Sola Osofisan
08-23-2009, 10:01 PM
From The Guardian
Raphael d'Abdon is Italian and lecturer in English at the University of Udine and while Natalia Molebatsi is a writer but they are both husband and wife united through the spoken word art they have christened Azania. Azania is actually the revolutionary name for South Africa that was in vogue during Apartheid era. Now these two are forging an art movement based on the spoken word as it explores performance poetry and how it's influencing modern hiphop. They were in Nigeria recently to attend the Women in Africa and Africa Diaspora (WAAD).The couple spoke to Anote Ajeluorou on diverse issues on the spoken word art and partnership between Africa and Europe. Excerpts
How did you become involved in the 'spoken word' art?
I saw a lot of spoken word artists from 1999, especially in my generation. It was basically written poetry but with rhythm. So, you can even see the link between the page and the page because you can read it but also want to listen to it. And then there was the Johannesburg festival called Poetry Africa, which had spoken word artists from the continent and the Diaspora. And I will see these women do their thing, and it was very exciting to see. It was really a new dawn for us. It made us go back into our history, from where they got inspiration. And there was a collective of four sisters at about 2001. That was when I actually realised I was interested in this thing. Then I started to write; I believed strongly that there was a lot of spirit in this thing, and, when the spirit is involved, you don't have much choice because a deeper thing that's bigger than you drives you. Then I started to write. One of the four sisters had won the Noma Award in 2007 or 2008 for writing. The Noma Award reminds you of people like Miriama Ba, and you feel whao! These women I'm talking about were not even thirty then, and then there were several others like them. In Azania Speaks, we not only write poems but we turn them into other things. For example, what I do is to get input from all the people and not only the women but from men to write about social issues. I've done an anthology called We Are... It's for you to decide who you think we are; who you think we shall be. In this way, I've given the reader an opportunity to be part of an important movement. It gives me, the writer, space to share my thought, and you, the reader space to share your criticism. The thing we don't do a lot often in South Africa is to really criticise the writer, the young writer. This book was published early this year. It has poetry from 15 writers, who are filmmakers, journalists; you name it.
How much of African oral tradition is to be found in what you are doing?
Really, it is most of it. As much as we write in English because of our colonial history (damn the British!), we have now what we call Englishes, where you have the English in Nigeria, the English in South Africa. Even in speaking the language, we have the resistance; we are doing it on our own terms. We are not going to let the coloniser dictate to us again how we speak this language forced on us initially. On the performance side, my grandmother, who has never written a poem in her entire life is a poet in her native language. Performance is a very important part in our oral poetry in South Africa.
How much mentoring do you think young writers like you undergo in South Africa?
It is really important to go back to those African principles that say, 'I am because of other people'. I think we need more mentorship programmes. The person who impressed the idea on me was Dr. Bibi Bakare-Yusufu of Cassava Publishing. She told me that everybody needs mentoring. She said, speak to somebody. After he or she has mentored you a period of time, go on to another person to mentor you for a while. I think, as writers and artists, we need to let go of the ego. Sometime we say, I am old enough; I don't want anybody to mentor me. It is not always pleasant but I feel it is important. There is someone out there that knows more than you are, and you can always learn something.
At what level were you involved in WAAD conferences?
We presented a paper on the partnership on the works of South Africa female artists - poets, photographers, musicians - who are bringing out their work into the mainstream, who are forcing society to listen to them, on issues which are seen sometimes as taboo; on issues that are not necessarily 'women' issues. Women are issues are social issues. As mothers, they give birth to men, who are revolutionaries and kings and politicians. So, it is important to hear their voices. Our musicians are doing that and also in photography. In South Africa, we have the cameramen, where it is just the men. Now people have started saying cameramen-women, when they see a woman doing it. We look at how these photographers are looking at issues of sexuality; the gay women out there whether we like it or not. The gay women are out there and their voices have to be heard. They are part of society. Also gay men, whom women also photograph as well. It is not about how we feel about them; not about right or wrong. It is about the fact they are there and they deserve losing and respect as human beings. So, we are working on a theory of partnership where we are pushing for a space where men and women can build society or community, a situation where we do not look at 'us' versus 'the rest'; where we do not look at black or white but where people work together on the principles of humanity.
