ARTICLES

 

Peripheralisation of some histories in the school history curriculum in the post-apartheid South Africa: The case study of the 1950s Drum generation and their contributions to the liberation struggle

 

 

Bongumenzi Mthethwa^I; Paul Maluleka^II

^IUniversity of Zululand Empangeni South Africa Orcid: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-8604-8367 MthethwaBM@unizulu.ac.za
^IIUniversity of South Africa Pretoria South Africa Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3168-150X malulp@unisa.ac.za

 

 

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ABSTRACT

Despite significant educational reforms by post-apartheid South Africa aimed at democratising and decolonising its education system, a concerning exclusion persists: Black intellectuals, particularly the 1950s Drum generation and their contributions to the liberation struggle, remain marginalised within the knowledge base of the post-apartheid school history curriculum. Using epistemic coloniality and epistemic disobedience as the first aspects of our theoretical framing, we investigated this peripheralisation. Additionally, we also used historical significance and epistemic pluriversality to frame our argument for the inclusion of the 1950s Drum generation's contributions to the South African liberation struggle in the knowledge base of the school history curriculum, given the significant role they played. Methodologically, we employed a qualitative case study design underpinned by a critical paradigm, with critical discourse analysis as our tools of analysis. We conclude that since the 1950s were formative years for enacting and resisting colonial-apartheid policies, teaching about the 1950s Drum generation would enable both history educators and their learners to appreciate artistic, cultural, and literary contributions to the liberation struggle. This would also reveal to them that liberation was shaped not solely by political actors, but equally by cultural and literary figures who spoke truth to power.

Keywords: Drum Magazine; epistemic coloniality; epistemic disobedience; epistemic pluriversality; historical significance; HMTT; school history; South Africa.

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Introduction

The struggle against colonisation and apartheid in South Africa was not only an epistemic and sociopolitical endeavour,¹ it also included, amongst other undertakings, a deeply artistic, cultural, and literary approach.² Artists, journalists, writers, musicians, and cultural activists played a crucial role in challenging the oppressive regimes by nurturing the spirit of resistance among the oppressed and colonised through their work. Their contributions to the liberation struggle, however, continues to be peripheralised within the knowledge base of the post-apartheid school history curriculum. This study, therefore, investigates why artistic, cultural and literary contributions to the South African liberation struggle continue to endure in this periphery, with the 1950s Drum generation used as a case study. It also explores ways in which their contributions to the South African liberation struggle could form part of the post-apartheid school history curriculum to ensure that the curriculum reflects the diverse experiences and contributions of all South Africans to their struggle for freedom and democracy.

The article proceeds as follows: First, the theoretical frameworks are outlined, which include: epistemic coloniality; epistemic disobedience; epistemic pluriversality and historical significance. Second, literature on the development of the post-apartheid history curriculum from 1990 to 2018 is reviewed. The authors chose to focus on the period starting from 1990 to 2018, because it is critical to understand educational reforms concerning the country's (South Africa) post-apartheid school history curricula that were enacted from the transitional period to date-with the History Ministerial Task Team (HMTT) of 2015 symbolising the latest attempt to educational reform aimed at the school history curriculum. Third, the literature concerned with the role played by the 1950s Drum generation in the liberation struggle is reviewed. Fourth, the research design and methodological approach for the research is outlined. Lastly, the findings of the research are presented and discussed.

 

Theoretical orientations

In this article, we use what is considered tension-based theories,³ drawing on epistemic coloniality, epistemic disobedience, epistemic pluriversality and historical significance.

Epistemic coloniality refers to the continuous imposing of Euro-Western knowledge as the only knowledge tradition that is legitimate and should form the basis of knowledge found in the post-apartheid school history curriculum, because it can reach universality and objectivity.⁴ This kind of thinking about knowledge usually results in the cognitive, epistemic, existential, ontological and social harm of those colonised,⁵ because their ways of knowing, being and becoming are often subverted, especially within the knowledge base of the post-apartheid school history curriculum.⁶ Therefore, epistemic coloniality is used as one aspect of the theoretical outlook to explore how the contributions of the 1950s Drum generation to the liberation struggle against colonial-apartheid continue to be othered and invisibilised in the knowledge base of the post-apartheid school history curricula despite the recent HMTT report⁷ calling for a school history curriculum that is inclusive and Africanised (by extension, decolonised too-even though this is not the term that the HMTT uses).

