The Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards: two steps forward….?

1.    Introduction

Six weeks after the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards, with the event and the awards having been received significantly better than the 2011 version, it would be of value to the local theatre industry to reflect on the awards.  While there has been a complete absence of controversy around the 2012 Awards (at least publicly), there have nevertheless being questions raised – more discreetly – not least because of the perceived political correctness of these latter awards.

In short, while the controversies of 2011 related to the selection of “white” winners in all 17 categories in which awards were made, this year’s awards are controversial for the opposite reason i.e. 5 of the 15 awards (33% in total), including some of the most competitive awards i.e. best actor, best actress, best supporting actor and best supporting actress, were all won by people of colour for the first time in the history of the Awards, with an additional two awards (theatre innovation and lifetime achievement) made to people of colour.

The purpose of this article is not to undermine any winner (particularly people of colour who historically have been, and remain under-represented in just about all Awards categories as well as within key decision-making positions within the local theatre industry), but rather to interrogate the 2012 awards both for what they reflect about the theatre industry in the Western Cape and for what they reflect about the judging process, in order to contribute to the ongoing development, transformation and celebration of excellence within the local theatre industry.

Their value as an affirmation of excellence in the industry, their consequent marketing benefits and their prize money all affirm that the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards occupy a unique space in the regional and national theatre landscape, a landscape in which there is limited financial reward and recognition for practitioners.  For this reason alone, it is necessary to interrogate the Awards from time to time in order to ensure that they do not lose or compromise their value, but that they continue to recognise and celebrate excellence (even though this may be valued subjectively) within the local theatre industry.

The nature of such – and similar – awards is that there will always be some debate about winners and losers, some ill feeling about who was nominated and who was not; this is not what this article is about.  Rather, it is to evaluate what progress, if any, has been made since last year, and where the deficiencies, if any, might lie this year, in order to address these.

2.    Stakeholders

There are four primary stakeholders in the ecology of the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards

1. the pool of practitioners who stand to be nominated i.e. performers, designers, directors, writers, etc
2. the managements, producers and decision-makers who decide which works to stage or produce, which decisions impact directly on the pool of practitioners from which nominations are made
3. the panel of Fleur du Cap judges who see the productions and select the nominees and ultimately the winners in each category and
4. Distell, the sponsors, without whom the Awards would not be possible, but with the Awards comprising only a portion of their corporate engagement in the arts sector

2.1  Practitioners

There is no shortage of talent, commitment, creativity and hard work within the local theatre industry.  There can be little argument that practitioners are motivated, less by awards, than by seeking to do their best possible work in the production in which they are working at the time.

With regard to the Awards, practitioners are largely passive i.e. they go about their work generally with great professionalism and commitment, but they have no say in the nomination or selection process.

Few practitioners see as much of the theatre that the Judges see (more than 60 productions per year), so few are in a position to judge the relative merits of the nominations, although more would be likely to have seen the productions from which the nominees emerge.

The nature of the Awards – as with any awards – is that only a few will win, a few more will be nominated and stand a chance of winning, and the vast majority will be overlooked.  There would be joy among the few winners and more disappointment among those who did not win.

What practitioners would hope for is that decisions about winners are made on the basis of merit (since the Awards are for the “Best” in each category).  “White” practitioners would not want to feel that they were overlooked because of politically correct considerations, while persons of colour would not want to feel that they are “quota” or “affirmative action” selections.  

2.2  Managements, producers and decision-makers

Last year (2012), there was much anger expressed against the judges for the exclusively “white” winners in all the award categories.  However, in an analysis of the productions that were eligible for the awards, the point was made that the judges could only select from what was available to them i.e. the problem appeared to be less with the judges and more with the theatre industry – producers and managements – that were not providing opportunities for persons of colour within the industry.

As indicated in that article:

According to the award organisers, there were 63 productions which were eligible for the awards, of which 53 (84%) were presented in 6 theatre spaces: the Baxter Theatre (15), UCT’s Intimate/Little theatre complex (9), Theatre on the Bay, Artscape and the Kalk Bay Theatre (8 each) and the Fugard Theatre (5) with single productions spread between the New Africa Theatre, Magnet Theatre, the City Hall, Maynardville, Kirstenbosch Amphitheatre and the HB Thom in Stellenbosch while On Broadway housed two shows.

Four of the six main theatre spaces – Theatre on the Bay, Kalk Bay Theatre, the Fugard Theatre and the Little Theatre/Intimate Theatre complex – provided more than 100 roles for actors during 2011, but fewer than 5% of these were filled by actors of colour.  While the Baxter Theatre and Artscape produce some of their own work (both reflecting greater racial equity in the employment of actors in their own productions), many of the productions presented at these spaces (and the Fugard and Kalk Bay Theatre) are “rentals” i.e. independent theatre companies that hire the space. 

The key point is that, of the actors employed in plays presented during 2011 at these 6 theatres and who were eligible for the leading actor, leading actress, leading supporting actor and leading supporting actress categories, just more than 10% were persons of colour which was proportionately less than the 12% representation of persons of colour in the Fleur du Cap nominations in these categories.   In other words, rather than the judges being responsible for the lack of nominations of people of colour – and ultimately for the absence of people of colour as winners in various categories – the more fundamental problem is that of theatre managements and independent theatre-makers choosing to do plays and/or casting the plays in a manner that provides the judges with an overwhelmingly white pool – nearly 90% of the total number of actors – to choose from.

This year, the figures are significantly different, particularly in the actor categories. 

There were 68 productions under review in 2012, spread over 9 managements or theatre complexes.  These were the Baxter Theatre Centre (18), Artscape (11), Kalk Bay Theatre (11), the UCT complex, including the Arena, Little and Intimate (10), Theatre on the Bay (9), the Fugard Theatre (4), Magnet Theatre (3), Maynardville (1) and Richard Loring’s theatre (1).

The various categories had the following numbers of potential nominees i.e. the number of people eligible for nomination from these productions, in the various categories in which awards are made:

Best performance by an Actor in a play: 59

Best performance by an Actress in a play: 26

Best performance by a Supporting Actor in a play: 72

Best performance by a Supporting Actress in a play: 36

Best performance by an Actor in a Musical/Musical Theatre: 7

Best performance by an Actress in a Musical/Musical Theatre: 11

Best performance by a Supporting Actor in a Musical/Musical Theatre: 11

Best performance by a Supporting Actress in a Musical/Musical Theatre: 11

Best performance in a cabaret/revue/solo show: 27

Best Director: 60

Best Lighting Design: 50

Best Set Design: 42

Best Costume Design: 38

Best Sound or Original Score: 25

Best Puppetry Design: 1

Best New South African Script: 23

The following table outlines the number of persons of colour (insofar as it could be ascertained from the information provided) per potential nomination category, the number of persons of colour nominated in each category and the categories in which persons of colour won awards.

 

Category	Potential	PoC’s	Nominees	Winners
Best Actor   (play)	59	13 (22%)	2 of 4 (50%)	1
Best Actress   (play)	26	9 (34%)	1 of 4 (25%)	1
Best Supporting   Actor (play)	72	29 (40%)	1 of 4 (25%)	1
Best Support   Actress (play)	36	10 (28%)	1 0f 4 (25%)	1
Best Actor   (musical)	7	3 (43%)	2 of 4 (50%)	1
Best Actress   (musical)	11	1 (9%)	0 of 4 (0%)	0
Best Supporting   Actor (musical)	11	6 (54%)	3 of 4 (75%)	0
Best Supporting   Actress (musical)	11	5 (46%)	1 of 4 (25%)	0
Best Performer   (cabaret/solo)	27	3 (11%)	0 of 4 (0%)	0
Best Director	60	6 (10%)	2 of 4 (50%)	0
Best Lighting   Design	50	2 (4%)	1 of 4 (25%)	0
Best Set Design	42	0 (0%)	0 of 4 (0%)	0
Best Costume   Design	38	1 (3%)	0 of 4 (0%)	0
Best Sound or   Original Score	25	2 (8%)	0 of 4 (0%)	0
Best New South   African Script	23	6 (26%)	1 of 4 (25%)	0
TOTAL	498	96 (19%)	15 of 60 (25%)	5 of 15 33%

In 2012, the number of people of colour provided with work opportunities in plays in the Western Cape, represents a significant improvement on 2011.  In the first 8 categories – best and supporting actors and actresses in plays and musicals – of the 233 potential nominees (or people provided with work in these productions), 76 are persons of colour (33%).  In the first four categories – only those dealing with plays (not musicals), the numbers are similar with 62 of the 193 potential nominees being persons of colour (32%), in both cases a substantial improvement from the approximately 10% of the previous year.

