It has been difficult for any South African for the past ten years to write dispassionately and nonpartisanly on the creative and critical works of Ezekiel Mphahlele or Es'kia Mphahlele. Both these names designate different historical moments: each defining a particular ensemble of political and literary relationships. The demarcation line was the return to South Africa of Mphahlele a decade ago after spending twenty years in self-exile. It is this return of the prodigal son that has completely polarized South African artists, writers, and intellectuals at home and in exile. The group in exile has condemned Mphahlele unremittingly and in uncertain terms. In this group one can situate, among others, Lewis Nkosi, Daniel P. Kunene, Dennis Brutus, and Bernard Magubane. Those back at home, which include Don Mattera and Nadine Gordimer, have been generally sympathetic toward Mphahlele. What this short listing clearly indicates is that the pro-Mphahlele and contra-Mphahlele factions confound complacent political positions and received intellectual wisdoms. For instance, aligned against each other, are two Marxists: Bernard Magubane and Nadine Gordimer. Equally arraigned against each other are two humanists: the humanism of the poet and creative writer, Don Mattera, has positioned itself against the humanism of the literary scholar and critic, and until recently creative writer, Daniel P. Kunene. Further contradictory contrasts could possibly be drawn, but these are sufficient to signal the trauma the return of Mphahlele has caused in South African intellectual circles. What is missing in the above mapping of political and intellectual positions concerning the phenomenon of Mphahlele is the position of the younger generations of South Africans, the generations represented in the pages of the earlier moment of Staffrider. Though myself not belonging to this impressive and extremely talented constellation of Staffrider writers and poets, insofar as never having had the privilege to appear on its pages, I belong to that generation, age-wise.

What is incontrovertibly clear, and a great historical gain, is that the return of Mphahlele to South Africa has opened and founded a landscape of the cultural politics of intervention in the silent revolution presently, slowly but surely, gathering tempo and velocity in South Africa today. It is the unraveling of the curtain from this landscape by Mphahlele, to be sure unintentionally and unawares, that has made Mphahlele's return to South Africa a decisive historical moment. That Mphahlele himself has not understood the political consequences of his action should not hinder us from drawing the necessary historical lessons. Mphahlele has been hindered in understanding the political consequences of his action by the ideology of abstract humanism to which he wholeheartedly and blindly subscribes. If the latest literary piece from Mphahlele, the autobiography, Afrika, My Music, is an apologia for his return home, it only confirms the political philistinism of abstract humanism. Only a materialist dialectics can draw the necessary historical lessons. When Lewis Nkosi in a recent article, “South African Fiction Writers at the Barricades” (Third World Book Review, vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2, 1986), stupidly fulminates against Mphahlele and also against Miriam Tlali, Sipho Sepamla, Mtutuzeli Matshoba, Lauretta Ngcobo, Njabulo Ndebele, Mbulelo Mzamane, and Richard Rive, he only confirms what in another context I have characterized as his anarchistic agnosticism. In an essay, soon to appear in Staffrider, I examine the triadic structure of Mphahlele's abstract humanism, Nkosi's anarchistic agnosticism, and Nadine Gordimer's revolutionary socialism within the context of the Drum generation. Lewis Nkosi's disastrous shortcomings, which explain his destructive literary criticism, are due to his hostility to any form of historical explanation of literary systems, poetics, and processes (see “The Discordant Voice of African Criticism,” Third World Book Review, vol. 1, no. 3, 1985). It is hardly surprising that Lewis Nkosi has been unable to grasp the political and cultural import of Mphahlele's act, even though he has been in the forefront among those fulminating against it.

Besides opening the possibilities of the new cultural politics of intervention in the developing situation in South Africa, the return of Mphahlele to South Africa has made it possible for a whole generation of young South African writers, intellectuals, and artists to retrace and reestablish the literary and cultural connections and continuities between the Staffrider writers and the Drum writers. This has been a tremendous gain on the part of younger generations in South Africa, even if the Old Guard outside South Africa has not been able to see it as such. The wisdom of the Old Guard has been concentrated on matters aimed at acquiring political and state power on behalf of the wretched of the earth in South Africa and has not been focused on cultural matters. The writings of Mphahlele (e.g., “The Wisdom of Africa: Notes on the Oral Tradition,” Staffrider, vol. 2, no. 4, 1979; “The Early Years,” Staffrider, vol. 3, no. 3, 1980; and “Literature: A Necessity or a Public Nuisance—an African View,” Classic, vol. 3, no. 1, 1984) have assisted us South Africans of younger generations to reconstruct the cultural and literary history of our people. What we have disagreed on is the political nature of that reconstruction: whereas we insist on a materialist perspective, Mphahlele has been content to rehash a liberal perspective, however much cynically toned. The superior quality of Mphahlele's intervention, in comparison with Lewis Nkosi's literary mendacity, is beyond discussion and dispute. What is unsettling and unacceptable in some of Mphahlele's literary works are strands of national chauvinism against other African nations. To be sure, these strokes of nihilism are the by-products of his felt bitter experiences in these countries.

