GALA Queer Archive asks what does it mean to be queer and rooted in African traditions?
GALA Queer Archive held a powerful event to reclaim queer African identity.
The gathering highlighted how strict patriarchal norms, and traditional expectations often silence African queer voices.
Speakers emphasized that queerness has always existed in African societies.
In recognition of Africa Month, the GALA (The Gay and Lesbian Archives) Queer Archive celebrated the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) on May 17 at Breezeblock Café in Brixton, Johannesburg — to re-assert queer African identity and challenge cultural exclusion at Breezeblock Café in Brixton, Johannesburg.
The GALA Queer Archive is an organization located at Wits University that preserves and promotes the history, culture, and experiences of LGBTQIA+ individuals in South Africa through archival collections.
During Africa Month, celebrated annually throughout May (with May 25 as the official date of commemoration in South Africa), the world marked IDAHOBIT as an opportunity for people across the continent to break down barriers.
IDAHOBIT raises awareness about the violence, discrimination, and prejudice faced by queer people worldwide.
Local Setswana handwritten on pink wall translating to: In my neighbourhood, being gay is a gender. Being gay is not being a boy or girl. It’s just being gay. Photo: Lukholo Mazibuko
This year’s commemoration focused on unpacking the painful disconnection between queerness and cultural identities in African LGBTQIA+ individuals.
The event discussed how culture shapes the way people live and connect. Traditions like family rituals, community events and ceremonies are meant to bring people together. But for queer individuals, these cultural spaces often do the opposite.
Researcher Nondumiso Lwazi Msimanga (left) reacting positively to panelist Desire Marea (right). Photo: Lukholo Mazibuko
Strict patriarchal rules dominate these traditions. They decide who belongs and who does not based on dress, behaviour and gender roles. As a result, queer voices are often ignored or silenced.
Dr Athinangamso Nkopo, host and moderator of the event, addressed this exclusion by telling Wits Vuvuzela that, “Those of us who are queer and African don’t understand how you can possibly mean that [we exist as] a contradiction.”
Panelist Albert Khoza challenged the myth of queerness as ‘un-African’ by emphasising that African communities had their own understanding of God long before the arrival of missionaries. Similarly, that queerness is not new; it has always existed within African societies.
“Maybe before it wasn’t called ‘queer’. Maybe before it was just a practice. It was looked down upon, but queerness is African. Africa is queer. It’s always been like that,” he said.
Panelist Albert Khoza. Photo : Lukholo Mazibuko
Keval Harie, the executive director of GALA Queer Archive, emphasized that queer individuals continually find unique ways to heal their human experiences and this day serves as another opportunity for such healing.
“We want to create a space where we bring our community together to share experiences in ways that allows us to heal and fight for another day.”
By aligning with Africa Month, this event insisted that queerness has always been part of the continent’s story. Through music, storytelling, traditional food, dress, and dialogue, attendees showcased how culture and queerness are not at odds but are deeply entangled.
From left to right: GALA coordinating team Keval Harie, Dr Athinangamso Nkopo and Kgomotso Kgasi playing Azanian games with an attendee in green sweater. Photo: Lukholo Mazibuko Event DJ, Buntu the Ghetto, jamming to beats.
FEATURED IMAGE: Banner of assorted pride flags hanging from GALA Queer Archive emblazed gazebo. Photo: Lukholo Mazibuko
2024 in-depth reporting project 30 Years of Democracy ve In 2024, South Africa marked 30 years as a democratic and free country. For all the strides made in three decades, there are many more devastating pitfalls. Wits Vuvuzela’s team of student journalists...
The right to food is enshrined in the South African Constitution, yet millions of people are still food insecure. In Jo’burg, hunger does not manifest evenly– it is a consequence of inequality, the ghost that haunts this metropolis.
Johannesburg has always been a city of extremes. It was never intended to be an equal city and today it still tears at the seams trying to accommodate the two extreme ends of the economic spectrum – and all the people who fall in between.
