Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

coti-iplain. They have beer1 writtzn in oriler. to sllarc serio~rs illsights, to sllasc
pcrceptio~is. ant1 to alter pesccptions ill a mosl proft~~iritl 1jr21111cr'.
1Udehele treats literature as an activist. nrld he does not :;i~art: thz ccllrception ofprot
literalure as a safety valve iii an oppressive s!,cic;g. *firt.rc I;ave beel? differing vie
regarding the meaning of ihe term 'protest litei-a1rr.c' and the perioci ill which
occull-ed. Richard Rive (1953:26) offers a serlsc of t!le coxsiruct:
often crude. ill-cons~l-ucted aticl stylistically wcak.
1953:22) also pointed out that 'almost all conteinporaiy writers do not tit
rtably' into the category of protest literature. According to Gareth Cornwell
:55), Rive described protest literature as 'writing produced by blacks for white
mption'. Cocllwell (I 980:58) clarified Rive's position with the argument that:
protest literature [adtiresses] tlie disci.iniination irllplicit ill black-whiie
relationsiiips, and ... is critical of white. racial dot~iination. Its literature iq
~~~ .
produced hy black unenfranchised non-citi~ens for wiiites who llave the
vote and so can effect change'.
It was essentially negative writing geared as it was to invoking a
sympathetic attitudc from amore fortunate readership.
ellee between Rive's position as a liberal black critic and the position of
ite critics is significant (and will be examined later).
Some activist-writers, like Dennis Rrutus, described theinselves as protest writers
n exile, cl.ilicS to lefi of Rive, such as Njabulo Nd:!i~i~ and Mbi:i~ii~
the 1960s (see Owornoyela 1993:131). So did the poet and critic, Coslno Pieter
(1 969), who used the term in the period before the rise of Black Consciousness. R
and Pieterse's sense of the term (pal-titularly given Rrutus' sports activism) was
remote from the diluted meaning the term acquired in conservative liberal di
(which. Rive's analysis reproduces). Ciiven the bannings, - house arrests and exit
to which resistance writers like Brutus and Alex la Gutna were subject, syml;athe
foreign audiences were often all they could anticipate in the sl?ort and ~nediurn tet
The combination of the polirica! repression and liberal cultural hegemony may have
some of the next wave or re'sistance writers lo appeal lo spnipathetic and inflrle~l
local or foreign aufliences in some of their work. It is possibie, for example, lo rea
Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali's The Master wf the House' (197255) and Motshile w
Nthodi's 'Soout hr?;frican Dialogue9 (in Chapman & Dangoi. 19X2:95f) as protest t
appealed to tile sympathetic fractions of tlre ruling class (ihc liberials) for re1
. ~
11.45) addressee] solilt: of like proble!ns of:!?? category iti :!itf'c;r:?~?i ,ti'tlr:i-s, raisi!~,;
tiolls sUdr as "Why Itle illisno17ie~ "p:-o!&"?'. and t~ec~ar~i;ri!, that. 'i~li:;l: ::>I:: t:!:Ci:
d prolest literature has ~~111 course ii-i SOEI~ ,Af~-iclil' jNi/c/iel~ i'!SX:?:I5).
Inane ( I 9") 160) aiso expressed serious rcservatioi~s:
'No!\, 1llore tilarl ever. it Iias becon~e i.cdi~c!iorrist lo crolegorisc all Africa11
literature as protest. Protest literaturc is writing by tilt racially O!~l?!c~'X::!
acldr.esst;d to readers from the ruling class in an attcmpi to solicit tiieir
sympatl~y and suppori against discriminatory laws and ~ractices .... Protest
spl-ings from a feeling of being a ward: it is tlie activity ofapprcniiccs. and it
is tlre action ofsubordi~iales wiio see themselves as such. Jt is both solicitou:;
and moderate. It functions witlii~~ tile system. often wit11 regal-d to due
process, prescribed chanticls of communication. and I-espect for- law aid
~w~lno)ie!a (1 993: I3 1) has silggest.cd lilal:
order. The end in view of protest is reform, never revolution. Protest is 3
quest for accommodation, and not a struggle for empowerment.
Pl.otest poetl-y may be thrjugiit ciF its a hl;lck cupr.cssi(>n of [;beraiisrrl-~-a
POCfrY of pcrscllai respollse to o]>pre";io" [~;li;eti 011 ass!!illptiolls ofjus[icc.
rif~hts, mci hi:i~l;!~i diz~-iity.
e term "rotest' has quite a different meaning in conservative liberal discourse to the
nstruct in resistance discourse, as Mzamane begins to suggest in his subsequent
rences to the Karis and Carter (1991:60f) text. At the same time Mzamane's
like ~ i ~ j ~;li.>,~ ~ ~ (1983:~ ~ . d ittil~g conflation of the two meanings under the conservative liberal rubric attests to
. .
llol-i.cv::,r, ever1 the iliori:. iibryai bjz(;k cl.iilis ;.ll:d v