Epistemic disobedience forms the second aspect of the current study's theoretical orientation. It refers to the rejection of the tyranny of what decolonial scholars call the 'zero point' or 'point zero'⁸.⁹ Epistemic disobedience can be considered a form of epistemic and ontological resistance that questions the legitimacy of established Euro-Western epistemologies (ways of knowing) and ontologies (ways of being) embedded in the post-apartheid school history curriculum, and seeks to create space for alternative, marginalised or suppressed forms of epistemologies and ontologies.¹⁰ Therefore, epistemic disobedience is used in this article to justify the need to include the 1950s Drum generation's contributions to the liberation struggle in the South African liberation historiography that underpins the post-apartheid school history curriculum.

To strengthen this resolve for the need to be epistemically (and by extension, ontologically) disobedient in the reimagination of a new school history curriculum as proposed in the HMTT report;¹¹ we employ and enact the third aspect of the theoretical framing, which is epistemic pluriversality. Epistemic pluriversality is opposed to epistemic universality and objectivity as presented by Euro-Western knowledge traditions.¹² In other words, like mosaic epistemology and post-abyssal epistemology, epistemic pluriversality offers "a clear alternative to northern hegemony and global inequality, replacing the priority of one knowledge system with respectful relations among many".¹³ Thus, epistemic pluriversality is used not only to justify and theorise about the need to be epistemically disobedient in the reimagination of a new school history curriculum in post-apartheid South Africa; but to also give grounds for the need to include and recentre the 1950s Drum generation's contributions to the liberation struggle in South Africa in knowledge base of the post-apartheid school history curriculum, and how this can be achieved.

In addition to this, Partington's¹⁴ theory on historical significance is utilised as another aspect of theoretical framing. Historical significance is concerned with exploring and understanding why certain historical events, people or artifacts are considered important enough by historians to study and remember today,¹⁵ and why others are not.¹⁶

Partington¹⁷ further argues that those who judge the historical significance of historical events, people or artifacts do not necessarily base their judgment on the inherent quality of historical events, people or artifacts. Rather, their judgement is informed and shaped by their present realities (how they construct and view the world), as well as a criterion that takes into account the importance of those historical events, people or artifacts to people at the time, their profundity (depth of change), the scale or quantity of people affected by those historical events, people or artifacts, the durability of those historical events, people or artifacts as well as their relevance (resonance) to present concerns.¹⁸

Historical significance was therefore used to do two things: first, to make sense of the continued peripheralisation of the 1950s Drum generation's contributions in the postapartheid school history curriculum, since they might have been deemed as historically insignificant to include. Second, to reflect on and theorise about the historical significance of their contributions to the liberation struggle and why it is important for their contributions to form part of the post-apartheid school history curriculum.

 

Post-apartheid school history curricula: 1990s to 2018

Colonial and apartheid regimes used education as a tool to perpetuate and re-enforce racial segregation and inequality, by justifying the dispossession of Black people of their ancestral lands, and the undermining of their indigenous ways of knowing, being and becoming.¹⁹

Hence, the knowledge base of their school history curricula was underpinned by Eurocentric and Afrikaner nationalist perspectives.²⁰ This content was then taught through a traditional fact-learning tradition, which was informed and shaped by rote learning of propositional knowledge.²¹

When the democratic government took power in 1994, measures were put in place to create a single education system that was reflective of the country's newfound democratic values.²² It was hoped that a "new national identity" would be forged,²³ and this identity would be underpinned by principles of reconstruction, redress and reconciliation as enshrined in the democratic constitution.²⁴ Out of this, the Interim Core Syllabus (ICS) document of 1996 was adopted and "was presented as an attempt to alter in the short term the most glaring racist, sexist, and outdated content inherited from the apartheid syllabi, which were still widely used in the aftermath of the first post-apartheid elections in April of the same year".²⁵ For Maluleka,²⁶ this signalled the first phase of ukuhlambulula²⁷of the school history curriculum from its colonial-apartheid past that the democratic state embarked on. Despite this, the contributions of the 1950s Drum generation to the liberation struggle and their experiences of living under apartheid did not form part of the knowledge base of the ICS document. Some reasons for the exclusion could be attributed to the presence of an epistemic coloniality that continued in the air, as well as the fact that the 1950s Drum generation might have been considered historically insignificant, at the time, to include the ICS document. Other reasons could include the fact that the ICS document was simply an interim measure put in place whilst the country was planning for a more extensive curriculum reform.²⁸

