Wally Serote : Administering the ANC’s New Cultural Affairs Policies

For years, the African National Congress used culture as one of its sharpest weapons in its battle against apartheid. Foreign performers who dared break the ANC’s boycott were hounded at home and blacklisted abroad. So, when the ANC announced the end of that cultural boycott, and invited singer Paul Simon and actress Whoopi Goldberg here a few months ago, everyone figured the stars would be welcomed with open arms by black South Africans.

It wasn’t to be.

Simon and Goldberg quickly learned the ANC didn’t represent everybody in South Africa. A few radical black groups, in their own power struggle with the ANC, complained loudly. Goldberg eventually managed to persuade the radicals to leave her alone. But Simon wasn’t so fortunate. His concert tour was dogged at every site by protesters, and a bomb exploded in the offices of his promoters.

The ugly scene was a product of the swiftly changing political landscape in South Africa and the debate raging over what role the arts will play.

At the center of the debate is Wally Serote (pronounced sir-OH-tee), a poet who recently returned from 17 years in exile to take over as head of the ANC’s department of arts and culture.

Apartheid laws and customs favored the white minority and denied cultural opportunities to blacks. Serote is trying to correct that imbalance by encouraging foreign artists to come to South Africa, but persuading them to conduct seminars, offer cut-rate tickets to their concerts and provide the type of international cultural exchange long denied blacks in South Africa.

Mongane Wallace Serote was born 47 years ago in Sophiatown, the storied cultural enclave bulldozed by apartheid’s social engineers. His father, a self-employed mechanic, moved the family to Alexandra, an impoverished township surrounded by Johannesburg’s wealthy white suburbs.

Serote was arrested and detained for nine months in 1969, for work in the ANC’s underground. Five years later, at age 29, he left for New York, where he earned a Master of Arts degree at Columbia.

Serote worked for the ANC in Botswana and London and published seven volumes of poetry, an essay collection and a novel, “To Every Birth Its Blood.” He has been called the most indomitable and complex of the nation’s poets.

He returned to South Africa last year with his wife and their five children, ages 2 to 17. A soft-spoken and aloof man, Serote battles to change the cultural scene from his office at ANC headquarters. And his poetry remains a testament to the compassion and anguish of the struggle for black liberation.

Question: There is a lot of confusion about the cultural boycott in the United States these days. What is the ANC’s position on the boycott now? Should artists come to South Africa?

Answer: We support cultural exchange between South Africa and all other countries. But we are saying every act that comes from abroad must contribute to redressing the cultural imbalances here.

When people come here they should have workshops . . . and they should explore the idea of subsidizing transport so people in the townships can see them. And they should have at least one benefit show, which will then help us either build an arts center or contribute toward educating people.

Q: Are these contributions voluntary?

A: They are voluntary. We want to persuade people to assist us.

Q: And if they refuse?

A: Our position is that we’d like to persuade people to do this. We hope that they will not want to perpetuate apartheid.

Q: So there is absolutely no stigma now in someone coming from the U.S., for example. Can anyone come?

A: Anyone can come as long as they don’t interact with apartheid structures.

Q: And which structures are those?

A: For instance, we still have the (government-funded) Performing Arts Councils and the South African Broadcasting Corporation. Those are the main ones.

Q: Where does Sun City fit in?

A: At the present moment, we are saying no to interaction with Sun City.

Q: But you have allowed Hugh Masekela and other South African artists to perform at Sun City.

A: That’s a different thing. We have said to Sun City: If certain conditions are met, they can engage local acts. And they’ve agreed to train people, run workshops, subsidize transport and subsidize tickets.

Q: What must Sun City do before you will approve international acts there?

A: They are operating in an area (the homeland of Bophuthatswana) which violates human rights extensively. We think that they have muscle to comment about that. I would imagine that there is no international artist . . . who would want to go and perform in a place where people are still in detention for their political beliefs, where people are still being killed for their political beliefs. This is what we are trying to sort out.

Q: What about people who have refused in the past to adhere to the boycott? Are they also welcome?

A: Of course they are welcome. From our side, first preference goes to those who supported us. But if a promoter selects somebody who has a record of violation, and they meet our conditions, then there is no problem.

Q: Paul Simon and Whoopi Goldberg met the ANC’s conditions when they came here, yet they ran into trouble. What lessons can international artists learn from this?

A: The first lesson is the South African situation should not be approached as a black-and-white situation--I’m using this figuratively. There are many gray areas. It is important for people who are coming to South Africa to acquaint themselves with these complexities.

For instance, the African National Congress, which enjoys a large majority of people’s support, has shifted this position of cultural exchange and action with other countries. We are quite aware other organizations have not, and they have the right to decide when they think so.

