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The
harm
that was done to the image of Africa by colonial
publishing was demeaning
and sadly long-lasting. I think
of books from Britain with such titles as The
Settler and the
Savage by R M Ballantyne. Rider
Haggard's King
Solomon's Mines sold 31 thousand copies
in its first
year — and that was 1885. According to The
Oxford Companion to Children's
Literature,
"Haggard took advantage of the fact that very
little was known at the time about the African
interior" and so was able to produce unflattering
fantasy about African nations
Percy Fitzpatrick's Jock
of the Bushveld is often considered the beginning of
South African
children's literature, yet it refers to
the local inhabitants as "boys" and "kaffirs"
and "yelling
niggers", and comments that
"we" (whites) would "not live a day if
they didn't know who was
baas." (Today's children
are usually provided with a heavily edited version)....
Though
young readers go to non-fiction for basic information,
the impression they form
of what it is like to live in
another country is often formed by stories written as
fiction. I
think
that I should make the point that we face a dual
problem. We must have books which:
Far
too often, young African readers do not find themselves
in the books put in front of
them....
We
are looking at the representation of
Cultures. It is as
well to remind ourselves
what that word means. Anne
Pellowski (in her essay on Culture
and Developing Cultures)
defined it as: "In its
widest sense, culture is the entire, shared way of life
of a people. It is the
way of life that distinguishes
them from other people."
This
means, as I understand it, their way of life of life now, as well as the importance
of their traditional customs. In
Africa, this is a touchy subject as people try to
modernise
their culture and society without losing touch
with their traditional roots.
What,
for example, does one make of a book like Looking
at the Zulu (by Roger &
Pat de la Harpe - Struik)
which portrays these proud people dressed only in beads
and
regalia? I can promise you that you can drive
through KwaZulu-Natal from one end to the
other without
seeing a single Zulu dressed that way, except in a
tourist venue like
'Shakaland' where these photos were
taken....
Or
does one condemn a book like Antjie
(Early Learning Resource Unit) because it
portrays the
genuine life on a Xhosa girl today without a hint of the
proud past of the Xhosa
people? Similarly, the wordless
picture book, Our
House by Robert Hichens (Kagiso) shows
the cheerful
construction of a one-roomed tin shack which is part of
modern culture in the
sense of a 'way of life'.
Perhaps
we need both points of view: traditional finery as a
memorial to a
lifestyle which African children may no
longer be part of; together with more
modern viewpoints
to give them a correct perspective on Africa
.... If
we are to have books
for children which portray a
historically earlier lifestyle, then I feel it vital
that the book
creators should bring out the values of
that way of life, how young readers today can learn
lessons of the importance of culture or how to live
together in peace .... Our authors,
illustrators and
editors are 'doing their homework' and ensuring an
accurate picture and a
better balance....
I
believe that the same sort of sensible progress is being
made in children's literature
throughout Africa. We are
trying to be responsible 'paper people'.
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—
by Jay
Heale, from the paper presented at the
IBBY Congress, 1998
Jay Heale is an author, educator, critic and Chairman of
the South African Children's Book Forum
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