Another reason could be that the ICS document was also, in itself, fragmented when it came to its knowledge base,²⁹ and like the colonial-apartheid curricula, it centred and emphasised the teaching of the history of the elites rather than social history where the 1950s Drum generation could be classified under.³⁰

In the second phase of ukuhlambulula, the school history curriculum took place when an outcomes-based curriculum called Curriculum 2005 (C2005) was adopted in 1997.³¹C2005 was presented as 'inclusive', because it was hoped that a school history curriculum based on alternative interpretations of the past that differed from colonial and apartheid interpretations was to be realised.³² However, what was gained, was a curriculum that was strongly informed and shaped by the markets and labour-who sought a competence-based curriculum that prioritised and foregrounded a market fundamentalist outlook.³³ History was combined with Geography into a learning area called Human and Social Sciences (HSS). The history component of this new learning consisted of broad sets of concepts which were labelled 'range statements' that indicated to educators what to teach, as well as 'performance indicators' which described what learners should be able to do.³⁴ This meant that there were no clear lists of content topics provided in the C2005 documents. Because of this lack of clarity, the contributions and the experiences of the 1950s Drum generation were yet again considered historically insignificant and thus, excluded from the knowledge base of this new curriculum-C2005. This lack of clarity also meant that "these concepts were not sequenced in a conceptually coherent way that created a logical narrative which could be easily learned"³⁵ and most of the time, educators and their learners did not know how to engage and make sense of them-which could have meant that under a theme where the contributions and experiences the 1950s Drum generation could have been taught, this did not take place.

Another reason for the peripheralisation of the 1950s Drum generation and their contributions to the liberation struggle in South Africa in the knowledge base of C2005 could be explained by the persistence of epistemic coloniality because "epistemic and recontextualization logics [of C2005] were still very much dominated and controlled by government officials, academics, policymakers, curriculum developers and so on, who were still very much aligned with colonial-apartheid".³⁶

C2005 was short lived when the then Minister of Education, Kader Asmal, enacted the third phase of ukuhlambulula the school history curriculum, when he appointed a Ministerial Review Committee (MRC) in 2000 to investigate C2005. On top of the appointment of the MRC, the minister also appointed a Working Group consisting of diverse thinkers that was tasked with assisting the work of the MRC.³⁷ The MRC released a report that argued that part of the shortcomings of C2005 were because of poor teacher education offerings across the country, lack of resources, a curriculum that was not neatly aligned with its own assessment policy as well as that the C2005 was under-specified in terms of content and progression.³⁸ The MRC also recommended a revised curriculum that streamlined and promoted integration and conceptual coherence.³⁹ The Working Group, on the other hand, came up with a report entitled Values, education and democracy⁴⁰" which stressed the need for the establishment of a panel of historians and archaeologists that would advise the Ministry on how best to strengthen the teaching of history in South African schools.⁴¹

Responding to both reports, the minister moved to appoint what was to be known as the History/Archaeology panel on the 12^th of September 2000. This panel was tasked with investigating and critically analysing the teaching of history and evolution in schools, as well as how history teachers are trained and then make recommendations.⁴² The panel recommended that the subjects of history and geography should be taught separately within the social sciences learning area. This was in line with what the MRC and Working Group had previously recommended.⁴³ In addition, the panel report also argued that the content underpinning the school history curriculum needed to be clearly specified for history educators, especially since many educators went back to teaching from the colonial and apartheid script, since that was what they had access to.⁴⁴

Out of all these processes, and others that were not discussed, was the adoption of the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) in 2002.⁴⁵ RNCS separated history and geography into two separate subjects that had their own learning outcomes and content, although they still formed part of the social science learning area.⁴⁶ RNCS also continued to be outcomes-based, "in that it set the outcomes and assessment standards to be achieved and encouraged a learner-centred and activity-based approach to education".⁴⁷This is because in terms of history, RNCS promoted "enquiry skills to investigate the past and present, historical knowledge and understanding and historical interpretation skills".⁴⁸ RNCS also "included a chapter which outlined the 'knowledge focus' for history for each grade".⁴⁹ Regardless of this, peripheralisation of the contributions of the 1950s Drum generation to the liberation struggle in South Africa within the knowledge base of the school history curriculum continued. One the reasons for this could be the level of the entrenchment of epistemic coloniality within the knowledge frames of school history. This embeddedness comes because of the continued dominance and control of the epistemic and recontextualisation logics of RNCS, despite there being "of transformation (inclusion of some individuals from the previously colonized groupings) taking place in both logics".⁵⁰

Another reason could be that the people who were tasked with writing the RNCS, did not consider the 1950 Drum generation historically significant to include in the new curriculum.

