BARNEY MTHOMBOTHI | Muzzling outspoken artists carries disturbing echoes of our apartheid past

The trouble with a coalition government, such as we have, is that the participants are often not brought together by values or ideology but rather by the hunger and sheer desperation to attain and retain power. The pursuit of power and its perks is the glue holding the rickety structure together.

In such an arrangement, usually assembled amid fervent declarations to serve the public good, political parties are often expected to park their beliefs at the door. All the lofty principles and promises laid out in immaculate brochures are jettisoned in the rush for power. But there are sometimes sacred cows — lines even the most spineless are unlikely to cross.

The ANC — which, despite its diminished power, still insists it has a divine right to dole out political favours — has tested the patience of the DA, its main ally-cum-rival in the government of national unity (GNU), ramming through legislation such as the Bela Act, the NHI Act, and so on. The DA has protested and threatened to walk away, which would collapse the edifice. But each time it has backed down and swallowed its pride. It seems the fruits of power are so delectable they trump long-held principles. The DA seems to be learning some lessons from the ANC, though. Its members are turning on each other with the kind of venom previously unheard of in genteel liberal politics, and the party has become a veritable snake pit.

The minor parties in the GNU have simply put their heads down and kept on working. They’re just grateful to have been invited to the top table. And they tend to look unkindly on any action or utterance that might jeopardise their newfound fame and fortune. And when they have been sufficiently roused to utter a word in anger, they’ve firmly lined up behind the ANC, their chief patron, which gifted them such an elevated status. They know, too, that if the DA throws its toys and leaves, they’re likely to be beneficiaries of a bigger slice of the pie.

Gayton McKenzie, the ex-gangster who leads the coloured-centric Patriotic Alliance, always seems eager to buck the trend and grab the limelight, plainly to raise the profile of his smallish party. He’s now pulled the plug on South Africa’s participation in the Venice Biennale, a prestigious international cultural exhibition hosted annually in the picturesque Italian city.

But Gayton McKenzie, the ex-gangster who leads the coloured-centric Patriotic Alliance, always seems eager to buck the trend and grab the limelight, plainly to raise the profile of his smallish party. He’s now pulled the plug on South Africa’s participation in the Venice Biennale, a prestigious international cultural exhibition hosted annually in the picturesque Italian city. Most South Africans, consumed by their daily struggle to eke out a living, would probably regard this issue as a trivial, if not frivolous, one — which is perhaps why McKenzie thought he could get away with it. But the issue isn’t at all trifling. Freedom of expression is the central pillar of the democratic project.

McKenzie, a Trumpian wannabe and something of a cultural hoodlum, is incensed because an independent panel has chosen for the South African pavilion at the festival a work of art by the acclaimed artist Gabrielle Goliath that in part depicts the killing of women and children in Gaza. This artwork seems to have rubbed McKenzie up the wrong way. A loud supporter of Israel, he’s obviously decided to wield his ministerial power to impose his personal preference. He doesn’t like the artwork, and that should suffice to justify his actions — end of story. The fact that he may be breaking the letter and spirit of the constitution by doing so is neither here nor there, as far as he is concerned. Laws are there to be broken, and he’s contravened a few in his colourful career.

What McKenzie has done amounts to censorship. Banning things is the stuff of dictatorships. If repressive regimes — such as Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao Zedong’s China, Franco’s Spain, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Hitler’s Nazi Germany, and Afrikaner nationalist apartheid South Africa — have anything in common, it is their extreme aversion to freedom of expression. Writers, poets, artists and performers are always in the crosshairs of authoritarian administrations because it is often their perilous task to point out the wrongs in their society or tell the emperor he is wearing no clothes. McKenzie wants to take us back to a past we’re trying to run away from.

In this case, the subject matter of the artwork is beside the point. It’s irrelevant whether one likes it or not, because there is a fundamental principle at stake. The constitution clearly states that the Bill of Rights “is the cornerstone of democracy in South Africa”. And, to illustrate its importance, the Bill of Rights is chapter two of the constitution, way ahead of provisions on the make-up and roles of parliament, the executive and other state institutions. It is the foundation of the house we’re building. Tinker with it, and the whole structure comes tumbling down. McKenzie probably doesn’t fully appreciate the egregiousness of what he is doing.

In the statement he made defending his actions, he says, “I’m a patriot,” as if someone has questioned his allegiance to the country. Well, patriotism, said Samuel Johnson, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. McKenzie alleges darkly that the South African platform was being used by some unnamed foreign power “to endorse geopolitical narratives that have the potential to cause unneeded division”. It is the responsibility of an artist to interpret and represent the world, as well as to provoke and even offend delicate sensibilities.

This nugget from the statement is revealing: “We shall give access at the Biennale to artists who promote our country.” In other words, McKenzie is only interested in artists who do as they’re told and produce government propaganda. That is not the job of an artist. Artists will promote the country much better if they are free to use their skills to convey whatever message they want, without any diktat from on high. Such an authentic message exposing the country, warts and all, is more likely to be well received than any attempt to pull wool over people’s eyes.

The minister’s decision is already bearing fruit. The Goodman Gallery has reportedly followed his fine example by severing all links with Goliath. Welcome to North Korea.

We come from a past where people were muzzled for expressing their views. We should neither forget this sordid history nor dare repeat it.