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Exploring African Identity: Culture, History, and Colonialism Perspectives, Cheat Sheet of African Literature

University of JohannesburgAfrican Literature

A series of questions and answers related to african identity, touching on themes of oppression, cultural influence, and the impact of colonialism. It explores perspectives on language, unity, and historical injustices in south africa, as well as broader issues of racism and equality. The document also references key figures and events in african and african american history, providing a glimpse into the complexities of identity and social change. It also includes questions about homosexuality in pre-colonial africa and the burden of women and men according to ramatoulaye. The document also touches on the topic of racism in south africa and the work of african american poets.

Typology: Cheat Sheet

2024/2025

Uploaded on 06/03/2025

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UNIT1: ACTIVITY 1.1 THABO MBHEKI’S SPEECH
1. Question 1
1/1
The author says that the history of oppression among different social groups in South Africa
is part of the African identity.
1. T
2. F
2. Question 2
1/1
The author claims that the environment around us has influence the African identity.
1. T
2. F
3. Question 3
1/1
The author says that foreigners who were transported to work in South Africa before and
the advent majority rule should return to their countries of origin.
1. T
2. F
4. Question 4
1/1
The author does not consider struggles in other African countries as aspect of the African
Identity.
1. T
2. F
5. Question 5
1/1
The author claims that the spirit of resistance and fighting is part of being African.
1. T
2. F
6. Question 6
1/1
Because he thinks we should forget the struggle against the injustices of apartheid.
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Partial preview of the text

Download Exploring African Identity: Culture, History, and Colonialism Perspectives and more Cheat Sheet African Literature in PDF only on Docsity!

UNIT1: ACTIVITY 1.1 THABO MBHEKI’S SPEECH

  1. Question 1 1 / 1 The author says that the history of oppression among different social groups in South Africa is part of the African identity. 1. T 2. F
  2. Question 2 1 / 1 The author claims that the environment around us has influence the African identity. 1. T 2. F
  3. Question 3 1 / 1 The author says that foreigners who were transported to work in South Africa before and the advent majority rule should return to their countries of origin. 1. T 2. F
  4. Question 4 1 / 1 The author does not consider struggles in other African countries as aspect of the African Identity. 1. T 2. F
  5. Question 5 1 / 1 The author claims that the spirit of resistance and fighting is part of being African. 1. T 2. F
  6. Question 6 1 / 1 Because he thinks we should forget the struggle against the injustices of apartheid.

1. T

2. F

  1. Question 7 1 / 1 Because there are killers among us. 1. T 2. F
  2. Question 8 1 / 1 Mbeki thinks we need an African renaissance - a rebirth of African ideas and thoughts and ways. 1. T 2. F
  3. Question 9 1 / 1 I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa.
  4. Question 10 2 / 2 I owe my being to the hills and the valleys , the mountains and the glades.
  5. Question 11 1 / 1 In my veins courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the East.
  6. Question 12 2 / 2 The pain of the violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria is a pain I also bear.

2. F

  1. Question 7 1 / 1 Before the European colonization of Africa, Africans only lived in large centralized Kingdoms. 1. T 2. F
  2. Question 8 1 / 1 Humans habitually invent space to make places of belonging. 1. T 2. F
  3. Question 9 1 / 1 Before the Berlin conference of 1884-1885, African identities were based on national boundaries. 1. T 2. F
  4. Question 10 1 / 1 Our identities shift across the life span. 1. T 2. F

UNIT2A: ACTIVITY 2.

  1. Question 1 10 / 10 Wali’s article is important because it triggered an intense debate about the role and importance of African languages and of writings in those languages. Two key figures in this debate were Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong’o. What is Wali saying in this piece? A. True African literature must be written in an African language. B. A true African writer would not write in a colonial language. C. It is never possible to express your thoughts and views in a language that is not your mother tongue. D. African languages will be developed if they are the languages writers use. E. African literature in African languages is the best way for the peoples of Africa to speak to one another. F. Our languages will become extinct if we do not do this. Hide answer choices 1. A, B, C and F 2. D, E and F 3. A, D, E and F 4. C and D ACTIVITY 2.
  2. Question 1 1 / 1

We must reject the evil of English, and throw it out.