In 2009, the fourth phase of ukuhlambulula the school history curriculum, took place under a new Minister of Basic Education, Mrs Matsie Angelina 'Angie' Motshekga. The minister appointed a Ministerial Review Committee that was tasked with reviewing and implementing the National Curriculum Statements to make recommendations that would see the strengthening of the implementation of the curriculum.⁵¹ The review committee discovered that there was multiple "curriculum documents at local, provincial, and national level that were fragmented, and often contradictory, which was confusing for teachers".⁵²They also uncovered that some educators continued to use textbooks and other teaching and learning materials that were produced for C2005 and should have been discarded.⁵³Thus, the review committee recommended that a single curriculum document be developed alongside a set of teaching and learning materials such as textbooks that could be used by all educators and their learners. This single curriculum document was to be underpinned by "knowledge (content, concepts, and skills) to be learnt, recommended texts, recommended pedagogical approaches, and assessment requirements",⁵⁴ that were not ambiguous.

As a result, the rewriting of a new streamlined curriculum, CAPS, started in 2010. The rewriting process was characterised by tensions, especially around who was included in the process and who was not, as well as how those rewriting processes were to be reconfigured.⁵⁵In instances where those rewriting processes were aligned, and drawing from the Ministerial Review Report,⁵⁶ there was emphasis on the notion 'powerful knowledge',⁵⁷ and why this notion needed to underpin the CAPS school history curriculum. Because of this, CAPS advocated for a "greater emphasis on narrative, historical concepts, interpretation, argumentation, and justification",⁵⁸ as well as the importance of teaching the past in a multi-perspective manner⁵⁹-something that aligns with the epistemic pluriversality as suggested in this study. Regarding its knowledge base, CAPS sought to strike a balance between South African, African, and world history.⁶⁰ However, peripheralisation of the 1950s Drum generation's contributions to the South African liberation struggle persists. One of the reasons for this, as suggested by Wassermann,⁶¹ might be because of the creation of "a new official master narrative and hence a new official memory, based on an imagined new nationalism and identities. This was achieved by downplaying the true horrors of apartheid, attributing a messianic status to Mandela, foregrounding how South Africa became a democracy in 1994 under the African National Congress (ANC) and presenting a neat history without any real villains, but clear heroes". If what Wassermann suggests is anything to go by; this signals the power of a rooted epistemic coloniality "hellbent on preserving the status quo that is characterized by epistemicides, culturecides, and linguicides",⁶² as well as the consideration of the 1950s Drum generation as historically insignificant.

To disrupt and transcend the rooted epistemic coloniality that continues to characterise the post-apartheid school history curriculum, the Ministry ofBasic Education initiated what we also see as the fifth process of ukuhlambulula related to the school history curriculum.⁶³On the 4th ofJune 2015, Mrs Motshekga appointed the HMTT.⁶⁴ This appointment came after the Xenophobic/Afrophobic attacks of 2008 and 2012 and continued in 2016 and 2017 which exposed the shortcomings of the 'rainbow nation',⁶⁵ as well as the transitioning of the then State President, Mr Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela, to the world of the living dead.⁶⁶Additionally, the appointment of the HMTT also happened, when in 2014 a call was made by the largest teacher union in South Africa, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), for school history to be made a compulsory subject up to Grade 12. SADTU argued that school history must be compulsory so that it can be used to produce patriotic young South Africans, who can appreciate the "road we've travelled as a nation" and who are willing to contribute to building the "developmental state we envisage" especially after the Xenophobic/Afrophobic attacks that took place;.⁶⁷ Lastly, the appointment of the HMTT also coincided with student protests at South African public universities that were calling for the decolonisation of education and curriculum under many banners such as #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall.⁶⁸