If we say now that men dominate women and in the next 50 years, men become dominated by women, it is also not going to be nice. Because women are also going to take advantage and treat men badly as well. We want a situation where people can treat each other as human beings. That is what we talked about at the conference, which was saying to people - men and women - we need to be more female. If you think about it, even us women, we operate very much on a male constructed society; we forget the female part of us. So, the conference was saying to people, we need to be more female because there is nothing weak about female. It is an aspect you and I have, all of us, and we need to explore it; we need to make a balance between our masculine side and our feminine side and how we can operate together on the basis of knowledge and balance. We all make society. I live in a society where men and women make society and it is important men and women come into harmonious existence.
The Nigeria writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, blames mothers for promoting the male dominion myth over women. To what extent are women guilty of this and what should they do to stop it?
I'm really in support of Adichie in the sense that we raise these males, we breastfeed them. My grandmother had five sons and one daughter and she raised the daughter to be the strong one, who had sense and she spoilt her sons, literally. Mothers do that; they promote patriarch. That is why I say people need to become more female. If a mother raises her sons to be superior to her daughters, that mother is promoting patriarchy and she is not being female enough. Being a female is not having two breasts; it goes beyond that, much more than that.
So mothers need to raise their children as children. If you are going to teach your children how to cook or how to clean the house, all your children have to learn how to cook and clean the house. If you are going to teach your son how to look after the plants - we are also plants as human beings - how to raise a garden, you are making your daughter miss the opportunity to be able to know how to look after the plants as opposed to just teaching them how to cook.
Guardian (http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/arts/article04//indexn3_html?pdate=230809&ptitle=Why%20We%20Journeyed%20Back%20Into%20Oral%2 0Literarure%20-%20Molebatsi&cpdate=230809)
Raphael d'Abdon is Italian and lecturer in English at the University of Udine and while Natalia Molebatsi is a writer but they are both husband and wife united through the spoken word art they have christened Azania. Azania is actually the revolutionary name for South Africa that was in vogue during Apartheid era. Now these two are forging an art movement based on the spoken word as it explores performance poetry and how it's influencing modern hiphop. They were in Nigeria recently to attend the Women in Africa and Africa Diaspora (WAAD).The couple spoke to Anote Ajeluorou on diverse issues on the spoken word art and partnership between Africa and Europe. Excerpts
How did you become involved in the 'spoken word' art?
I saw a lot of spoken word artists from 1999, especially in my generation. It was basically written poetry but with rhythm. So, you can even see the link between the page and the page because you can read it but also want to listen to it. And then there was the Johannesburg festival called Poetry Africa, which had spoken word artists from the continent and the Diaspora. And I will see these women do their thing, and it was very exciting to see. It was really a new dawn for us. It made us go back into our history, from where they got inspiration. And there was a collective of four sisters at about 2001. That was when I actually realised I was interested in this thing. Then I started to write; I believed strongly that there was a lot of spirit in this thing, and, when the spirit is involved, you don't have much choice because a deeper thing that's bigger than you drives you. Then I started to write. One of the four sisters had won the Noma Award in 2007 or 2008 for writing. The Noma Award reminds you of people like Miriama Ba, and you feel whao! These women I'm talking about were not even thirty then, and then there were several others like them. In Azania Speaks, we not only write poems but we turn them into other things. For example, what I do is to get input from all the people and not only the women but from men to write about social issues. I've done an anthology called We Are... It's for you to decide who you think we are; who you think we shall be. In this way, I've given the reader an opportunity to be part of an important movement. It gives me, the writer, space to share my thought, and you, the reader space to share your criticism. The thing we don't do a lot often in South Africa is to really criticise the writer, the young writer. This book was published early this year. It has poetry from 15 writers, who are filmmakers, journalists; you name it.
