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Busara criticisms lack accuracy
Posted by Rachel Hamada on 18 Feb
Sauti za Busara director Yusuf speaks to the press. Photo: Pernille Baerendtsen
If you stick your head above the parapet, sooner or later a poison arrow will wing its way in your direction. To adapt a famous saying - "those who can, do and those who can't, bitch". The truth is that it it's easier to carp and criticise from the sidelines than it is to think big, stick your neck out and try to achieve something for the majority.
Journalists - oh yes, myself included - like to stick in little self-affirming cliques. Facebook and other social media make this easier. Everyone 'likes' what you say because they are your friends (or contacts who want to keep you sweet). It's not often a forum for criticism and debate. Most of us like to surround ourselves by like-minded people from the same political stance as ourselves - cards on the table, I am a social liberal with a belief that truly free business relationships can produce positive outcomes and that many NGOs are part of an aid industry propping up neo-colonialism in Africa.
But just because I like staying in my comfort zone doesn't mean I always allow myself to. I read the media that I don't normally agree with to make sure I can articulate why I don't agree. I read high-level right-wing commentary because often good points are made that I can't easily dismiss and I have to look at my own beliefs and question if they are real or just lazy. I make myself check out every NGO because a few, in part or wholly, are really doing something useful and amazing. I read the lowbrow press to know what it's telling people (usually that this celebrity is too thin and that one is too fat).
Nonetheless, I am conscious that as a writer we get to criticise others (politicians, musicians, playwrights, film-makers, sports people) often without comeback.
This year's Sauti za Busara festival and the resulting media coverage was a case in point. The festival was on the whole focused, tight, eclectic and fun. It was also accessible to an extent few African music festivals ever are.
Don't get me wrong - valid and constructive criticism (otherwise known as 'tough love') is fine. Mambo has not been shy to point out flaws in Zanzibar's festivals, as seen in last year's film festival coverage here and here. But when we do it it's from a position of attending most of the festival, putting the work in and knowing the context. So it's been a shame to see this year's Sauti za Busara come under fire for all the wrong reasons.
First up is VICE magazine. OK, VICE likes to be edgy and cause controversy with knowing articles on giving blowjobs and going to dog shows on acid (yes, really). But this piece on the festival is lame. It is aiming to be gonzo a la Hunter S Thompson but ends up being more Gonzo from the Muppets.
So maybe the writer's circle of yeh-buddies made her feel that it was cool to publish something looking like she just doesn't give a damn. But it made her look ignorant and wasted a chance to get the reality of the festival out to a wider audience.
What were her main points? The festival is "too white". It seems unlikely she has ever been to a music festival in Africa if she thinks that Busara, which genuinely works to remain affordable and offers free entry before 5.30pm to Zanzibaris as well as free transport from many parts of town, is honky central. Yes, there are quite a lot of tourists - Zanzibar is, according to my friend Sherlock Holmes here, a tourist destination.
And is that bad? No. Why? Because tourists are enjoying local Swahili music, and Swahili people get the cultural affirmation and pleasure of seeing others love their tunes. Plus, and this is no little point, the festival brings in lots of cold hard cash for local businesses at a time of the year that used to see just tumbleweed. Ninety per cent of festival staff are Tanzanian too, and are salaried.
Her other main point seemed to be that she was annoyed at being thrown out of the press tower because she spilt beer over another journalist's mobile. If she was really rock and roll, she wouldn't care.
It was a more entertaining feature to read than many of the puff pieces in the media that more or less just reformulated press releases. Love or hate is usually more fun than indifference. In the end, though, it was hard to glean any defining point from the stream-of-consciousness article.
Another piece claims that the festival is too expensive for foreigners: Tanzanian blogger Ashura says that foreigners already have to pay for a visa, hotels, transport etc and that the fee for Busara entry is too high. But at about $26 per day to see eight musical acts, it's a snip compared to most music festivals across the world.
Some media, such as Think Africa Press and Kenya's Daily Nation, provided balanced coverage of the event.
In short, Zanzibar has a music festival it can be proud of, one which despite dwindling funding delivered a great experience for most. So, while we like being as snarky as the next person, we will on this occasion just deliver a rousing round of applause.
Comments
ZIFF festival lacks criticism
has anyone else noticed this year's film festival is shagalabagala?
answer
If you're in not good state and have got no cash to get out from that point, you will have to receive the home loans. Because that should aid you definitely. I get bank loan every year and feel great just because of this.
A plea for sanity: constructive debate and critique?