The appointment of the HMTT provoked reactions that were both for and against it. For instance, the then official opposition party in the Parliament of South Africa, a white liberal political party known as the Democratic Alliance (DA), argued that there was a possibility that the school history curriculum could be used as some sort of an ideological tool to advance a particular version of the South African past that suggested that only the ANC fought for the liberation of South Africa from colonial-apartheid.⁶⁹ The South African Society for History Teaching (SASHT), however, responded to the appointment of the HMTT in a more balanced and comprehensive manner than the DA.⁷⁰ This is because "the SASHT generally adopts a vigilant but engaging and cooperative approach towards the proposal".⁷¹

The HMTT was then tasked with investigating how other countries that introduced school history as a compulsory subject in their basic education systems did it, why they did it and what lessons can South Africa draw from those experiences to also introduce school history as a compulsory subject in its own education system up to Grade 12.⁷² The entire process was to be guided by set terms of references that included the need to investigate how the knowledge base of the Further Education and Training (FET) band could be 'strengthened', and the review of the General Education and Training (GET) band and the implications of all of this to curriculum implementation.⁷³ In 2018, the HMTT released their report,⁷⁴ in which, several suggestions, which included and were not limited to, the need to "strengthen" the CAPS school history curriculum in the interim with the hope "that a complete overhaul of the CAPS syllabus and content will be carried out by the DBE in future", and "that this will depend, among other issues, on whether history will be a compulsory, fundamental subject at FET phase".⁷⁵

Based on the authors of the current study's reading of the HMTT report, the 1950s Drum generation will suffer the same fate of being considered historically insignificant and thus, not worthy of being included in the new curriculum because the HMTT report does not, in any way, make provision for their inclusion. However, Maluleka and Ledwaba's⁷⁶reading of the HMTT report led the authors to conclude that the HMTT was, in fact, in a space in which an epistemic disobedient and a pluriversal approach to knowledge were to be embraced and encouraged. Given this reading, we therefore rely on Maluleka and Ledwaba's⁷⁷ reading of the HMTT report to submit our case concerning the importance of including the experiences and contributions of the 1950s Drum generation into the knowledge base of the proposed school history curriculum.

 

The 1950s Drum generation: A literature review

The history of South Africa is marred by the systemic subjugation and marginalisation of Black people, as Melanie Deist⁷⁸ posits. The 1950s Drum generation was no exception in this subjugation and marginalisation. It is for this reason that Jane Grant⁷⁹ referred to it as the silenced generation. Grant⁸⁰ states that when, in 1977, she asked what influence the 1950s Drum generation had on young Black South Africans, she was repeatedly told "none at all". Unfortunately, it is the same response one would get if the same question was asked in post-apartheid South Africa. The 1950s Drum generation has suffered marginalisation in the South African historical literature because of their being Black in a white-dominated society,⁸¹ such that their recognition is far less than their contribution in South African literature and in the Black liberation struggle. This is the generation of Black writers that has been silenced both in pre- and post-1994 South Africa. Not enough attention has been channelled towards learning more about the contributions of this generation in the world of literature and in the struggle for Black liberation through their works and lived experiences. In this literature review, we are looking specifically at the three significant aspects that constituted the 1950s Drum generation, which are their journalistic work at Drum Magazine, their literary work beyond Drum Magazine as they were formidable writers, and their silencing by the colonial-apartheid regime.

The 1950s Drum generation, also known as the 'Drum boys', was a group of Black and vibrant writers and journalists who worked for Drum Magazine in the 1950s.⁸² They shared many similarities, most notably the use of the pen and paper to wage a struggle for the liberation of Black people in South Africa. This is not an attempt to assert that they were a homogeneous group with no differences in some respects, something that has concerned Mahala.⁸³ These writers were Henry Nxumalo,⁸⁴ Es'kia Mphahlele,⁸⁵ Bloke Modisane,⁸⁶Can Themba,⁸⁷ Lewis Nkosi,⁸⁸ Nat Nakasa,⁸⁹ among others.⁹⁰

They are all credited for transforming the Drum Magazine and making it a leading African magazine at the time. Their vibrancy and diligence brought a vitality to South African journalism that have never been seen before and their white contemporaries could not achieve.⁹¹

