My first real experience of the Grahamstown festival was as a struggling student working for a group of missionary sisters from Lesotho who had arrived with half-a-pantechnicon of mohair and wool jerseys to set up a stall on Somerset street.
They didn’t need much marketing in the middle of a typical festival winter to get most of their goods sold. My job was to haul huge boxes of stock in and out of the sales area, keep an eye out for leakages and watch the festival unfold from the outer fringes, as it were.
The next year I was promoted to house manager of the city hall, the venue for “serious” music events at the time. It allowed me to see a couple of shows a day, brush up on my music knowledge and tear the ticket stubs of lah-dee-dah music patrons. I would have preferred to be working down the road at the Grand Hotel at the then-fledgling and rather down-market jazz component of the festival.
Today, I am almost overwhelmed by how big and busy and vibrant the spectacle that is the National Arts Festival has become. It’s even more daunting if you’re a novice festival-goer or festino.
The festival takes over the relatively small Grahamstown on a mammoth scale – happening in school, church, and community halls, in business galleries, across the university campus, on the streets, in fields and, of course, in the 1820 Settlers Monument on the hill overlooking the town.
Most day-trippers arrive in Grahamstown and head for the Village Green or another of the sites of stall-holders dotted around town. I think this is a mistake; not that I think the missionary sisters and brothers from across the country and the continent are not worthy of your support, it’s just that you run the risk of being swallowed up in the volume of things to browse or buy. But, if you insist, allocate a couple of hours for shopping – with a definite cut-off time and buy what appeals to you immediately rather than committing to come back later - either you’ll run out of time or it will be sold before you get back!
The festival these days consists of many festivals rolled into one jamboree, There’s a main festival which is a bit of the misnomer, as many mainstream drama pieces, musical productions and other artistic events happen on what is known as the fringe, in scores of venues across the city. And while a few major venues are reserved for main festival events, there is no difference in the quality of the productions or the facilities from one venue to another.
Straddling this divide between main and fringe are the jazz festival, student theatre which showcases productions from the performing arts departments of most universities, WordFest and ThinkFest which draw together some light-hearted but mainly serious discussions on issues of the day and SpiritFest which is a theme used by faith communities in the City of Saints.
With such an array of productions, it’s easy to get psyched out. Don’t be. The first thing to do is to decide if you want to go with a festival experience that’s more familiar, if you want something to soothe your soul, or if you’re willing to dive into something so radically different and niched that you’ll never see it in your part of the province.
I try to do all three. So, this year - going with what I know - I’m seeing a Cape Town Ballet production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, a show by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a perennial festival winner Raiders with Nicholas Ellenbogen and other total nutters from Kwazulu-Natal, and talks by futurist Clem Sunter and the cartoonist South African politicos love to hate, Zapiro.
Even if you just choose one show - scan for names you’re familiar with, either a writer, director or performer. Most of the household names from TV or live shows will show up at the festival in one way or another. Although sometimes, you may expect something understandable from a performer with whom you’re familiar only to find that their Grahamstown offering this year is an esoteric piece, rather than their usual stand-up comedy
You’ll be constantly coming up against the recommendations of the hordes standing in queues outside venues about they have seen, half-seen (up to the point they walked out because of the edginess, foul language or whatever) or intend to see.
The reason I give for hanging out at the jazz festival at Diocesan School for Girls is that it’s unlikely that I’ll hear any of the foreign musicians, especially the Dutch and Skandinavian muzos who really seem to like Grahamstown, at any other time in the Eastern Cape. Truth is, this is about having something – okay, lots of things then – to soothe my soul. This is that part of the festival which is not about rushing around frenetically talking to people in queues about what you’re just seen. It’s about chilling.
I dress up warmly, go early to get a proper place in the house which allows me to enjoy good sound but also see some nifty finger work (I imagine that I have some basic technical musical ability which enhances my enjoyment). So, decide what stirs your soul and look out for entries on the programme – whether a performance or an exhibition - that meet that need.
