Serote’s epic poem Sikhahlel’u OR asks pertinent questions on stage

Poet laureate and struggle stalwart Mongane Wally Serote calls on South Africans and the governing ANC party to do introspection about the country’s current state and determine its future. 

Serote is making the call through his latest play, Sikhahlel’u OR (Oliver Tambo), which made its debut in the South African State Theatre in Pretoria on Thursday.

The show, directed by award-winning director Ntshieng Mokgoro and features The Soil singer Ntsika Ngxanga, will run until Sunday.

The play, which is an adaptation of Serote’s epic poem of the same title and released in 2019, fuses music and dialogue. 

Serote was inspired to write the poem by the state of the country and by ANC's deviation from its objective.

The legendary poet wanted to ask uncomfortable questions to Tambo, the highly respected former president of ANC during exile years. He died in April 1993 in Johannesburg.

Through the play, Serote tries to understand what went wrong in the country and ANC and asks, “if Tambo was here what would he do?”

“On March 21, we remember the  Sharpeville Massacre where people were killed (in 1960), an incident that made the whole world respond and support our struggle for liberation. The whole process put us in the spotlight to say where we are now in terms of rights. It is such reasons that I had to review what the struggle has achieved," Serote says.

“We have one of most important constitutions in the world and we need to focus on improving the lives of ordinary people after which we have totally regressed. I asked OR to lead us and advise on how to carry out this plan.”

Serote said a lot of talk about the renewal of the ANC meant that the party needed to admit that something went very wrong and pinpoint the problem.

“As we celebrate Human Rights Month, it is important to look at the organisation and people of this country who have been fighting for human rights and ask the question what went wrong.

“...Some people came to the ANC to completely derail it so that it shift its focus from the objective and to neglect the freedom of the people of SA. What went wrong is that these people made the party concentrate on infightings and issues of corruption.” 

Through the play Serote, who worked with the ANC during his exile years, also offers a solution, which is to have a renewed ANC.

To achieve this, he proposes that there should be a way to find the so-called “opportunists” and remove them. 

“To correct that, we need to know who these people are and their origin. We need to make sure that it is only genuine ANC members who are left in the ANC. OR understood that Africa belongs to Africans. He wanted SA to be part of progressing Africa and the world. If we had a leader like that how does xenophobia come into play in SA? Are we still a non-racial country?” 

Mokgoro said it has been a nerve-wracking moment for her to direct a show by one of the iconic writers. 

“Knowing that I am directing the work of a renowned person like Professor Serote causes me anxiety. More than that it is Human Rights Month and I am dealing with a politics story when I am not even a politician.

"But what I did was to make sure that we conjure the spirit of OR to back and observe what is happening in the country. It has been a challenging and exciting moment to direct the play.”