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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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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Reach for the Sky


Miss Mpumalanga hopeful Thato Matšie is only twenty-years old and can already see herself walking out of the Ehlanzeni Conference Centre with the crown on April 13. She is competing against 13 other equally beautiful and gifted young women – all hoping to continue to represent Mpumalanga at the Miss South Africa pageant later this year.

“I started modelling in high school, winning both the Miss Valentine, Lehlasedi, Shatale and Mapulaneng school contests. I am currently with Select Modelling Agency in Rosebank and have attended Miss SA workshops. At the workshops it finally dawned on me that if I want to be at the top I need to start at the bottom”, Thato says.

She adds that contrary to her earlier perceptions of modelling, it is not as easy as it is made out to look. Thato says her view was broadened at realising that she needs to be informed about what is happening politically, be intelligent and have a brain to understand the challenges faced by young people in the country. “I want to use my participation in Miss Mpumalanga to bring hope to the people of Bushbuckridge as a whole, rural areas and teenagers who are at a disadvantage, especially those who feel that they don’t have hope. I want them to know they can make it in life. I want to be their role model” says this hip-hop sensation Rick Ross fan.

Thato also confesses her liking for Thandiswa Mazwai and says ‘Mazwai is real, a woman-and-a-half. I love her personality’.

The leggy lass aspire to open beauty spas and libraries throughout communities as her way of reaching out. She says women’s health and beauty should not be exclusive to the elite but should be as affordable as a Pap Smear. “I want to be Miss South Africa, own cars and houses. My two role models are my mother, Lebo and Sibongile Sambo, founder of SRS Aviation. She’s the first black woman to own an aviation company and school in Africa. She’s a strong woman who has done a lot and motivated me. She comes from my hometown too”, Thato says fondly. She is also a Flight Attendant student in Johannesburg.

Last weekend her charity donated 250 school uniforms, shoes and bags to Lehlasedi High School and Boikhutšo Primary School learners.

“I believe that our fashion industry in South Africa must integrate our ethnic designs and fabrics into what are globally big brands like Gucci. We need to promote Africa and be more innovative instead of just being consumers” she says about our fashion industry. Her love for women’s beauty is one of the reasons why she wants to study Somantology later in her twenties.

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Onse Artist in District Six

Outlaw artist Sandra McGregor understood the vast vistas of storytelling outside of the then much-hyped oral literature and the glam offered by DRUM magazine and its genius writers such as Can Themba and Blake Modisane. Afrikans have over the years succeeded in having their knowledge transferred from one generation to the next through campfire tales – that was before someone exposed the pen and paper to them. Folk tales have survived various assaults since nobody had the power to burn – literally every Black person with a story embedded in their mind. And when they started using various mediums such as photography (Alf Khumalo), sculpting, painting etc the apartheid wheels came off.

Thus, when Sandra McGregor saw District Six – a mixed residential area that had defied any attempt by the apartheid government to divide by race – and not rule the majority population of South Africa she saw a canvas hungry for her oil and brush. Over many years she recorded life in this ‘controversial’ part of the Cape, including the day the bulldozers came with instructions to bring to an end a social experiment gone gory.

It was 1962 when she settled there as an artist – almost an outsider in a community that was MADE IN PRETORIA. Dolores Fleischer, who authored Onse Artist in District Six made it her mission to trace the route that Sandra took, her muses, her rags to riches story, her inspiration, her uncelebrated talent and the probable reasons she felt at home at District Six.

When I have to review work as disarming as Onse Artist in District Six I am confronted with the reality that the best story of South Afrika’s artistic excellence, including its place in the world has not yet been told. The Van Goghs, Picassos and friends don’t have nothing on our artists. What with the robbery that took place during apartheid years – some through curators who took in their own possession classic works by South Afrikan exiled artists such as Gerald Sekoto and the raping of works by sculptors Noria Mabasa and Jackson Hlungwani to the point where they adorn majestic buildings outside of this country – bought at a pittance.

