To date I am enjoying the sense of feeling that has started to make my life meaningful by contributing to the restoration, defence and sustenance of the God given endowment to human beings, i.e. freedom of expression, freedom of choice if you like. Writing for freemuse.org has offered me an important arena to share with the world what happens in Tanzania which has been christened ‘Island of Peace’.
Although little is heard from Tanzania as regards to Music Censorship, it does not signify that everything is going on smoothly. It does not mean that people are that free to express their feelings etc, albeit via music. It is probably more the matter of absence of evidence being no evidence of absence.
I started writing for Freemuse in 2007 following Freemuse Stringer Course in Johannesburg, South Africa in March 2007. The training was very informative, properly organised and very relaxed allowing for the highest level of sharing and getting the required inspirations. But why did it take so long to get started?
The training inspired me enough for an immediate take-off, bearing in mind that I had already been writing on other Human Rights issues here. However, it wasn’t easy in a country like ours where most things are superficially alright to get started. I could not find it easy to solicit music censorship stories as they were not given coverage even in local media in Tanzania.
The touching, guiding and stern reminder from Freemuse Secretariat of 17 August 2007, reached me just after I had made my mind to start building up a contact book for musicians. This way I thought I would be able to get tips, which has been of some help as I got started October 2007. Then I started a research on several other stories. It is clear to date that there are lots of unheard music censorship stories in Tanzania.
It is now obvious to me that writing censorship stories in the context of my country demands much journalistic research and involvement. I have learnt that the best way to do this is to be open-minded, and have eyes, ears and a nose for censorship stories. My involvement has led me to appreciating art in general and specifically music. I want to convey my sincere appreciation of Freemuse’s editorial style which is, to me, very inspiring. This editorial style is in itself a non censorship. It is full of dialogue, cautious and very much tied to accuracy. It has turned out to be my lifelong learning arena.
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