Big text and big questions and text being discussed at Centre for Creative Arts
By Edward Tsumele
If you happen to be in Cape Town and you are a sort of person interested in thinking, reading and writing and getting involved in great questions and answers you will be probably happy that you do not have to look beyond the University of Cape Town today (Tuesday, May 23, 2023). This is because a series of discussions and conversations are taking place there. Big ideas are being discussed and those that are soluble, solutions will be offered by various experts from various fields.
However this latest edition of the conversations hosted by the Centre for Creative Arts at University of Cape Town, and curated by writer and curator Nkgopoleng Moloi, titled Great Texts/Big Questions. These are free to attend as they are public lecture series,and today’s particular one features Zikhona Valela, author of Now You Know How Mapetla Mohapi Died: The story of a Black Consciousness martyr.”
The discussion itself is however titled Disobeying an ANC-fied historiography, Tuesday 23 May at 17h30 in The Little Theatre, UCT Hiddingh Campus. In this public lecture, Zikhona Valela reflects on her book Now You Know How Mapetla Died: The Story of a Black Consciousness Martyr, in which she traces events that led to the brutal and tragic death of Mapetla Mohapi. Mohapi was a leading member of the Black Consciousness Movement, and the first to die in detention in 1976.
Valela notes: “At the unveiling of the Mapetla Mohapi memorial in Sterkspruit in 2002, it was shared that Mapetla recruited Brigitte Mabandla (who was detained with Mohapi following the Viva Frelimo rallies of 1974) to the African National Congress. It is a narrative among many that has linked activists who built movements, in Mohapi’s case the South African Students Organisation.
In writing Now You Know How Mapetla Died: The Story of a Black Consciousness Martyr, one of the things that became clear to me is the extent of the distortion of South African history that has left the first Black Consciousness Movement martyr to die in detention and for him to go largely unacknowledged for his contribution to the movement. Further, to bring to the fore this story, to look to the margins of an ANC-field history, is to bring Mapetla’s widow Nohle Mohapi-Mbetshu to the fore as not only a freedom fighter in her own right but as it relates to her first husband, a keeper of memory.”
2023 Great Texts/Big Questions Lecture Series Programme
The Little Theatre, UCT Hiddingh Campus at 17h30.
- Tues 23rd May, Zikhona Valela.
- Tue 30th May, Dr Wamuwi Mbao.
Online, Zoom at 17h30.
- Tues 6th June, Dr Joel Cabrita.
- Thurs 8th June, Dr Kwasi Konadu.
- Tues 13th June, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah.
More information is here. ICA Great Texts/Big Questions lectures are free. However, rsvp is essential. Book your tickets here