The 68 productions were shared between 8 theatre complexes/managements as follows: Baxter Theatre 18, Artscape 11, Kalk Bay Theatre 11, UCT Theatre complex (including Little Theatre, Arena Theatre and Intimate Theatre) 10, Theatre on the Bay 9, Magnet Theatre 3, Richard Loring’s theatre 1 and Maynardville 1.

In the four play categories, the Baxter Theatre and Artscape each made available 54 opportunities for actors and actresses (these include their own productions and rentals), with the productions at the Baxter including 28 persons of colour (52%), an average of 1,6 persons of colour per production, and Artscape 18 (33%), a similar average of 1,6 persons of colour per production.  The Magnet Theatre provided ten opportunities including 7 for persons of colour (70%), an average of 2,3 persons of colour per production.  Kalk Bay Theatre, Theatre on the Bay, the UCT Theatre Complex, the Fugard Theatre and Maynardville provided a total of 75 opportunities between them, with 8 opportunities for persons of colour (11%). (Richard Loring’s Theatre which provided work for a number of people of colour, is excluded from this assessment as their production falls into the musical theatre category and this is to compare these play categories with those of 2011)

Given our apartheid history, “race” will feature for some time as a significant factor in providing a yardstick for the transformation of the theatre industry, as indeed it will be for all other industries.

However, it is also interesting to reflect on the gender dynamics of the industry, and to assess the racial demographics against the gender demographics in the final selections of winners.

The table below outlines the number of women eligible for nomination in categories where both men and women are eligible, the number of woman nominees and woman winners.

 

Category	Potential	Women	Nominees	Winners
Best Performer   (cabaret/solo)	27	9 (33%)	2 of 4 (50%)	0
Best Director	60	13 (21%)	1 of 4 (25%)	1
Best Lighting   Design	50	8 (16%)	0 of 4 (0%)	0
Best Set Design	42	11 (26%)	0 of 4 (0%)	0
Best Costume   Design	38	21 (55%)	2 of 4 (50%)	1
Best Sound or   Original Score	25	3 (12%)	0 of 4 (0%)	0
Best New South   African Script	23	7 (23%)	1 of 4 (25%)	0
TOTAL	265	72 (27%)	6 of 28 (21%)	2 of 7 (29%)

Women who played lead or supporting roles in plays totalled 19 at Artscape, 12 at the Baxter, 11 at the UCT Theatre Complex, 6 at Maynardville, 4 at Kalk Bay Theatre and Theatre on the Bay each and 3 each at the Fugard and Magnet Theatres.  This constitutes a total of 56 roles for women during 2011, compared with more than double the number of roles for men at 131.   Lead or supporting roles for women amounted to 43% of those for men in that year.

Except for the Costume Design category where they represent 55% of the eligible workers, women are under-represented in all the technical categories such as lighting, set and sound design and even in the directing category women constitute only 21% of potential nominees.  Women comprise just over 25% of those eligible in the New Script category.

Persons of colour are even more under-represented in these categories (the ones in which women and men are eligible i.e. primarily technical and design categories) with only 10% in the directing category, 4%, 0%, 3% and 8% in the lighting, set, costume and sound categories respectively, and a quarter of those eligible in the New Script category are persons of colour.

Some obvious conclusions to draw from these statistics are that

1. there is a need for greater investment in training, mentoring and providing opportunities for persons of colour in the technical and design aspects of the theatre industry in the Western Cape
2. there is a similar need to grow new writing talent both among women and persons of colour
3. managements and producers need to give greater consideration to the selection of plays that provide work opportunities for actresses and for women directors (note: the primary theatre markets generally comprise women) and
4. the upward trend in persons of colour cast in lead and supporting acting roles in plays needs to be sustained, but this needs to be extended beyond the Baxter, Artscape and the Magnet Theatre

 2.3 The Judges and the 2012 awards

 The panel of Fleur du Cap judges comprises an array of individuals who vary in their training in, experience of and exposure to theatre.  They may have different cultural values, different aesthetic tastes, and varied notions of excellence.  Invariably, each judge will respond to a piece of work and the performances within it, from a subjective perspective, rather than some universally accepted understanding of “excellence”.

With regard to these awards, and similar awards where there is a panel of 12-15 judges, ultimately, that which is rewarded and recognised is determined by majority opinion (which, in some cases, may include unanimity or consensus). 

While the anger at the Fleur du Cap judges in 2011 was largely misplaced given that they were required to judge what was made available to them by theatre managements, except for the technical, design and directing categories where persons of colour are still woefully under-represented, the Fleur du Cap judges had a significantly larger pool from which to make their selections in 2012.

The 2012 Judging Panel is thus primarily responsible for the decisions made, particularly in the first four categories where the categories for lead and supporting actors and actresses in plays, were all won by persons of colour.

In the light of the controversies of 2011, it is difficult not to conclude that the 2012 judges succumbed to their individual and/or collective politically correct pressures to arrive at their final selections rather than the criterion of “merit”. 

Of the total number of potential nominees (498), only 19% were persons of colour and yet, the total number of nominees selected by the judges comprised a total of 25% persons of colour (15 of 60).  Even more unlikely, the winners were persons of colour in 33% of the categories. 

It is true that in the first four categories there is mathematical consistency i.e. that persons of colour constituted 31% of the total number of potential nominees for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress in a play, and that the nominations reflected this (5 of 16 nominations were people of colour for a total of 31%).  However, persons of colour made a clean sweep of those four categories, even though in three of those categories, a person of colour had a one-in-four chance of being a winner.

While persons of colour stood a 1 in 5 chance of being nominated, they actually comprised 1 in 4 of the final list of nominees and were 1 in 3 winners, a remarkable statistical/mathematical achievement.

While it may be countered that a “white” person won in a category where he only had a one-in-four chance (the Best Supporting Actor in a Musical category) and a designer won the Set Design category where his competitor was one designer nominated for three different productions and so had a three-in-four chance of winning the category, that a person of colour won in each of the first four categories purely on merit, is mathematically/statistically improbable.  The only likely explanation is that judges felt pressurised (not necessarily consciously or as the result of a collective discussion or even because of any pressure from sponsors, but precisely because they would all have been aware of the 2011 controversies) to select winners that would be more politically acceptable, or less politically controversial.

When one considers that in 2011, the number of persons of colour who were nominated (about 12%) was consistent with the number of persons of colour provided with work opportunities in the four actor categories (10%), and when one considers that this year, the proportion of women nominations (21%) and winners (29%) is more or less proportionate to the number of women who worked within those categories (27%), then it is far more difficult to accept the disproportion of winners in the four acting categories where persons of colour won (100%) against the number of nominees (34%) and the number of persons of colour eligible for nomination in those categories (33%). 

If the aim of the judges is to correct historical imbalances (and given our history, this is not a bad thing), then this needs to be communicated to the theatre industry.  As it stands at the moment, the public silence should not be mistaken for an absence of disquiet within the theatre industry who may consider it politically incorrect to raise the issues, or who genuinely feel elated for the winners and so do not wish to undermine their awards or who do not want to alienate the judges for fear of compromising their own chances of future nominations and awards.

But, in the interests of the industry and of the Awards, questions need to be asked.

Some further questions raised by the 2011 Awards are:

1. why can a designer be nominated for 3 different productions (and so stand an increased chance of winning) and an actor be nominated in only one production in a particular category, even though s/he may have acted meritoriously in more than one production – is this to spread the awards or nominations around in the more competitive play acting categories?
2. why are men and women combined in the best performance in a cabaret/revue/one-person show category (presumably because there is not a critical mass of nominations in this category), but there are four categories for those in musical theatre where on the evidence of this year, there is not a substantial difference between the total number of potential nominees (27 in cabaret and 40 in musical theatre)?
3. when does a script that owes its conceptualisation, themes and plot to another writer become a “New South African script” as was the case with Mies Julie?
4. are the awards about “giving other people a chance” so that those who are regularly nominated and/or who win e.g. Jeremy Crutchley and Anthea Thompson, are deliberately overlooked to “give others a chance”?
5. what is the purpose of an “audience award” when it can so obviously be manipulated by a producer to appeal for votes for the production (including from those who have not seen it), when the most popular productions can be relatively easily ascertained from ticket sales?

