An Interview with Prof. Ari Sitas,
South African poet, Sociologist and Activist
who visited JNU in December, 2008

interviewed by Bhoomika Meiling for JNU News

Bhoomika: There are several facets to your personality- sociologist, poet, dramatist, activist, etc. How do you manage to play all these roles at the same time? Also, tell us about your visit to JNU.
Prof. Sitas: Increasingly… with a lot of difficulty. I am part of the lucky generation in South Africa because I could be a serious full time academic after the transition. At the same time I could also take part in political activities and policy making of the country as an activist. I have always been in two worlds: half of me in the creative fields and half in academic work. Most of the time when one predominates the other automatically takes a backseat. For instance in the 80's, I produced more work in sociology. But in the next decade, I shifted to poetry which is more of individualistic than sociology or even drama which involves a lot of people. Increasingly my role in drama has diminished though I write a play every now and then.

Being a sociologist has helped me in being a better listener and observer which comes handy while writing poetry or even drama. Things get balanced that way. But it is true that most of my waking hours are spent in the university, in scholarship, in administering, in research, etc. Sociology is my vocation. I write poetry in the night- after hours. I've been called here as a sociologist but I've been asked by SAA to speak about drama in South Africa too. And then the activism part is also so similar and integral to the cultures of both the countries. People here take interest in my role as an activist too.

Bhoomika: Were you always a student of sociology?
Prof. Sitas: Yes, I never studied poetry or drama.

Bhoomika: And now-a-days you are not as much involved in drama as in poetry?
Prof. Sitas: Yes, I have only written two plays in the last eight years. But my poetry books come out regularly. And I find that at the end of the day when you are trying to balance the different tasks in the brain, creativity takes over and it is more poetry than sociology or anything else that is taking place right now.

Bhoomika: What are your areas of specialization in Sociology?
Prof. Sitas: At the moment I'm completing the introduction to a book called The Mandela Decade which is about what happened to the labour movement in South Africa during the transition; what happened between the haves and the have-nots and the loopholes that got us stuck in the transition; what remarkable changes have been caused in the economy on the one hand and on the other the attempts of the state to create a more egalitarian society after these nationwide changes. There are several ongoing processes in South Africa that look at different aspects and after- effects of that politically and socially intense period. We are also very much concerned with the livelihood of the poor in our country. I think these are areas of common interest for people there and here. I am also working much more theoretically now. It involves work with other theorists of the global south trying to understand, and transform the understanding that “modernity” does not start with the industrial revolution in England. We are trying to redefine modernity. Theories that have developed in the last two decades presuppose a lot when they talk of individualism, post modernism and the post industrial age. All of that makes sense for Europe but not for us. In India, China, South Africa, it is not like that- and I refuse to accept that what we are experiencing is in any sense marginal. We are trying to consolidate such thinking networks.

Bhoomika: We are going through a period of economic slowdown and recession. What role do you think can India and South Africa play in times of such global trouble?
Prof. Sitas: There are three things about both of them that I would like to point out- firstly, they are both concerned about social delivery. Secondly, they are concerned with the handling of the meltdown. Thirdly, it will not be as bad as it is for the west as the Governments have been more prudent in handling the process of liberalization. It is going to be a difficult time, no doubt. But I can see a commitment to working towards more responsible and sensible forms of state intervention and co-operation. This is certainly not the last crisis of capitalism and we know that countries like China, India and South Africa are actually the countries that are providing the little stability that exists in these times. They are growing and doing well. They are creating an alternative to the rigid division of labour seen in the West and Europe. It is like a contemporary counter culture. Though India and South Africa are very different, the types of social movements we have witnessed in the last twenty years are quite similar. A civil society to civil society co-operation is visible between them. Brazilians, South Africans and Indians are moving in same direction taking care at the same time of their individual problems. South Africa has to take care of industrialization, poverty alleviation, education, co-operation etc. These are the priorities of India and China too. Since our problems are similar the approach towards solving them is also similar. It is an exciting and turbulent time for all of us.

Bhoomika: How would you describe the relevance of the Gandhian doctrine in the present global scenario?
Prof. Sitas: Gandhi is a very complex individual and a very complex legacy. He was an individual with his own idiosyncrasies but he is looked up upon in India and elsewhere for his actions. He is very important. His actions primarily related to a doctrine that affected both India and South Africa for obvious reasons and he was central to the emergence of South African anti-colonial nationalism. He influenced very strongly the ideas of pan-Africanism. His ideas and his focus on praxis influenced many leaders in Africa. The idea that 'the other' is not something that can be used or shot or exterminated and that the other is not just the colonial master is important and relevant even today. There are several movements which have been inspired by Gandhi. But that praxis alone does not constitute Gandhi totally. It is important to remember that the last century began with the dominance of the gun, fear, subjugation and anger. But this century began with a more pacifist worldview. Gandhi was one of the contributors in bringing this more pacific moment. I stay in Durban where he spent the earlier days of his long journey. The Phoenix Settlement is just round the corner. Every year there is a salt march when people walk for twenty kilometers (it usually rains at that time) to commemorate the movement that took place there a century ago. So symbolically too Gandhi is very significant in South Africa. Though he left the country quite early, his philosophy of practice was born there. We have that affinity with him. Later a different affinity developed- the non-aligned ideology. In ways more than one, African nationalism and Indian nationalism were of a similar hue for many years.