As a city that contains such a wide array of lifestyles, from the moneyed elite to people just scraping by, our culture reflects a swathe of differences, all with their own traditions, values and tastes. Nowhere is this more evident than in our food.
Perhaps this is why Jo’burg was voted the second-best city in the world for food in May 2024. There is a wealth of restaurants in Jo’burg that display the city’s diversity with their creative and delectable cuisine.
Time Out, which bestowed Jo’burg with this ranking, gave special mention to Braamfontein, ‘the pulse of the city’, for its food. Time Out recognised the ‘innovative ventures combining the forces of food and culture’ in the area.
Indeed, Braam has an abundance of phenomenal places to eat. But the award does not acknowledge that this is not the Braam most people experience.
For most South Africans, food is a tool of survival, not something to be savoured. For 63.5% of South African families, food insecurity is an everyday struggle.
In the four square kilometers of Braamfontein, the city’s vast gap between rich and poor is quite clear in the pervasive food inequality.
How is it that being able to eat is still a major hurdle for people living in the city – even for those living around a prestigious university and in a gentrified urban area?
The many faces of Braamfontein: the suburb as a case study
Braamfontein is a stellar example of the past 30 years of democracy distilled into one place. In the late ’90s, Braam was run down and tired, neglected in the face of all the overwhelming reworking that needed to be done by the new government.
But in 2002, the Johannesburg Development Agency embarked on a multimillion-rand regeneration programme for Braam, recognising its importance to Jo’burg as an economic hub.
Since then, Braam has bloomed: R4-billion of private investment has been poured into the area, and it has become the place to be for many young professionals with cash to burn.
To many Jo’burgers today, Braam is synonymous with trendy bars, beautiful street art and, of course, delicious food.
But Braam is so representative of post-apartheid South Africa because this change, although real, is limited – and only certain people get to bask in its glow.
On the outskirts of this shiny, new Braam, struggling students and residents still live – and still need to eat. What they have access to reflects dire levels of food insecurity and the unequal nature of access to food in South Africa.
The award-winning Salvation Cafe, and the sophisticated Olives & Plates both sit within Braam’s perimeters, small enclaves of cosmopolitan cuisine that in no way align with the average Braam resident’s wallet.
Around the corner and over the way are the everyday food spots that Braam residents actually frequent: fast-food joints, spaza shops and feeding schemes.
These are the many faces of Braamfontein, all painting a picture of the complex and devastating way that food accessibility still stands as a major marker of inequality, starkly segregating South Africans even today.
One of Braam’s most visited food spots – the Mcdonald’s on Jorissen. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
Where convenience trumps all – your average spaza shop near Wits University. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
School kids stop for something to eat at one of the spaza shops in Braam. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
Savouring the city
Remko van Niekerk is the co-owner of Salvation Cafe, which was established in 2006.
Salvation Cafe is nestled in the heart of 44 Stanley, among boutique stores and coffee shops. Van Niekerk calls it “an artisanal destination” – a place where people’s creations, including food creations, are treated like art.
As he sees it, “44 Stanley has mostly remained an oasis in the urban jungle of Jozi”, despite the changes in the area.
The café is a popular brunch spot under the cover of trees, surrounded by hanging pot plants, and complete with an outdoor fountain. Everything about it is meant to attract patrons from Westcliff and other affluent Northern suburbs.
Salvation Cafe sign. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
A full house at Salvation Cafe, Braamfontein Werf. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
Elevenses at Salvation Cafe, featuring their iconic salmon eggs benedict. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
Although Van Niekerk says gentrification has increased in the area, he and his staff have also had to deal with the infrastructure issues that plague Braam, like power and water outages.
To combat such expenses while still maintaining a profit, he says the restaurant’s “prices will just have to keep going up”, particularly given the need to pay for alternative energy sources like generators.
On top of this, Van Niekerk’s boss (and wife), chef Claudia Giannoccaro, “is not keen on using lower quality ingredients, thus prices will have to go up accordingly”.
