A Nigerian professor of mass communication, Abiodun Salawu was recently appointed Mazisi Kunene Chair at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. In this online interview with Lekan Otufodunrin, Professor Salawu speaks on his plan for his new assignment and experience teaching and living in South Africa.
What is your reaction to your appointment as the Mazisi Kunene Chair at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa?
I am delighted to have been appointed into the Chair. I was actually invited to the position by the university. I was in the United States attending a conference when I received the e-mail inviting into the position. I never saw the advert. The university had been advertising the position since 2010. If I had seen the advert, I wouldn’t have felt that I qualified for the job. Why? This is because one of the requirements for the job is that that the applicant should be a speaker of one or more Nguni languages. Nguni languages comprise isiZulu, isiXhosa, isiNdebele and isiSwati. I don’t speak any of these languages. In fact, at the interview which I attended for the job, I asked them why they sought me out for the job, they refused to tell me. What I could only guess was that they must have known about my work in indigenous language media in Africa. To me, the Chair appointment serves as recognition of my work in that area and I appreciate the University of KwaZulu-Natal for that.
What do you hope to accomplish during your tenure as Chair?
I hope to promote the works of Mazisi Kunene and creative writings in African languages in general. Special attention will be paid to oral poetry which is a genre that late Professor Kunene is known for. We will also invest our energy into research on African language media, either it is the print, broadcast or the internet. All these media will also be studied in relation to their application for development purposes. All these we hope to achieve through postgraduate students research, seminars, workshops and conferences. We hope to have a quantum of publications on the issues mentioned.
You are supposed to focus on African oramedia and the modern media using African languages is there a future for African languages?
There is future for African languages as long as the speakers of the languages still live. Even though we are in the age of globalisation, diversity is still imperative. Language is the single most characteristic of any people. So, as long as we do not want to lose our identity, we cannot wish away our languages. Any language can be used for anything as long as we are ready to develop it. In Ethiopia today, Amharic is the dominant language, over and above English language. It is the major language of government, business and the media.
What is your view of how new media is used in Africa?
There has been a huge penetration of new media in Africa and it is still rising. From the simple mobile phones to the most complex of the new media technologies, Africans are doing reasonably well. It is hoped that the use could be better with more broad bandwidth and better adoption of the innovation by more people. Many people are still not into the culture of the internet, but we do hope there will be a change for the better. I am particularly glad that quite a reasonable number of people, particularly the youth, are on the social media.
Why did you relocate to South Africa?
I relocated to South Africa because of the better infrastructures in the country. Today, it has the best infrastructures on the continent; certain aspects of these, some people call world class. The research environment is also an attraction. There are motivations and facilities for research.
What is the difference between being a lecturer in South Africa and Nigeria?
This goes back to my last statement. The infrastructures and facilities are there to enable you do your work without much hassles. Colleagues in the Sciences appreciate this better as they require certain equipment and facilities in their laboratories to do their work. For us in the Humanities, we appreciate more the abundant online resources that we have to do our work. Provision of basic office facilities is also appreciated.
What do you miss about Nigeria?
I miss the culture of our people. I miss the culture of respect for elders, of appreciation of good deeds, of communalism and of industry. I miss listening to high standard Yoruba on certain radio/television programmes and movies. I also miss our foods –amala, ewedu, yam, fried plantain etc.
Have you experienced any form of xenophobia during your stay in South Africa?
I won’t say I haven’t, but in a subtle way. Such things do not really bother me much because I know there is xenophobia, tribalism, racism all over the world. As long as we are different in one form or the other, there will always be discrimination. I believe there is a kind of xenophobia that is pervasive everywhere in the world – people would definitely want to protect the interest of their own against the ‘outsiders’. Even in Nigeria, an Igbo man may not have priority over a Yoruba man in a Yoruba community. The same goes for a Yoruba man in Igbo land or a Hausa man in Urhobo land and on and on. The only times it becomes a problem is when it takes the form of violence, that is when resentment against the outsiders is expressed in violence. That was what happened in South Africa in May 2008 when a number of foreigners were killed. This has remained a dent on the image of the country and that tag of xenophobia has remained till today. Apart from this, I believe we also need to avoid any kind of xenophobia that is scandalous. There is a limit to which one can go in sacrificing merit for ethnic affinity or whatever.
How would you describe living in South Africa?
It is a more organised living.
What has Nigeria got to learn from South Africa?
It is not for no reason that certain South African universities remain the top universities in Africa. Nigeria can learn organisation of higher education from South Africa. Research is a priority in South Africa and there is huge provision of funds to facilitate, motivate and incentivize it. Many of our colleagues in Nigeria do not have (regular) opportunities to attend international conferences, but this is what an average lecturer in South Africa takes for granted.
We can also do better with little or no disruption in our academic calendars as a result of staff strikes. Since I came here, I have not heard of staff (either academic or non-academic) going on strike. May be, we can just say such is rare here. Of course, there are grievances but they hardly result into industrial actions. I guess we need to find a way of managing conflict in our public institutions. This requires sincerity. The campuses in South Africa are much more peaceful than our own campuses. The fear of student cultism is remote. Even when students go on strike, it is not usually prolonged; and the grievances may be about lack of study loans. There was a time when students at University of Fort Hare demonstrated and one of the things they were demonstrating about was lack of internet in their residences.
Nigeria may also learn appreciation of indigenous languages from South Africans. It is still a paradox to me that peoples who were subjugated for decades under apartheid system refuse to surrender their languages. The long period of colonization affected some other aspects of their culture but really not their languages. In fact, universities here make use of African languages of their respective domains in their corporate symbols – websites, letterheads, signboards etc. This, I believe, is due to the national language policy which Nigeria can benefit from.
