News, Events, Speeches and Awards updated 16-06-2010 (Scroll down for more)

The Mutloatse Arts Heritage Trust is especially passionate about memorialising the heroines of our liberation struggle, such as our collective mothers Masediba Lilian Ngoyi, nee Matabane, and Helen Beatrice May Joseph, formerly Fennell, as we did in publishing the heritage anthology of the historic The Women's Freedom March of 1956, on the occassion of its golden jubilee (50th) anniversary, in 2006.

Four years later, and 16 years into South Africa's democracy and exactly 54 years after nearly 20 000 abo-Mama, descended peacefully on Pretoria to submit petitions to the erstwhile apartheid regime at the Union Buildings, against the law that forced African women to also carry the dompas, we shall be remembering Mums Ngoyi and Joseph, as the nation declare their shared grave at Avalon Cemetery, Soweto, as a national heritage site.

Malibongwe! Ligamalamakhosikazi. Malibongwe!

Equally important, next year is the centenary of MaNgoyi in  Hereitage Month, on 24 September 2011.

However, few people know that MaNgoyi was related to teacher, poet and musician Moses Mphahlele, who composed the Sesotho companion to Enoch Sontonga, called Morena Boloka Setjhaba sa Heso. Ntate Mphahlele's and MaNgoyi's mothers were two of five sisters! In addition, both Ntate Mphahlele and MaNgoyi trained as teachers at the famous Kilnerton Training Institution outside Pretoria.

To us, Memory is our Heritage, and that is why we wholeheartedly endorse the government's efforts to help us  remember not to forget, as is the case with the declaration of the grave of mothers Ngoyi and joseph, as a national heritage site.


- Mothobi Mutloatse, publisher ..

Is heroine Ngoyi forgotten?
Posted in The Sowetan 18 March 2010 ; Mothobi Mutloatse
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EXACTLY 30 years ago this week we buried Our Grandmother of the Liberation Struggle, Masediba Lilian Ngoyi, née Mphahlele, then 68, her coffin carried on a horse-drawn cart, before the expiry of her banning order on May 31. For 18 years she had been “imprisoned” in her Soweto home by the apartheid regime. And yet – and it saddens me greatly – not a word or a hint appears to have been uttered in her honour, in this year of the 2010 Fifa World Cup. Why, dear comrades? Even the ANC Women’s League has been deafening in its silence. I desperately tried to access its website for guidance. Lo and behold, it was frozen in time in 2009, with its anachronism regarding the national executive committee of 2003, mind you! Exasperated I called its direct landline. I was answered by voicemail. I threw in the towel. I then remembered that to date not a single president of the ANC and of the Republic of South Africa, nor the executive mayor of Johannesburg, or the premier of Gauteng, has ever been to MaNgoyi’s humble abode at 9870b in Nkungu Street, Mzimhlophe. Yet she is a 1982 sitwalandwe- Seaparankoe, the highest award ever to be bestowed on a national hero, or heroine of the African National Congress.

She shares a grave at Avalon Cemetery with her liberation bosom friend, Helen Joseph, a 1992 Isitwalandwe-Seaparankoe. Last year word got out that their grave would be declared a national heritage site. Then echoed the “sound of silence”, to paraphrase Simon and Garfunkel. I care a lot about the heritage she bequeathed to us, because I happen to have been the last journalist to interview her in August 1979. I remembered hers and the gallant 20 000 mothers of the 1956 Women’s Freedom March to Pretoria against the dompas, during the 50th anniversary in 2006. Co-editor Jacqui Masiza and Mum Bertha Gxowa, MP, had organised a prayer day with a visit to MaNgoyi and MaJoseph’s grave.

The Mutloatse Arts Heritage Trust underwrote the costs of the festivities when the sisterhood failed to rise to the occasion. Every day I see MaNgoyi, animated as always, in full flight at a meeting – on my office wall, that is.

Mothobi Mutloatse, Johannesburg

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Mothobi Mutloatse, Mpho Makwana, Mpaki Pule & Oupa Ngwenya

FRANK TALK by Mothobi Mutloatse (article published in Sowetan 27 March 2009)

Ho senyehile. Ke diphosophoso. It is a mess. It is a comedy of errors that encapsulated South Africa’s gradual political defacement this week.