Indeed, Salvation Cafe meals are nutritious, fresh and tasty, loaded with greens and healthy carbs. Their prices reflect this. Burgers range between R130 and R150, salads between R90 and R138, and most lunches cost about R118 (unless you want the teriyaki salmon, which is Salon Qualitaire).
A five-minute drive away on the quiet end of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) West Campus, Olives & Plates Wits Club and Conference is housed in a Transvaal vernacular building, with a gorgeous courtyard surrounded by rose bushes and, yes, a fountain.
It is run by sisters Litza Frangos and Andria Neophytou and their husbands, Apo and Dimitri.
The owners of Olives & Plates, who declined requests for interviews, have grown their business into a successful chain of restaurants after originally beginning as canteen caterers for Wits staff. The business was shut down during the #FeesMustFall protests, after which the owners decided to take the business in a different direction.
Inspired by the owners’ Greek roots, the restaurant focuses on elevating classic meals like toasted sandwiches and salads while adding a Grecian flair. Lunches here cost between R150 and R200. Expensive fillet steaks seem to be a speciality and are regular menu picks.
Lunch time at Olives&Plates on West campus, Wits University. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
The pristine rose garden at Olives&Plates. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
The indoor decor at Olives&Plates. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
Lunch fare at Olives&Plates. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
But a restaurant that charges R90 for a fruit salad is a bizarre sight on Wits campus, where students have little choice in what they eat and often go hungry.
So, although fresh food is delivered into Braam every day, the fridges of many students in residence sit empty. What this speaks to, and what the statistics reflect, is that food insecurity is clearly not an issue of supply, but an issue of access.
Walking the breadline
If you walk east from Olives & Plates for about 10 minutes, you will reach The Sanctuary, a beautiful white building that is home to the Wits Citizenship and Community Outreach (WCCO) programme. Every week, the WCCO feeds about 1,000 food-insecure students, who must stand in a long queue to receive their daily meal. Three days a week, the WCCO hands out food parcels of basic groceries to students in need.
Karuna Singh, the WCCO manager, says that in five years the organisation went from handing out “20 parcels to 3,000 parcels” every week.
With ever-rising food prices and stagnant grocery budgets, many students need extra help now more than ever. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) grocery budget has increased only 10% (about R150) over the past four years, whereas food prices increased 50% during the same period.
Need far outweighs what the WCCO can provide, and even what it does offer depends on the tenuous supply of charitable donations. In fact, since 2017, the donations the WCCO has received have been halved as companies slowly pull back.
“The food bank is not sustainable; the hot meals are not sustainable,” Singh says. To mitigate this, the WCCO has set up food commons, growing vegetables around campus that give students food sovereignty and sustainable, fresh options.
One of the WCCO’s many mini veggie patches around campus at Wits. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
The Wits communal veggie patch on East Campus. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
The WCCO’s chronically low food stores. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
The WCCO building. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
The students at the food bank are not destitute. Mostly, they are young people skating along the line of functional poverty; children of single parents or oldest children having to send some of their NSFAS money home each month.
Rivaldo Jantjies, a fellow journalism student at Wits, survives each month from the money his mom can send him. “I can only buy essentials, you know – noodles, bread, peanut butter, milk, sugar – the basic things I need to survive.”
“When it got to the point [at which] I no longer had those basic things, I would go to [the] WCCO,” he says.
Walking past students on campus, you might not see it, but “a lot of students are struggling”, Jantjies observes. “The lines [at the WCCO] are always long.”
Kea Maphila, an international relations honours student, spoke to the all-too-common experience of students in desperate situations while awaiting NSFAS funding.
“My first year, I only got approved in September”, she tells me. In the interim, she says her mom ‘was paying for my res and giving me allowance… It wasn’t a nice experience.’
Maphila’s situation was manageable, but for many students this would have been catastrophic.
NSFAS provides a stipend for groceries, which is usually about R1,650, but subject to change. “My budget is around R1,000,” Maphila says, which is “enough for groceries, but only for groceries”.
For Maphila, food insecurity is a consuming force, forcing students to prioritise their basic survival. “It’s stressful not knowing when your next meal is, but you’re supposed to be at class at 8am, concentrating,” she says.