In its inception, the Drum Magazine was not doing well and thus, running at a loss.⁹²Black people regarded it as a white man's magazine as it viewed Black people through the lens of white people.⁹³ Drastic changes had to be made, and perhaps a new approach had to be adopted. It was after the recruitment of these Black gifted writers that the Drum Magazine gained hegemony. This generation joined Drum Magazine at a time where it was rare to find Black writers working side by side with white contemporaries in the press.⁹⁴In the magazine, the Black writers contributed news articles and short stories. After their arrival, the magazine began to appeal to many Black people as their experiences began to reflect in its pages. These Black writers attracted attention from the wide Black population in South Africa and abroad.⁹⁵ According to Manganyi,⁹⁶ these writers excelled in this regard because they were Black South Africans whose writings resonated with most of the Black audience. These were writings about Black peoples' lived experiences, including that of oppression and suffering in apartheid South Africa. According to Mphahlele,⁹⁷ there was a collective consciousness between the writers and their audience.

Prior to the 1950s Drum generation, however, Black South Africans had suffered oppression for too long without a voice in the press.⁹⁸ With the emergence of this generation, Black South Africans felt represented, as this marked the emergence of writers who wrote about Black people and their stories informed and shaped by their own existential experiences. Additionally, for these writers, the motive was not just a salary at the end of the month and the selling of as many copies as they could, they were exposing the brutality of the oppressive apartheid government, while at the same time conscientising the Black population. For example, the picture by Bob Gosani⁹⁹ showing women dancing Tauza¹⁰⁰ in prison appeared in the Drum Magazine and exposed the humiliation Black prisoners went through in prison and the brutality of the apartheid regime. These Black writers also reported on the crucial political developments of the time. This was the period of the defiance campaign, protests against the Bantu Education Act of 1953, and other anti-apartheid campaigns by the anti-apartheid activists. Drum Magazine had first declared itself apolitical, and before these Black writers, it had been preoccupied with stories about sex and crime, which they had believed were more marketable. Some of the stories by this generation of writers sparked international interest.¹⁰¹

South Africa, being an anti-Black society, meant this generation never flourished without predicaments. Nkosi¹⁰² states that as a generation they were frequently in trouble with the police because of their eagerness to record the events, they would sometimes risk their safety. He referred to Nxumalo, one of his contemporaries at Drum Magazine, as someone who could go down to hell to bring back a story.¹⁰³ Can Themba, for example, was once charged for trespassing. Some of the situations they experienced were within Drum Magazine itself. Issues of promotion and salary increment were issues of concern. Their being Black meant they always worked under white seniors such as Jim Bailey, Sylvester Stein, Antony Sampson, Tom Hopkinson and others, some of whom were inexperienced. Being Black in an anti-Black society kept most of these Black writers in junior positions, despite possessing university qualifications.¹⁰⁴

The 1950s Drum generation was not just a group of writers and journalists; they were also intellectuals.¹⁰⁵ Grappling with the concept of intellectual, Edward Said¹⁰⁶ argued that intellectuals bore responsibility for speaking up in support of, and representing the ideas of the people of their nations. In addition, he contended that there were no private intellectuals. For Said, all intellectuals were public figures. He asserted that any intellectual, whether in academia, journalism or politics, was a highly specialised professional who ceased to be independent when they entered alliances with powerful institutions or governmental organisations. Said expected political participation from intellectuals; that they should speak truth to power. He also highlighted how they were products of their time and thus, needed to respond to the politics of their time and were placed in positions to provide intellectual alternatives to turn the status quo upside down.¹⁰⁷ This is exactly what the 1950s Drum generation became.

Some of the members of the Drum Magazine would grow to become academic intellectuals with their Masters and PhD degrees-teaching in different universities in Africa and overseas. These are the intellectuals who were compelled to leave their ancestral land because of the anti-Black apartheid conditions that made it hard for them to think, write and teach within the borders of the country. They had to seek refuge elsewhere. They became exiled and displaced intellectuals who spent decades away from home.

