The music that was Mandela
“Hey Nikita is it cold,
In your little corner of the world?” …….
Early days of protests in Colombo: A protestor carrying a Mandela banner. Pic courtesy Daily Mirror
The opening lines of Elton John’s 1985 hit ‘Nikita’ often heard on the radio, more often in hotel lounges from vocalists straining over their keyboards, attests to the fact that old songs still persist in Sri Lanka. Also often heard at parties and even nightclubs is Eddy Grant’s ‘Gimme Hope Jo’anna’ though perhaps few who dance to this catchy tune are aware it was something of an anti-apartheid anthem, formerly banned by South Africa’s white minority government. While the lyrics are cryptic in parts, a close listen will leave one in no doubt of their overall message.
‘Gimme Hope Jo’anna’ is one of several Eighties’ songs with an anti-apartheid thrust, and there are many more that made their mark internationally such as Jerry Dammer’s ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, Stevie Wonder’s ‘It’s Wrong’, ‘Sun City’ by Artistes United against Apartheid and ‘Bring Him Back Home’ by South African jazz great Hugh Masekela. Such music in combination with events such as the Free Nelson Mandela concert at a packed Wembley Stadium in 1988 to mark Mandela’s 70th birthday viewed by 600 million people in 67 countries demonstrates that music and musicians shared a place at the forefront of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Frederick Delius said ‘music is an outburst of the soul’, and the recent Sri Lanka-wide protests also saw lively baila sessions and even an inspiring rendition of ‘Do you hear the people sing?’ from the musical Les Miserables. Taking cues from a protestor’s placard highlighting Sri Lanka’s need for a Nelson Mandela, this article reflects on this remarkable South African leader and the role of music in the fight against apartheid.
There were several songs composed in Mandela’s honour – U2’s ‘Ordinary Day’, ‘Black President’ by Brenda Fasie, Simple Minds’ ‘Mandela Day’ and Johnny Clegg’s Asimbonanga, even jazzy instrumentals such as Carlos Santana’s ‘Mandela’, and a personal favourite Jonathan Butler’s ‘Mandela Bay’ which seemed to honour him though meditative contemplation instead of description or comment. But description and comment are required to understand the man and an uplifting combination of these are seen in ‘Nelson Mandela’ by South African singers Zahara and Mubuli. Not well known internationally but popular in South Africa, Zahara is a guitar vocalist in the Joan Armatrading and Tracy Chapman mould. Her music is classified as Afro-soul, possibly as she sings mainly in her native Xhosa with touches of African rhythms. Mbuli more of a poet supplements the music and lyrics of their Mandela duet sung in both Xhosa and English, with emphatic statements.
What is uplifting is the strong chorus: ‘Nelson Mandela tata (father) Madiba (clan name) father of the nation’ enhanced towards the end with a sub chorus ‘hero of the nation– there is no one like him’ – a valiant attempt to summarize an amazing life. The lyrics describe: ‘Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, a human treasure, a chief of abaThembu tribe, a former amateur boxer, a graduate from Robben Island Prison, a lawyer by profession, Madiba a legendary leader, the first commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe (the armed wing of the African NationalCongress), a torchbearer who captured world attention, a trendsetter par excellence, 27 years behind bars, indeed the long walk to freedom.’
Zahara’s lyrics also brings up the ‘rainbow nation’ and the protests in
Sri Lanka too brought forth unity in diversity and a bid to discard ethno-nationalistic parochialism, akin to Mandela’s rainbow nation concept and his efforts at fostering unity by healing the deep fissures in his country. ‘A catalyst, a reconciler, a unifier’ Mbuli wrote – ‘a unifier who embraced enemies for our struggle.’ Former US President Bill Clinton summed it up: ‘It isn’t about being soft-headed and kindhearted and essentially weak. Mandela found that forgiveness was a strategy for survival.’
Mandela had the wisdom to show the way to forgiveness and reconciliation as a national leader. He invited his former jailer to attend his presidential inauguration as a VIP; he hosted to lunch Dr. Percy Yutar, the prosecutor in the famous Rivonia trial who implicitly wanted the death penalty for Mandela and the other accused and even flew to have tea with the widow of Dr. Verwoerd, regarded as the high priest of apartheid.
While the above demonstrates the ‘embrace of enemies’ in Mbuli’s lyrics, the active ‘unifier’ is evident in his use of sport to foster national unity. In the Clint Eastwood directed movie ‘Invictus’, Morgan Freeman plays Mandela coming to the 1995 Rugby World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand in Springbok cap and jersey. The Springboks had been an emblem of hatred for the blacks – they symbolized their exclusion from representative sport. Now they found themselves at one with the crowd of mostly white Afrikaners who shouted ‘Nelson, Nelson, Nelson’ uniting the whole nation in a famous rugby victory
But what of his legacy? Mbuli says in the song ‘Madiba we shall emulate your values and principles, history demands that we shall succeed as a nation, we are duty bound to rise above malice and prejudice and let reason and wisdom prevail.’ Is this wishful thinking or at best, sweet poetry?
South Africa is nowhere near the catastrophic economic meltdown Sri Lanka is undergoing but to say that it has its own challenges would be an understatement. The unemployment rate is 34.5%, crime is rampant and while the country boasts restaurants, hotels and shopping malls comparable with the best anywhere, it is unsafe to take a taxi from the airport unless prearranged.
Some like Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters proclaim that the apartheid economy is still intact because 80% of the landowners in South Africa are white while 80% of the population are black. Others point at the multi-headed hydra of corruption, while still others underline that despite the existence of affluent black businessmen and a black middle class, this is not as large as it should be.
I recall how one of the local staff at the
Sri Lankan High Commission reacted with thinly concealed satisfaction to the sorry sight of a white man begging outside a shopping mall in Pretoria. This would have been unthinkable during apartheid when whites enjoyed preferential treatment in education and employment. But while the reaction is a departure from Mandela’s ideals, it was understandable as that person had lived through the systemic discrimination of apartheid, and even spent a night in jail just for having been in a white area after the stipulated time. On the positive side, the Mandela legacy was seen in the staff member’s son – a young business studies graduate working in IT, for whom better education and prospects in a post-apartheid South Africa enabled quite different aspirations to the driver’s job his father had at the High Commission.
Whatever the challenges South Africa faces, few would disagree that it manifests a huge improvement to the morally repugnant conflict-ridden country that existed prior to Mandela’s leadership. He stamped it with the ideals of racial tolerance and cooperation as firmly as his predecessors had stamped it with intolerance and segregation. Mbuli brings into their duet the title of Mandela’s biography ‘The Long Walk to Freedom’ and as Mandela underlined at the end of his farewell speech to Parliament in 1999: ‘the long walk continues’. More needs to be done to attain true freedom.
The beautiful South African national anthem ‘Nkosi Sikelel iAfrica’ first performed during Mandela’s presidency comes to mind. It originates from an 1897 hymn, and not only integrates parts of an earlier anthem but is sung in five languages with verses in three black African languages as well as English and Afrikaans. Compare this unity with the child-like posturing of
Sri Lankan politicians on our national anthem and we must surely agree with the protestor’s placard, and a dire need for the totality of the ‘music that was Mandela.’
(The writer is a former High Commissioner to the Republic of South Africa)
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