55 SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE Music and Dance Make Me Feel Alive: From Mandela's Prison Songs and Dances to Public Policy Johann S. Buis, DA, MM* Abstract reconciliation as public policy. The Truth How is it possible for song and dance to exist and Reconciliation Commission’s unprece- in political incarceration and manifest itself dented breaking of social and jurisprudential later as public policy responding to apartheid boundaries, the claim of agency for both atrocities? Examining the body of songs, oral victims and perpetrators, and public policy history accounts, and eye-witness reports of South Africa’s first democratically elected provided by fellow-prisoners of Mandela on black president, lie deeply embedded in Robben Island prison, I uncover a psycholo- cultural practices he testified to in his gical environment mediated through music autobiography, “The Long Walk to Free- and dance - within the confines of a political dom”. These cultural practices in prison prison. This source of prison music-making were singing and dancing. by political prisoners in detention, provide us This paper complements the music-as- with the artistic expressions of revolutionary torture trope: here music in detention carries songs, parody songs, praise songs, laments, ontological agency. Musical evidence of etc. These music genres reflect ontologies stylistic features, text, and contextual embedded in Mandela’s juristic imagination. analyses, and related literary criticism My framework for explaining these devices, expose Mandela’s embedded ontologies is a theoretical framework I call an internal and external ontological cultural aesthetic of function: internal ontologies that practices. Here, song and dance have agency speak to the African cultural ground against to influence public policy despite the which external ontologies are expressed in the constraints of political detention. jurisprudential redress to apartheid atrocities. Examining his external (jurisprudential) Any suffering we experienced was made more ontologies through song and dance, one real by song and rhythm which leads to a culture realizes that the best way for him to have of defiance, self-assertion and group pride and solved the unprecedented public redress of solidarity (Steve Biko, tortured and died in apartheid atrocities is evident in the songs he Pretoria Prison) TORTURE Volume 23, 2, 2013 Volume TORTURE sang in Robben Island prison. Retribution Singing is part of the cultural life of South could have been a logical solution for him. Africans, especially black South Africans, singing Instead, he turned to truth-telling and is part of our very rich culture. … Every facet of our life is celebrated through music. So when you go to jail the tradition continues … When you *) Wheaton College, 501 College Avenue, Wheaton, are down, music uplifts the spirit, gives you hope. IL 60187, Ph. … You cannot stop a political prisoner from Correspondence to: [email protected] talking, you cannot stop an African from singing 56 SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE (Lionel Davis, Robben Island prisoner 366/64) Introduction Ironically, it is in jail that we have closest When Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela said fraternization between the opponents and 'Music and Dance make me feel alive" supporters of apartheid. … We have eaten of their during an unidentified interview, I knew that food, and they ours; they have blown the same the statement was a matter of cultural musical instruments that have been ‘soiled’ by embeddedness, not simply a frivolous black lips (Ahmed Kathrada, Robben Island comment of mere entertainment. This prisoner 468/64) chapter attempts to explore that deeper It was not the searing pain that seemed to meaning behind his words. come as an explosion that took my breath away The purpose of this chapter is to shed and had the greater impact, but rather the light on cultural practices that can be thought that fellow human beings were doing this overlooked in discussing public policy to me in a completely cold blooded manner. The positions taken during political transitions. I effect was dehumanizing and the anger generated examine the role of song and dance as was difficult to control (Sedick Isaacs, Robben cultural practice in the context of political Island prisoner 883/64) imprisonment during apartheid (1948-1994) Singing with your heart [in silence], it on Robben Island, the infamous prison eight sustains you, it composes you, because you are miles outside Table Bay, South Africa. alone, you remember the songs that you used to Furthermore, I posit that one has to take sing and the songs that were sung during the cultural practice into account when exa- times of the wars of resistance among Zulus … mining the legacy of one of the world’s most those songs that they used to sing when they go for significant statesmen of modern times, war are the songs that gave me power to face the Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. enemy