given mukwevho

When the prison gates were opened

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho spent eleven of his twenty-nine years jailed at various prisons including privately-owned Kutama Sinthumule Maximum Security Prison in Makhado. He was arrested in 2000 for breaking and stealing from various businesses in Makhado and slapped with a 22-years prison sentence.

Today he is out on parole which is frustrating. “Being a parolee means you cannot go to places of your will without first informing your probation officer. Even when it means going to a tuck shop, you must leave a message in case an officer finds you absent at home”, he says.

Mukwevho was born in Madombidzha village outside Makhado where he stayed with a single mother’ who was always off fending in Johannesburg’. He says while he ‘can’t cite any social conditions as a cause for my crimes’ he yearned for certain things and as nobody could provide for him he stole money from shops to buy clothes for himself.

At Kutama Mukwevho pursued creative writing through UNISA. “When I was released in 2010 the first person I met was a man who was going to become my publisher, Vonani Bila,” he remembers.

Through Timbila, Mukwevho has since published a collection of short stories titled A Traumatic Revenge. He’s happy that readers do not classify it as prison writing. By his own confession ‘the writer's physical being was inside, but the soul hovered somewhere in between with one eye glimpsing the outside life and the other witnessing the inside life.’

He is currently working on a manuscript titled The Violent Gestures of Life which is about life in prison, “The boy wanted to sodomise Bheki; that’s his claim anyway. Was there any need for Bheki to take a ghastly decision to stab him with a knife though? Was it the only decision to arrive at? It is likely his intention was to warn the new boy, send him away with the knowledge that if he continued demanding sex from other boys he might die sooner than he had expected”.

Mukwevho has become a sought-after ChiVenda poet. Last year he headlined the Polokwane Literary Festival and relates to temptations incarceration brings. “He (another inmate) gives you books, and even adds at least three new pens he has arranged from his connections. The next thing he sends a piece of note requesting exchange of love favours. Sodomy is not just a word: Sodomy invokes images of a man inserting his penis into your anus”, Mukwevho wrote in an essay.

His sanity was saved by a supply of reading material which chiselled the juvenile into an inmate poet who published eleven poems in Timbila 6. “I managed to write lots of stuff from within the prison walls and I cannot label myself a prison writer.” he adds. Amongst the throngs of people whose material he read was Bessie Head, Njabulo Ndebele, Andre Brink, Lufuno Ndlovu and Can Themba. Newspapers introduced him to Sello Duiker, Phaswane Mpe, Niq Mhlongo, Sandile Memela etc.

“Mac Manaka and David wa Maahlamela are two people whose poetry I encountered when I was in the single cells in Thohoyandou Prison. Wa Mahlamela's poetry was featured in Sowetan Sunday World's poetry page, while Mac's poetry and an interview appeared in S'camtho youth magazine,” he adds.

Elana Bergin, editor at University of Kwazulu-Natal Press who mentored Mukwevho since he was incarcerated testifies that there’s a lot of improvement in him. Bergin says Mukwevho has improved on his understanding of structure and his English. “He’s a brilliant poet. Has worked hard and improved a lot. I can say he is a very promising writer”, she says.

A free Mukwevho is currently negotiating a national publishing deal for his first novel. He lives with his partner and child in Makhado and writes for three local newspapers. 

“I was arrested at a very young age, so the prison experience taught me that I have got to work hard for everything I need in life. That's the reason why I was able to study hard and have a focus on life while I was still in jail”, he says.

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oscar pistorius

Cry Me a Reeva - What did Reeva See in Oscar?

To be quite honest with you I have always wanted to post on Oscar Pistorius but shuddering a lil' bit when I look at the four legal brains procured to get him off the hook. I have been afraid that I might post something wrong and end up having Adv Barry Roux putting it to me while comedians make a joke about me and rappers find inspiration in my bluff. But after Friday's postponement I think I can take a week to speculate.

RED CARPET: Is it all there was to Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp?

Truth is, I'm one of those who want justice to prevail against all odds in this trial. I truly have no interest in seeing Oscar going to prison or escaping responsibility; because his shrewd lawyer got him off by a technicality. If he's guilty he must go; if not he must walk, the same way it was the case President Jacob Zuma during his rape trial. So, I look at Roux (including Zuma's Kemp J Kemp) as that lawyer I will hire when I am facing 25 years in jail and I look at Nel as that prosecutor I would look forward to having prosecute a case inwhich I am on the good side.

