Music of Apartheid--And of a Rising Tide
Bathi “Sengana savuma thina
Lapha abazange bengena abazali bethu
Nabadala bayasikhalela thina ngoba asina voti.”
It is difficult to believe that Apartheid ended nearly 25 years ago, but the memory is green for me, as it must be to many Kossacks. I was 34, preparing to leave Texas in a few months for graduate school in North Carolina. I didn’t have a television, and was listening to music rather than NPR, when my phone rang. It was my friend Susan, struggling a little with words, and she told me that it was over. We cried a little—less than we had when Nelson Mandela walked free four years earlier. That night, we celebrated (with alcohol, of course). We kept sharing our amazement—the world had changed. It was a watershed in human rights, a promise of continued progress: The road would be rocky, and there would certainly be dark, sometimes twisted detours, but the world had changed.
They say, “We have agreed to enter a place
That has never been entered before
By our parents or our ancestors
And they cry for us, for we do not have the right to vote.”
If someone had told us, in 1994, that the struggle would rise again—in our own country—I’m not sure we would have believed them. And yet here we are, Apartheid in our own country, imposed by legislators, racists (the two categories overlap), and angry people who may not even know why they are angry, and who do not know that their right to self-determination is under attack. One of the two major political parties no longer believes “One (Hu)man, One Vote;” believes that some Americans are more equal than others; and is willing to sacrifice not only their sworn duty, but law and morality, in order to achieve their goal.
Twenty years ago I would have laughed if I read what I just wrote. “These things come to us by way of much pain; surely we would never let ourselves slip back into the dark.” But here we are.
Those of you my age are probably deeply familiar with Johnny Clegg, Juluka, and Savuka. Their story is worth a diary of its own. They played an unforgettable part in the end of Apartheid. I may tell tell their story in another diary one day, but for now, we need their music, because what they sang in 1989 and 1993 belong to us, in 2018. Here are two of their most moving songs; please take them to heart.
O Siyeza, o siyeza, sizofika webaba noma
(we are coming, we are coming, we will arrive soon)
O siyeza, o siyeza, siyagudle lomhlaba
(we are coming, we are coming, we are moving across this earth)
Siyawela lapheshaya lulezontaba ezimnyama
(we are crossing over those dark mountains)
Lapha sobheka phansi konke ukhulupheka
(where we will lay down our troubles)
One (Hu)man, One Vote
