Bitches’ Brew by Fred Khumalo, is an entertaining, gritty gangster novel about Zakes, a jazz trumpeter, pimp and his lover, Lettie, a woman from Lesotho. It’s sort of a hustler-love novel filled with allusions to South African and African-American jazz, particularly Miles Davis. The novel encompasses numerous aspects of South African history, urbanization, and social relations, informing the reader of the 1949 race riot between Zulus and Indians in Durban, for instance. It was also quite hilarious at times for its tone and ending, with Lettie still unsure if it’s the size or feel of a man’s penis which makes sex pleasurable. Moreover, the rise of these gangsters under apartheid and the racial mixing present in the novel, though fictional, definitely reflect the looseness of racial divisions even under the height of apartheid rule. Jazz music, a symbol of freedom, is undoubtedly part of this process of destabilizing racial barriers, a role it similarly played in the US.
Showing posts with label Apartheid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apartheid. Show all posts
Friday, August 7, 2015
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Age of Iron
I read Coetzee's Age of Iron while traveling a few weeks ago, so my memory of the novel is fleeting. Nonetheless, I will share a few thoughts that lingered these past weeks. Like the last novel by Coetzee reviewed on this blog, this one is set in Cape Town during the last days of apartheid, and structured as a letter by a dying white woman to her daughter in the States, so written in second person. Stylistically and in terms of setting, it is reminiscent of Life & Times of Michael K in that the reader is treated to lengthy prose, similarly themed inner thoughts of the protagonists, and the landscape of Cape Town and its environs. The narrator, Mrs. Curren, is a former professor who begins to befriend a homeless man whose race is not specified, Verceuil.
The title of the text refers to the 'iron generation' of black youth who are resisting apartheid while losing out on education, the innocence of childhood, and the decline of 'traditional' family life. This seemingly callous generation that is capable of great violence, shocks and disturbs the dying Curren, who sees the disillusionment, inequality, and hypocrisy of her own liberalism. Still, white South Africans have walked on the iron graves of the ancestors of black South Africans for generations, thereby causing this current generation of South African youth to lose their innocence to struggle for social equality in their country. Other themes of the novel include motherhood (Curren's relationship with her daughter, the use of motherhood to express the burdens of privilege and race white South Africans inherited long before apartheid), humanity, race, retaining humanity in the face of apartheid, death, animal rights (the graphic description of Florence's husband job of killing chickens for a living in an animal factory is quite chilling, or the power of animals as companions in the relationship between Verceuil and his likely stolen dog), as well as companionship.
Through Florence's son and his friend, children from Guguletu who are skipping their substandard schools and out in the streets resisting apartheid, Mrs. Curren is forced to examine her own relationship with white supremacy, her own complicity in the status quo. She experiences the death of Florence's son's friend at the hands of the police, witnesses the violence, roadblocks, and anger in the townships, befriends the homeless Verceuil for companionship and a friend to mail her letter to her daughter. Verceuil's race is never stated, perhaps because his ultimate role in the novel is to show the universality of the human experience and how companionship can transcend racial divisions in conditions of apartheid (although throughout the novel it is quite unclear what Verceuil's motivations are or if he will ever mail Curren's confessing letters).
I must say, some of the same themes of whiteness in South Africa and disillusionment recur in Coetzee's Disgrace, even in the similarities between the two protagonists (aged white academics). Coetzee seems to suggest that in Age of Iron, however, that there is more optimism and hope for a post-apartheid South Africa, even though Curren does not make it. Moreover, it is fascinating to see Coetzee tackle an older, female protagonist as a younger male writer. Just as thought provoking or troubling, is the disagreement Curren has with Florence's cousin, Mr. Thabane, a former teacher in support of the youth embracing anti-apartheid activism, a disagreement that symbolizes the seemingly unbridgeable gap between black South Africans and sympathetic white liberals who see black South Africans as going too far. One cannot help but think of the US Civil Rights Movement and how white moderates and liberals at various times endeavored to curtail or limit black mobilizing and activism.
Perhaps one day I will return to this novel, which clearly has much more to say on the state of affairs of South Africa (and the rest of humanity) below the surface. Likewise, Curren's relationship with Verceuil continues to fascinate me, perhaps suggesting what one New York Times critic suggests is the need for white South Africans to love the 'unlovable' to find redemption. The question of white South African liberalism also remains relevant to post-apartheid South Africa, just as the plight of the homeless and urban poor like Verceuil retains relevance to the social inequities, lack of love, and maintenance of an 'iron age' impedes actual reconciliation. Check out this for a well-written essay exploring Age of Iron, too.
