Zimbabwe has been in the news for all the wrong reasons: the neverending election saga, the economic collapse of a country once considered one of the breadbaskets of Africa, the xenophobic attacks on Zimbabweans living in South Africa and their abuse and deportation at the hands of the South African Police Service.
But what about the untold stories of Zimbabweans who provide solidarity and support to fellow immigrants in South Africa, or those who have made it big in the South African music scene, or those who are simply making an honest living and seek nothing but respect and appreciation?
The Mthwakazi Arts and Culture Project is one such story. Set up in Johannesburg in 2002, the project promotes cross-cultural understanding and tolerance between Zimbabweans and South Africans through theatre and dance. The group drew its name from a tree whose leafy branches provided shelter to the factions fighting in the Zulu wars, therefore symbolising peace and tolerance.
The group’s leader, Mbiko Moyo, was born in the Western Cape to a South African mother and a Zimbabwean father. He moved to Zimbabwe when he was five and lived there until 1991 when, aged 25, he returned to South Africa.
He is now a postgraduate student and lecturer in anthropology at the University of Witwatersand in Johannesburg. His heart, however, is still in Zimbabwe.
“I identify myself more as a Zimbabwean than a South African, so I guess I could define myself as in exile,” he says. “I left Zimbabwe because I became affected by ethnic division. As an Ndebele [a minority ethnic group making up 16% of Zimbabwe’s population] I was discriminated against in schools, university, even when competing for jobs.”
As a theology student at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare, Mbiko became involved in the resistance against the government’s repression of everything non-Shona (the majority ethnic group to which President Robert Mugabe belongs).
“I wasn’t consciously ‘against’ the government, but some of my actions pulled me in that direction, so I immediately became associated with the [government] opposition,” he says.
Back in South Africa, Mbiko became involved in Zimbabwean issues. He worked for the Jesuit Refugee Services Network where he not only helped Zimbabweans immigrants to access documentation, healthcare and housing, but also provided support to victims of trauma.
Torture victims
The latter is an issue very close to Mbiko’s heart as he later became very active in the Zimbabwe Torture Victims Project, an organisation providing assistance to torture victims and survivors fleeing Zimbabwe. He also involved some of these victims in the Mthwakazi Art and Culture Project as a way of facilitating their healing process.
“We [Mthwakazi Art and Culture Project] use dance and theatre to heal the victims of torture or those who have been traumatised. We help rebuild their confidence and bring hope to their lives. Some have even gone on to perform professionally,” says Mbiko.
One such member making the most of his start with Mthwakazi is Dumaza Gumede (22), a Zimbabwean who joined a couple of years ago. He is a professional drummer as well as an accomplished dancer and actor. “I joined Mthwakazi through a friend of mine. I do this voluntarily. I do it because I like it and I believe in this project. It was therapeutic sharing my experiences with others, with people who have an open mind and are supportive,” he says.
Most of Mthwakazi’s plays have a healing as well as an educational function. For instance, the play Torture Experience tells the story of a young girl who experiences abuse at the hands of the Zimbabwean secret police simply for being the daughter of a trade unionist. She manages to flee to South Africa where, as a refugee, she faces discrimination and xenophobia.
The play not only portrays real-life challenges faced by Zimbabweans both at home and abroad, but it also involves the audience in making suggestions on how the issues tackled in the plot can be approached in a different way.
“Most South Africans don’t really know what’s going on in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, so we show them a piece of that reality through theatre,” says Babes, one of Mthwakazi’s members. “We want to show the realities that these people leave back home and that if the situation in their homeland wasn’t so bad, they wouldn’t come here.”
Some of Mthwakazi’s members also facilitate training in schools where the majority of pupils are South African. They help school principals to stage plays with a social message.
“We bring the play to the school and make the learning experience more interactive and the teaching more effective. This way, we also promote social integration,” says Mbiko.
I watched a rehearsal for the play The Refugee Experience, which was entirely performed by South African students as young as 13. I was struck by the actors’ outstanding performance and particularly their ability to convey complex issues such as rape and xenophobia without trivialising them. And it is quite remarkable to see how Mthwakazi’s children in general have taken stock of these important issues and their crucial role as agents of change in their own community and society at large.
Soldiers of the people
During the recent xenophobic attacks in Johannesburg, while Mbiko Moyo was busying himself staging anti-xenophobic plays in inner Johannesburg’s schools, the Abangqobi group was busy performing its a cappella songs to an audience of anti-Mugabe activists.
