Robert Mugabe’s cupboard is bursting with “been-there-done-that” T-shirts. He’s done pretty much everything by now. He’s done the courts. He’s done the media. He’s done sport. He’s even done Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
So it was only a matter of time before the champion of “your-vote-is-my-vote” democracy realised that he didn’t have a “been there. Done [in] the arts!” T-shirt. (This is probably one time when it’s a good thing for the arts to occupy the nether-nether land of the political agenda.)
Raisedon Baya won the National Arts Merit Award for scriptwriting in Zimbabwe last year. His play, Super Patriots and Morons, had been touring our northern neighbour and international venues for more than a year.
Set in a fictitious African country, the piece deals with some of the major contemporary issues facing Zimbabweans.
But after it was performed at the Harare International Festival of the Arts a couple of months ago, the censorship board decided that the play could be interpreted as a comment on Zimbabwe and, accordingly, the board banned all further performances as these would “disturb the peace” in the country.
One can only wonder when it will ban all future performances by Mugabe since, clearly his record-breaking, one-man impersonation of a dictator with a pessimistic Afro, appears to be the greatest threat to peace in Zimbabwe.
But such is the nature of fascist poli-tics. Ban the symptom. Ignore the cause. (The censorship board might also have taken umbrage at the title of the play, Super Patriots and Morons, which could have been a direct reference to it.)
We have a lot to be grateful for down south. For one, we don’t have a censorship board any longer. Ours has been dumped in the dustbin of history along with the total onslaught, compulsory conscription and bald politicians with hats.
Here, we only have the National Arts Council, which tells award-winning playwrights to rewrite their scripts to be more politically correct before they can be considered for funding.
And we only have minister-appointed chairpersons of publicly funded entities who may be super or morons, but who might consider it their patriotic duty to protect the political status quo against any challenge, real or imagined.
And here, we don’t ban plays after they have been performed at a national arts festival; we just don’t give them money — or give them money so late — so that they can’t perform at the festival in the first place.
Baya’s play had been touring for more than a year before the censorship board saw it and decided to ban it. If it had banned it 12 months earlier, who knows? Peace could have broken out in Zimbabwe a lot sooner.
But this is the problem with officials. They get appointed to be in charge of a particular area, but they simply never get to see the plays or see the exhibitions or read the books for which they are responsible.
The same, I’m pleased to report, cannot be said of our National Arts Council.
It will meet for three days in mid-June to consider applications for funding, and applicants for funding for the festival will know whether they have National Arts Council support on June 15.
A fortnight later, the full board will again meet for three days in Grahams-town. It will have all its expenses paid to meet at the festival, and perhaps even take in a few shows.
Moral of the story? If you want to participate in the National Arts Festival and need funding from the National Arts Council to do so, it would be better for you to serve on the National Arts Council than to apply to it.
The National Arts Council board is off to Grahamstown. The artists can (still) go to hell.