Greater clarity and communication on the part of the judges and/or organisers would assist the theatre community in understanding how nominations and selections are made.

Since the judges sit in judgment over the work of professionals in the theatre industry, it is not unreasonable for the theatre industry to request the credentials of these judges.  We know their names and some are well-known and respected within the industry, but generally, what are the judges’ skills, experience of, exposure to and knowledge of theatre that enables them to select “the best” in each of these categories?  Perhaps the CVs of judges need to be posted on the Fleur du Cap website as a start?

2.4  Distell, the sponsors

Distell, and any other private sector company, is not responsible for the theatre industry and for what the theatre industry chooses to stage annually.  Neither is Distell responsible for what the judging panel selects as their nominees and their final list of winners.  Distell is the sponsor, the enabler of the awards.  (Some may argue that Distell is indirectly responsible by virtue of appointing the judges – and this is true, but ultimately, one would assume that it is the judges who decide without any intervention or direction from Distell.  It is the same as Distell sponsoring a theatre production; they make the production possible, but they have no say in its content and form – and the artists involved would resent it if they had any say by virtue of their sponsorship).

The primary responsibility of Distell in the Awards would be the Awards event.  No sponsor wants to be associated with controversy or to have its image tarnished, especially when it believes that it is doing something that is socially worthwhile or commendable.  But Distell was legitimately criticised in 2011 for not sufficiently anticipating the potential fallout of the 2011 awards with its all-white winners (they would have known the judges’ decisions beforehand), and ensure that at least the Awards event was a celebration of the diversity and excellence of the theatre industry in the Western Cape.  The all-white presenters and the semiotics of the dancers kneeling subserviently in presenting the awards at the event compounded the controversies of the 2011 Awards.

By all accounts, the Awards event of 2012 was a huge improvement on the 2011 event, and for this, Distell needs to be commended.  It is to be hoped that despite what the managements and producers within the theatre industry decide to do and notwithstanding the decisions of the judges, Distell will in future at the very least continue to endeavour to present an awards event that recognises and affirms the rich diversity of and excellence within the performing arts sector in the Western Cape, so that the event projects a vision of what the theatre industry in the Western Cape could, or should, be.

Conclusion

While the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards have a long history, predating the political changes of 1994, and while, since 1994, there has probably been a great anxiety (if not external pressure) on the part of judges to select people of colour as winners, the 2011 Awards (with the event in 2012) probably marked a turning point in the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards.  The controversies at the time were not a great experience for the industry, the judges, the practitioners or for the sponsor. 

Yet, there has been significant progress in some areas even within a year, but it would appear that there has been an over-reaction to the 2012 controversies which may result in patronising and politically correct decisions and actions that undermine the value of the Fleur du Cap awards.  At best, this year’s awards may be viewed as  part of its upward trajectory that will eventually see the Awards stabilising as the theatre industry plays its part in its ongoing transformation and as the panel of judges comes to acquire the individual and collective vision, skills, experience, sensitivity and insights to play the role required of them.

Mike van Graan is the Executive Director of the African Arts Institute and is Artscape’s Associate Playwright. 

Cry (wolf racism) the beloved country There is probably

Cry (wolf racism) the beloved country

 

There is probably nothing as tiresome, irritating and reactionary in contemporary South African discourse as the knee-jerk accusation of racism in response to anything critical of the ANC government, of any black person or of any institution that happens to be managed by black people (in the broadest, Biko-esque sense of “black”).

 

Ironically, this knee-jerk, superficial and notoriously defensive use of the “race card” potentially sustains racism in that when real racism rears its ugly head, many will ignore it as the false “it is racist” cries have caused deaf ears to develop.

 

It is the South African equivalent of the sheep-herding boy who regularly – but falsely – claimed that a wolf was about to attack his sheep, thus provoking the community in his and the herd’s defence, only to discover that in fact, there was no wolf.  When a wolf finally did attack his herd, the shepherd boy called for help, but no-one responded, believing that it was yet again a false cry.  And the shepherd, his herd – and the community – suffered substantial loss.

 

One encounters “cry wolf” racism everywhere.  In protecting corrupt officials.  In deflecting official incompetence.  In defence of the Nkandla compound.  In justifying overnight wealth.  More often than not, “cry wolf” racism is but a spurious attempt to silence criticism, to suppress freedom of expression and to manipulate the terms on which public debate occurs. 

 

Now it would appear that even government is beginning to acknowledge and take action around various things that provoked widespread criticism in the past, and for which “cry wolf” racism was invoked as a defence.

 

The Public Service Commission has indicated to parliament that corruption among public servants had cost the state nearly R1 billion in 2011/2012, with more than 4000 public officials facing charges of corruption, fraud or theft.  The Diagnostic Report of the National Planning Commission – not exactly a publication of the “white controlled media” – lists endemic corruption as one of the country’s key challenges.  In the recent parliamentary debate on the President’s state of the nation address, senior cabinet ministers – not MPs in the “white” opposition – bemoaned the huge expenditure on consultants which reflects the lack of competencies within government, where thousands of officials are employed to do exactly the jobs for which consultants are contracted.

 

These ministers also promised to root out the practice of government employees forming companies that tendered for – and got – government work, thereby enriching themselves, their close friends and family members in the process.  As a deterrent to corruption by government officials and companies doing business with government, the Justice Cluster has promised to “name and shame” corrupt public servants. 

 

Legitimate criticism has not only been levelled by “white” critics who, by virtue of simply being white (the anti-apartheid credentials of some notwithstanding) are deemed to be racist, or past beneficiaries of apartheid, and therefore without moral foundation to “speak truth” to the (black) government of the day.  Leading black (in the narrow, non-Biko-esque definition) figures have also been sharp critics of government incompetence, corruption and general failure to realise its many election promises.

 

Just this last week, Barney Pityana, former Vice-Chancellor of UNISA, wrote an open letter to President Jacob Zuma in which he stated that “we remain a long way from what Nelson Mandela promised in July 1993 when he said that ‘…the time had come for us to address the burning question of feeding the millions in our country, clothing the millions that are naked, accommodating the millions that are homeless, and creating jobs for the millions who are unemployed.’”  He writes further “clearly the president and his party lack the motivation, skills and ideas to transform this country into the haven of opportunity and prosperity that 1994 promised”.  The purpose of the letter was to ask President Zuma to resign “in the interests of progress and development of our country”.

 

In a series of articles in the City Press, Njabulo Ndebele masterfully dissected the lying and dishonesty around the exorbitant public expenditure on President Zuma’s personal home in KwaZulu Natal.

 

When launching her party political platform, Mamphele Ramphele stated “our country is at risk because self-interest has become the primary driver of many of those in positions of authority who should be focussed on serving the public…Corruption, nepotism and patronage have become the hallmarks of the conduct of many in public service.”

 

Even a close ally of the ANC, COSATU’s General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi said in an address “we’re headed for a predator state where a powerful, corrupt and demagogic elite of political hyenas are increasingly using the state to get rich”.  He further stated that just like a hyena whose daughters eat first, so, in a predator state, the chief of state’s family eats first.  And this was before the Nkandla scandal.

 

There are not a few within the ruling elite who believe that such criticism by progressives should not be levelled publicly as it “provides ammunition to the enemy”.  The truth is that “the enemy” is within; the external “enemy” – such as it is – needs little ammunition to critique the ruling party as these failures are writ large not least in the daily protests of ordinary people, the primary constituency of the ruling party.

 

If it is not already clear, it should be emphasised that incompetent civil servants are not criticised because they are black, but because they are not doing the jobs for which they are being paid handsomely, thereby compromising service delivery and the substantial transformation of poor people’s lives.

 

Civil servants and politicians who commit fraud and are dishonest are not exposed because they are black, but because they are stealing from the public purse, because they are enriching themselves at the expense of the poor, because their primary concern is themselves and those close to them, rather than the interests of the majority of our people. 