After going with what you know and soothing your soul, don’t leave out the challenge of trying something radically different, whether it’s stepping out of a genre, cultural or style box you may carry around with you. I’m opting this year to see as many entries on the film festival schedule, given that we don’t often get to see any of the top foreign or niche movies – and even a number of great South African productions – in the Eastern Cape.
Given the diversity of productions at this year’s Grahamstown festival, there’s a great chance that you can be exposed to something of artistic value you’ve never experienced before. Go find it.
• First published in the Daily Dispatch, June 24, 2011.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Haron, Wrankmore's deeds continue to empower
It’s sometime before Easter 1972. The weather’s beautiful, this is no time for jackets, although last week’s rain reminded us all of the floods a couple of years ago, so we tend to make sure we’re dressed for being marooned somewhere.
I’m enjoying being “grown up” which is what everybody calls me since I had a double figure birthday recently, although they add that it’s tough being an adult.
There’s a slight trepidation about entering church this morning. For weeks, we’ve been reminded of the visit by this priest from Cape Town; some political fellow who’s coming to talk about some campaign he’s been running.
There’s a car with two men in it parked outside the church. Strange that they’re just sitting there and don’t come into church. But not strange when we reach the door and somebody whispers: Did you see the branch outside? They’re here to watch the visiting priest.
“The branch” – dreaded, dreadful words that send a chill through your body. It doesn’t ease the tension that we think one of the plain-clothed security branch policemen sitting outside is an Anglican himself, who has apparently forsaken attending his own parish to keep watch this morning, although nobody’s sure because there’s no way someone will go up to the car to check.
Keeping watch, but not as Jesus admonished his disciples to keep watch in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The visiting priest is white; I wonder what he’s done to have brought the branch to Christ the King. White people are safe from the branch, aren’t they? Maybe he should have got a permit from the police station to be in Gelvandale. But, he’s a priest, they don’t need permits, do they? What will he preach about?
Bernard Wrankmore appears older than he actually is. Even in the vestments of a priest, he has a wiry frame, and moves slowly, carefully.
As he talks to us that Sunday morning, his physical demeanour takes on a special significance, adding meaning to his sermon.
He tells us, he is slowly recovering from an almost complete shutdown of his body, after a hunger strike of 67 days to protest at the death in detention of a Cape Town moslem cleric, Imam Abdullah Haron.
Haron had been the youngest Imam appointed in South Africa at the age of 32 to the Claremont Mosque. He was, by all accounts, a charismatic leader, selfless, engaged in assisting individuals and communities ravaged by apartheid. He was arrested by “the branch” in May 1969 under the Terrorism Act and kept in detention without trial for 123 days until his death on September 27 at the hands of his security branch torturers who claimed that he had fallen down the stairs.
Despite blood clots from trauma, 24 bruises and a broken rib, the inquest magistrate accepted the police version of his death.
Wrankmore, a reasonably unassuming priest who ran the Missions to Seamen in downtown Cape Town, was appalled by what had happened to the imam and believed that a commission of enquiry should have been held into the circumstances of his death.
On the second anniversary of the imam’s death, Wrankmore endeavoured to fast until the government of then prime minister John Vorster agreed to initiate a commission. Secluded in the Muslim kramat on Signal Hill, a burial place used for prayer, he fasted beyond a deadline of 40 days he had set himself. It seemed that he, or God, or a recalcitrant government, had decided that only a fast to the death would be enough.
He ended his protest at the very last, after 67 days, despite the government’s refusal to initiate the probe or even to meet with him when Wrankmore, by now a sack of bones, travelled to Pretoria to see Vorster.
The inhumanity of what was happening in our country, and fear for our future, were starkly reflected in the story of the Imam as we listened to Wrankmore while “the branch” sat outside our church in Gelvandale.
While the primary objective of his fast was not achieved, Wrankmore succeeded in bringing international attention to detention without trial and, especially, the deaths of detainees at the hands of South African police. It focused squarely on the brutality which the National Party autocrats brought to running the country.
Wrankmore had nothing to invest in the struggle against apartheid except his sense of justice and his faith that the God who had called him to take this stand on behalf of a murdered muslim cleric whom he had never met, would also sustain him.
