While I was in Cape Town last week I took in a bit of culture and visited the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art (or the Zeitz MOCAA as it styles itself). It is housed in a converted silo in the Waterfront District and is worth going just to check out the interior.
The building apart, the highlight was an exhibition of posters and other artifacts from liberation struggles of the 1970s and 1980s called 'Past Disquiet'. A lot of it was devoted to the struggle in South Africa itself and neighbouring countries but other parts of Africa and Latin America were also included.
One of the countries featured in the exhibition was Namibia, or South West Africa as it was known back then. Way back in 1985 Robert Wyatt teamed up with the South West African Peoples Organisation (SWAPO) to record the very catchy tune below, perhaps hoping to raise the same level of awareness as The Special AKA had managed the year before. It didn't.
Perhaps fittingly, today is International Workers' Day. Mr Wyatt knows a song about that too.
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I'm celebrating International Workers' Day by reading your blog at work. Don't tell my boss.
ReplyDeleteLove your images - the top photo looks like a work of art in itself. How come 'Winds Of Change' wasn't a hit, it should've been!
ReplyDeleteI was baffled at the time and I am still baffled now.
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