Ezekiel Mphahlele

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The Humanism of Ezekiel Mphahlele

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There are a few African writers who have contributed much to the development of modern African literature and have had little written about them. Of the few, the black South African writer, Ezekiel Mphahlele, stands out rather pathetically as a much neglected, generally underestimated and often misjudged writer. (p. 38)

The reasons for the neglect which Mphahlele has suffered in the last decade seem obvious. I believe he is not 'popular', especially among the younger generation, because of his views, more often than not misinterpreted, on sensitive issues of race, inter-personal relationships and the destiny of the black man in the contemporary world. For well over thirty years, his integrationist attitudes as a person and as a writer have been progressively moulded into more definable shapes by a distinctly humanist vision which has its roots in Mphahlele's firm belief in the eternal value of a brotherhood that does not compromise man's essential humanity. It is that vision too which serves as the pivotal element in his artistic creations as well as the formative factor of his personality as an individual. Such indeed has been the close relationship between his two personalities as an artist and as individual that he could assert unequivocally the essential Mphahlele: "As for what I really am, and my place in the African revolution, I shall let my writings speak for me." Mphahlele's writings do provide us with just that testimony. (p. 39)

When he wrote his earliest short stories which subsequently appeared in the collection Man Must Live, his one absorbing interest was in "people as people rather than as political victims," and he sought to focus on ordinary South African blacks and coloureds "in their own ghetto life and their own little dramas and tragedies." His style and perspective followed in the humanist tradition which his mentors [Richard Wright and Langston Hughes] represented. In the last few years, Mphahlele has become visibly absorbed in the quest for a new sociopolitical order which would accommodate his vision and whose very foundation would rest on what he defines as a "more genuine cross-cultural nationalism."

Thus in his short stories his first interest usually centres on the human condition which they help him to illustrate. In these stories there is more often than not an articulate statement of what constitutes the reality of that condition and how it has in turn moulded the quality of life and fortunes of his protagonists. His characters, even when they appear to us as escapists, evoke a sympathetic response from us because we are aware of the fact that they are mere victims of situations in which we ourselves could be trapped irrespective of our background and racial or cultural affiliations. (p. 42)

The details of [the] … stories in Man Must Live exemplify the major features of the early Mphahlele: a ponderous style and somewhat apolitical humanism which borders on escapism; but there is nevertheless a concentration of sensibility in his consuming interest in the predicament of the individuals who inhabit his fictional world. In his later stories Mphahlele provides further illuminations of that world through both direct and implicit commentaries on the socio-political background of events and experiences. The political implications of these events and experiences emerge from the stories without his having to force into our hands a political banner.

Even when Mphahlele presents situations that are obviously political in nature he constantly strives to draw from the experiences yet another illustration of the frustrations and indignities which the black mar is subjected to in South Africa. Thus his attention shifts inevitably from the event as a sociopolitical phenomenon to the human condition which it is meant to illustrate. "The Suitcase" is one of such stories; so also is "Dinner at Eight."… (p. 44)

Nowhere in Mphahlele's writings is his universalist vision or his humanism better illustrated than in his absorbing novel, The Wanderers, in which he provides a fictional framework for his socio-political ideal of harmonious co-existence of the various racial groups in South Africa. (pp. 45-6)

The main story itself focuses on Timi who is the central character, his wife, Karabo, their son, Felang, and the intermingling relationship between the Timi household on the one hand and other characters drawn from the racial communities in South Africa. (p. 46)

The Wanderers begins with reflections on Felang's death and ends with an account of how he met his death. Between the glimpses of that enigmatic character we are led through several landscapes and we are made to share in the anxieties and ordeals of the characters whose consciousnesses centre around a single problem of existence under the shadow of apartheid. It is their communal search for self-realisation which universalizes the central experience in the novel. The final act of commitment of Felang reflects Mphahlele's own modified views and his efforts to reconcile his humanist ideal with the socio-political imperatives of our time. (pp. 46-7)

Timi has completed the cycle of his growth. If we accept the reading that Timi is to a large extent a fictional projection of Mphahlele himself, it is easy to follow the pattern of his growth from the escapist and liberal humanist of his early writings through the period of vacillations trying to identify with a communal purpose to the pragmatist who, in seeking to reinforce the old foundations of his humanist ethos, now sees ultimate self-realisation in commitment to his land and the destiny of his people. This final resolution is evident in Mphahlele's almost mystical veneration of the harmony of a land and its people. To that extent his confessed longing for his lost homeland and his wish, in spite of the situation in South Africa, to return home and face death when it does come, is indicative of the same kind of attachment that he has sanctioned in the fictional world of The Wanderers…. (p. 47)

The question that does arise ultimately is: wherein lies the value of Mphahlele's humanism in the context of the South African situation and the contemporary experience in Africa as a whole? Where does Mphahlele stand in the on-going struggle in Southern Africa? He has directed us to his works for some of the answers, and our quest for those answers has yielded specific affirmatives. Mphahlele proposes an integrationist resolution, but it is a solution that must be based strictly on a firm guarantee of the humanity of the constituent groups in that society. (pp. 47-8)

[Mphahlele's] commitment is to the macrocosm; and the political realities in South Africa are a fragment of the totality of the human condition that is central to his thought. His vision encompasses a wider world and community of races. (p. 48)

A noticeable shortcoming of Mphahlele's formulations is the almost total neglect of a clearly defined strategy for realising the ideal framework, be it social, economic or political, within which his humanism will not be seen to be a mere intellectual indulgence. There can be no doubt that he believes in the value of his own vision of the South African reality and of the alternatives that his humanism has guided him to propose. This reservation notwithstanding, it is difficult to contest Mphahlele's claim to more serious attention in our study of African literature in the contemporary idiom. His significance is defined by the consistency of his thematic focus in his writings and utterances on the black-white issue, and as much by the complementarity of resonances both of his theories and of his practice as a writer. His persistent articulation of a humanist ideal which he sublimates from even the most overtly dated sketch cannot but be seen as a significant contribution to the heritage of ideas in contemporary African writing of which he is a distinguished pioneer. (pp. 48-9)

Samuel Omo Asein, "The Humanism of Ezekiel Mphahlele" (copyright Samuel Omo Asein; by permission of Hans Zell Publishers, an imprint of K. G. Saur Verlag), in Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Vol. XV, No. 1, August, 1980, pp. 38-49.

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