Folk the Park and the Neoliberal South Africa

(This is a slight introduction to the research I will be immersing myself into for the next few months, its still a bit disjointed, and incomplete, but I shall be building on it over the next year in preparation for my dissertation.)

Folk the Park, a guerrilla folk festival held at either Emmarentia Dam or Zoo Lake, is a seemingly political activity with no political agenda. It is now looking forward to its fifth event and is attended by over 200 people, a large majority of those in organisation, attendance and performance are punks.  I plan to study how the punks occupy the space of Folk the Park. In terms of their dress, performance, and interaction in order to better understand Levi Straus’s idea that “Images cannot be ideas but they can ... co-exist with ideas in signs and, if ideas are not yet present, they can keep their future place open for them and make its contours apparent negatively.” (Strauss 1962; 13)  I would like to explore what ideas could be extrapolated; Folk the Park being a sign, and because of its context with in Johannesburg, a post-apartheid city – in just existing it creates a space for meaningful ideas. I shall juxtapose this with a study of how previous events in South African music have been seen to have meaning, or ideas attached to them.  

Folk the Park is seemingly political in relation to law. The law in Johannesburg stating that to have more than 15 people in a public space constitutes a protest, a law which has its roots in the Riotous Assembly and Suppression of Communist Amendment Act, Act no 15 of 1954. But one could go further back to the first take-over of land in the 1600’s with the reclaiming of the commons, when land became property that could be owned. The disjuncture comes in when we look at the fact that all Folk the Park stands for is a free platform for bands to play their music and jam with other musicians, within a public space. 

Folk the Park is not a new concept, in the 1950’s The Kwela Jam Sessions were held at the Zoo Lake. They started coming under government attention when white kids from the suburbs became interested in them. This is an example of another instance in history which underlies a seemingly political activity with no agenda. But in having the situation meaning has occurred. There are multiple instances of this in South African music history. Another example would National Wake – a multi-racial punk band who existed between 1979 and 1982. While they believed themselves to have no agenda, their existing created meaning within the context of Apartheid.

In using Folk the Park I hope to attain an understanding of the meaning or ideas that this festival creates in today’s context in relation to a past of South African music which also embodied the ideal of seeming like protest but had no underlying agenda, and the meaning those instances created in a South African context.

In doing this I hope to explore the relationship of the nature of ideas to the study of anthropology and is theoretical framework. For if anthropology is but a study which transposes ideas (theories) upon subjects what is its role as a science? Or how does it question the nature of science, being a largely deductive discipline.

In order to understand the meaning that such an event as Folk the Park would have in the greater scheme of things is no simple task, for a history of South Africa, and Johannesburg is to some extent necessary. The cross pollination of Colonial frames into Africa is something that has to be detailed.

Let us start in the micro. A conversation turned rant had with a friend, a self-labelled punk, who regularly attends and performs at Folk the Park, Mike B. This conversation took place at The Bohemian, a live music venue in Richmond, Johannesburg. “What can an upper middle class kid in South Africa do? I know I have money behind me, and my parents expect me to be the same as them, get a job, make more money. I don’t want to fucking make money. What’s the point about singing about anarchy here. What difference does it make? We’re a minority. I’m just going to sing about beer and getting drunk. Fuck singing about politics.”

He stops, calms about and apologises. “Sorry. I’m frustrated.”

The frustration that Mike feels is a common sentiment amongst the group of Jozi punks with which I hang out regularly. Caught in a post-apartheid, neoliberal, capitalist system. Most of them do have money behind them, but they see the nature of inequality and hate the fact that they do. Money is the evil, gained off of the backs of exploitation during apartheid.

The story of South Africa from 1994 is not a new one. Nelson Mandela was elected as the countries president, and the nation’s ideology was meant to shift to one that embraced a non-racial South Africa. (Tomlinson, et al; 2003) But looking back to 1979 and footage from a National Wake show held on Rocky Street in Yoeville, the project of apartheid only seems to have thickened. The footage shows a muli-racial crowd dancing to the multi-racial band National Wake.  In an interview with Ivan Kadey, rhythm guitarist and only surviving member of the band, he explained that the streets in apartheid were never segregated. 