when I was all alone and knew that here From the numerous quotes at the top of [in detention] they can kill me. So those songs this article, the role of music on Robben will give you power … My body will just be a Island (except for the quote by Steve Biko) stone upon other stones to build the castle of shed light on identity formation through tomorrow (Grant Shezi, Robben Island prisoner) defiance, endurance of brutal inhumane Janie Cole being awarded the 2010 Janet treatment, and the therapeutic role of singing Levy Prize from the American Musicological and dancing among political prisoners on Society. Her website states: “This moving story Robben Island, where most of South Africa’s will be told via a multi-media book, a documen- black celebrated male political prisoners tary film, a double album of music and a unique were dehumanized by white prison guards. archive of South African oral history.” In his autobiography, Mandela attests to this All quotes with one exception (Biko) – first- fact, saying ‘[N]o one truly knows a nation hand accounts of song and dance on Robben until one has been inside its jails. A nation Island shed light on the chapter discussed should not be judged by how it treats its below--are taken from the website of Music highest citizens but its lowest ones—and Beyond Borders. For more information, see South Africa treats its imprisoned African http://www.musicbeyondborders.net citizens like animals.’1 (pp 174,175) The humani- zing expressions of song and dance while Key words: Mandela, song, dance, truth and being treated ‘like animals’ as Mandela says, reconciliation commission, ontologies, apartheid, point to sophisticated ways in which intellec- torture TORTURE Volume 23, 2, 2013 Volume TORTURE tual/artistic/cultural abilities were marshaled 57 SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE by political inmates in prison. I argue that reconciliation, not retribution.b This public the use of song and dance was of far greater position was by no means insignificant for a significance than at first meets the eye. Song new South African government transitioning and dance formed the cultural grounding for from an undemocratic police state to a new public policies that Mandela could use democracy. during his presidency of South Africa. Naturally, certain questions arise, given In order to examine the shift from the premise of this chapter. What makes a cultural grounding to public policy, I argue political prisoner, imprisoned for 27 years, of that a significant marker of Mandela’s which a significant part was spent breaking identification with the lowest citizens is rocks by hand on an offshore penal island, through songs and dances. This identification emerge as a man of reconciliation? Was it a with the common people through song and strong internal moral compass? Was it a dance, practiced during his youth and his belief in truth, honesty and human dignity? adulthood in prison and in public, is a Was it the mores learned during his royal significant tenet of his belief system. ‘A upbringing? Was it the stimulating compa- nation should not be judged by how it treats nionship of his fellow political prisoners? Yes, its highest citizens’, he declared, ‘but how it it was all these factors and more. I argue that treats its lowest ones’.1 (pp 174,175) Nation- a strong internal cultural grounding, building and his resultant public policy expressed through song and dance, not least positions during his presidency rest in large of which experienced during imprisonment, measure on the fact that he believed the provides us a clue to the unconventional moral strength of a nation to be in the way it public policies enacted by Mandela when he treats the least of its citizens. After discussion became the first president of a democratic of the songs and repertoire of political South Africa in 1994. I refer to this internal prisoners on Robben Island, I examine the cultural grounding expressed through song Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an internal ontology.c By contrast, I refer (TRC), instituted by Mandela, during to the practical implementation of his public 1995–2002. The reason for mentioning this policy ideas as his external ontology. commission is that it serves as an example of Together, the examination of the internal a public policy accomplishment of Mandela’s ontology(/ies) combined with the external term as president of post-apartheid South ontology(/ies) constitute a theoretical Africa.a A consequence of using this public framework which I call an aesthetics of policy accomplishment produces a signifi- function.d Therefore, I contend that the cant by-product; Mandela’s emphasis on theoretical framework of the aesthetics of TORTURE Volume 23, 2, 2013 Volume TORTURE a The charter of this commission was promulgated by an act of the South African Parliament: Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No. 34 of 1995. For more information, see the United States Institute of Peace.