So, it has been quite a good three weeks of a roller-coaster ride inwhich I, like international television would have lost interest if the State summoned all its 107 witnesses to testify. That the state called a few crucial ones and closed its case has renewed my interest in the debacle. Also, because while providing riveting viewing, the trial is a substitute for the International T20 World Cup taking place right now. Anytime Judge Thoko Masipa decides to shut us out of the gruesome evidence we can tune in to cricket and see another gruesome evidence of failure on the part of the Proteas selectors.

So, I have always wanted to write about paralympian Oscar. I love the chap; regardless of what he's accused of. He epitomises truimph of the human spirit. Everytime I go to shopping complexes in the sleepy towns of this country I am confronted by limbless folks at the entrances of grocery stores asking for pennies. I am confronted by blind folks begging for charity. One of them could have been Oscar; but no, Oscar has an Olympic Gold medal and was rumoured to make R20 million a year before the sponsorship plug was pulled. That's why I love the guy; his fighting spirit, his determination to win, his vigor and his passion for finer things in life.

On the same breath I love the Reeva Steenkamp story. I never had the opportunity to know the sassy model in her living years; only after her tragic death. Reeva is a picture puzzle I only know through pieces assembled by friends and family. Remember that there was a debate about whether the Tropica Island show that featured her should be screened or withdrawn. That decision brought us closer to Reeva; her disarming beauty, smile, her drive and passion. In a way we came close to seeing what is it that Oscar saw in her. She was probably his Gold medal, his 'Baba', something he could have that ordinary folks couldn't. It was twice as sweet for Oscar because here was a chap without feet who could scoop the prettiest wannabe model right at the nose of some of us with our two feet. So, it must have felt good to outrun us again.

Reeva was to Oscar what the Olympic Gold medal was to some of us. A medal we couldn't get because we are not even competing on that track. So, given Oscar's rage at losing a Gold medal in the London Olympic and complaining that the other chap's blades gave him an advantage; the potential for losing Reeva must have felt like that to young, rich and armed Oscar.

The chap might have had a fascination for firearms or might not but it's irrelevant today. His fascination is not his but it's white culture. The only thing real is that Reeva not only complemented but also completed the Oscar specimen.

Then we need to wonder what was in Oscar for Reeva. Money perhaps? For God's sake the chap did not even have feet and has been seen on SABC3' Top Billing canoodling with a sexy lass in Seychelles? There was evidence that the paralympian had a taste for finer things. It's natural, he's an athlete; think about all that adrenalin and wonder which one outlet can accommodate all of it? I tell you every cup would overflow and two to three would be needed.

So, as a layman who loved both Oscar and the character of Reeva I think it's inconceivable that a woman would still be dreaming of cracking it as a model at 29. Don't this girls crack it while still young and tender? 29 for someone trying to be  a model is the equivalent of a 39 years old woman trying to crack a first marriage. What I am actually saying here is that those are desperate times. Those are times that the desperate will do anything to crack it.

 So, here is Reeva noticing that Oscar stands on more red carpets than she does. She notices that half of what Oscar's revenue comes from is endorsements which in a way are as a result of the number of corporate and sporting events that he graces. Reeva notices that the media will always obsess with who Oscar is dating; and if she happens to be a pretty woman wanting to be a model that might open modeling doors for her. She thinks of a David-Victoria Beckham. Reeva notices that being closer to Oscar will get her attention and maybe; even at 29 she can still be a model after all, something she missed being at 21.

 That might explain why she stomached all the abuse which came to light in the state case. 90% passion and 10% abuse is the same as 90% abuse and 10% passion. Half of what Oscar allegedly did to her I doubt she would have stomached coming from me, someone who steps on two red carpets per year if I crack an invitation.

 For me, that was the making of that tragic relationship. There was never really a romantic relationship but a relationship of convenience for both of them. Oscar loved how Reeva made him feel while Reeva loved what Oscar's brand had the potential of doing for her own.

Oops, I finally wrote about Oscar; I still love him and don't understand the ANC Women's League's obsession with him. If only the ANCWL sat with every woman or girl in court over a rape, abuse and murder matter, we would have an improved dispensation of justice. The ANCWL would improve from being a burial society to a real advocacy organistion.

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zimbabwe calling

Zimbabwe Calling: Updating my Activism

Sometimes I get quite disturbed by issues outside of my jurisdiction but which continue to violate my peace of mind. Which reminds me of some time ago when I was still a learner and saw in the staff room a poster which encouraged us to stomach things that we can’t change.

 I know I can’t change the situation in Zimbabwe but I refuse to stomach the status quo. Truth is that Zimbabwe is spoken about in the past tense. People discuss its glory as if it was sixty years ago. Truth be told, it’s not long ago when it was termed ‘the bread basket of Africa’. As a literature fundi I was intrigued by tales of the Harare Book Fair which was said to be the biggest in Africa and attracted luminaries such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o and other respected African thinkers and scholars.

