Det er et stort tab for kulturlivet i Zimbabwe og hele det sydlige Afrika, at Book Cafe og Mannenberg i Zimbabwes hovedstad Harare lukker ved årsskiftet 2011-2012. Men forhåbentligt genåbner det populære kulturhus snart på en ny adresse.
Grundlægger og creative director Paul Brickhill lover i hvert fald i en pressemeddelelse, at det blot bliver et farvel til venuet på Fife Avenue, som over 600.000 gæster har besøgt siden åbningen i 1997.
Book Café og Mannenberg var været hjertet i Zimbabwes kulturliv, en bastion for ytringsfrihed og en pioner inden for stand up comedy, slam poetry samt udvikling af kvinders og unges kunst. Nu bliver lokalerne overtaget af shoppingcentret:
“One has to wonder what kind of Zimbabwean spirit and legacy we will create for future generations when the needs of civic cultural and intellectual life are so easily supplanted by those of commerce and profit, even while they can co-exist happily,” skriver Paul Brickhill i pressemeddelelse udsendt i forbindelse med lukningen.
”Book Cafe, for those who truly know its heart, has been a place of beauty, joy and togetherness; and so it never failed to uplift the spirit. 350 artists earn a dignified livelihood at the venues, as well as 45 staff. Never in its history did it offend. All have been welcome, and so all came to visit at one time or other. As Edgar Langeveld once said, if you care to sit at Book Cafe long enough, a week or so, every kind of Zimbabwe will wander through.”
I efteråret besøgte de dygtige musikere og revolutionspoeter Comrade Fatso og Outspoken Danmark i forbindelse med Center for Kultur og Udviklings undervisningsprogram, og deres talent er primært fostret på netop Book Cafe.
The Show Must Go On
Efter 7.500 koncerter, 650 offentlige debatter, over 70 boglanceringer, 35 teaterproduktioner, besøg af 150 internationale stykker og utallige nye lokale stykker og samarbejder overtager Fife Avenue Shopping Mall lokalerne til Book Cafe og Mannenberg.
Paul Brickhill giver ikke op så let, for efter 30 år med modstand og udfordringer er lokalelukningen kun en lille sten på vejen:
“Does the show go on? We will make our announcements in due course. For now, what I can say is that as one door closes in life, so another opens. After 30 years, we have not given up, despite some desperate hardships along the way. We have history. Honestly, it is for us just another bend in the path.”
”To quote my old friend David Ndoro, with whom we invented much of the early years, ‘It is a journey, not a destination’. And so, yes, it will continue”.
“I would like, on behalf of some 1200 artists and our team here, to sincerely and humbly say thank you to every person who has supported, attended or performed at shows and events, who enjoyed themselves, engaged with others in the world of ideas and laughed together. To our many partners in the arts and civil society, as we always said, ‘we are building the kind of Zimbabwe we want to live in’. And so we did. And so we will continue.”
Følg med på Facebook og se, hvor Book Cafe og Mannenberg finder ly i det kommende år:
http://www.facebook.com/bookcafeharare?sk=wall
