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NONE BUT OURSELVES

The history of reggae in echoes far beyond Bob Marley’s at the show and when I was born a few years songs had been listened to with reverence on later, she named me after him.) battery operated wirelesses in the guerrilla historic concert in the earliest days of the country’s independence. camps in Mozambique. Percy Zvomuya crawls the web of influences that makes up not only Bob Marley and the Wailers arrived on 16 the sonic cartography of a revolution fuelled by music and April and, on the morning of 17 April, the day Mugabe’s attitudes towards the music filtered Marley performed at the independence gig, among the elites of Zimbabwe and its judicial reggae, but which are the very groundations of today’s Zimdancehall. a dry and functional story appeared in The and administrative institutions. Dambudzo Herald, the country’s biggest daily newspaper: Marechera, who many mistook for a Rasta man “Top Jamaican reggae artists Bob Marley and because of his dreadlocks, wrote in Mindblast, Sometime in April 1980, a chartered the Wailers and an entourage of more than 20 his 1984 sketches of the writer as bohème Boeing 707 plane landed at Salisbury’s airport arrived in Salisbury from London yesterday.” in Harare: “I cannot account for the national from Gatwick, London. This, in itself, wasn’t The report continued: “the band was warmly paranoia about Rastafarians. They invite a lot unusual, for in the months preceding this greeted by a small but enthusiastic crowd of of Rasta musicians to the main centres of the charter, with the official end of the war, the supporters and representatives from the local country yet at the same time, in the whorehouse airport experienced more air traffic. Even recording industry.” bars and hotels... in the government corridors some people who had escaped the country and in the squatter settlements – everywhere as “border jumpers” – most prominent It was 1980, the long brutal bush war had it seems – the Rasta man and anyone who being Robert Mugabe, who arrived on 27 ended and rushing in was the future. In this remotely looks like him is abused verbally, January 1980 in a plane load from Maputo, future, even terrorists like Robert Mugabe and physically, historically, socially, psychologically.” Mozambique, after five years in exile – were their sympathisers like Bob Marley were now returning to Southern Rhodesia. welcome. So blinding was the light cast by this Zimbabwe’s love for Bob Marley was quite tomorrow that no one paid attention to the by happenstance. Fred Zindi, a scholar of Lord Christopher Soames, Winston Churchill’s warning in the song “Zimbabwe”: educational psychology, music critic, and son-in-law and Southern Rhodesia’s last British writer, was at the 1980 independence show. governor, had also arrived in the weeks that Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny, “We started off, in the 1970s, with Jimmy followed the Lancaster House Agreement of And in this judgement there is no partiality. Cliff (whom Robert Mugabe preferred to Bob 1979, which had restored the country to the So arm in arms, with arms, we’ll fight this Marley), Desmond Dekker and Johnny Nash; Commonwealth, shredding Ian Smith’s 1965 little struggle, those are the artists we knew here until Bob Unilateral Declaration of Independence, before ‘Cause that’s the only way we can overcome Marley came in 1980,” he told me at his office the elections which would bring majority rule. our little trouble. at the University of Zimbabwe, where he works as a Professor in the Faculty of Education. On this particular Boeing 707 were lighting A couple of stanzas later, Bob Marley sings: and sound equipment, technical crew and Desmond Dekker? Why Desmond Dekker? Mick Carter, a name which outside of reggae No more internal power struggle; annals doesn’t mean a lot. Mick Carter was a We come together to overcome the little trouble. “He had a hit,” said Zindi, and then hummed tour promoter for Bob Marley and the Wailers Soon we’ll find out who is the real revolutionary, the tune of “The Israelites”. and had arrived in Salisbury in the role of the ‘Cause I don’t want my people to be contrary. herald, the prophet who would smooth the Since my return to Zimbabwe in 2014 after a path of the coming king, reminiscent of the Even though about 50,000 mostly, black decade in South Africa, I have been digging function John the Baptist played for Jesus people had died, the new nation under the in crates, looking for records, trying to trace Christ. “Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” Isaiah leadership of guerrilla fighter Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe’s sonic cartography through what wailed, “make straight in the desert a highway was keen to move away from that past. Instead has been discarded in flea markets, dusty for our God.” of vengeance and justice, as the thousands SPCA, shops and what people are selling. of whites