An impressive array of 12 parties rocked up at Durban’s BAT Centre last Saturday morning to pitch for the votes of the 120 people gathered there. The Independent African Movement (IAM) sent apologies. They were too busy with the forthcoming elections to attend, they said. Goodbye IAM — you are the weakest link.
One would have expected the African Christian Democratic Party to promise heavy investment in the film industry, provided Mel Gibson was in charge. You’d expect the Independent Democrats (ID) to say they supported independence and democracy in the cultural sector.
Which is what they did say. The Minority Front wasn’t sure whether they should be there because, after all, wasn’t art just a hobby? Sort of like attending Parliament for politicians.
The Democratic Alliance made an important point. Ten years ago tourism was a Cinderella industry: ignored, under-funded and patronised. Today it is the belle of the proudly South African ball, generating jobs, profiles and lots of sightings of the big five: Britons, Americans, French, Italians and German legs in socks and sandals.
The DA promised a similar turn-around for the perennial Cinderella arts industry. But to do this, they would have to come to power in alliance with the Inkatha Freedom Party, which has been slated by artists for the cronyism that pervades cultural funding and structures in the province.
A radio spot suggests that a vote for “De Lille parties” is a wasted vote, “so vote for De DA”, but the ID showed that it is big on one-liners, too, stating that for the arts to grow, culture had to die: the culture of nepotism and corruption. Not that the DA’s running-mate — the IFP — has a monopoly on this culture. “Vote for the devil you don’t know”, urged the little-known Izwi Lethu Party (for we all know, the devils that now have their hands on the public purse).
The African National Congress sent along two speakers — perhaps to make up for the ANC’s no-shows at similar forums in the Free State and Western Cape — where the MEC, Patrick McKenzie, sent a government official to speak on behalf of the party. Maybe he wasn’t told that there would be a photo opportunity. Or that lunch would be served. The ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal representatives were a lot more impressive. They promised to separate culture from education and to locate it in its own department, to clean up the nepotism at the Playhouse Company. They conceded that there was a gap between sound policy on the one hand and effective implementation on the other. They promised to engage in consultation and to uphold freedom of speech.
Two weeks ago the ANC-run Nelson Mandela Metro launched its arts and culture policy, arrived at through broad consultation with the city’s artists — similar to that of the participatory Arts and Culture Task Group process. Within the ANC there are those who would make far better ministers of arts and culture than the insecure junior partners appointed to these positions in the past.
We live in hope for a prince or princess who would “bring Cinderella to the ball” — ironically, the title of a conference on the arts hosted by the National Arts Coalition as far back as 1994.
Ten years later, Cinderella is still waiting. Artists are citizens, too. They are also affected by election issues such as crime. Like Jackie Semela, killed in an attempted hijacking in his own driveway. Like Gito Baloi, shot dead in Hillbrow last weekend. Artists also get infected with HIV. Like Gibson Kente. And die of Aids-related diseases. Like Bonnie Ntshalintshali.
Artists are also unemployed, and die paupers like the Ntlokawanas and Masekos, to whose funeral expenses the Department of Arts and Culture felt it necessary to contribute in the past. “No artist will die poor” declared the Pan Africanist Congress at the forum. Indeed. Let’s hear it for those who will fight poverty — and support artists.