To say some parts of the government’s approaches to the challenges of the departing SAA chief executive officer Khaya Ngqula and His Holiness the Dalai Lama debacle have been below par is an understatement.

Rightly or wrongly, the buck stops with the boss – in this case, the head of state: Ntate Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe.

Yes, ntate, you, and you alone. Not the spokesperson or ministers of foreign or home affairs , or even one in the presidency.

What really happened? Why? A re there any lessons to be learnt?

Or, is the government going to wish away this watershed moment in our fledgling democracy? To assume this storm will die down of its own accord is to make a fatal error we will live to regret, even if it is a decade later.

Either you rise to the occasion and take us into your confidence as our father who art on earth, and explain to us holistically. without revealing strategic national security issues, what was the rationale behind the no-issue/non-invitation to the Dalai Lama, and whether you find it difficult in your heart of hearts to acknowledge we “have a problem” of immense proportions, regardless of the fact that it could have been unintended.

Being statesman-like does not necessarily mean capitulating to anyone. However, it requires candour. Because the problem cannot be eliminated by political censorship (our erstwhile apartheid bullies can attest to that).

How the Cabinet could have got it wrong – through the actions of the minister in charge of the SAA portfolio – is shocking beyond belief.

This debacle is now going to form part of our heritage, albeit negatively. When historians gain access to these archives in two decades, I can imagine the embarrassment the country is going to be saddled with, let alone the ridicule.

Ke nako, Mopresidente – it is indeed time to go back to the drawing board in terms of media relations, Mr President. Lead from the front, ntate and roll with the punches.

Further spin-doctoring will not do. The genie is already out of the bottle.

• Mutloatse is a writer and publisher

Peter Magubane has spent most of his life documenting the struggle against apartheid, from the township streets to the hallways of power. During this period he came to know Nelson Mandela – first as a young political leader who was making waves throughout the country, and then as an icon of the struggle. Over the years a kinship was forged between two ‘politicians’ – one who spoke with words and actions, the other who spoke with his camera. Peter subsequently went to visit Mandela in prison on Robben Island, solidifying the relationship between the then future president and the charismatic cameraman. After Mandela was released, Peter was honoured to be selected as the official photographer to chronicle the country’s four-year transition to democracy. As the official photographer, he made the most of the prime positions available to him at the countless photographic opportunities along the road to a new political dispensation. As a result of his position, and his relationship with Mandela, he had unparalleled access to Mandela and his family. The result is a portfolio of fascinating, moving, and often surprising, photographs. Man of the People is a biography of a fascinating life, told by someone who was privileged to have witnessed it from up close. It is a personal tribute to one of the world’s greatest leaders, from one of its best-known photographers. Back cover: ‘For his bravery and courage during the dark days of apartheid, Peter became a beacon of hope not only to the thousands of journalists all over the world but also to millions of people across our country. His commitment to photojournalism helped pave the way to transformation in South Africa, and such efforts are, needless to say, worthy of international recognition.’ Former President Nelson Mandela on awarding the Order for Meritorious Service to Peter Magubane in 1999. ‘Magubane has been the busiest photographer of our media history… he is a unique lensman, very quick to see a photograph and quite adept at creating one on the spot. In 1976 I witnessed one of his many arrests, this one near the Orlando East/Noordgesig intersection during the township uprisings, when he was thrown into the back of a police Casspir armoured vehicle. He was badly assaulted with a rifle butt, and he suffered a broken nose. Never one to give in easily, he rose up in great pain and continued shooting pictures from the police vehicle. I suspect that the real reasons why he has been such a formidable photographer are his keen sense of news, and a self-driven willingness to succeed in whatever he does.’ Jon Qwelane ‘Inhabitants of the developed world, and the privileged, tend to learn of the world’s troubles through photography. Magubane’s photobiography vividly portrays the fact that apartheid is crime against humanity.’ Dr Sifiso Ndlovu.

SACCME Freedom Day Celebration (click on image to enlarge)

Ekurhuleni Youth Choir	Holy Rosary Church Choir
Soweto Young Voices	Soweto Youth Choir
Unijoh Chorale-SWC	SACCME
Witbank Adult Choir

Sowetan News Article - Tuesday April 15, 2008 - click to view enlarged image for reading

Take the A Train Malome 7-Mabone: By Mothobi Mutloatse - Download Now (59kb)

VICTOR “SCRAPE” NTSHONA - HERBERT VILAKAZI - Download now (37kb)

The Cheek of Robert Mugabe - Download now 26kb

I apologise, South Africa!

