Christianity, education and African nationalism: an intellectual biography of Z.K. Matthews (1901-1968)

Abstract

My study begins by looking at the ways in which ZK Matthews has been remembered. I raise questions about his legacy in the post-apartheid period, in relation to the limited ways in which he has been studied and in relation to the broader politics of memory. What follows this is an analysis of ZK’s political and educational writings, as a new way of thinking about his intellectual contributions to nationalist thought. Chapter one of this thesis will raise questions about the legacy and memory of ZK in the postapartheid moment. I analyze both the popular and the scholarly representations of ZK as have been attempted by people and organizations to remember him. The popular representations of ZK have been produced by the University of Fort Hare, through an exhibition of his life and legacy and an Annual Memorial Lectures. ZK we must recall, was once a student, a lecturer and Rector of the university. On the scholarly side there is only one existing attempt to produce an auto/biography, one by ZK himself and edited with memoirs by Monica Hunter Wilson. The name of the book is Freedom For My People published in 1981. I analyze the circumstances of the production of this book. And secondly I point out that the interest here was on the liberal-Christian view of ZK. It focused on ZK’s relationships with people of different kinds, his service at Fort Hare and the public society, and the ANC. I also provide an analysis of two seminar papers by Paul Rich (1994) and Cynthia Kros (1990), and one long essay by William Saayman (1996). All these studies so not attempt to produce a discourse on the nationalist thought of ZK, rather they focus on limited archival work and they rely on the ambit of liberalism and Christianity to understand ZK.