who emigrated in the months Desmond Dekker is a rarity. Forty years after leading to independence on 18 April 1980 the Rhodesians’ affair with his music, there is This is when the template for Zimdancehall expected, Robert Mugabe signalled national almost no trace of his records. What you find was set down. Tobias Areketa is the harbinger reconciliation: “[T]he wrongs of the past must a lot is Bob Marley. Bob Marley in pristine now stand forgiven and forgotten... It could condition; Bob Marley without sleeves and of Potato and the herald of Major E; Tobias never be a correct justification that because pockmarked with scratches; Bob Marley with whites oppressed us yesterday when they sleeves and in reasonable condition. Areketa is the ancestor of Winky D. had power blacks must oppress them today because they have power.” “I met Bob Marley after the show and he said: The journey into Salisbury, the capital of the ‘you must teach them people to love my music, formerly renegade state of Southern Rhodesia, Bob Marley got to Zimbabwe – man. The people were standing like stoogies,’” which for years had been at war, was a flight the country he had helped sing into being Fred Zindi recalled. And then Bob Marley into the unknown and Carter thought to arrive – against the odds. The new government asked a company man to give Fred Zindi some in religious garb, an Exodus tour jacket: “The had no money to bring him to perform. But records, about 50 of them, which he then gave people in customs hadn’t a clue what to do, that was a small matter. Bob Marley would to Mike Mhundwa, a DJ at Radio 3, Zimbabwe how to deal with us. What got us and everyone pay from his own pocket for the gig, as his Broadcasting Corporation. through was a huge bag of Bob Marley T-shirts gift to the people of Zimbabwe. But even if that I had sensibly persuaded Island to give me the new government did have the means to In The Herald report a spokesperson for the before I left. These were liberally dispensed all bring the Rastaman to Salisbury, Marley’s Wailers said: “[W]e will be here until next around. And it also helped enormously that I namesake was no fan of his music. Robert Wednesday but may have to stay longer. It was wearing an Exodus tour jacket, which was Mugabe preferred Beethoven, Bing Crosby, depends on how the people feel.” When my passport to everything.” Jim Reeves and others, and was no fan of the someone speaks a truth without realising its hairstyle. “The men want to sing and don’t full spectrum, the Shona say one is speaking as Bob Marley would be the first show by an go to colleges. Some are dreadlocked,” he if they have medicine in their mouth. international act since 1972, the year American spat, later. In the 1990s, in outrage at the soul man Percy Sledge performed in Southern popularity of dreadlocks, Robert Mugabe Bob Marley left Zimbabwe a few days later and Rhodesia, the year in which the guerrilla war had urged Zimbabweans to imitate his would be dead within a year, but his sound against white minority rule began in earnest. hairstyle, not Marley’s. So, Mugabe had to remains and can be said to be part of the (My mother, a fan of Percy Sledge’s music, was be persuaded to invite the Rastaman, whose Zimbabwean psyche and landscape. 5

Bob Marley performing at the Zimbabwe Independence celebration, Rufaro Stadium, Harare, 18 April 1980

Thomas Mapfumo, the co-founder Tafadzwa again on vocals. The last names, all Zindi has written elsewhere that the band was Dem a put him in jail of chimurenga music (with guitarist Jonah Shona, are those the musicians added to their not used to multi-track recording, preferring to What? Sithole), is also the godfather of Zimdancehall. given names after relocation to Zimbabwe. record all instruments at once: “Together with Dem a put him in jail In the person of Thomas Mapfumo is to be the Misty In Roots, we advised Mapfumo to Why? found both reggae and chimurenga music, the “Mugarandega,” Shona for “the person who lay down the tracks one-by-one, starting with Dem a put him in jail sonic with the closest connection to the mbira lives alone”, is Thomas Mapfumo’s sonic riposte the drums and bass, until all instruments were Why? and the drum, Shona metaphysics and ritual, a of a celebrated motif in literature in Shona recorded. This would bring perfection to the He was singing culture way of being criminalised by both church and and English. Much romanticised in Shona oral sound as you monitor it track-by-track.” He was singing culture state since colonial conquest in 1890. traditions is the brooding and solitary figure. He was singing culture This stock character – laconic, “without family Tobias Areketa, normally the band’s backing He was singing culture In a Moto interview in August 1990, Thomas and friends”, and who prefers the company of vocalist but who on the day would share the Mapfumo was asked: “You are known widely as his dogs – appears as a spectral presence, first main podium with Thomas