KEMPTON PARK, SOUTH AFRICA - SEPTEMBER 15: Dr Mbongeni Ngema during the Black Musical Extravaganza at the Theatre of Marcellus on September 15, 2023 in Kempton Park, South Africa. World-acclaimed writer, lyricist, composer and film producer Mbongeni Ngema officially launched his new EP Thina Bant Abamnyama. (Photo by Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
There is a studio on the ground level of the Market Theatre building in Johannesburg called The Sarafina. It honours the iconic, award-winning production that launched the career of theatre, TV, film and music personality Mbongeni Ngema.
The Sarafina is a vibrant hub at the theatre complex, used for rehearsals and drama classes, which will stand as a testament to Ngema’s own utterance that his legacy would outlive him.
In 2018, speaking at Actor Spaces in Joburg, Ngema said, “My work will outlive me — 100 years from now, people will still be performing Sarafina. It’s fantastic to know that you’ve written a work that will never die. That people can give it life beyond yourself.”
Sarafina is no ordinary theatre production — it is an important part of South African cultural and political history and it will continue to inspire the many people who encounter it.
Ngema died in a car crash on 27 December. As soon as the news was announced, social media was abuzz with personal reflections from fans about how Sarafina shaped a path to greatness for South African protest theatre, inspired them with hope and influenced their careers.
Conceptualised in 1984, and premiered in 1987 at the Market Theatre, the musical, which was inspired by the student uprising of 1976, was born against the tide of South Africa’s most repressive state of emergency which prevailed in 1985 and 1986.
Soon after its premiere, Sarafina became a phenomenal hit that carved an identity as South Africa’s most politically profound contemporary musical theatre production.
Sarafina told a powerful story about student courage in the liberation struggle and the power to hold on to the hope that Nelson Mandela would be released. The production’s famous song Freedom is Coming immediately became an anthem for black youths.
Youths across the country performed the song and dance routine at school concerts, rallies and other events.
Sarafina went on to tour the world. It won glowing accolades internationally but, beyond its artistic impact, the work became an emissary that honoured and celebrated the resilience and contributions of African high school students to the liberation struggle.
The work became a conduit for international media and arts academics to once again turn their gaze to the student uprising and the new student protests which spread across the country in the 1980s.
In 1992, two years after Mandela was released, the film version of Sarafina, produced by Anant Singh, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in France. Director Darrell Roodt said of it: “Though our project is still confrontational and angry, it is filled with hope and a spirit of reconciliation.”
Soon after South Africa’s inaugural democratic elections in 1994, Ngema was commissioned by minister of health Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma to produce a R12 million educational touring production of Sarafina II to help combat HIV/Aids at the height of the epidemic.
It was surrounded by scandal involving irregular tender processes and corruption. Despite public outrage and extensive exposés by the media, the ANC in government adopted an arrogant attitude of denial and condoned the minister’s failings — a problem that became one of the many seeds that spawned the government’s legacy of corruption and its lack of public accountability.
Ngema, however, survived the negative reporting. He continued to be a prolific writer, producer and musician outside of Sarafina and Sarafina II. He was still the darling of the same media that tried to crucify him over Sarafina II.
Sarafina II wasn’t the only time that Ngema found himself in court in a post-apartheid South Africa. In 2002, his controversial song AmaNdiya was referred to the high court.
Speaking on behalf of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa about the song being banned from broadcast, Professor Kobus van Rooyen said: “The song as broadcast demeaned the Indian section of the population by accusing the Indians in sweeping generalisations of the oppression of Zulus, of dispossession of Zulus.”
The song, although banned from being broadcast, was permitted to be distributed in CD and other formats.
It was a significant test case on the limits of freedom of expression as enshrined in the Constitution and the boundaries of hate speech as defined in South Africa’s reformed laws.
According to Ngema, the song was not intended to incite hatred but rather to open up a discussion about economic disparities — a discussion that was too often swept under post-apartheid South Africa’s carpet.
In 2020, theatre impresario and chief executive of the Joburg Theatres Xoliswa Nduneni-Ngema’s Heart of a Strong Woman: A Memoir, authored by Fred Khumalo, was released. In it, she narrates her meeting with Ngema; their marriage; their stormy, abusive relationship and physical and psychological violence that she endured, set against the backdrop of the successful company that birthed Sarafina.
At the time, gossip in theatre quarters was rife that, given South Africa’s vocal and vibrant feminist movement, the death knell would be sounded for Mbongeni’s public engagements. The book had glowing reviews but it made no real dent in Ngema’s public status as a theatre, film and music impresario.
Ngema’s death on Wednesday was a time to pause to reflect on the man and his legacy.
For now, while the family — and the nation — mourn, it must be a moment of respect for them that Ngema’s flaws should not overshadow his remarkable contribution to South African cultural history.
Ngema’s Sarafina must be a reminder that the production, with its lyrics “freedom is coming”, is the hope that millions of South Africans still cling to because real freedom from poverty, unemployment and indignity has not been brought about by the ANC government.
The trail of government corruption that surrounded Sarafina II must remain etched in the history of how the seeds of state capture and corruption were planted and irrigated by the ANC government soon after it took office.
Ngema was indeed spot-on when he said that his legacy would live on after he was gone. Gratitude to him for offering hope in the eighties with Sarafina and for his gift that many who await a real uhuru must still cling to freedom is coming … tomorrow!