A visit to Mazisi Kunene Museum in Durban, South Africa

I have always heard and read - at glimpse - about the name Mazisi Kunene in few publications and most recently from the editorial statement of African Poetry Edition Vol.1 | Issue 3 of Imbiza - Journal For African Writing by Dr Siphiwo Mahala. It is a common knowledge that Professor Mazisi Kunene was the inaugural National Poet Laureate of the South African Republic post-apartheid. Born in Durban on May 12, 1930, at McCord's Hospital. His mother Eva Kunene (nee Ngcobo) was a teacher and his father, Mdabuli Albert Kunene, a labourer.He grew up at Amahlongwa on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast and attended primary school there and later Kwa-hluzingcondo High School. 

 Khehla Chepape Makgato, Mathabo Kunene, Futhi Mbongwe, Lamakhosi Kunene and Hector Kunene 📸 by Bongani Gidide

This blog post is to simply highlight my experience and journey to Mazisi Kunene Museum. My visit to this incredible museum, incredible in a sense that I felt more at home than any other museum I visited in my whole life, was organized by Dr Gcina Mhlophe and her amazing 25 year old daughter Nomakhwezi Becker. This occured amidst my busy schedule during the 13th anniversary of Nozincwadi Storytelling and Book Festival by Gcinamasiko Arts and Heritage Trust. At  Under The Storytelling Tree, a festival of storytelling under the tree, also by Gcinamasiko Arts and Heritage Trust in Bluff showground in eThekwini Municipality, I met Mme Mathabo Kunene, wife of Professor Mazisi Kunene and their daughter Lamakhosi Kunene. She was moved by my brief speech from the podium which was based on my line of work, particularly my upcoming exhibition title A LOOK AT  Bapedi Ancestral Flower - MOGAPULA and Royal Necklace - PHETHA YA THAKGA. After the event we had a chat to which invitation was extended to me, again. 

To punctuate my brief experience, I would like to borrow a quote from the interview Professor Kunene had on Chukwama Azuonye's The Big Canvas initiative in 1996. He was asked if he was optimistic about the new South Africa and he made it clear that he is challenged by the new dawn. "The intellectual battle is the most profound, most serious, most challenging. I'd say that we are now in that intellectual battle."

Entering the museum with my fellow brothers and storytellers of Africa, Hector Kunene and Bongani Godide, I was intellectually challenged. I was perplexed and amazed not to see the smiling faces of the (politicians) president of South Africa and minister of arts and culture along the deputy minister at the reception but a towering picture of poet, academic and founder of the anti-apartheid movement in Britain. This is because the museum is independently run by the Mazisi Kunene Foundation. My pride in seeing this museum being operated by the Kunene family is priceless. A kind hearted mother and daughter combo welcomed us generously in their space, cajoling us into feeling at home. Making it clear that the museum has space for everyone, particularly African sons and daughters to assert their contributions. Lamakhosi took us on a thought-provoking tour around the museum's collection, patiently engaging us intellectually. She revealed to us her father was always writing wherever he was. Despite his ever busy schedule in the academia and political spaces, he always found moment for his family. He was a present father and husband. There is a letter on the wall he wrote to his beautiful wife Mathabo using the letter of Los Angeles University - at this point of the tour his daughter giggled, joking that her father was all-lovey-dover on the university's working hours. Lamakhosi also emphasized that her father would take them to a park and whilst they play he will be on his pen and paper scribing something or the other. 

I was honestly embarrassed that I had to come to this museum in order to know more about the rich legacy of this incredible Man of Letters. It is unbelievable that there is a plethora of unpublished scripts discovered when they got back in South Africa after spending over three decades in exile. Many of his associates have brought back his original handwritten manuscripts from all over the world because he would write a script and leave it wherever he was before catching the next train. 

Mme Mathabo reminded us that Kunene was not a Zulu poet but a poet of African descent who believed in Afrikan Humanism (Botho, Vumunhu, Vhuthu, Bantu) - that is to say in words of Professor Es'kia Mphahele, a belief that:  "Individualism becomes an alien condition." The narrowing of Professor Mazisi Kunene as simply a Zulu poet is problematic because the man was larger than life. In his words when asked if he sees his work as a creation of a national Zulu epic he said "No, I am not interested in creating a national epic for the Zulu. I am merely stating epic events in a form which is a big canvass. And it is not for the Zulu. It is for the African people so that they can see themselves in a canvass of their own heroism, their own capacity not to be afraid of death, because when a people are occupied, one of their greatest weaknesses is to be afraid of death. They don’t want to fight because they are frightened of dying. But, you see,  the challenge is for the people to say, I’m not afraid of death; I’ve got an idea; and I’m part of a big movement." 

What grabbed my attention was the emotionally charged drawings by Dumile Feni that portrayed South Africans’ lives under the oppressive apartheid regime, earning him the epithet “Goya of the townships". It is very rare to see originally signed and dated pieces by Feni in public spaces. What makes the collection of his work at Mazisi Kunene is that they both collaborated on few projects. Interestingly the texts embedded in the drawings are in English, however other texts on display in the museum are predominantly in IsiZulu. Taking about Kunene's work, Kwanele Sosibo of Mail & Guardian said "The isiZulu text is in and of itself an exhibition of the intrinsic richness of the mother tongue, with an eminent inheritor of an oral tradition transmuting a story into text."

 

Professor Kunene caution us against fools who are would like to box us into tribal boxes when he said "There’s no such thing as Zulu world view. There is African world view." This we see in how him and his contemporaries such as Dumile Feni contributed so much to the global art through their African world views.

With many of cultural institutions closing shops in South Africa under the ANC government, we need to guard whatever is left from closure. The government is not interested in making sure that enough funding goes into cultural institutions hence we have seen The Apartheid Museum, The Fugard Theater and others hard hit  by Covid 19 which affected the funding into the coffers of these cultural institutions. Just few days ago it was rumoured that Eyethu Cinema, which was a prime entertainment venue in the 1970s and 80s when black people were restricted from 'white' cinemas in the Joburg CBD, was to be demolished to make way for a shopping complex. This was later dismissed as a lie. We hope they don't demolish this iconic structure but instead revamp it into a former glory.

The message I took from this brief visit and from Mme Mathabo and sesi Lamakhosi is the clarion call to members of the public that we should get involved in keeping alive the legacy of Professor Mazisi Kunene. We must each find time to see what contribution we could make to making his work more accessible and available. There are myriad of opportunities to partner with the museum. Such includes selecting a poem and translating into another indigenous language of South Africa or African continent.

The Mazisi Kunene Museum is on 8 Delville Ave, Glenwood, Durban, 4001

Phone: 031 205 2912

Visit their website here 

http://www.kunenefoundation.org

Sources: 

South African History Online - https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mazisi-raymond-kunene

Mail & Guardian 

https://mg.co.za/article/2017-03-16-shaka-epic-born-anew-in-isizulu/

eSholarship

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/68h7d1kr