The title of the text refers to the 'iron generation' of black youth who are resisting apartheid while losing out on education, the innocence of childhood, and the decline of 'traditional' family life. This seemingly callous generation that is capable of great violence, shocks and disturbs the dying Curren, who sees the disillusionment, inequality, and hypocrisy of her own liberalism. Still, white South Africans have walked on the iron graves of the ancestors of black South Africans for generations, thereby causing this current generation of South African youth to lose their innocence to struggle for social equality in their country. Other themes of the novel include motherhood (Curren's relationship with her daughter, the use of motherhood to express the burdens of privilege and race white South Africans inherited long before apartheid), humanity, race, retaining humanity in the face of apartheid, death, animal rights (the graphic description of Florence's husband job of killing chickens for a living in an animal factory is quite chilling, or the power of animals as companions in the relationship between Verceuil and his likely stolen dog), as well as companionship.
Through Florence's son and his friend, children from Guguletu who are skipping their substandard schools and out in the streets resisting apartheid, Mrs. Curren is forced to examine her own relationship with white supremacy, her own complicity in the status quo. She experiences the death of Florence's son's friend at the hands of the police, witnesses the violence, roadblocks, and anger in the townships, befriends the homeless Verceuil for companionship and a friend to mail her letter to her daughter. Verceuil's race is never stated, perhaps because his ultimate role in the novel is to show the universality of the human experience and how companionship can transcend racial divisions in conditions of apartheid (although throughout the novel it is quite unclear what Verceuil's motivations are or if he will ever mail Curren's confessing letters).
I must say, some of the same themes of whiteness in South Africa and disillusionment recur in Coetzee's Disgrace, even in the similarities between the two protagonists (aged white academics). Coetzee seems to suggest that in Age of Iron, however, that there is more optimism and hope for a post-apartheid South Africa, even though Curren does not make it. Moreover, it is fascinating to see Coetzee tackle an older, female protagonist as a younger male writer. Just as thought provoking or troubling, is the disagreement Curren has with Florence's cousin, Mr. Thabane, a former teacher in support of the youth embracing anti-apartheid activism, a disagreement that symbolizes the seemingly unbridgeable gap between black South Africans and sympathetic white liberals who see black South Africans as going too far. One cannot help but think of the US Civil Rights Movement and how white moderates and liberals at various times endeavored to curtail or limit black mobilizing and activism.
Perhaps one day I will return to this novel, which clearly has much more to say on the state of affairs of South Africa (and the rest of humanity) below the surface. Likewise, Curren's relationship with Verceuil continues to fascinate me, perhaps suggesting what one New York Times critic suggests is the need for white South Africans to love the 'unlovable' to find redemption. The question of white South African liberalism also remains relevant to post-apartheid South Africa, just as the plight of the homeless and urban poor like Verceuil retains relevance to the social inequities, lack of love, and maintenance of an 'iron age' impedes actual reconciliation. Check out this for a well-written essay exploring Age of Iron, too.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Ndodemnyama
While reading Jemima Pierre's thought-provoking piece on the reality of post-apartheid South Africa, I could not help but play the above anti-apartheid song. The article also has a great title ("Reconciliation is Not Decolonization"). Jemima Pierre is an excellent cultural anthropologist who has demolished so much of the academic/sociological material written by mostly white 'scholars' on race, black immigrants in the US, and West Indian/Caribbean ethnic groups in the US as drivel motivated by white stereotypes of the 'black underclass' and blackness itself. She also appears to be an astute observer and follower of trends in African history, no doubt perhaps influenced by her anthropological research. As a Haitian-American, Pierre's work has been valuable for undermining stereotypes of native African-Americans while also enlightening for African affairs.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
RIP Mandela
Although I am not really too interested in hagiography, Mandela was indeed a 'great' person and complex figure whose death, though perhaps to be expected, will be mourned forever. It seems ironic that he would die so close to the anniversary of the death of Fred Hampton, illustrating how the struggles of black folks in the US and Africa are entwined.
http://africasacountry.com/three-myths-about-mandela-worth-busting/
http://africasacountry.com/songs-for-mandela-south-african-edition/
http://africasacountry.com/three-myths-about-mandela-worth-busting/
http://africasacountry.com/songs-for-mandela-south-african-edition/
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Thoughts on the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg
On my last day in Johannesburg a few months ago, I figured out how to use the mini-bus/taxibuses in which seem less efficient than the ones in Cape Town. I caught one on Main Road in Melville, took it to a bus station center in or near New Town (seeing some of these neighborhoods of inner-city Jo’burg during the day is so different from night, the dilapidated buildings, etc. are much more obvious in daylight), and took another one from there to Gold Reef City, where the apartheid museum is uncomfortably near an amusement park.