Mapfumo, as he You know one day them police men, you chimurenga king. How do you yourself define as Samambwa in Waiting for the Rain, Charles had been tasked with doing the Jamaican know, during Smith regime, chimurenga – is it the rhythm or the message?” Mungoshi’s 1975 classic, and as Mhokoshe in style chanting, would go into the studio last. They took Thomas Mapfumo, you know, Strife, a 2012 novel by Shimmer Chinodya. “Does that mean I have to wait until tomorrow Because he was singing culture “I don’t want to hair-split issues. We cannot to do my vocals? In Zimbabwe, we all record Culture for the motherland separate the two (message and beat). While it is in Zimbabwe’s English literature together at once.” Zindi explained to him that Zimbabwe Chimurenga music is that traditional beat of that this character gained a rugged charm and in the motherland, things were done that way What you say? mbira, rattles and drums played at important currency, outlines of this figure were, in fact, because the record companies wanted to gatherings for our ancestors. So I would not first set down on the page in Tambaoga, a shorten the time bands spent in the studio. I said I love Mr Thomas outrightly agree that I am the founder of the 1968 novel about courtly intrigue and ambition I said I love Mr Thomas beat but rather just [someone] who inherited, by Giles Kuimba. The Shona classic, which Thomas Mapfumo could have asked Munya I said I love Mr Thomas improved and perfected it and managed to partly borrows from Hamlet, features a central Brown or Dennis Augustine – or any of the I said I love Mr Thomas present it using modern electrical instruments character, Tambaoga, the son of a king who has Misty in Roots crew with a West Indian He is a true man African and made it to be liked by more people in these been murdered and who beseeches his son heritage on the mixing desk – to do the auto- He is a true man African high tech times,” was Mapfumo’s response. to avenge his death and the usurpation of the mythologising chants. Instead the chimurenga He is a true man African This was 1990, by which time Thomas throne by his brother. Tambaoga literally means man asked Tobias Areketa. He is a true man African. Mapfumo had released albums including “play on your own” but should be understood Mabasa (1983), Chimurenga for Justice (1985), to mean “keep your own company.” This name This is when the template for Zimdancehall So let’s love one another Zimbabwe–Mozambique (1988); Varombo forms a loose association with other Shona was set down. Tobias Areketa is the harbinger Let’s love one another kuVarombo (1989), Chamunorwa (1989) and phrases, words and names like zai regondo, of Potato and the herald of Major E; Tobias Let’s love one another Chimurenga Masterpiece (1990). (the eagle’s lone egg), karikoga (only child) and Areketa is the ancestor of Winky D. Let’s love one another mbimbindoga (the head strong person). To love the man Mr Thomas Of interest to the story of reggae’s evolution With love you know from Thomas To love the man Mr Thomas in Zimbabwe is Chimurenga for Justice, a On “Mugarandega”, Munya Brown – who Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited, To love the man Mr Thomas five-track album on which a mainstream would later be the mainstay of the legendary The only man to sing all freedom songs during To love the man Mr Thomas Zimbabwean artist first attempted the sound. Zimbabwean reggae band, Transit – after playing the struggle for Zimbabwe He is a true man African In that same year, Misty in Roots, a British for a while with the popular group Ilanga, was Our motherland you know; He is a true man band that had repatriated to Zimbabwe on drums, and Dennis Augustine played keys. So me say, talk about the man and his He is a true man African in 1982, also released an album, Musi–o–tunya, beautiful ways One love you know. the name the Tonga people, who had lived Word reached Fred Zindi that So me say, so me say, so me say, for hundreds of years by the Zambezi, called Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited, continued on pg. 6 the Victoria Falls before it was discovered who were on a tour of Europe, were in London He is a true man African by David Livingstone. The personnel on that for a series of shows and the recording of a He is a true man African album include Walford Tyson Poko on vocals, new album. So, Fred Zindi took a bus to Addis He is a true man African Delbert McKay Ngoni also on vocals, Joseph Ababa Studios on Harrow Road and on arrival He is a true man African Munya Brown on drums, D. Briscoe Tawanda met the chimurenga man, who said to him, I say the man is the Thomas on keyboard, Dennis Augustine Tendai on “I hope you have come to help us. We are I say the man is the Thomas rhythm guitar, Antony Henry Tsungirai on bass, trying to record an album which we will call I say the man is the Thomas Crossfield Kaziwai on guitar, and Delvin Tyson Chimurenga For Justice.” I say the man is the Thomas.

