I’ve been reading an article today called Angry as Hell about Zimbabwean musician Thomas Mapfumo. Mapfumo has been making music for over 30 years – a lot of it about justice and political change. His lyrics scared the Smith regime back in the 1970s and after Independence in 1980, his criticism of the Mugabe regime meant that his songs were banned from state-run radio stations in “independent” Zimbabwe.

In Julie Frederikse’s book None But Ourselves: Masses Versus the Media in the Making of Zimbabwe published in 1982 an old Mapfumo chimurenga song reminds us that whilst we’ve had a change of government, Zimbabwean people are still oppressed

Tichakunda – We shall overcome
Thomas Mapfumo

Knock, knock, knock,
Knock, knock, knock,
Come in, sir,
Come in, sir.

This is Harare,
The famous Harare,
Our lives are a round of poverty,
Our houses are like fowl runs,
We sleep like rats,
Our children at school,
We beg for their meals,
Their clothes are full of patches,
Their education is an uphill struggle,
Bur we shall win in the end.

The oppressors shall be defeated,
They shall confess;
The oppressors shall be defeated,
They shall confess.

This entry was posted on November 17th, 2006 at 10:56 am by Bev Clark and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.