Although I love music, I never used to think of it as a big thing until I interviewed a couple of local musicians when I was still a journalist for the national newspaper. They made such shocking revelations about the industry that they loved and had chosen for their careers. They gave testimonies of how they and their colleagues had been tortured, jailed, exiled and even killed, banned or denied airplay because of their music. I began to wonder why certain forms of music attract so much discomfort and therefore silenced. I recall even then that when I submitted their story to my editor, it was considered to be not newsworthy and never saw light of day on the broadsheet.

South African musician Johnny Clegg once said: “Censorship is based on fear.” Fear of what? Music is a free expression of the ideas that may express musicians’ hopes and aspirations, their joys and sorrows, or simply how they see things. However these expressions often conflict with those of people in power. One wonders whether they genuinely feel threatened by (healthy) criticism or they simply do not like or appreciate music at all? In Zimbabwe it seems more like some are threatened by the very nature of a free exchange of ideas. Musicians form a critical aspect of social commentary – what my lecturer used to call the social conscience. They, like everyone else, have rights to certain levels of freedom of speech. Music censorship is a threat to the future of music around the world.

Today, Monday, March 3rd is Music Freedom Day, an annual global event advocating freedom of musical expression. Musicians and broadcasters worldwide will focus on music censorship.

I bet most people, music lovers or not, have no idea what kind of hell most musicians go through. Often, when we talk about human rights defenders, only groups like WOZA, human rights organizations and other direct protesters come to mind. Protest musicians, with their subliminal, often subtle messages are often forgotten but constantly face the wrath of the powers that be for being too vocal.

It might open your eyes if somebody reminded you of how government has arrested, banned and harassed people for simply expressing themselves through art and music whilst trying to make a living as artists.

• South African DJ Cleo has apparently been banned from ever performing in Zimbabwe because he uttered “bad things”. What DJ Cleo allegedly uttered was a critical comment about President Robert Mugabe’s economic mismanagement. According to DJ Cleo, the ban came after he made a joke on the radio about his trip to Zimbabwe.
• Raymond Majongwe’s music has been banned from the Zimbabwean radio. The government has been uncomfortable with Majongwe’s music because it is too critical. Although he is still battling it out with the government, people distribute his music on the streets thus some play his music in the comfort (safety) of their cars or homes.
• Thomas Mapfumo, of Chimurenga music style, exiled and most disliked by the Zim government, has made the US home after facing a complete blackout of his music in Zimbabwe.
• Do you remember also, our childhood favorite DJ on the former Radio 2, Brenda Moyo, who suffered under Jonathan Moyo’s regime. She was forcibly retrenched after she had played two blacklisted songs and generally failing to play according to Moyo’s tune.
• Maskiri, an urban grooves rapper with an explicit and cutting tongue has been forced to change the title of his upcoming album, ‘Vuka Vuka’- meaning ‘Aphrodisiac’ or a sexual enhancing drug- in order for him to get airplay from the state broadcaster. His music is considered explicit content.

There are many others- the likes of Chiwoniso Maraire, Hosiah Chipanga and Andy Brown who’ve rubbed certain people the wrong way with music considered either too critical or simply illicit.

Music censorship is a very real threat to most musicians’ careers and lives. This threat heightens especially towards elections- like this very period we are in. But as poet Chirikure Chirikure once said, “Elections come and go, but a poem or a song lasts a century.”

Some of the questions to ask ourselves are: should critical/protest musicians/ offensive content musicians be silenced even if they have specific audiences who would like to listen to them? Shouldn’t it be up to the individual to select and listen to particular content for themselves rather than have it censored on their behalf? Does censorship really work? For instance, in Zimbabwe, musicians manage to evade censorship by creating songs with double-meanings. And they often get away with it. Musicians like Oliver Mutukudzi, although well respected, have almost been in trouble with the government for songs perceived to indirectly refer to and mock the president. Although Mutukudzi himself never once said the song Bvuma Wasakara (loosely translated to mean, Admit it: You are now too old) referred to the president, his audiences deduced meaning for themselves. Well, a member of his stage team had initially beamed a light on the portrait of Mugabe while the song played amid cheers from the crowd. This is what set the ball rolling on the inquiry about the song which Mtukudzi defended by saying it had been derived from his personal family experiences and only talked about domestic issues – not anything political. That’s the beauty of music, people make sense of it in whichever way they like. The song is still blacklisted to this day.

Music can be banned but the voices of the singers will never be silenced. Above all, people will always be eager to listen to the banned music. Banned music, like pornography, always finds a way of circulating.

