Busuyi Mekusi - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Busuyi Mekusi
This thesis examines the representation of trauma and memory in six post-Apartheid plays. The top... more This thesis examines the representation of trauma and memory in six post-Apartheid plays. The topic is explored through a treatment of the tropes of racial segregation, different forms of dispossession as well as violence. The thesis draws its inspiration from the critical and self-reflexive engagements with which South African playwrights depict the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The dramatists are concerned with the contested nature of the TRC as an experiential and historical archive. Others explore the idea of disputed and seemingly elusive notions of truth (from the embodied to the forensic). Through the unpacking of the TRC, as reflected in three of the plays, the thesis argues that apart from the idea of an absolute or forensic truth, the TRC is also characterised by the repression of truth. Furthermore, there is a consideration of debates around amnesty, justice, and reparations. Underpinning the politics and representations of trauma and memory, the thesis also interrogates the concomitant explorations and implications of identity and citizenship in the dramas. In the experience of violence, subjugation and exile, the characters in the dramas wrestle with the physical and psychological implications of their lived experiences. This creates anxieties around notions of self and community whether at home or in exile and such representations foreground the centrality of memory in identity construction. All these complex personal and social challenges are further exacerbated by the presence of endemic violence against women and children as well as that of rampart crime. The thesis, therefore, explores the negotiation of memory and identity in relation to how trauma could be mitigated or healing could be attained. The thesis substantially blurs the orthodox lines of differentiation between race and class, but emphasises the centrality of the individual or self in recent post-Apartheid engagements.
Racism, by nature, is intricately bonded with migration; the first takes its evolution from the o... more Racism, by nature, is intricately bonded with migration; the first takes its evolution from the other, after a locus is established for the construction of the „self‟ and „other‟ binary. The South African experience, in its uniqueness, is best illustrative of other melting cultures globally. However, under such dispensations, while the people in the minority were transposed and made subservient in a new location, the migrated few in the South African case conquered, dominated and subjected the majority to servitude. Race, therefore, formed a centrifugal element in the coexistence of all the racial groups, defined by segregation and exploitation. As the vituperations against this trend best explain the literature in apartheid South Africa, the emerging order in post-apartheid literary engagements has promised a difference. One reflection of such development is the blurring of old racial defining lines as found between Tami and Johan in Zakes Mda‟s The Bells of Amersfoort. This paper,...
Africa Development, Oct 3, 2011
Having a voice, either at the level of the individual or the community, has been one of the atavi... more Having a voice, either at the level of the individual or the community, has been one of the atavistic ways of defining or asserting humanity. This allows for the inscription of the twin-capped hegemony of successes or victories and frustrations at both the private locus and the public sphere. The disruptions of this possibility by rifts between natives in pre-colonial South Africa were aggravated in the heat of the colonial suppression it suffered, and was compounded by the operation of apartheid rule. By reason of this misrule, voices were suppressed, with a few cacophonies of dissention breaking forth. The culmination of these disenchantments into the demise of apartheid significantly presaged the need for reconstruction and redefinition of citizenship and cohabitation, and hence the necessity for establishing a public sphere, or put alternatively, a public domain in the form of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This paper, therefore, seeks to interrogate the dramatic world(s) created using the material properties of the TRC in John Kani's Nothing but the Truth and Zakes Mda's The Bells of Amersfoort. The paper argues that the domination and manipulation of this public realm by the state at the expense of the individual is not only counterproductive, but constitutes a denial of the relevance of such spheres. The paper, going by indices in the plays, therefore, concludes that every individual should not only be: given a voice, and be heard, but be allowed equal unbiased participation. Otherwise, the public sphere would not just be impotent, but the idea of nation-building and desirable citizenship would be a mere ruse.
Imbizo
Existing narratives in African literature have substantiated the precarious positions and positio... more Existing narratives in African literature have substantiated the precarious positions and positioning of female characters who, often times, are constructed as “evil,” monstrous, vindictive, etc. Whereas other artistic productions sympathetic to the conditions of women in African literature have tried to neutralise this despicable femininity through the configuration of effective, productive, urbane and positive social and political female agency, the notion of “evil women” still looms large. Black female characters in South African drama are burdened, in multiple ways, beyond the idea of race and ethnicity, as they are subjected to the whims and caprices of socio-cultural, political and economic disadvantageous orders. It is given the foregoing that this article seeks to interrogate the construction of “evil women” in Lara Foot Newton’s Tshepang: The Third Testament. Using the attributes and manifestations that inhere in the symbolism of “mother earth” in Africa, which has been suc...
