Johannesburg- His voice carries clearly across the Atlantic the moment he picks up from Ohio, literally seven time zones from South Africa.
We observe the niceties, making small talk about the cold in Ohio, but our interview gets off to a bad start the moment Prof Zakes Mda realises I’m taking notes in shorthand.
“You are going to misquote me,” he says good-humouredly. “That’s my fear with South African journalists – they’ll put inverted commas as though the quote was taken verbatim … I have no qualms about paraphrases, but don’t misquote me.”
Taking one for the team, I apologise on behalf of the fraternity, promising to e-mail him a draft to sign off.
With some brio, he talks about his love for the bebop era, reed players such as Eric Dolphy, as well as John Coltrane.
“I also like South African jazz. I like Malombo. I liked them when they were still Malombo Jazz Makers. That was before the days of Thobejane [Mabi]. That doesn’t mean I don’t like him. I used to smoke dagga with him in Lesotho. That’s when I was still young and wild,” he says.
Alto sax technician Barney Rachabane was underrated, he says, adding that it was a shame that he was not celebrated [Rachabane died on November 13].
“Let me confess, which is very embarrassing on my part, I was not aware that he’s alive. I forgot about him. Why have we not said anything about him all these years when he’s contributed so much to the arts? It means that now that he’s dead he’ll be forgotten some more. Yet he was a giant of jazz.”
We segue quickly into politics and Mda is pretty blunt about politics in South Africa. He’s expressed his dissatisfaction at the ANC’s governance, calling the party out for corruption.
“My fear for South Africa is that the ANC is destroying my country. The ANC, which is my movement, though I will not vote for them, are busy destroying the country.
“I hate their corruption and I will never vote for them again because of their rot. I hope that voters of South Africa will wake up and stop voting against their own interest.”
The vexed question of foreigners in South Africa concerns him, he says. While he’s all for a unified Africa, an idea first propagated by Marcus Garvey, he feels it should be done within the confines of the law.
“I’m a pan-Africanist. Every country has immigration laws and all those countries expect their immigration laws to be obeyed. It is important not to discriminate against them because we are working towards the United States of Africa. It is important that these foreign
nationals should not be discriminated against in South Africa.”
Mda appreciates the role of instant messaging technology on political discourse in the country, though he warns against people who have reduced the debate to information they get from social media without having all the facts.
“Social media is very good because it has given ordinary people an opportunity to participate in the political discourse. Ordinary people are not experts. If I want experts, I’ll go to experts. Also, you just don’t take what people say, you go and check it against other sources. Many ordinary people are information-challenged.”
Born in 1948, Mda has been churning them out since the ’60s. His very first play, We Shall Sing for the Fatherland, written in 1968, deals with the disillusionment of soldiers who have fought in the liberation of a fictional African country.
After fighting in their country’s war for independence, two soldiers return to civilian life but have neither homes nor jobs.
In light of former combatants who recently held ministers hostage, the play has been described as profoundly prophetic.
Does he believe former liberation combatants got their due in post-apartheid South Africa?
“It depends which ones you are talking about. Some [combatants] came back and occupied positions of power. My work has been described as being prophetic. The Dying Screams of the Moon, which I wrote 30 years ago, addresses the land issue. That’s what they are talking about. It’s just knowing the world.”
His latest novel, Wayfarers’ Hymns, is set in a very musical Lesotho exploring the history of famo music. Famo was born in the speakeasies of migrant mineworkers in Lesotho.
The book traces the story of the boy-child minstrel and his sister Moliehi. It also deals with the famo gangs and the battle for control of the illegal mines.
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