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NONE BUT OURSELVES

continued from pg. 5 This song, “Mugarandega”, from Chimurenga 1991. “Vanhu vekwedu baba havasati vaziva,” In the 1980s and 1990s, in the ghettos for Justice, was also issued as a maxi single he sang: our people still live in ignorance. The and townships to which Ian Smith and his with side two as a dub version. When, in 1988, chimurenga man was bemoaning the hegemony predecessors had relegated Africans, most Thomas Mapfumo released the hit reggae of English and American music on national working class households owned a hi-fi, maxi single, “Corruption”, in which he decried radio and the secondary place local languages some of them with so much wood they the pervasiveness of graft in Zimbabwe, occupied in the hierarchy of languages, no looked like coffins. In the aesthetics at play it also came with a dub version. Later, on doubt because of Robert Mugabe’s own in the manufacture of these appliances, the Chimurenga 98, he collaborated with DJ conservative tastes and British pretensions. In carpenter seemed to be as important as the Yuppie Banton on the song, “Set the People that tune, Thomas Mapfumo deftly condensed electronics engineer. Free.” (Yuppie Banton is part of a clutch of the polemics of Ngugi’s Decolonising the Mind: DJs that includes Potato and Major E, who The Politics of Language in African Literature The radio, it’s no exaggeration to say, occupied a mostly chanted in English in faux Jamaican into just over seven minutes. central place in the living room of most homes. accents, and featured on popular songs from It was reminiscent of the huva, the raised the 1990s.) On the track “Gombwe”, from Winky D’s mound directly opposite the entrance in the eighth album which came out in early 2018, round hut used by many as the kitchen, where On these three songs – “Mugarandega”, the Zimdancehall champion is beginning we kneel to commune with the ancestors and Corruption”, and “Set the People Free” – to explore Shona spirituality in ways I pour libations and perform other sacraments. Thomas Mapfumo was laying the foundation haven’t encountered in the genre before, Dzangaradzimu, the Shona word for radio, for the sonic revolution which took shape after reminiscent, in fact, of Thomas Mapfumo’s references dzimu, the root for the word for spirit 2000, by which time the chimurenga man own trajectory. Mapfumo recalls the 1960s world; dzimudzangara, the inversion of that himself was in Oregon, in a forlorn exile. and 1970s Rhodesian music scene: “There word is a mythical and ghostly creature, said to was no consciousness among our artists; be so tall that you can barely see its head. A few years ago, from across the Atlantic, they were into copyright music, very few Thomas Mapfumo picked a fight with Winky D, of them wrote their own music at the time In the 1980s, before the liberalisation of by most accounts the star of the Zimdancehall because that was a British colony. Everything the command economy, salaries were low cosmos, which also includes DJs like Toki the radio played was foreign and people had and foreign currency was scarce, and it’s Vibes, Killer T, Soul Jah Love, Dadza D King to go for foreign music. Politics was very low no surprise that very few households in the Shaddy, Ninja Lipsy and many others. “I listen at the time. People never thought of that. ghettos had televisions. But the radio was a lot to what the likes of Winky D are singing They never believed in themselves. They everywhere. In the Supersonic and WRS hi- and my heart bleeds. People like Winky D are thought the white man was superior, he was fis, Zimbabwe’s small electronics industry destroying Zimbabwean music,” he stated. untouchable, he was like God.” managed to successfully clone the technology to compete with the big boys: Philips, Sony, In “Gombwe”, Winky D chants: Aiwa and Telefunken. When the clock struck 12, the public address Mangoma aya ndabva nawo kunyika dzimu system rang out: “Ladies and gentlemen, Anga achitambwa navadzimu Most of these coffin radios played only records, Ndabva ndati ndiwaunze pasi rino not compact cassette tapes, the technology Bob Marley and the Wailers,” reportedly the Abva avachemedza samariro which towards the late 1980s and early 1990s Ndini gombwe remangoma gaffa rinobata bridged, in the parlance, materiality and the first words said in the new Zimbabwe. matare engoma digital. Whatever the compact cassette lacked (I have brought these tunes from the spirit in durability, it more than compensated for in world/ these tunes were being enjoyed by our portability and, most importantly, by placing dead ancestor / I thought to bring them here/ into the hands of whoever held it, the power It’s easy to imagine some ardent traditionalists they made people cry as if at a funeral/ I am a of the recording engineer. with their faces in a knot when Thomas spirit medium and I hold conferences