But the museum was great and only R40, and impossible to cover in the little more than two hours we had before meeting up with some friends. The Apartheid Museum had an entire temporary exhibit on Nelson Mandela, where I learned much more than I ever did about his past (his Xhosa background, his living in Alexandra and Soweto, his training/combat training in other parts of Africa such as Ethiopia, his loyalty to old friends and allies, such as Qaddafi, and his time in Robben Island, which I later visited).
The permanent exhibition, much larger and full of even more information than I could handle, included the history of Johannesburg, the gold mining industry, early urban history and the development of segregation and townships, the rise of apartheid, anti-apartheid icons and movements, and the transition to democracy. Since we had to move so quickly through this final part, I missed out and skipped over reading many parts of the end of the apartheid museum. But they did have some cool stuff, including a recording of Miriam Makeba singing, videos from Mandela speaking and other pivotal moments and interviews, and a picture of Johannesburg youths in the 1950s playing kwela music on the street.
Unlike the District 8 Museum in Cape Town, the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg is very impressive, detailed, and perhaps a little excessive, since it's impossible to really take in all that it offers (video displays, several rooms/halls of pictures, text, and features such as an entrance to the museum where one is classified by race and has to enter a different path based on that classification, a tribute to Nelson Mandela and the spirit of freedom, etc.). Of course, one could and should argue that the deification of Mandela, though he's such an easy and accessible symbol of freedom to people of all races, renders invisible the much larger social movements and organizations engaged in the anti-apartheid struggle, but overall the rest of the museum thoroughly covered the general movement quite well.
That said, it's one of my favorite museum experiences for it's extensive documentation of the entirety of the apartheid period, from the early foundations of Johannesburg and white minority rule to the formal onset of apartheid in the 1940s and ending with the release of Mandela from Robben Island, the gradual dissolution of de Klerk's apartheid government, etc. Another neat aspect of some of the deeper historical displays was pictures and life stories of individuals and their descendants who played a role in the growth of Johannesburg from gold rush to the end of the 20th century.
In summation, the Apartheid Museum was my finest museum outing in South Africa. I suppose the only large flaw I saw was the absence of significant coverage of the pre-colonial period and the history of white settler colonialism gradually leading to white dominance by the late 19th century of most of what is today South Africa. If I had to rank them, it would be this one as 1st, the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto 2nd, and the National Gallery in Cape Town as 3rd. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera on me most of the time and one of the few photos I possess was taken by a fellow-traveller. I do not claim ownership of the above image in any way at all.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Anti-Apartheid Songs
Gil Scott-Heron's Johannesburg is a funky track about apartheid South Africa. As always, Scott-Heron's conscious, politically-charged material is enjoyable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDkQY6cOH0s
Max Roach's Tears for Johannesburg refers to the Sharpeville Massacre where anti-apatheid protesters were shot and killed. At least 69 were murdered and the recent massacre of striking mine workers at Marikana echoed the Sharpeville Massacre.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgNWYmgdO5Q
Max Roach's Man from South Africa is a jazz piece composed in honor for anti-apartheid South Africans. Roach, a committed black nationalist, was also dedicated to African liberation and the American Civil Rights Movement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3aALURKt1U
Ibrahim Abdullah's Mannenberg refers to District 6 of Cape Town, which was forcibly evacuated during apartheid. Apparently the melody came from some old marabi song, which can be heard here. Read about it here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJw6weFdJOw
Ndodemnyama (Miriam Makeba) is a song composed by a South African who was executed during apartheid while singing his anti-apartheid anthem. The song is a warning to Verwoerd, the architect of South Africa's apartheid policy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYwgmOxhUvk
Khawuleza (Miriam Makeba) is a beautiful song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwi_MdAdyHc
Bob Marley's War makes references to apartheid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL9DXaXufh8
A Tribe Called Quest's Steve Biko (Stir It Up) is not really about Steve Biko or apartheid, but does mention him in the title.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZItLBiHG9gc
Peter Gabriel's Biko is actually about Steve Biko, the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement during anti-apartheid days. A stirring tribute from Peter Gabriel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ncVyxQRw70
The list of anti-apartheid songs is obviously quite extensive. A future post will give additional songs.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Mama Africa: The Best of Miriam Makeba
Here is a list of my favorite songs by South African legend Miriam Makeba, an illustrious anti-apartheid artist who left South Africa in the 1960s, married Stokely Carmichael (after a marriage to South African jazz legend Hugh Masakela), and remained a constant figure of opposition to the apartheid government of South Africa. What fascinating me about her is diverse styles she mastered, beginning with American-styled doo wop and jazz in the 1950s to folk and "world music" of later decades. I first heard of her through listening to Harry Belafonte, the Caribbean-American folksinger, actor, and civil rights activist, who actually recorded an album in the 1960s with Miriam Makeba. What drew me to Makeba from that record was their duet on "Malaika," a Swahili love song from Kenya, meaning "angel." Makeba's divine voice, with such range and emotion, led me to listening to some of her other songs, including the famous "Pata Pata" (Touch Touch, I believe) that became an international hit in the 1960s. Her version of "Mbube," an old song dating back to Zulu workers in the mines of South Africa in the 1930s, is better known as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in the United States, but quite beautiful when sang in the original language. She undoubtedly possessed one of the finest voices in South African popular music.
