adminFacing daily challenges of being deplored and despised by the very communities they so faithfully serve and having to evade the imminent heavy handed approach of the policing system, shebeens have weathered the storm to emerge even stronger, offering a monetary sanctuary to the economically persecuted.
There have of late been calls from politicians to legalise shebeens, a loud and clear message that shebeens are here to stay.
The late Member of Parliament for Makokoba Sydney Malunga and the late Vice-President Dr Joseph Msika — then Senior Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Planning in 1989, are on record calling for the legalisation of shebeens.
The late Cde Msika said in the same year that shebeen operators had contributed to the liberation struggle “by providing shelter to some of the political leadership”.
“If that is the case why has Independence left them to wallow in ‘criminal activities’ or better still not rehabilitated them?” said the late Cde Msika.
The call to legalise shebeens was repeated by other political leaders like Dr Sikhanyiso Ndlovu who in 2005 said: “It is a known fact that when the National Democratic Party and the later Zapu were banned, people did not have places to meet and discuss political issues. Shebeens therefore in a way became the hiding places.
“. . . We would get into a shebeen and start dancing with others. When the police came, they would think we were imbibers enjoying with the others and would go away,” he said.
It is on record that as the war of liberation escalated and intensified in the 1970s, many young men of that time were recruited from shebeens.
Shebeens have evolved with changing trends in society. They have played catch up with the ever evolving sphere of drinking despite their humbling simplicity.
While sports bars offer the glitz and glamour of the urban lifestyle, they fail to capture the township spark that sets the township fire in the hearts of patrons at a shebeen.
It is the spirit of communal drinking and cajoling that makes shebeens different from the city sports bars.
The stiff competition from other facilities has seen shebeens coming up with new methods of remaining the darling of the imbibing multitudes.
New strategies of rekindling the township fire are coming up to ensure not only the sustainability but the marketability of this embattled age old institutions.
In March this year, 50 shebeen owners from Makokoba pooled resources together to form a company to take over two beer gardens in the suburb, MaDlodlo and MaKhumalo (Big Bhawa).
Of late, some of these shebeens have adopted new ways of staying afloat.
One such strategy is the money clubs that proprietors of these places run. Here at weekly intervals the shebeen queens come together to contribute towards one of their club members amounts that range from $35 to $300.
With this figure, they boost each other to develop and even diversify their enterprises.
Most of these members are former money changers whose economic world collapsed at the advent of the dollarisation era in 2009.
A shebeen queen from Gwabalanda who refused to be named for “professional reasons” said the clubs have helped her grow in business. A former money changer, the woman says she was rescued by the shebeen and now lives a life of luxury not far from the one she enjoyed in the pre-dollarisation era.
“When I started this business, we had just dollarised and I found myself out of business. I then started a shebeen and joined these money clubs and I have grown. I now own a house and drive a good car,” she said.
At the centre of the money clubs is a sales driven strategy employed by the shebeen queens known as umabhija — christened after the process of gulping down large quantities of a liquid, in this case beer.
The concept is a bastardised form of the principle of pooling resources together especially by schoolchildren.
In this scenario, club members invite visitors to share their beer — bought by the club members from their other contributions. Each visitor pays a six dollar “affiliation fee” to drink the beers bought from members’ contributions.
His or her fee adds to the number of beers already in the pool.
The beers are then brought forward and the imbibers have to out guzzle each other and fast drinkers benefit in that they drink beer which is worth much more than their six dollar contribution. It becomes the survival of “the thirstiest” so to speak.
Several rounds are brought in and in each the struggle is to out drink your opponent to the next beer.
While it may sound like a chaotic display of drinking prowess, there is a sales dimension to it. The shebeen queen’s catch is that she pushes large volumes in sales in the shortest possible time. By introducing a competitive edge to the whole thing, she actually forces people to drink more beer in the shortest time.
When the pooled resources run out, it is time for “individual skills” a term the imbibers use to refer to a situation where each man buys his own beer after umabhija.
So with such strategies and initiatives, shebeens will stand out like stubborn weeds in a crop field. It is up to society to accept them as part of their way of life.
Online Reporter