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In true South African musical style, the Rhodes University graduation on Wednesday commenced with an offering of a choral classics such as Sponono saseThekwini.
Activist, academic, poet, politician, diplomat and mother, Ambassador Barbara Masekela and Ugandan academic Sylvia Rosila Tamale were celebrated on the same day when they were conferred with doctor of laws honorary degrees. Women accounted for 65% of this year’s graduates, prompting the auditorium to chant “Malibongwe igama lama khosikazi” (Let there be praise upon women).
Masekela’s late brother Hugh Masekela too received an an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University for music in 2015. In her younger days, the 82-year-old’s family had vetoed her involvement in the struggle for liberation, saying no Masekela woman would be involved in such.
Having spent 22 years in exile, she said during her reintegration into her country she did not have the luxury of time to adjust. She and her peers were thrown into the deep end. She highlighted the importance of journalism for public education as she recalled the imprisonments and the banning of several pro-black organisations.
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She told the graduates:
Her initiative, the Johannesburg Festival of Women Writers, was launched in early last year. Headlining the inauguration was writer and editor Margaret Busby, the UK's first black woman publisher. Her recent observations include the inaccessibility of South African books in relation to the availability of international literature.
Masekela said:
A deserving recipient of the honorary doctorate, Masekela already holds the Order of Luthuli in silver. Among the significant roles was being late president Nelson Mandela’s chief of staff. This was a transitional endeavor that began soon after Madiba was released from prison in February 1990. She requested to be in the advanced team that facilitated his visit to the US.
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Her family played a significant role in her career and her father’s consistency in gifting her with books at every birthday honed her writing prowess. Her love for languages was incited by being partially raised by her Ndebele grandmother and her mother having been a coloured woman.
She elaborated:
She lamented the lack of information about teachers, social workers, doctors, craftsmen and women, traditional healers and others who were instrumental in shaping her character growing up. Search engines, she added, are saturated with foreign celebrities' gossip. However, much less has been recorded about the life of her generation.
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She described the historical legacy as broken, fragmented or bordering on being obsolete, owing to the modern world’s fickle promise of everlasting novelty.
