Africa calls
I've had a naughty evening. I should be swatting up for my grammar test on Tuesday, but instead I've borrowed someone's CDs (I should be feeding her fish while she's in South Africa, but hey the CDs were there, and the fish was already fed). Listening to African music again, after a decade now gone since living in Uganda for 8 months, in Zimbabwe for 2 months, and with a fellow Africa-lover at uni for two years, has made me remember a lost part of my life.
Oh how I love that part of African culture! The part where people are fighting for freedom, with such persuasion and uprightness. Where the hills sing out with freedom even when none seems to be there economically. Where me and my friends Ruth and Jo danced on the street outside the development studies building at Swansea uni (where we'd studied about colonialisation and post-colonialisation and SAPs and participatory development), barefoot, in our kangas and shawa kamise, at the end-of-year party.
Here's the lyrics to the song that brought all this back; it is about the need for political freedom in then-apartheid South Africa, and the men and women who gave up their lives for this cause to be noticed. When they start saying the names of those died for racial freedom and equality, I start to get angry at the injustice in the world, but proud to be aware of the issue and a part of the fight by caring.
So Mandela was kept captive on Robin Island across from the Cape Town Bay, others died unseen deaths, and the songwriter dreams of broken silence over their deaths, and people brought together in equality and unity rather than living as islands. This speaks for the injustice in society in itself, it doesn't need comparing with anything else. And yet it also reminds me of another story. That of our own fallenness in not following God, of the silence that needs to be broken between humans and God, for us needing to be brought together into God's large worldwide family. And the man who died for this is be accomplished - but who's death we didn't see.
Oh how I love that part of African culture! The part where people are fighting for freedom, with such persuasion and uprightness. Where the hills sing out with freedom even when none seems to be there economically. Where me and my friends Ruth and Jo danced on the street outside the development studies building at Swansea uni (where we'd studied about colonialisation and post-colonialisation and SAPs and participatory development), barefoot, in our kangas and shawa kamise, at the end-of-year party.
Here's the lyrics to the song that brought all this back; it is about the need for political freedom in then-apartheid South Africa, and the men and women who gave up their lives for this cause to be noticed. When they start saying the names of those died for racial freedom and equality, I start to get angry at the injustice in the world, but proud to be aware of the issue and a part of the fight by caring.
Asimbonanga (mandela) by Johnny Clegg
Chorus:
Asimbonanga (We have not seen him)
Asimbonang' uMandela thina (We have not seen Mandela)
Laph'ekhona (In the place where he is)
Laph'ehlikhona (In the place where he is kept)
Oh the sea is cold and the sky is grey
Look across the Island into the Bay
We are all islands till comes the day
We cross the burning water
Chorus....
A seagull wings across the sea
Broken silence is what I dream
Who has the words to close the distance
Between you and me
Chorus....
Steve Biko
Victoria Mxenge
Neil Aggett
Asimbonanga
Asimbonanga 'umfowethu thina (we have not seen our brother)
Laph'ekhona (In the place where he is)
Laph'wafela khona (In the place where he died)
Hey wena (Hey you!)
Hey wena nawe (Hey you and you as well)
Sizofika nini la' siyakhona (When will we arrive at our destination)
So Mandela was kept captive on Robin Island across from the Cape Town Bay, others died unseen deaths, and the songwriter dreams of broken silence over their deaths, and people brought together in equality and unity rather than living as islands. This speaks for the injustice in society in itself, it doesn't need comparing with anything else. And yet it also reminds me of another story. That of our own fallenness in not following God, of the silence that needs to be broken between humans and God, for us needing to be brought together into God's large worldwide family. And the man who died for this is be accomplished - but who's death we didn't see.
posted by Henrietta at
8:11 pm
|
0 Comments
