Serote’s Poems of Healing, Leadership, and Transformation: “There Will be a Better Time Made by Us”

Abstract

Liberating South Africa from more than three centuries of colonial oppression required enormous vision and self-empowerment, to advance a struggle that was not only counter-hegemonic but also transformative. Wally Serote, one of the most influential and enduring poet-activists, drew on African music, spirituality, oral literature and history of the struggle to develop and articulate his calling as a liberator and healer. Written in exile, his prescient poems invoke faith in African popular resources to illustrate and teach the importance of challenging oppression. Beyond offering incisive representations of African subject positions, the poems invoke the creative energies needed to generate the psychological, social and cultural healing required for transformation. Against the background of the subjugation and deci-mation of African cultures and resources and the forced exile of thousands of citizens, Serote’s attentiveness to the development of engaged and liberated African voices in the medium of English helped alert fellow activists and poet-activists to the value of integrating the roles of historian, healer, social conscience and critic (as in various African oral traditions). In the light of such exile, Serote’s objective of overcoming the limitations imposed by colonial and apartheid power was crucial. By focusing on thinking beyond the binaries of colonialism-apartheid, Serote was able to advance a culture of popular-democratic engagement, agency and mobilisation. The poems articulate an ethos more recently recognised as a combination of trans-formative learning and transformational leadership, and anticipate the leadership skills that would later be valued in Nelson Mandela. This study draws on the approaches of critical theory, critical social theory and critical pedagogy.

 Opsomming

 Om Suid-Afrika te bevry van meer as drie eeue van koloniale verdrukking het enorme visie en selfbemagtiging geverg, om ʼn stryd te bevorder wat nie net teen-hegemonies was nie, maar ook transformerend. Wally Serote, een van die mees invloedryke en bestendige digter-aktiviste, het van Afrika-musiek, spiritualiteit, mondelinge literatuur en geskiedenis van die struggle gebruik gemaak om sy roeping as ʼn bevryder en ʼn geneser te ontwikkel en te verwoord. Serote se voorwetende gedigte, wat in ballingskap geskryf is, roep geloof in Afrika- populêre hulpbronne op om die belangrikheid van uitdagende verdrukking te illustreer en te onderrig.     

Buiten dat dit deurdringende voorstellings van die posisies van Afrika-onderwerpe bied, roep die gedigte die kreatiewe energie op wat nodig is om die sielkundige, sosiale en kulturele genesing wat nodig is vir transformasie, te genereer. Teen die agtergrond van die onderwerping en uitdunning van Afrika-kulture en hulpbronne, en die geforseerde ballingskap van duisende burgers, het Serote se aandag aan die ontwikkeling van betrokke en bevryde Afrika-stemme in Engels as medium gehelp om mede-aktiviste en digter-aktiviste bewus te maak van die waarde daarvan om die rolle van historikus, geneesheer, sosiale gewete en kritikus (soos in verskeie Afrika- mondelinge tradisies) te integreer. In die lig van sodanige ballingskap was Serote se doelwit, naamlik om die beperkings wat koloniale en apartheid-mag daargestel het, te oorkom. Deur daarop te konsentreer om verder as die binêre van kolonialisme-apartheid te dink, kon Serote daarin slaag om ʼn kultuur van populêr-demokratiese betrokkenheid, bemiddeling en mobilisering te bevorder. Die gedigte verwoord ʼn etos wat meer onlangs erken is as ʼn kombinasie van transformerende leer en transformasionele leierskap, en antisipeer die leierskapsvaardighede wat later op prys gestel sou word as kenmerkend van Nelson Mandela. Hierdie studie wend die benaderings van kritiese teorie, kritiese sosiale teorie en kritiese pedagogie aan.