side by side engender unflagging energy, because the tension in their interaction is ultimately irresolvable as a constant spur to reflection on the possibilities, and the difficulties, of people living together in history. In colonial settings, in the specific instance of Kenya for example, you had the Mau-Mau revolt. In its legitimate reactions to conquest the Mau-Mau engaged in actions that in retrospect the people in Kenya might feel they could have done differently. We have those examples also in the South African context, where the victim legitimately takes action against the oppressor, but in retrospect, if the victim is honest, he can say, perhaps we could have done things differently.

So the juxtaposition of these two names is itself the story of human interaction. The actions of a Cecil Rhodes, no matter how reprehensible in certain respects, created an infrastructure of schools, universities, roads and railways. This may have been the result of a world that Joseph Conrad attempted to understand in his book Heart of Darkness , but, nevertheless, a railroad is a railroad. I once reflected on this in an essay on Nelson Mandela ( Mandela: The Authorized Portrait . Johannesburg: Wild Dog Press: 2006. pp. 336-354). I went to interview him, and landed at the Transkei Airport. I remembered that this airport was built during the times of Apartheid in a Bantustan, but I was landing at the airport at a time when the Bantustan was re-incorporated into South Africa. I did not like the airport and what it represented of a disagreeable aspect of our past, but I realized that the airport really does not care what I feel about it. Its purpose is to be a place where planes land and take off. So whatever meaning we attach to things is neither here nor there, as far as their utility is concerned. So it makes little sense to say, I will not take this railway to go to Dar es Salam, because it was built by Cecil Rhodes. The point is that today, it is serving a different purpose, which is to facilitate travel among people, who are free of the colonial context within which the railway was built.

So the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation will always be renewed by the debates that the two names will engender for generations to come. I think that the foundation will always be exciting from that point of view.

You have held and are holding many other important positions and are acclaimed as a leading South African thinker. How did you come to do what you have done? What inspired you?

Normally we say that what inspires us comes from outside of oneself. I am more conscious of what is inside of myself, urging me on to do something.

Then what are the values you draw your strengths from?

Reflecting about my ethical journey, I recall an incident from when I was a young boy, maybe around the age of 8 or 10. In my township, my father was the principal of the Charterston High School in the 1950s. One afternoon, I came back from school and I found that there was a group of children from my school, a primary school, who were working in the garden of my home. I went inside the house and did not come out, because I was conscious of and uncomfortable with the fact that here were my peers, working in my home. I felt that I should more appropriately be working with them, somewhere else, as a matter of public duty. I have always tried to understand why I felt so uneasy about this. With the hindsight of an adult, my uneasiness had probably something to do with the fact that my peers were put into a position of serving me. I have always thought that there was something that I could not explain, but which, as an adult, I was able to give words to: the deployment of privilege and power to get things that you normally have to pay for. I do not know to this date whether my father paid something, but the likelihood is that he did not. It was a favor from one principal to another; a kind of feudal entitlement.

I use that as an example of the awareness of an uncomfortable ethical moment. Is ethics in that situation a natural thing? Where does one learn to make those distinctions? Is the sense of fairness, or unfairness, an inborn thing? Are we naturally inclined to discover one or the other, and then are fated to take a position one way or the other? Is it that a corrupt politician has been corrupt a long time ago, before he took office, because he made one choice as opposed to the other? Or did he become corrupt along the way? So I am seldom far away from the questioning of my own position.

If somewhere along the way Nelson Mandela comes along, I do not think he inspires me; rather, he confirms something that is already there. And if a Cecil Rhodes comes along, and I do not like something about Cecil Rhodes, I think Cecil Rhodes confirms something already inside of me that I do not like. So this is probably responsible for my lack of adulation for a leader, even of the stature of a Nelson Mandela. I do not feel that in his presence, I have been in the presence of a God that cannot be questioned. This is not to say that I have not deeply admired him, and wished that in some cases I could emulate him. Put simply, I do not recall any leader that I have met that I would be so awed by, that I would be ready to do anything he tells me to do, that would be beyond my questioning.

I believe therefore that the education of an individual is the one antidote to powerful people, who are inclined to ride roughshod over people. So if the sum total of the educational system of South Africa since the introduction of Bantu education has resulted in people who are in adulation of leaders, then Henrik Verwoerd (South African prime minister in the late '50s and early '60s and who was often called the “architect of apartheid") succeeded.

In an interview with Bishop Mvume Dandala, he highlighted his formation by the Black Consciousness Movement. He spoke of the days when Stephen Biko was the prime student leader and people like yourself, Barney Pityana, and Mamphela Ramphele questioned the role of society in forming their attitudes, and their own role in forming the attitudes of society. What impact has the Black Consciousness Movement had on your life?