Thoughtfully, she tells me: “It seeps into every area of your life… you can’t go on with the rest of your day. It removes so much integrity from a person.”
Integrity is a major part of food insecurity, particularly in a social environment like a campus; inequality among students is often emphasised by the type of food they can afford.
This leads back to basic economic inequality – which, in South Africa, is a racial issue, due to the enduring effects of apartheid.
Food insecurity does not exist in a vacuum and food inequality does not sit squarely within the confines of Braam. It is a countrywide problem – an unsolved one, despite promises and attempts by the government.
Zooming out: the economics of inequality
If someone is shopping on a monthly NSFAS allowance of R1,650, a South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) pension of R1,280, a monthly domestic worker’s salary of R3,349, or receives the national minimum wage of R,4400 a month, groceries in today’s economy are almost unaffordable.
This is for a basket of 28 items. But for a basket of just nine basic items (maize, margarine, peanut butter, bananas, potatoes, IQF chicken, black tea, sugar and long-life milk) the prices are still egregious.
Low-priced items will always be the first choice for poor people when buying food. Grocery stores are aware of this fact, enticing them to make their own brand of cheaper products for mass sale.
Closely related to the food insecurity and inequality conundrum is the persistent issue of nutrition insecurity. Across these four major grocery chains, the same product, due to their varying product value and price, will ultimately hold different nutritional values.
Woolworths margarine has the clear nutritional edge: it is the most energising and fatty margarine, but not too packed with sodium. It costs R32.99, in comparison to R17.99 at Checkers, the least nutritious option.
A research paper from the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security explains the reason behind this unfair price leveraging. The research team found that “the minimalist stance of the government” regarding grocery price setting has granted food companies free reign, with “big retail chains [emerging] as custodians of standards, dictating what should be supplied, how and in what form”.
This leaves South Africans vulnerable to the whim of these profit-seeking companies, which can and will change their prices at any time.
Compounding the threat of artificial scarcity is food scarcity brought about by general government incompetence.
Although South Africa produces enough food to feed its population, making it one of the most food secure countries in Africa, millions of people cannot eat. Dr Tobias Doyer, chief executive of Grain SA, says this is because “food security stands on two legs” – the security of access to food and the ability to obtain food – which the government has not provided for poor citizens.
“South African farmers produce enough food. The problem is that millions of South Africans have become poorer with less ability to buy food – causing famine,” Doyer says.
Groceries cost more and money buys less. In an unregulated food market and struggling economy, it follows that food insecurity is an offshoot of inequality, the most pervasive problem in South Africa today.
Thirty years into our democracy, our leadership has still not transformed the lives of the poor or addressed wealth inequality in any meaningful way. The fact that food insecurity is on the rise in South Africa is not an environmental problem, a social failing or the side effect of a global crisis. It is a major systematic failure.
FEATURED IMAGE: Signpost outside the WCCO building. Photo: Ruby Delahunt.
The practice of architecture and art can oftentimes intertwine, and this exhibition used that fusion to express the intricacies of migration.
On Saturday, August 24, the Keyes Art Mile welcomed a panel of architects and artists to discuss their Narratives of Migration exhibition. Shared stories of migration, the artists’ relationships with the land and the world around them were explored through art and architecture.
The panel consisted of four women architects who had individual pieces in the exhibition. The exhibition opened on August 1, 2024, at Gallery 1 of Keyes Art Mile. The exhibition took pieces from the ‘Biennale Architettura 2023’ in Italy, where all four architects previously displayed their work.
The exhibition opened with renowned architect Kate Otten’s piece Threads which looked at the history of mineral extraction and mining in South Africa, leading to mass migration in the country and Southern Africa at large. The large, spiral structure was adorned with multi-colour pieces of thread and beads that each represented the different parts of the landscape, telling the story of how Johannesburg came to be.