**1. T

  1. F**
  2. Question 8 1 / 1 We can never use a second language as effectively as we use a first language. **1. T
  3. F**
  4. Question 9 1 / 1 Whatever we do, speaking English should not make the African an Englishman. **1. T
  5. F**
  6. Question 10 1 / 1 Achebe chooses to use the English language to express his views to as many people as possible. **1. T
  7. F**

ACTIVITY 2.

  1. Question 1

Ngugi uses the word "tribe" in the same way as Achebe refers to "ethnic" groups. For Ngugi, the word "tribe" is a negative one, as the problems of Africa are said to be the result of tribes rather than the result of colonialism or imperialism.

**1. T

  1. F**
  2. Question 2 1 / 1 One of the reasons Africans write is to express resistance against the imperialist tradition. **1. T
  3. F**
  4. Question 3 1 / 1 Language and culture are intertwined. When we use our own languages, we express our cultures. When we use the languages of others, we express their cultures, their beliefs. **1. T
  5. F**
  6. Question 4 1 / 1 Achebe and Ngugi agree that languages imposed on others by virtue of borders do not reflect the reality of Africa. **1. T
  7. F**
  8. Question 5 1 / 1 Ngugi argues that we should take from the African languages those things (like proverbs, and sayings) that enrich the colonial languages, such as English. **1. T
  9. F**
  10. Question 6 1 / 1 Although Ngugi feels that he could use English to express his experiences, he argues that it would have to be a new English, his own English. 1. T

Blacklist Hide answer choices

  1. Negative
  2. Neutral
  3. Positive
  4. Question 2 1 / 1 Blackmail Hide answer choices
  5. Positive
  6. Neutral
  7. Negative
  8. Question 3 1 / 1 Blacksmith Hide answer choices
  9. Positive
  10. Neutral
  11. Negative
  12. Question 4 1 / 1 Blackguard Hide answer choices
  13. Positive
  14. Neutral
  15. Negative
  16. Question 5

Blackhead Hide answer choices

  1. Positive
  2. Neutral
  3. Negative
  4. Question 6 1 / 1 Black market Hide answer choices
  5. Positive
  6. Neutral
  7. Negative

UNIT3: ACTIVITY 3.

1. Question 1

Read the text below and answer the question below.

A squatter in South Africa is a native who owns some livestock and, having no

land of his own, hires a farm or grazing and ploughing rights from a landowner,

to raise grain for his own use and feed his stock. Hence, these squatters are hit

very hard by an Act that passed both Houses of Parliament during the session of

1913, received the signature of the Governor-General on June 16, was gazetted

on June 19, and forthwith came into operation. …But the great revolutionary

change thus wrought by a single stroke of the pen, in the condition of the Native,

was not realized by him until about the end of June. As a rule, many farm

tenancies expire at the end of the half-year, so that in June 1913, not

knowing that it was impracticable to make fresh contracts, some

Read the text below and answer the question that follows.

Many white farmers were not happy about this, as they had made profits off the

labour of the black tenant farmers on the land:

The campaign, to compass the elimination of the blacks from the farms, was not

at all popular with landowners, who made huge profits out of the renting of their

farms to Natives. … But landowners pocketed the annual rents and showed no

inclination to substitute the less industrious “poor whites” for the more

industrious Natives. Old Baas M—, a typical Dutch landowner of the “Free” State,

having collected his share of the crop of 1912, addressing a few words of

encouragement to his native tenants, on the subject of expelling the blacks from

the farms, said in the Taal: “How dare any number of men, wearing tall hats and

frock coats, living in Capetown (sic) hotels at the expense of other men, order me

to evict my Natives? This is my ground; it cost me money, not Parliament’s, and I

will see them banged (barst) before I do it.”

How were the natives “more industrious” to the landowners?