 

Individuals who become extraordinarily wealthy in a short space of time are not criticised because racists don’t want black people to be rich, but because in a society that has become increasingly unequal, where unemployment has skyrocketed and where most people continue to live below the poverty line, it is obscene that so few people should become so rich due largely to little other than being part of a political elite.

 

It is not racist to be scandalised by the application of millions of rands from the public purse to the President’s personal home, but rather because when millions of people continue to be homeless, when the houses that have been built post-1994 are falling apart, when those houses reflect the dehumanising designs and spatial arrangements of the apartheid era, it is completely unacceptable that the President – essentially a public servant – has his massive home compound further upgraded by more than R200 million!

 

The government is not criticised because it is black, it is because it is the government and, among other things, it has presided over the decline in education, in health services, in employment, in security of its citizens and in life expectancy. 

 

Post-1994, it was morally and politically correct to transform the management and governance of the civil service and a host of other state-funded institutions so that these better reflected the demographics – in terms of gender, culture, “race”, language, disability, etc – of our society, than that inherited from our apartheid past. 

 

Nearly twenty years later, there are at least three conclusions that we can draw from these changes:

1. while there are many committed and able civil servants at all levels of government, there is also a substantial number who simply do not have the skills, commitment and experience to do the jobs required of them; in such cases, superficial demographic transformation of the civil service has severely  compromised and even retarded the substantial transformation of our society in the interests of the greater majority of our citizens
2. it is not necessarily true that black civil servants – by virtue of their historical and racial identification with the masses of South Africans – will act in the best interests of the majority; the numerous fraud, theft and corruption cases against, and the internal tenderpreneurship of many civil servants reflect greater self-interest, rather than the interests of those who need and expect effective public service
3. that more than R90 billion has been spent on external consultants by government departments reflects not only the lack of capacity within government, but also a substantial loss to the public purse as taxpayers are paying double (government officials and consultants) for the same job; such  resources could be better spent on the delivery of key services.

 

The struggle was not to replace white snouts at the trough of public funds with black snouts; it was to change our society so that the overwhelming majority of people could enjoy their fundamental rights and freedoms as human beings, and as enshrined in the Constitution.  That struggle continues precisely because many beneficiaries of the current system regarded the struggle simply as one defined by race, that it was an “anti-apartheid” struggle rather than a struggle for economic equity and social justice in which “race” was an (albeit important) adjunct.  For them, eliminating structural apartheid was the open-season catalyst for a few to enrich themselves, to acquire wealth “like whites did”, to compete materially “with whites”, and to enjoy the social and other consumptive benefits “preserved for whites only” under apartheid.  For this reason, overnight wealth and self-enrichment are defended and justified largely through the prism of “race”, for when these are measured against the ideal of a better life for all, such wealth and enrichment are morally and politically indefensible.   

 

Is there racism in contemporary South Africa?  Absolutely!  Much of it is a legacy of our past, and yet we need to confront the uncomfortable truth that a number of post-1994 actions and practices of those in authority have actually reinforced, confirmed or inspired racism.  And this is not simply racism between the white and black protagonists of the apartheid era, but also between different “population groups” within South Africa, as well as between South Africans and people from other African countries. 

 

Notwithstanding this, there is an enormous number of people – of all “population groups” – who are just getting on and doing things, perhaps not to change the world or our society as a whole, but who are making a difference where they can in the lives of one or two individuals, or in sections of communities.  I have no doubt that there is incredible goodwill and willingness on the part of many to contribute to building a society in which the quality of life for most, if not all, of our citizens is improved.  But many have been alienated, debilitated and marginalised by the ruling elite’s love and application of cry-wolf racism to defend, advance and benefit itself.

 

Writing before the Mangaung Conference in December last year, Tony Yengeni, a senior ANC member bemoaned the way in which ANC members were contesting positions of power.  “One has watched with dismay as inflamed passions have closed the ears and minds of competing groups to opposing arguments and ideas.  Each grouping fervently believes it is right and all the others are wrong….One outcome is that those who state their views frankly and fearlessly can immediately be labelled and derided as ‘right-wing opportunists’, ‘ultra-leftists’, ‘populists’ or even ‘enemy agents’”.

 

Based on this, it would appear that currently within the ANC, this is how critics or competing arguments are dealt with; not by engaging with the substance of the argument in an intellectually rigorous manner, but simply by dismissing the holder of the opposing view with some negative label.  This is exactly the manner in which “cry-wolf” racism is used – smear the critic, and then one does not have to deal with the argument.  Another example is Gwede Mantashe’s pathetic attempt to ridicule Mamphele Ramphele’s venture into politics as some kind of American imperialist plot in Southern Africa.

 

For the sake of our democracy-in-progress, for the sake of the real fight against racism in all its forms, and most importantly, for the sake of the substantial transformation of our society so that all our citizens enjoy a better life, “cry wolf” racism and its censorial intent must be rejected, and all citizens need to speak out and act in defence of the fundamental rights and freedoms of all.

 

The Spear, the Marikana massacre and the upgrading of Nkandla: mirroring the decline of South African democracy

The Spear and the Marikana massacre:

Mirroring the decline of South African democracy

Introduction

South African politicians – and the country’s brand promoters – often boast of the country’s Constitution as being one of the, if not the, most progressive constitutions in the world.  For example, the website, www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com states “South Africa’s Constitution, admired and respected around the world for its pioneering approach to human rights, is the symbol of a remarkable negotiated transition – one that turned a country ravaged by apartheid and oppression into one that celebrates freedom and democracy”.

 

Chapter 1 of the Constitution states that South Africa is founded on “human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms”.

 

The Bill of Rights in Chapter 2 of the Constitution enshrines the right to life, to equality, human dignity, freedom of expression, freedom of association and the freedom to demonstrate.  South Africa has the distinction of being the first country in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, thereby, indeed earning the Constitution its “most progressive” credentials.

However, while the Constitution holds up a vision of what South Africans may aspire to, the everyday reality is significantly different.  Two items that made world headlines this year illustrate this: The Spear painting by artist Brett Murray and the massacre by police of 34 striking miners at the Marikana platinum mine.  This article will attempt to join the dots between these two items, arguing that they reflect the decline of South Africa’s democracy.

The Spear

In the South African art world, Brett Murray is well-known for his ironic and sometimes hard-hitting social commentary through his sculptures, paintings, public art and even his functional, arty lights.  This is but a continuation of his practice as an artist during the anti-apartheid struggle when he produced art that provoked the apartheid regime, and participated in art exhibitions, cultural events and poster-making that reflected his antipathy towards a government that sought to promote and protect the interests of a white minority while conversely suppressing – often violently – the aspirations and interests of the black majority.

In 2010, sixteen years after Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the country’s first President and in the same year as South Africa showcased itself to the world through the FIFA Soccer World Cup – a vanity project if ever there was one – Murray staged his first Hail to the Thief exhibition, an angry rebuke of the ANC’s selling out of its liberation ideals.

One of the works featured (dead) heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle associating them with contemporary, large-scale corruption such as “Oliver ‘On-the-Take’ Tambo”; “Steve ‘Kick-back-King’ Biko” and “Joe ‘Mr Ten Percent’ Slovo”.  Murray also had the ANC logo with a “For Sale” sign plastered over it, with another saying “Sold”.  His plaque “President and Sons Ltd” alluded to the manner in which many of President Zuma’s family members had become overnight millionaires, for being little other than his family. 

The criticism embedded in these works reflected the anger of Zwelinzima Vavi, the General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and a one-time staunch Zuma ally, who stated that South Africa was “heading for a predator state where a powerful, corrupt and demagogic elite of political hyenas are increasingly using the state to get rich”, further adding that just like the hyena and her daughters eat first, so the family of the chief of a predator state eats first.  (Vavi could also have been speaking of Angola where the daughter of the President – who has been in power for more than 30 years – is not only the most wealthy woman in Angola, but also one of the most wealthy in Africa).

This exhibition with its showings in both the Cape Town and Johannesburg Goodman Gallery venues, attracted little interest from the political elite and it is unlikely that these didactically provocative works made Murray rich. 

