AN IZIBONGO FOR MAFUKUZELA: Ritual, Memory and Nation in South Africa

Abstract

Abstract: John Langalibalele Dube (1871-1946) had become a central figure in modern South African history and memory. His accomplishments are well known for those who have been interested in his life and work. At the same time, the ways in which he has been appropriated and seen from the late nineteenth century to the present day are directly related to the dominant South African society and nation projects. On the one hand, there are those who tend to identify Dube as a contributor to the implementation of South African segregation. On the other hand, there are those who position John Dube as the central character of the historical struggles against racial segregation, inscribing him, as it occurs today paradigmatically, as a kind of South African hero - this tendency can be observed in different decades and situations, such as in Dube’s representations produced by his family and social group in the 1970s under the izibongos that were dedicated to him, and that are the central object of this article. In a game of memory struggles, this interpretive pattern would become clearly dominant paradigmatically in post-Apartheid South Africa, particularly in the context of South Africa's invention as Rainbown Nation

Keywords: John Dube (1871-1946). Memory. Nation. Izibongo. South Africa.