with the Mapfumo first ran electricity through traditional dead ancestor about this sound). In the early1990s, as Apartheid fell and men lost war songs like “Buka tiende” and “Nyama their jobs due to the introduction of neoliberal musango”; or when he penned “Hanzvadzi”, a In some ways, Thomas Mapfumo and reforms to economy, enterprising Zimbabwean beautiful re-imagination of “Nhemamusasa”, Chiwoniso Maraire, the late chimurenga women stepped into the breach. They would the mbira song said to have been laid down after chanteuse who updated the mbira sound for venture to South Africa to sell doilies, curios the Shona first settled in (or from) Guruuswa, the R&B generation, belong on the same sonic, and other wares. On their way back, these the mythical place of origin for the Shona. spiritual and modernist continuum, geniuses women would buy small radios, televisions and with gourds in hand, which they use to draw groceries for resale in Zimbabwe. In the tune “Gombwe”, the title track of the deep from the recesses of Shona metaphysics. album of the same name, Winky D is heeding If Winky D continues on his current trajectory, On Thursday and Saturday nights, multitudes of the cry Thomas Mapfumo himself made in the master of the Jamaican-Zimbabwean DJ teenagers like myself would sit by these small “Vanhu Vekwedu” on Hondo, an album from style might one day join this pantheon. radios, a blank tape or an “original” inserted,

A Brief History of Chimurenga as a COMMUNAL Laboratory Inevitably, hunting would not be the exception to general politicisation. Records maintained at Mabalauta Field Station indicate continued from pg. 3 that from 1965 to 1980 saw sustained poaching in Gonarezhou.

Did vedzimbahwe derive kutora mhuka sevanhu (treating against colonial rule merged with local grievances, turning Mapocha had a very efficient weapon maintenance and animals as people; anthropomorphism in Western parlance) poaching into a transient workplace of anticolonial resistance. production system in place. Ironsmiths (including those that were from the animals themselves, or did they map human also mapocha) were not only repairing guns, but also producing characteristics specific to their society onto animals? It seems It started far away from Gonarezhou, in the cities of Salisbury, replicas. They ran their own network to monitor the whereabouts the answer is both. In any case, respect for the animal as a Bulawayo and Umtali. Invoking the emergency provisions of the of park patrols and animals. The fences that the state meant as person or humanising other creations was much better than Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA), Prime Minister Ian boundaries between villages and the game reserve created kubata vamwe vanhu semhuka (treating other human beings Smith had ordered that the entire top echelon of the African new hidden highways for mapocha. Kinship-related poaching as animals) – the worst form of inhumanity in chidzimbahwe, nationalist movement be arrested and squirreled away to very connections also cut across the border between “Rhodesian” and the project of European colonialism was exactly that. This remote places, far from the cities where they were inciting maTshangana and “Portuguese” maTshangana. Patriarchal suggests that it is impossible to reckon with the human or animal urban Africans to violence and acts of civil disobedience. structures and communalism formed the foundations upon separate from each other. What happened when animals were which military-style hierarchy and socialist collectivism were taken away through arbitrary European colonial laws creating This followed an escalation of clashes involving the two major made standard operating procedure. Locals did not come to their game reserves in 20th century Rhodesia? nationalist parties, ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People’s Union) and own struggle for liberation as spectators. ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union). Having peacefully A Transient Workspace of Self-Liberation agitated for independence, these nationalists were alarmed All journeying, hunting, fighting – life itself – could only Poaching is always political – it is not merely about a craving for that, instead of granting independence, the white minority be possible if it was spiritually guided mobility, hence the meat. To the local inhabitants, Gonarezhou National Park was regime was instead moving toward declaring independence imperative to pray (kupira midzimu) and to ask for guidance ancestral lands from which they were evicted at gunpoint. Their from Britain and remaining a white governed republic. The (kutungamirirwa) when embarking on journeying and to thank shrines and ancestral burial grounds, the venue of the hunt, gloves came off. the ancestors after arriving safely. ZANLA actually had a svikiro- and multiple forest resources they had relied upon, were now in-residence