These R a few of my Favourite Things

Hi

There's a missing link between the so called Intellectuals and Writers in the Black world. There is an increasingly gaping chasm between these educated people and the masses of people on the ground, the ones who due to many circumstances could not enjoy the knowledge derived from books and lecturers. I am hoping to create spaces where the knowledge can be shared and also to adress the challenges of education in our country Azania/ South Africa.

But first, the teachers have to be willing to share and to be taught...only then ca Africa Arise and meet the challenges of the century.

This following short essay is for the people who have not read Marx, Engels and their buddies.

Speaking Revolutions, Rebellions and Race

“Racism originates in domination and provides the social rationale and philosophical justification for debasing, degrading and doing violence to people on the basis of colour. Many have pointed out how racism is sustained by both personal attitudes and structural forces. Is the Racism can be brutally overt or invisibly institutional or both. Its scope extends to every level and area of human psychology, society and culture. Racism is the ocean we swim in and the air we breathe.” - ? (M. Magubane)

Earlier this evening, I attended the Time of The Writer festival, as usual we were all stimulated by the creative and intellectual fun of hearing some well known and less well known authors speak about the writing life.

I can safely say that I experienced the best of many worlds. Among those who have made a deep impression on me were a Zimbabwean academic and a famous French novelist. The intelligent feminist professor /academic who is largely influenced and informed by European (read Eurocentric) thought was quite witty and intriguing in conversation. She shared that after returning to her motherland in order to write, found herself unable to do so due to what she observed as the stifling psychology of her countrymen. As much as she continues to write internationally and with a local newspaper, she felt that she could not produce any creative or fictional works dealing with the situation of Zimbabwe.

She says that it has become infuriating to keep answering questions about her troubled and troubling country.

What was concerning was her observation of her people which although subjected to her Eurocentric spectacles renders her frustrated by the sheer weight of the peoples suffering or daily challenges. The writer who sat next to her on the panel was also a Southern African woman writer who is very successful and has won many awards for her children’s literature.

She seemed rather surprised by almost every detail that ends up being attributed to her work, claiming that she really doesn’t intend to place the signs and codes that readers find in her work. All fair and well, I say, since I know that the writing process is part intellectual endeavour and part inspiration (divine and environmental).

But when we consider that this person of obvious giftedness is actually writing for a large number of young impressionable minds, is it the done thing to just leave all ones insights to chance?

We have to ask ourselves is this apparently and admittedly unintentional writer involved in informing future African minds through her stories or is she merely writing because she just can and it obviously pays the bills?

Let’s return to our charming half-Zimbabwean sister; I must say that I was very impressed by almost everything she said concerning her place in literature, her definition of feminism and the manner in which she tackles political issues in her country via her writing, but above all else, I found it really disturbing that a person of her calibre could sit there and basically describe Europe as a kind of utopia or just an ever so slightly tarnished and tribal heaven while the homeland and its people are viewed as self absorbed and two dimensional citizens of dystopia. All based on current levels of access to modernist resources such as the internet and quality of city life. This is alright if one is an ordinary person whose pen does not inform thousands if not millions of people, but such one sided prejudice is closer to self loathing than it is to self expression.

This is the kind of self contempt that stems from what Franz Fanon spoke of in his famous treatise Black Skins/ White Masks.

At the surface it was a lively chat between writers and a receptive audience, but given South Africa’s and the rest of Africa’s past and present injustices, it is difficult to not cry foul. There are matters that require addressing in our world and among them is the self image of Africans, especially the youth who must forge a new society out of the debris of the ruinous past.

The other thing I must point out is that we need to review the meaning of modern city, the roles of intellectuals and what really informs their desire to write. Aside from the seemingly natural propensity to write in order to tell a fine story, there seems to be an acquired reluctance to deal with ordinary people’s daily struggles.

The stories may be created by using the characteristics of ordinary folks, but the fact that not enough effort is made to create environments where these tales can be shared and reviewed or enjoyed in the open (not in festivals and universities) shows that many writers are still writing in order to impress the masters (European language speaking audiences, at home and abroad). Perhaps to find humour and hubris in the absurdities of life is the academics way of dealing with the weight of knowledge.

The writers on tonights panel all share a common love for reading. The y may be informed by various and different thinkers, but it is obvious that these are clearly people who read a whole lot.

It is in their use of language, their skill in articulating their thoughts and answers to questions. What is increasingly disturbing is something that was already touched upon.

Can writers with all their intelligent and creative writing skills revolutionise the way the masses of their readers view themselves as individuals and as a society?

