Mqhayi’s <i>UDon Jadu</i> as a contribution to the ‘Native Republic Policy’ discourse

Abstract

The central argument of this article is that Mqhayi’s utopian prose, UDon Jadu, reveals that the ‘independent native republic’ discourse that was dominant in the African National Congress and South African Communist Party alliance (1927–1934) had a profound influence on the conceptualisation of Mqhayi’s narrative. The fundamental tenet of his utopia, non-racialism, echoes the basic principle of the envisaged ‘Native Republic Policy’ which, during this period, was the policy of the South African Communist Party (SACP). The argument of this study is that the book is Mqhayi’s creation and his contribution to the model of society envisioned in the native republic debate, specifically by introducing a social and cultural dimension. Because of the segregation ideology (1910–1948), Mqhayi had to find a way of making an encoded political comment through his utopia. However, because of the Cold War (1947–1991) and the apartheid ideology (1948–1990), his inspiration could not be fully exposed by literary critics who feared reprisals from the repressive state apparatus of the time.