Open Letter to Zola 7

Dear Bonginkosi “Zola” Dlamini

My name is Teboho Thuswa (22), I’m a Motivated Speaker and not a Motivational Speaker because encounters I bumped into at an early age of my life motivated me to speak and change people's lives with the gift that God blessed me with. It’s unswerving notables like you that supplement sizable value to my motivational messages and therefore inspire me to be phenomenal and do outstanding things. I’m also a qualified actor by profession and an emerging entrepreneur who’s the CEO of Fishmonger Creations.

I was really enthused to write this letter to you because you present the essence of the real fundamentals of valuable hustle and flow mantra. My additional purpose for writing this letter to you is also because we adapted and championed the skill of honouring and appreciating people who have made huge contributions in our hearts like you when they are dead whilst we failed to when they are still alive and exploring the other ventures of the world. I have therefore decided to annihilate this disease of less appreciating our Mzansi heroes who possess selfless leadership like you.

Mzolisto, I am a raw township boy, I am a boy that used to watch Yizo Yizo, I am boy that used to record your music on the cassettes when it was playing on radio. My sister will tell you that when I was in grade 6, I knew your song “Don’t cry” by my head even though my Zulu was very bad at the time and I also fought with my mom for always putting a matchstick in my mouth like you did. My love for you and your music has been living inside me Guluva. Today I am penning this letter to you with a very heavy heart that has packaged sadness and sorrows because of the cruelties of the world we seem to be living in. It is a sad open secret that your position over the past years has been tense with some individuals turning out against you when things went ghetto rough, and I say they went ghetto rough because it is people from the ghetto that seem to slaughter cows to celebrate another man’s down fall forgetting all the good he did. However, we all know that there is more to life than investing in people who don’t care about us and our dreams because our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall as Confucius once uttered. Guluva, some of us may not be there in person for you but we are still here in the spirit domain where we met through your exceptional talents that have since touched the nation. In your song Stars you tenderly say “If I was a president I would make you prominent, but because I sing Kwaito, I will give you love”. I and many South African have indeed felt and seen your love notwithstanding the arrival of the vulture journalists that have tried to divorce us from what God has blessed you with.

Bonginkosi, despite growing up from township in Zola,Soweto that at the time was notoriously known for its high crime rate, you have undeniably indicated that we can always take and create something good from the bad to become enhanced people with significance. I must applaud you for deciding to choose a better life for yourself over stealing cars that has thus resulted you serving time in prison, you have furthermore drawn an Ace card and decided to take it upon yourself to become the pictogram of hope and change in our townships, you inspired many guys from the ghetto to stop hanging around the corners begging but go try to pursue what was destined for them as crime never pays but destroys and breaks the hearts of those who have worked hard and suffered to have what they have in life. We live in a society where it's every man for himself, a society in which hunters become victims and victims become hunters but for only 30 minutes every Tuesday on SABC 1 your selflessness was able to eliminate this culture of survival of the fittest and aimed at promoting a culture of coexistence and Ubuntu. And for that history will favour, it will not only remark that you were an artist and an actor but a humanitarian and community developer in the true sense of the word.

Zola, your award-winning music and sales never benefited only you nor your family, it was never just about you but the people of South Africa as well. You journeyed across this beautiful country assisting individuals who have realised their dreams to achieve them. The fantastic John C. Maxwell remarkably says "True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not to enrich the leader." You spent about R 4.5 million of your money paying for season 8 of your show Zola 7 ensuring that you continue to play the vital role in our societies by preserving the spirit of benevolence. Lova, your life has become my song and I choose to dance to it with grace, cheerfulness and love because it is a beautiful song that teaches us about the spirit of giving and life. You’ve contributed in building a library in Ngangelizwe Township in Mthatha, you contributed in donating sanitation immunization and computers in Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa, you’ve contributed in building 117 houses in Tembisa, you’ve contributed in building borehole for rural areas, you’ve contributed in building a swimming pool in Soweto worth half a million rands, you provided countless scholarships for universities and colleges students, you donated 3 percent of your Cell C endorsements earnings to a charity with 2500 beneficiaries being the vulnerable and elderly, you developed small businesses for the HIV infected, deaf and blind and more other brilliant things.