For young boys, food intake is all about volume. To some of us listening to him, Wrankmore’s account of his self-deprivation was an act of madness. But his action, in pursuit of principle and against abominable behaviour by the then-Government’s police, had a profound influence on my life.
This was a moment of growing up, being empowered by the courage of Haron, Wrankmore and others prepared to take a stand against iniquity despite the personal consequences, willing to forsake sect and creed, race, class and gender, for the sake of our common humanity.
It’s what continues to empower me 40 years later.
• Bernie Wrankmore died in Cape Town at the age of 86 on June 10, 2011.
I’m enjoying being “grown up” which is what everybody calls me since I had a double figure birthday recently, although they add that it’s tough being an adult.
There’s a slight trepidation about entering church this morning. For weeks, we’ve been reminded of the visit by this priest from Cape Town; some political fellow who’s coming to talk about some campaign he’s been running.
There’s a car with two men in it parked outside the church. Strange that they’re just sitting there and don’t come into church. But not strange when we reach the door and somebody whispers: Did you see the branch outside? They’re here to watch the visiting priest.
“The branch” – dreaded, dreadful words that send a chill through your body. It doesn’t ease the tension that we think one of the plain-clothed security branch policemen sitting outside is an Anglican himself, who has apparently forsaken attending his own parish to keep watch this morning, although nobody’s sure because there’s no way someone will go up to the car to check.
Keeping watch, but not as Jesus admonished his disciples to keep watch in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The visiting priest is white; I wonder what he’s done to have brought the branch to Christ the King. White people are safe from the branch, aren’t they? Maybe he should have got a permit from the police station to be in Gelvandale. But, he’s a priest, they don’t need permits, do they? What will he preach about?
Bernard Wrankmore appears older than he actually is. Even in the vestments of a priest, he has a wiry frame, and moves slowly, carefully.
As he talks to us that Sunday morning, his physical demeanour takes on a special significance, adding meaning to his sermon.
He tells us, he is slowly recovering from an almost complete shutdown of his body, after a hunger strike of 67 days to protest at the death in detention of a Cape Town moslem cleric, Imam Abdullah Haron.
Haron had been the youngest Imam appointed in South Africa at the age of 32 to the Claremont Mosque. He was, by all accounts, a charismatic leader, selfless, engaged in assisting individuals and communities ravaged by apartheid. He was arrested by “the branch” in May 1969 under the Terrorism Act and kept in detention without trial for 123 days until his death on September 27 at the hands of his security branch torturers who claimed that he had fallen down the stairs.
Despite blood clots from trauma, 24 bruises and a broken rib, the inquest magistrate accepted the police version of his death.
Wrankmore, a reasonably unassuming priest who ran the Missions to Seamen in downtown Cape Town, was appalled by what had happened to the imam and believed that a commission of enquiry should have been held into the circumstances of his death.
On the second anniversary of the imam’s death, Wrankmore endeavoured to fast until the government of then prime minister John Vorster agreed to initiate a commission. Secluded in the Muslim kramat on Signal Hill, a burial place used for prayer, he fasted beyond a deadline of 40 days he had set himself. It seemed that he, or God, or a recalcitrant government, had decided that only a fast to the death would be enough.
He ended his protest at the very last, after 67 days, despite the government’s refusal to initiate the probe or even to meet with him when Wrankmore, by now a sack of bones, travelled to Pretoria to see Vorster.
The inhumanity of what was happening in our country, and fear for our future, were starkly reflected in the story of the Imam as we listened to Wrankmore while “the branch” sat outside our church in Gelvandale.
While the primary objective of his fast was not achieved, Wrankmore succeeded in bringing international attention to detention without trial and, especially, the deaths of detainees at the hands of South African police. It focused squarely on the brutality which the National Party autocrats brought to running the country.
Wrankmore had nothing to invest in the struggle against apartheid except his sense of justice and his faith that the God who had called him to take this stand on behalf of a murdered muslim cleric whom he had never met, would also sustain him.
For young boys, food intake is all about volume. To some of us listening to him, Wrankmore’s account of his self-deprivation was an act of madness. But his action, in pursuit of principle and against abominable behaviour by the then-Government’s police, had a profound influence on my life.
