Category Archives: Culture

Bushfire 2018

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I admit, I have Romantic ideas about “Africa”. They lean towards pan-Africanism, and as my friend Vuyi put it, they may also sound like I want to take Africans back to the bush. True. My Wakanda has no need for a fast train! So, as long as I can have an experienced ranger by my side, you’d find me at the front of that bush-trekker movement. Having said that, I’m well aware of my Romanticism, and as much as I am sometimes frustrated by what I consider a Westernization of African cultures, I own my frustration and accept (and do enjoy, yes) 21st-century African realities. The MTN Bushfire Festival in eSwatini is part of this reality. If my previous experiences of festivals in Africa, especially at Sauti za Busara (Zanzibar), but also at Lake of Stars (Malawi) fed into my Romantic views of “Africa”, Bushfire was rather sobering – pun intended … 

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Chiwoniso

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24 July this year sees the fifth anniversary of the passing of Chiwoniso Maraire, one of the world’s greatest musical talents, and revered as the Queen of Mbira in Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Born 5 March 1976, Chi died in 2013, aged only 37, the same age as Alberta, my ex-wife, at that time. I mention this because they were school-mates in Mutare for a while. My introduction to Shona culture and music owes much to her, and I added considerable efforts myself, reading and doing research, to the point of learning to play songs by Oliver Mtukudzi and, of course, Chiwoniso. I explored Zimbabwean music more and more, and Chi has since become a musical icon for me. Her music speaks to me more than many others. It is a sorrowful case of historical irony that I didn’t know her when she appeared at the Würzburg Afrikafestival in 2011. Some of my favourite live recordings were taken there. 
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Music in South Africa

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South Africa is incredibly rich in music, traditional as well as modern, pop, classic and a lot of jazz. So please don’t expect me to offer a comprehensive coverage! What follows is completely based on my taste, with a few extras here and there. Some of the things I skip are incredibly important to people here, for instance gospel music. It fills hours on various tv channels. It’s just not really for me. You won’t find South African hip hop, punk and rock music here either, nor the Boyoyo Boys (perhaps to the dismay of a good friend) and similar music – I’m aware of them, but can’t truly count them as part of my musical experience. However, you’ll find some kwaito, maskanda, jazz and other styles for which the international music market has labels that don’t get more specific than “world”, “international” or “ethnic”. For the varieties of music in South Africa and their history, see this Wikipedia article, or check some blogs such as this one or this one on music in Soweto and Jo’burg. UPDATE: and see my posts on the Bushfire Festival in Swaziland and on the Fête de la musique in Jo’burg.

B.C.U.C. live in Soweto

Berita live at Constitution Hill

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Size and other matters

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I assume, this is the world as you know it. Do you notice where your eyes keep on wandering? 

My eyes magically seem to be drawn to the upper half of this map. The northern hemisphere. Many people have remarked on this, and how this is not pure chance. It is a good representation (supported by the Greenwich meridian and by our preference for golden ratio layouts, I suspect) of the power imbalance on planet earth.

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Melville

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A five-minute walk from my home, and you enter Melville. It’s a beautiful suburb, many streets are lined with trees, there’s artsy decoration in the streets even, you find small charity shops as well as up-market boutiques, galleries, restaurants and clubs. Especially around 7th street and 27 Boxes, nightlife is hot as it is a major attraction for students from the numerous nearby residences and for Jo’burg’s gay community.  

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Africa in family

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Almost perfectly in synch, my parents and I thought they should come here on a visit, and although it came at rather short notice, we went ahead with the plan. Roughly four weeks later they were here, for ten days over Easter. Their first time in Africa. Their first meeting with Chimwemwe. I had planned to show them around and take them on a trip to Zambia to see the Victoria Falls and stay in a bush camp, to see wildlife on a game drive in Chobe National Park in Botswana, and to see Jo’burg and Soweto. And so we did! And they loved every bit of it! I let pictures speak 😉

at Moyo at Zoo Lake, Johannesburg

a new Livingstone?

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Identity on the Rocks: The Voortrekker Monument, the Mpumalanga stone circles and Inzalo ye Langa a.k.a. Adam’s Calendar

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Rocks are patient. They happily bear inscriptions of all kinds, and stoically accept whatever tale human imagination imposes on them. Or break, but that usually happens only a loooooong looooong time after an engraving has been made. Engravings may wither away, and the rock palimpsest becomes open to reinterpretation  … 

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R.I.P. Mama Winnie

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Now her, after Bra Willie and Bra Hugh the third South African icon to die while I am here. I am not in the position to write much about “Mama Winnie”, the Mother of the Nation, as Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is emphatically referred to. Her death has laid open the rifts that run through South African society – historical, racial, social, gender-related. Even in death, one might say, she polarizes, and thus her impressive legacy was not only praised but also denounced immediately after her passing, which is not just an act of highest indecency, it also echoes the rather tragic fate of a woman who found herself overshadowed by an iconic husband, belittled and vilified.

Yet her name and legacy will forever be remembered in every shouting of “Amandla – Ngawethu”, repeated a thousandfold over the two weeks after her passing, just like the thousands of “Long live!”, and most inspiringly in “She has not died, she multiplied”.

Berita

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Teaching at UJ and Wits

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… and some research, mostly done in my “home office“. But teaching is what I came here for, on my INSPIRE scholarship.

Ngiyakwemukela, here’s UJ!

The central building at Auckland Park campus is a concrete monster, forming a half circle of sorts. Its various sections are referred to as “ring”, so the ten-odd offices that are the Department of English are on level 7 in the B ring, until last year sandwiched between African languages and German/Greek/Latin, the latter now extinct. The concrete mass is matched by bureaucratic hurdles that pile up between you and whatever you want to get done. When a prospective student has mastered his or her “matric” (the South-African equivalent to a-levels), they may realize that this is the real exam, with specializations in patience and stamina. Of course, I am exaggerating here. Once you are registered you get an access card, and with this in your hand you join the queue at the gates to register your finger print and walk in. “Walk-ins” by unregistered students are the horror for admin here – after all, you have to pay to be allowed in, and the fees are rather high. Which is why many believe that #FeesMustFall (see protests at Wits Uni here).

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Sauti za Busara 2018

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I finally made it! After a number of years during which I considered going, now Zanzibar was just around the corner – relatively speaking. It’s three-and-a-half hours flight to Dar es-Salaam, then two hours ferry, plus the odd transfer to airports and so on. Still, it was my big opportunity, and quite in line with the past few months during which music had been a dominating theme: Sauti za Busara, “Sounds of Wisdom” – African music under African skies!

And whatever effort it took, it was well worth it. Sauti za Busara is perhaps the best festival on this continent (“African music under African skies!”). It certainly beats Lake of Stars (Malawi) in its choice of more traditional music, or music which makes more use of traditional elements. And it focuses on East Africa. Or as one website puts it, Sauti celebrates Africa’s DNA. Let me illustrate this.

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