KARABO SEANEGO
Donato (Don) Mattera has been awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature and Philosophy degree from Unisa for the work he has done over the years, including his efforts in the fight against apartheid.
True to his nature, he did not hold back during his acceptance speech. Mattera, one of Africa’s pre-eminent poets, told the many people present at the ZK Mathews Hall of Unisa in Pretoria how he had loathed the institution, along with many other Afrikaans universities, during the apartheid era.
In his poetic style and melody, Mattera narrated a tale of how the uprising of 1976 had changed all that.
He said being there was a tale of human renaissance and a kind of rebirth and resurrection for him. He thanked the institution for recognising his work and honouring him for it.
“I am greatly touched to get an honour like this. What makes this great is that I had loathed this university and I would have helped in its bombing. I would have ensured that history never repeated itself, but then June 16 (1976) came and changed that,” he said.
The man who was born in Western Native (now Westbury) in 1935 said he had been against the institution mainly because of what it stood for during the time it was led by the apartheid government.
Mattera commended the institution for what it had become today but added that more could be done to instil the spirit of ubuntu into students.
He asked the university to make itself the first to set up a faculty of ubuntu where graduates would learn that they were what they were because of others and when they knelt on the podium when their qualifications were conferred on them they would humble themselves in front of the people they would meet in life.
“Everybody wants their children to be the big shots of some companies out there, but no one wants to remind the children that u muntu ngu muntu nga bantu(a person is a person because of others).
His speech was met by loud applause from the audience.
Mattera grew up in the streets of Sophiatown, or Kofifi as it was affectionately known, and his autobiography, Memory is the Weapon Chronicles, poignantly points at the early part of his remarkable life.
It is a fascinating account of his life in the streets of Sophiatown. .
His poetry ranges from political tributes and eulogies to praise songs and highly emotional love songs. Mattera was also a journalist and was the founding member of the Union of Black Journalists (UBJ), the African Writers Association (AWA), the Congress of South African Writers (Cosaw) and Skotaville Publishers.
He has received many literary awards such as the Literary Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 from the Department of Arts and Culture, as well as the South African presidential Order of Ikhamanga: Silver in 2007.