Let us know your thoughts. Should certain music be censored? Who should decide this? Tell us about some of the music/musician you’ve loved and why, but has been censored for some reason. Leave a comment here, or write to us on info [at] kubatana [dot] org [dot] zw or phone us on +263 4 776 008. Kubatana will put together and publish the various thoughts of our readers.

For ideas on how you can participate in advocacy for music rights and the right to freedom of expression in general, visit the Freemuse website. Freemuse is the World Forum on Music & Censorship, advocating freedom of expression for musicians worldwide.

And if you thought music wasn’t such a big thing, did you know that the Taliban in Afghanistan are trying so hard to stop everyone there from playing music, blowing up CD-shops with bombs, and giving fines to people who play music in their cars? Imagine the possibility of a music free generation, doesn’t that scare you?

Go ahead, play a controversial song, interview a censored musician, or dedicate your next song to freedom of musical expression on Monday, 3 March.

Shepherd Mandhlazi doesn’t just sit back and bleat. He writes to various newspapers sharing his opinion. He writes poetry and dramas which comment on the Zimbabwean crisis.

As Howard Zinn wrote recently

Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens

In my book, Shepherd fits the description of a concerned citizen.

A letter of his was published recently in the Mail & Guardian – here’s a short excerpt

We have faith in Makoni even though he is Zanu PF, which the people hate. He does not display the excesses and fanaticism of his party comrades – the violence, insults, the tendency to point fingers at others when faced with problems.

And here’s a poem that Shepherd has just sent to Kubatana.

I am angry
I have heartburn
Bread, maputi – monotonous diet.

I am angry
I am fearful
I look over my shoulder
I am Zimbabwean.

I am confused
I’m counting the zeros
Is it a billion or a trillion?
I’m counting the zeros.

I am confused
What price is the bread?
Is it three million?
Is it five million?
But it was one million yesterday.

I am confused
I am Zimbabwean.
What is my crime?
Is it loving my wife
And not being able to provide for her?
Is it waving at my friend,
Or not saluting the presidential motorcade?

I am confused
I am Zimbabwean
I am bitter, I am angry.
Where is my father?
Did he run away from us?
What did he mean when he said;
They will come for me,
the revolution eats its children.

I am angry, I am bitter.
I am Zimbabwean.
Where is milk and cereal for my daughter?
Where is bacon and eggs for my wife’s breakfast?
Where is the money
for my night out with the boys?

I am angry, I am lost
I am Zimbabwean.
Why do I sweep the streets in a foreign country
my degrees in my back pocket?
Why do I jump fences
crossing into a better country?

Where is my manhood?
I can no longer feed my family.
I am not a man,
I am a Zimbabwean.

Why does he speak on my behalf,
Lies!!
I do not hate the British
I do not hate the Americans
I don’t care,
a Dube or Jones owning the land
I want food on my table.

I am hungry.
I am angry.
I am confused.
I am bitter.
I am a Zimbabwean.

On Saturday night I went to a wonderful dinner party sharing conversation with a cross-section of Zimbabweans. We did a whip around on the subject of the election and people were either voting Simba, or spoiling their ballots. Speaking of Simba I noticed his full page election advertisement in The Zimbabwe Independent on Friday. Besides the fact that it didn’t say a hell of a lot, it appears that Simba doesn’t feel that its necessary to provide any contact details so that we, the Zimbabwean electorate, can actually get hold of his campaign office to find out more about his policies, when he might organise a public meeting – you know, all that trivial stuff. When I mentioned my complete disgust at this arrogant electioneering one of the dinner party guests snorted and said that I was thinking too much like an “intellectual” and that this is Africa and this is how Big Men behave. As Brenda mentioned in one of her recent posts, if you haven’t read the policies of, or listened to these presidential hopefuls, or been invited to a public meeting, then Just Say No to the big men of Zimbabwean politics and spoil your ballot rejecting their arrogant behaviour.

To set the scene:

On 19th February 2008, members of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) were engaged in a peaceful “Save our Education” campaign in the streets of Harare. When they approached the 4th Street bus terminus they were apprehended by, as yet unidentified, youths from the ZANU (PF) building. The 9 teachers were taken inside the building and subjected to all manner of brutalization including but not limited to assaults with clenched feet, open palms, booted feet and assaults with iron rods. Female teachers among the victims were subjected to verbal abuse of the most degrading and inhuman nature. One female teacher was stripped naked in full view of her male colleagues and assailants alike and had her genital area repeatedly trampled upon (read more from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights).

