Matthew Pateman on Night Is Coming – a Threnody for the Victims of Marikana
April 7, 2017
April 4, 2017
March 31, 2017
March 29, 2017
Heidi Grunebaum – No Consolation: The Poetics of Lament and the Insistence of Complicity
first published in South African Music Studies Vol 34/35
Dave Dargie – Trying to find a Xhosa approach to rhythm
first published in South African Music Studies Vol 34/35
March 24, 2017
March 17, 2017
Western 4.33 – the battle for reparations
March 15, 2017
THE ARRIVED
He’s always laconically late. But he always arrives.
Most of what he’s achieved in life is based on this fact
in combination with the ace up his sleeve: He never disa
grees. Not even when he was getting tortured. Not even then.
His torturers in fact became quite fond of him. He screamed
a few times, but that was understandable under the circum
stances. He gave nothing away. They respected that.
They always lost respect for anyone that spoke.
That ratted. What they never found out was
that the reason he never said anything
was because he knew nothing. He
was entirely unconnected to the
rebels. The hipster guerilla
outfit he wore was a fa
shionista statement.
He was always
ahead of the pack
like that. When the torturers
staged their own tactical defeat
and placed the guerillas centre stage
they legitimized the staging by allowing
the people to vote. The foregone conclusion
was fistuck. You could vote, yes, but the choice
was between the best of the worst, and the worst,
and, indeed, the worst of the worst and those even more
worser than the worst of the worse. The torturers called him
up after the elections and offered him a post at the top echelon
of state. They felt they could trust him. He was someone who
kept his mouth shut, someone who did not break. He said
he would think it over, asked them to call him back the
next day. He fingered the finely stitched hemp cloth
of his guerilla jacket. Walked into the kitchen wh
ere his mother was preparing his dinner. He
smiled at her, kissed her on the top of her
head and said, softly, “I’ve arrived.”
March 14, 2017
Western 4.33 dialogue list
There were five concentration camps in Namibia, then called German South West Africa, between 1904 and 1908. In January 1904 war broke out between the Herero nation and the German colonial admnistration in Namibia. After the Battle of Waterberg the Herero nation either succumbed to the desert or were picked up by German patrols and put in concentration camps. The official mortality rate in all five camps was 45%. Thousands of people were crammed in small areas. Rations were minimal, consisting of a daily allowance of a handful of uncooked rice, some salt and water. Disease was uncontrolled. Beatings and maltreatment were part of life in the camps. The concentration camp on Shark Island, off the coastal town of Luderitz, was the worst of the five Namibian camps. Luderitz lies in Southern Namibia, flanked by desert and ocean. In the harbour lies Shark Island, which was then connected to the mainland only by a small causeway. The island is barren and characterised by solid rock carved into surreal formations by the hard ocean winds. The camp was placed on the far tip of the small ….. the gale-force winds that sweep Luderitz for most of the year. By April 1907 1700 prisoners had died. Missionary reports put the death rate at between 12 and 18 a day. As much as 80% of the prisoners sent to the Shark Island concentration camp never left the island. Cold, hunger, thirst, exposure, disease and madness claimed scores of victims, and cartloads of their bodies were carted every day over to the back beach, buried in a few inches of sand at low tide, and as the tide came in, the bodies went out, food for the sharks.
March 13, 2017
on the structure of the vuvuzela murders
My novel “The Vuvuzela Murders” is structured like a dismembered human body.
