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Contents
editorial
DJO BANKUNA
Pissing On The Rainbow Nation
NATHAN TRANTRAAL
Ôs haatie wit mense nie. Hoekô haat julle vi ôs?
GLENN HOLTZMAN
The Music Department in South Africa as a Mirror of Racial Tension and Transformative Struggle: A Critical Ethnographic Perspective
TENDAYI SITHOLE
Black artists and the paradox of the gift
Theme Johnny Mbizo Dyani
ZWELEDINGA PALLO JORDAN
JOHNNY DYANI: A Portrait
JOHNNY MBIZO DYANI
A Letter From Mbizo
ARYAN KAGANOF
Johnny Dyani Interview 22-23 December 1985
SALIM WASHINGTON
“Don’t Sell Out”
LOUIS MOHOLO-MOHOLO & HERBIE TSOAELI WITH JOHNNY DYANI
In Conversation with Mbizo
ZOLISWA FIKELEPI-TWANI & NDUDUZO MAKHATHINI
When Today Becomes The Past: The Archive as a Healing Process
ASHER GAMEDZE
Tradition as improvisation | Continuity and abstraction
GILBERT MATTHEWS & LEFIFI TLADI
An Interview with Lars Rasmussen
EUGENE SKEEF
The Musical Confluence of Johnny Dyani and Bheki Mseleku in Exile
TENDAYI SITHOLE
Blue Scripts For Johnny Mbizo Dyani - Script i: The Figure
TENDAYI SITHOLE
Blue Scripts For Johnny Mbizo Dyani - Script ii: Ontology Of The Bass
TENDAYI SITHOLE
Blue Scripts For Johnny Mbizo Dyani - Script iii: Musical Offering
TENDAYI SITHOLE
Blue Scripts For Johnny Mbizo Dyani - Script iv: Home And Exile
TENDAYI SITHOLE
Blue Scripts For Johnny Mbizo Dyani - Script v: Experimental Philosophic Incantations
TENDAYI SITHOLE
Blue Scripts For Johnny Mbizo Dyani - Script vi: The Posthumous Life
ED EPSTEIN
Spiritual
CAROL MULLER
Diasporic musical landscapes: Abdullah Ibrahim, Johnny Dyani, and Sathima Bea Benjamin in an African Space Program (1969-1980)
BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH
Riot in Progress (Legalize Freedom)
S’MAKUHLE BOKWE MAFUNA
Notes on the Exile Years
KEI MURRAY MONGEZI PROSPER MCGREGOR
Who the Son was?
ARYAN KAGANOF
Somebody Blew Up South Africa
JONATHAN EATO
Interludes with Bra’ Tete Mbambisa
MAX ANNAS
Morduntersuchungskommission. Der Fall Daniela Nitschke
SHANE COOPER
Lonely Flower
THANDI ALLIN DYANI
"I love you. You don’t have to love me but I love you."
galleri
SLOVO MAMPHAGA
Shades of Johnny Dyani
HUGH MDLALOSE
Jazz is my Life
TJOBOLO KHAHLISO
Shebeening
FEDERICO FEDERICI
Notes (not only) on asemic phenomenology
ANDRÉ CLEMENTS
Vita-Socio-Anarcho
DEREK DAVEY
Verge
borborygmus
MUSTAPHA JINADU
Trapped
VUSUMZI MOYO
From Cape-to-Cairo – AZANIA
MALAIKA WA AZANIA
In a foreign tongue...
SHARLENE KHAN
Imagining an African Feminist Press
DILIP MENON
Isithunguthu (A conversation in Joburg)
CATHERINE RUDENT
Against the “Grain of the Voice” - Studying the voice in songs
GEORGE LEWIS
Amo (2021), for five voices and electronics
STEVEN SHAVIRO
Exceeding Syncopation?
BRUCE LABRUCE
Notes on camp/anti-camp
PATRICIA PISTERS
Set and Setting of the Brain on Hallucinogen: Psychedelic Revival in the Acid Western
