The xenophobic violence in South Africa has grabbed headlines in South Africa. Gangs of angry young South Africans frustrated by poverty and unemployment took to the streets of townships like Kayelitsha in Cape Town brutally assaulting and killing hundreds of foreigners.

Burn Mukwerekwere Burn is the story of two Zimbabweans caught in the middle of the maelstrom. The play is at times brutal in its honesty and assessment of the reasons why there are an estimated three million Zimbabweans resident in South Africa. As they attempt to journey to safety, they reflect on the predicament they find themselves in and characters are forced to deal with their own tribal differences.  Njabulo is a Shona teacher reduced to carving trinkets for foreigners to buy. Farai, is Ndebele and a trader in South Africa to restock in time for the holidays.

Written by Blessing Hungwe, featuring himself and Michael Kudakwashe, this narrative is the woven perspectives of both protagonists, trying to survive a night of horror in South Africa. Ultimately they come to understand that the things that bind them together, a love of country and life, are greater than the things that keep them apart.

From a Kubatana member:

Is Dictatorial Behaviour A Form Of Mental Illness? If So can We Capture Such Individuals And Hand Them Over To Psychiatrists. 4 How Can U Entrust A Whole Country To A Madman?

HIFA entered day three yesterday and the fun still goes on and on. The HIVOS Poetry Café keeps getting bigger by the day as the number of audiences increases. I’m sharing a puesic performance (when poetry and music come together) by Kenyan Ngwatilo Mawiyoo yesterday at The HIVOS Poetry Café titled ‘Lesson on Heritage’.

Vision of land         aaaka
Vision of Mulata Ivia kula Nzaui        akaa
Vision of ugali and sukuma wiki    sesesesese
Goat meat goat meat goat meat!

Persistent sunlight over the savannah        aa
dry desolate dust dancing over distance     a
woman’s woman sighing she swallowing
“coulda-done” – she’s moving on
I want Goat meat Goat meat Goat meat!!

And in Nairobi the sidewalks ache
there’s too many people walking crushing cement
maybe roots beneath    mmm  not enough sweepers,
dust rises coating stone buildings brown  Aii
So much struggle, toil, soul moaning Asi!!
Want Goat meat Goat meat Goat Meat!!!

Our foot stamps, prints rock beyond Nzaui,
in South Africa New York Tennessee
England Germany California Texas Ghana India
Tanzania Toronto Bangladesh Trinidad, Canada, Panama,
- everywhere we go, meet you, where you go after
seeking GOAT meat GOAT Meat GOAT MEAT -

So you too can endure
little rain and lengthy travels
and smile     dance
believe.

To see Ngwatilo Mawiyoo and other local and regional poets perform and feel the vibe of the spoken take part in the HIVOS Spoken Word programme. Be part of HIFA through engagement in poetry and music. Ngwatilo Mawiyoo’s first publication, ‘Blue mothertounge’ is on sale.

In this moving and thought provoking video clip from The Man Who Committed Thought, the protagonist asks what, really, we mean by justice and democracy, when their foundations are so often rooted in hypocrisy. “I will not be judged by those who refuse to take the speck out of their own eye. They are no fit position to see clearly to take the stone out of mine,” he cautions.

A friend of mine dropped off a bunch of magazines that she had finished reading. We recycle magazines – eventually they will end up at YOUR GP – but only when all the fashion advice is really redundant, the gardening tips are for the wrong season, the hairstyles are disgusting and the sexperts are old news. The usual suspects were present: “Cleo”, “Cosmopolitan”, “Elle” et al.  Every time I had a break this weekend (to be assured of 5 minutes uninterrupted reading time is quite a feat) I dived, nose first, into the nearest copy to read about how everyone else is doing it better.

People out there are having unbelievable sex (several times a week, if not several times a day – my bum is a biscuit!), they are great parents, successful entrepreneurs, accomplished sports people, over-achievers and ball-breakers.  You put down one of those magazines thinking you have to start that diet, and get that exercise and teach the kids from home and run a successful business and still find the time to make your husband feel like a god.  AND prepare home-made chilli jam and plant an organic vegetable garden and make homeopathic remedies from scratch from the garden.  If I had a super power, that would be it; all things to all people.

Needless to say yesterday morning I did the 5 recommended stretches for want of something better to do. Stretches mind you, nothing as ambitious as the Comrades to start off with, it’s not like I was pushing my luck. I could hardly brush my teeth today. I feel like a dressed chicken, about to go into the roasting tray – you know how you sometimes hold them up by their wings (or is that just me?) and the skin looks all stretched and tight and white (brownish if they are Argentinean) – that’s what I feel like.

Anyway, needless to say, when the alarm clock went off at 5 this morning to remind me to do my stretches – I gave it the finger, from the warmth and comfort of my winter feather duvet.

A man, educated and African, finds himself in the gallows, charged with crimes against humanity. He is a lawyer, educated in England, with a firm belief in Christian values, and has more than just a passing admiration for the Queen and his adopted country. He is a man who has been alienated from his culture, identity and people. Mamadou, a peasant farmer with a sizeable family but limited means bursts into the lawyer’s life begging him for help, or rather mercy. Mamdou’ s cow has expropriated by the government without compensation and now he wants to sue, to take back the rights that were forcibly taken from him. As the story unfolds the lawyer encounters the corrupt and powerful President Junta, who is shortly unseated in a coup led by ‘Tuff Boy’ a rebel leader. It is only when he witnesses the murder of Mamadou at the hands of the rebels that the lawyer finds his humanity, but in his quest for justice he commits unspeakable crimes, for which he is brought before the court.

The facts of the play may be specific to Sierra Leone, but it is the story of every African country cursed with resources. President Junta may be a dictator, but he is a democratically elected one. He is fat and wealthy off the numerous kick-backs and deals he receives from governments and multinational corporations wishing to do business in his country. Western leaders, donors and corporations treat him like a king, as though the country and its people were his personal property; unchallenged, he behaves accordingly.

‘Tuff Boy’ is a grotesque illustration of a rebel leader, high on cocaine, formerly angry and powerless, until he took up arms and waged war on the government. Tuff boy asserts his power through the gun and innumerable rapes of women who feature in the play as nameless, faceless and voiceless victims.

Colonialism lives on in the lawyer, who condescends towards and patronises Mamadou. Despite his high handed Christianity, the lawyer is torn between his disdain of the ignorant and poor ‘native’, and his baser native instinct which drives him to lust after Mamadou’s daughter.

The man who committed thought is a moving play that is an indictment of the hypocrisy of the human rights agenda, aid, and the nations that give it. It illustrates the conflict between humanitarianism and humanism, and shows that right and wrong are not necessarily black and white, but rather, they are painted in shades of grey.