It appears as if they can, it is a gradual process but they can.

I for one did read a lot of Njabulo Ndebele’s earlier books and essays, but when we he rightly expressed his frustrating with the misuse of the words such as Racisms, especially by the political regime, I thought that there was a better way to put it. I agreed with the sentiment but what I do not agree with is that after just 16 years of propaganda and multiracialism, it’s still not time to bury the spear and forget about racism.

When then will we be able to deal with the social stratifications and racially based economic systems, I don’t think that we should do away with Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment just because there are people who find ways to misuse it. To not talk about race is just like censoring dissent in any society. South Africa is absolutely not ready to stop talking about race. Ndebele’s suggestion that obvious acts of racism should be viewed or treated as merely individual acts of youthful foolishness which should be dealt with by the whip rather than through open conversation.

This is a severe error of judgment, especially coming from a writer and intellectual who is also a ‘former’ Black Consciousness activist.

Perhaps he and many others who have now embraced this multiracial front spent too much time over asserting their Blackness that they became exhausted with the rhetoric; and herein lies the danger of being a revolutionary writer, while it is good to allow change to occur and acknowledge it through ones writing, it is also important to bring about a future vision through ones writing, but that can be done by naming things as they are and not shying away from irritating problems. Intellectuals need to come back down here on the ground and become organic instead of technical or ultra-organised producers of stories. It must also be noted that not every writer is really an intellectual and not everyone who does not read European literature has anything to say about the world. Africa must tell her and his story and there are many ways to do it, the book is just one method. TBC

Menzi Maseko (c)

Here's some Poetry

7 Piece Suite

Iqoqo lezinkondlo ezilotshwe nguMenzi wakwa Maseko.

Love lore and ritual

A song for the tea farmers, drinkers and for the earth that provides it

His breath was lavender

After a heavy nights rain

Voice like the fresh breathing of earth after the thunder

A sweet here- after

A moment when the now is known

The past remembered and the future ingrown

There is a song about the art of tea, tealeaf and wind-drift

The air is filled with the sound of kora, mbira and voice

Red golden green ornaments are acoustically blessing the morning

Church bells and hallelujah Psalms

Capitalism, Nature Socialism all in line for a piece of Devils Pie

As world peace remains a dream deferred

My space, my music, my nation, my world, my work, my story

All myths and legends

Because I came here holding nothing but mothers blood with clenched fists

Whatever is mine is not mine

Because whatever man makes he can never take back

Until he returns again

To an Earth rained on with unpolluted waters

Seas with great life swimming and roaming the deep

Love removed from the shackles of competition and vice

And even men of science realize that they’ve become a little lower than mice

The tea drinker looks deep into the just emptied cup and says

Hmmmm!

But this lavender tea is nice!

Beads and Pears ( Listening to Jazz...Tout De Suite )

For my Mother, Jesus, Pearls, Devotion and Simple Good Food

For my Beloved, HIM, Beads, Love and Innocent Experience

When the twains meet and I in-between I

It is like the ocean the sea and the phuthu pot

Night is the time of reminiscing, remembering and forgetting

Sleeping?

Does Life slumber?

Are people life or are we just living it

Does life require We

Mere humans?

So no, night is time unlike any other

As day cannot be compared to morning

Noon cannot be compared to the peace of evening

We move in-between these realms as humanity

Seeking, sometimes successfully the Golden Thread that ties them together

And when we merge innocence and experience

We find Faith –dreaming up a future...

Faith running over with excitement, silence, concentration, contentment, perfection and Love

Possibility of any outcome all submerged in the Now

I will in my dreams and hopefully out of them

Still willing my life to be

I will also

Build Her a house with simple Afrikan furnishings and warm delights

And for her a Righteous Life and heritage of Suns and Suns and Suns

To livicate (dedicate) daily the offerings of Our deep devotion

Gratitude for Love and the prospects of repetition /Fit and forever more...There’s joy in repetition!