It was a very formative influence. What Black Consciousness did was philosophically to contradict the assertions of apartheid, that black people were inferior and of little value compared to white people. This had a very liberating effect. Steve Biko’s power came not from confronting white power with its own logic, but from asserting a black self-centeredness that did not seek justification from outside of itself. There was a sense of integrity that was ultimately beyond the control of political and cultural whiteness. Apartheid sought to implant its negativity about black people inside of them so that they could accept that very negativity as a vital condition of their identity. If black people accepted that condition then there would have been no need for laws to control their behavior. Black Consciousness, which represented a rejection by black people of becoming agents for their own indignity, led to the apartheid state passing more repressive legislation. The more resistance there was, the more the repression to crush it. Thus the repression was not only evidence of institutionalized racism, it was more significantly an index of the intensity of black resistance to it.

The ethical and moral implications of Black Consciousness as not only an antidote to White Consciousness, but also as a new standard for more humane society were deepened further for many of us when we came across the seminal writings of the Brazilian philosopher of education, Paulo Freire. Freire famously wrote “It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors. The latter, as an oppressive class, can free neither others nor themselves” (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed . Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. New York, The Seabury Press: 1968. p.42).

It is the existential confidence of the oppressed as representing a more humane future that supports their confidence in defining that future and then working to make it happen. People who have been oppressing others, do not know how to bring about a different future. They are committed in the main to maintain the status quo. But those from whom something has been taken away, have a sense of and mission to bring about the unity and wholeness that they have been deprived of. They can restore that unity and mission for the sake of everyone, including those that have made life intolerable for them.

Paradoxically today, in post-apartheid South Africa we still have organizations that call themselves “black” such as the Black Lawyers Association, and others. We have government policies such as Black Economic Empowerment. Beyond Black Consciousness there ought no longer to be any need for black people in South Africa to define themselves as “black,” because they are supposed to have reached a state of existential self-definition that provides the human standard for a new society. Instead, they cede their existential power to a force they still perceive to carry human currency and agency they have to respond to, instead of leading it towards a new human reality.

From this perspective there is no place in South Africa for the policy of affirmative action. It may have a place in the United States, where black people have had no chance ever of being the majority population, and only through policy of affirmative action could they be enabled to create space for them in the larger society. To take affirmative action and bring it into South Africa is to put black people politically and psychologically into a position of being a minority. It does not make any sense for any black people today to be calling themselves black. They are, who they are. In the South African context, they are the definers of the future; they do not need a description that is based on some politics of the past that is no longer applicable to the situation of today. They need no definition that supersedes their status as empowered citizens in a democracy with a constitution and a bill of rights that put them, as citizens, at the center of the entire national endeavor.

So I think we have gone in the wrong direction. All Black Empowerment does is get a few black people into the very structures of oppression that were responsible for our past. We have got that wrong, and we are continuing with it, and it is a tragedy. So I do not have to define myself as black in order to be a full participant in the affairs of the world. I may have started with Black Consciousness, but it was a means to recapture the wholeness of myself. That has been done. We need to get on with life and not keep putting that tag on who we are.

When you were invited to speak about Sister Quinlan in 2012 on the sixtieth anniversary of her death at the hands of ANC youth during the Defiance Campaign, you asked your audience, “What would you have done had you been in that group of young people that stopped Sister Quinlan’s car and killed her?” How do you break out of the loyalties that keep you in the group? Who today are the examples of people who break out of loyalties?

I struggle to look for those examples, because those that ought to be them, I feel, have been silenced within the ANC. They are not as powerful a voice as they have used to be in the past. There are many people who fear the consequences of being perceived as disloyal, even though in all conscience, they no longer agree with where the ANC is now.

In the speech about Sister Quinlan I dramatized the situation of an ethical key moment, where you know that something is wrong, but you participate in the doing of it, because you are no longer in control of your ethical faculties. But I hasten to add that this is a condition that is very human. If I can give one example, one of the greatest books in my library that I always think of in such situations, is Lord of the Flies , where lawlessness takes over this group of well-disciplined English boys, who find themselves in a situation away from constituted authority. It is a human condition. When the boy Piggy is finally killed, it is a killing of conscience. When conscience is put aside in human society, the society swerves to extremes. In Germany, this happened under Hitler. I think that all these stories tell us that societies have to work hard to have thoughtful and sensitive critical citizens, who honor their individual and collective consciences.

Do you think that Edward Snowden, the whistleblower of wiretapping in the United States, is someone who broke out of such loyalties?

He is a very good example of someone who had to weigh between personal loyalty to his country and the greater good for the world, and he chose the latter. This choice is not easy. I wanted my audience to confront this difficulty. And I once put a similar question forward in one of my articles, when I wrote about a police officer who was beating the wife of a colleague in public. If you see people beating up a person in public, what do you do? Do you go and defend that person? Or do you stand aside, watch and not do anything? Or do you walk away, embarrassed by your own inability to do anything? This is a classic ethical moment, which we have seen various examples of around the world.