It seems that now, in the wake of Apartheid even though the laws the held class, and racial divisions in check have been removed. A culture of fear in the growing disparity between the high rates of poverty and unemployment, lack of housing has taken on the new face of segregation. The symbol of this fear being high walls, an influx of security companies – privately owned and the growing number of boomed off areas, that have become common in the upper-class suburbs to the north of the city. As Louw suggest the adding of these security measures “encodes class relation and residential segregation (rass/class/ethnicity) more permanently in the built environment.” (Louw; 387)

The dismantling of apartheid gave way not to a mutli-racial South Africa, but a neo-liberal South Africa. The essence of this era’s “economic fundamentals” are based in the necessity of attracting foreign capital, redistributing income, expanding the economy, balancing local government budgets, and counter-acting the AIDS epidemic. But the problems now faced but the country and its citizens that need to be solved in order to achieve a just system, do not seem to be aligned with the outcomes of neo-liberalism. (Tomlinson et al; 2003)

More-over it seems as if South Africa is still part of a colonial project, or a project of the “West”. While it may be argued that the West has become an integrated part of globalized culture, the disparities between the so called “first” and “third” worlds still remains evident. Johannesburg being a prime example in the micro of this macro picture; having both the traits of a first world economy– in its thriving business hub of Sandton, and the third world - present in the decaying city centre.

The hope portrayed for the beginning of the new South Africa by advertising agencies and consultants had been that foreign investment and tourists would flood to the city of Johannesburg. But the perception of the city as dangerous and the economy unstable stuck. And neither tourists nor investment came willingly. Even as South Africa made the transition to a neoliberal agenda of privatization, a down-sized government, open-markets and wage restraints as were the international “best practices” – the Johannesburg city centre still has not restructured itself to be attractive to the international capitalist market. The city was deserted by the affluent white working class communities who retreated to the suburbs and to form their new economic centre in Sandton, as the city became the home to an influx of Africans from around the continent. This created a new hub of street traders, prostitutes and drug trading (Tomlinson et al, 2003).

Following its independence from the British colony South Africa was given the chance to remold itself. But the nature inherent in the structures of built society dictates a specific system of order - one that was inherited from the colonies. And Johannesburg as a city has not been able to break free from the ever looming presence of the Western World. We are still driven by its ideals, even though the majority of the population is in poverty, and with the introduction of privatised water and electricity the constitution promised in 1994 has been breached. What with Suez installing pre-paid water meters in Soweto in 2003, which led to massive water disconnections. (Bond; 122)

Around the world various groups and organisations have been standing up against the injustices of neo-liberalism, in South Africa the Anti- Privitisation Forum is at the fore-front. Their aim: to liberate electricity and water from expensive and unreliable meters. As well as to win access to basic lifeline electricity and water. (Bond; 124)

And within all of this turmoil, there is a group of middle class white kids inhabiting a park and playing music. For seemingly no end other than to play music. But on the inside there is more going on. As Mike’s rant shows, there are feelings of angst, guilt, frustration building up, of hopelessness of being an elite minority, of wanting a better world, in light of the poverty faced every day. And it is these ideas which I will explore within the context which I have so briefly outlined.

The Anti-Punk Propaganda Machine

In Richard Sennett’s article “The New Capitalism” he states that “the new capitalism is impoverishing the value of work. Becoming more flexible and short-term, work is ceasing to serve as a point of reference for defining durable personal purposes and a sense of self-worth; sociologically, work serves ever less as a forum for stable, sociable relations.” He goes onto say that because people are losing a sense of belonging related to work  that they are increasingly committing themselves more to be related to geographic places such as cities, nations and localities. While this may be true, there is another option of belonging that I would like to explore. And it comes down to music, and subculture, in specific punk rock.

Since its conception in the 80’s punk rock and its cultural form have been berated in the public eyes, seen as hooligans of a dangerous nature, set out to destroy your public property and your nation. The  propaganda against punk rock worked to some extent, the movement was described as either meaningless, with no ideology behind its fashion, or contradictory to its ideology of anti-capitalism. The truth of the matter is that punk created a new ethic which had the power to displace corporate and commercial ideals. 

That ethic was the spirit of DIY, do it yourself. Instead of adhering to the popular culture portrayed on MTV by musical conglomerates such as Sony and BMG who would never sign or give exposure to bands who were not of a commercial nature, the punk culture of the 80’s created a new social order of belonging.  They created their own labels, sticking to low-fi recording techniques, they created their own infrustracture of advertising and public relations using fanzines, commonly known as ‘zines’. Which did not need large budgets for printing as they were mostly black and white print. They spoke out against the middle and working class life style of consumption, and maybe even more profoundly were one of the first social movements which had an understanding of the need for something to belong to and identify with that was not centred on work ethic, but on a lifestyle that was centred around this new ethic of DIY. It is something that resonates in the underlying ideal of entrepreneurship which is so valued in South African economic growth today, except it was based outside of capitalism - as the end goal was not profit, but cultural expansion, the growth of an ethic and identification system not based in work as it is interpreted today, as Marx describes it in all its exploitative glory.  

