(2008). A HISTORY OF RESTLESSNESS: AND NOW FOR THE REST. English Studies in Africa: Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 109-122.

A history of restlessness: and now for the rest

Appendix: South Africa:

Popular forms and the United Democratic Front

Literary journals are important sites of cultural production. They perform a variety of roles which include providing forums for new developments in literature by publishing emergent voices. They help mediate and shape the direction in which a national literature develops by means of critical essays, reviews and debates. In most societies journals are often the barometers of the general literary life. This journal article is available in Kunapipi: https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol13/iss1/14 Forums and Forces: Recent Trends in South African Literary Journals 91 Forums and Forces: Recent Trends in South African Literary Journals ANDRIES WALTER OLIPHANT Literary journals are important sites of cultural production. They perform a variety of roles which include providing forums for new developments in literature by publishing emergent voices. They help mediate and shape the direction in which a national literature develops by means of critical essays, reviews and debates. In most societies journals are often the barometers of the general literary life. What is required, especially in a survey of literature journals, is to remain alert to general cultural developments and the particular historical context in which literary production occurs. The production and dissemination of cultural products, information and opinions are socially based activities involving a wide range of processes which constitute, reproduce, oppose, resist, and transform the socio-cultural environment. As Bernth Lindfors has indicated, many journals have a short life span, and so they tend to be of a transitory nature. This means that their function in a particular context is inevitably linked to the concerns of a particular time. In the current context of social and political ferment, where the hegemony of the racial domination is confronted with the unstoppable rise of non-racial democratic forces, it is important to be alert to the ways in which journals relate and respond to, as well as participate in sociocultural change. Journals, it must be said, do not merely reflect certain social and cultural trends but also deflect, resist, displace, silence and contradict the actual and symbolic practices in a society. The conilicting social groupings and the rival ideological and cultural perspectives inherent in South African society therefore invariably enter into the production and function of journals. Over the last forty years, since the rise of the Afrikaner Nationalists to power in 1948, up to the present crisis and the impending demise of apartheid, the conflict which has marked the history of South Africa acquired particulary intense and violent forms. This conflict turned around the contradiction between the anti-democratic monopoly of political and economic power by a white minority on the one hand, and the struggle for national liberation and the desire for a non-racial democratic state by the majority of the population on the other. Cultural production in general, and literary life in particular, have had to establish their places and roles in relation to 92 Andries Walter Oliphant these forces. In this regard the struggle between the cultural imperialism associated with the colonial history of apartheid and the national democratic movement has resulted in attempts by the opposing forces to develop a 'confluence of cultural levels of the various social categories' for the purposes of domination or liberation? A survey of some of the publications in circulation today reveals that they can be located within clearly discernible interest groups with particular, if often unarticulated or deliberately obscured ideological perspectives on literature and culture. Generally speaking, these interest groups consist of a white English liberal tradition, a non-racial democratic tradition, a black Africanist tradition, a white Afrikaans conservative and racist tradition, and a liberal white and black Afrikaans tendency. While these groups have their own internal contradictions and conflicting class components they, generally speaking, also stand in conflict with each other on a wide range of matters. From a literary point of view a number of journals can be identified in relation to these groupings. Three journals with predominantly white liberal and English speaking contributors and readership are in circulation at present, namely New Contrast, New Coin and Sesame. In addition, there is Staffrider, established in 1978. It has a black and white readership and both black and white contributors and, although politically unaligned, it is supportive of the non-racial democratic movement. In 1988, a year after the establishment of the non-racial Congress of South African Writers (COSAW), which also subscribes to the national democratic struggle, a number of regional journals were established in the Cape, Natal and Transvaal. The content, orientation and readership of these COSA W journals vary from region to region while adhering to the broad democratic, non-racial and non-sexist perspective of the organization. Presently there are also attempts by the African Writers' Association which adheres to broad Black Consciousness and Africanist perspectives, to revive The Classic which has not been published since 1985. Progressive Afrikaans interests are catered for by the magazine Stet. Most of these publications have a relatively small circulation, printing between 500 and 1000 copies. They therefore belong to the genre of little magazines. Staffrider, which in the 1970s had a print run of 10,000 and currently prints 4000 copies, is an exception. The content of most magazines consists mainly of creative and discursive writing covering the traditional literary genres. In this respect Staffrider is also much more broadly constituted. It publishes popular history, social documentary photography and art and hosts an annual exhibition of photography and art. Contrast, established in 1960, is the oldest journal in circulation. In 1990 it amalgamated with Upstream Magazine and is now known as New Contrast. This Cape Town based magazine has served a sector of South African writers for the past thirty years. Its founders consisted of authors such as Guy Butler, Jack Cope, Alan Paton and Uys Krige. While predominantForums and Forces: Recent Trends in South African Literary journals 93 ly English and liberal in its orientation the magazine also publishes work in Afrikaans. This bi-lingualism to some extent explains the title of the journal. This confluence between the relatively strong English liberal editorial strands and, the until recently feeble impulses of liberalism in white Afrikaans cultural circles, has given the magazine a progressive profile in the context of overwhelming white conservatism. Despite this, black writers, with the exception of Richard Rive, have over the years featured only marginally in the magazine which published poetry, fiction, playtexts, literary reviews and cultural essays as well as reproductions of graphic art, mainly as illustrations or to provide some visual variation to the literary material. On examining the statements made by some editors of the magazine, one is struck by the persistance of an unbending insistence on vaguely formulated 'universal aesthetic principles'. This is buttressed by claims of ideological independence and objectivity. For instance, in a review of a celebration issue of Contrast after its first year in circulation, C.]. Driver cited the claim of the editors that the magazine is politically, 'independent, unfettered and unbiased'. Driver argues that this claim of non-alignment is a ruse and points to the hidden policy, bias and ideological affiliations of the magazine, discernible in the financial institutions and individuals who sponsor it, as well as the editorial statements and kind of work selected for pulication. The preoccupation with cultural upliftment and civilization which dominates liberal English discourse is, for instance, evident in the 'Comment' of Volume 1, Number 3, of the magazine. It states that the philosophy of the journal is based on the notion 'that writers dealing with the "race theme" will not last because until the artist can touch all humanity with compassion he has not advanced beyond the blundering steps of a primitive'.3 A number of assumptions are disclosed and concealed in this statement. It avers that a concern with the social and political realities of the South African society is a trap which denudes literary works of their universal human and aesthetic value. Socio-political concerns are equated with cultural primitivism. At the heart of it lies a contradiction and an implicit derogatory reference to the indigenous people of South Africa. This is the contradiction: If primitives are human, and aesthetic values timeless and universal, then surely the earliest and least developed societies, including the 'primitives' must have had access to these values. If not, then the category of 'humanity' in this statement is unconsciously reserved for a particular middle class individual of European origin. Thus the European in his liberal guise becomes the epitome of humanity. The hidden racism which governs the unconscious of this position is evident. The editor is so blinded by his own assumed sophistication that he completely fails to understand that there are no inherent inferiorities in the various themes writers choose to explore. What gives writing a lasting 94 Andries Walter Oliphant quality, are not the themes chosen by the writer but the content and form given to a specific theme. Shakespeare's treatment of the psychology of racism in Othello is sufficient to explode the fallacy of thematic prejudice. Nor for that matter does the concern with the history and consequences of colonialism in African literature, for example, render it inferior to European literature concerned with the processes and effects of industrialization. Despite the fact that the liberal views referred 