at its operational bases. behind a fence. Joshua Nkomo, leader of the now banned ZAPU, was one of those arrested in a pre-dawn raid on 16 April 1964, along with As makomuredhi deployed to a new war theatre, they received In circumstances like these, poaching became a political his deputy Josiah Chinamano, his wife Ruth, and countless instructions to head to a specific svikiro (spirit medium), whose critique through defiant action. The forest was a sacred others. They were flown to Gonakudzingwa, one of several mhondoro (lion spirit) would guide their local operations. space; it belonged and would always belong to the ancestors. designated “restriction camps”, to cool off. They were thrust into Throughout the war of independence, makomuredhi were MaTshangana and vaShona around Gonarezhou had felt this the middle of an ongoing struggle between Chibwechitedza and believed to possess the supernatural power to “mystically way since before the declaration of the proposed game reserve, local maTshangana over Gonarezhou’ s forest resources. This disappear when confronted by the Rhodesian forces” or “change during the time when district commissioner Allan Wright was was a period in which indigenous institutions were extended to into lions or chameleons... or even vanish into thin air”. The act ruthlessly disarming them of their guns. It was then that an serve as spaces for purveying, hosting, and executing resistance of becoming invisible involved calling ancestors to conjure the important event happened: the national ferment of resistance against the colonial settler state. escape by measuring a portion of buté [snuff] and placing it on 7

hand hovering over the “record” button, waiting When Linton Kwesi Johnson chanted that to press “record” on the tune I liked and would “Inglan is a bitch”, the youths, probably looking love to replay whenever I wanted. at the dusty roads, clogged sewers and cramped conditions they lived in, found the incantations For our generation, Dennis Wilson true for them as well. When U-Roy enjoined was one person whose shows were recorded the massive and crew to dance to “King Tubby weekly, and endlessly replayed. Dennis Wilson skank”, it was in the ghetto community halls was a Jamaican Briton who had found a job as Ian Smith had built that the youth danced with technician at Posts and Telecommunication the most frenzy. And the “late night blues” , Corporation of Zimbabwe, the local Don Carlos voiced so funereally, were at their telecommunications parastatal. He had started most real in the ghettos. off playing at friends’ parties and had then been invited to play on Radio 3. Back in the Harare’s spatial politics of ghetto and suburb, United Kingdom, Wilson had been involved in rich and poor, crowded and spacious, rugged the Downbeat Sound system in Fulham and and polished go back to the foundations of taken part in the sound system clashes involving the city itself. Today, the division is marked by Duke Reid Sound, Coxsone, and others. Samora Machel Avenue (previously, Jameson Avenue, named for Cecil John Rhodes’s right- “People ask me, why Zimbabwe, and I ask them hand man and lover, Dr Leander Starr Jameson). why not? I don’t know where my ancestors The city’s division was once signalled by two come from. Sometimes the way I feel about features: the Kopje, the small mountain in the [Zimbabwe] it could be here,” Dennis Wilson south which the white settlers had originally told me in 2016. chosen to settle in, in September 1890, and Causeway, in the north east, a nondescript Once, the DJ went on a visit to the rural home piece of land near a stream which had been of one of his friends, a descent into the old drained of water. country resembling the land from which his ancestors had been kidnapped. There, an An observer quoted in Tsuneo Yoshikumi’s old man, referencing the old identities which African Urban Experiences in Colonial ceased the moment Dennis Wilson’s ancestors Zimbabwe: A Social History of Harare before got off that boat, asked him about his totem. It 1925, wrote: “[T]he two ends have ever since had been a few centuries since Dennis Wilson been playing the monotonous game of ‘pull left and he was at a loss. “What’s that?” Dennis devil, pull baker’ to the infinite loss of Salisbury Wilson asked back. They would have explained itself... Causeway and Kopje have become to him how the Shona tribes have an animal, political terms in their little way, and the thing or part of an animal – the heart, say – or a is so notorious that a Bulawayian orator is said feature from nature (the river, as was the case to have recently adjured his fellow citizens not with Morgan Tsvangirai) that they hold sacred to be as Salisbury, a house perpetually divided and that they can’t eat, or with which they against itself.” can’t be familiar. So today, via a sinuous route, Zimdancehall When Wilson said he didn’t have a totem, the looms over all; this sound, which