Bhoomika: Coming to literature, what role does orality play in your writings?
Prof. Sitas: My engagement with several grass root movements especially the labour movement, showed that a lot of people involved in trade unionism towards the beginning were migrant labourers who brought with themselves a lot of their oral traditions into the discourse of protest. It influenced me a lot and it showed me the power of orality. We can not imagine the rise of the major social movements in South Africa without the work of orality. Its rhetorical power and legitimacy is beyond questioning. In traditions like Imbongi poetry the poet has the right to speak and articulate what is happening around him. The oral traditions are also important due to the African Christian congregations. We have had many churches which used the poetic and phonetic elements of the oral very actively. The oral has been all around and now it has started interacting with the written word very interestingly. It influences the written word and then the written word influences it- it is a give and take process. The schooling system somehow has not used it in a significant way. But digitality has been good for oral culture- the new media have worked well to record and even propagate interest in the oral. It has also helped us to understand that all oral is not one soup that there are variations in genres and performative forms, everyday variations in communication etc. If you listen to a Zulu poet from Soveto, and somebody from the country side, they'll be speaking two different kinds of language.

Today it has a very high value in literature. One of the distinctive features of theatre is that if it is meant for a large popular audience, the oral has to be ever-present. Not only alternative theatre abut also established theatre is using it. We are now in the last years of any possible oral recording because we can only go about six generations back. In the coastal southern areas of Africa like Mozambique and Tanzania, orality was the dominant form of communication. It is very significant therefore for the construction of history itself. To construct an internal narrative as opposed to the colonial narrative, we need to preserve and work with these oral accounts. These records have to be documented. I have been definitely influenced by them in the way I work with words in poetry. Half of the poems I've written have been for public reading and I have used a lot from the indigenous oral tradition. One also needs to critically shake people out of their comfort zones. And most of our poetry has been discomforting…

Bhoomika: What are the prominent themes and issues in your poetry?
Prof. Sitas: My first book Tropical Scars that made me famous was based on the violence in the civil war. It was about the experiences that constituted Durban. It was immediately seen as good surrealist poetry. The critics found it surrealist probably because many of them did not have my kind of encounters I was caught between the university and the mass struggle and within a lot of “madness”. I was negotiating between several worlds which were full of contradictions. These poems were very real to me though they might look surreal to others. 'Ethekwani', a piece from there is about the peculiarity of the Durban experience. Next I went for more musical verses. I tried to give a musical quality to my poems . It was called Songs Shoeshine and Piano. Some of those poems have been set to music. Then came my seven year long project called Slave Trades about my encounter with Ethiopia. It is the most difficult thing I have done and it is set around the turn of the century- the 20th cent. It is difficult to describe. It draws from the story the French tell about the poet Rimbaud whose genius crashed in Ethiopia where he became a gun trader and abandoned poetry. The new modernism of France was mourning for the hero lost there in Ethiopia. I am telling the same story from the other side. It is about his peculiar character. It is a difficult text and much more for reading than reciting. My next book was called The RDP Poems i.e. the reconstruction and development programme poems. It is about the experiences in the transition, of the transition. I have tried to create a language that is ripped of normal decoration. It is stark, closer to prose in a sense. It is not the adorned language of poetry.

I'm writing here as well. Let's see what happens. There are some works forthcoming though not immediately- a novel, and a volume of my plays (which is going to be tough to put together). These things would come out eventually. What is already out apart from the four poetry books is a theoretical piece called The Ethic of Reconciliation. It is an intervention on the ongoing debates about an appropriate ethics for our times. In 2004, another piece called Theoretical Parables came out which was about theorizing orality.

Bhoomika: Tell us something about your experience of India and JNU?
Prof. Sitas: This is my fifth visit to India but the first extended trip. Earlier I saw Mumbai, Pune, Agra and the regular tourist places in snippets. Mumbai was my first experience here. It was very intense and interesting. But in my next visit in February, 2009 I would like to see more and do a lot of work. I don't want to do it as a tourist. I want to speak to people and understand how and what they think about a lot of things. JNU has been the starting point of that experience. I have talked to many people about their problems, aspirations, about this and that- I'm taking copious notes. The rhythms of daily life are much different from what we are used to. It amazes me to see people putting enormous efforts into earning close to nothing. The equation between need and greed seems very different here. JNU has had very nice people who took time off to acquaint me to the dos and don'ts, to acclimatize me. There is a v prominent subculture here which I call the India Prohibitions. They are teaching me well. One has to know what one is not supposed to do here to avoid disasters. JNU is beautiful especially the wild life around and the walks in the mornings. The students were writing their exams when I arrived so I could not interact much with them. But I hope I will be able to speak to them in my next visit. JNU is a very interesting university, so different from our universities. Students and teachers here have a different orientation and a different culture. Of course, CSSS has been very good to me. JNIAS has taken good care of me. So I am beginning to arrive.