An experience of laughter and tears which made me realise how multidimensional we are as many did not know of Safiyas impact as a writer, leading to a project of compiling her essays, poems and short stories into a book, with special emphasis on her writing project about Fietas - Vrededorp, where non-whites were removed forcibly by police and dogs.. I was specially touched by the tribute paid by Michael Titlestad , Associate professor and deputy head of the school of Language, Literature and Media at Wits University. When Christa used that phrase “supervising Safiya “ you realise the entire notion of the impossibility ... When I met Safiya I was utterly overwhelmed ... firstly by her enthusiasm, secondly by her eye make up...and thirdly by the incredible challenge that I knew I would confront in supervising a project to write about “Fietas” – a project I knew so little and became a very humbling and challenging project... It was a daunting process at first where the idea of supervision is perhaps the wrong word to use because it was a process that required great learning’s on my part to work with Safiya ... So while I could speak to her about structures of stories and aspects of styles it was so glorious to hear such writings today after 8 years ... it was glorious as Safiya is so incredibly present in her writings ...which is not necessarily true of all writers ... She real shines through that work in a way that makes her absolutely present with us in this room... It was as process of absolute mutuality where I felt as much of a learner as a teacher ... Safiya was an incredible astute reader ... she could tell exactly why a piece of writing was effective and working and ways that it could be improved... and she could express it completely eloquently and gently ... She was a person who exuded a most remarkable sense of word which is alternatively over and under used ... she exuded love in the way that she engaged writing ...in her own writing and also in relation to wanting to assist others to do their best and she was truly remarkable in that... When Christa phoned me to tell me of Safiya’s death it was just unimaginable because of the incredible life that she carried ... through that love and that extension of herself into the world ... And I feel that for that time I was fortunate to work with her and see the Fietas writing project emerge it was just a process of utter vivacity to see someone who could combine most a knowledge and interest in history and to carry in herself a very archived place that she wrote about and cared about ... in many ways a post memory... a kind of a post trauma – a trauma of generations just older than herself ... acting like a repository ... somebody who was able to express it ...someone who always combined the political, the humorous and the emotional and that is very rare... There was something in Safiya that made that combination absolutely unique and absolutely valuable ... and it was a privilege to be involved in the emerging of her writing and to know her at the level that she did ...
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 19:14:12 +0000
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