the REAL reed dance!

Reed dance

Every year in early September, Zulus and Swazis gather in their respective lands for a big festival called umkhosi womhlanga or reed dance. It’s a very important festival as it marks the start of spring, which is a new season for planting seeds and is generally seen as one symbolising a fresh new beginning.

Thousands descend upon kwaNongoma in the northern KwaZulu Natal province where the Zulu king’s main palace is located. In essence you could say Nongoma then is the capital of the Zulu nation. I’ve been to a couple of these festivals and it is truly a remarkable spectacle from an outsider’s point of view; the dancing, the singing, the chanting, the traditional garb, all the bright colours, smiling faces, lots of laughter, food and drink. And of course the long reeds themselves. Maidens of virgin status take part in the dance as they are deemed “pure and innocent” in thought. Virginity in the old days was cherished, in many global societies, not just Zulu culture. It symbolised clean youth, a simple way of life. It told society that you or your child was a “good” person, a person of excellent family morals whose humanly desires could never overcome her resolve to remain a virgin until marriage.

What began to happen is that because most of the land’s young girls were in attendance, the residing monarch would spot one while the festival went on and resume a courtship, or at least attempt to. Of course she could always refuse the king, but that was not at all encouraged as kings of the time were exceptionally quick to punish anyone who they thought went against the rule of the land, which was essentially the word of the king. This practice also saved the king time as he always knew the maidens were virgins and that they were available. Older maidens called amaqhikiza, who were spoken for, could not take part in the reed dance. The king could also take as many wives as he wanted.

An important point to make about the reed dance is that no young girl is forced to partake. Yes families do put pressure on them to because it means they can prove to the world their virginity, but they are not forced. In fact, from what I have gathered, many certainly desire to attend, just in case the king spots them while they dance and makes them his wife number so and so. Being royalty cannot be bought by any amount of money and for these girls the festival holds a good chance to becoming royalty. Actually, the king’s own daughters take part as well.

Lately though the mainstream media has been at the forefront of criticising the reed dance, saying it is a backward tradition, one that degrades women and makes a mockery of the “one-man one-woman” romance idea. I do believe our Westernisation and vast cultural ignorance has played a huge part in such criticism, that we severely lack understanding and tolerance for other people’s customs as a nation. One only has to think back to last year on the SPCA and Tony Yengeni’s little storm in a teacup regarding his slaughtering of a bull to thank his ancestors. Had this ritual taken place in a homeland or a township people would have come from far and wide to celebrate with him, instead of throwing stones without trying to appreciate his custom.

the President's legacy

What a boring couple of weeks we’ve had in the Republic of Circus, also known as South Africa. I’m sure you were wondering where the commentary on these happenings is. Well, here it is:

My thought is that anyone who disobeys orders in a work environment, time and time again, deserves to be shafted. There is no way I could tolerate working with someone who does not listen to his / her colleagues, regardless of their position, goes off and does their own thing at will, and is seen not to be “one of us”. This is more so if that person has been given warnings over and over again. Therefore for the President to fire the former Deputy Health Minister in the manner that he did is totally normal and acceptable, even in corporate SA. We cannot sit in a boardroom meeting and decide on issues, then one of us goes off and says the opposite to the public. What kind of message would our organisation be sending out there? The only other thing though, is that although the executive cabinet is appointed by the President, my imagination says Deputies should answer to their Ministers, and not to the President directly? That you have to ask the President of the country, a very busy man who sleeps only 3 hours a day, to sign your form for an official overseas trip seems a bit trivial. We have over 40 Ministers and their Deputies. Do they all have to ask for permission each time they go to work? I don’t know how these things work, but it all sounds like primary-school to me.

So then why so much noise about the sacking? Two reasons really: first, the President has not had awesome press ever since the HIV/AIDS thing broke out a few years ago. The minister of health has also not had good press at all, and she would have, had she deviated from the policies set by Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma when she was head of the country’s health system under Dr Nelson Mandela. Mandela himself in fact, should have done much more to curb the scourge of AIDS as he was in charge when the epidemic went from bad to worse. One of the reasons the old man did not do much during his tenure is that he was already looking out the door into pensionhood, meaning the incumbent Thabo Mbeki was already taking over the resigns even as the old man was still in executive power. Fact is, Mbeki has been President of SA for the past 10 years or so, with two more years to go. So fortunately the AIDS and ARV problem did not land with a beetroot salad from Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang (forgive me, I couldn’t resist). However, she did and still does have a little power to help the situation, rather than perpetuate it. That she and the President are not seen, I repeat, not seen, to be helping is the first reason people got mad at the sacking of Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.