 Zimbabwe was everything we wished post’ apartheid South Africa to be. The colonialists such as Ian Smith continued to live and cause noise in parliament. Thousands of English continued to farm the fertile, which to a certain extent was the reason it was the bread basket.

 But as we all know Zimbabwe did experience an economic slump, half brought about by economic sanctions imposed by the West and half by economic mismanagement by the ruling party. The West’s sanctions worked because Zanu-PF did not device a plan over so many years to run own affairs in the absence of the English.

 What I mean by this is that President Robert Mugabe, in his hundreds of international visits did not tag along enough experienced indigenous entrepreneurs to help in diversifying the economy of his country. The import/export/distribution/retail connections and contracts remained with the same colonists.

 Thus, when Zanu-PF implemented its controversial land redistribution plan it had figured out how to take a farm but not where/how to sell the produce to the international market. As a result fresh produce rot in storage, resulting in low sales and a domino effect of retrenchment which led to unemployment, poverty and the economic meltdown that saw millions cross borders to neighbouring countries.

 It can still be argued that the land redistribution programme was a super nationalist project. I went to Zimbabwe last year and spoke to journalists, NGO people and ordinary people and what I found was that it was good programme mismanaged for party political benefits.

 Sources told me that scores and scores of untrained Zanu-PF senior members were the real beneficiaries of the land process. Some were given farms they didn’t even have an intention of staying in. they continued to live in cities while owning vast tracts of land they didn’t farm; or couldn’t since the overheads were not circumvented by government.

 I was told that when hunger crept in and the public raised their concern they were silenced through secret police and Zanu-PF loyalists scattered in rural areas. That’s when the exodus started; no wonder it coincided with the rise of the Movement for Democratic Change. The more the MDC accelerated the more the iron grip intensified. Zanu-PF could see its sell-by date.

 That’s what I was told last year as I travelled to Mashonaland Central and past vast tracts of farmland some rumoured to be owned by Vice President Joyce Mujuru. I went past a mine, an army school, an intelligence centre, rural communities and fertile land which lay fallow.

 I revisited the Zimbabwe of my dreams again last week through a Skype conversation with progressive Zimbabwean journalist Robert Tapfumaneyi. We discussed how things were, how they are and how they can be.

 He was adamant that the political leadership in Africa has had a tendency to create problems for expediency objectives and then argue that they should be left alone to solve Africa’s problems.

 Responding to my observation that the reason why Zimbabwe’s solution remains elusive is because of the tribal make-up of the country whereby the Shona have been at the top of the feeding order for ages. He explained that when one looks at the MDC as it was when founded and even when it went to the elections last year there were skills from both tribes and such faultlines never showed up during electioneering, even on the MDC-N’s side, the faction led by Ndebele Welsh Ncube.

 My experience of Zimbabwe has been very much like that of Kenya whereby the moment you mention a person’s name; depending on the tribal identity of the person spoken to, they are quick to mention the tribe. It reminded me of the time I was in Kenya and I mentioned someone’s name and someone suddenly said, ‘oh, Kikuyu’. When I enquired after arriving back home I was told it’s because the Kikuyu are accused of being thieves. “They stole the whole Kenya, from Jomo Kenyatta to Uhuru Kenyatta”. Now, that’s not Africa for you, that’s paranoia and relic of colonial thought right there.

 Tapfumaneyi argues that not even assumed pragmatists such as Simba Makoni and Jonathan Moyo are not the solution. Makoni left Zanu-PF but some people believes he remains a party person through and through. His DNA is Zanu-PF. Moyo left and later returned to Uncle Bob’s party. Maybe his was a strategy that worked such as that of the young Zanu-PF motormouth Psychology.

 It seems the solution to Zim’s problem lies in opposition parties uniting to confront Zanu-PF like a scourge. There can’t be talk of business as usual while Zimbabwe does not have its own currency but transacts on USDollars and ZARands. Tapfumaneyi sees the meltdown as having started when NGOs where suddenly closed to centralise civil service responsibilities to government. In that context such services could be used to recruit Zanu-PF members and the much feared Green Bombers.

 Mugabe sent young Zimbabweans into a war for diamonds in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He then allowed the situation to degenerate into a situation whereby the security architecture was made up of the army, police, Green Bombers and the unofficial magumaguma at the border who raped and killed those fleeing.