How much of African oral tradition is to be found in what you are doing?
Really, it is most of it. As much as we write in English because of our colonial history (damn the British!), we have now what we call Englishes, where you have the English in Nigeria, the English in South Africa. Even in speaking the language, we have the resistance; we are doing it on our own terms. We are not going to let the coloniser dictate to us again how we speak this language forced on us initially. On the performance side, my grandmother, who has never written a poem in her entire life is a poet in her native language. Performance is a very important part in our oral poetry in South Africa.
How much mentoring do you think young writers like you undergo in South Africa?
It is really important to go back to those African principles that say, 'I am because of other people'. I think we need more mentorship programmes. The person who impressed the idea on me was Dr. Bibi Bakare-Yusufu of Cassava Publishing. She told me that everybody needs mentoring. She said, speak to somebody. After he or she has mentored you a period of time, go on to another person to mentor you for a while. I think, as writers and artists, we need to let go of the ego. Sometime we say, I am old enough; I don't want anybody to mentor me. It is not always pleasant but I feel it is important. There is someone out there that knows more than you are, and you can always learn something.
At what level were you involved in WAAD conferences?
We presented a paper on the partnership on the works of South Africa female artists - poets, photographers, musicians - who are bringing out their work into the mainstream, who are forcing society to listen to them, on issues which are seen sometimes as taboo; on issues that are not necessarily 'women' issues. Women are issues are social issues. As mothers, they give birth to men, who are revolutionaries and kings and politicians. So, it is important to hear their voices. Our musicians are doing that and also in photography. In South Africa, we have the cameramen, where it is just the men. Now people have started saying cameramen-women, when they see a woman doing it. We look at how these photographers are looking at issues of sexuality; the gay women out there whether we like it or not. The gay women are out there and their voices have to be heard. They are part of society. Also gay men, whom women also photograph as well. It is not about how we feel about them; not about right or wrong. It is about the fact they are there and they deserve losing and respect as human beings. So, we are working on a theory of partnership where we are pushing for a space where men and women can build society or community, a situation where we do not look at 'us' versus 'the rest'; where we do not look at black or white but where people work together on the principles of humanity.
If we say now that men dominate women and in the next 50 years, men become dominated by women, it is also not going to be nice. Because women are also going to take advantage and treat men badly as well. We want a situation where people can treat each other as human beings. That is what we talked about at the conference, which was saying to people - men and women - we need to be more female. If you think about it, even us women, we operate very much on a male constructed society; we forget the female part of us. So, the conference was saying to people, we need to be more female because there is nothing weak about female. It is an aspect you and I have, all of us, and we need to explore it; we need to make a balance between our masculine side and our feminine side and how we can operate together on the basis of knowledge and balance. We all make society. I live in a society where men and women make society and it is important men and women come into harmonious existence.
The Nigeria writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, blames mothers for promoting the male dominion myth over women. To what extent are women guilty of this and what should they do to stop it?
I'm really in support of Adichie in the sense that we raise these males, we breastfeed them. My grandmother had five sons and one daughter and she raised the daughter to be the strong one, who had sense and she spoilt her sons, literally. Mothers do that; they promote patriarch. That is why I say people need to become more female. If a mother raises her sons to be superior to her daughters, that mother is promoting patriarchy and she is not being female enough. Being a female is not having two breasts; it goes beyond that, much more than that.
So mothers need to raise their children as children. If you are going to teach your children how to cook or how to clean the house, all your children have to learn how to cook and clean the house. If you are going to teach your son how to look after the plants - we are also plants as human beings - how to raise a garden, you are making your daughter miss the opportunity to be able to know how to look after the plants as opposed to just teaching them how to cook.
Guardian (http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/arts/article04//indexn3_html?pdate=230809&ptitle=Why%20We%20Journeyed%20Back%20Into%20Oral%2 0Literarure%20-%20Molebatsi&cpdate=230809)