Hide answer choices

1. They were allowing space for the “poor whites”

2. They had lots of cattle to share

3. They made huge profits out of the renting of their farms to

natives

4. They had large families

4. Question 4

Read the text below and answer the question that follows.

In order to defend the Act, some people claimed – inaccurately – that it applied to

white squatters as well. Plaatjie shows that there is no such legal thing as a

“white squatter”. The Act was specifically aimed at getting black people off the

land, and its absurdities lead to further absurdities:

[Although it was unlawful for anyone to have black tenants, it was lawful to have

black servants. But the Act stipulated that the black man’s (that is the servant’s)

cattle shall henceforth work for the landlord free of charge.] One farmer met a

wandering native family in the town of Bloemhof a week before our visit. He was

willing to employ the Native and many more homeless families as follows: A

monthly wage of 2 Pounds 10s. for each such family, the husband working in the

fields, the wife in the house, with an additional 10s. a month for each son, and 5s.

for each daughter, but on condition that the Native’s cattle were also handed

over to work for him. It must be clearly understood, we are told that the

Dutchman added, that occasionally the Native would have to leave his family at

work on the farm, and go out with his wagon and his oxen to earn money

whenever and wherever he was told to go, in order that the master may be

enabled to pay the stipulated wage. The Natives were at first inclined to laugh at

the idea of working for a master with their families and goods and chattels, and

then to have the additional pleasure of paying their own small wages, besides

bringing money to pay the “Baas” for employing them.… Needless to say, the

Natives did not see their way to agree with such a one-sided bargain. They

moved upcountry, but only to find the next farmer offering the same terms,

however, with a good many more disturbing details – and the next farmer and

the next – so that after this native farmer had wandered from farm to farm,

occasionally getting into trouble for traveling with unknown stock, “across my

ground without my permission”, and at times escaping arrest for he knew not

what, and further, being abused for the crimes of having a black skin and no

master, he sold some of his stock along the way, besides losing many which died

of cold and starvation; and after thus having lost much of his substance, he

eventually worked his way back to Bloemhof with the remainder, sold them for

anything they could fetch, and went to work for a digger.

What tells us that the African tenant farmers were not servants (i.e.

employed for a wage) but more like slaves (i.e. not paid for their labour)?

Hide answer choices

1. The Native would have to leave his family at work on the farm,

and go out with his wagon and his oxen to earn money whenever and

wherever he was told to go, in order that the master may be enabled

to pay the stipulated wage

2. The native’s cattle were also handed over to work for him

3. The native had to work for a master with their families

4. All of the above

5. Question 5

Read the text below and select the correct answers from the list provided.

The book follows the journey that Plaatje and the other members of the South

African National Native Congress take through South Africa. Everywhere they

went they were asked about the law that had been passed, and about its impact

on peoples’ lives:

We suggested that they might negotiate the numerous restrictions against the

transfer of cattle from the Western Transvaal and seek asylum in Bechuanaland.

We wondered what consolation we could give to these roving wanderers if the

whole of Bechuanaland were under the jurisdiction of the relentless Union

Parliament.…We spent the next night in some native huts on a farm in the district

that farm during the preceding few days, trudging aimlessly from place to place

in search of some farmer who might give them shelter. At first, they thought the

stories about a new law were inventions or exaggerations, but their own

desperate straits and the prevailing native dislocation soon taught them

otherwise.… The next example is that of the oldest man in the “Free” State. He

had been evicted (so we were told during that evening on the farm) along with

his aged wife, his grey-headed children, the children’s children, and

grandchildren. … Their stock had been expelled from their grazing areas, and

they were told that they could only continue to graze 62 if the centenarian tenant

agreed to supply a certain number of labourers to work on the landowner’s farm

and with his sons ceased to do any ploughing as tenants. This system of sharing

the crops has been followed ever since the Boers planted themselves in the

“Free” State, and the family had had no other means of support. Happily, the aid

of Providence in the case of this “ancient couple” was speedy, as the old

people quickly found an asylum on the farm of Mr. P. ka I. Seme, a native

solicitor in the Transvaal.