In 2012, Murray staged Hail to the Thief II at the Goodman Gallery with a number of the works from the 2010 exhibition included in this one, along with new works such as the painting, The Spear, featuring President Zuma in a Lenin-like pose and with exposed genitals.  As with the 2010 exhibition, there was little outrage till the City Press, a weekly Sunday newspaper, featured a review of the exhibition along with photographs of some of the works such as The Spear.  It was at this point that ANC leaders, members of the political elite and the ANC’s allies went on the offensive, demanding that City Press removes the image from its website, marching on the Goodman Gallery to pressurise it into removing the offending art work, taking the gallery to court to achieve the same end, and unleashing a torrent of abuse at the artist.

Murray was repeatedly accused of being a racist, of undermining the dignity of the President, of disrespecting African culture which allegedly forbade the exposure of a man’s genitals and his credentials as an anti-apartheid struggle artist were repudiated.  One church leader called for him to be stoned; the work was defaced by two men who painted over it and the Film and Publications Board saw fit to impose an age restriction of 16 on the viewing of the painting.

Freedom of creative expression – guaranteed in the Constitution – was permitted, it would seem, in the confines of a commercial gallery; once art that offended the political sensibilities of the ruling elite was placed in the public domain, it appeared that the right of the President to dignity – often the mantra of banana republics to prevent criticism of the ruling president – was deemed more important than the rights of an artist to legitimate social commentary.

The Marikana massacre

Barely three months after the outrage directed at Murray, 34 striking miners at a platinum mine in the North West Province and owned by British company, Lonmin, were brutally gunned down by South African police.  This event is regarded as the worst case of state brutality against the people of South Africa since the ANC took power in 1994, rivalling the massacre of Sharpeville in 1960 when 69 people were killed by police as they protested against the pass book that black people were required to carry.  The “New South Africa” has a public holiday – Human Rights Day on 21 March – commemorating the Sharpeville massacre and as a reminder that such events should never happen again in a democratic state.

Two further ironies are that the former Secretary General of the National Union of Mineworkers – Cyril Ramaphosa – serves on the Lonmin Board of Directors and he was a principal architect of the celebrated South African Constitution that enshrines the full gamut of human rights, including the most fundamental right: the right to life!

At the Commission of Inquiry into the massacre, emails between Ramaphosa and his director colleagues at Lonmin, reveal that he engaged the minister responsible for the mining sector as well as the Secretary of General of the ANC (also a former secretary general of the National Union of Mineworkers) to impress upon them the need for strong action against the miners whom he characterises as “criminals”.  It might have been a coincidence, but within 24 hours of this email, the police massacred the miners.

Bizarrely, police arrested more than 250 miners after gunning down their colleagues and then the National Prosecuting Authority charged these miners with the murder of their comrades.  The Marikana slaughter and the response of state institutions indicated just how little the powerful elite cared for the rights, dignity and interests of the poor.

The Spear and the Marikana massacre: Connecting the dots

Jeremy Gordin, a journalist and biographer of President Zuma, in an article on 21 August 2012 and after the Marikana massacre, wrote:

I was waiting for a cry – or even merely a squeak – of anguish from Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of COSATU and former organiser of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).  Or maybe from Gwede Mantashe, Secretary General of the ANC, who was the Secretary General of NUM…until 2006…Or how about Blade Nzimande, General Secretary of the SA Communist Party? ….

I thought I would definitely hear from Mantashe, Nzimande and Vavi and Tony Yengeni (ANC head of political education) and Jackson Mthembu (ANC spokesperson).  I was particularly hoping to hear from these five men because they, if I’m not mistaken, were the brave men, the valiant men, the fearless and outspoken men, who led the charge against the Goodman Gallery and City Press in the matter of President Zuma’s exposed peanut.

Yet, after 34 miners were gunned down….there was not even a peep from these featherless bipeds.  Not a sound.  Well, I guess there’s nothing to say when you weigh up the President’s peanut against 44 dead people – 34 of them gunned down in the dust by an inept, over-armed and leaderless police force.

Gordin’s satirical rebuke of the leadership of the trade union movement, of the South African Communist Party and of the ANC is apt: the ruling political alliance expressed greater anger and condemnation at the artist who dared to use metaphor to decry the decline of the liberation movement’s ideals, than when ordinary workers who would have expected this leadership to create a better life for them, were massacred by the police.

There has been much criticism recently of the extraordinarily high expenditure by the State on President Zuma’s private residence in rural KwaZulu Natal, with the responsible minister justifying it on the basis of this being a “national security site” and that details of such expenditure were – accordingly – secret (ironically, in terms of a piece of apartheid-era legislation!)

In the light of the Marikana massacre, the apparent abuse of state resources in upgrading the President’s personal home to the tune of more than R200 million (in excess of 15 million EUR) and the infighting within the ANC over positions of power, with many – even within the party – characterising this battle as factional strife with the aim of securing the levers of state power and access to the public purse, the political leadership has faced a torrent of criticism from within its own ranks as well as from one-time allies and supporters – the overwhelming majority of whom are black; criticism which is certainly no less – and in some cases, considerably more trenchant – than that expressed by Murray in his exhibition. 

 Recently, President Zuma dropped his civil court case against the country’s leading editorial cartoonist – Zapiro – who had depicted him as a rapist of Lady Justice after corruption charges against the President had been dropped.  The fact, though, that such a case had been instituted in the first place, reflects the tenuous commitment to freedom of creative expression by political leaders who have pledged to uphold the Constitution that guarantees this right.

Conclusion

Murray’s social commentary and his critique of the political elite’s selling out of the liberation ideals that made so many people support the African National Congress has been proven correct by the massacre of miners and by President Zuma’s rapacious assault on the public purse to improve his homestead while millions of South Africans continue to live in squalor. 

While they may be unable to use apartheid-style censorship laws to suppress criticism, the political elite has shown a great appetite for threats of court action, protest marches, verbal abuse and insults, political marginalisation, racist accusations, etc to intimidate critics from exposing or commenting on the rot that is in the state of South Africa.

Democracy – with freedom of expression a fundamental premise – is under threat from those who would rather accumulate their ill-gotten gain without embarrassing scrutiny.  Murray and others like him need to be supported and encouraged lest democracy be made and entrenched in the self-serving image of the metaphorical rapists of the dreams of millions of South Africans.

 

Cry (wolf racism) the beloved country

 

There is probably nothing as tiresome, irritating and reactionary in contemporary South African discourse as the knee-jerk accusation of racism in response to anything critical of the ANC government, of any black person or of any institution that happens to be managed by black people (in the broadest, Biko-esque sense of “black”).

 

Ironically, this knee-jerk, superficial and notoriously defensive use of the “race card” potentially sustains racism in that when real racism rears its ugly head, many will ignore it as the false “it is racist” cries have caused deaf ears to develop.

 

It is the South African equivalent of the sheep-herding boy who regularly – but falsely – claimed that a wolf was about to attack his sheep, thus provoking the community in his and the herd’s defence, only to discover that in fact, there was no wolf.  When a wolf finally did attack his herd, the shepherd boy called for help, but no-one responded, believing that it was yet again a false cry.  And the shepherd, his herd – and the community – suffered substantial loss.

 

One encounters “cry wolf” racism everywhere.  In protecting corrupt officials.  In deflecting official incompetence.  In defence of the Nkandla compound.  In justifying overnight wealth.  More often than not, “cry wolf” racism is but a spurious attempt to silence criticism, to suppress freedom of expression and to manipulate the terms on which public debate occurs. 

 

Now it would appear that even government is beginning to acknowledge and take action around various things that provoked widespread criticism in the past, and for which “cry wolf” racism was invoked as a defence.

 

The Public Service Commission has indicated to parliament that corruption among public servants had cost the state nearly R1 billion in 2011/2012, with more than 4000 public officials facing charges of corruption, fraud or theft.  The Diagnostic Report of the National Planning Commission – not exactly a publication of the “white controlled media” – lists endemic corruption as one of the country’s key challenges.  In the recent parliamentary debate on the President’s state of the nation address, senior cabinet ministers – not MPs in the “white” opposition – bemoaned the huge expenditure on consultants which reflects the lack of competencies within government, where thousands of officials are employed to do exactly the jobs for which consultants are contracted.

 

These ministers also promised to root out the practice of government employees forming companies that tendered for – and got – government work, thereby enriching themselves, their close friends and family members in the process.  As a deterrent to corruption by government officials and companies doing business with government, the Justice Cluster has promised to “name and shame” corrupt public servants. 