This was a moment of growing up, being empowered by the courage of Haron, Wrankmore and others prepared to take a stand against iniquity despite the personal consequences, willing to forsake sect and creed, race, class and gender, for the sake of our common humanity.
It’s what continues to empower me 40 years later.
• Bernie Wrankmore died in Cape Town at the age of 86 on June 10, 2011.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Smiling Valley points to stuttering land reform
The department of rural development and land reform describes itself as being in the "vanguard" of improving the lives of local communities by making land available.
The claim is made in court papers in respect of the Smiling Valley informal community close to the national road between East London and King William's Town. The department accuses members of the community of engaging in an illegal land grab, which effectively disadvantages those who have been patiently waiting for land redistribution to happen.
While the department takes exception to Buffalo City Muncipality's un-cooperative (read slapgat) attitude which has meant a 10-year and ongoing wait for progress towards a properly planned and marked out township in the area, it couches its own achievements in less critical language. It states it is "in the vanguard of impacting the lives of various communities by assisting them within available resources to have access to land and to own it".
To be sure, the department's rural development programme is at the heart - actually it is the only part - of government's programme to address poverty, hunger, unemployment and lack of development in the rural areas.
So, land distribution is a significant endeavour and, as part of this plan, government has committed to distributing 4,5 million hectares of land to disadvantaged black South Africans, largely dispossessed under apartheid. This figure includes redistribution of about 30% of the country's commercial farms. Land is earmarked for agricultural purposes and natural resource harvesting, for residential settlement, and for re-establishing cultural linkages or rights to ancestral land.
However, to date the department has re-distributed less than one million hectares to poor people.
A major difficulty with South Africa's post-democracy land policy has been the cost of accessing land on behalf of poor communities. The willing buyer willing seller model has seen government budget up to one billion rand per year to acquire land - a total of R21 billion up to 2020 - but a figure which has proved to be hopelessly inadequate given excessive market prices.
White landowners are not about to engage in massive philanthropic initiatives to give away land to their black countrymen and why would they? Of course, it's also not unfair to state that the vast majority of white South Africans do not in the least appreciate the extent of devastation wrought in their name by the respective apartheid land laws.
Under apartheid, up to 3.5 million people were forcibly removed from land to which they had a historical attachment, if not legal title.
Land reform, especially in rural areas, is critical to South Africa's ability to address issues of poverty and unemployment, through both a subsistence and commercial farming programme, given that the vast majority of poor South Africans - some 70% of people, almost exclusively black - live in rural areas.
The paucity of jobs in urban settings means that much more must be done to attract people to remain in rural areas, rather than join the underclass of unemployed and economically unprotected communities in big cities.
South Africa is a big country, but only a fraction of our country is available for agricultural production, around 14 million hectares, just up to 13.5% of the land mass. An even smaller fraction - about three million hectares - is regarded as naturally highly arable land, with a further 1.3 million hectares under irrigation. These figures translate into 87% of our farmland being owned by 60 000 white farmers, of whom about 20 000 produce the vast bulk of our gross agricultural product. There are some 500 000 peasant farmers in the former bantustans who produce around 5% of our agricultural output, for own consumption.
The challenges of changing this agricultural template are huge.
The democratic government has an almost inherent predisposition to over-stating its development goals beyond what a constrained budget and a recalcitrant bureaucracy can achieve in a 24-hour day. And the department of rural development and land reform is not averse to this tendency, hence the lofty claims in the Smiling Valley case around its mandated role.
The reality is that the department is hamstrung between a number of difficulties, a limited budget, perpetual overstatement of goals and market-based land transfers among them. It must also determine whether its strategy should look to restoring the past or be future-focused on land re-distribution which aids food security and economic development.Then there is also the lack of extension services, especially in respect of marketing. And after all these challenges, water remains the biggest impediment to our ability to provide access to agricultural land.
What the Smiling Valley issue does highlight is that the department - and government in various other departmental or agency guises - sits on vast land holdings. Of course, very little of this is productive farmland. But much more effort must go into creative ways of extracting and using this resource for the benefit of poor communities.