Ubuntu is something uniquely African that binds groups together: "a person is a person only through other persons." It creates the glue holding communities together. Do you have positive examples of ubuntu ? Could this glue also work negatively, making it more difficult to break out of group loyalties in the cases we just mentioned, or does it work only positively when you enhance the social spirit of the community?

I must admit I have an ambivalent stance as to the notion of ubuntu . It came about in a context in which black people were made to feel that they had not made any major contribution to the world, and so somebody said that we contributed ubuntu to the world. If you study the proverbs of Africa, it is possible to say that Africans are more conscious of the social sphere within which an individual African exists than many societies outside of Africa, and particularly of the West. Perhaps beyond that I can say that third world societies in general, be they in South America or Asia, are more likely to have a sense of ubuntu . Ubuntu describes more a social awareness and an ethics that is derived from that awareness, rather than something to be experienced as a philosophy characteristic and definitive of black people in a prescriptive and regulatory kind of way. In other words, logically, an African may have ubuntu , but an African is not always in an u buntu situation. Many other people in the world may have ubuntu without it being described that way. A new South Africa does not need an u buntu outside of a constitution, which is already informed by it.

In your “Meditations on Corruption,” you speak about "corruptive collusion as forming the new foundation of group solidarity within the group in power in South Africa, as being hostile towards any regulatory measures emanating from outside the group, even the national constitution, and as using concealment as a necessary method of operation." What can be done to stop this?

Your first question was about the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation. We have just completed four days of interviews to select the next cohort of the Mandela-Rhodes scholars. And what struck me about practically all of them is their sense of, and their awareness of, a world that needs to be changed. They come from Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana, or Lesotho. The majority are from South Africa, and within South Africa, they come from the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal, all over. So where does this sense of awareness of a world that needs to be changed come from?

The vast majority of them were born around the end of apartheid in 1994. Yet they are aware of where we have come from, and of disparities within the society, of enormous wealth, and enormous poverty. I extrapolate from this that the vast majority of South Africans outside of the political realm are far more advanced in their social thinking than the government itself. They have moved far ahead of the government, which in my view thinks that because many in it, as members of the ANC fought in the liberation struggle, it is must continue to fight the good fight it, even though the necessity for that kind of fight ended 20 years ago. The government seems incapable of thinking anew, even within the constraints of the constitution that it fought for.

It makes no sense not to care about the quality of people to be appointed appointed judges, ministers, or police officers, or even members of political parties. Ethical and moral commitment need to go with education and trained skill. If you have a potential Chief Justice, who has proven to be effective, and you choose someone else who has no comparable track record, you should give reasons why universally recognized qualities should no longer be considered relevant in South Africa. Instead manipulation of the system and becomes a substitute for transparent discussion.

But a system that has to be manipulated suggests that it cannot be justified. We need a political imagination that is aware of but is no longer founded, on the logic of a necessarily secretive liberation struggle, but more on transparently activating the talents of all South Africans in order to make the future which the constitution wants us to make. I can see that kind of politics beginning to take shape from amongst the young people that I recently saw.

In your novel The Cry of Winnie Mandela you comment on the rebuilding of homes and communities, which you see as the "most compelling factor in enabling us to sustain our nationhood. That way we may yet prevent our democracy from being a system in which extremes of behavior... wreak havoc on our capacity to sustain our freedom." Have you seen progress in the rebuilding of homes, not just physical structures, but homes, as you say, "into which the values of honor, integrity, compassion and creativity are infused?" What role are women playing in this?

Unfortunately, I do not see many good signs. I think that the African family has been under attack for more than 300 years. When the colonialists such as the British, including Cecil Rhodes, came to South Africa, they levied taxes on conquered people, so they had to go and work in the mines, abandoning their families and destroying the family structure. We are reaping the havoc created over more than two centuries ago. Today many families do not have a father, because he walked away for various reasons. The impact of this situation on women is what The Cry of Winnie Mandela explores. The women who wait do not know if their husbands are coming back. This has consequences for the decisions that they make about the intimate sides of themselves. Sometimes they are driven into things, even without being aware. Decisions that they make at the spur of the moment are indicative of desires that they have had for a long time and that are activated in moments of extreme loneliness and weakness. And then they find out that they have taken a plunge into hell, and they struggle to come back.

I think that part of the politics of the future is to make family life a political issue. We need to activate one aspect of ubuntu that I have always been positively inclined towards. It is captured in an African proverb: it takes a village to bring up the child. So what do we do, when we have a school in some township and some 60 percent or more of the children in that school last saw their mother yesterday evening, because she arrives from work after dark, sees them for a few hours, and leaves before daylight when they are still asleep. Who is bringing up these children?