 

Legitimate criticism has not only been levelled by “white” critics who, by virtue of simply being white (the anti-apartheid credentials of some notwithstanding) are deemed to be racist, or past beneficiaries of apartheid, and therefore without moral foundation to “speak truth” to the (black) government of the day.  Leading black (in the narrow, non-Biko-esque definition) figures have also been sharp critics of government incompetence, corruption and general failure to realise its many election promises.

 

Just this last week, Barney Pityana, former Vice-Chancellor of UNISA, wrote an open letter to President Jacob Zuma in which he stated that “we remain a long way from what Nelson Mandela promised in July 1993 when he said that ‘…the time had come for us to address the burning question of feeding the millions in our country, clothing the millions that are naked, accommodating the millions that are homeless, and creating jobs for the millions who are unemployed.’”  He writes further “clearly the president and his party lack the motivation, skills and ideas to transform this country into the haven of opportunity and prosperity that 1994 promised”.  The purpose of the letter was to ask President Zuma to resign “in the interests of progress and development of our country”.

 

In a series of articles in the City Press, Njabulo Ndebele masterfully dissected the lying and dishonesty around the exorbitant public expenditure on President Zuma’s personal home in KwaZulu Natal.

 

When launching her party political platform, Mamphele Ramphele stated “our country is at risk because self-interest has become the primary driver of many of those in positions of authority who should be focussed on serving the public…Corruption, nepotism and patronage have become the hallmarks of the conduct of many in public service.”

 

Even a close ally of the ANC, COSATU’s General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi said in an address “we’re headed for a predator state where a powerful, corrupt and demagogic elite of political hyenas are increasingly using the state to get rich”.  He further stated that just like a hyena whose daughters eat first, so, in a predator state, the chief of state’s family eats first.  And this was before the Nkandla scandal.

 

There are not a few within the ruling elite who believe that such criticism by progressives should not be levelled publicly as it “provides ammunition to the enemy”.  The truth is that “the enemy” is within; the external “enemy” – such as it is – needs little ammunition to critique the ruling party as these failures are writ large not least in the daily protests of ordinary people, the primary constituency of the ruling party.

 

If it is not already clear, it should be emphasised that incompetent civil servants are not criticised because they are black, but because they are not doing the jobs for which they are being paid handsomely, thereby compromising service delivery and the substantial transformation of poor people’s lives.

 

Civil servants and politicians who commit fraud and are dishonest are not exposed because they are black, but because they are stealing from the public purse, because they are enriching themselves at the expense of the poor, because their primary concern is themselves and those close to them, rather than the interests of the majority of our people. 

 

Individuals who become extraordinarily wealthy in a short space of time are not criticised because racists don’t want black people to be rich, but because in a society that has become increasingly unequal, where unemployment has skyrocketed and where most people continue to live below the poverty line, it is obscene that so few people should become so rich due largely to little other than being part of a political elite.

 

It is not racist to be scandalised by the application of millions of rands from the public purse to the President’s personal home, but rather because when millions of people continue to be homeless, when the houses that have been built post-1994 are falling apart, when those houses reflect the dehumanising designs and spatial arrangements of the apartheid era, it is completely unacceptable that the President – essentially a public servant – has his massive home compound further upgraded by more than R200 million!

 

The government is not criticised because it is black, it is because it is the government and, among other things, it has presided over the decline in education, in health services, in employment, in security of its citizens and in life expectancy. 

 

Post-1994, it was morally and politically correct to transform the management and governance of the civil service and a host of other state-funded institutions so that these better reflected the demographics – in terms of gender, culture, “race”, language, disability, etc – of our society, than that inherited from our apartheid past. 

 

Nearly twenty years later, there are at least three conclusions that we can draw from these changes:

1. while there are many committed and able civil servants at all levels of government, there is also a substantial number who simply do not have the skills, commitment and experience to do the jobs required of them; in such cases, superficial demographic transformation of the civil service has severely  compromised and even retarded the substantial transformation of our society in the interests of the greater majority of our citizens
2. it is not necessarily true that black civil servants – by virtue of their historical and racial identification with the masses of South Africans – will act in the best interests of the majority; the numerous fraud, theft and corruption cases against, and the internal tenderpreneurship of many civil servants reflect greater self-interest, rather than the interests of those who need and expect effective public service
3. that more than R90 billion has been spent on external consultants by government departments reflects not only the lack of capacity within government, but also a substantial loss to the public purse as taxpayers are paying double (government officials and consultants) for the same job; such  resources could be better spent on the delivery of key services.

 

The struggle was not to replace white snouts at the trough of public funds with black snouts; it was to change our society so that the overwhelming majority of people could enjoy their fundamental rights and freedoms as human beings, and as enshrined in the Constitution.  That struggle continues precisely because many beneficiaries of the current system regarded the struggle simply as one defined by race, that it was an “anti-apartheid” struggle rather than a struggle for economic equity and social justice in which “race” was an (albeit important) adjunct.  For them, eliminating structural apartheid was the open-season catalyst for a few to enrich themselves, to acquire wealth “like whites did”, to compete materially “with whites”, and to enjoy the social and other consumptive benefits “preserved for whites only” under apartheid.  For this reason, overnight wealth and self-enrichment are defended and justified largely through the prism of “race”, for when these are measured against the ideal of a better life for all, such wealth and enrichment are morally and politically indefensible.   

 

Is there racism in contemporary South Africa?  Absolutely!  Much of it is a legacy of our past, and yet we need to confront the uncomfortable truth that a number of post-1994 actions and practices of those in authority have actually reinforced, confirmed or inspired racism.  And this is not simply racism between the white and black protagonists of the apartheid era, but also between different “population groups” within South Africa, as well as between South Africans and people from other African countries. 

 

Notwithstanding this, there is an enormous number of people – of all “population groups” – who are just getting on and doing things, perhaps not to change the world or our society as a whole, but who are making a difference where they can in the lives of one or two individuals, or in sections of communities.  I have no doubt that there is incredible goodwill and willingness on the part of many to contribute to building a society in which the quality of life for most, if not all, of our citizens is improved.  But many have been alienated, debilitated and marginalised by the ruling elite’s love and application of cry-wolf racism to defend, advance and benefit itself.

 

Writing before the Mangaung Conference in December last year, Tony Yengeni, a senior ANC member bemoaned the way in which ANC members were contesting positions of power.  “One has watched with dismay as inflamed passions have closed the ears and minds of competing groups to opposing arguments and ideas.  Each grouping fervently believes it is right and all the others are wrong….One outcome is that those who state their views frankly and fearlessly can immediately be labelled and derided as ‘right-wing opportunists’, ‘ultra-leftists’, ‘populists’ or even ‘enemy agents’”.

 

Based on this, it would appear that currently within the ANC, this is how critics or competing arguments are dealt with; not by engaging with the substance of the argument in an intellectually rigorous manner, but simply by dismissing the holder of the opposing view with some negative label.  This is exactly the manner in which “cry-wolf” racism is used – smear the critic, and then one does not have to deal with the argument.  Another example is Gwede Mantashe’s pathetic attempt to ridicule Mamphele Ramphele’s venture into politics as some kind of American imperialist plot in Southern Africa.

 

For the sake of our democracy-in-progress, for the sake of the real fight against racism in all its forms, and most importantly, for the sake of the substantial transformation of our society so that all our citizens enjoy a better life, “cry wolf” racism and its censorial intent must be rejected, and all citizens need to speak out and act in defence of the fundamental rights and freedoms of all.

 

The Cultural Weapon 27 April 2011

The Cultural Weapon

Art and democracy

Mike van Graan

The programme for the PEN World Voices Festival taking place in New York at this time states that a key mission of the Festival “is to encourage people to speak out against censorship and condemn the suppression of freedom of expression everywhere”.  The three signatories to this introduction – Laszlo Jakab Orsos, the Director of the Festival; Salman Rushdie, the chairperson of the festival steering committee and K. Anthony Appiah, the President of the PEN American Centre that hosts the Festival – further state “we firmly believe in literature as a key weapon in fighting this battle.”

South Africa celebrates 17 years of democracy this week, 17 years of the abolition of censorship boards, 17 years of freedom of expression guaranteed in the country’s Constitution which states: “everyone has the right to freedom of expression which includes a. freedom of the press and other media b. freedom to receive and impact information or ideas c. freedom of artistic creativity and d. academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.”

