conditions, to deliver a world class mining boot. But I would argue that trumpeter Hugh Masekela’s iconic and internationally popular song “Stimela” – the coal train – is perhaps a more appropriate anthem for Workers’ Day in southern and Central Africa. While some members climb off, others join in and the journey continues,” he says. His 1967 book, House of Bondage, teems with revealing studies of the perilous lives of black working-class train commuters.

By the time Masekela reaches for his horn to serve his melodic statement, the song begins to shore up the coal train as the handmaiden of the colonial assault. It came about as a result of the discovery of diamonds and gold, and the need for cheap labour to extract metals from the seams that ran through the Witwatersrand’s rock formations. However, the collapse of The Cannibals in 1979 saw the birth of Stimela. The tune is a monumental hymn that memorialises the journey and wretched lives of migrant workers conscripted to work in the mines of Johannesburg and Kimberley, of men and women ripped from their homes and lands across the South African subcontinent.

In the hold of the train carriage, the old being dies, he is transformed and prepared for his rebirth before arriving at his mythologised urban destination. South Africa’s was not a slow, organic growth of industrialisation that characterised the European transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism, the great transformation that gave rise to my discipline of sociology, with Karl Marx as one of its key contributors. Ngqawana later expanded it to include Migration to America on his 2008 recording with the University of Tennessee Faculty Ensemble, Zimology in Concert.

But Malawi withdrew permission for the recruitment of workers from their country. Few can claim never to have been moved by Masekela’s anthem: the opening staccato stagger of drumstick on cowbell; the steel-and-wood contraption mimicking the train as it churns and charges across the firmament: Dla-kah bla-kah, dla-kah bla-kah, dla-kah bla-kah, choo-chooo! There is a train that comes from Zambia and Zimbabwe…”. “First of all, our car broke down before we even got to Swaziland. University of Fort Hare provides support as an endorsing partner of The Conversation AFRICA. The album was compiled and produced by Masekela's long-time colleague Stewart Levine. And at Neptun Boot, (the manufacturers of Stimela) we are 'steaming ahead' with At his best, Cole turned his visceral lens on trains and helped shatter the veil of secrecy about black suffering during apartheid. Many will suggest “The Internationale” which had its roots as a poem written in the aftermath of the Paris Commune in 1871 by Eugène Pottier, a transport worker. Set to music, the pictures would sound like Bayete’s 1987 hit, Mbombela – an infectious ode to workers as lovers who carry their care and longing for their distant relatives like shovels and other tools. The city in all its cold constitution. Professor of Development Studies, University of Fort Hare. In 1974 72 Malawian mineworkers were killed in an aeroplane crash. Years later, they remembered that train ride to name what would become an iconic South African musical phenomenon, Stimela. The band’s new frontman, Sam Ndlovu, is looking at a long future still for Stimela. From Lesotho, from Botswana, from Swaziland. Steam trains no longer crisscross southern Africa. Masekela’s spectacular hit, Stimela (The Coaltrain), first appeared on his 1974 record, I’m Not Afraid. They were the force that modernised the country. Although largely inactive nowadays, the mbaquanga/jazz/fusion band occasionally still appears on stage. “Stimela” reminds everyone that South Africa’s wealth and infrastructure was built on the back of labour from all over Africa. Write an article and join a growing community of more than 113,200 academics and researchers from 3,690 institutions. Manufactured by Shezi Industrial Holdings (PTY) Ltd Trading as Neptun Boot. Many musicians and creatives have followed since. I liked to imagine that it allowed students to find some calm after their early morning commute from the city’s periphery on dilapidated trains. I always started the first lecture of the year with Masekela’s “Stimela” because it was the perfect opening to a conversation about the forces that modernised South Africa. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! It produced his most epic song about the woes of working-class life during colonial apartheid. A sonic depiction of the menacing energy that haunts the worker in his homeland. “We bought train tickets, but the money ran out just outside Maputo. The rhythm is followed by a dramatic plunge into a bridge of silence before Masekela climbs out with details of his epic tale: “There is a train that comes from Namibia and Malawi. The translation of the isiZulu word, Stimela, means 'steam engine or locomotive'. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.

There is a train that comes from Angola and Mozambique. The successful organisation of workers who were at the heart of South Africa’s economy was one of the most important pillars of resistance against apartheid. It served as the Soviet Union’s anthem after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, making it more closely associated with the communist movement. He links it to the loss of land, home and livestock for the migrant mineworkers.

From all the hinterland of Southern and Central Africa. A year later, Mozambique became independent.

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