 In this chaos diamonds around Marange were stolen and lined pockets of party leaders. Finances from the Central Bank were looted to benefit the first family and close officials. These were allegations that the government couldn’t refute with facts. Spokesperson Brian Matongo, good at spinning was failing at spin.

 Tapfumaneyi sees the current debacle inside MDC not as an internal problem capable of disorganising the opposition but as a process that will separate the boys from the men.

 According to my source things have not improved since the elections. We all know the economic sanction are still to be lifted by the West that imposed them. Mugabe is old and tiring fast. Mujuru could contest the presidency but she has to win the party ticket.

 During my last visit to Zimbabwe some activists said Zanu-PF’s trump card of discrediting other political opponents by questioning their struggle credentials is getting tired. Tapfumaneyi also concurs that that chimurenga argument is becoming obsolete. “Chimurenga played its part but now we have people with a political understanding to can take this country forward”, I paraphrase. It’s something said by one 30-years old activist last year; “I’m thirty years old this year, this republic is thirty years old, where does Mugabe expect me to have fought the colonists?”

 I will provide another update someday soon. For now there are millions of Zimbabweans outside its borders who cannot go back because as Tapfumaneyi says, the situation does not inspire confidence 

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erotica vs porn

Art that speaks in languages

Four years ago then Minister of Arts and Culture Lulu Xingwana angered artists when she snubbed an exhibition by renowned activist-photographer Zanele Muholi. 

 Muholi, whose photographs on issues affecting women in society usually stirs emotions told an arts blog, “I cannot say I am living to shock people. I am living to expose and also to educate. Sales, or no sales, it doesn’t matter to me – it has to be done”

 Xingwana interpreted visual depiction of lesbian intimacy ‘pornographic’ and her decision to walk away robbed her of an opportunity to understand the context of such work. What Mpumalanga painter Linda Shongwe calls artistic illiteracy resulted in the vandalism of Brett Murray’s painting of The Spear in 2012. It seems political leadership in South Africa has a problem understanding a language art should use in a post’apartheid society.

 Commenting on The Spear saga, Director of the National Arts Festival Ismail Mahomed said, “It is a sad day for SA particularly when we boast that our democracy was built on the historical legacy that the arts played a significant part in our fight against the past system.”

 31-years old artist Mary Sibande feels that one of the challenges facing artists post’apartheid is to find a visual voice with which they can be able to articulate issues closer to them. She says her consistent theme, which she explores with her alter-ego named Sophie has been to tell stories of her family. 

 “My grandmother had two African names. Since both of them couldn’t be pronounced by her employers when she worked as a domestic worker they called her Elsie. That story made me feel sad. The stripping of people’s identity because of what they did for a living was painful”, Sibande discloses. She adds that her grandmother had lots of dreams and wanted to be a teacher. “She wanted not to be a maid. So since I was born in the ‘80s I felt that through my art I needed to tell my great-grandmother and grandmother’s stories”

 Her stories, of colonialism and stolen identities are in reality relative to almost every Black South African family. Sibande’s alter ego, Sophie is an army of life-size sculpted dolls dressed in blue domestic worker overalls and aprons. Women being stripped of identity is a canvas for her work.

 However the artworks that emerged post’94, unlike traditional pieces about longing and nostalgia such as those of Gerald Sekoto which commemorated a dark era in South Africa, seems to sit uncomfortable with society while trying to advocate for the same wounded society. 

 Johannesburg arts curator Priscilla Jacobs has observed a running theme in most of the work she exhibits. “Contemporary art which is produced locally is reflective of the way life is at the moment. Visual artists are reflecting more the HIV/AIDS reality”, Jacobs says.

 Which is exactly what Muholi told Mahala about the portrait of a naked woman holding inflated condoms which she took on a Durban beach, “I wanted to articulate the lack of safe sex in our relationships. I have friends who are HIV positive or are still coming out and we still don’t have better methods [of contraception].”

 “I think with visual artists issues of women emancipation are being articulated given that it’s more about the subject matter, about what happens around them. Some is even more political” adds arts curator Eunice Rooi.

 The heavily varnished statuettes that zigzag the Newtown landscape narrate the story of contemporary Johannesburg. The miniature busts could easily be paying homage to the bronze statue of Brenda Fassie, which itself represents feminine greatness.

 Art, both visual and craft have for many years been archives of different epochs in the history of South Africa. The Polaroids shot by the late Alf Khumalo managed to communicate a whole history of a country’s people.

 Sophie represents many aspects of identity and society’s perception of beauty. “Beauty depends of what fills you. We must understand how much our identity was compromised. With curly hair you were not beautiful. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a certain look but identity plays a role”, Sibande says.

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