The 1950s Drum generation was a cohort ofbrilliant writers who wrote not only for the Drum Magazine, but also wrote some books, short stories, poems and essays. These writers contributed significantly to the South African literature landscape. According to Rabkin,¹⁰⁸the 1950s Drum generation enriched Black literature in South Africa. Their books shared the experiences of Black people in a colonised country. In their short stories, the characters represented real Black people and their conditions. Their work became what Mabogo Percy More in a preface of a book by Molaodi wa Sekake¹⁰⁹ regarded as committed and engaged literature, as it grappled with the existential, epistemic, ontological, sociopolitical, and cultural dynamics. Similarly, Andre Brink¹¹⁰ posits that the 1950s Drum generation introduced literature as a tool in the struggle. Their books inculcated consciousness among the oppressed, hence, it is not surprising that the apartheid government banned them. Their books are among over 26 000 books that were banned in apartheid South Africa between 1950 and 1990. They could not be published and quoted. The apartheid government silenced the 1950s Drum generation.¹¹¹ Mahala¹¹² argues that the apartheid government's attempts to suppress the 1950's Drum generation were aimed both at preventing the spread of their influence to their immediate audience, and at removing them from the face of history.

The 1950s Drum generation has been criticised for being apolitical and lacking political commitment in their writing. Mahala¹¹³ dispels the notion that the 1950s Drum generation was apolitical. He argued that to be political, one does not have to carry a membership card of a political party. To be non-partisan should not be confused with being apolitical. The fact that these writers never used ideological systems to criticise the apartheid regime does not make them apolitical.¹¹⁴ Some members of the 1950s Drum generation joined and participated in anti-apartheid political organisations. For example, at some point Mphahlele was a member of the ANC, and Modisane participated in both the ANC Youth League and the Pan Africanist Congress. Most of the 1950 Drum generation members resided in and wrote about Sophiatown and its surroundings-a politically vibrant township in Johannesburg at the time. Sophiatown was also home to leading anti-apartheid activists such as Don Mattera, Mariam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Duma Nokwe and many others.

The colonial and racist apartheid destroyed the 1950s Drum generation. Towards the end of the fabulous decade-the fifties-it had become impossible for these Black writers to continue to write and live in South Africa. This led to the 1950s Drum generation leaving the country for exile to escape the oppression by the apartheid government.¹¹⁵These individuals left the country to seek refuge in countries such as Nigeria, Zambia, Eswatini, the United States of America, etcetera, where they continued to write books, pursue academic qualifications, and secure employment under less strict conditions than in apartheid South Africa. Nkosi¹¹⁶ posits that being in exile meant being thrown away from your audience; however, he states that exile never discouraged them (Black writers) from criticising apartheid and mobilising international support against it. Most of the members of the 1950s Drum generation did not die a natural death. Their lives were cut short by the apartheid conditions, except for a few members like Mphahlele and Nkosi, who would spend 20 and 30 years respectively in exile to return alive to South Africa after 1994. Among others, Nxumalo was attacked and killed by unknown criminals, Nakasa committed suicide and Themba drank himself to death. Some of the members of the 1950's Drum generation died as outsiders, away from their homeland as exiled individuals.¹¹⁷

 

Research design and methodology

In this research, a qualitative case study design approach was used to focus on the continued peripheralisation of the contributions by the 1950s Drum generation in South Africa's liberation struggle history in the country's post-apartheid school history curriculum. This design was chosen because it provided a focused approach to understand this continued marginalisation, whilst at the same time contextualising it to a broader understanding of marginalisation that continues to take place within the post-apartheid school history curriculum.¹¹⁸ Additionally, it also enabled a deep dive into one specific case study to uncover rich insights about it.

To aid this research design, a critical paradigm (CP) was employed because ofits activist approach to research.¹¹⁹ A CP was chosen, rather than neutrally observing the continued peripheralisation of the 1950s Drum generation in the post-apartheid school history curriculum as merely an innocent act aimed at rendering their contributions to the South African liberation struggle as historically insignificant. A CP enabled us to intentionally interrogate this case to expose how power (i.e., epistemic coloniality) operates to produce and maintain the construction of their contributions as historically insignificant and thus, justify their marginalisation.

Furthermore, a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was used to analyse post-apartheid school history curricula for the inclusion, or absence of, the 1950s Drum generation. We did this because any absence hard to read with CDA, would underscore the theoretical framework (i.e., epistemic coloniality and historical significance) that has been articulated above. While CDA typically involves precise textual analysis to uncover layered meanings,¹²⁰our application specifically focused on reading for absence. This involved identifying what was missing and to some degree, envisioning potential inclusions. This approach allowed us to better understand how exclusionary, hegemonic historical narratives are situated, maintained, reproduced, and transmitted through the school history curriculum.