grew and old man offered to adopt him, to embrace him found sustenance in the ghettoes, was first in his own totemic expanse. “Don’t worry,” the voiced in English using borrowed Jamaican elder had said, “you can have mine.” “That accents, which morphed into Shona chants, made me feel so accepted. It meant so much and now has become the primary tool of to me,” Dennis recalls. Zimbabwe’s reinvention. Urban grooves and hip hop – the sound transmitted in the posh In Mbare and Mabvuku, Highfields accents shaped in the private schools of and Kambuzuma (where Winky D is from), and the lush northern suburbs of Borrowdale, other ghettos in Harare, in Pfupajena, Umvovo Greendale, and Mount Pleasant – wilt in the and other ghettos in Chegutu, in Senga and shadow cast by Zimdancehall. Mkoba in Gweru, and in many other towns and cities, young listeners considered Dennis But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me go Wilson’s name as totemic and, twice every back to the beginning. week, had a date with him. continued on pg. 8 A Zimdancehall genealogy

the ground for the ancestors. Then, as the enemy’s guns blazed, komuredhi beseeched the ancestors to guide him out to safety. National Heroes Acre I Ex-makomuredhi will swear that the mhondoro transfigured continued from pg. 2 them into forms invisible to the enemy. “My father is both dead and alive,” Matar writes. “I do not have a grammar for him. He is in To fight the coloniser often meant having to live not only like the past, present and future. Even if I had held his hand and felt it slacken as he exhaled his last animals in the forest, but also with animals of the forest, sharing breath, I would still, I believe, every time I refer to him, pause to search for the right tense. I caves with dassies, hiding in pools with crocodiles and sleeping in suspect many men who have buried their fathers feel the same. I am no different. I live, as we all trees, sometimes even with leopards. These are the times when live, in the aftermath.” maTshangana and vaShona’s notions of animals as spiritual(ised) beings came to the fore, and when life as guided mobility was ever so apparent. Makomuredhi who saw combat say they never Something cracked after I’d read The Return. Hisham Matar’s words chimed in the distance of fought alone, as mere vanhu venyama (people-of-flesh), but as my consciousness, like a church bell: I live, as we all live, in the aftermath. And by chance that spirit(ual) beings, always under the wing of mhondoro. October, I met my first ghost. A young man, a taxi driver, in his late-20s, haunted by the violence he’d experienced post the 29 March elections in 2008. A time which now seems so far away, but The local struggle was no struggle in the abstract, or simply a for him was as close, as present, as the breath in his nostrils. national cause; it was the latest episode of a long-running saga pitting a people aggrieved about the loss of their lands and ZANU–PF had lost the presidential race and its parliamentary majority and in response unleashed animals against a state that criminalised their access to that a wave of state violence, dubbed “Operation Makavhoterapapi?”(Operation Where Did You Put heritage. Your Vote?). An operation presided over by the same army which would remove the president The nationalist message gained traction locally through the social from office hardly a month later. “They are killers, those people,” he said, as he dropped me off, at networks of kinship, which served as information highways. From the intersection of Long and Orange Streets, “Where is Itai Dzamara?” The journalist and political Gonakudzingwa or the rally at Chikombedzi, the word was carried activist abducted from a barber shop in March 2015 is still missing. The question hung in the air in person to the villages, where it was disseminated at spaces as he drove away. like padare/ huvo, at beer parties and nhimbe, at games like dhema, during firewood gathering, at chinyambela, at wells, and In that moment I felt ashamed. In my desire to forget, I had mirrored the regime’s cruelty: the whispered in the bedrooms between husband and wife at night. denial of others’ suffering. What societies, what futures will we build on the back of forgetting? What kind of nations from historical distortions and silences? “What is a just society,” Thabo The indigenous structures of knowledge production and practice Mbeki is said to have once asked. His response: “a society that remembers.” Remembering. became vibrant sites of discussion and organising toward the Remembrance. The refusal to forget. That is what the dead are calling us to do. birth of a new political order. Such were the transient workplaces And so again I ask: of anticolonial organising, places where we seldom look when Who will count the dead? thinking about nationalism or, for that matter, when describing Where will the names be written? the work of nation building.