Swapna Prabhakaran
Durban has a long way to go before it becomes an undisputed party capital of the world, but it can certainly dream.
“Imagine, if you will, 4 000 drummers in one stadium in Durban beating the various rhythms of the world, while thousands more drummers join in via satellite link from around the globe,” says Michael Bernard, bright-eyed visionary party-maker, in his lullaby Jamaican drawl.
The more he describes it, the more you want to believe such a party is possible – and that it’s possible in KwaZulu-Natal.
Bernard’s vision is for a celebration of the turn of the millennium through drumming, in a global collaboration he calls Drummillen- nium 2000. The project has multiple goals: to raise funds for underprivileged children, to have an excellent party and to boost Durban’s economy and make it a world-renowned tourism destination.
The grandiloquent name, and the even fancier description Bernard uses to explain his concept, gain a strange solidity as he speaks. When he says he intends to build a line of drummers from Cairo to Cape Town via Durban, it’s easy to believe he could pull this thing together through sheer magnetism.
He plans to distribute large empty drums to businesses and throughout communities to collect funds to put his plans in action, and whatever else is raised will go to child welfare.
“Each drum will have two electronic counters on it,” he says. “One to show how near we are to the new millennium, the other to show how much we’ve raised for the children.”
His words have convinced politicians and business leaders. Big names who support his efforts include President Nelson Mandela, KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Economic Affairs and Tourism Jacob Zuma and Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
At the launch of Drummillennium 2000, Durban mayor Obed Mlaba could hardly contain his excitement: “We cannot underestimate the advantages this Drummillennium will bring to our region. It will enhance existing programmes of job creation, education and the alleviation of poverty, and bring with it an influx of tourism and foreign spending power.”
Bernard said the idea came to him in 1991. “It was during the Gulf War and I was getting down, so very down, thinking about all the divisiveness in the world … the dishonesty of people … and the insincerity. It didn’t make sense to me that a whole lot of people should die because somebody didn’t like one man.”
He says he suddenly felt the need to celebrate the similarities between people all over the world, and drums represent this. “Every culture has a song, every song has rhythm, and that rhythm can ride on the beat of the drum.”
For a few years after that, he admits, the idea became little more than “interesting dinner-party talk”, an elaborate “what if?”, but when he moved to South Africa it became urgent for him to make it happen.
Putting the dream into practice will take a huge effort. It will involve getting drummers from every time zone in the world to co- ordinate with South Africa, to drum as the dawn approaches their countries. “We will start drumming here at 1pm on New Year’s Eve, December 31 1999, and the drummers in Auckland, New Zealand, will drum along with us.”
As the light of the day spreads across the Pacific towards South Africa, Bernard foresees more and more countries chiming in with their specific beats, adding to the rhythms. “I haven’t got definite responses yet, but I’m hoping to include China, Japan, Rio, Jamaica … a whole lot of countries in Africa,” he says. And the drumming will continue for 24 hours until the dawn appears over the west coast of the United States.
“The fund-raising will continue throughout that year and if we are successful, we will use that money to help the millennium kids. We will set up trust funds and training centres.”