Q: Paul Simon was strongly opposed by other radical groups, while Whoopi Goldberg and Spike Lee had less trouble. Are black artists more likely to win the approval of black political organizations?

A: That does not apply to the ANC. We were consistent with Paul Simon, Whoopi Goldberg and Spike Lee.

Q: Does it apply to other groups?

A: I don’t know. I can only speak for the ANC. As far as we are concerned, skin color is not important. Absolutely not. The criteria is how people are meeting the conditions that we have put before them.

Q: If American artists want to come here, what should they do?

A: The first thing they should do is write to us and say they want to come. We’ll then contact the relevant art forms (organizations) who’ll consider the applications and say, “Politically, this is what we think you should do.”

Q: As an artist yourself, are you comfortable with using art as a form of political pressure?

A: I don’t think we are using art as a political weapon. In fact, we’re trying to use politics so that there will be freedom of cultural expression.

Q: How active a role do you think any new government should play in redressing the cultural imbalance between whites and blacks in South Africa?

A: . . . . My feeling is that redressing the imbalance is extremely important and must be put on the agenda. Not only for the ANC, or for one single body, but for everybody . . . .

One of the serious problems that we have is that it has become normal practice in this country to say all Eurocentric arts must be given priority.

But South Africa is part of Africa. We can’t give European art forms priority in this country, because, by doing so, we would exclude almost 75% of the people.

At the same time, we understand that we have people of European background in this country, and their culture must be reflected also. But it cannot be reflected at the expense of rest of the population. That would be wrong. But I don’t have the answers. We need to discuss, to brainstorm and to come to agreeable positions.

Q: Many artists say the cultural boycott had a detrimental effect on cultural development among blacks here and hurt the very people it was designed to help. What’s your feeling?

A: I think the boycott did two main things. It gave South African whites no option but to begin to realize that they were part and parcel of the (black) population that they had excluded . . . .

Secondly, as the momentum built by the boycott increased, it became necessary for black people to begin to look at themselves as an alternative. They created structures through which culture emerged. The result is that we have a very broad cultural movement in the country now.

Q: And the downside of the boycott?

A: There were downsides. There was confusion at certain points when non-racial groups from South Africa went outside and were told, no, they couldn’t perform because it was not possible to be non-racial in South Africa. But on the whole, I think we gained a lot out of it.

Q: Even in the cultural field?

A: Specifically in the cultural field. The reason most apartheid structures are wanting to talk with us now is precisely because of the pressure of the boycott. And we find that (white) people want to be part of the process of transformation, which means the cultural boycott played a conscientizing role among whites.

Q: So if blacks were not as exposed to international books and artists as they might have been, that was a price worth paying?

A: Even if there had been no cultural boycott, blacks would not have been exposed to those books and artists. It was difficult for any black to travel abroad. Secondly, most books from outside are extremely expensive, too expensive for most blacks. And, thirdly, the education we blacks received did not prepare us for engaging international issues.

So, you see, whether there was a boycott or not, the blacks would have been disadvantaged, anyway.

Q: Why is there such confusion abroad about the ANC’s new open-door policy on cultural exchange? Have anti-apartheid groups in the States taken a harder line than the ANC itself?

A: That’s one reason. The other is that, when we were mobilizing for support of the boycott, we may have given the impression that issues are, speaking figuratively, black and white. They are not.

When we talk about gray areas, it becomes very difficult for people who are not South Africans to understand what we are talking about. Also, at a certain point, people tend to explain what’s going on in South Africa according to what is going on in their own countries.

But with time, all these things will be cleared up. We have to keep explaining these complexities and stop just generalizing and saying that our situation is complex. We need to begin to give the detail about why it is complex. People are intelligent. They will understand us.

We must remember that it’s been less than two years (since President Frederik W. de Klerk launched his reform program). People don’t change that quickly. And on some of these issues, we still have to understand the implications ourselves.

Q: Have the changes in South Africa forced artists like yourself to change the way they approach the country in their work? Was it easier to write about the old South Africa?

A: One is always going to write from the heart. I agree with you that one has to understand the new issues that are emerging. And I think writers are very slow in that regard. They absorb things very, very slowly. And I’m hoping that I’m doing that--not that I’m absorbing slowly, but that I’m absorbing.

For instance, I started a novel in 1987, and 1990 caught up with me before I had finished it. At one point, it was a serious crisis as to what must I do. Must I scrap that old novel? I decided that it’s not to be scrapped. I’ve had to review certain things--such as how I thought the novel would end. And I had to place it in the current context.

Q: Although English is not your first language, you have written all your poetry and novels in English. Why is that?

A: I don’t think that I write in the English of the English. I write in the English of the person who is speaking many other languages. Those languages inform how I use the English language to write.