I met Farai
Mpfunya a year ago at the Kennedy Center and had the pleasure of sharing the
seminar room, and some lunch breaks, with him in two consecutive summers. What
I appreciated the most in our conversations or listening to Farai´s comments in
class, was his solid knowledge of the cultural sector in Zimbabwe and abroad,
as well as his well-thought and balanced opinions. Farai speaks when he has
really something to say and I feel very fortunate to have met him. mv
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| Mai Musodzi Cinema Hall, Mbare (Photo: Farai Mpfunya) |
Mbare, suburb
in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Most little
boys and girls growing up in this neighbourhood in the 1970s were five minutes
away from a cinema, library, sports centre, church and school. A rich
educational and cultural environment for the little ones to grow up in, you
would say. To top it up, it was one of the most cultural diverse multi-ethnic
communities. Many from all over the country and from across the border wanted
to live in the thriving capital city of a rich small country. While the local
residents had brought these amazingly rich cultures and their arts, the city
infrastructure imposed an urban Culture and encouraged certain types of Arts.
What Culture?
Whose Culture?
Before
Zimbabwe’s independence from British rule in 1980, Mbare was an area where
black people lived. No white people lived there, except the occasional Catholic
parish priest. The white police officers and local authority superintendents
only came in the morning to work and left in the evening. They lived in the
white suburbs or neighbourhoods buffered by the industrial and commercial
areas.
A couple of
main roads connected the neighbourhood to the rest of the world and these roads could be sealed off by police when the little
children’s parents started making noise about human rights and conditions of
living in the area. Judging from the way the police carried themselves, the
sporadic episodes of them chasing black people with dogs, motor bikes and
anti-riot vehicles sometimes seemed like a big-people game to the children. It
was all part of the urban cultural landscape. A small white community of
European descent had ruled Zimbabwe since 1896 and had ‘built’ a new ‘nation’
called Rhodesia, culture included.
What Culture?
Whose Culture?
In the 70s,
little ones in Mbare had fun at the cinemas. They watched James Bond’s Gold Finger and James Coburn in A Man Called Flint and played guns and
spies after. They watched cowboys and Indians and hunted down Indians in the
neighbourhood after the film. They watched Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon and fancied themselves martial arts experts.
In the local
library, some read Shakespeare. At school they were recited Christopher
Columbus and David Livingstone’s journeys of discovery of new worlds and cultures. At home they were told that Livingstone had discovered and named the mighty Victoria Falls in honour of his own
queen. The same falls were their own heritage and known at home as Mosi-oa-Tunya
(Tokaleya Tonga: the Smoke that Thunders). Black teachers taught new history
and culture while parents and grandparents taught the old history and culture.
In the 70s, the little ones in Mbare
had fun in the public swimming pool named after one of the
early European settlers who had moved their ancestors off their land. In the
chlorinated swimming pool they dreamt and trained to become the 1972 seven-times gold
medalist and American, Mark Spitz,....
together with the Speedo swimming trunks! They played football and gave
one another new names like Pele and Socrates after the football giants of
Brazil. They embraced global culture before global became trendy.
What Culture?
Whose Culture?
 |
| Mbare Municipal Library (Photo: Farai Mpfunya) |
Zimbabwe held
harmonised elections in July 2013, as
it does every five years or so. These elections were declared peaceful by the
whole world. Many Zimbabweans had prayed for peace to prevail, partly because,
the last time round, elections got violent in some areas and development stood
still. Zimbabweans also have a genuine culture of peace. While the ruling
party, ZANU (FP), was obviously over the moon with the results of the elections,
because they won overwhelmingly, some were surprised and others angered.
Nonetheless, the morning after, life in Zimbabwe continued as peaceful as it
had started before electioneering. The will of the diverse people of Zimbabwe
had been expressed. End of story, right?
Not so for my
country. The result was dissected for its fairness and credibility. Internally,
the major opposition party contested both the fairness and credibility of the
process and result. African regional and continental political bodies that had
sent monitoring observers on the ground were quick to endorse the results as a
credible representation of the will of the people, while some powerful western
countries, who had not been allowed to send official
monitoring observers on the ground, were quick to hold their judgment on the
credibility of the result as a true representation of the will of the
people.....of Zimbabwe.
The culture
of voting in Zimbabwe had not impressed them.
 |
| National Gallery Visual Arts School, Mbare Department (Photo: farai Mpfunya) |
The sitting
President of Zimbabwe, a hero of the war of liberation against colonial rule,
has had a decade of diplomatic fights with western countries. They put him
under targeted sanctions together with about a hundred of his comrades, also
heroes of the war of liberation against colonial rule. While all this was going
on, the little ones in Mbare played their new games in not-so-looked after spaces. They blame the sanctions. While a new
culture of poverty pervades the landscape, deep resilience reigns.
Undeterred by
his critics, the President claimed victory in the harmonised elections, was
inaugurated into power by the Chief Justice and proceeded to appoint a new
cabinet and form a new government. Government ministries where reduced, a new
Ministry of Sports, Arts and Culture was announced. Many in the Arts and
Culture sector who had lobbied for a separate ministry for years were
surprised. They got more than they had expected, though they have to figure out
what to do with their sporty sisters.
The little
boys and girls of Mbare are anxious that their run down facilities, following
years of targeted sanctions, will be
refurbished, their neighbourhood will be regenerated. New energy will certainly
return in their cultures.....Facebook, Twitter............
What Culture?
Whose Culture?
Farai
Mpfunya
is the founding and executive Director of the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust,
the biggest local funding organisation in Zimbabwe’s Arts and Culture
sector. Farai Mpfunya served on the
Arterial Network’s Cultural Policy Task Group that created a framework for enabling
African governments in cultural policy making. Educated in Zimbabwe,
France and England, he started his professional career in the public and then
corporate sectors, having studied electronics engineering and then business
administration (MBA) before career shifting to filmmaking and then arts and
culture administration. Farai is a Chevening Scholar,
a fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar (Session 490) and DeVos Institute of
Arts Management at the Kennedy Center.
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