S Ndebele: Celebration of 15 years of democracy in arts

17 April 2009

Chairperson of the African National Congress, Dr Zweli Mkhize
Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba
MEC for Arts, Culture and Tourism, Wesiwe Thusi
Our very own award winning Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Our home grown poet and story teller, Gcina Hlope
Families of our honorary award winners
Artists and musicians

Good evening

It is a great occasion to honour our legends of the arts, music, dance and
theatre.

The innovative step taken by the eThekwini region of the African National
Congress (ANC) to honour our country’s leading musical icons Ladysmith Black
Mambazo, and the posthumously recognition of Lucky Dube, Miriam Makeba and
Sipho Gumede is applauded.

It is important for us to note, and appreciate, the power of music and the
arts, and the effect it has in our daily lives. Our own struggle for
liberation, in exile, prison or on the streets was characterised, and unified,
by song and dance. In exile, the Amandla Cultural group toured the world, as
the mainstay of our political communication machinery.

From the Amandla Cultural Group, to the political songs in prison, to the
songs of Umkhonto Wesizwe and to the songs of toyi-toyi throughout South Africa
in the 1970’s to the 1990’s, the ANC has always been aware that, through music
and the arts, a major contribution has been made to the struggle for
liberation.

Artists are able to live beyond the normal lives of ordinary people. This
they do through the artistic works which they create. Although he lived from
1564 to 1616, because he wrote extensively, William Shakespeare is still alive
and fills every classroom and lecture hall throughout the world. And today,
some feel inadequate if they have not read or, adequately, understood William
Shakespeare.

Although he lived and composed music in 17 and 18 centuries, George
Frederich Handel is alive in the hearts and minds of many people throughout the
world. As late as last week, Handel’s most famous choral work, called the
Messiah, was performed in the city halls of Durban and Pietermaritzburg.

Shakespeare, Handel and many others continue to live, long after their
deaths, because they wrote what they felt and shared it with audiences through
script and performance.

Tribute

Three of the four artists that we commemorate and honour here tonight, Sipho
Gumede, Lucky Dube, Mirriam Makeba, are no more with us. But through script,
record and performance, we can always visit their presence, feel it and
interact with it.

The Ladysmith Black Mambazo group, our own home grown talent have been three
times winners of the prestigious Grammy Awards.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo was often regarded as male choral music but it took
an acclaimed international musician, Paul Simon, who brought Ladysmith Black
Mambazo to reach world recognition and believed the group had mainstream
appeal.

So intense was the introduction of Ladysmith Black Mambazo to the world
stages that in their most famous tour in 1988, called “Journey of Dreams North
American Tour,” the Group performed 48 concerts in two months, without rest,
moving from city to city in the United State of America (USA) and Canada,
earning very positive reviews. The rest is history.

Mama Mirriam Makeba performed in exile, highlighting the plight of the
oppressed and the evil nature of apartheid. As an artist, she was immediately
recognisable and used that competitive advantage to steer the course of
struggle of exile which some may argue, without music and the arts, would have
been obscure to many in the world. She used gum-boot dance , traditional Zulu
and Xhosa songs and purely African image and person to win the hearts of many
from the United Nations, including the likes of President Jomo Kenyatta of
Kenya, President Samora Machel of Mozambique and Sekon Toure of Suinea, among
others.

Sipho Gumede lived almost his entire life, walking side by side, with a
musical instrument called the guitar. His real exposure came when he joined a
half-protest, half-professional Afro-jazz group Sakhile which means we have
built here.

Symbolically, this was a name in protest against forced removals. Sakhile
soon played all over the world, interacting with musicians in exile and
intensifying the struggle for liberation, in conjunction with the call for
economic sanctions in the halls and theatres of London, New York, Washington,
Paris and Brussels.

The world was listening and the world heard. Gumede spent the rest of his
life promoting not only his music, but helping young musicians to understand
the nature of music in Africa which is that music does not exist for its own
cause.

Lucky Dube, a former teacher who turned to music, says he chose reggae not
because it was fashionable but, more so, because being identified with Haille
Selasie the Emperor of Ethiopia, Jamaica and the rebellion Peter Tosh, it was
bound to bring fear to the apartheid state. And so he sang in defiance of the
apartheid status quo, becoming extremely popular all over the world, yet
humble. It is ironic that in a free South Africa senseless thugs, who could not
identify with his stature, brutally took away his life.

ANC honours our artists

In recognition of the power of music and the arts to unite people and force
them to be aware of their existence and the existence of others, the ANC, in
1993, staged the Sisonke Festival at ABSA stadium.

Some 80 000 people assembled to watch and listen to the most eloquent,
non-commercial community arts, once more defining and redefining the struggle
for liberation and the next direction that was to be taken in preparation for
the first democratic elections in 1994.

In KwaZulu-Natal we have taken an even more emphatic role in which we have
recognised the role of music in the definition of our identity and heritage.
The KwaZulu-Natal Premier’s Choral Music Project has been conceptualised and
implemented within the broad framework of the African Renaissance.

This project utilises the power of choral music to record our history. And
so like we, in the ANC, did in prison, exile and the streets during the
struggle for liberation, our composers have now stopped composing songs simply
to fulfil their personal ambitions.

They are composing for a cause. Since 2006, when we started, songs have been
written which illustrate the histories and legacies of Bhambatha, Mahatma
Ghandi, Chief Albert Luthuli, Moses Mabhida, Mkabayi ka Jama and King Dinuzulu,
to name a few. Choirs assemble all over the province, in small towns, townships
and rural halls to sing about these heroes and heroines, before the district
winners take to the provincial eisteddfod.

We plan that, one day, the project will be national and international so
that the legacies of our past heroes can be stored through the most powerful
medium of communication, which is song.

I salute the eThekwini region of the African National Congress and believe
that more regions should emulate this initiative so that what Oliver Tambo
started in exile, through the Amandla Cultural Group, can remain part of our
future identity.

Enjoy the evening.

Thank you.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
17 April 2009