As part of the PEN Festival, an excerpt of my play Green Man Flashing was staged as a reading at the Martin E. Segal Theatre and was followed by a discussion.

The play is set six weeks before South Africa’s second elections in 1999. Gabby Anderson, a one-time political activist now working in government, alleges she has been raped by her boss, a high-profile government minister with an impeccable anti-apartheid struggle record and who plays a key role in quelling violence between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Inkatha Freedom Party in his native KwaZulu Natal.  If the allegations go public, it could hurt the ruling party in the elections, lead to a high number of deaths in election-related violence and compromise international investment.  The ANC sends a two-person delegation to Anderson to convince her not to go through with the charges.

Rather than the stark us-them, black-white, goodies and baddies binary oppositions of much of the theatre staged in the apartheid era, Green Man Flashing seeks to explore some of the moral contradictions, the racial ironies and the political complexities of a society in transition.   It juxtaposes individual human rights against the greater good (albeit as defined by those in power) and the pandemic of gender violence against political violence, challenging the audience to think about their moral positions in a society struggling with political and moral ambivalences.

When the play was first produced in 2004 with subsequent seasons in 2005 (some time before Jacob Zuma was charged with rape), I placed books in the foyers of the theatres so that audience members could articulate their responses to the play.  The most recurring – and for me, disturbing – comment was that this was a “brave play”, “a courageous work”, the implication being that dealing with such themes in post-apartheid South Africa was somehow considered to be daring, edgy and even dangerous.

Why would this be the case, I wondered, when we were ten years into our democracy; when, in the apartheid era, some of us were arrested for staging a piece of street theatre that constituted “an illegal gathering”, others had their works banned and still others had been detained without trial for challenging the apartheid state through their artistic creativity.  Why should writers be considered “brave” in exercising freedom of creative expression under a democratically elected government that had sworn to uphold a Constitution guaranteeing human rights?

At that time of course, Thabo Mbeki was president of the country and it was a period when the ruling party was very sensitive to any kind of criticism, where those who dared to criticise – no matter how legitimate the criticism – were dismissed as racists (or ultra-leftists if they were not white), as people who simply could not accept a black government.  It was a time when self-censorship was rife.

Often, international focus is on those countries where conditions are so repressive that we marvel at and celebrate those artists and writers who challenge the status quo at great financial, personal and even physical costs to themselves.  This is as it should be.  But sometimes, even within democratic countries, there is a need for writers, artists and musicians to speak truth to power, to challenge new political dogmas, to provide a voice for those on the underside of history.    

Democracies are generally works-in-progress and there will always be attempts to restrict freedom of expression whether through overt political censorship, withdrawal of economic resources, intimidation or other means by political authorities or those who occupy positions of leadership in some institution, community or cause.

While the general view is that the arts require conditions for freedom of expression, literature, theatre, music, film, visual arts, etc are also means for creating and expanding such conditions where they do not exist or are under threat.  The best way to ensure artistic freedom may simply be to practice it. 

 NOTES

1. The views expressed in this column are entirely those of the writer and are not necessarily representative of any of the organisations in which he is involved. 

2. This column may be forwarded by the recipient to any other interested party, and may be reproduced by any publication or website at no charge, provided that writer is acknowledged.

3. To engage with the content of this column or to provide feedback, go to www.mikevangraan.wordpress.com

Mike van Graan is the Secretary General of Arterial Network, a continent-wide network of artists, activists and creative enterprises active in the African creative sector and its contribution to development, human rights and democracy on the continent.  He is also the Executive Director of the African Arts Institute (AFAI), a South African NGO based in Cape Town that harnesses local expertise, resources and markets in the service of Africa’s creative sector.  He is considered to be one of his country’s leading contemporary playwrights.

For further information, see www.arterialnetwork.org, www.africanartsinstitute.org.za and www.mikevangraan.co.za

The Cultural Weapon 20 April 2011

The Cultural Weapon

Is democracy all it’s cracked up to be?

Mike van Graan

The Kigali Memorial Centre was opened in 2004, built on a site that also houses the graves of some 250 000 people slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide that took place a decade earlier.  As I took in the permanent exhibition that can only hint at the story of how 800 000 people were killed in a hundred day period, I was at a complete loss in trying to understand how neighbours could turn on each other so quickly, so violently.  I wondered about the much vaunted African principle of Ubuntu, our human interconnectedness: is this simply a mythical ideal that we sprout with hollow pride and nostalgia but in essence, we’re as selfish, atomised and disconnected as those in western societies?

The world ignored Rwanda from April to June 1994 when the genocide took place, focusing much more on the miracle nation down south which was hosting its first non-racial democratic elections in April too.  By June 1994, Nelson Mandela had been inaugurated as President and his euphoric speech was still ringing around the globe:

The time for healing of the wounds has come.  The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come.  The time to build is upon us….We must therefore act together as a united people for national reconciliation, for nation-building, for the birth of a new world.

While ethnic groups were literally hacking each other to death in Rwanda, at the very same time, the reconciliation project unifying people across racial and ethnic divides had just begun in post-apartheid South Africa.

South Africa is about to celebrate its 17^th Freedom Day marking the first elections on 27 April 1994, having been through a further three national elections in that time, and about to undergo its fourth local government elections in May.  A Constitution has been adopted that guarantees freedom of association, freedom of expression and freedom of the media.  Yet, at this very moment, there is a court case about whether the “struggle song”, Shoot the Boer, constitutes hate speech against Afrikaners.  It has been given prominence by the leader of the ANC Youth League who was 8-years-old at the time of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison and so hardly a veteran of the struggle against apartheid!  In this week too, six policemen have been charged with the murder of an unarmed man protesting against the lack of service delivery, his beating, shooting and subsequent death being broadcast around the world at a time when similar images are emanating from the non-democracies of Yemen and Syria.  And while protests against the lack of service delivery take place around the country, a South African cabinet minister is exposed to have spent large amounts of public funds on a trip to his drug mule girlfriend in a Swiss prison and on stays in top Cape Town hotels, and is now also building a mansion for himself in an impoverished town in the Eastern Cape. 

These three issues demonstrate just how little the national reconciliation project has progressed in South Africa, how far the country still has to go in transferring constitutional rights into reality and how high up greed and corruption go.  But at least we’re having an election soon…!

In a December 2010 article by Andrew Mwenda of The Independent in Uganda, he states “The ANC in South Africa inherited a strong bureaucratic state with a well-developed and modern industrial economy, properly developed infrastructure, the best human resource pool on the continent and great international goodwill.  The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) inherited a backward economy that had collapsed, and a nation without a functional state. The pre-existing institutions of state had been dismembered, as over 90% of its human resources were dead, in jail or in exile.  There was little international goodwill.”

Rwanda has hosted two Presidential elections since the genocide, with Paul Ngwane of the RPF winning his first seven-year term with 95% of the vote in 2003 and his second (and constitutionally final) term in 2010 with 98% of the vote.  Ngwane and the RPF have been heavily criticised by local and international human rights organisations for their clampdown on the opposition, on the media and their absence of traditional democratic credentials. 

According to Mwenda though, the lives of ordinary people in Rwanda have improved with 97% primary school enrolment, 75% having access to clean water and maternal mortality declining, all pointing to the effective pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals.  The incidence of HIV in Rwanda has declined from 11% in 2000 to under 3% in 2010, with average life expectancy growing from 25 in 2000 to 52, ten years later.  By contrast, South Africa’s average life expectancy declined from 62 before the ANC took power to around 50 last year, with a Harvard University study concluding that at least 330 000 people (nearly half of the number killed during the Rwandan genocide) died avoidable deaths during Thabo Mbeki’s reign.  The study estimated that there was an average of 900 AIDS-related deaths per day in 2005, one year after the ANC was re-elected into power with more than 69% of the vote!

The point is that there is no relationship necessarily between democracy and the delivery of services to the poor, or the improvement in the lives of the majority.  As Mwenda’s article also points out, India – the world’s largest democracy – has freedom indicators comparable to those of Norway and yet, in terms of public services such as access to education, health, clean water, health, etc, India is similar to failing states such as Bangladesh and Pakistan.  China on the other hand, not exactly the world’s leading democracy, is the one country which according to the World Bank has made substantial gains in reducing poverty, lifting 600 million people beyond the threshold of those living on less than $1,25 per day over a 30 year period.

