TEBATSO MABITSELA | An ode to great jazz legend and academic Dr Mabhaca Malinga

It is hypothetically asked, “If a big tree falls in the forest and there is no-one to hear the sound it makes when it falls, did it ever exist?”

In response, it is said, “What matters is not the sound it makes when it falls, but the silence it leaves behind, which is the legacy.” Undoubtedly, Dr Mabhaca Joseph Malinga, affectionately known as “Bra Joe”, left humanity a sterling legacy to treasure.

However, there is just a roar of silence about the passing of this great legend. We therefore owe a debt of gratitude to the organisers of this memorial service for creating a platform to reflect on who this beautiful soul was and how we should carry on his legacy.

Bra Joe was a brilliant saxophonist, an academic, an educator, a community developer and, above all, a friend to people from diverse walks of life until he took his last breath at the age of 74 on Thursday May 30 after a short illness.

In his youth, while growing up in Mathendele location in Eswatini, Bra Joe received a scholarship to study journalism in Europe. However, he was destined to study music instead. His passion for music was honed, in part, by legendary South African jazz musicians such as the virtuoso pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and the late alto saxophonist maestro Dudu Pukwane. While in Europe, Bra Joe formed part of a galaxy of struggle artists who used the arts as a weapon to fight white racist supremacy, apartheid and cultural imperialism.

Just like his contemporaries, his love for Africa imbued him with a sense of cultural and artistic assertiveness. Even though he was eventually exiled in Europe, where Europeans did not know or understand African languages, he composed his music mainly in the continent’s indigenous languages, against the dictates of dominant Eurocentric culture. He used music to speak truth to power, as epitomised by his song iTwenty-Five from his album Joe Malinga & Southern Africa Force — Vuka, released in 1989.

Bra Joe formed part of a galaxy of struggle artists who used the arts as a weapon to fight white racist supremacy, apartheid and cultural imperialism

iTwenty-Five is a song that decries that Africans in Africa, as well as elsewhere in the world, are workers. In the morning, they wake up in their millions in villages, townships and ghettos and report to work in the kitchens, gardens, mines, factories, firms and farms of other people. In the afternoon, they go back to their squalid homes. While at work, most of them are treated like “beasts of burden” and made to do back-breaking work for a meagre financial reward usually received on the 25th of the month. In the present day, the inferior status of Africans as workers is evident when one considers that they are, in the main, the largest population group represented in the big, organised labour unions in Africa, while in most cases non-Africans own the wealth, means of production and land.    

In paying homage to Bra Joe, we should be ready and willing to conscientise our fellow African brothers and sisters into understanding that their poverty-stricken conditions and continued suffering after their countries obtained independence were not created by God, but are the direct result of colonialism, apartheid and democratic misrule. We should emulate Bra Joe by declaring that we are the solution and not the problem in Africa. We should avoid engaging in finger-pointing and self-justifying blame games.

Bra Joe was humble and had an infectious laugh. He was a quintessential African who shunned the limelight. He never tired himself out with the vain pursuit of fame or fortune, because he knew both were transient and ultimately meaningless. He chose the more arduous path of struggling to advance the humanity of all, irrespective of race, gender, creed or nationality. He lived a life of service and self-sacrifice throughout his life. The poor and the downtrodden were the ones who benefited most from his passionate service. This was evident in his dedication to teaching primary schoolchildren and those in kindergartens around Venda how to play the ocarina. He developed a curriculum that provided a scientific framework for teaching music to youngsters.

After this memorial service, a smile like Bra Joe's should adorn our faces as we go to our respective places of abode to become solutions to the myriad challenges facing our communities. We must honour Bra Joe by becoming revolutionary activists in our own spaces in a quest to put a more humane face on Africa, guided by the sacred principle of ubuntu. Rest in peace, Bra Joe, son of the soil!

• Mabitsela, a friend of Malinga’s for more than 20 years, delivered this eulogy at His memorial service at the University of Venda, Limpopo, recently