Freshly Ground cancelled at HIFA

The Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) has a tradition of doing something that ruffles the feathers of the political establishment in Zimbabwe. The opening show is usually the platform where this happens but increased political pressure has made it difficult to have the show pass the strict censorship board with sensitive or critical content.

For the 2014 edition of HIFA the controversy was, perhaps for that reason, not so much around the opening show, but rather the closing show where the South African band Freshly Ground was billed to perform. However, upon arrival in Zimbabwe they were told that they were denied entry - "reason not given" as the band wrote on its twitter profile.

Freshly Ground released a song in 2010 called 'Chicken to Change' in which the ageing Zimbabwean leader is portrayed as a leader that doesn't have the interest of the people at heart and who fears change. Shortly thereafter a performance in Zimbabwe was cancelled. 

It is therefore not a big surprise that the Freshly Ground show was cancelled at HIFA on Sunday May 4th.It was a bold move to invite them - and also for them to accept the invitation. As a matter of fact a mouthpiece for the ZANU-PF party, the newspaper The Patriot, had advocated for a ban of HIFA on the grounds that it had invited Freshly Ground to perform - all that is needed is a reason and inviting Freshly Ground to Zimbabwe was definitely one.

However, HIFA has not been banned yet. It didn't manage to get Freshly Ground to play in Zimbabwe - and that in itself speaks volumes about the political environment in Zimbabwe. Maybe that was simply the point that HIFA (and Freshly Ground) was content making in case the band could not play.