Michael Bassey Johnson courteously says “Those who pray for your downfall are concentrating on negative thoughts towards you without taking cognisance of the slippery ground in which they are standing on that could thus lead to their downfall.” It is dismays me today that we only find negative things about you when Googling your name as if you have never made the much needed impact. These tabloid magazines are hideous and the downfall of our society because they create a generation of negative mind-sets, I mean believing in negative thoughts is bad, it is the single greatest obstruction to success and this is going to give birth to more and more failures that are going to master the art of plotting and celebrating another black person’s downfall. Mzolisto despite what has been written about you, as tough and painful as it was, you are still the king and must therefore rise to your throne, I was pleased to see that you didn’t care what people will say by proudly selling your music from your car, many people today who have been the victim of life-setbacks have allowed pride and anger to take over their lives and must therefore really take time and learn from how you continuously demolish the demon of failure that is trying to hinder your success. Someone once said “Haters are like sand paper, they polish you, live you spotless & sharp enough like an arrow to strike”. You have lost friends, but not your fans. Zola your life-journey has shown me that some people will smile with you when you are around but secretly celebrating when things don’t go well for you, especially in the entertainment industry.

Mr Dlamini I guess you can now see that it is indeed the official Black versus Black war, and a war of this notion must shattered, I mean our people today hate one another, our people today are not talking to each other, our people today plot downfalls for one another and our people today satisfy the one that oppressed and divided them by hating on one another. Most black people are today stuck in a poisonous mental prison of jealousy and self-doubt that blinds them to their own potentiality and until such time we liberate our own selves from the mental slavery we shall forever be prisoners that aren’t behind bars but suffering more than those who are behind bars. Guluva, I want you to know that when God gives you a gift, you are bound to be attacked, and if you aren’t attacked as a gifted child then you aren’t really that gifted. Sibalikhulu, I believe God deliberately allowed you to go through what you went through as a sign of waking many of us up to see the brutalities of the world before we begin to celebrate as there are python-like people who come into our lives to destroy us. And regarding this python issue, I have thought of a process of buying clothes, when we are in the retail store we don’t buy everything. We choose slowly and carefully, asking the prices for each before buying. We should in the same way choose our friends; by looking into their lives carefully before taking any as a companion and then drop those that are not relevant. Your life is a huge inspiration Bonginkosi Dlamini, we can sing, march, shout and write letters saying Bring Back Zola 7, yes we can do that but the basketball is in your hands and you must therefore play it like the great Michael Jordan.

Our very own amazing South African gospel artist Donny says “Basheshe ba hleka, kanthi uNkosi uyeza”. In a movie of Big Stan, his master says “Never celebrate too early”, many people who were excited to see your vulnerable side seems to have celebrated too early because they didn’t know the plan that God has for you! George Elliot also beautifully says “It is never too late to be what you might have been”. Zola, many people have today been written off, been told that they are down and out, friends ran away from them, banks repossessed cars and houses, people made them a laughing stock, they were heavily judged but some don’t know that you too have been there for years but you are still breathing. Deuteronomy 31:6 encouragingly says “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you, he will never leave you nor forsake”. The tricky thing about God is that he uses his people to heal his people and whatever the mistakes you did on earth don’t exist to him, He will never judge you like when the society judges you, It is just unfortunate Mzolisto that when you want to make some people feel like human beings, they begin to take you as an animal. God has forgiven you long time ago because the plan he has for you is greater than the tabloids.

In a book called The Last Continent, Terry Pritchett heroically alludes that “Heroes are selfless people who perform extraordinary acts. The mark of heroes is not necessarily the result of their action, but what they are willing to do for others and for their chosen cause. Even if they fail, their determination lives on for others to follow. The glory lies not in the achievement, but in the sacrifice.” When we say you are our Kasi Hero we are not trying to buy your face, we mean it! We indeed do not care who says what about you because we love you, there is no story in the front of the newspaper that is going to bury our love for you. Azishe lova! You said it, Ya madoda ai phele. Let’s continue to fight this battle of life. Martin Luther King, Jr once said “Not everybody can be famous. But everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato or Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.”

Appreciation is a wonderful thing, it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. We appreciate and thank you Zola 7, you served us with love and gratitude, You will remain the son of the nation forever! Hola 7! 

Warm Regards

Teboho Thuswa, @tebohothuswa