Kate Otten’s Threads display, highlighting the mineral extraction in South Africa that led to mass migration. Photo: Kamogelo KungwaneGugulethu Mthembu’s installation at the Keyes Art Mile, expressing gender disparities in society. Photo: Kamogelo Kungwane
“Threads is a simultaneous telling of many stories, intuitive readings of landscapes and social geographies told through age-old traditions of craft and making, narrated by women,” she said about the project.
The second installation by Kgaugelo Lekalakala, was titled ‘Tales of the Vulnerability of African Women in Transit’. This photo and video piece explored how women’s bodies migrate between the spaces, from rural to urban, and how women can feel unseen and violated in all the spaces they migrate to.
She referenced the feeling of vulnerability in her piece and used her experiences of having to use long-drop toilets in her family’s rural home as a metaphor for that vulnerability. “This is just a space of how when you enter into this space, especially as a woman, you have to grapple with how you aim, how you place yourself and how you try to use this space,” she explained in the panel discussion.
The panel moderator and architects and artists who displayed their art. From left to right, Kgaugelo Lekalakala, Gloria Pavita, Gugulethu Mthembu and Kate Otten. Photo: Kamogelo KungwaneAn audience member at the exhibition asking a question to the panel. Photo: Kamogelo Kungwane
The exhibition continued with two more pieces by Gugulethu Mthembu and Gloria Pavita, with The Tale of Aicha Qandisha and na Bulongo [with soil] respectively.
Mthembu’s piece looked at redressing the legacies of female oppression, with direct reference to her experiences. She spoke of seeing the women in her life “shrink themselves” for the men in their lives while the men never did. Her large wooden structure with colourful projections and barbed wire was a comment on societal gender inequalities.
Pavita’s na Bulongo film piecetranslates to ‘with soil’ from Swahili, and it expresses ideas of reclamation and repair through soil. In the film, her time in her late grandmother’s garden as her first experience with architecture. The varied mounds of soil refer to soil as a connection between history, people and where they come from.
“We all keep returning to the places that we come from,” she said, at the panel.
This was a sterling showcase of artistry and a great look at the beauty of women’s work. The exhibition’s panel of accomplished architects and artists helped to drive home the stories of each piece. Narratives of Migration and Reclamation had its final showcase at the Keyes Art Mile on August 24.
FEATUED IMAGE: An audience seated at the Keyes Art Museum to listen to the panel discussion about the migration exhibition. Photo: Kamogelo Kungwane.
Many traditions and cultures have subconsciously aided the wellbeing of one’s mind through music and sound.
A neurologist and music psychotherapist tackled the maze of the mind together on Saturday, May 18, 2024, at the Wits Origins Centre through a mental wellness and brain health seminar on International Museum Day.
Human brains have a potential that is unfathomable, and whilst people think we only use 10% of our brains at a time, they are mistaken.
Most of our brain is being used most of the time, even while sleeping, and over 85 billion neurons in our brains are always firing some sort of signal.
However, with all this brain power comes the largest emotional intelligence amongst all mammals. This EQ of humans is the area studied by neurologist and brain health specialist, Dr Kirti Ranchod, and music psychotherapist, Nsamu Moonga.
Music psychotherapist, Nsamu Moonga, leading the audience through a series of musical workshops to release their inner voice and learn to trust in a collective conscious. Photo: Victoria HillDr Kirti Ranchod during her seminar at the Origins Centre, speaking about all things brain health and wellness. Photo: Victoria Hill
Music is all around us — at birthdays, funerals, weddings, political rallies — and each scene sounds very different from the next, which is a subconscious understanding, Dr Ranchod explained.
Dr Ranchod said music is linked to both memory and emotion. When a person hears a specific song, they relive a specific experience, which leads to them feeling a specific emotion.
This is the basis from which Moonga bases his therapy techniques. He explained how humans forget things as a survival technique yet create rituals to ensure they do not forget what is important — the earth rotating completely around the sun, a human life ending, a life of two people beginning for instance.
Yet, Dr Ranchod said how music is exceptionally personal where one type of tune will relax someone whilst it will trigger another. .
