Vukani Mawethu Travels to Southern Africa

by Alex Bagwell

Vukani Mawethu Choir had its origin and purpose in the process of the political emancipation gained by South Africa. The choir developed as anti-apartheid fervor became the alternative avenue for many peoples the world over (not least in the Bay Area) who were fighting for jobs, housing, food, education and other human needs. In other words, this single issue encompassed all the issues around which they were already in struggle.

In 1997, the choir made its first trip to South Africa. The African–African American historical and

political interconnection is perhaps closest

there because of capitalism’s origins in the enslavement of African peoples, beginning with Angola in 1619. In 1975, the anti-apartheid movement was sparked by thousands of schoolchildren in Soweto who walked out of their classrooms to protest being taught in Afrikaans. Workers and small capitalists in developed capitalist countries such as the United States, England, and Germany watched the images of anti-apartheid protests on television and identified with the mainly Black people being beaten and shot in South Africa. The anti-apartheid movement spread worldwide.

As we had done in 1997, in 2009 Vukani Mawethu traveled to Southern Africa, singing, bringing money to anti-AIDS organizations, and generally being absorbed in the culture of the people. We visited the Baphumelele Children’s Home in Khayelitsha, outside Cape Town, and then traveled to Hope Village in Windhoek, Namibia, where we spent a couple of days and performed at a pre-SWAPO Day celebration and at a Lutheran church. Back in South Africa, we visited and performed at the Ubuntu (humanity toward others) Foundation in Kwide, outside Port Elizabeth. We did the same in East London, at Mothers to Mothers, and in Kelvin at St. Jane’s Orphans’ Home.

In Maputo, Mozambique, we joined four other choirs in a solidarity concert at the Franco-Mozambique Cultural Center. In Maputo we were abruptly made aware of the great level of poverty and the violence it engenders.

In one of Pretoria’s townships, Okasie/Brits, we revisited the Okasie Community Center. During the choir’s 1997 visit, we had planted some trees. My wife, Harriet, and I had planted a tree in memory of our daughter, Elke. Others had planted trees in memory of James Madhlope Phillips, a bass singer and ANC member who had come to Oakland and formed Vukani Mawethu at the request of Fania Davis. Another tree had been planted in memory of the mother of Genevieve Bayan, a friend. On this last trip, two of the trees (including ours) had been removed because the Center has been completely rebuilt and is now a large complex of several buildings. (Time did not permit us to find out what had happened to the memorial plaque we also left there in 1997.)

Highlights of the trip also included meetings with Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel (Mandela’s wife) and other interesting people such as the scholar Bernard M. Magubane; Ben Turok, a member of South Africa’s parliament; and a leader of the COSATU, the largest labor union in South Africa.