S. Africa’s Freshly Ground expelled from Zimbabwe

There are fewer countries in Africa where the official level of tolerance to criticism is as low as it is in Zimbabwe.

The National Arts Council of Zimbabwe, the official body running cultural activities in the country, recently announced new requirements for international artists which include concert promoters to submit a raft of documents, including police clearances for every visiting performer before obtaining visas.

The new measures come into force after South African based music group Freshly Ground made headlines when they were kicked out of Zimbabwe earlier this month.

The official explanation from the authorities in Harare was that the members of the group and their hosts did not follow the procedures for working visas.

However, the real reason for the expulsion may have had a lot to do with the song “Chicken to Change” released by Freshly Ground four years ago. A parody video of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe shows him cruising in the streets reading a fictional newspaper named Bob’s Times.

He winds down his window when his car runs over a chicken, sees poor people on the side of the road also holding chicken, contemptuously rolls his window back up again and drives off.

Using the chicken is deliberate as it is the symbol of Mugabe’s political party, ZANU –PF, that has been in power since independence, in 1980. Poultry was also used as currency in some parts of Zimbabwe during the economic crisis between 2003 and 2009.

One member of Freshly Ground, flute and mbira player, Simon Atwell is Zimbabwean while the others hail from South Africa and Mozambique.

Freshly Ground released a statement stating the group was turned away at Harare International Airport just hours before they were due to perform at the Harare International Arts Festival, HIFA. The group has been a regular act at the festival since their first appearance in 2003 .

The government- owned Herald newspaper in Harare said, in a commentary, that the video for “Chicken to Change” as silly and juvenile claiming that ticket sales for the final show at this year’s HIFA were low, because many fans were unhappy about the choice of Freshly Ground as the closing act.

The effect of the recent confrontation with the authorities in Zimbabwe has sparked a renewed interest in the song as evidenced by the spike in the new views of the video on YouTube.

“It would seem the powers that be have yet to find a sense of humour,” the group said in reference to their ejection from Harare. “The band remain undeterred and hope that in the not too distant future we will once more be allowed to celebrate….freedom of expression with the people of Zimbabwe.”

The group that is renowned for feel-good songs like “Doo-Be-Doo” and the 2010 FIFA World Cup theme “Waka Waka” recorded with Colombian star Shakira, may on the face of it, seem an unlikely candidate for these kind of political run-ins.

But the band’s bass player, Josh explained in an interview they just have a different way of delivering profound statements in their songs: “We’re musical-political as opposed to political-musician.”

The government in Harare has through the years been surprisingly tolerant of artists who use HIFA to criticize the Mugabe regime.