CDA was well-suited for this purpose because it fundamentally aims to analyse both overt and covert structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control that manifest in and through language.¹²¹ It aligns with the study's theoretical framework, as both are concerned with hegemonic discourses, power relations and dominance, which reconstruct and reproduce cognitive, epistemic, ontological, political and social inequalities or harm.¹²²

 

Towards anti-peripheralisation of the 1950s Drum generation in the post-apartheid school history curriculum

Post-apartheid South Africa has been engaged in a protracted struggle to decolonise and Africanise its school history curriculum, with the view of making it inclusive. This is partly informed by the need to transcend the legacies of colonial-apartheid and a pervasive epistemic coloniality that continues to inform and shape its school history curriculum. It also has to do with the need to re-humanise the dehumanised within the historical literature¹²³-so that they too, can see themselves, and feel themselves more in the work that was done in the classroom.¹²⁴

Because of this, we (the authors) are convinced that a school history curriculum underpinned by both acts of epistemic disobedience, epistemic pluriversality and the strengthening of historical significance can achieve this. Because such a curriculum would be moving away from Eurocentric impressions of the past, knowledge traditions, ontological orientations, values and beliefs; while at the same time moving towards affirming and embracing multiplicity of impressions about the past, colonised knowledge canons, ontologies, values and beliefs.

For instance, an epistemic disobedient school history curriculum will not only challenge the epistemic coloniality that continues to characterise its knowledge base. However, by including the 1950s Drum generation in its knowledge base, such a curriculum would also be engaged in an act of defiance, because that act alone will be insisting that resistance against colonial-apartheid also manifested through artistic, cultural and literary mediums or expressions. Thus, making those artistic, cultural and literary expressions or mediums not peripheral to other forms of resistance against colonial-apartheid that already exist in the curriculum; but equally making part of the core to understand the South African liberation struggle. If this is achieved, it would ensure that the sacrifices of the 1950s Drum generation were not in vain. Furthermore, it would also emphasise the need for both history educators and their learners to understand and appreciate the full scope of South Africa's liberation struggle, whilst at the same time, honouring and commemorating those who fought for freedom through their creativity and intellect.

Secondly, an epistemic disobedient school history curriculum that is also for epistemic pluriversality would recognise that the inclusion of the 1950s Drum generation, in its knowledge base, is also an act of exposing history teachers and their learners to a distinct epistemology of South Africa's liberation struggle that is rooted in Black cultural assertion. This is because that generation sought not only to contribute to the rehumanisation of the dehumanised through their nuanced stories, satirical essays and arresting images; they also used their work to fight the colonial-apartheid regime in the process. Thus, including their contributions to the fight for freedom and democracy, they will challenge and broaden the often-oversimplified narrative of the South Africa liberation struggle.

Lastly, a school history curriculum that is not only epistemic disobedient and pluriversal, but also embracing historical significance to its full potential; would recognise and appreciate the significant role played by that generation and thus, the need to include it in its knowledge. This is because this generation can be regarded as intellectual and cultural vanguards of Black South Africans in the 1950s. They were able to articulate Black consciousness ideals and principles before these were formalised by Bantu Biko and his comrades. Beyond this, their work also contributed to shining light on the daily struggles of the oppressed across the world, among other things. Thus, making their contributions to the liberation struggle historically significant and worthy to be included in the postapartheid school history curriculum.

 

Conclusion

In this article, we have investigated, through tension-based theories as our theoretical framings and a qualitative case study design underpinned by a CP, with CDA forming part of research design and methodology, to investigate the continued peripherisation of contributions of the 1950s Drum generation in the post-apartheid school history curriculum. Based on the above, it was concluded that the continued peripheralisation of the 1950s Drum generation from the post-apartheid school history curriculum contributes to the formalised and oversimplified narrative about the South African liberation struggle. This omission, we argue, not only distorts the liberation struggle's historical record; it also denies both history teachers and their learners the opportunity to fully understand and engage with the 'multifaceted-ness' struggle for freedom in South Africa.

Additionally, we also argue that addressing this peripheralisation is, therefore, essential. Not only for realising a school history curriculum that is inclusive, nuanced and democratised; but also important for broadening ones understanding of historical significance in pursuit of a school history curriculum that is reflective of the richness of South Africa's journey towards liberation and democracy.

 

 

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