Portia Gwanzura, Banishing act
Paul A
Paul A
January 10, 2003
Banishing act
by Helen Rumbelow
Once Zimbabwe's Madonna, Portia Gwanzura now fears for her life
THERE ARE FEW clues to the former glory of Portia Gwanzura. She struggles to
make ends meet in a gloomy Coronation Street-style terrace on the outskirts
of Wigan, far from the mansion with servants she occupied as head of a
musical empire in Zimbabwe. Instead of cruising in her fleet of
chauffeur-driven Mercedes, befitting Zimbabwe’s foremost female singer, she
sits on an old stained sofa and cannot do much except watch the rain outside.
This outspoken woman, dubbed the “Madonna of Zimbabwe” for being the most
powerful businesswomen in her country’s music industry, has abandoned her
life’s work to seek political asylum in Britain. She inspired awe in
imitators, alarm in rivals, and named her band Hohodza (or “woodpecker”)
because she relishes the challenge of cracking the hardest opposition. What
could make a woman like Portia Gwanzura so afraid? “Before I say anything, I
just want you to know that if you hear I’ve died in an accident, it wasn’t an
accident, it was the Zimbabwean Government,” she says. “People who speak out
in Zimbabwe get silenced, one way or another. The ones who leave are the only
ones with a chance to tell the truth.”
Gwanzura never meant to get her music mixed up in politics. She was born 35
years ago in a rural mud hut, and would amuse her friends with songs as they
walked several miles to school across the plains. As soon as she could, she
moved to the capital, Harare, where she realised she would never make it in
the male-dominated music industry without some serious financial clout.
So began years of setting up businesses, from beauty salons to car
dealerships, also fitting in two children, before she had the money to set up
Hohodza. She hand-picked the 12 band members by auditioning young
school-leavers, believing them to be easier to train to her vision of a blend
of traditional folk songs and modern pop.
“My aim was to be one of the best groups in the world, but I knew I was
starting something very new and difficult,” she says. “If you are a female
musician in Zimbabwe you are seen as a kind of loose woman. I just had to
stop caring about that.”
These were the golden years, for her and Zimbabwe, and her band, which draws
strongly on national pride, went from strength to strength. They had ten hit
albums in as many years.
Hohodza picked and mixed different musical traditions from across Zimbabwe,
using the mbira — a thumb piano — and xylophone as well as drums and guitars.
They toured Europe twice, building up a respectable following, and their
latest album, Zvinoda Kushinga (Strength is Needed), was edited in London.
“We were free,” says Gwanzura. “Zimbabwe was one of the most visited
countries in the world, we had lots of food, lots of hope.”
It is a sign, she says, of how confident people were then that when the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) — President Mugabe’s Opposition — asked
her to play at their launch in September 1999, she agreed. “I didn’t think
twice. We were asked because we were one of the biggest bands, and I felt
Mugabe was making a lot of mistakes. I didn’t think there would be a
problem.”
As a household figure she wasn’t surprised to be approached by two men in
suits after a gig the night before the MDC concert. “They said, ‘Portia, are
you playing for the MDC?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’m looking forward to it’.” She
smiles at her own naivety.
She says that they then showed her their passes from the Central Intelligence
Organisation (CIO), the feared Government security agency, and warned that
her life would be in danger if she went ahead. “The band was shocked. We sat
down to talk about what to do, and we could only think about stories we had
heard of people being disappeared by the Government. We thought we could be
next.”
They stayed away from the launch, but it was the last time that she wanted to
be cowed by Mugabe’s regime. Guilty about letting the MDC down and disturbed
by her unpleasant brush with the Government, Gwanzura was converted to the
Opposition overnight.
Hohodza did everything they could to support the MDC, wearing T-shirts on
stage, flashing MDC membership cards as they sang, and ending concerts with
open-handed waves — the symbol of the MDC — and chanting “chinga” or
“change”.
As if Gwanzura could not be in more trouble, she married a white Zimbabwean
mechanic called Sean, just as Mugabe stepped up his campaign to blame whites
for the country’s growing problems. After the Government’s failure to win a
referendum in February 2000, Gwanzura began to believe that the MDC could win
in the elections in June that year.
She wrote a highly provocative song, Zvinhu Zvaoma, which has an
irrepressible, danceable beat but means “things are tough”. The lyrics are an
angry indictment of the Zanu (PF) regime: “People cannot afford to buy food,
they are walking miles to find work, children are fainting in schools, when
is it going to end?” The song was quickly removed from the playlist at the
Government-run Radio Zimbabwe, and a DJ who played the song was sacked.
“People wanted to hear it, but if they played it at home it had to be done
quietly, because you wouldn’t know if your neighbours were Zanu (PF) and
would get you beaten up,” she said. “The only safe place to put the song on
was in your car, with the windows rolled up.”
Even before the Government won the election, Gwanzura felt isolated and
doomed. Thomas Mapfumo, the country’s best-known and most politically engaged
musician, is now in virtual exile in the United States.
While pro-Government bands such as Tambaoga thrived with songs likening Tony
Blair to an outdoor toilet, Zanu (PF) supporters were demanding to be paid
off in beer to avoid violence at Gwanzura concerts. “Sometimes it was a
relief to turn up at the venue and find Zanu (PF) guys had cleared everyone
away. It meant no one would be hurt,” she says.
But soon the beer didn’t work any more. Last year, one of her singers was
ambushed after a concert, and given a fatal beating. Gwanzura is convinced
that the killing was political. At a concert last March thugs grabbed the
microphone before she went on stage and shouted, “Down with Portia, don’t let
the white puppet live!” The crowd erupted into violence, and Gwanzura fled,
chased by cars full of Zanu (PF) supporters.
“Enough is enough, I thought I’d die,” she says. She sold her businesses so
she could fly to Britain with her husband, leaving her two children in Harare
with her father as the couple sought asylum. Weeks later her 11-year-old
daughter was killed in a road accident. “I will never forgive myself,”
Gwanzura says. “I left Zimbabwe to save myself and she got killed. I am
responsible.”
She is not allowed to work in Britain while she waits for news on her
application from the Home Office, and does not have the heart to sing anyway.
She sits at home grieving for all she has lost. Very quietly, her husband
plays her music in an upstairs room. Right now, it is the only hopeful thing
about Gwanzura.