Clearly, the school and the teachers play a great role, but do they have the awareness, the training, and the inclination to nurture children in the school environment? How do you design the school environment to minimize the negative effects of parental absence? How do you design the human environment beyond the school? So today I see the houses built under the Reconstruction and Development Program. There is no soul in them, because they have not been built around a defined social purpose, but in the way they have always been built, as little four-roomed houses for black people, who still call themselves “black” and the stay with the implications of that self-description despite “black people” being in power. The very black people are still building the same kind of houses. The “black people” in power have spent an insufficient amount of time and targeted resources visualizing the community of the future.

Two thirds of the world’s populations live in the third world. I have been to South America, Ghana, Nigeria, India, and I have read about communal lifestyles in the Middle East. The vast majority of the world's population live as families in compounds. This is diametrically different from a modern city environment in predominantly westernized communities, where you do not know the person next door, or on the opposite side of the road; they are complete strangers. Many people find this alienating. But it is obviously designed for a certain kind of economic structure. That economic system reproduces itself by focusing on the labor of people and by reducing the social networks. We have many, many issues to work out, but our politics is currently not configured to do that. A big portion of the budget goes to social grants. I should not be misunderstood to be against such grants. But the social grants must be construed in a manner that incrementally takes people away from dependence on them. If a good portion of the population depend on them, you can say at the next election, that if you vote for that party, they are going to take the social grants away from you, but if you vote for me, you will continue to get them. This is the politics of impoverishment, fear, and dependence.

In Chinua Achebe’s book Anthills of the Savannah , he says "Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit—in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever." Would storytellers still be perceived as a threat in South Africa that has a constitution guaranteeing rights to freedom?

Well right now, I am happy to say, the storytellers are thriving. The books are coming out, new novels, poetry, new plays, new music. The storytellers are thriving in the same way that the young people I was mentioning are thriving. The storytellers, the young people represent a re-adjustment in society. A base of consciousness is being created, from which we can start thinking about a new future. So if Chinua Achebe is saying storytellers are a threat, they are a threat to totalitarian control freaks. If South Africa develops such freaks, because some people want to hold on to power at all cost, then the storytellers will be a threat. But I am hoping for a situation where the storytellers are so many, that there is no way that they can be repressed. And I hope that oppressive, corruptive governments will simply wither away because there is no room for them anymore. And I suspect that foundation is probably being laid in South Africa today, and no single party, no matter how powerful now, is likely to withstand it. It may take another decade, but it is irreversible.

There was a time when I thought that the ANC was such a visionary party that they could also anticipate their own departure from power. If you look at the Western Cape, where the ANC is fighting against the Democratic Alliance in all sorts of ways, including the liberation struggle tactic of “rendering the province ungovernable.” There is a devastating irony in the question: how can a government in power render ungovernable a part of the country whose stability it is their constitutional responsibility to ensure? Surely there is only one way that the ANC can win back Western Cape. It is by being a good radical political party that pursues the dream of the constitution. If they do that, they may very well be voted in for a long time. But I do not think they are configured to pursue the hard work required, in skill and principle, pursue that route.

A Discussion with Professor Njabulo S. Ndebele, Chair of the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation

DOI: 10.1080/00138390208691308
Corpus ID: 162791245

BEYOND PROTEST: THE LEGACY OF BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS IN NJABULO NDEBELE'S FOOLS AND OTHER STORIES

Rob Gaylard
Published 1 January 2002
English Studies in Africa

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Black Christianity as Intellectual Resource in Njabulo Ndebele's Fools and Other Stories 1

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The Death of a Son

There was not even a 48-hour warning between the first x-rays of Kelden’s knee and the surgery which amputated his leg. When his physician-father took him for x-rays Sunday afternoon instead of waiting until Monday, I should have suspected something was very wrong. But I didn’t. Kelden had suffered a sharp pain in his knee when he moved quickly, but that didn’t seem anything to cause concern. I remember standing in the warm California sun that afternoon watering some ivy grown scrawny from lack of attention and thinking how peaceful was the hour—vowing not to fret so over the small, irritating inconveniences that accompany a new move with four small children. The year in California promised to be a peaceful interlude between the completion of my husband’s medical training and his beginning a private practice. But the peace was flown minutes later when father and son returned home.

A strange growth had appeared on the x-rays, and the doctors felt a biopsy should be done immediately to determine if the growth was what it appeared to be—an osteogenic sarconia (cancer of the bone)—a condition rarely found in children. The survival rate, even with a high amputation of the leg to prevent spreading, was not more than five percent.

