IsiXhosa Intellectual Traditions (IsiXIT) Digital Archive

UNDER the above significant title the following article appears in the April number of the Isigidimi Samaxosa published at Lovedale : No one keeps his freshness like Truth. He has, however, his bitter, swift, and wily enemy who is ever anxious to injure him. The name of that enemy is Falsehood, is like the hero of fiction who assumed form a child and was found weeping on road by a maiden returning home, stooped down, took him up and caressed him. Lo and behold she was fondling a giant who killed and devoured her for her pains ! In the face of such circumstance Truth is undaunted, for he knows that he must prevail in the end, although he may at first encounter difficulties and fatigue in following after his enemy. We are reminded of this by an article which appeared last month in the Native Opinion (a newspeper printed in King William's Town). It is a small and an insignificant thing to us that it should say of the Isigidimi it is ' jealous,' for we have not yet seen what we can be jealous of respecting it, —not that the Isigidimi is not rightly jealous, of the sacrificing of pure speech, and sensible acts [which have been sacrificed by the Native Opinion'] ; it is jealous of the abandonment of truth for the praise of false-hood. We are especially led to call the attention of our readers by the efforts of that paper at injuring Lovedale—save the mark! Now with respect of these efforts, we shall not be slow to take them by the collar-bone, tear them to pieces and demolish them,—at all events such of them as shall appear; although, perhaps, we may for a time, fail to encounter those which are underground. But we are not 'surprised that the hostility of the Native Opinion should become more apparent especially in regard to Lovedale though we fail to see what the benefit to it will be for so doing. In its English columns on the 2nd March it tells its readers (and the article is translated into Kafir in its issue of the 9th) that: (1) There is a screw lose at Lovedale; (2) That Christian love and harmony were on the wane ; And (3) that at a place which was, until about six years ago, the most interesting and the most thriving Institution of its kind in all South Africa. We deny these three statements; and more over the Editor of the Native Opinion himself, if he cares to state the truth, would agree with us, not withstanding that they have been published under his so-called ' firm ' management. In denying this we have solid facts which cannot be moved by any one so far as this place is concerned, although we do not care to detail them because the Native Opinion has chosen to mislead its readers respecting t hem. If it were to be examined whether Lovedale has progressed or retrogated during the last six years, every one would be satisfied that she has not lost her place in the race. We do not write this in enmity to the Native Opinion; but we write to uphold the right of Native Education which is threatened and that our people may not be misled by such language; we deem too that the first duty of an Editor should be to inquire into and as certain facts and not wilfully mislead. Desirous though we are of avoiding anything having even the appearance of quarrelling with neighbours in the Press, we feel bound in justice to ourselves to expose the motive which lurks behind this singularly virulent attack. Early in the present year there appeared in these columns an address read by the Rev. E. MAKI WANE before the members of the Native Educational Association, which was dealt with in the Lovedale press in a manner which was not warranted by its spirit or letter. We translated the offensive remarks which appeared in the Isigidimi on Mr. MAKIWANE'S paper and the perusal of them drew the following observation from ' An Occasional Correspondent' in Cape Town:— The Rev. Mr. Makiwane's address which the Imvo lately published has been read in these parts with great interest. It is generally regarded as a most able paper and that it emanated from the pen of a Kafir, educated entirely at Lovedale added not a little to the interest with which it has been received, more especially by those who have glanced at Dr. Stewart's pamphlet on Native Education. As for the criticism of the Isigidimi it savours so much of ill nature and jealousy, that it is passed by with a smile, or an expression of surprise that such contemptuous language as that in which it ' indulges was permited to be printed at a Missionary Station in reference to the most talented and the most promising Native Missionary, this country has yet produced since the late Tiyo Soga's time. There was j no occasion to have announced in the Lovedale press that there was a screw loose there, or that Christian love and harmony were on the wane at that place which was, until about six years ago, the most interesting and the most thriving Institution of its kind in all South African. Of course, as the attack of the Isigidimi is based on these comments, it must, so far as what may have been written in these columns editorially, be regarded as having missed its aims. But what must surprise every one who reads our pages is the very cool assumption of the apologist of Lovedale that what is complained of appeared editorially. We wonder what stage of degradation the Colonial Press would have reached in its descent if the opinions of correspondents were considered those of the journals which publish them. And surely the lampooner in the Isigidimi must either have been very ignorant of this well-known article in journalism, a fact which ought at once to cast him outside the pale of the noble fraternity ; or had not read what he was commenting upon, for which he must apologize to us, and an apology will satisfy us for having been misrepresented.