Friday, June 10, 2022

Zanele Mashinini - the greatness that would not yelp in pain but soldier on

SIPHO MABASO

sipho.mabaso@inl.co.za

ZANELE Mashinini (1962-2021) was a polymath.

He painted artworks of protest, scripted stage plays of dissent, wrote poetic verses of defiance, designed Struggle-era rally posters, led campaigns against the HIV/Aids stigma, founded entities to advance the careers of fellow visual artists, and partook in progressive political activism to end apartheid: an avowed dedication to the creative arts as a pillar of cohesive societal renewal, ergo, an artist.

Encouraged in his salad days by his working-class parents, especially his mother Ma Moloi, to pursue his artistic inclination and talent, Mashinini’s 2018 prose-poem, Women’s Month Anthem, posted on his blog – http:// zanelemashinini.blogspot.com/2018/ – in praise of the dames, reads: “Greetings Queen Mothers! How do I speak to the breasts? Suckled to a point of no return, yet giving and giving on my demand, because your beautiful figure has been anything but a workhorse, light to those in search of illumination. Happy Women’s Day every day.”

The young Mashinini, who was educated in Soweto at the AB Xuma Primary School and later at Orlando High School in his teen years, was influenced by a variety of eminent artists, among them Gerard Sekoto, Fikile Magadlela and Basil Baqwa, who, in the 1970s, was approached by Mashinini’s grandmother to coach the then young shoot in the science of the creative arts, wrote Lehlohonolo Lehana for an online publication, Full View.

In a December 4, 2019, article, “The life and struggles of artist Zanele Mashinini,” the artist told Lehana that all of his work was guided by a simple philosophy: “If others carry guns to challenge the diabolic status quo. I carry a more potent armoury: my art.”

The Mashinini family home was a short walk from the Donaldson Orlando Community Centre (DOCC), in Orlando East, Soweto, which was then teeming with artistic activities. Fortuitously, the United States Infor- mation Services library helped quench Zanele Mashinini’s quest for knowledge as he plunged his nose into the authored works.

Mashinini navigated his way through the years to receive instruction in visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photojournalism, journalism and communication, and Aids management, after which he shared his knowledge and skill when he tutored children in visual arts and drama in Soweto.

He blossomed as a fine artist, with exhibitions in Soweto, Alexandra, Mthatha, Cape Town, and then on to the Ivory Coast, Germany, France, United Kingdom, United States and Portugal.

Yet, even as a celebrated artist and activist among his peers, a revered leader of his generation, particularly in the arts, he was much focused on the elevation of black South Africans above the Dickensian triple challenge of poverty, suppression, and privation,








ZANELE Mashinini is a visual artist and AIDS Activist, born in one of the oldest townships in Soweto (Orlando East). | Supplied

Black and White, by Zanele Mashinini

BLONDIE Makhene and Oliver Tambo, by Zanele Mashinini.

as he remained that life force of which George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) in Silas Marner (1861) referenced as “the old echo that lingers and refuses to be drowned”.

Art was Mashinini’s weapon, as political activism through art was his commitment.

As we commemorate the Soweto June 16 student uprisings, activist art- ists such as Mashini will be remem-

bered as having played a pivotal role in our liberation struggle at a very tender age.

His artistic design skills enabled him to employ his craft, in the 1980s, in the design of anti-apartheid pro- motional material for grassroots organisations. These included labour federations, underground political organisations, youth development associations and the Release Mandela Campaign. He also scripted the lyrics to the Vuka Africa single that featured about three hundred musicians, as well as the design of a South African Post Office stamp that celebrated the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations.

His alma mater, Orlando High School inducted Mashinini into its Alumni Roll of Honour.

Zanele Mashinini’s younger brother, Nume Mashinini, in remembrance of his sibling said: “I have never seen Zanele without a pen and paper since the days when we were young boys.”

Nume said his brother was “very unconventional” in that: “He lived his life through the prism of art, a true artist.

“When Zanele was about 15 years old and I was three years younger, in the 1970s, he showed us a portrait of Nelson Mandela (South Africa’s first democratically elected president who was persona non grata with the apartheid regime at the time) that he painted.

“Where he got the picture of a

banned individual, we didn’t know. My parents got such a fright, they hid his painting materials. Zanele then used actual coal to paint his art- works, which I thought was quite innovative.”

And Mashinini had a naughty streak.

“He painted cartoons of relatives who visited our home, complete with conversation bub- bles of who said what to whom, which was really funny to read,” said Nume.

“He (Zanele) did a lot of things in art: poetry, as an actor in stage plays, fine arts, even writing,” said his long- time mentor and friend, the graphic artist and art teacher, Soweto-based Muziwakhe Nhlabatsi, who, while a graphic designer for the Ravan Press’ Staff Rider, designed, in the pre-1994 Struggle-era, the title covers of emi- nent authors such as Can Themba and Mtutuzeli Matshoba.

In spite of their “about 20 years” age difference, Nhlabatsi said he shared with Mashinini a camaraderie and professional understanding from when Mashinini was still a teen fasci- nated with all things art. “I met Zanele when he was about 14 years old.”

Nhlabatsi said when, with anti-apartheid activist and publishing editor Kevin Humphrey, they started an NGO, Graphic Equalizer, for youth to be trained in graphic design, he invited Zanele to the programme,

The Clock, by Zanele Mashinini.

which was based in Braamfontein (Johannesburg).

“We designed promotional mate- rial for the ANC and the trade unions, around 1985, mostly activists connected to the ANC, PAC and the Black Consciousness Movement.” They were compelled to shut their doors due to incessant police raids, and Kevin (Humphrey) then left the country for Britain.

Though death intervened – leiomyosarcoma cancer, last year, November, about three months after his 59th birthday on August 2, before Mashinini could complete the entire stretch of his life’s mission – he is remembered as a great, yet humble, polymath whose A.D. is worthy of the pen of history. 


Zanele Mashinini

G enius N eeds M oney – H ow do you think A rt gets created ?      Credit: James Sanders     Zanele Mashinini is that rare thing – a tow...