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Forums and Forces: Recent Trends in South African Literary Journals

Kunapipi 13 (1 & 2) 1991 Full Version. Special double issue New Art and Literature from South Africa. This full issue is available in Kunapipi: https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol13/iss1/1 l d l d V N Q ) I L ~ A H V H 8 1 1 S J i l i N V W f l H ~ s m m s 1 Y I 3 0

Kunapipi 13 (1 & 2) 1991 Full Version

Mr. Rory Ryan's essay has occasioned uncommon interest among boundary 2 editors. To be sure, the basic critical-theoretical issues it touches upon came as no surprise and will undoubtedly be only too familiar to the regular readers of this journal. A great number of the essays submitted and a very high proportion of those selected for publication in boundary 2 articulate many of the same concerns and preoccupations voiced in the Ryan's present contribution. Indeed, it is fair to state what will be obvious to anyone familiar with the past contents of this journal, namely that we have devoted our pages to discussions, analyses and critiques of humanistic discourse, the oppositional possibilities of postNew Critical theory and criticism, the role of the intellectuals, cultural hegemony, the imperialist and racist impulses inherent in the Western tradition, and the politics of the institutions of literary study that are more elaborate, detailed, exhaustive and innovational than what Mr. Ryan can offer in his relatively brief essay. Nevertheless, Mr. Ryan's essay carries special significance and demands heightened attention. The specific historical moment and geographical site as well as the political and socio-cultural circumstances within which and about which the author pursued his

Rory Ryan

Papers

Literary-Intellectual Behavior in South Africa