Awulethe Isamoosa Yami!

By Sipho Hlongwane

Awulethe umshini wami, ngiyawudinga!

I realise that talking of mshini wami is so 2008, but bear with me. We’re a little behind here in the provinces.

Four words that forever changed the country. And really, why? As slogans go this is one of the tamer ones out there. Remember “One farmer, one bullet”? Much more incendiary. There are some pretty off-colour Zulu war songs that were taught to me as a child, and compared to those, mshini wami is a Baptist hymn. My “favourite” one (if I could be as forward as to pick a favourite) went something like this:

We will strike them down,
Though they be as numerous as the grass in a field,
Their gushing blood will tell the tale,
Of our victory over them!
Cometh uSuthu olumabheshu ankone!

The power of mshini wami lay not so much in the words, but with the singer of those words. All who rose in righteous indignation did so because it was Jacob Zuma who sang the words. Apparently we expect more kosher behaviour from our politik types. Ok, first of all — what nonsense! I think the idea that our men and women of public office should hide their vices from the electorate is extremely dumb, not to mention dangerous. No, they should have their sins out in the open, for all to see. How refreshing would the elections be if we were made to choose between the ills of the campaigning politicians, instead of their silly election one-liners? I for one am glad Zuma came out and jiggled about calling for his machine gun. No one had any doubts as to where he stood. I like people like that.

There’s also the “it’s a struggle song” versus “it’s incitement to violence” debate, which I’m aware of, but would like to ignore, chiefly because I’m somewhat short in the intellectual debate department. I really wouldn’t know what to say when those Steve Biko types with their scruffy beards hold forth. I’ll just pick a side. The counter-revolutionary side. That’s the side that says songs such as mshini wami have a powerful effect on people, and should probably not be sung. I can’t really imagine how mshini wami is all that bad. I’ve sung it plenty of times before and I don’t recall going on a pillage and plunder mission afterwards. Neither has Zuma, if you don’t count Polokwane. He’s been rather AK47-free, as far as I can tell. But let’s assume that the person who came to the aforementioned conclusion has an impressive brace of alphabets after their name, wears faded tweeds and teaches at some random university. Awulethe umshini wami is a bad, bad song and Zuma is naughty for teaching it to the masses.

The consensus (between the fancy PhDs and the five or so angst-ridden columns I read) seems to be that Zuma should stop singing it. The masses should go back to singing Bantu Church of Christ psalms that have been suitably modified for revolutionary purposes.

My heart aches at such short-sightedness. Society has been gifted with a wonderful tune, one that is immediately recognisable and apparently has magical effects on people. As branding and marketing go, mshini wami is one of the gems out there. You can’t argue against that. And they’re saying we should scrap it. Why not use it for loftier purposes? Or better still, make it so domestic and common place, it would lose its sting entirely? No one ever hears of the revolutionaries being goaded on with Ba-ba black sheep, have you any wool? Why can’t we paint mshini wami with the same brush of fluff and cotton bibs? With a little imagination, we could render it utterly useless for evil.

Here are a few ideas I’ve had so far:

Awulethe icolonoscopy yami, ngiyayidinga!
Awulethe isamoosa yami, ngiyayidinga!
Awulethe iCremora yami, ngiyayidinga! (and she’ll retort, “it’s not inside, it’s on top!”)

Go on, try this at home! The possibilities are endless.

Sipho Hlongwane is a blogger http://ministryofinternalunderstanding.wordpress.com and an aspiring writer. You listen to him at your own peril …