To pay homage to International Museum Day, Dr Ranchod spoke about the San Trance Dance which is one of the earliest rituals known to date that used music to bind a group together.
The Trance Dance is a permanent feature at the Origins Centre — which traces human life back nearly two million years — because it sees the beginning of humans living in communities and activating their energies to connect with the spirit world.
With sound, rhythm, movement, and dance used to alter reality, shift consciousness, and change perception, this was the start of music therapy in practice.
Museums document the history we all share and allows for the interception of the past, present, and future. They allow us to understand who we are, where we come from and are the physical pallbearers of memory.
FEATURED IMAGE: Modern-day rock art as appearing in the Origins Centre to showcase how the past is still very much in the present. Photo: Victoria Hill
The name change was delayed by the covid-19 pandemic, but the home of the Wits Art Museum is now linked to the ‘illustrious author of two autobiographies, more than 30 short stories, two verse plays and a fair number of poems’.
The plaque signifying the change of name of University Corner to the Es’kia Mphahlele Building. Photo: Ayanda Mgwenya
Wits University has officially renamed University Corner as the Es’kia Mphahlele Building in honour of the late legendary journalist, author and academic, on Thursday, June 1, 2023.
Officiating at the ceremony that took place on the ground floor of the building at the corner of Jorissen and Bertha streets, Vice-Chancellor Zeblon Vilakazi said that this gesture was “long overdue” and believed that there were many more [legendary African pioneers] yet to be recognised. “Personally, to have the privilege of having the [Mphahlele family] here to witness this historic occasion is truly humbling,” he said.
Mphahlele was the first black professor at Wits University in the 1980s and founded the one-of-a-kind department of African Literature in 1983, which explores aspects of history, politics, indigenous knowledge, traditions and cultural heritage. He was also one of the founders of the first black independent publishing house, Skotaville in 1982.
The building houses some of the literature- and culture-related departments associated with Mphahlele’s work, such as the Wits Art Museum, the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, Voice of Wits FM (Vow FM), Drama for Life and the Wits Centre for Journalism.
“Soft-spoken, humble, urbane, cosmopolitan, erudite and exuding ubuntu, Es’kia Mphahlele embodied in his person and in his work what he described as ‘the personification of the African paradox – detribalised, westernised but still African’,” wrote Jordan, who also described him as the “illustrious author of two autobiographies, more than thirty short stories, two verse plays and a fair number of poems”.
The statement continued: “’Add to these, two anthologies edited, essay collections, innumerable single essays, addresses, awards and a Nobel Prize nomination for literature and what emerges is to many the Dean of African Letters,’ writes Peter Thuynsma, a leading Mphahlele scholar, in Perspectives on South African English Literature (1992: 221).”
Rorisang Maruatona-Mphahlele, Mphahlele’s grandson, said, “I am actually overjoyed because [Wits University] was my first choice of university but I didn’t get in; I went to University of Johannesburg instead where I found [The Es’kia Mphahlele Room] and was overjoyed to find that at U.” He feels thrilled that “Wits University is doing the same.”
Acting SRC president Kabelo Phungwayo said that the change of name for the building was proposed in 2020 by former SRC president, Mpendulo Mfeka, and championed by former SRC transformation officer, Luci Khofi. As the year 2019 marked a century since the birth of Mphahlele, this motivated the plan to change the name of University Corner.
Phungwayo told Wits Vuvuzela that, “The SRC sees [Mphahlele] as a revolutionary scholar who shaped the [African] discourses in literature, and it teaches us African humanism as students.” He added that the SRC would like to encourage students to look into Mphahlele’s educational journey for inspiration as they undergo their studies as well.
Wits head of communications Shirona Patel said that the delay of the name change was caused by the covid-19 pandemic.
The name change ceremony concluded with Vilakazi unveiling the name plaque to applause by the guests bearing witness to this occasion.
FEATURED IMAGE: The Es’kia Mphahlele Building at the corner of Jorissen and Bertha streets is one of the tallest buildings in Braamfontein. Photo: Ayanda Mgwenya
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