Words are free and so should ideas to save literary heritage be

LAST week I spent some time in Mahikeng attending the Sol Plaatje Literary Festival.

Many writers were present and very robust debates were engaged in on the state of literature and, in particular, the state of the Setswana language.

What came out was that black writers still experience major challenges with regard to writing, publishing and being able to live off writing.

Other art forms such as music and even the visual arts seem to provide better chances for livelihoods.

In South Africa in general selling 5000 copies of a book is considered bestseller, in music one has to hit at least 100000 CDs!

Mind you, we have some 49 million people in this country.

Clearly, we need to read more as a nation. But I also think our writers need to improve their writing and the politics of their writing.

Secondly, writers need to find innovative ways to free themselves from the government and the prison of big publishers.

If you write against the rot of our political and economic elites and try to bear witness, like Sol Plaatje, to the suffering of the people then I can't see another way but to seek independence.

Writing as a form of resistance and a weapon of critical consciousness dictates that writers must speak the truth to power!

Writing against elite power for black power has real consequences for the writers.

You must be prepared for a social dead end and at times prison and torture.

No artists or writer, writes outside ideology: its either you support the status quo or you question it.

I left the festival thinking in particular about the idea of a book flea market where on a monthly basis on an open space writers could bring their books and display them like one does at a vegetable market - tents, chairs, books and writers.

The reading public would then have a chance to also meet their writers and engage in natural discussion on their works.

This idea can be tried even in townships.

The prices must also be brought to affordable levels. Words are free so ideas to save our literary heritage must also flow for free.

The world of writing is perhaps one of the most satisfying occupations one can engage in. Writers are lively, funny, deep thinkers and enjoy life.

One evening in Mahikeng we spent time with the great Gomolemo Mokae. We laughed the whole evening, got inspired and were challenged to think.

Writers must also see and smell the reality of their surroundings; the social milieu they find themselves in provides the fibre from which to build the life of words that inhabit their books.

In the streets of Mahikeng I asked a stranger if they remember Mangope's reign. I was given a narrative of disappointment in the ANC.

The stranger threw his hands about and said: "Everything you see here was built by Mangope."

And then rhetorically asked: "What has the ANC done for us?"

I'm sure he is not asking for the return of Mangope but registers disappointment in how democracy has failed the people!

• Mngxitama will host a talk on Steve Biko's ideas at the Centre of African Studies, University of Cape Town tomorrow at 5.30pm