It also points to the need for strong community-based structures which can manage land re-distribution processes in partnership with government.
The land challenge is a huge one for our country. Stuttering efforts at land reform are not helped by the failure of institutions like Buffalo City Municipality to play anything approaching a meaningful role to address historical injustice.
The claim is made in court papers in respect of the Smiling Valley informal community close to the national road between East London and King William's Town. The department accuses members of the community of engaging in an illegal land grab, which effectively disadvantages those who have been patiently waiting for land redistribution to happen.
While the department takes exception to Buffalo City Muncipality's un-cooperative (read slapgat) attitude which has meant a 10-year and ongoing wait for progress towards a properly planned and marked out township in the area, it couches its own achievements in less critical language. It states it is "in the vanguard of impacting the lives of various communities by assisting them within available resources to have access to land and to own it".
To be sure, the department's rural development programme is at the heart - actually it is the only part - of government's programme to address poverty, hunger, unemployment and lack of development in the rural areas.
So, land distribution is a significant endeavour and, as part of this plan, government has committed to distributing 4,5 million hectares of land to disadvantaged black South Africans, largely dispossessed under apartheid. This figure includes redistribution of about 30% of the country's commercial farms. Land is earmarked for agricultural purposes and natural resource harvesting, for residential settlement, and for re-establishing cultural linkages or rights to ancestral land.
However, to date the department has re-distributed less than one million hectares to poor people.
A major difficulty with South Africa's post-democracy land policy has been the cost of accessing land on behalf of poor communities. The willing buyer willing seller model has seen government budget up to one billion rand per year to acquire land - a total of R21 billion up to 2020 - but a figure which has proved to be hopelessly inadequate given excessive market prices.
White landowners are not about to engage in massive philanthropic initiatives to give away land to their black countrymen and why would they? Of course, it's also not unfair to state that the vast majority of white South Africans do not in the least appreciate the extent of devastation wrought in their name by the respective apartheid land laws.
Under apartheid, up to 3.5 million people were forcibly removed from land to which they had a historical attachment, if not legal title.
Land reform, especially in rural areas, is critical to South Africa's ability to address issues of poverty and unemployment, through both a subsistence and commercial farming programme, given that the vast majority of poor South Africans - some 70% of people, almost exclusively black - live in rural areas.
The paucity of jobs in urban settings means that much more must be done to attract people to remain in rural areas, rather than join the underclass of unemployed and economically unprotected communities in big cities.
South Africa is a big country, but only a fraction of our country is available for agricultural production, around 14 million hectares, just up to 13.5% of the land mass. An even smaller fraction - about three million hectares - is regarded as naturally highly arable land, with a further 1.3 million hectares under irrigation. These figures translate into 87% of our farmland being owned by 60 000 white farmers, of whom about 20 000 produce the vast bulk of our gross agricultural product. There are some 500 000 peasant farmers in the former bantustans who produce around 5% of our agricultural output, for own consumption.
The challenges of changing this agricultural template are huge.
The democratic government has an almost inherent predisposition to over-stating its development goals beyond what a constrained budget and a recalcitrant bureaucracy can achieve in a 24-hour day. And the department of rural development and land reform is not averse to this tendency, hence the lofty claims in the Smiling Valley case around its mandated role.
The reality is that the department is hamstrung between a number of difficulties, a limited budget, perpetual overstatement of goals and market-based land transfers among them. It must also determine whether its strategy should look to restoring the past or be future-focused on land re-distribution which aids food security and economic development.Then there is also the lack of extension services, especially in respect of marketing. And after all these challenges, water remains the biggest impediment to our ability to provide access to agricultural land.
What the Smiling Valley issue does highlight is that the department - and government in various other departmental or agency guises - sits on vast land holdings. Of course, very little of this is productive farmland. But much more effort must go into creative ways of extracting and using this resource for the benefit of poor communities.
It also points to the need for strong community-based structures which can manage land re-distribution processes in partnership with government.
The land challenge is a huge one for our country. Stuttering efforts at land reform are not helped by the failure of institutions like Buffalo City Municipality to play anything approaching a meaningful role to address historical injustice.
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