Check out this interview
"Pata Pata" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq5S5sH1Ikk
Live versions of the same song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-VrfadKbco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87S_wbCsNbQ&feature=related
"Malaika" with Harry Belafonte http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVrtrB84_AA&feature=related
"Siyavuya" is an example of Miriam singing in a vocal group influenced by American jazz and doo wop. Beautiful language, beautiful music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeEA0QpcFAA&feature=fvwrel
"Ema Juba" another catchy number. This township jazz stuff is really great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qVpnpoRuEI&feature=relmfu
"Orlando" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPLIJ16mvrI&feature=related
"L'enfant et la Gazelle" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKvcRD9Ekbk&feature=related
"Lakutshn Ilanga" is where Miriam shows off her chops as a jazz vocalist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d99wc8LGDpw&feature=related
"Nongqongqo (To Those We Love)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3upHN5sqd8&feature=fvwrel
"Forbidden Games" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65z0mmTv19c
Cover of "Chove Chuva" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4dT7l7sWVg
Cover of "Mas Que Nada" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oztzZu5zPzs
"Kilimanjaro" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7coXOfz5zY0&feature=related
"Khawuleza" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V74f9eIi9c0&feature=related
"Mbube" is also known as "Wimoweh"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fEHguhykD8
Another version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G85hfwX2dVk
Original version of the same song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrrQT4WkbNE&feature
Live version of something that's good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4LAIR4tLfI
"Into Yam" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWZ1f0Cdt1A
Live from a film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buod66bq0cg
"Ekoneni" features Spokes Mashiyane on pennywhistle for that kwela sound
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rl9si_juLk
"Pole Mze" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxGtYr-b1SU&feature=related
"Little Boy" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_2HJDqmjPw&feature=relmfu
"Umhome" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeN4wpDq54&feature=relmfu
"Tula Ndivile" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVhdYx9uOIk&feature=related
cover of "Xica da Silva" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrOXVMTYq3I&feature=related
"Click Song" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v9-j4H6kCc&feature=related
"The Retreat Song" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfKJ_gzcSTA&feature=related
"Qhude" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skEtS6WDaO4&feature=related
"Lovely Lies" became a minor hit in the USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6xjRtoyy74
"Uile Ngwan'a Batho"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eDKz7EvcX8
"Inkomo Zodwa" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOKsbnSwiIE&feature=related
"Holili" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1RBiw8qOB0&feature=related
"Teya Teya" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTCWIBOt4do&feature=related
"Back of the Moon" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgsw_ViRHXA&feature=related
"Angilalanga"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmHDgv1SU6E&feature=related
"Jolinkomo" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYFR6BUekYk&feature=related
"Ndidliwe Zintaba" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8jeLVfnPYc&feature=relmfu
"Saduva" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQr9bvVDprk&feature=related
'Maria Fulo" cover, originally by Os Mutantes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh6eA1WF-EM
"Nomeva" is a Xhosa song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8XHVItxUgQ&feature=related
"African Sunset" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2gMLCLSZ9w&feature=related
"Malayisha" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwYpuZlVtUg&feature=related
"Zulu Song" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k27LiD3YDZ4&feature=related
"Lumumba" is funky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0GPm1azbZI&feature=related
"Lalelani Bantwana" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXsm4XZKK74
"Under African Skies" with Paul Simon, live
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC93Q75I2NY&feature=related
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