I've been very struck over the last few months of how easily people mistake opinions for bitching. And vice versa. Dare I say it, we are not very good at free speech here in Tanzania and Zanzibar. There's a tall poppy syndrome- stick out too much and people shoot you down, which reeks of insecurity and jealousy in my book. I do wander WHY there's such a picky, fault-finding culture, and what lies beneath this frustration. Far too quickly people leap to criticise, to find fault, instead of stepping back a bit: there's a vibe of 'gun 'em down' (or divide and rule) . Working in South Africa in the nineties I noticed it was customary (and easy) to resort to race, tribe or colour, to criticise, instead of actually examining what was being done, how it was being done, whether it achieved what it set out to.... there are vital, important and intelligent arguments and discussions to have about colonialism, NGO's and non-Tanzanians working here, but it is, I think a little bit more nuanced than 'too many white people'. in short it's just lazy to start dismissing people because they are 'too pink'. What next? Grades of beige? The infamous pencil in hair test? Post-colonial Africa is an amazing place to be, and to work, and any festival that actively tries to boost the local economy, to boost local confidence in the music, and to promote it to a wider audience should be applauded. If you want to get annoyed, to REALLY start digging into exploitation, corruption and dodginess, there are MUCH better targets than Sauti za Busara, honestly!
Maelezo ya Nneka
Information on Nneka and other festival artists is in English AND Kiswahili at http://www.busaramusic.org/database/artists.php?langpref=Kis&whereartist... (from Team Busara)
Festival run by foreigners
Dear Anonymous (Mnyonge), I wish people like you would check your facts before using a respected web forum such as Mambo to spread untruths. Welcome to the Busara office anytime if you want to verify how many foreigners and how many Zanzibaris are involved in top management. Succession efforts to empower local Tanzanians are exactly what we have been prioritising every year since the festival started in 2004, which is why out of 150 festival crew who are employed every year to run Sauti za Busara, 140 are Tanzanians including the Office Manager, Ticketing and Reception Manager, Financial Manager, Venue & Stage Manager and Chief Sound Engineer. Ask any of these local people if they are getting haki zao whilst at Sauti za Busara and if any says no then I will accept you have a point.
Furthermore I challenge you to name ANY donor or sponsor who pulled out “because the festival was too white”? Local people have always been encouraged to attend Sauti za Busara, with free/subsidised admissions, extensive radio advertising (almost exclusively in Kiswahili). No one requested Busara to provide free daladala transportation, nor did anyone ask us to stop music around prayer times. We do these out of respect and to demonstrate this festival is for local people. If visitors also travel from all over the world to see it, then so much the better, especially when they spend dollars with local hotels, guides, drivers, handicrafts and mishkaki.
Check busaramusic.org and you will see the festival dropped the Swahili music tagline many years ago. Local people have moved on and also seek access to music from other parts of the African Continent and diaspora. Artists like Nneka, Tumi & The Volume, Thandiswa, Ba Cissoko, Chiwoniso and Bassekou Kouyate are selected by the Festival Selection Committee with confidence they will excite and inspire East African musicians and help take local music to new heights. The emphasis remains on music from Zanzibar (25%), Tanzania (50%) and East Africa (75%). 100% LIVE, African music under African skies.
Maitham
Very interesting Article.
I think Busara is a great festival but which needs promoting and improvements.
Festival run by foreigners
much of what the writer said on vice.com was junky but no one can dispute the fact that the festival has been run by foreigners since the start with absolutely no succession effort to involve Zanzibaris in top management. I wonder what anyone has to say to that? Plus, if locals are the preferred audiences (as exemplified by the free shuttle that started this year out of pressure from the donors and sponsors some of whom pulled out because the festival was too white) why then are items like the festival program entirely in English??!! Dont you think that if the locals were the main target then perhaps they would want to know in detail about who exactly Nneka is? or is it because they cant but the programs at 2000 TZS. Also, what exactly do you mean by Swahili music? because the majority of what comes on stage, especially during peak time, is definitely not Swahili. There is a famous saying is Swahili which goes ' Mnyonge mnyongeni lakini haki yake mpeni' - go ask the Busara management team to translate that and perhaps you'll get my point!!
vice article
Hey thanks for your comment, just read your piece and I think it is a healthy encapsulation of some of the real tensions that exist with a festival like Busara. I also think sometimes we just have to go with the moment and enjoy the best of a festival like this instead of always pushing it to be 'perfect' - as your article makes clear, there are so many different visions of perfection. So sometimes there are things that can be thought about, tweaked, improved and sometimes we need to stop analysing and just dance!
vice article
yes, I read that article, and had similar thoughts to you.
I think Paige, who wrote that article, is a sincere and thoughtful person, but journalists (Hunter S Thompson apart!) who make themselves the focus of an article, rather than allowing the subject to emerge, can lose the thread a bit.
I tried to write something myself that recognised Paige's concerns about Sauti za Busara (it's on flyglobalmusic.com ) - but also acknowledged that the festival has a lot of goodwill going for it too.
"Too White"
If in the UK you said that Notting Hill Carnival was "Too Black", you'd be locked up for racism. Is racism acceptable in Tanzania?
Thanks for cementing this.
Thanks for cementing this. Very well said!
Pernille
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