Ever Learning

Learning is earning

If knowledge is power

Than we need no other power station’s

When wisdom is ours

We need suffer no superstitions

Fear no colour depth breath might nor height

Walk tall between the darkness or the light

Why do words that appear aight

Always appear to rhyme with sprite

Even the Rastafari

speak, no,

I n I chant ‘bout inner ites

Yet at the end, this is still that translated tongue

That bastardised lingo that can twist itself around any message

Like a snake

Or

Like the mindful ear of the sage

Or the eye to the captured image

It all comes back down to light and perspective

Down cause even miners and minors dig for gold

Humans evolving slowly, often not noticing how

So, so old this world is

How recent this word is

How new this word Is

Is meaning the –is – all

This is poison laced words

Licensed to heal as it is to kill

Remember they were licensed to ill

Liable to lie as it is to provide light, insight

But is this the truth

I too am here as the most minute throne in the Living Verse

I f I could I would have often middle fingered the night life and chose to listen to a blind Steve Wondering

Inner visioning ,

Gift of Gab and his chemical lyrical callisthenetics

Listening and learning about governing the mind, the soul with breath

The breath of Phumzile, Bheki Mseleku, Ravi, Alice and John

the scent and meaning of sandalwood incense, meditative thoughts

Herbs, spices, elements and no more worries about moneys for the next rent

Oh for the fate of a consciously and conspicuously unconscious humanity

Pleading love

World peace

And the right to a peace-pipe

Dreams?

Poetry : On the verge

We’re on the verge of new poem

life stays the same but takes on new forms

shapes desired by the living and the un-dead

some exist yet they’re living as the hunted

the stories of the victories of the hunter

monopololised in myths with questionable answer

time has come for a new poem

to spring from

new waves that leave no dirty foam

for the unpolluted earth

and the un-bloodied birth

and the welcomed open armed death

I am here to plant seeds of Joy

seeds of Justice, seeds of Post-Judgement

we will water, the pregnant earth

I, my beloved and the people of the East

each song we chant will be as water is

to mist – unbroken – half spoken

fully kissed

the poem, is about to burst from Earth

panting and expectant like a Healers breath

And then there were Pearls ( for Phumzile)

String them along like a beaded necklace Sister

You are no icy but Ises

I and I i-hold the Queen of the Iniverse

Your eyes carry the memories of souls coming and gone

They possess the tenderness of every true mothers touch

Long gone is our epic of the ever receding struggle

We search for matters on papers scrolls and forget the fore headed furrows

Guzzling their water like ship wrecked Pharaohs

But I Princess

Empress Khush

Tell me where to pull I will pull

Show I where to push I will...for the sweetness of your love..

I will go there

I have seen Heaven in a still pond

Hell through the eyes of a blonde

But until I met the I in you

I have been introduced to the Living I

I had never seen A People In Movement for the sake of Wisdom

Until I met you

Precious Black pearl held in the belly of a troubled sea

You of the rarest earth possessing the healers breath

Daughter of the heavens and the earth

Notes:

"Some Ethiopian scholars believe that Qine is unique to Ethiopia. It is not found in any part of the world other than Ethiopia. This Ethiopian treasure is described by Ato Alemayehu Moges in his book Malka Etiopia, to have the following advantages:

Yalibona tadla = warm Heartedness

Yahilina Hasat = Awakening

Yaaimiro tifsihit = Liberation of the mind

Yahazin masrasha = A way to decompress anger

Yadikam madranit = Panacea to exhaustion

Yafilsfina magolmasha = A way to strengthen philosophical thinking

Yalib madabiria =A way to augment the heart

and Yarugat mirt = A harvest of knowledge

(page 130 -Ethiopics -An African Writing System)

The Saga of Nigist (Queen) Makeda in Kibra Nagast could be read as an attribute of symbolic location, for the saga restores the aesthetic quality of an African woman. In other words the saga makes African folk sing -"

(Note pages 130 - 131 - Aesthetics and Literary)

Hi Everyone

i llove the idea behind Nu Sound...and the coastal thing, I certainly see it as an irie vibration especially in a coast where there's so much talent and yet so little happening. Those who attempt to do something don't get the support they need ( From Rock, To Electro, Jazz to Reggae...) there's so much compromise...but with my idea of The Chi ( The Creators Hands Initiative/Incorporated) I mean to unite the vibes, promote and propagate the Art of songwriting which can be severely lacking in this hemisphere, but there are plenty people who can and do write well. Otherwise, just check it out...its a work in progress.

Menzi

The CHI Songs!!!

This is a collection of Music written by Menzi Maseko to be performed by himself, Phumzile Masina, Busiswa Gqulu, Zinhle Biyela ‘Ladiva’, Nompendulo ‘NewDiva’ and othe Luminaries in the vast and gift-full constellation that is KwaZulu EThekwini.

The aim is to create a band (set band), a group of young musicians, music and other students, designers, Artists and Poets who will create together, initiating and celebrating within a vibrant spontaneously creative atmosphere. The Band should be the heart or the nucleus of the Centre, hosting other musicians beside the ones mentioned above. Collaborations with inter-outer-national stars (Creatives: musicians, singers, designers and institutions such as the Vega etc).

