In the gory days of the total onslaught, when the Pan Africanist Congress was still banned and the only PACs active in the country were the performing arts councils with their battle cry of ”one settler, one ballet”, the apartheid regime sought to regiment even the artists in its indirect employ.
The (long before they became New) National Party appointed the administrators of the four provinces. They in turn appointed the governing boards of the arts councils, and selected their favourite broeder among these as the chairperson of the board. In this way, political control of, and NP political hegemony within, the PACs were assured. Freedom of expression was guaranteed, as long as it was of the ja-meneer variety.
So, when a group of Afrikaans actors contracted to the Cape Performing Arts Board (Capab) created a piece, Piekniek by Dingaan, that reflected poorly on those who had come to save the natives first from themselves and then later from the communists, the broeder chair leapt into action and promptly declared the play ”not desirable for any persons that have reached the age of reason”.
The actors went ahead and performed the play anyway and, with the advance publicity generated by Capab’s unwitting PR department, the piece drew sell-out audiences at other theatres and festivals. Johan Esterhuizen, Capab’s head of drama, was subsequently fired, then reinstated after a public outcry and then left the verkrampte arts council for liberating exile in the drama department of the Stellenbosch broeder factory.
Given that the arts councils were the primary employers in the performing arts, artists who worked there generally towed the line.
With the prospect of a non-racial, non-sexist democracy on the horizon in the early Nineties, artists lobbied vigorously for a National Arts Council (NAC) that would exist at ”arm’s length” to the government; that would be constituted in a transparent and independent manner; that would elect its own chairperson; that would make decisions about the allocation of public funds through experts and practitioners; and that all of these together would uphold and defend the right to freedom of creative expression as guaranteed in the Constitution.
And now, what happens? In this, the 10th year of our democracy, a bright young playwright, Nadia Davids, with her one-woman play about various Muslim women characters exploring their post-September 11 life in Cape Town, applies to the NAC for a grant to tour the widely acclaimed At Her Feet nationally. However, the NAC declines the application as the play only ”focuses on one race and religion group” and she is ”therefore advised to include other races and religious groups” before re-applying.
It is an outrageous act of political intervention in the right of an artist to create a work of her choice and, ironically, it comes from the NAC that was created to defend these rights. Piekniek by Dingaan would suffer a similar fate today as it did then. It would not receive official sanction as it only focuses on one particular racial group, Afrikaners, and one religion — Calvinism. But it would be in good company as no play by Matsemela Manaka, Gibson Kente or Maishe Maponya that focuses only on the black lived experience, will be eligible for funding either.
What will the future hold? Perhaps the NAC will only support black- and-white photographic exhibitions provided that each picture has at least 87% black, and a maximum of 13% white in it. While most opera singers in our country are black, no opera will receive funding from the NAC as the operatic languages of French, Italian and German are not official languages. Any cast of five or more will now have to feature at least: a Jewish, disabled actor, preferably black; a Hindu, Indian actor fluent in Zulu; an illiterate Afrikaans-speaking actor who can prove at least 30% Khoi blood in his ancestry; a Rastafarian lesbian of mixed cultural heritage; and a multiracial, gay chorus from the Zionist Christian Church.
Sadly, when the initial outrage has settled, those responsible for making such a decision, will remain. And may even be promoted.