In contrast to the childish negativism of Lewis Nkosi, Nadine Gordimer has not ceased celebrating and dancing to the return of Mphahlele in South Africa. Though in public she celebrates it in historical terms (see “A Conversation with Nadine Gordimer,” Salmagundi, no. 62, Winter 1984), this cannot hide the fact that there are deeply hidden personal passions that unrelentingly fuel it (see “An Interview,” in Sophiatown Speaks, by the Johannesburg Junction Avenue Theater Company, 1986). In Gordimer's writings, both creative and critical, the public sphere and the private sphere are imbricated. But what gives historical legitimacy to Gordimer's endorsement of Mphahlele's return is her profound understanding of the cultural politics of intervention historically demanded of both white and black South Africans. Though the historical callings are different for both, they find their sociological unity in politicocultural practice. In a brief, but profoundly penetrating essay, Nadine Gordimer argues that only the black South African writer has been able to forge a reconciliation between the demands made on the writer by society and the writer's commitment to his or her artistic vision. In the South African context, it is this conflict between the demands of society and how they should be met that has made any activity of creativity treacherously difficult and challenging (see “The Position of the White Writer in South Africa,” Realities, Spring 1985). It is his failure in understanding this that has made Lewis Nkosi's literary criticism the catastrophe and unmitigated disaster it is. Nadine Gordimer, this great woman, never minces words: “The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Ideology demands it. Society exacts it.” It is her profound perceptiveness as well as her great artistic talent that will influence the writing of the cultural history of South Africa in the twentieth century. The unimpressive and uninspired nature of Nkosi's literary enterprise is seriously compromised by his advocacy of the purism of the creative act. Nkosi's chauvinistic attacks on Miriam Tlali and Lauretta Ngcobo are the nadir of this tragic descent.

Perhaps the deep animus between Mphahlele and Nkosi is partly explained by the fact that they are among the last colossal surviving figures of the Drum generation. The recent passing away of Bloke Modisane in West Germany has narrowed the circle even further. The real and undefined object of dispute between them is the question of the proper interpretation and reconstruction of this particular literary moment in which both of them found their literary voices. Neither of them has provided the proper historical instruments through which to grasp the literary moment of their youth. If the writings of Can Themba have been the literary signature of the Drum generation, then certainly the reporting of Henry Nxumalo possesses the sociological force to reconstruct this literary moment culturally. In other words, the dispute between them is historically unfounded, for the shaping of the cultural and literary structure in which both of them played a fundamental role was politically determined at the very moment of their literary emergence. It was the political voice of Nxumalo's investigative reporting that has defined the parameters of this literary movement. Despite the prodigious output from Mphahlele, both creative and journalistic, his works have not succeeded in dislodging the slender work of Nxumalo in providing the key words in interpreting this literary moment of Drum: the gigantism of Mphahlele has proven insufficient in contesting the miniaturism of Nxumalo. The rediscovery of the latter is definitely just around the corner. Mphahlele's recent booklet, Poetry and Humanism, exemplifies all the weaknesses that have wrought havoc in many of his writings: the absence of the sociological imagination and the presence of a skewed historical sensibility.

In this booklet Mphahlele attempts to trace the origins of poetic voice and humanism in oral beginnings. Points of reference range from Herder and Heidegger through Goethe and Marlowe to Giotto and Erasmus. As the names indicate, Mphahlele identifies humanism with Western civilization completely, thereby excluding in the process the contribution of Oriental civilization, and also other civilizations like the Amerindian and African. The sociological grounding of this intellectual bias is never made clear. So when later in the booklet, Mphahlele comes around to talking about African humanism, the implication is that the latter is a derivation of European humanism, which is defined as historical humanism. Though that could well be the case, no argument is presented for this perspective. Mphahlele subordinates an African intellectual tradition to a European intellectual tradition. Nobody would dispute the possible relations between them. The problem is that whereas Mphahlele is more than enthusiastic in tracing the origins of European humanism in ancient Greek civilization, he does not attempt to look for the beginnings of African humanism in ancient Egyptian civilization. Such an attempt at the citadel of the apartheid university system would have been a cleansing act indeed, let alone its historical validity. The tracing of the possible rivalry between European humanism and African humanism would have had deep implications in the context of the developing silent revolution in South Africa. The tearing of South Africa from the capitalist system to the socialist system, which has begun in earnest, would have found illuminating support from the academic podium. As it is, a great historical opportunity has been lost by Mphahlele. The academic acolytes, many of them of scandalous mediocrity, would have been shaken from their complacency of being what Paul Nizan contemptuously called the philosophical watchdogs of the established social order. To be sure, the social order in South Africa is in the process of rotting away. An unrelenting stream of ideological hammer blows will undoubtedly assist in bringing about the collapse of the neofascist order in South Africa which has caused untold sufferings for its people. In his own way, with the best implements at his disposal, Mphahlele has continued hammering away at the apartheid system. It is clear that he has not compromised himself by returning home. The Old Man still has die Kraft to continue fighting. What really compromises Poetry and Humanism is its blissful happiness in the sunshine of bourgeois liberal humanism, when that ideology has decayed at the dawn of a new ideological age in South Africa. The real tragedy of the phenomenon of Es'kia Mphahlele in our cultural and literary history is his steadfast refusal to disengage himself from the false mirage of liberalism. In the meantime, Nadine Gordimer, through development and confrontation, has shifted toward revolutionary socialism, the one real social philosophy of our century. Lewis Nkosi has led himself to the deep despair of anarchistic agnosticism. Both Mphahlele and Nkosi are our Teachers and Predecessors, without whom we could not possibly reconstruct the central moments of our literary and cultural history.