PATRIC TARIQ MELLET

I remember at one time that Wolfie Kodesh told me that while he loves our culture of singing and dancing, he believed that there was also a sinister side to it which if we do not watch out it will actually cross a line and become a means that undermines our gains….particularly Toi-Toi. There were 2 things that he highlighted…. the first was that it has become religionistic and institutionalised and that contained dangers no different to evangelical pentecostalism.

Secondly, it sometimes becomes a weapon and it induces trance-like mob-behaviour and frenzy and in the wrong hands would disrupt discourse and sanity will not prevail. For example, it can be used to shut down voices. Under Jacob Zuma we saw exactly how this foresight of Wolfie’s came true. When singing and dancing is stripped of its cultural attributes and expression of the soul (and concerns) of people and simply becomes a Party Weapon we begin to see the kind of abberation of Mao’s destructive Cultural Revolution and the madness of Pol Pot.