Aside: Earlier this evening while walking from the French Film festival, I walked past a white house which had the words ‘Truth: Advertising and Design’ emblazoned on the door frame in white on red colours. I said to myself, would it not be interesting to just turn up at this office and ask them to work with me, for me to work with them, not for a salary but on a give and give basis.

It’s a world of give and take, but within this framework, I as a writer and people’s person can add to this company something they might not have, they could also fulfil some of my personal and organisational needs. Wouldn’t it just be fabulous to live in a world like that, where there are no permanent employees, just skilled and semi-skilled individuals adding value to each others lives through resource sharing, communications, brainstorming and implementation of ideas, creations, thoughts and services that benefit all?

Yes, I understand how I seem to have digressed and moved away from the subject of Music or songs. But this is just the very essence of the Idea of why the Band is formed.

It is composed of individuals who play for different groups, travelling and touring, rehearsing and gigging within their own respective organisations (bands/choirs/schools/outfits) yet at the Songspace they come as a collective consciousness embracing differences and being guided towards a shared purpose.

This shared purpose can be in the form of a set of Common Goals, like: Becoming a successful, Self reliant musician. This is not the same as having a job, playing drums for a gospel, reggae, jazz, rock, Afro-pop, maskandi or hip hop band, it is the culmination of all the Sounds, Audiences and Inner visions.

Just like in a symphony, all the sounds from the highest to the mildest, from the shrill to the chill come together via the commitment and Musical/Spiritual connection and networking of the people who form the Group.

The house-songs (Songs played frequently during rehearsal and regular events) must reflect the Positive Aspects of Life, Uplifting, Captivating, Mysterious and Adventurous.

Here are some of the songs that can be covered.

ü Thom Yorke /Radiohead = I Will/ Scatterbrain / Eraser / Black Swans

ü Louis Mhlanga = Tinganekwane

ü Stimela = Highland Drifter

ü Brenda Fassie = Boipatong/ Too Late For Mama/ Indaba Yami I-straight

ü Fela Kuti = Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense/ Beast of No Nation/ Lady

ü Hugh Masekela = Beating Around The Bush

ü Sakhile = Working Man /

ü Sipho Gumede = Social Climber/ Ishumi Leminyaka*

ü Georgia Anne Muldrow = Early*

ü Zama Jobe = Taxi Ride/ Native Rhythms*

ü Sibongile Khumalo = Mountain Shade

ü Bheki Mseleku = Sandile

ü Take 6 = The Biggest part of me

ü Stevie Wonder =Free/Master Blaster Jamming/These Three Words/ Loves In Need

ü Mahalia Jackson = Canaan Land

ü Ella Fitzgerald =

ü Janelle Monae’ = Mr President / Tightrope

ü Outkast = Aquemini / Liberation

ü Moses Taiwa Molelekwa = Tsala /Finding Ones Self

ü Thandiswa Mazwai = Zabalaza

ü Simphiwe Dana = The One Love Movement On Bantu Biko Street / Troubled Soldier

ü Lucky Dube = House Of Exiles / Slave / Ubusuku bude*

ü Busi Mhlongo = Webab;omncane / that song with Max Lasser

NB. The artists own songs are welcome of course; by they must fit the standard set by We The People! The above artists and songs are mentioned only due to their level of excellence.

Songs Written by I and I

1. Usuku : to be co-written and sung by Busiswa

2. Reality Singes : to be sung/ recited by Menzi

3. Endless Summers : a rap by Menzi

4. No Grudges ( I Can Love u better ) : recorded with Dr Mtati, sung by Ladiva*

5. Longevity ( In our lifetime ) : to be sung by Busiswa

6. She Came : to be sung with Sbonelo

7. Love ( Don’t Complicate It ): to be sung by Busiswa and Ladiva

8. Hungry For Life : to be sung by Menzi, Ladiva, Busiswa, Sindi and Sbonelo

9. Behold A Woman : to be sung by Ladiva

10. I Will Be Waiting ( But Love Won’t Wait ):

11. Songs in The Chi of Life: to the instrumental by Phaxx Manis*, sung by Phumzile, rap by Menzi or co-written with Bullet ( Sbusiso Tsewu ).

12. Works of Faith : with a sample from the Reggae group Midnite

13. Troubled Soldier : cover of Simphiwe Dana’s song

Menzi Maseko (c)