Paraphrasing what Steve Biko said about a people with two versions of history, Fleischer not only makes this poignant point to stick out throughout her biography of McGregor but she also uses it as a political tool to interrogate the past. “The individual spirit and its artistic expression can never be destroyed”, a blurb on the back cover makes that point very clear.

The destruction of District Six aimed at discouraging, through action human disregarding of the social engineering that was taking place in their mist, mirrors that of Sophiatown. The architects of poverty’s attempt to render history a lie by destroying the inspiration that ended up on McGregor’s canvass is not lost to Fleischer’s narrative which accompanies the paintings and the profile of biography artist.

Like The Artist in the Garden – the Quest for Moses Tladi by Angela Read Lloyd, the sting in the tail of these works is the fact that they are bios written to celebrate triumph of the human spirit – against odds larger than physical and legislative hurdles.

This is a beautiful book that will be useful more the day South Afrika answers back to critics of the modernity (contemporary claim) of its artistic landscape.

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An Apple that fell Far From the Tree

They used to say an apple never fell far from the tree. Recently this idiom has come under serious challenge. First it was Marc Brown, the son of former defender and SAFA Lowveld President Mr Allen Brown choosing basketball to soccer and now it’s the same son, now going by the name of DJ Prodigy occupying the number two spot for Polokwane on the online music chart reverbnation.

This simply means that for a few weeks now he has been voted the number two house deejay in Limpopo by music lovers who get to listen to hundreds of songs on the file sharing site. He debuts at number 19 in Mpumalanga, regardless of having already released three EPs and in line to release another one end of September.

DJ Prodigy, a media studies student says he was inspired by the growth of the house music industry in the country to follow his passion after basketball. That passion has already seen him producing tens of songs which he has already played to rave reviews at the University of Limpopo and its surrounding clubs.

“My music has to be heard and played in Mpumalanga as I’m gonna need all the support I can get from my province”, said Prodigy, who also triples as a graphic designer and producer.

He says in Mpumalanga he will be competing on reverbnation with brilliant producers such as Extreme, Native and Da Capo. “I just did a remix of Papago o rata Mmago for Moko who plays a huge role in production and upliftment of house music. He also masters all my songs” adds Prodigy.

Prodigy’s music, which we had an opportunity to sample at a listening session is intoxicating and well-fused. It is deep house with saucy riffs and a thumping bassline, often over tribal sounds. “My favourite local DJ is Cula de Song while I draw my international inspiration from Lass Berenhof. For local house to work out we need to have a national top 100 list for house. In that way we can produce house music that we can export to other countries instead of always playing small”, he says with finality.

Prodigy plans to release his Chillour House Sessions Volume 1 Club Compilation soon.

His music can be currently heard on www.reverbnation.com/marc-da-prodigy brown

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VIDEO

the shatale biography

weekends are now exclusively reserved for goodbyes & lullabies

no longer do we watch soccer we watch caskets going down

we count blessings every step we take from the womb to the tomb

HIV/AIDS on the rampage communities perish like flies

sisters is shedding sweet tears finally paroled from brothels

go to confession mami make the church your haven

friendships replaced by conspiracies judas is reincarnated

hugs conceal real motives & the backstabber's Okapi

welcome to my township - mi casa su casa

why did we nip love @ the bud when they showed us the dollar

how can we all scream aluta when some are rested in Benzes

marijuana's now our messiah guarantees redemption

it's a cold-cold world father i'm down on my knees

rescue me from temptation i see the bait of lucifer

bullets still lick asses of brothers who forgot how to act

we misled now believe black sheep should die in the dark

install doors on caves & disappear from your glory

my township is contradictions prays to god but praises satan

we wonder why he's your son but lacks your light

we gave our faith to mighty dollars that never bought us life

brett kebble caught hollows left us wondering why

tens of millions couldn't bail him from the angel of death

last night i humbled myself & dialed mary the virgin

to save me from my fears of dying before turning 40

give me a reason to live while everyone is dying

take me to heaven if it's there i'm converted sans faith

i'm blind can't close my eyes i pray with them open

for everybody i love to have eternal life

everybody that left to be forgiven they sins

everybody on they deathbeds to get well before christmas

for shatale to be bold enough to bury its dead

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