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MAGEMA M. FUZE |
| The ambiguous position of Magema ka Magwaza Fuze in South African intellectual history, particularly in Zulu cultural history, is made manifest in Benedict Wallet Vilakazi's extraordinary dissertation, The Oral and Written Literature in Nguni (1946). Vilakazi designates the whole historical period between as "The Age of Rubusana and Fuze (1900-1930)". Vilakazi characterizes this modern era with the following words: "The Natives Land Act of 1913 further established in the minds of the Africans the convictionthat it would be better to sell up and become farm or mine labourers than to trek from 'pillar to post', till all their cattle died. So the urbanisation of the African began; and by 1930 it was becoming a menace in the white man's special sphere---the town. Living conditions in town were unhealthy and immoral; the masters did not worry what happened to their black workers, so long as they turned up in the morning to work. . . A new type of labourer emerged in the town---the proletarian who depended solely on his wages. He needed to be organized and directed. Clements Kadalie and Allison W. G. Champion came to the fore. . . It was in these times that Sol. T. Plaatje produced his well-known book Native Life in South Africa. He belonged to the group of political writers, and was the greatest of them." (p.289-90). He posits the Bambatta Rebellion of 1906 as one of the central episodes in the making of South African modernity, the emergence of a new historical consciousness, and the forging of a New African. Although he views them as makers of a particular historical period, Vilakazi is well aware that Rubasana's Zem'inkomo Magwalandini (1906) and Fuze's The Black People: And Whence They Came (Abantu Abamnyama: Lapa Bavela Ngakona, 1922 [English translation appearing in 1979]) are not as original as they could have been: the former the fact that it is a compilation rather than a book by Rubusana himself; and the latter the fact that the historical thoughts expreseed therein are collated from previous historical texts. Vilakazi analyzed both texts as expressing the cultural unity of New Africans in modernity as much as the founding of the ANC in 1912 was the articulation of the political unity of New Africanism. Both books are 'beginnings' rather than breakthroughs or landmarks. Beyond their markers as origins, Vilakazi regards Zem'inkomo Magwalandini in much greater estimation. H. I. E. Dhlomo also viewed The Black People as marking the beginning of modern Zulu intellectual thought. Whereas Vilakazi coupled the names of Walter Rubusana and Magema M. Fuze together horizontally, Dhlomo coupled Fuze and John Dube together vertically ("John Langalibalele Dube: Two Songs", Ilanga lase Natal, February 23, 1946). Although Dhlomo sought only to cartograph a chronological intellectual influence from Fuze to Dube, there is another interrelatedness between them, in that Dube serialized in Ilanga lase Natal several short chapters of Abantu Abamnyama in their originally written language in Zulu (December 26, 1919). Even though Fuze contributed very few pieces or articles to the newspaper, he can justifiably be situated historically with the general ambience of the circle of intellectuals around Ilanga lase Natal which included among others the young H. I. E. Dhlomo writing under the psedonyms of 'Bert' and 'Amicus Himini Gentis', Josiah Mapumulo, A. H. M. Ngidi, R. R. R. Dhlomo, Robert Grendon on and off. Perhaps the best measure of Fuze's inclusion in this intellectual tradition is Josiah Mapumulo's criticism of his conception of Christianity and spiritualism ("Disembodied Souls", Ilanga lase Natal, February 17, 1922). In the Prologue to the book, Magema M. Fuze pays tribute to John Dube and the newspaper in having accorded him respect and serious consideration as an intellectual. Although today somewhat nearly forgotten, Fuze was a critical member of New Africanism. It is very suprising that Fuze is peculiarly absent from Mweli T. D. Skota's The African Yearly Register (1930). | |