Today punk has transformed into a global network. At the beginning of 2012 65 Indonesian punk youths from Aceh were detained, their hair shaved off, were stripped of their body piercings, and sent for religious rehabilitation to put them back on the correct moral path – they were seen as a threat to the Islamic value system. This event did two things, firstly it showed the extremist attitude against punk rock, and secondly it highlighted the fact that the global network of punk has expanded since the 80’s and has it in their means to fight against such social injustices as a group, who identify with each other more strongly than they do with their nationality, religion or place of work.

Powerage and the Global Apartheid

Powerage – Protest to survive 7”EP (Neg. FX, France, 1985) – Front Cover

Powerage – Protest to survive 7”EP (Neg. FX, France, 1985) – Inside 1

Powerage – Protest to survive 7”EP (Neg. FX, France, 1985) – Inside 2

Powerage – Protest to survive 7”EP (Neg. FX, France, 1985) – Back Cover

Powerage – Protest to survive 7”EP (Neg. FX, France, 1985) – Insert 1

Powerage – Protest to survive 7”EP (Neg. FX, France, 1985) – Insert 2

There is something to be said about a South African punk rock EP being published in France in 1985. Most of those things would start with questions. Why could an anti-apartheid album not be published in South Africa? Or was it better off being published in France? What links did the South African punk scene have with the European punk scene during this time? How were these relationships formed? The answers to these questions seem simple, but the more one looks between the lines a strange picture of unity within estrangement emerges. It is this picture that I will focus on, for the former questions cannot be answered accurately without interviews.

It all starts in the context of apartheid, a framework of forced segregation. By 1985 a significant divestment movement throughout the world had begun placing pressure on investors to disinvest from South Africa. The global community was in a strong reactionary phase to the apartheid regime. And in Durban South Africa a small pocket of white resistance was making itself heard within the global community of punk rock.

Positioning themselves as anarchists against the discrimination of fellow men, Powerage sang out against apartheid, but more so than that against discrimination. For it is the plight of the punk rocker to be discriminated unjustly against for their modes of dress, musical taste, and beliefs about “the system”. And it is in this judgement from “civil” society that a connection of unity can be made between an estranged group of white punks in Durban to those suffering from the oppressions of apartheid mandate. In a recent conversation with Ampie Omo trombonist of monkee punk band BOO! A similar notion came up 17 years after the end of Apartheid with small communities fighting for their identities - the right to keep their languages and customs alive. What he said was that (although I do believe he was references an earlier conversation had with Chris Chameleon) all these communities are fighting the same struggle, the struggle for their own identity, and while their identities, languages and customs may be different, they are fighting against the same concept. Afrikaans, Pedi, Tswana. And they must unite in order to conquer.

While the struggle during apartheid was seemingly different, it was a fight for citizenship and recognition, to be part of a larger whole. The irony, it seems, is that now that apartheid has ended small cultural groups are becoming estranged from their cultural heritage’s and are being forced to become part of the global community. To be educated in English, to believe with all their might in consumerism, and the goodness of monetary wealth. They are controlled by large scale border controls. They have passports instead of pass books. We all have passports. We are all stuck in a global apartheid. But the oppressor is faceless, it has become a system of laws and regulations – hedged by corporates with their own wealth in mind and the well-being of those enslaved during colonialism has become a situation of adapt or die. And the punks still sing out. The fools of modern society, except that nobody is listening or laughing. Their ears and eyes blind folded and deafened by media and songs about Jimmy Choos and lady lumps. If only Plato could see his golden lie in action today.

While the hatred bred in apartheid between whites and blacks in South Africa keeps them living in the past, blind to the larger injustices of the world. The new regime of neo-liberalism spreads its blind octopussy tentacles and segregates the world into first and third, richer and poorer. Better off and worse. And the words written in 1985 by a group of anarchist punks still speak true “We as a band stand against any discrimination of fellow man, we believe that everyone should live in a state of equality, no matter of race, religion, wealth, music and way of dress. We therefore stand against any law that denies a person equality, their human rights. We strongly oppose the laws regarding Apartheid in our country.” Except that now it is the global apartheid to which we can refer.