It’s been a week of contradictions, that’s for sure. A president whose theme song is Awulethu’ umShini Wami (Bring me my machine gun) decries the violence present in popular art forms, saying: ‘I’m one who believes that what we see and hear goes a long way to educating our society. There are those who live in this country but act as though they live in another country.â€
President Zuma was speaking at a meeting with cultural practitioners in Sandton this week, convened to discuss what the presidency described as ‘the plight of local artistsâ€.
And artists are indeed in some need of saving: at the meeting, they greeted Zuma with a rousing rendition of umShini Wami and booed the only one of their number who rejected his calls for more bland, nation-building art.
On the basis of Zuma’s belief that what we see educates, the presidency is doing an excellent job of teaching our nation what the word ‘irony†means.
As we live in a country that could be described as pretty, perhaps we shouldn’t act as though we live in a country where it’s okay for your presidents to be bellicose. And by presidents, we mean Zuma and the man who would kill for him, Malema.
Of course, we are entirely behind the concept of freedom of expression. Zuma should be free to sing whatever he wants. We are less sanguine about freedom of hypocrisy, however.
On a differently conceptualised field of battle, a predominantly white Springbok rugby team looked on in shock and bemusement as a black man from Durban butchers Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, an anthem they can sing pretty well by now. For once, playing the Ras card is something all South Africans do, regardless of colour, creed or Currie Cup affiliation.
And Ras Dumisani’s version of the anthem, if nothing else, will have made many more South Africans receptive to Zuma’s call to limit violence on television. Some things just shouldn’t be shown without an age restriction.
In the space between these crass conceptions of their role, of course, artists are struggling to elaborate a much richer set of responses. What they need is cash and outlets for their work, not lectures about their duty.