/ 19 October 2008

The message in the song

The liberation movement in South Africa always garnered support through song.

So it was not surprising to see that the two conferences of the ANC this past weekend in Cape Town, in Langa (dissident) and in Gugulethu (official), did their combating through song. I attended the breakaway party meeting in Langa, where the atmosphere was charged. The predominant song was:
Oliva! Oliva molo soja!
(Oliver! Oliver greetings soldier!)
Thina sigxothiwe ekhaya!
(We are expelled from our home!)

The Oliver invoked is Tambo, whose spirit, the attendees felt, was being raped by the present ANC leadership. It was amusing to see former president Thabo Mbeki raised to saintly stature with the likes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mosiuoa Lekota and Smuts Ngonyama:

Awu Zizi! Ndibambe ngesendla! (Hey Zizi [Mbeki]! Hold me by the hand!)

Ndigaw’ embuthweni! (Lest I fall away from the organisation!)

Intliziyo kaThabo ingcwalisekile!

(Thabo’s heart is pure!)

Sizo ngcatsha kuyo!

(It’ll be our refuge!)

Mbeki’s name was alternatively replaced with Tutu, Lekota and Ngonyama. ANCYL president Julius Malema was warned that freedom songs are a cultural heritage of South Africa, not patented by the ANC. He was told he knows nothing of sacrifice and spilling of blood for principles, so he had better shut his mouth because such things were done long before he was born.

Imbongi (praise singer) Phumlani Msutu came on stage. He admonished the people to combat dark forces, because rage can invent many ways for the destruction of the nation: ”Ziyemka inkomo magwala ndini! (The cows are being driven away you cowards!)” he said in a Xhosa call to battle.

He said feral madness prompts a perverted mind. Such people, he said, pretend zeal for reformation when all along they just want to attain vain titles. They have fine speeches to please the mob, while promoting transgression against civil laws.

I was shaken. It felt like something the prophets of Israel would say to rally the nation. And then the songs began again: ”Yizani nizobona konakele eWestern Cape! (Come and see things have gone wrong in the Western Cape!)”