I recently had the pleasure of taking my mother to a Johnny Clegg show – although we both looked forward to watching one of South Africa’s acclaimed musicians, I didn’t expect to walk away with an even greater sense of pride as a South African.
His career spans over three decades and I remember his songs blaring through the speakers of our Panasonic stereo. Apart from being a musician, I also recognised him as an activist as he had formed bands, Juluka and Savuka, which were both multi-racial in a time where the law forbade people of mixed races to convene in the same spaces.
Learning that he had a following of both university students and migrant workers, I was inspired by the fact that he was able to reach people that ordinarily would not be listening to the same music.
Listening to Clegg share the various anecdotes behind his songs I understood how his work as an anthropologist influenced his creative process. He didn’t, as an observer, take Zulu culture and work into his own but instead he immersed himself in the culture in order to fully understand it before he blended it with his own.
This was his winning recipe in being able to master playing the guitar and accordion as if he was born and raised in KwaZulu-Natal. This got me thinking about how amazing it would be if we all as South Africans were concerned with getting to know each other well.
Of course, unlike anthropologists, we may not have the time to research another culture and immerse ourselves in the community during weeks of research. However, we can spend a few minutes chatting to a colleague about why she wears a scarf to work every day, who exactly is “Sarie Marais” and why some colleagues will take a week of leave when an aunt passes away.
Sometimes I look around and wonder if our lack of knowledge of each other is what fuels our intolerance of each other. Because we don’t really understand each other and we deal with each other at arm’s length, we are quick to dismiss each other without any attempts made to delve into the why of it all.
Clegg was able to embrace the Zulu culture and because he was able to fully understand the culture, he was able to create his own brand of crossover music without leaving the bitter after taste of cultural appropriation.
What I took away from the show was, taking some time to engage with each other wholeheartedly could be the first step to truly moving forward as a united nation – it may be naive and somewhat superficial but I’m willing to give it a shot.
