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The tensions between diversity and
unity have perhaps been neglected in
favour of immediate and surface
amelioration.
The dynamics of power which inform
the ``new nationalist'' discourse
and the various forms it assumes, be it
in the media, on a political platform,
or in the classroom, need to be
identified and scrutinized. As Stuart
Hall (1992:297) proposes: ``Instead of
thinking of national cultures as unified,
we should think of them as
constituting a discursive device which
represents difference as unity or identity''
(emphasis in original). This
seeming contradiction, that disparate
people are unified, is not insuperable,
but it is the facile representation of
this unity which is questioned. For
example, the popular slogan ``Simunye,
we are one,'' signifies that we,
despite our differences, are united.
What is not clear is how we are
different, and how it is that we are able
to unite. Moreover, an analysis of the
``new nationalist'' discourse needs to
be balanced between an understanding
of its political expediency and its
tendency glibly to impose a national
cultural identity on a heterogenous
and hybrid society.
Certainly, one of the aims of the
discourse is to redress the imbalances,
injustices and suppressions of apartheid,
in the hope that new cultural
relations will be forged, and that a
new, shared identity will be negotiated.
Some of the folktale publications
attempt to do just that. Authors,
although they might sometimes claim
``authenticity'', present their readers
with images of a shared and rearticulated
cultural heritage. The current
folktale texts are neither ``essentially''
African, nor purely Europeanderived,
but ``other''. This ``otherness''
is created by and reflects the
cultural hybridity of the ``nation''.
The increased publication (and popularity)
of indigenous folktale collections
in the last decade can be seen
as a significant facet of the ``new
nationalist'' discourse which pervades
post-apartheid South Africa. But the
role of folktale texts in the development
of this discourse goes back a bit
further, to the days of anti-colonial
and anti-apartheid struggle. At the
same time, it must be noted that many
of the present-day authors, whilst
valorizing indigenous cultures, employ
a neo-colonialist discourse. The
purpose of this essay is to examine the
publication of specifically Xhosa
folktales in recent times, showing how
these texts are embedded in both neocolonialist
discourses, as well as the
``new nationalist'' discourse of the
``new South Africa''.
A powerful union of rhetorics
In this section the works of a few
selected authors will be analysed. The
tales, the superstructure that surrounds
them and the general packaging
of these ``modern'' publications
will be considered. The ``powerful
union of rhetorics'' (Briggs 1993:404)
used by authors to market or entextualize
the tales, are of chief concern.
The essay is limited to authors who
have published Xhosa folktales in the
latter half of the twentieth century.
Those authors who draw upon a
neo-colonialist discourse, be they
amateur anthropologists, creative
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writers or scholars, implement a variety
of rhetorical strategies. First, the
unreflective and glorifying use of
colonial sources is common. AC
Partridge's collection, Folklore of
Southern Africa (1973), is one of many
publications that are hugely indebted
to GM Theal's Kaffir folklore (1882).
In the introduction, Partridge
(1973:iv) enthuses about the value of
colonial folkloristics: ``The wealth of
folk-tales indigenous to Southern
Africa is a debt to the collecting zeal
of European missionaries, especially
from Germany and Britain ... The
Europeans who communicated indigenous
folk-tales attempted to preserve
the originals in their native
purity.'' He thus subscribes wholesale
to what Briggs (1993:396) terms the
``image of intertextual transparency'',
which is the assumption that ``texts
created through transcription, translation
and editing bear an intrinsic
connection to their source such that
the former are extensions or synecdoches
of the latter''. Partridge's
ethnography of the Bushmen, Hottentots
and Bantu is merely a summary
of Theal's The yellow and darkskinned
people of Africa south of the
Zambesi (1910). For example, his
comments on the fate of the ``Bushmen''
are very similar to Theal's:
``[M]ost were exterminated, as useless
marauders, by Hottentots, Bantu or
Europeans'' (1973:vi). Theal is quoted
on subjects ranging from oral performance
to ethnology and, finally,
acculturation. No attempt is made to
update the material or even alter the
colonialist rhetoric: ``Theal noted that
thousands of Christianized Bantu
were encouraged by their nineteenthcentury
teachers to borrow ideas
from European literature. At the