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4 “Senzeni na” Interrelationships Between the Music of Mission and Independent African Church Denominations O n the evening of February 17, 2005, I arrived at the ESCC for the opening service of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa’s Broederband Conference.1 Earlier in the week, an invitation to participate in the mass choir from one of its members meant that I did not sit in my usual place at the back of the church, but rather, with the ranks of singers who faced the congregation. Dressed to comply with the women singers’ uniform of black skirts and white blouses, I soon stopped feeling exposed and listened to the powerful koortjies sung by the broederband (church men’s society) members. I tried to absorb and learn the music, humming along with the choir members. The cyclic repetition of the songs meant that I could learn the melodies relatively quickly, but the words were harder to follow. Then I heard the words of “Juig al wat leef” (Rejoice All Who Live), a popular hymn, and soon realized that the melody differed to the renditions of this hymn I had heard previously. When I found myself humming along to a familiar tune, it took me a few moments to ascertain that it was the tune of “Senzeni na,” the apartheid resistance song with the heartrending lyrics, “What have we done? Our only sin is being black.” I mentioned this experience in an interview with the leader of the URC choir the following day. Mr. Kayster sang along with me for a few lines of “Senzeni na,” and then he said, “I remember growing up with that tune being used as a church tune and then I saw it was being used in the struggle!”2 Despite its religious origins, it is compelling that a song so iconic of the anti- 64 “Senzeni na” apartheid struggle with its lyrics of almost unbearable suffering can, after ten years of democracy, be sung to the words, “Rejoice all who live, rejoice before the Lord.”3 With the relaxed yet solidly rhythmic pace, punctuated by handclaps , this rendition had a cheerful yet firm resolve. In a place like South Africa , the fact that a church-going community sang this melody to hymn texts before the height of the resistance struggle and still performed it as a hymn after apartheid is not unexpected. Tunes conceived for religious purposes and resistance songs are often very similar, if not identical. An example of this is Enoch Sontonga’s composition (c. 1897), Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, which forms part of the current South African national anthem.4 A complex relationship exists between religion and politics in this country (Villa-Vicencio 1996; de Gruchy 2005), and it is no surprise that music is also involved. What is unusual, however, is the presence of a freedom song melody in the Congregational Church repertory, when the denomination originated as a traditional mission church. Usually, when authors interpret certain styles of musical expression and performance as resistance to apartheid South Africa, they refer to Independent African church denominations, such as the Zionists. This observation suggests a need to examine the music of Kroonvale congregations in the wider context of Christian religious music in South Africa. In this chapter, I examine the subtle messages introduced in religious performance style by Kroonvale congregations and I interpret these messages as expressions of anti-apartheid sentiment. I discuss these observations within a theoretical framework that incorporates notions of embodied difference, a critical approach to studies of musical “resistance,” and a historiographical investigation of research on South African Christian (black and coloured) religious music.5 Within this context, and drawing on my fieldwork observations, I assert that Kroonvale church music (in other words, music with mission church origins) also contains messages of a shared future and a post-apartheid vision of the country. I believe that congregations began to incorporate these messages in the music particularly in the later decades of the twentieth century and that these actions should be understood within the context of Black Consciousness philosophy and the height of violent anti-apartheid struggle. I argue that, especially during this period, a more permeable boundary between the music of mission churches and Independent African churches developed in the Eastern Cape Province. “Coloureds Don’t Toyi-Toyi”: Anti-Apartheid Gestures I borrow this rather provocative subtitle from Shannon Jackson’s work in the context of mid-1990s Cape Town (2005). She observed post-apartheid responses at the University...

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