Black liberation politics and quagmires in trans-Atlantic black operas

Abstract

Legacies of colonialism, slavery, and neo-liberalism, as well as the afterlives of black liberatory politics, are laying bare shortcomings of the regionalization of black politics and the limits of the freedoms fought for. In their attempts to grapple with these realities, diasporan African communities inadvertently fractured black solidarity espoused in the ethos of transnational black unity and pan-Africanism. I argue that neoliberal capitalism and contradictions of black liberatory discourses have given rise to black identities whose outlook disavo ws values that once bound the black race around common goals of social and economic justice. Drawing from Phyllis Taoua’s notion of “unfreed freedoms,” this article uses three black operas about slavery, migration, and human trafficking to explore contradictions of the afterlives of black liberatory discourses. I show that slavery and human trafficking in Toni Morrison and Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner (premiered in the United States in 2005), Shirley Thompson’s The Woman Who Refused to Dance (premiered in the United Kingdom in 2007), and Mandla Langa and Hugh Masekela’s Milestones (premiered in South Africa in 1999) point to renewed ways of theorizing black solidarity by acknowledging the singularities of our black situatedness and the peculiarities of the black condition in different black contexts.

Keywords:

• Empire
• black liberatory discourse
• African immigration
• black opera
• black solidarity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For in-depth debates about blackness and opera, see Naomi André, Karen Bryan, and Eric Saylor, Blackness in Opera, and Naomi André, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement; see also work done by the Black Opera Research Network (blackoperaresearch.net/).

2 See, for example, M. Krouse, “Wind and Music Blow as Madiba Breezes In.” Mail and Guardian, July 2, 1999. mg.co.za/article/1999-07-02-wind-and-music-blow-as-madiba-breezes-in/1999

3 Scheye and Pelser discuss Africa’s development models and their connection to informality in the African market sector. Part of their focus is on the South African spaza shops, informal convenient stores in black townships, peri-urban, and rural places. They show that scholarship has predominantly explored the success of immigrant spaza shops, which are often compared to those run by black South Africans which have effects linked to xenophobia by black South Africans. Nonetheless, they discuss new information regarding the nature of this informal enterprise. This information, largely pushed by the South African mainstream media shows the dark, complex nature of these spaza shops. This research reveals that the true ownership of these spaza, shops is connected to large establishments and supermarket chains that consciously exploit employees, avoid paying taxes, and violate labour law. Further, some of these spaza shop owners are alleged to be engaged in human trafficking. Only in 2022 was a direct link found between the spaza economy and terrorism, and again these findings were advanced by the South African mainstream media. See Scheye and Pelser, “Why Africa’s Development Models Must Change.”

4 Immigration scholarship focuses on the broader bureaucratic complexities in host countries which lead to the criminalisation of immigrants. There is also a corpus that concentrates on the reception of immigrant communities by host nations. Some of this ­corpus zooms in on different migrant activities that not only invite hostilities from host communities, but also affect economic development of host nations. From this growing scholarship, concerned with long-term chaotic migration patterns, the discussion maps out some of the illicit activities that stem from the cross-border flows of people. See Eugene Campbell’s “Reflections on Illegal Immigration in Botswana and South Africa,” Scheye and Pelser’s “Why Africa’s Development Models Must Change,” and Johannes Machinya’s “Migration Control, Temporal Irregularity and Waiting: Undocumented Zimbabwean Migrants’ Experiences of Deportability in South Africa.”

5 See, for example, “Impact of Illegal Migration on Cities: Input from Jo’burg & Ekurhuleni Mayors,” SALGA & Minister [of Home Affairs]. Parliamentary Monitoring Group, 2019. pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/29125/2019

6 Manika Sadhana discusses these contentions in detail even as she posits them as Zimbabwean teachers’ experiences of marginalisation and exclusion in schools and colleges. The problems she raises are perennial issues that have affected black South Africans and could be linked to structural problems the ANC administration failed to overhaul. See “‘We Are Working from Hand to Mouth’: Exploitation of Professional Immigrants.” See also Adepoju.

7 See, for example, ZanuPF Sandton Branch, Nyika Inovakwa Navene Vayo, 2022. zanupfsandton.com/

8 See Department of Home Affairs, Republic of South Africa. “Home Affairs Minister Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi’s Statement on the Media Campaign by the Helen Suzman Foundation.” 29 September 2022 dha.gov.za/index.php/statements-speeches/1610-home-affairs-minister-dr-aaron-motsoaledi-s-statement-on-the-media-campaign-by-the-helen-suzman-foundation-hsf; Youtube.com/watch?v=WJ2LRQUydvg&ab_channel=SABCNews

9 For a discussion of the Economic Freedom Fighters’ ideology, see Majavu Pumlani.

10 For an in-depth discussion of attempts to mainstream enslaved women histories see Cecilia Smith.

11 Reinhardt discusses the paradoxes of speech and silence in the legal system as enacted by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which abolitionists exploited to give voice to enslaved people. See Reinhardt.

12 For in-depth discussion of the social, cultural and economic organisation of this black identity in America see Eugene Robinson 14, 61, 130–148, 164.

13 Robinson discusses the entitlements immigrants have vis-à-vis the successes of the civil rights and empowerment programmes they participate in. Though he acknowledges that their position is conflictual, he does admit to the observations made by the advocates for the abandoned American blacks who are becoming vociferous in their objections to black immigrants participating in affirmative action meant to redress historical oppression on American soil. See Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America 164, 180.

14 See the manifesto and work of the Uhuru African Socialist Movement at apspuhuru.org/about/the-uhuru-movement/.

15 The ADOS Advocacy Foundation, https://www.adosfoundation.org.

16 For instance, see Samara Lynn, “Controversial Group ADOS Divides Black Americans in Fight for Economic Equality.” ABC News, January 19, 2020. abcnews.go.com/US/controversial-group-ados-divides-black-americans-fight-economic/story?id=66832680/2020

17 Sentiments about black immigration have historical antecedents that cut across three collective Western countries: Canada, the United States, and Britain. The deportation of some of the descendants of the Windrush Generation must be looked at from historical attempts to racially mark out particular diasporas of African descendants as undesirables. See Vilna Bashiand Luke de Noronha.

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Innocentia J. Mhlambi

Innocentia J. Mhlambi is Associate Professor in the Department of African Languages at the University of the Witwatersrand. She teaches African-language literatures, black film studies, oral literature and popular culture, visual culture, and black opera in post-1994. She is the author of African-language Literatures: Perspectives on isiZulu Fiction and Popular Black Television Series and co-editor of Mintiro ya Vulavula: Arts, National Identities and Democracy.