I have never in my life been so humiliated vicariously as I was with regard to the University of the Free State students' racist behaviour towards workers old enough to be their parents in a so-called play-acting video documentary. What base cultural expression was this? The gods must be angry indeed.

I apologise to the mothers who had to suffer yet again the indignities of racial superiority in   the youth that is democratic South Africa. I apologise to the father who was treated like a boy, an unthinking and uncultured boy.

I apologise to my people for believing that we are people only through other people.

I wish to hug my mothers; I wish to hug my father, and say: I am deeply sorry I did not come to their aid and defense, intellectually.

I have heard the excuses before - deja vu. Didn't someone say 31 years ago? Dit laat my koud. It leaves me cold.  To laughter and cheers, nogal. Now I hear the same echo in a free South Africa: the 'innocent ' students were merely 'play-acting'. That is why I support a class action against the students, and damages claim against the university even if it has unreservedly condemned this reprehensible racist act. We ignore this simmering cauldron at our great peril.

Remember: Way back in Pompeii, 1928 years and 189 days ago, Mount Vesuvius fulfilled its volcanic fate when it erupted, burying the city of Pompeii and its surrounds.

We face a similar fate if we ignore the symptoms of racism underpinning the UFS sordid incident.

I suggest President Thabo Mbeki boldy set forth for Mangaung to confront the restless volcano headlong, accompanied by the motherhood of: Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, education Minister Naledi Pandor, Premier Beatrice Marshroff, accompanied by leaders of all the political parties in Parliament, the business communities, religious organisations across all faiths, youth leaders and Manyano delegations, to firstly pray for ourselves, and thereafter, to ask for one another's forgiveness's (and not sins, please!).

Then later, agree to convening  A National Healing Summit, In Search of Harmony.

Seven days might seem sufficient, but if the Kenyan human tragedy is anything to go by, seven days might be too little, too late. Now brother is killing brother across the demon of ethnicity even among families that had intermarried. Ask Mama Graca to update you on the timebomb that is ticking in previously stable Kenya. Perhaps Not yet uhuru. Shamed. Dehumanised and Broken.

But I have got to lift myself up again. Without any apologies.

Mothobi Mutloatse,
Johannesburg.

Launch of Choral Composers Festival Fellowship

About 50 guests comprising music directors, composers, teachers and media attended the launch on Wednesday 6 th February 2007.

Lindumuzi Mngoma presented the vision and motivation for such an initiative which seeks to preserve the choral music and honour the composers through this programme. He also announced the forthcoming concert which will illustrate the achievements of his work with various choral groups and stakeholders.

Email and sms methods were used to invite guests to the media launch. A database of stakeholders in the choral media was provided and this was of great help as we were able to target the relevant stakeholders.

DAC was invited but due to clash of schedules, some of the officials could not be presented.

Broad arts/music media was invited to the launch.

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=700537

From Samba to High-Life: A Tale of Two Icons - By Mothobi Mutloatse - click here to download

MALIBONGWE IGAMA LAMAKHOSIKAZI - By Zola Maseko - click here to download

LETTER TO THE SUNDAY TIMES

Sir – Hyperbole is a no-no, and coupled with literary exhibitionism, as was the case in last Sunday’s [18/11/07] column by the irrepressible Mr David Bullard, is comical if not ridiculous.

Attention-grabber Mr Bullard appears hell-bent on having his book banned, when he clearly knows that this is far-fetched as the constitution protects freedom of the press, as well as freedom of expression.

Only a mad, stupid, and self-destructive section of government would dare interfere with or tamper with the constitution. Evidently Mr Bullard is a satirist – as one of  his seniors once said to me – and therefore should not be taken serious of. I must admit, I fell for it.

‘Pessimism’, as the late esteemed jurist, former Chief Justice Ismail Mahomed said at a conference in Toronto, Canada, in 1989, ‘is a dangerous virus. Good and honest men and women who are afflicted by it often suffer from deep distress and confusion.”

He went on to say:’ They are intimidated by the depth of the challenges involved in meeting the need for transformation to a just and equitable society, instead of being inspired by the energies which can be released in confronting the challenge.’