Answer the following question:

1. Why are Africans “dislocated” as a result of the Land Act?

Hide answer choices

2. Because they are broken

3. Because they have been forcibly removed from the land and thus

from their livelihood

7. Question 7

Read the text below and answer the question below.

Women were particularly hard-hit by the Act and its consequences:

… the economic conditions of today press very heavily on polygamous wives.

Their lord and master finding himself no longer able to provide for half a dozen

houses at a time, bestows on them the burden and anxieties of wifehood without

its joys, namely, a husband’s undivided care and the comforts due to wives in

monogamous marriages. Some of these polygamous wives have from time to

time sought relief in emigrating to European centres where they could earn their

own living and send food and raiment to their little ones. … But times are altered

and even a monogamist finds the requirements of one wife quite a stupendous

handful. The country is so congested that the little arable land left them yields

hardly any produce. [In the polygamy of the past] … [t]here were no mothers of

unwanted babies; no orphanages, because there were no stray children; the

absence of extreme wealth and dire poverty prevented destitution, and the

Natives had little or no insanity; they had no cancer or syphilis, and no venereal

diseases because they had no prostitutes. Have we not a right to expect a better

state of affairs under civilized European rule?

Colonial rule promised improvements, betterment of life. Was this true for

women?

Hide answer choices

1. Yes

2. No

8. Question 8

Read the text below and answer the question below.

Women were particularly hard-hit by the Act and its consequences:

… the economic conditions of today press very heavily on polygamous wives.

Their lord and master finding himself no longer able to provide for half a dozen

houses at a time bestow on them the burden and anxieties of wifehood without

its joys, namely, a husband’s undivided care and the comforts due to wives in

monogamous marriages. Some of these polygamous wives have from time to

time sought relief in emigrating to European centres where they could earn their

own living and send food and raiment to their little ones. … But times are altered

and even a monogamist finds the requirements of one wife quite a stupendous

handful. The country is so congested that the little arable land left them yields

hardly any produce. [In the polygamy of the past] … [t]here were no mothers of

unwanted babies; no orphanages, because there were no stray children; the

absence of extreme wealth and dire poverty prevented destitution, and the

Natives had little or no insanity; they had no cancer or syphilis, and no venereal

diseases because they had no prostitutes. Have we not a right to expect a better

state of affairs under civilized European rule?

Select the TWO correct answers.

Women in polygamous marriages were particularly vulnerable under the

new rule because:

Hide answer choices

1. They were forced to become prostitutes.

2. Men could no longer rely on the land to provide for their

families.

3. There were too many unwanted babies

ACTIVITY 3.

  1. Question 1 2 / 2 What sort of migrant labour is expressed in the lyrics, visuals, and feel of this song? Hide answer choices 1. Fishing in Mozambique 2. Domestic work in Johannesburg 3. Mining in South Africa 4. Farming in South Africa
  2. Question 2 2 / 2 What can one learn about the conditions of Apartheid South Africa through this song? Hide answer choices 1. About the lack of basic human rights for the mine labourers 2. About how far people were displaced for the sake of employment? 3. A and B 4. None of the above
  3. Question 3 2 / 2 What other recent events can you relate the lyrics of this song to? Hide answer choices 1. Marikana Massacre 2. Fees must fall movement 3. Zuma Must Fall Protests 4. None of the above
  4. Question 4

What is the name of the artist? Hide answer choices

  1. Hugh Masekela
  2. Joe Mafela
  3. Lucky Dube
  4. Sipho Hotstix Mabuza
  5. Question 5 2 / 2 What do you think the name Stimela means? Hide answer choices
  6. Taxi
  7. Bus
  8. Aeroplane
  9. Train
  10. Question 6 2 / 2 What does this train carry? Hide answer choices
  11. This train carries young and old African men who are conscripted to come and work on contract.
  12. This train carries coal from Johannesburg South Africa.
  13. This train carries the hopes and dreams of our country.
  14. None of the above
  15. Question 7 1 / 1 Does this train carry migrant labours? Hide answer choices
  16. Yes