Maiko represents Zambia at Ghana arts fest
By Mast Reporter
ZAMBIAN reggae musician and human rights activist Maiko Zulu is in Ghana attending the African Solidarity Learning Festival.
The African Solidarity Learning Festival (ASLF) kicked off yesterday in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, with participants being drawn from a number of African countries.
Some of the countries represented are South Africa, Tunisia, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Liberia, Uganda, Guinea and Zambia.
Zulu is representing Zambia at the fourth edition of the festival, which focuses on political education for African activists and provides a platform for direct networking among social movements and activist artistes in Africa.
“Young Kenyans who were part of the Gen-Z protests are also part of the gathering,” he said in an interview with The Mast from Accra yesterday.
Zulu’s art and advocacy is linked to the cause of mass liberation both locally and internationally, and is considered as being among the last standing activists in Zambia following the dilution of many critical voices after the 2021 change of regime in the copper-rich Southern African country currently struggling with poverty, high cost of living and political tension.
“Recent developments on the continent from the emergence of a new style of leadership in Burkina Faso to the political awakening of young people in Kenya are some of the highlights of the learning festival, which will culminate into a full cultural and arts performance before closing this Friday,” Zulu said.
He said a number of African countries were facing similar challenges in the face of bad governance, authoritarianism, election rigging, corruption and externalisation of resources with poverty, bad health, ignorance, exploitation and lack of basic needs and services for the masses as the direct result.
“Perpetual debt is also high on the topics with IMF and World Bank programs being scrutinised. Alleged State brutality and abductions in Uganda and Tanzania as well as the the mineral driven civil wars in DRC and Sudan will be tabled,” Zulu said.
The artist-activist has been one of the few remaining defenders of human rights and a critic of the current government’s excesses and failures.
Most of the artists and other local celebrities who were fearlessly critical of the last administration have either aligned themselves with the new ruling elite or have simply crawled into self-imposed silence in the wake of the increasing crackdown on dissent by the new administration.