By the bye, Mr Bullard, I have the experience of having six of the books I had published, being banned by the apartheid regime. Of course I appealed successfully, helped by the incredible team of the late Raymond Tucker, Prof John Dugard and Gilbert Marcus (now SC).

Freedom of the Press under threat? Try again, Mr Satire. –Mothobi Mutloatse, Johannesburg.

(email:mutloatse@mweb.co.za)

Other past events:

A LETTER TO BROTHER BANTU BIKO (a proemdra by Mothobi Mutloatse)

Molo, Bantubonke.

Good morning, Steve.

Heita comrade.

How’s mum? uMamcethe? And Tat'uBiko?

How’s Mapetla?

How’s bhut’ Khaya? Also sis'Bukelwa?

It is that time of the year – September, Heritage Month –when we ritually celebrate your generation through you, not nostalgically but rather heroically if not spiritually. You went away so soon; so quickly; so unexpectedly; so bloodily. Without saying a word. But then, you had already penned many, many, many words by the time you turned 30, almost a lifetime’s thoughts, aspirations, hopes and introspection transcending four generations.

Did you know that they would hurt your body but not your soul?

Did you find out the reason behind your killing?

Have you seen James Thomas Kruger, the then Minister who signed your banning order? Would you not like to ask him to explain in detail the rationale behind your death certificate, especially in light of the fact that you, Bantu, have always been a free spirit that could never be killed, and therefore would live forever?

September is Spring in South Africa and the Fall in the USA, for this is also the month to celebrate the Trane that was A Love Supreme, John Coltrane, who is to be seen Sitting on the Dock of the Bay with soulmate Otis Redding, as they Try A Little Tenderness.

Have you seen Paulo Freire? Franz Fanon? Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe? O R Tambo? They must be proud of you, now that you are in their midst at last? You could not meet all of them in the flesh (expect for The Prof who visited you in King in a brave act, one banned person to another), but somehow managed to do so in the spirit. And the spirit is cooking jazz as well.

Isn’t it heavenly, with Tat’u Allen Silinga on the way to joining the celestial gathering yonder, having penned classics such as Holili! And Ntyilo Ntyilo immortalized by Mama Afrika,uZenzile Miriam Makeba. Heela Steve, how was your 60th birthday? Did the solidarity brothers and sisters bake you a cake? And brewed umqombothi to wash it down? Ah, I see the other cats brought along something stronger! Ingenious cats indeed.

I am busy trying to finish the Proemdra I have been working on since the inquest into your death in December 1977. What’s a Proemdra? I guess you might be aware that it is my coinage of the synthesis of Prose; Poetry and Drama within a musical setting. Like a Jazz Suite; A Freedom Symphony. Didn’t Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn say A Drum is a Woman, while Dizzy Gillepsie had said autobiographically, To Be or Not to Bebop? Now Birdland's keyboards wizard Joe Zawinul has joined them too.

Who would comprise the Big Band and Chorus there? I see the horn section with such luminaries as Kippie Morolong Moeketsi, Charlie Bird Parker, Ntemi Baby Come Duze Piliso; Basil Manenberg Coetzee Mongezi Feza, Miles Kinda Blue Davis; Dudu Pukwana; Mra Ngcukana; Coltrane; Blyth Mbityana;Henry Sithole; Peter Ballroom Rezant;George Tyefumani; Albert Kid mawrong-wrong Ralulimi the music archivist supreme;Gwigwi Clarinetist Mrwebi; guitarists Cyril Magubane; General Duze, Barney Luthuli; alto saxist Zigzag Zachariah Our Kind of Jazz Nkosi and Victor Ndlazilwana, flautist Thomas Masemola; double bassists Chooks Tshukudu and Mongezi Velelo plus electric bassist Sipho Gumede, with Selby Thiba ka Moo Ntuli on Fender Rhodes with Early Mabuza drumming.

Hey, there’s Sunshine – Mama Sophie Mgcina, busy transcribing her vocal and horn arrangements of Mangwane, inspired by the modern reinterpretation by the younger generation, Mafikizolo whom she warmly credited at having given her a new lease of life beyond her wildest dreams, at Sarral’s offices.

There’s the sensuous Baby Ntshware Dolly Rathebe, accompanied by ivories icons Gideon Mgibe Nxumalo, Aunt Emily Motsieloa and Chris Blue Note MacGregor.