frictions
KHADIJA TRACEY HEEGER
Doctor Patient
KNEO MOKGOPA
Vuleka Mhlaba (What Would Happen if Madiba Returned?)
CHURCHIL NAUDE
Die mooi mooi gedig en anner massekinners ….
OSWALD KUCHERERA
Travelling on the Khayelitsha Train
SISCA JULIUS
Islands in the stream
FAEEZ VAN DOORSEN
Nobody’s Mullet
GADDAFI MAKHOSANDILE
The Face of Hope
VONANI BILA
Extracts from Phosakufa (the epic)
NIQ MHLONGO
Mistaken Identity
OMOSEYE BOLAJI
People of the Townships part 2
SIMBARASHE NYATSANZA
How to Become an African President
JEAN RHYS
The Doll
OSCAR HEMER
Coyote
MICHALIS PICHLER
Bibliophagia
claque
LINDELWA DALAMBA
From Kippie to Kippies and Beyond: the village welcomes this child
GWEN ANSELL
Zim Ngqawana: A child of the rain
MKHULULI
Black Noise: Notes on a Semanalysis of Mogorosi’s DeAesthetic
LIZE VAN ROBBROECK
DECOLONIZING ART BOOK FAIRS: Publishing Practices from the South(s).
DYLAN VALLEY
The Future lies with folk art: Max Schleser’s smartphone filmmaking THEORY AND PRACTICE
PAUL KHAHLISO
Riding Ruins
DIANA FERRUS
Ronelda Kamfer’s Kompoun: unapologetic and honest writing.
UNATHI SLASHA
Piecing Together the Barely Exquisite Corpse: On Tinashe Mushakavanhu’s Reincarnating Marechera: Notes on the Speculative Archive
WANELISA XABA
One from the heart: Dimakatso Sedite's Yellow Shade
BLAQ PEARL (JANINE VAN ROOY-OVERMEYER)
Uit die Kroes: gedigte deur Lynthia Julius
FRANK MEINTJIES
Wild Has Roots: thinking about what it means to be human
MPHUTHUMI NTABENI
The Land Wars: The Dispossession of the Khoisan and AmaXhosa in the Cape Colony - a discourse on the unrelenting and ruthless process of colonial conquest
ekaya
MKHULU MNGOMEZULU
Call Me By My Name: Ubizo and Ancestral Names for Abangoma
HILDE ROOS
In Conversation with Zakes Mda: "The full story must be told."
INGE ENGELBRECHT
Tribute to Sacks Williams: A composer from Genadendal
ESTHER MARIE PAUW
A tribute to Hilton Biscombe
WILLEMIEN FRONEMAN
Resisting the Siren Song of Race
off the record
SANDILE MEMELA
Things My Father Taught Me
HEIDI GRUNEBAUM
On returning to my grandmother’s land (notes for a film)
HILTON BISCOMBE
A boytjie from Stellenbosch
KHOLEKA SHANGE
Art, Archives, Anthropology
RITHULI ORLEYN
On Archives, Metadata and Aesthetics
KEYAN G. TOMASELLI
The Nomadic Mind of Teshome Gabriel: Hybridity, Identity and Diaspora
FINN DANIELS-YEOMAN & DARA WALDRON
Song For Hector - the utopian promise of the archive
TREVOR STEELE TAYLOR
Censorship, Film Festivals and the Temperature at which Artworks and their Creators Burn - episode 2
GEORGE KING
Sustaining an Imagined Culture: Some Reflections on South African Music Research in Thirty-Five Years of Ars Nova
RAFI ALIYA CROCKETT
Loxion Fabulous: Temporality and Spaciality in South African Kwaito Performance
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    #07
  • borborygmus

