What if the Centre Can Hold? Vusi Mahlasela and Guy Buttery

I’ve been feeling it for a while, and social media doesn’t help. Election years bring out the worst in people. My hope for this country feels like a box of Lion matches… As soon as you light one, it goes out or splinters. You decide whatever you’re lighting doesn’t matter anyway. Hopefully, it’s not a Molotov.  

New leaders crop up like daisies; opinionistas, influencers, commenters join the fray. Election posters remind you of the old white men you thought died out with apartheid; some show faces of okes who’ve already looted the country, others look smug, some look like mug shots, others like deer in the headlights, incapable of leading water to a pothole. These are our leaders; the chosen ones. My hope dies. 

I think back to Barack Obama’s famous HOPE poster. And then see where HOPE got America. 

It’s a fool’s game. 

Xenophobia, anti-immigration, nationalism- however you want to gussie it up, it makes me knotted with worry. We’ve landed in a W.B. Yeats poem, and the centre isn’t holding. People march for themselves. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

We’re apparitions staring at our screens. Anxious. Addicted. We’re in the worst-case scenario of our own making. 

What happens if we go out into the world? What happens if we see things as they are, not as we’ve been led to believe? What if we edit? What if we choose a different story?  

What if we take the drive, on a Sunday—always a Sunday and always bound to turn misty—to the Schlesinger Theatre at Michaelhouse to see what William LeCordeur and Nicole Schafer have painstakingly organised; to show us a version of the world as it really is. 

Vusi Mahlasela and Guy Buttery sharing a stage. 

The place should be packed. 

The concert opens with Guy Buttery and Quintin Song delivering high-level conceptual bonanzas with their usual flair. I can’t help but think that Buttery is getting even better every time I see him, which doesn’t seem possible. And one minute his guitar is a guitar, the next it’s a drum, and the next it’s a piano. My brain is on fire, and I’m reminded of Moira Lovell, my teacher, who told me I could break the rules when I knew them. What a beautiful excuse to learn the rules. Anyway, Guy is breaking stuff with aplomb, and I can’t believe he’s not some high-level composer over at Netflix.  

And then Vusi Mahlasela, “The Voice”, is on stage. I have a friend who says she would have walked from the Karkloof to get here for this. And sure, there may not be a full house, but you can’t help feeling like everyone is pinching themselves to be here and that we feel like we’re in a time warp. We are the privileged. We are here.  

He starts quietly… Gently, like a warm breeze. And while he is a musician, he is a storyteller of the highest order. Those people who want musicians to “just make music” are thankfully not in this crowd. Music without story and purpose reads like a library without books.  

Mahlasela talks and sings about black bodies abused by policemen during apartheid; about food security, protecting native crops and seeds, and distribution; he talks about a sunbed and sauna in Sweden; he talks about the Khoisan; and he talks about Ubuntu. 

There’s a moment when I anticipate a pre-eyeroll at the very mention of Ubuntu. Ubuntu has come to feel like the Rainbow Nation, a dishevelled theatre backdrop that we dust off and bring out to impress audiences. Audiences who shuffle in their seats and aren’t really buying it, but are too polite not to give a disengaged clap. Or it’s a wrist tattoo or a T-shirt used as props to tell a story about this mythic nation once visited, where sharing, forgiveness, and humanity are its lifeblood. And then they go back to their lives in “first-world” countries. 

Ubuntu means differently from the mouth of Vusi Mahlasela, though. Ubuntu isn’t a slogan. It’s not a catchphrase. It’s what he lives and what he shares. Ubuntu is a decision. And as he says, “We should wear our forgiveness like a crown.” 

It’s a Sunday, at about that time, so I can’t help thinking back to when this meant compulsory chapel service. I think about all the school kids currently in chapel getting whatever pre-exam sermon is being dished up while they open their hymn books to tuneless number 46, and I feel like they’re missing out on the real message. I lost my religion, but I never lost my faith. I have faith in abundance, and as I sit in this theatre surrounded by gentle, fierce protest, faith pulsates through me, and every nerve is set on edge. John Kani, Athol Fugard, Mary Sibande, Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, Winston Ntshona, Zakes Mokae… and a montage of others travel through my mind’s eye. Electrifying… These humans who have inspired my faith. 

These are the humans who showed me South Africa and the spirit of the type of protest that cuts and bites and electrifies and surprises and crescendos and moves through you, where you become part of it. The type of protest where you gather up the pieces left on stage and weave them into a form that you can share. Because it’s all too big for anyone to carry alone. I have faith that we can carry this, because we always have.   

Watching Vusi Mahlasela and Guy Buttery share a stage and create something so South African in class, magic, story, and sound did not restore my hope. I am not hopeful about how things will turn out after the 4th of November.  

But it did reinforce my faith that there will always be just enough of us who will use whatever art we have in us to show that turning up on what will no doubt be a misty Sunday afternoon is the point. Nothing matters beyond the stage and what we pick up. We play on. We create. We move. 

A group of young boys clamour to meet Vusi after the concert and shake his hand. One says, “I’m not washing my hand,” as he holds it up to show everyone. I imagine the boys running off to set down their muse, to pick up their instrument of choice. Meanwhile, Guy Buttery looks like he’s just had the best afternoon of his life, like he’s the lucky one.

And I can’t believe my luck. Guy hugs me because we’re on hugging terms now (I feel like Mel from Flight of the Conchords), and I can’t help myself and enter Vusi Mahlasela’s orbit to attempt some sort of classic socially awkward greeting that I have perfected. I mumble something incoherent about privilege and thanks, and I think he understands… He asks if we want a photo with him and I die. 

I die.  

The centre will hold. 

It will hold because forgiveness should be worn like a crown. 

I will have faith in the artists who continue to work so hard for this country, and for the people who show up. And I will pick up the pieces of what is left behind on stages, on pavements, and boots… Because I have faith that I can. 

Excerpt from Say Africa by Vusi Mahlasela

Sticks and stones and the UN loans and passport controls

For countries that don’t exist

It’s a big world and they have their own problems everywhere

And there’s gold in that clenched fist

People ask me where I’m from I say Mamelodi township

In City called Tshwane meaning ‘we are the same’

I have a great friend who is a great musician

And he’s from Ebhayi, near King Williams Town

You know where Steve Biko was born

You might have read or seen a film about Africa

You know it’s a big continent

With the great gift of Ubuntu

I may be walking through the streets of a city called London

But the dust on my boots and the rhythm of my feet and my heartbeat Say Africa

I may be walking in the streets of a city called Amsterdam

But the dust on my boots and the rhythm of my feet and my heartbeat say Africa

Say Africa, Say Africa

Say Africa, Say Africa

Say Africa, Say Africa

Say Africa, Say Africa