I never considered that he might die. The thought that our beautiful five-year-old boy might lose his leg before his life had really begun held a terror my mind could not go beyond. We reacted that evening as our parents, themselves reared in Mormon homes, had reacted in times of illness and trouble. We first called in the elders of our church holding the authority to administer to the sick. We ourselves fearfully knelt in prayer—and we called our parents and family to ask for their prayers and support. Because the community was new to us, we were not acquainted with the church members, but the bishop and his counselor came in response to our pleas. How can I express, as we knelt while the elders prayed, our desperate hope for an assurance from our Father that the doctors were wrong, that their fears were unfounded, and that our son would be found without disease after all. As we rose to our feet, the bishop extended his hand to us with the words we so longed to hear.

“I have never had a stronger feeling that all is well. I feel certain that when this child is examined tomorrow, everything will be right with him.”

Kelden was admitted to the hospital the next afternoon for surgery the following morning. In the months that followed I learned to accept and even treasure many things—among them were “last moments”—moments precious because they would never be again, moments filled with words and actions that had to be recorded within the heart clearly enough to last for a lifetime of remembering. But on that August afternoon as Kelden and I shopped for a new book to read in the hospital, I still rejected the thought that never again would my son and I walk hand in hand. Nor could I treasure the moment when I tucked him in his hospital bed for the night and gave a final caress to the strong little leg.

I had not yet learned.

Both my father and father-in-law are spiritual men. My husband and I lean heavily upon their judgment. That evening after we returned home from the hospital, my father called. During his prayers that afternoon, he had received a profound feeling of reassurance that all would be well with his grandson. Later that evening my husband’s father called, again expressing his feelings of peace regarding our son.

But still we feared, my husband and I.

Kelden’s father knew better than anyone else close to the little boy, that the chances of a benign growth were practically non-existent. And so he, too, placed his hopes in a power greater than medical science. He fasted and prayed throughout the day and night for wisdom to make a decision—and for a miracle. When he returned to bed in the hour before dawn after walking over and over again the streets of our neighborhood, I whispered. “What if the growth is malignant? Are we going to let them amputate? Wouldn’t it be a lack of faith in the healing power of the Lord to amputate his leg?”

My husband lay a reassuring hand over mine. “Don’t worry about that. As I walked home after my prayers tonight, I felt suddenly at peace and certain that all will be well.”

The next morning we watched while someone rushed by on his way to the lab with tissue from Kelden’s knee. “Now—please, please don’t let it be true!” Our combined energy was spent in this silent plea with God. I remembered Kelden’s excitement at watching a “mixed-up television show” the doctor had promised the anesthesia would bring, and how irascible he had been during his final examination before surgery. He had joked with the doctor, and hopped gaily from one foot to the other when he was pronounced a very healthy young man.

Then, suddenly, the waiting was over, and I knew that what I had feared in my heart was real—the bone was infected with cancer, and the leg had to come off at once if the disease were to be stopped.

“Five minutes,” the surgeon said. “I’ll give you five minutes to decide. It must be done now.”

“No,” I insisted. “We still believe in miracles.

Why had everyone been so certain this would not be? Had we deceived ourselves? Now there was no time to think—to prepare.

“Of course, amputate.” This from the father who was also a doctor. “We have no choice but to try.” And so the leg came off.

The cry “If I had only known” must have been uttered millions of times by as many lips. All the unrelenting uncertainty of mind about the decision to amputate that little leg was in truth irrelevant. If I had only known the ending of this story from its beginning, what suffering I could have saved myself and those about me. Because as it happened, that decision had no influence on the destiny of the child.

Eventually he awakened, and his questions had to be answered. His first words were, “Mommy, why don’t you give me a drink of water?” Those unexpected but familiar, petulant words sounded with joy in my heart. My child had lost a leg, yet he was still my Kelly; as incredible as it seemed to me then, he was still the same impatient, determined, immeasurably dear little boy as ever he had been. At that moment I understood that we had not been deceived. All was going to be right with our son. What was the loss of a leg when he was alive and the world still before him to conquer. With his own special gifts of nature, it would be easier for him than most.

“Mommy, my leg hurts.”

Oh how fervently I prayed for the words to explain and comfort.

“I know, Kelly. The leg was sick, and because we didn’t want it to make the rest of you sick, the doctor had to take it off. But it’s all right, son, because in a few weeks we’ll get you another one—one that can walk and run and even jump. And until then, I will be your legs. We’ll go together wherever you want to go.”

“Mommy, did you want them to cut if off?”

“Oh, yes, son. You’re not going to be sick now. It’s all right!”

He didn’t cry, but he wasn’t fooled. A single tear rolled down his cheek. “Can I still drive an airplane?”

And then—“Where did they put it? They didn’t use a hatchet, did they?”

His recovery from the amputation was immediate. In three days he was home and climbing to the top of the terraced lawn in back of our house, swinging with his brothers and flying his new airplane. There were times when he seemed almost gay, and times when he was silent and reflective. Although he learned to use crutches, he preferred to hop, climb, and scoot with his own remaining limbs. Hours were spent in the fitting of an artificial leg. He knew the frustration and excitement of learning to walk again, and the heartbreaking realization that the new leg would never be really the same as the old one. He insisted upon reality, and refused to even make-believe about anything he knew required two real legs. At first he was hurt and cried when his neighborhood chums tired of swinging in our yard beside him and ran into the neighboring yards to play, leaving him behind to call tearfully after them. But he learned very soon to be independent.