VUSUMZI MOYO

From Cape-to-Cairo – AZANIA

One song that is fast becoming a hit in this country is From Cape-to-Cairo – AZANIA. The song is taking the country by storm. It is enduring more than the recently popular Jerusalema, as if many are now realising their real home is Azania. It is a song that is sung with the same passion and intensity as was felt with Senzeni Na? Those who lived through the 1970s and 1980s will recall the conscientising appeal of Senzeni Na.

Thanks to the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania – the very PAC that many were beginning to write off, many outside the Africanist fold are gaining a new consciousness. Not surprising, because a number of songs composed by the PAC adherents have been covered by some individuals and organisations. They have been made so popular that it is quickly forgotten where they originated. Take for instance, Mshini Wam’, which was composed by APLA forces in Tanzania, which seems to have been former President JG Zuma’s war-cry and trade mark!

He improvises: “Hayi, wen’uyangbambhezela, Khawuleth’umshini wam’…” – No, don’t delay me, just give me my machine (gun!)

Not long ago, a video appeared of a young girl who sang the Cape-to-Cairo song with such a beautiful voice that one almost hardly notices the infusion of Freedom Charter in it. She sings, “I-Azania Izwe Lethu! Solithatha nge-Freedom Charter…” – Azania is our land, we are going to get it through Freedom Charter!”

Of course, as we well know, Freedom Charter and Azania cannot be said in one breath; they are naturally diametrically opposed to each other. One claim makes a total claim and return of the dispossessed land to Africans, while the other strives to have it remain in the hands of the dispossessor, and further deceive everyone that it “belongs to all who live in it.” Thus the two repel each other.

But it doesn’t matter what the young lady says. That is something that can be addressed and corrected without effort. She cannot just be dismissed with “O, here she goes, messing the meaningful and beautiful song with this nonsense…” With a little education, all these notions about Freedom Charter can be changed. No one should be allowed to kill the enthusiasm and passion in her.

Then the other day the EFF’s Mbuyiseni Ndlozi belted the song withmuch gusto, even asking his backing followers to sing louder because he was not hearing them. He kept on saying, “Anginizwa” — I don’t hear you, as they emphasised, “AZANIA, AZANIA.” So incensed, Ndlozi was closing his eyes when the lines demanded, “From Cape-to-Cairo”, and just pointing everywhere as if those cities could be anywhere he was pointing. That, too, didn’t matter, as long as the message was clear. And one wouldn’t even pay attention to the fact that his improvisation doesn’t make sense.

This morning I woke up to another video of a young man wearing a NUMSA T-shirt and an ANC KANGA singing the song in its original form – no gimmick, no sugar-coating. Seeing him proudly singing the song, his dark complexion, reminded me of what we are told Anton Mzwakhe Lembede, regarded as Father of African Nationalism in this land, once said, “I am as dark as the soil of Afrika.” Thus emphasising his love for the land that moulded, and blew life into him.

Hence, it is in paying homage to Afrika, our land, and the idea that brings us together as a people and celebrate our being and all that we are all about. Again, it does not say at which occasion the song was belted; it might as well have been at the recent alliance rally, but the young cadre, didn’t mince his words when he said the land AZANIA will only be returned through a bazooka. As it must be that we shouldn’t hesitate to proclaim, as does the PAC: IZWE Lethu! — Our land! Ironically, it was the ANC which once proclaimed “Mayibuye I-Afrika! A conviction that organisation has made a round-about-turn from and bought into the fake land-sharing idea encapsulated in the Freedom Charter, and now in the Constitution. Could it be that the realisation that the idea has sold out and betrayed the African revolution has taken root in the broad church?

After all, people cannot out of the blue just sing a song for the sake of singing it. It is in the culture of every revolution that people will gain consciousness from the truth. Indeed, even for the Azanian revolution, nothing trumps the truth that this land cannot be shared with those who continuously seek the extermination of the Africans. That truth permeates even those sectors of the population where it wouldn’t at any point have been expected to penetrate.

