by Simangaliso Ncube
In a move to establish a strong regional community, southern Africa laid yet another building bloc when 386 musicians from 10 regional countries came together in Harare, Zimbabwe, to participate in a cultural festival.
The music festival, the first in a series being organised by the Culture and Information Sector of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), ran from 29 September to October1995, in four selected venues – the Harare International Conference Centre, Harare Gardens, Seven Arts
Theatre and Rufaro stadium.
At these venues, music enthusiasts were treated to a variety of regional musical sounds ranging from mbira, rumba, timbila, marimba, marrabenta, taarab. kalindula, afrojazz. Chimurenga, just to mention a few types of beats that the sub-region can produce.
The performing bands delivered the goods and got everyone attending the shows dancing to their tunes. They provided a wide range of music to capture the tastes of all present. On the last day of the show, when attendance got to its peak, the highly entertaining and talented M-Connection and from Namibia, played several kinds of melodies from reggae to rumba and some kwasa-kwasa that could have left some Zairean kwasa-kwasa kings green with envy.
Another group from Malawi, Kalimba, kept the crowds laughing by stopping at intervals to tell jokes and pick people from the crowd to prove their dancing skills on stage. However one message that they emphasised was that the people of the region are one. We long for the day – which is quite near — when there will not be any pointing at anyone from Malawi, Zambia, Angola and so forth as a foreigner by anybody from the region,” called out one of the members of the Kalimba band.
Religious music was not left out at the festival – fans were treated to the gospel sounds of the outfit made up of Brian Sibalo, Oliver Mutukudzi and Mechanic Manyeruke — all from Zimbabwe. Local star Simon Chimbetu had his fans calling for more after he had done his beat.
This musical event, held under the theme. Building SADC Through Music”, marked the first step toward implementing the 1993 SADC proposal to hold a series of festivals on music, dance. Theatre and arts exhibition between 1995 and 1998. The major objective for such a huge project is to foster cultural links between member states in line with SADC’s concept of bui1ding a Community.
In the next three years, more shows on other aspects of culture will be organized. Mozambique wilt host a theatre festival, Namibia, the arts and craft festival while the dance festival will be hosted in Tanzania.
A culture fund has been set up to meet the costs. The donor community will also provide the resources for the running of the project. This time, the European Union (EU) and the Norwegian
Development Agency (Norad) jointly sponsored the music festival, giving out Z$4.4 million (USS0.55 million) and Z$2.2 million (US$0.25 million) respectively.
A representative of the EU technical team. Alain Manevy, responsible for the Communications and Media Strategy at the Art Budget Communications Development (ABCD) group of Consultants, based in Paris, France, pointed out that by donating the money, the EU’s major aim is to help regional countries to act collectively and together develop culturally.
Some critics of regional integration welcomed the idea of cultural festivals and hope that this will be useful in attaining complete regional cooperation. For some time, these critics have repeatedly pointed out that there is need to involve the grassroots populace of southern Africa in the process of regional co-operation if the results are to be meaningful.
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SADC member states have taken this criticism positively. At the official opening of the music festival, the organization’s Executive Secretary, Dr Kaire Mbuende pointed out that: “The essence of the event was to mobilize the people of the region to claim a stake in the integration of the region.”
Jose Katupha, the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports in Mozambique, who attended some of the shows, echoed similar sentiments as Dr Mbuende. He argued that while some SADC sectors, such as those in trade and industry had made significant strides toward creation of regional economic bodies, cultural ones were practically not yet off the ground.
“‘The festival, among other issues, intends to enhance and stimulate creativity and exhibit cultural similarities and diversities. Regional musicians therefore need to interact seriously at a cultural level,” says Katupha.
In a statement issued to the media, the SADC Music Festival Directorate, who organized the shows through the Regional Organizing Committee, outlined the following as some of the major objectives that the regional body had in organizing the music festival:
• To preserve and promote the musical heritage of performance values inherited from our ancestors.
• To encourage cultural exchange and awareness of the socio-cultural aspects of the different and varying melodies, harmonies, rhythms and musical instruments of the region.
• To attract and co-ordinate investment to the music industry in SADC countries.
• To expose the regional and international markets to a broader spectrum of SADC music.
It would be very timely if SADC achieved some of these objectives soon, particularly investment in the music industry. At present, the regional musicians are being deprived of an income they could be generating through their talents. Of late, there has been an influx of poor quality pirated musical records and tapes being sold at give-away prices in most regional states.
The festival provided a lot of opportunities for the private sector within the region. It was a platform for those in the marketing, advertising and promotion industry to sell their goods and services in the region and throughout Africa.
For these reasons, the SADC Music Directorate was tasked with bringing together the more than 300 musicians from 10 of the 12 SADC member states. Each of the 10 members was represented by 30 musicians who were selected by their respective National Organizing Committees.
Tanzania could not send their representatives as they were pre-occupied with preparations for the country’s forthcoming first multi-party elections at the end of October. And Mauritius, the newest member of the grouping, could not be represented because it was only admitted as the twelfth member of the organization in August 1995 at the SADC Summit when preparations for the music festival were already at an advanced stage.
The festival attracted some attention from people outside southern Africa. Some professional international observers, made up of festival and cultural representatives from France, Denmark and other European countries, were thrilled by the music expo. They described it as a resounding success and a significant cultural achievement”.
Some of their suggestions, as presented to the SADC Music Directorate in form of a communique released at the end of the show were that the festival had great potential for presentation in Europe. In an interview with SARDC, the Technical Assistant for Finance and Marketing of ABCD, Nathalie Renaud, says, “The idea is to export the festival as a label to many European countries in the near future because this event has a lot of potential to sell.”
Renaud says this will be done by picking individual musicians from throughout the region who participated at the festival and including them to take part in various festivals to be held next year in France. Denmark. Britain and many other European countries.
A major criticism levelled against the Directorate was the inadequacy of publicity of the event.
While some people felt that there was little promotion of the festival, resulting in a few people attending the shows, other people felt that the venues selected were for the elite and were therefore inaccessible to the intended beneficiaries.
Dr Mbuende also felt that the organizing committee had not performed its role to expected levels in disseminating information on the events of the festival, giving the event a low profile. The response has not been good. What we are getting is not reflective of Harare’s one million plus population. There has not been wide publicity of events taking place here,” said Dr Mbuende.
This criticism is a blessing in disguise because it is from such positive criticism that the future regional and national organizing committees can draw examples from, in order to improve preparation for the rest of the cultural events in the series, scheduled for the near future.
The EU technical team argues that the National Organizing Committee, set up between March and July this year, was given a very short notice to prepare. The festival, having been post-poned three times, only had definite dates decided on in August. This presented logistical problems as faced during the festival and the Committee was organizing this for the first time.
Consolation, however, came in form of entry fees to the music festival which were relatively reasonable by local standards. The fees ranged between Z$5 and Z$20 (US$0.62 and USSZ.50). At the Harare Gardens, the fees were even reduced from Z$5 to Z$2 (US$0.25) in order to allow attendance by more people.
Organizing such events as the SADC music festival, is the way forward for the region to convince the rest of the world of the quality product that southern Africa is capable of producing. (SARDC)