Secondly, the President’s firing of Mr Jacob Zuma from cabinet is still one of society’s most divisive and most topical issues, particularly as regards to the manner in which JZs files have been “handled” by the chief. Thus when this whole Madlala-Routledge saga happened, people got flashbacks of the Zuma affair and began to see the President in an even darker light than they had before. Funny that, because, even though Mandela was seen as the savior, he was never taken seriously as a working President, that is, one that is in office grafting like a worker bee, making sure things are getting done. Mbeki we saw as this worker bee, which is why when he officially took over the country applauded in unison, saying “now we’ll get to work, the honeymoon is over”.

Alas, the work did not happen fast enough in people’s eyes. Instead we got scandal after scandal, – high crime; corruption in government; email hoax sagas; the JZ affair; the slapping of Winnie Mandela at the stadium; Khutsong; HIV/AIDS; Bulelani Ngcuka and the Scorpions; the banning of political commentators from SABC; the Deputy President’s R700 000 flight to Dubai; the President’s third term utterances; our “quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe; the Selebi-Agliotti fume – and the list goes on.

Last Friday in the President’s weekly online essay http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2007/text/at34.txt, he praised the contribution made by the Minister of Health and others. No doubt the Minister has made a contribution. However, we must, as the ordinary public, ask, “has she done well in her job? Or at least, done enough?”

He goes on to say the media in particular, has been peddling lies. Serious accusations, given that the media, specifically the Sunday Times, broke the story of the Minister’s alleged kleptomaniac past and drinking binges. Now here’s another question to that effect; if these allegations are truly a lie, surely suing the paper would bring out the truth in a public court case? Is someone afraid of what may come out during such court proceedings?
Does the Minister of Health enjoy a few dops of the hot stuff? Probably. She may even do so with her boss since he is a brandy connoisseur himself. So what? A lot of people do. Does it negatively affect the way in which she does her job? Now THAT my friend, would be the crux of the story, nothing else.

Should it also be true that the Minister stole jewellery and other goods in Botswana and got a jail sentence there, why not just admit it? A number of ANC officials have been to jail before, it’s not a new event. Admit it, tell the country what happened, say you are sorry, say the Minister served her time and is now a reformed and rehabilitated member of normal society. Simple.

It must be disconcerting to the President that he may well leave a legacy that is mostly devoid of praise for the good work he has done, that all his earnest efforts will be entirely drowned by the issues I tabled above. That he is a great orator, reader, intellectual and visionary has not translated satisfaction among the general population.

Is it too late to change this perception? I certainly think not.

The 90s: R&B’s golden decade

I woke up this Friday thinking “damn, what a great time for music the 1990s were!” Of course a different generation will disagree, saying there were nasties like “gangsta rap”, too much sampling, kwaito and a whole lot of other nags. Who cares! Every generation goes through this. My mother used to be disgusted by my loud R Kelly “12 Play” cassette, yes taped straight from an original into the old TDK tapes we all owned. I was quite fond of the 60 (minute) ones because even though they carried less music than the 90 (minute), they lasted much longer.

Anyway, I was on a point here. My mother’s generation, and I realise she may be the same age as some of you reading this, grew up on Miriam Makeba, Dorothy Masuka, The Manhattan Brothers, the Beatles and James Brown among others. But their parents, my grandparents, thought that music was vile to the t-junction! Most of that generation grew up without recorded music.

Now as far as the 1990s, ah what a period in our music! Especially the R&B side. Do you remember serenading or being serenaded to the heartwrenching sound of Shai back in 1993, “If I ever fall in love…”? or JoDeCi, the rough yet smooth quartet with tracks like “Forever My Lady”? How about the high-pitched teens from Hi-Five (“I can’t wait another minute”, “Never should have let you go”). Or Mariah Carey with the sad “Love takes time” and “Without you”. We had just come out of the Billy Ocean/ Rick Astley era of the love hit song and were being introduced to the golden period of R&B via such legends as Keith Sweat – Make it last forever – which was a tribute really to the genius of the 1980s new-jack-swing trio Guy. I could go on until the end of the Internet, but I’d rather leave it to you to think back and smile at the memories these and hundreds of other tracks might bring to you. Better yet, sift through your collection and just play them:

1. Tony! Toni! Tone! – Anniversary
2. Soul 4 Real – Candy Rain, I don’t know, Thinking of you
3. Atlantic Star – Masterpiece
4. II D Extreme – Up on the roof
5. SWV – Weak, You always on my mind
6. Silk – Freak me, Girl u for me, Lose control
7. Tevin – Tell me what you want me to do, Brown eyed girl,
8. H-Town – Knochin da boots
9. Exceed – Freaky way (Mzansi R&B at its best)
10. MC Hammer – Have you seen her (can’t lie, you sang along to it too!)
11. R Kelly – Bump n grind, For you
12. En Vogue – Giving him something he can feel
13. Portrait - Here’s a kiss, I can call you
14. UNV – So in love with you
15. All 4 One – So in love, I swear, These arms
16. Classic Example – I do care
17. Intro – Come inside, Don’t leave me
18. IV Example – I’d rather be alone
19. After 7 – Damn thing called love, ‘Til you do me right
20. En Vogue – Don’t let go
21. Xscape – Understanding,
22. Aaliyah – At your best (you are love)
23. BlackStreet – Joy, Before I let you go
24. Boyz II Men – Please don’t go, In the still of the night, Water runs dry
25. Kut Klose – Get up on it, Surrender
26. Mary J Blige – I never wanna live without you, I love you
27. …

Media faces spotlight

Media - society’s conscience
Media generally sees itself as a watchdog in society, whether exposing uncouth celebrities or corrupt government officials or unethical white collar criminals, media always sees itself as the custodian of right and wrong. In any normal society poets and other artists are generally seen as the conscience of that society through the truth and honesty with which they portray that particular society. Writers as well, who are sometimes poets after hours.

Who edits what
As a mini-media practitioner myself, I was saddened to learn something of an injustice happening within the media industry. The Sunday Times, Mzansi’s largest weekly, employs an editor to run the paper. His name is Mondli Makhanya and he used to be the editor of Mail & Guardian just before he took over at Sunday Times from Mathatha Tsedu, who has been doing an awesome job at City Press since taking over from Vusi Mona. Keep up now: Makhanya is at Sunday Times, Tsedu at City Press (now promoted to Editor-in-Chief) and Mona is no longer in mainstream media. All these men, are, well, men, and yes black. Back to that later.

Mzansi’s biggest newspapers
Now, in the corporate environment, logic says the biggest pays the best, which means Makhanya should theoretically be the highest paid editor in the land, right next to the guy that edits Daily Sun. Don’t forget now, Daily Sun sells around 500 000 copies DAILY, the same as what Sunday Times sells WEEKLY. That means over 10 million Daily Sun papers go through the masses every month, while about 2 million Sunday Times copies are read each month. These are VERY big numbers. Very very big.

Who earns what?
Makhanya then, gets the fattest cheque right? Nope. That goes to Peter Bruce. Peter who? Bruce. He edits Business Day. BD has a daily circulation of around 42 000, amounting to 840 000 monthly. What’s wrong with this picture? Clearly Makhanya should be asking “wait a minute, where’s my loot?”. Especially since Business Day and Sunday Times are owned by the same publishing company Johnncom. Do you smell a rat? I do. A guy like me who runs a tiny little blog in a blade of grass at FNB Stadium, that goes out to 760 people (up from 500 three weeks ago by the way), doesn’t expect to get paid R60 000 a month. But hell, if I were editing the Sunday Times I’d really ask some BIG questions like “hey, how come that guy next door whose paper is only 42% odd the size of mine, gets a bigger cheque than mine?” Does that make cents to you? Imagine President Mbeki demanding a yearly salary the size of Angela Merkel’s, Germany’s Chancellor (R2.5 million) or Shinzo Abe’s of Japan (R2.6 million). Doesn’t make sense.

Where the ladies at?
Did you notice though, that all the names I mentioned are men? Which woman edits a major newspaper eMzansi? Just two. Phylicia Oppelt of Daily Dispatch in East London and Ferial Haffajee, editor of the Mail & Guardian. Women run newsrooms all over the country, and of course they make excellent journalists. But often when it comes to promotions to the big league, their bosses, the publishers, look over their shoulders and often headhunt from outside, or worse, appoint juniors to those positions. Now can you imagine what these two said ladies are getting paid? It must surely be pathetic. Reminds me of that old joke that went: “God looked at my work and smiled. Then he looked at my pay slip and wept”.

The usual BEE rant
While it may be true that Mzansi’s major newspapers are headed by black men (Sunday Tribune, Sunday World, Sunday Sun, Sowetan, Sunday Times, City Press, Isolezwe, The Star), ownership is still either in white or foreign or both hands. None of the above-mentioned newspapers are majority-owned by black people. I excluded the Daily Sun because its editor is really its visionary owner/publisher, and not the black face he put “in charge”. So, what are YOU doing to help advance yourself and fellow women in the media field, if you are in the media? Are you falling for the stereotypical scenario of women always bringing each other down, or are you helping other sistas move up in the world? Catch a wake up man! I’ve painted you a picture here, take a close look at it!