The group’s mission is to “educate, inform and entertain” through drama, traditional dances and songs from Zimbabwe. Its members fled Zimbabwe in the late 1990s after receiving death threats from the government for speaking out against the abuse and oppression at the hands of Zimbabwe’s ruling party, Zanu-PF.
“We are victims of politics,” says Bongani Nxumalo, one of the singers. “We are here because of politics. Through our music, we voice the [Zimbabwean refugee] community’s discontent about the situation back in Zimbabwe and we inform about the current situation in Zimbabwe.”
Like most Zimbabweans in South Africa, Bongani and Abangqobi’s other singers work hard to make ends meet. They work as waiters, gardeners, security guards and day labourers and still find time to rehearse several times a week. Some of them were professional musicians back in Zimbabwe, but the country’s economic meltdown and political repression made it impossible to pursue their careers, which prompted them to cross the border into South Africa in search of a better life.
But once in South Africa they faced destitution and lived in constant fear of being deported. They were denied political asylum in South Africa on the grounds that there is no war in Zimbabwe and that they would not face political persecution if they returned home. But despite all odds, Abangqobi’s singers have tirelessly continued to denounce the murder, brutality and corruption of Mugabe’s government and educate people about their rights through their music. As one of their songs, Something Inside, goes: “The further you take my right away, the faster I’ll run away. The more you refuse to hear my voice, the louder I’ll sing.”
“We’re soldiers, we’re obliged to do this, we must let people know what is happening in Zimbabwe,” says Bongani. “We know there’s Zanu-PF’s spies here, but who cares? If we have to die for the truth, we will. Some of our brothers have already died for telling the truth. We are at war. It’s about life and death. If we die, we’ll die for a justifiable cause.”
For the love of music
Clearly, hardship, abuse and intolerance are not enough to discourage Zimbabweans from pursuing their goals. Educated and highly skilled, they are also blessed with extraordinary determination and optimism, which has allowed them not only to make important contributions to their communities, but also to become successful entrepreneurs. One such person is singer and music producer Martin Sibanda. His band, Ndolwane, have released several albums and toured Swaziland, Botswana and Lesotho before establishing a steady following in South Africa.
However, Sibanda’s beginnings were hard. At one stage, the record company to which his band was signed failed to honour its contract, leaving the band members stranded. But they remained unfazed and took on extra jobs in order to self-finance the production and distribution of their next album.
“My goal was to dedicate myself fully to making music. When working as a security guard, I worked long hours and it was difficult to find time to make music,” says Sibanda. “But we worked hard, very hard, and by the time our third album was released, we left our jobs and dedicated ourselves 100% to music.”
Unlike Abangqobi, Ndolwane do not make social and political protest songs. “We sing about day-to-day themes, social issues that affect anyone, not just Zimbabweans. Our music is for the people,” says Sibanda.
However, some indirect references to the situation back in Zimbabwe can be spotted in songs such as Ubukhosi, which urges leaders — any leaders — to respect the people who elected them. “If your children are running away from your home, then that’s no longer a home,” goes the song. Other songs talk about HIV/Aids, crime, racism and the pain caused by the loss of a dear one. Overall, Ndolwane’s songs are upbeat and positive and the prevailing message is one of hope and unity.
The new South Africa
The recent wave of xenophobic violence that engulfed the country has made us wonder what became of the new South Africa, the rainbow nation, symbol of multiculturalism and the coming together of people of many different races.
Though it is obvious that there remain considerable obstacles that South Africans need to overcome before they can fully embrace the notion of a truly multicultural society in an increasingly globalised world, we should not be drawn to believe that all South Africans are inherently hostile to outsiders.
In the wake of the xenophobic attacks, thousands marched through South Africa’s biggest cities calling for an end to the violence, and millions of rands together with blankets, clothes, food, nappies and toiletries were donated to relief organisations assisting the victims of the violence. This demonstrates that South Africans are capable of standing in solidarity against acts of violence and are committed to restore their bruised pride in the rainbow nation.
Ndolwane’s latest album and DVD, Super Sounds, are available at most music stores (www.ndolwane.co.za). More on Abangqobi: [email protected]. More on Mthwakazi Arts and Culture Project: Tel: 083 766 0020 or [email protected]