It was late one afternoon just four weeks after the surgery that his father came home looking bewildered and peculiarly over—tired. He seemed discouraged, I thought, but it was far more than encouragement he needed. The very pillars of his life—his belief in a God and his own ability to communicate and receive direction from such a God—had been toppled.

He had just come from a consultation with the radiologists, where I had taken Kelden earlier in the day for a check-up. Routine x-rays had unbelievably shown an identical tumor in the remaining leg! Our child was going to die unless some miracle intervened, and how could we expect a miracle from a God who had deceived us—who had sent a feeling of wellbeing and peace to all who had prayed in the child’s behalf. My husband was consumed with self-accusation—with a feeling that he had hypnotized himself into believing what he wanted to believe. It seems naive, especially for persons knowledgeable about the medical significance of this disease, but neither my husband nor I had ever considered that Kelden might die, not since the first strong feeling of reassurance we had received in answer to our prayers.

And now he was definitely not all right. We considered for a few endless hours a high amputation of the remaining leg which would leave our son a cripple and give only a slight chance for his life. May we never know again the despair and loneliness of those hours when we believed we lived upon this earth without a supreme, interested Father to give purpose and plan to existence. It was not until we knew a little boy’s trust in death and its awakening, his dignity while facing pain, that we understood the truth of the promise given us by our Father: All is well with your son. He lives forever.

There was no need to amputate the other leg—further tests showed it was too late. And so we knew, barring a miracle, that he must die. The weeks remaining would surely be slow. And somehow, he knew, too. We drew the courage to face them from our son.

The pale, misshapen little figure lying against the white sheets, and the unused artificial leg standing in one corner of the room, spoke his story to all who entered. His flesh had withered quickly away, and the huge tumors which had crushed the bones in his shoulders rendered his arms and hands useless. Two-thirds of his abdomen was filled with bone tumor, and the skin was drawn so tightly over his face that the eyelids would no longer close. Only his eyes and lips moved. The slightest movement of the bed caused him intense pain. It had been only four months since that day he had hopped so gaily from one foot to the other. But though his beautiful body was being devoured, his mind and spirit seemed to soar. In the beginning he was very possessive of the gifts which came continually to the house for him, and was irritable because of the pain. He had been particularly so with the x-ray staff at the hospital where he received daily super-voltage therapy for pain in the remaining knee, and so his father and I were surprised when he asked, as we carried him into the hospital for his last treatment, “Do you think I make George sad? He loves me, and I’m not very nice to him. I haven’t much longer to make him happy, have I?”

During a card-playing session the evening before, Kelly had looked up pleadingly at his father and asked, “What happens when you die, Daddy?” and his father had answered, “Why, you go back to live with your Heavenly Father, son.” But this wasn’t enough. The child knew that he would soon have to leave us, and he needed to know what would become of him. The usual childhood answers would not do. This was the first of many sessions between father and son. I don’t know exactly what was said during those hours but I know that both father and son grew in courage and peace of mind. I know that Kelden was concerned with Christ’s crucifixion and atonement. “How much was the hurt?” he asked. “Who helped him be so brave? Do you know if He cried?”

“If Christ still had the nail holes, will I have just one leg?”

At first he had been restless with the long prayers that we offered over him, but later on when the bishop came to see him he asked, “Would you like to say a prayer for me, Bishop?” And when we were alone, he confided, “The bishop likes to say prayers, you know. It makes him happy.”

Due to the devotion of his doctor who called on him daily, we were able to keep Kelden at home with us. In spite of his illness and the continuous doses of medication, he remained lucid and eager to learn. And he prayed—always before each injection of pain medication. He eventually needed as many as twelve a day. “Daddy,” he asked, “Don’t give the shot until I pray. Please hold my hands tight, Mother.” And then—

“Father in Heaven: Please help me to be brave. Help me to stand the hurt, And help Daddy to give a good shot. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Then, with little clenched fists and gritted teeth, he would call, “Okay, Dad.”

Although he was not afraid of death, he clung stubbornly to his life. He said to his older brother, “Maybe I’ll die, and maybe I won’t.” He hated terribly to leave us, more than he minded the pain, it seemed. “Mommy,” he would plead, “When I go to heaven, can’t you come too?”

