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Released on Heritage Day, Miller and Moeng’s digital album, Reuben T. Caluza, The B-Side, celebrates the ever-poignant works of an iconic, yet largely forgotten South African composer.
Whither the arts in South Africa’s permanent crisis? The flawed logic of singling out Nathi Mthethwa
The recent calls for the removal of Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa by members of the arts, culture and heritage community seem to miss the bigger problem, which political economy scholar and ANC member Oscar van Heerden posits is, “The ANC is confused (ideologically and strategically), therefore the government is confused, and therefore the state is confused.”
Although Van Heerden’s remark was made in light of the evidence relating to the State Security Agency at the Zondo inquiry into state capture, I am of the view that the confusion he identifies pervades all the departments of government, not least the department of sports, arts and culture.
Allow me to begin with an important citation from a respected intellectual, Professor Issa Shivji.
“Today I want to address those intellectuals who still consider themselves producers of knowledge rather than assembly line supervisors of packaging industries. In a capitalist society divided into classes you have broadly two types of intellectuals: There are those who produce rationalisations, justifications, and mystifications to maintain and reproduce the status quo of inequality and inequity in favour of capital. These are the producers and purveyors of what we call hegemonic ideologies. Then there are those who question and challenge dominant knowledge and try to demystify and debunk hegemonic forms of knowledge and ideologies.