Imbizo
Revenge, as an instance of oppositionality, typifies past wrongs, evils, violations and disregard... more Revenge, as an instance of oppositionality, typifies past wrongs, evils, violations and disregard for human dignity which have been imputed and for which the offender must be reprimanded. The foregoing sequence is remindful of the dastardly apartheid dispensation in South Africa, which is a strong metaphor for strife and ‘ruptured’ human interactions. While the transition of South Africa to constitutionality was substantially heralded by the negotiating preponderances of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a number of people have adjudged the TRC to be a mere attempt to draw a curtain on the past - in sharp contrast to the spirit and letter of the commission. By so doing, there is a popular opinion that there are still some ‘unfinished business’ that ironically link the present with the past. Therefore, it is considered a ‘must’ that these ‘silences’ be addressed in order for the present and future of South Africa not to be intractably burdened by the past...
Indilinga African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, 2007
Journal of Education and Practice, 2013
Artistic commitments in Africa, Nigeria in particular, have continued to countenance the various ... more Artistic commitments in Africa, Nigeria in particular, have continued to countenance the various socio-political as well as the economic adversities that have plagued the eclectic spheres within which the human agencies constantly attempt to make a meaning of their existence. Therefore, that the various segments in the Nigerian society have entered pervasive moral recessions is not so unpopular, but the fact that other specific clusters unofficially saddled with the responsibility of reasonableness and conscience pricking have discarded such roles is more worrisome and a little appalling. The foregoing is a given in the placement of academic institutions in Nigeria, just like some others all over the world, which started by occupying the front burner in the annals of good governance, probity, accountability and the entrenchment of the rules of law and respect for human dignity. However, the above is no longer the case in view of the fact that the definite lines demarcating the ivory tower from the recklessness of other societal segments have not just been blurred but eliminated. This portends the long-time onslaught and abandonment suffered in the face of government insensitivity and policy somersaults over the years. It is going by the aforementioned that this paper aims to make a critical reading of Seiza Mike Aliu's play, Midday Blackout (1998), to interrogate, among many other socio-political engagements, how the ivory tower has shifted and drifted from the high echelon of orderliness to the perilous abyss of disorder and anarchy. The paper seeks to argue that negative elements have a surreptitious manner of eroding those that are seen to be good. It also makes a statement about the little success that the various agitations by a select few who have always chosen to stand at variance with the state, hegemonies and their representatives have recorded. However complicated drawing a conclusion is, the paper paradoxically opines that there might be the need to import some form of impetus from without, that is the bankrupt larger world, in order to reinforce the simmering extant iconoclastic embers within the ivory tower. Obviously, a more rigorous intervention is needed to light up the pervasive midday blackout .
English Academy Review, 2009
Spheres Public and Private, 2011
This thesis examines the representation of trauma and memory in six post-Apartheid plays. The top... more This thesis examines the representation of trauma and memory in six post-Apartheid plays. The topic is explored through a treatment of the tropes of racial segregation, different forms of dispossession as well as violence. The thesis draws its inspiration from the critical and self-reflexive engagements with which South African playwrights depict the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The dramatists are concerned with the contested nature of the TRC as an experiential and historical archive. Others explore the idea of disputed and seemingly elusive notions of truth (from the embodied to the forensic). Through the unpacking of the TRC, as reflected in three of the plays, the thesis argues that apart from the idea of an absolute or forensic truth, the TRC is also characterised by the repression of truth. Furthermore, there is a consideration of debates around amnesty, justice, and reparations. Underpinning the politics and representations of trauma and memory, the thesis also interrogates the concomitant explorations and implications of identity and citizenship in the dramas. In the experience of violence, subjugation and exile, the characters in the dramas wrestle with the physical and psychological implications of their lived experiences. This creates anxieties around notions of self and community whether at home or in exile and such representations foreground the centrality of memory in identity construction. All these complex personal and social challenges are further exacerbated by the presence of endemic violence against women and children as well as that of rampart crime. The thesis, therefore, explores the negotiation of memory and identity in relation to how trauma could be mitigated or healing could be attained. The thesis substantially blurs the orthodox lines of differentiation between race and class, but emphasises the centrality of the individual or self in recent post-Apartheid engagements.
Racism, by nature, is intricately bonded with migration; the first takes its evolution from the o... more Racism, by nature, is intricately bonded with migration; the first takes its evolution from the other, after a locus is established for the construction of the „self‟ and „other‟ binary. The South African experience, in its uniqueness, is best illustrative of other melting cultures globally. However, under such dispensations, while the people in the minority were transposed and made subservient in a new location, the migrated few in the South African case conquered, dominated and subjected the majority to servitude. Race, therefore, formed a centrifugal element in the coexistence of all the racial groups, defined by segregation and exploitation. As the vituperations against this trend best explain the literature in apartheid South Africa, the emerging order in post-apartheid literary engagements has promised a difference. One reflection of such development is the blurring of old racial defining lines as found between Tami and Johan in Zakes Mda‟s The Bells of Amersfoort. This paper,...