It was few days before Christmas that Kelly suggested a ride in the car to see the lights and pick out a Christmas tree. His doctors had insisted several times that he could not last more than a few hours, but time and again he rallied, each time to increased pain, leaving his doctors at a loss to discover the source of his strength. He had received a dollar bill in the mail that morning and was delighted at the prospect of treating the family to hamburgers. We slid him gently onto a small mattress and carried it to the back of the station wagon. He winced with every movement but never cried out. “Five hamburgers,” he called out in a clear voice at the hamburger stand, “And one french fry. We’ll have to share it.” He wanted everything as usual on this day. I helped him take a bite from the hamburger he had saved for himself. “No more today, Mother,” he whispered. “Let’s save it. Maybe I’ll finish it tomorrow in heaven.”

The next morning, Kelden’s pain had become intense. “I’ll try to be brave while you’re putting that under me,” he promised as I tried to change the sheet. But the pain was too great, and his father was not home. “I guess you’ll have to give me the shot, Mom.” And I began with trembling fingers, but because there was no flesh left in which to inject the needle, I tried again and again, actually bending the needle, but without success. “Oh, Kelly,” I cried, “I can’t do it! I can’t!” Then my five-year—old son whispered to me, “Mommy, look at me. You can do it. If I say you can do it, you can do it.” And I did.

Late that afternoon, after the tree had been trimmed at the foot of his bed, he died. His spirit struggled to free itself from that wasted body, and he was gone.

Oh, how empty was that room. I wrapped what was left of his little body tenderly in a blanket and held it close in my rocking chair as I had yearned so long to do. He could feel the pain no longer. And when at last I gave him up to the mortician, he received the body with tears on his cheeks.

That body had grown in four months from a child to a wasted old man. And his spirit had grown large enough to fill all of our hearts and lives with faith and expectation until we meet again. —Carola C. Hansen

Information 06/25/2023

The time has come for me to be honest with myself, that I just can't keep up with this site any more. I am working full time now and loving on my grandkids. I will still be adding great quotes I find and things from General conference etc. Never fear, I am still here for you. If you need something please reach out to me, and I will See what I can do. You can reach me at [email protected]