These violent youths, themselves victims of the crumbling education system, are amongst those who shake their heads and bemoan the state of things in Zimbabwe. It won’t be long before they join the trek south, looking for the very future that the people who they are assaulting are campaigning for.

Their duplicity, and their stupidity makes me furious.

It takes enormous courage for individuals to go out in public in Zimbabwe and campaign for their rights and the rights of others. The PTUZ’s sustained efforts to bring positive change to the education sector are all the more amazing considering the punitive environment in which they have to campaign.

And, given the callous and cruel behaviour of the police in response to this incident, it is difficult to differentiate between the police and the thugs.

The Police took all the victims to Harare central police station and laid them along an office corridor at CID Law & Order Section where they were still lying and writhing in visible pain at the time lawyers deployed to attend to them eventually found them at around 1400hrs. Lawyers were initially denied access by the officer in charge of CID Law & Order Section Harare Central Police Station namely; one Detective Chief Inspector Manjengwa. One lawyer was forcibly escorted from the victims as he tried to do a physical count of them and hand-over medication to one of the victims Mr. Raymond Majongwe. Offers to ferry the victims to a hospital were turned down by the police.

If you share our outrage at this blatant disregard for the teachers’ right to raise awareness about the plight of education in Zimbabwe, please write in solidarity to:

• Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe
  P.O. Box CR 620, Cranborne, Harare, Zimbabwe

And in protest to:

• Commissioner of Police
  Augustine Chihuri
  Zimbabwe Republic Police
  P.O.Box CY34, Causeway, Zimbabwe
  Tel: +263-4-250008
  Fax: +263-4-792621

• The Officer Commanding Harare Central Police Station
  PO Box CY 154
  Causeway
  Harare
  Zimbabwe
  Telephone+263-4-733033

• The Ministry of Justice
  Post Bag 7704
  Causeway
  Harare
  Zimbabwe
  Telephone +263-4-774620-7

• The President’s Office
  Post Bag 7700
  Causeway
  Harare
  Zimbabwe
  Telephone: +263-4-707091
  Fax: +263-4-708540

• Your local Member of Parliament

Please make a point of raising awareness of this issue in your social circles.

As we approach March 29, l find myself in the grip of something that is fluttering in my belly, like hope. That maybe, just maybe our time has come. But just when l start thinking of the possibility of change in Zimbabwe, l am gripped by a relentless sense of apprehension. I dare not hope, because that hope has been dashed so many times before. But a part of me refuses to simply subside with a whimper into hopeless resignation. In thinking about this uncharacteristic ambivalence, l recall this passage from Alan Paton’s book;

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley for fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

Something caught my eye in The Herald. The newspaper leads with the story “Britain steps up regime change agenda, pours in £3.3m”. In writing about the alleged regime change agenda, the writer quotes from a “copy” of a letter allegedly written by the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to the Deputy President of the British Law Society, a Mr. Holroyd. A purported copy of the said letter is published on page 2 of the Herald. In writing about the letter the writer says, “Mr Brown said Britain would continue to do everything we can to cause regime change in Zimbabwe, which remains a priority for this government.” In fact this is a misquote as Mr Brown does not make reference to “regime change” in the alleged letter. It is the author’s very interesting interpretation of what Mr Brown said that had him concluding that the Prime Minister was talking about regime change. What Mr Brown does say in the letter published on page two is;

“We will continue to do everything we can to ensure a better future for Zimbabweans: a democratic and accountable government, respect for human rights and the rule of law, and policies which ensure economic stability and development, not humanitarian misery”

For some reason, the writer has a problem with us having a democratic and accountable government, which has respect for the rule of law and which has a plan for ensuring economic stability and development, not perpetuating humanitarian misery. In his mind, our desire for these things is treasonous; it is a desire for regime change.

But what is “regime change”? It is a term that has been used ad nauseam in the government controlled press. I looked it up on the internet and sources seem to define it as quite literally, the replacement of one regime with another. And regime? It is defined as a form of government; a set of rules both formal and informal that regulate the operation of government and its interaction with society. Used like this, the term itself is quite innocuous. However it is that other interpretation which l suspect, has The Herald writer in a tizzy. My source tells me that the informal use of the word “regime” carries a negative connotation, usually referring to a government considered oppressive or dictatorial, whether it is in power through a consistent application of its constitution or not. Now this is not meant to be a thesis on political terms, all l want to do is ask the writer of the lead article in The Herald and all those other writers in The Herald past and present: You are angry that Britain allegedly wants to engineer regime change, is that an admission on your part that the government we have is in fact a “regime”?