This indicates that the PAC and other like-minded organisations are being vindicated, that they are not racist warmongers as they had been made to be seen. Yet the song merely emphasises what every African is feeling about the state of affairs in their land, that they go hungry in the land of their forefathers, where there is wealth but they cannot access and enjoy it.

Indeed, it has been the unhidden truth about the African colonial struggles, that no oppressor can willingly and voluntarily give back the stolen land. The claim in the song, claiming heritage from Cape-to-Cairo, as Mangaliso Sobukwe taught us, is a truth that cannot be escaped by anyone. Denial of this fact can only turn us into fools of ourselves. But it also makes fools of those who have tried to impose the idea that Africans will always be contented with the continued dispossession and the status quo. In this, unfortunately aided by those who are contented with and bent on betraying the African struggle. Indeed, it was Sobukwe who warned in the 1950s that there is a section of African leadership that would not want to see Africans truly free. And the past 27 years has been proof to that effect!

There is obviously a whole lot of frustration among Africans. It has never been a secret that Africans want their land back – that their lives have not improved for the better since the so-called post-apartheid dispensation. It is clear that even those Africans who had believed the lie of the land belonging to the oppressor and the oppressed, dispossessed and dispossessor, are now making serious soul-searching, and reconsidering their position on the national question. To see a member of the ANC alliance singing and dancing to the From-Cape-to-Cairo – AZANIA song can only say that it is about time that truth comes to bear.

The recent move by AFRI-Forum to try to argue for the autonomy of Western Cape Province is just one way of showing that the section of landowners will stop at nothing to balkanise this country. This time it is not Bantustanisation, but the creation of enclaves of ‘white’ provinces aimed at consolidating ‘white’ power and monopolisation of the economy. Notwithstanding that the ‘whites’ already own 95% of the economy. The creation of Orania is one example of ‘white’ superiority that was allowed to prevail by the current government.

The song, in some way, represents a yearning for a new identity which will banish the current colour categorisations, so we could move to a humanity that identifies with Africa. It is not an unjustifiable thing for African youth to seek to have a real and true identity. Africa and consciousness about the true cause of Africa will surely give us that identity. It is an identity that brings us together, to identify and resolve issues that make our heritage controversial.

It is interesting too, to observe the enthusiasm with which the youth regard the song. It wouldn’t be surprising if the song became a new anthem. The current national anthem has become a denigration of African aspirations by beneficiaries of colonialism and apartheid, yet it raises the heroism of the colonialists, while claiming our African heritage as theirs.

Indeed, it is inconceivable and deceptive that Africans can be expected to forget what the true meaning of the inserted versions is, even devoid of their original themes.

While the incorporation of the two stanzas of the Afrikaner and English national anthems into the original Nkosi Sikekel’iAfrika was meant to be a vehicle of unity, it ironically serves to further divide us. The social gap between the possessor and the dispossessed is widened by the economic inequalities caused primarily by the usurpation of land by the former, transferred to the present-day inheritors.

The Cape-to-Cairo song brings among the youth (as well as the older generation) the realisation that for us to really appreciate and enjoy a free sunshine, we must go back to basics – that is what makes sense under the circumstances. If at all the song brings a renewed consciousness, it might as well become a new anthem that rallies us under the same banner as was anticipated by the founding fathers of African nationalism. For it assures us of a complete heritage – land – without which we cannot convincingly and successfully argue for any celebration of heritage.

It is hard to say whether this song could in reality become a new national anthem. We can only surmise from its being made the premier song in gatherings of young African people who are passionate about but also worried that their inheritance is being stolen daily.

From Cape-to-Cairo is a reality that cannot go unnoticed. For it is not an empty, vain proclamation. It is a song, like Sobukwe once said, of an Afrika reborn, and Afrika rejuvenated! It is no accident that the young ones are the ones displaying a preface to that rejuvenation…

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