S.E.K. Mqhayi and African social analysis: African sociological thought in colonial South Africa

ABSTRACT

African intellectual traditions have much to offer social analysis, yet many historical African intellectuals remain obscured by history and peripheral to contemporary academic work. This paper turns to the writings of the prolific amaXhosa intellectual S.E.K. Mqhayi, exploring his social and political thought, and considering how his work can be taken as part of an African sociological tradition. Focusing on Mqhayi’s use of history and biography as both the method and site of social analysis, the paper shows how Mqhayi developed a powerful vantage point on social transformations in order to create knowledge for African people under colonialism. The piece closes with a consideration of how Mqhayi and other African intellectuals writing outside of the academy might be integrated into teaching and researching an African sociological tradition.

KEYWORDS:

• S.E.K. Mqhayi
• african sociology
• africa intellectuals
• social thought
• colonialism

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Jessica Farrell, George Agbo, Virgil Slade, Paul Vig, Heather Wares, Sinazo Mtshemla, Surafel Abebe, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, Gary Minkley, Xolela Mangcu, Jacques De Wet, Zoe Berman, Loren Kruger, the members of the African Studies Workshop at the University of Chicago and the anonymous reviewers for the invaluable comments and contributions on earlier drafts which strengthened this paper.

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Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Equally important is to not be parochial in our analysis. Scholars have also raised the important challenge of remaining attentive to social processes which are global in scope, requiring us to link local phenomena with the global social forces with which they are interconnected (Dubbeld 2020).

2. While Jordan (1973) notes that Mqhayi at times asserts a positive relation to the British (such as in the work “SingamaBritani!” – We are Britons!), it is important to remember that such a position was at least as much political pragmatism as it was political vision. As Shula Marks has noted in the case of Dube, there was a political need to “espouse nineteenth-century liberal and missionary norms against settler nationalism” (Marks 1986, 73). Appealing to the “old liberal” political vision of missionaries and British Imperial elites was necessary for African political leaders as an ideological bulwark against aggressive settler politics which held no value for African rights, or African humanity (see Marks 1986 for detailed analysis).

3. Analysis combines a number of Mqhayi’s articles (henceforth referred to by Opland’s item numbers): Item 9 (1912) “Ngqika” in Imvo. Item 12 (1917) “Maqoma” in Ityala Lama-Wele (3rd Ed). Item 27 (1928) “Ngqika” in Umteteli. Item 30 (1928) “The origin of the Ndlambe” in Umteteli. Item 32 (1928) “The Battle of Amalinde: white provocation (1818–19)” in Umteteli. Item 45 (1932) “Hail, Lwaganda!” in Umteteli.

4. Which appears to continue to the present: see Peires (1981) quoted in Mqhayi (2009, 21).

5. See especially Mqhayi 2009, item 27 and 30.

6. See also similar arguments made in item 27 (268), item 30 (304) and item 45 (424).

7. See esp. Mandela’s (1994, 48–49) account of viewing Mqhayi’s performance.

8. This intellectual heritage is also clearly evident to some of these inheritors. Sobukwe (1949), for example, speaks very highly of Mqhayi.

9. Mqhayi here references Tiyo Soga, son of Jotelo, and his descendants, such as A.K. Soga the founder of the Izwi Labantu newspaper, J.H. Soga, the author of the acclaimed books The South Eastern Bantu (Soga 1930) and Ama-Xosa: Life and Customs (Soga 1932), as well as others who were active intellectual and political leaders of the time.

10. 27 of the 38 articles of contemporary biography collected in Mqhayi 2009 are obituaries.

11. The original isiXhosa “Nanamhl’ iselapo pakati kwenu,” translated as “He is still with us today” might also be translated “with” or “inside” in addition to the given among/with. This opens the ambiguous space to read Auld’s causal power as an ancestor from two different metaphysics: from “among” as an independent agent (spirit), or from “within,” internalised within the amaNgqika, continuing his actions through their bodies (legacy).

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Jonathan Schoots

Jonathan Schoots is a PhD Candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of Chicago. His work broadly focuses on African intellectual responses to colonialism in South Africa. His current project explores the earliest moments of the emergence of African Nationalism in South Africa, following transformations in African political and intellectual networks between 1860 and 1910, and studying the innovative political thought and practice developed by the Xhosa intelligentsia within these networks.