Who do I see over there conducting lessons in choral music, none other than Prof Khabi Mngoma, ably assisted by Reuben Tholakele Caluza, J P U Ea Kae? Mohapeloa, and BB Myataza, as Todd Matshikiza performs his evergreen Hamba Kahle on a baby grand, neh?

Oh no, there’s also Tat’u Sontonga, uMankayi, Enoch, who 120 years ago, in 1897, composed a hymn for Africa; a Prayer of Africa, in Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika in Soweto, passing away barely in his thirties – strangely just like yourself, Bantu.

Isn’t that playwright-artist Matsemela Manaka in serious conversation with master actor and drama tutor James Mthoba, about to be joined by Barney Simon? Oh, there’s piano protégé Moses Taiwa Molelekoa, the pride of Fuba, always shy; always reserved; always creative; always searching for the truth. Ah, there comes along Fikile Magadlela with his Sunrise Birds in Full Flight backdrop canvas for for soon-to-be Proemdra, A Letter to Brother Biko.

How did he know? Did Fikile have a premonition? Did he create the setting?

Bantu, even the father of Pan Africanism, Kwame Nkrumah was born during the month of September, did you know? I see him exchanging notes with Langston the Blues Poet Langston, he of the Harlem Renaissance period and of ‘Beautiful, also are the souls of my people’, and the classic question:’ What happens to a dream deferred?’

Richard Rive, an old mate of Hughes, is feverishly revising his seminal District Six group biography, Buckingham Palace, with a grin as wide as Table Mountain, as if to deadline.

Is that Chris Hani standing next to you, Bantu? What is he saying? So you do not wish to share your secret with us? Tomorrow? Day after tomorrow, maybe? I am intrigued that you should be so close. Okay, call it naiveté on my part if you will.

Cabral eloquently speaks of returning to the source, which is also the theme of my proemdra;

‘So the return to the source is of no historical importance unless it brings not only real involvement in the struggle for independence, but also complete and absolute identification with the hopes of the masses…’

As you Brother Bantu Stephen Biko aptly put it:

‘We have set out on a quest for true humanity, and somewhere on the distant horizon we can see the glittering prize.’

Little wonder then that some people talk of ukuza kukaBantu.

A love supreme, a love supreme…

© September 2007.

Relaunch of No Fears Expressed, the 30th Anniversary Edition edited by Millard W Arnold, was held at Xarra Books, Newtown, Johannesburg, on August 30. Also in attendance were some of Bantubonke Stephen Biko's contemporaries such as: Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana who opedned the proceedings with an insightful prayer and profile of Biko; Tom Manthata; Rams Ramokgopa; Debs Matshoba; Bokwe Mafuna; Bishop Joe Seoka; Ishmael Mkhabela, the Steve Biko Foundation chairman, and June Joseph-Langa, the bookshop co-owner to name but a few.

Articles by Millard W Arnold:

Steve Biko 30 years on.doc (34kb) (right click and select "..save target as")
STEVE BIKO Lives.doc (36kb)

Past events:

June 16, Youth Day
ADDRESS TO THE YOUNG LEADERS OF TODAY -composed by DR MATHEWS PHOSA

Click here to download the letter to ANC Youth.

New Steve Biko book is out:

In September 2007 the world will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of Black Consciousness leaders Bantu Stephen Biko. Endowed with a great sense of history and political foresight, Biko ideas continue to have relevance for Africa’s development agenda, three decades after his murder. It is therefore fitting that as we remember him we sample, once more, from his works through the latest edition of No Fears Expressed, once a premier reference book for many young activists. Enjoy and share the legacy! - Nkosinathi Biko

Speech given by Balozi Rupia on 31st January 2007 at Holiday Inn - Click here to download 27kb

Book Launch - Mama T Speech - Click here to download 37kb

Dar and the Nyerere Solution - Click here to download 35.4kb

Archie Mafeje: a giant has moved on - Click here to download 37.0kb

Human Rights Day and the Omission of Robert Sobukwe's Name - Click here to download 24.6kb

Ubuntu/Botho:
Building a Teaching and Learning Community Using Ubuntu/Botho - click here to download the document. 104kb

A tribute:
Biographical Tribute by Sekola Sello from the forthcoming anthology:  (click here to download)

Doc Bikitsha Reader (click here to download) - Journalism Spanning 40 Years, Compiled by 
Mothobi Mutloatse, for publication in May.

Click here for articles