Thanks for your understanding! Liz from the Idea Door

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Death of a Son by Njabulo Ndebele
In Death of a Son by Njabulo Ndebele we have the theme of grief, resilience, loss, doubt, acceptance, responsibility and renewal. Narrated in the first person by an unnamed woman (mother) the reader realises from the beginning of the story that Ndebele may be exploring the theme of grief. The narrator and her husband Buntu have yet to grieve ...
(Pdf) Njabulo Ndebele'S Death of A Son: Racism and Apartheid in Post
NJABULO NDEBELE'S DEATH OF A SON: RACISM AND APARTHEID IN POST-COLONIAL AFRICAN LITERATURE ABSTRACT. Discrimination against Negroes is an unforgotten fact. Current article analyzes the denunciation against racism and apartheid in post-colonial literature, speciically in Njabulo Ndebele's short story 'Death of a son' (1996).
Death of a Son
Death of a Son. AUTHOR: Njabulo S Ndebele. PUBLISHER: Viva Books. ISBN: 9781874932154. DATE: 1996. DESCRIPTION: Death of a Son is a short story. A two year old boy is killed during random shooting by police in a township. This is the story of how the parents cope with the loss of their child and how it effects their relationship.
Femininity in Njabulo Ndebele's Death of a Son
Thetha Sizwe: Contemporary South African Debates on African Languages and the Politics of Gender and Sexualities Living, Loving, and Lying Awake at Night (2009).However, in this chapter, female performance is studied by a close reading of Ndebele's short story Death of a Son (1996), which signals cultural and language significance reflected in the hearings and thus offers opportunities to ...
The Historical and Literary Moment of Njabulo S. Ndebele
Njabulo S. Ndebele Ntongela Masilela An essay that defined a particular moment in South African intellectual history in the twentieth century was Nadine Gordimer's "Living in the Interregnum." In it, she articulated the historical crisis that engulfed the country after 1960 with the defeat of the democratic forces following the
A Critique of Njabuolo Ndebele's Criticism of Protest Fiction
In his critical writings contained in his book, Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture, Njabulo Ndebele argues that because black South African writers during the struggle years persistently write about the political environment and the conditions in which they find themselves, they therefore made political ...
Njabulo Ndebele
Njabulo Simakahle Ndebele is an academic and writer of fiction who is the former vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Cape Town ... His highly influential essays on South African literature and culture were published in a collection Rediscovery of the Ordinary. ... Death of a Son, 1996; Bonolo and the Peach Tree, 1994; Sarah ...
Ndebele's Criticism and Counter-Criticism
In a paper entitled 'Njabulo Ndebele and the Challenge of the New', Craig MacKenzie looks at how Ndebele's 'ideas inform his own fiction'. ... 'Death of a Son', another of Ndebele's short stories to which attention should be drawn, is about the cruelty of injustice. A man, Buntu, is stripped of his dignity as a person by his failure to stand ...
Njabulo Simakahle Ndebele
Njabulo Simakahle Ndebele was born on 4 July 1948 in Johannesburg to Nimrod Njabulo Ndebele and Makhosazana Regina Tshabangu. ... Essays on South African Literature and ... Â· Umpropheti/The Prophetess, 1999. Â· Death of a Son, 1996. Â· Bonolo and the Peach Tree, 1994. Â· Sarah, Rings, and I , 1993. Honorary Doctorates. Â· Durban ...
Death of a son in SearchWorks catalog
Death of a son. Responsibility by Njabulo S. Ndebele ; Dealing with grief / by Tracy Vienings from the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. Imprint Johannesburg : Viva Books, 1996. Physical description 57 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. Online.
(PDF) "On these premises I am the government": Njabulo Ndebele's The
(Ndebele's story "Death of a Son," published after Fools, offers a comparable hint about the power of women.) The novel, however, gives over to women the power of gender redefinition. Another difference is that the novel lends a national impact to the women's invitation to men to redefine their masculinity.
A Discussion with Professor Njabulo S. Ndebele, Chair of the Mandela
Background: South African scholar Professor Njabulo Ndebele is an outspoken South African educator with wide experience with the issues confronting both education and leadership in the region and the challenges his country faces in light of its history and especially the legacy of apartheid. His interests range widely, from history to literature to society to politics.
Beyond Protest: the Legacy of Black Consciousness in Njabulo Ndebele'S
jabulo Ndebele has won wide recognition, both for his critical writings and for his short story collection, Fools and Other Stories.' The N nature of his achievement composing stories in 'a western, realist tradition of storytelling' has been examined by Vaughan (1 88), who also identifies the central problem which the stories seem designed to explore, namely the problem of identity ...
Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and
Njabulo S. Ndebele's essays on South African literature and culture initially appeared in various publications in the 1980s. They encompass a period of trauma, defiance, and change - the decade of the collapse of apartheid and the challenge of reconstructing a future. In 1991, the essays were collected under the current title of Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature ...
Ndebele, Fanon, Agency and Irony
Njabulo Ndebele, over the last decades, has played a central role in a number of debates on culture and literature in South Africa. Ndebele, who is currently Vice-Chancellor of the ... Ndebele, in influential essays published in the mid-1980s - essays that remain relevant today - attempted to think through ways in which the political agency of ...
The Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Some New Writings in South Africa
NJABULO S. NDEBELE (What follows was the keynote address at the conference on New Writing in Africa: ... wrestling,' Barthes opens his essay, 'is that it is the spectacle of excess.' 2 It is the manifest display of violence and brutality that captures the imaginations of the spectators. Indeed, we have seen the highly organized spectacle of the ...
PDF History, memory and reconciliation: Njabulo Ndebele's The cry of Winnie
History, memory and reconciliation: Njabulo Ndebele's The cry of Winnie Mandela and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela's A human being died that night This article deals with two texts written during the process of transition in South Africa, using them to explore the cultural and ethical complexity of that process. Both Njabulo Ndebele's "The
Biography
Biography. I was born on Sunday July 4, 1948 in Johannesburg at Coronation Hospital. My mother, Regina Makhosazana Ndebele, uMaTshabangu, was a nurse there. 923 John Mohohlo Street, Western Native Township was my home where I became the third child and first son inmy family. We lived not that far from Coronation Hospital.
Njabulo S Ndebele
Njabulo S Ndebele, University of Cape Town, Humanities Department, Emeritus. Studies Queer Studies, Transnationalism, and South African Literature. ... Fine Lines from the Box is a wide-ranging and important collection that brings together many of his essays written since those anthologized in the path-breaking...
(PDF) Black Christianity as Intellectual Resource in Njabulo Ndebele's
Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. Black Christianity as Intellectual Resource in Njabulo Ndebele's Fools and Other Stories 1 ... By being both father and son to himself, and by passing through rituals of purification, Thoba starts to discover ways of overcoming the negations of apartheid. Of all the stories in ...
PDF Professor Njabulo Ndebele, former vice chancellor of the University of
Njabulo Ndebele grew up in a relatively privileged environment of his home in Charterston, the township of Nigel. His father was a school principal, a "rational and principled man" who also had a wicked sense of humour and an enthusiastic openness to modernity. His mother was a nurse who brought spirituality and compassion to the household.
Fools and Other Stories by Njabulo S. Ndebele
Njabulo Simakahle Ndebele is an academic and writer of fiction who is the former vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Cape Town. On November 16, 2012, he was inaugurated as the chancellor of the University of Johannesburg. He is currently the chairman of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Facebook.
The Death of a Son
The Death of a Son. ... My child had lost a leg, yet he was still my Kelly; as incredible as it seemed to me then, he was still the same impatient, determined, immeasurably dear little boy as ever he had been. At that moment I understood that we had not been deceived. All was going to be right with our son.