Mercedes Sayagues
A broken jaw from a beating, hate mail, threatening phone calls and night visits by detectives from the criminal investigation department (CID) have not gagged Zimbabwe’s top stand-up comedian, Edgar Langeveldt.
Bouncing back after seven weeks of absence due to a wired jaw, Lange-veldt reappears tonight (February 4) at Harare’s Book Caf with “the official mouth-opening ceremony”.
“I expect some incidents,” he says. “I am a magnet for trouble.”
Langeveldt’ s troubles exploded on November 18 when he was barred from entering La Vanhu, a trendy and controversial pub in downtown Harare. Newspapers have carried many letters about racism in La Vanhu’s admission policy. Blacks, Asians and coloureds complain of being turned away when the pub is not full. La Vanhu’s owner, Douglas Walsh, an Irish national, denies it.
Last year, two reporters from the government-owned Sunday News fell into a police trap while allegedly trying to extort $10 000 from Walsh for not pursuing the racism story.
That Thursday, Langeveldt argued heatedly with bouncers and Walsh. He was evicted from the pub by four coloured men. “You make money making fun of the president, the first lady and of the coloured community. Who do you think you are? The order to snuff you is out,” one told Langeveldt, and beat him up. Spitting blood and pieces of jawbone, the comedian escaped to an all-night garage. Police rescued him.
Langeveldt knows the jaw-breaker, a debt collector. At the police station, he shook his victim’s hand. “No hard feelings, Edgar. This was just a job.”
Langeveldt is pressing criminal charges against this man for assault, and civil damages against him and Walsh for the income lost over cancelled shows during the Christmas season. The case will be heard on February 7. In turn, Walsh pressed charges against Langeveldt for breach of peace and public order under Zimbabwe’s draconian Law and Order Maintenance Act. This prompted the CID to question the comedian on his political jokes.
Langeveldt believes the beating was not ordered by the regime, and that it is not political but racial. But race is political in Zimbabwe.
Although reconciliation officially dawned upon the country at independence, Zimbabwe’s blacks (12-million), whites, coloureds and asians (to-gether less than 1% of the population) live in parallel worlds. Only now and then they do get together – for example, in Langeveldt’s comedy, as both targets and audience.
Langeveldt – whose Dutch great- grandfather married a woman of mixed race – hit a raw nerve with his jokes about race. “I air everybody’s dirty linen,” he says.
With a mastery of accents, Langeveldt poked fun at all races and sexes in Zimbabwe. The packed audiences lapped it with gusto. But about 10% of the public, black, white and coloured, were nonplussed by his jokes, estimates Langeveldt.
Just before the beating, the comedian did a series of ads for the TM supermarket chain. The funny sketches, where he portrayed, in drag, a coloured supermodel and a white suburban housewife, a recalcitrant Rhodie farmer and a Shona peasant, made him a household figure.
The ads were pulled out off the air halfway through December, partly because of the publicity the beating received, and partly because of complaints about showing a man in drag.
“Zimbabwe cannot tolerate any challenges to a power base, be it Zanu, Rhodie industrialists or coloureds. They bite back,” says the comedian.
In December, his jaw still wired, Langeveldt launched a pressure group, Dignity for All, to fight racism and discrimination. It got overwhelming support from blacks, says Langeveldt. “They know what discrimination means, from both whites and coloureds.”
Among the many letters he received, one from a factory worker said: “We go through that every day.” A few nasty messages, such as “We will fight for our right to party!”, were also sent to Langeveldt’s cellphone.
Langeveldt held a mirror to Zimbabwe’s racial tension and sought to dissolve it in laughter. It worked for the packed audiences who found healing in confronting reality through irony. It didn’t work for those who sought to shut him up.
But Langeveldt won’t shut up: “If I quit comedy, it’s a victory for the forces of conservatism and repression.” The show goes on.