Africa Development, Oct 3, 2011
Having a voice, either at the level of the individual or the community, has been one of the atavi... more Having a voice, either at the level of the individual or the community, has been one of the atavistic ways of defining or asserting humanity. This allows for the inscription of the twin-capped hegemony of successes or victories and frustrations at both the private locus and the public sphere. The disruptions of this possibility by rifts between natives in pre-colonial South Africa were aggravated in the heat of the colonial suppression it suffered, and was compounded by the operation of apartheid rule. By reason of this misrule, voices were suppressed, with a few cacophonies of dissention breaking forth. The culmination of these disenchantments into the demise of apartheid significantly presaged the need for reconstruction and redefinition of citizenship and cohabitation, and hence the necessity for establishing a public sphere, or put alternatively, a public domain in the form of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This paper, therefore, seeks to interrogate the dramatic world(s) created using the material properties of the TRC in John Kani's Nothing but the Truth and Zakes Mda's The Bells of Amersfoort. The paper argues that the domination and manipulation of this public realm by the state at the expense of the individual is not only counterproductive, but constitutes a denial of the relevance of such spheres. The paper, going by indices in the plays, therefore, concludes that every individual should not only be: given a voice, and be heard, but be allowed equal unbiased participation. Otherwise, the public sphere would not just be impotent, but the idea of nation-building and desirable citizenship would be a mere ruse.
Imbizo
Existing narratives in African literature have substantiated the precarious positions and positio... more Existing narratives in African literature have substantiated the precarious positions and positioning of female characters who, often times, are constructed as “evil,” monstrous, vindictive, etc. Whereas other artistic productions sympathetic to the conditions of women in African literature have tried to neutralise this despicable femininity through the configuration of effective, productive, urbane and positive social and political female agency, the notion of “evil women” still looms large. Black female characters in South African drama are burdened, in multiple ways, beyond the idea of race and ethnicity, as they are subjected to the whims and caprices of socio-cultural, political and economic disadvantageous orders. It is given the foregoing that this article seeks to interrogate the construction of “evil women” in Lara Foot Newton’s Tshepang: The Third Testament. Using the attributes and manifestations that inhere in the symbolism of “mother earth” in Africa, which has been suc...
Imbizo
Revenge, as an instance of oppositionality, typifies past wrongs, evils, violations and disregard... more Revenge, as an instance of oppositionality, typifies past wrongs, evils, violations and disregard for human dignity which have been imputed and for which the offender must be reprimanded. The foregoing sequence is remindful of the dastardly apartheid dispensation in South Africa, which is a strong metaphor for strife and ‘ruptured’ human interactions. While the transition of South Africa to constitutionality was substantially heralded by the negotiating preponderances of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a number of people have adjudged the TRC to be a mere attempt to draw a curtain on the past - in sharp contrast to the spirit and letter of the commission. By so doing, there is a popular opinion that there are still some ‘unfinished business’ that ironically link the present with the past. Therefore, it is considered a ‘must’ that these ‘silences’ be addressed in order for the present and future of South Africa not to be intractably burdened by the past...
Indilinga African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, 2007
Journal of Education and Practice, 2013
Artistic commitments in Africa, Nigeria in particular, have continued to countenance the various ... more Artistic commitments in Africa, Nigeria in particular, have continued to countenance the various socio-political as well as the economic adversities that have plagued the eclectic spheres within which the human agencies constantly attempt to make a meaning of their existence. Therefore, that the various segments in the Nigerian society have entered pervasive moral recessions is not so unpopular, but the fact that other specific clusters unofficially saddled with the responsibility of reasonableness and conscience pricking have discarded such roles is more worrisome and a little appalling. The foregoing is a given in the placement of academic institutions in Nigeria, just like some others all over the world, which started by occupying the front burner in the annals of good governance, probity, accountability and the entrenchment of the rules of law and respect for human dignity. However, the above is no longer the case in view of the fact that the definite lines demarcating the ivory tower from the recklessness of other societal segments have not just been blurred but eliminated. This portends the long-time onslaught and abandonment suffered in the face of government insensitivity and policy somersaults over the years. It is going by the aforementioned that this paper aims to make a critical reading of Seiza Mike Aliu's play, Midday Blackout (1998), to interrogate, among many other socio-political engagements, how the ivory tower has shifted and drifted from the high echelon of orderliness to the perilous abyss of disorder and anarchy. The paper seeks to argue that negative elements have a surreptitious manner of eroding those that are seen to be good. It also makes a statement about the little success that the various agitations by a select few who have always chosen to stand at variance with the state, hegemonies and their representatives have recorded. However complicated drawing a conclusion is, the paper paradoxically opines that there might be the need to import some form of impetus from without, that is the bankrupt larger world, in order to reinforce the simmering extant iconoclastic embers within the ivory tower. Obviously, a more rigorous intervention is needed to light up the pervasive midday blackout .
English Academy Review, 2009
Spheres Public and Private, 2011