While best practice democracies can indeed be effective mechanisms for delivery of services and for the improvement of the lives of the majority, having the forms of democracy – free and fair elections, constitutionally protected freedoms and human rights, etc – can also be means of co-option and of quelling resistance.  Where democracy essentially serves elites – as in South Africa – the masses are “voting fodder” to ensure the maintenance of the political vehicle that creates the conditions for the elite to prosper.  The constant battles (literally) to be nominated for electoral positions within the ruling party in South Africa points less to a desire to serve the South African people than to the economic and lifestyle opportunities afforded to politicians given front row seats at the trough of public funds.

The pursuit of a democracy and of a democratic culture – as in North African and Middle Eastern states at the moment – is admirable and is to be encouraged, but the lessons from further south are that democracy is not a guarantee of substantial and progressive social transformation.  It has to be accompanied by the nurturing of a culture that values the greater good rather than individual greed, that does not glorify crass materialism as signs of success, and that places people rather than profit or ideology or narrow political interests at the centre of the transformation programme.

New societies require new cultures.

NOTES

1. The views expressed in this column are entirely those of the writer and are not necessarily representative of any of the organisations in which he is involved. 

2. This column may be forwarded by the recipient to any other interested party, and may be reproduced by any publication or website at no charge, provided that writer is acknowledged.

3. To engage with the content of this column or to provide feedback, go to www.mikevangraan.wordpress.com

Mike van Graan is the Secretary General of Arterial Network, a continent-wide network of artists, activists and creative enterprises active in the African creative sector and its contribution to development, human rights and democracy on the continent.  He is also the Executive Director of the African Arts Institute (AFAI), a South African NGO based in Cape Town that harnesses local expertise, resources and markets in the service of Africa’s creative sector.  He is considered to be one of his country’s leading contemporary playwrights.

For further information, see www.arterialnetwork.org, www.africanartsinstitute.org.za and www.mikevangraan.co.za

The Cultural Weapon 13 April 2011

The Cultural Weapon

 Should artists accept “dirty money”?

 Mike van Graan

 A number of things strike one on entering Bamako, the capital of Mali.  The first is the majestic Niger River responsible for much of the green in an otherwise dusty, gravelly, semi-desert city.   Another is the industriousness of the people in an obviously poor country, as everyone is trying to generate even a meagre income selling mangoes, chickens and home-made furniture, or Chinese-manufactured T-shirts, electricity adapters and slip slops.  Then there are some incongruously tall buildings and hotels, a number of the latter bearing the name “Libya Hotels”.  One garish building is named after the Libyan dictator, Gaddafi, who has funded this – still empty – structure to house the Malian cabinet.  There are two bridges across the Niger with a third being built by the Chinese.

As one walks through the market, there are hand-made posters in defence of Gaddafi, and in conversation with some of the locals, it is clear that there is much sympathy for the one time, wannabe-head of the United States of Africa. 

Mali is ranked in the top half of the Mo Ibrahim Index on Governance in Africa and shares second spot for the best media freedom in Africa.  But Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world with an average income of $680 per year and a ranking of 160 (out of 179 countries) on the Human Development Index.  Should a country like Mali that is making great strides in human rights and freedoms – but which is relatively poor and in need of development assistance – accept aid from countries with extremely poor records in human rights and media freedom?

This is a similar question vexing some artists and arts organisations: should they accept “dirty money” that contradicts their own values of freedom of expression and fundamental human rights?  Funding is often used to buy credibility, to buy political or other influence, to boost an image in need of a makeover, or simply to co-opt and mute critical thought and practice.

So, should arts organisations, cultural institutions and individual artists – given that they often struggle to survive and are more often than not in need of funding – accept support from countries with poor human rights records and that might even suppress artistic freedom in their own countries?  How far back does one go to determine whether money is “dirty”?  Previous Cultural Weapons have highlighted how European countries like France, the United Kingdom and Germany are increasingly compromising fundamental human rights and principles of cultural diversity, particularly with regard to immigrant communities.  So, should funding be accepted from these countries?   Is their funding not rooted in the repressive colonial period, partly in contemporary neo-colonial relationships and their current trade with countries that do not have exemplary human rights records?

And how many western countries that profess support for human rights and democracy, such as the USA, are not guilty of direct or indirect abuse of human rights whether through the torture of prisoners, illegal wars (not sanctioned by the United Nations) or propping up repressive regimes that serve their interests? 

But if government funding may be dirty, what of funding from the private sector, from those that trade with and so sustain governments that abuse human rights, or who generate profits through weapons that are used for war against citizens, or through environmental destruction or simply through highly exploitative labour practices or who put profits before people such as drug companies who deny cheaper life-saving drugs to people who need them?  Should funding be accepted from such companies?  And what of more “harmless” funding from tobacco companies or wine companies that impact directly or indirectly on health and social problems?  Should artists accept funding from the lottery that some regard as another form of tax, especially on the poor?

The reality is that it is very difficult, if nigh impossible, to find “clean money”, that in a world as structurally and historically inequitable as ours, with the global free market perpetuating these inequities, it is likely that all funding is tainted in some way or another.  So then, is funding from any source morally acceptable, simply because it is unlikely to find funding that is not morally compromised through its generation, its source, its role or the strings that are attached?

Prof Es’kia Mphahlele, a highly respected South African writer and community activist who passed away a few years ago once said to the effect of “the closer dirty money gets to me, the cleaner it becomes”.

His was a pragmatic approach, one that did not see the world in binary opposites, but as a morally complex labyrinth.  If the money is used to achieve a good end or a morally sound objective, then that would be acceptable in terms of this approach.

Sometimes, it is those with options, those with resources, those in relatively privileged positions who may make more “moral” choices so that a more wealthy country may not accept funding from Gaddafi, but a country like Mali – also trying to assert greater economic and political independence from its former colonial master – has fewer options.  Similarly, artists and arts organisations with greater funder or income diversity are more able to adopt morally superior positions than those with less access to international or other funding sources.  (Not only do the rich have more options, but they can also be more opportunistic, such as the artists from the West who were paid huge amounts to perform at a Gaddafi function, only to rush to return or donate the money to charity after he turned his guns on protesting Libyans).

The locals in Mali speak of how the construction of the building to house the country’s cabinet ministers is often halted by Gaddafi when he is unhappy with some internal Malian policy or international public position that Mali takes.  (One can but wonder about the dynamics and varying interests of the current AU delegation to Libya that includes the Malian President).

In a complex global economic and political order where there are few absolutes with respect to human rights and only degrees of respect for such universal values, it is unlikely that one can adopt a one-size-fits-all policy about whom to accept funding from, and who not.  It would appear to be a question of whether the individual artist or the organisation could live with the written and unspoken strings attached to such funding.  Would an association with the source of funding compromise one’s image or the pursuit of one’s core objectives?  Would it compromise one’s ability to “speak truth to power” and be a form of co-option or lead to self-censorship?  Will it compromise solidarity with artists in the country of the source of funding? 

Generally, there is a contract between a donor and the recipient spelling out the terms and conditions of the funding arrangements, and articulating the expectations of the donor.  Perhaps – at least for organisations concerned about harming their image and reputations with funding from potentially compromising sources – recipients should draft a document that would form part of the contract, outlining their own values and principles, and the terms upon which such funding is accepted i.e. that the organisation will not change its principles, values, objectives or forsake its right to speak truth to power, even if such “power” includes the donor.

NOTES

1. The views expressed in this column are entirely those of the writer and are not necessarily representative of any of the organisations in which he is involved. 

2. This column may be forwarded by the recipient to any other interested party, and may be reproduced by any publication or website at no charge, provided that writer is acknowledged.

3. To engage with the content of this column or to provide feedback, go to www.mikevangraan.wordpress.com

Mike van Graan is the Secretary General of Arterial Network, a continent-wide network of artists, activists and creative enterprises active in the African creative sector and its contribution to development, human rights and democracy on the continent.  He is also the Executive Director of the African Arts Institute (AFAI), a South African NGO based in Cape Town that harnesses local expertise, resources and markets in the service of Africa’s creative sector.  He is considered to be one of his country’s leading contemporary playwrights.

For further information, see www.arterialnetwork.org, www.africanartsinstitute.org.za and www.mikevangraan.co.za