Dispatch Dialogue

I went to a Dispatch Dialogue yesterday, with speakers Fred Khumalo and Justice Malala. The Dispatch Dialogues are excellent excellent excellent, if you live in East London I highly recommend you get to them.

I confess that Fred Khumalo is almost my Andile Mngxitama. Not quite, but almost. So I was so excited to attend that I squirmed out of two other prior commitments.

The talks were great, Fred made us laugh, Justice made us laugh and charmed our socks off (wow that guy has some charisma). And they both had great things to say. Justice especially, actually. He explained the whole Kumba/Arcelor-Mittal/ICT mining rights deal - its pretty complicated! Good to know we have people investigating these things for us.

I went to the talk having decided that I was going to ask a question about lack of diversity of opinion in the media, or something like that. Which I did. And then felt really bad about it. I asked about why the media does not address the issues raised by the ANC - ownership, lack of diversity, bias, that sort of thing. Shame I felt bad about it afterwards, it felt a bit attacking.

Oh well!

Fred Khumalo didn't give the best answer ever, I must say. He basically said, yes, they are addressing it and they acknowledge some of those issues as legitimate problems, and they do address them in their columns and editorials.

Hmmm...

Holiday Read #1: Bitches' Brew, Fred Khumalo

The first book on my pile of Holiday reads was Bitches' Brew, by Fred Khumalo.

It is written as a series of letters between Lettie and Zakes. The story begins with Lettie, from Lesotho, leaving her rural home for Durban after realising she is pregnant. On the bus to Durban she meets Zakes, the Jazz musician. Zakes grew up in a devout family. But when he discovered Myles Davis and Steve Biko at university, he dropped out of university, dropped out of his family, and made his own way in the world.

After their meeting in the bus, they part ways. But eventually end up coming in and out of one another's lives. The letters between them reminisce about the parts of their lives spent together, and fill each other in on the times spent apart. The other men and women in their lives, the shebeens they ran, the enterprises they were involved in and Zakes' eventual descent into hardened criminal.

It is a beautiful book. About love and about stumbling your way through life.

It is a bit explicit sometimes (so many local books are! I know I am prudish but I wish this wasn't such a characteristic of local literature.) But I recommend it. It is well worth reading. For the poignant love story and for the array of characters he paints so well. And for an intense picture of the era the book was set in: the 60s, 70s.