Date: 20/05/2010
Source: The Congress of South African Trade Unions
Title: Cosatu: Vavi: Address by the secretary-general, at the launch of the Pitika Ntuli exhibition, Johannesburg

Ladies and gentlemen
Comrades and friends
Members of the different museums and universities present here
Members of the press
Please allow me to express my gratitude for the opportunity to speak at this launch of the exhibition showcasing the work of one of the greatest artists of this country.
As workers, we deemed it necessary to mark our presence here this evening as a way to honour and celebrate the work of one of the greatest sons of Africa, Professor Pitika Ntuli. Our participation is also informed by the need to honour and celebrate a living legend.
We are here to pay homage to the "invisible footprints" not only of Professor Ntuli but also of many of our cultural activists whose works rang the death knell of colonialism and its cousin, apartheid.
We are also here to reflect on the "moments of complexity" confronting us as a people in Africa, as the working class and as agents for social change.
The launch of the exhibition on Professor Ntuli's work is an important milestone in the path to reconnect with our painful past and to carve a course for our future.
Having been confined to exile for many years, Ntuli's work is an important way to forge the connection between the global and the local. It provides a platform for working class internationalism as a weapon against cultural imperialism.
This artistic work is born out of the need to challenge Eurocentric notions about what constitutes art. It is a challenge to the imposition of the culture of the powerful nations and classes upon the oppressed and exploited.
As workers, we have great respect for the work of Professor Ntuli because it tells us that art should not merely be a preserve of the rich and powerful.
His work confirms our beliefs that art and culture have a particular role to play in social healing and cohesion. That art and culture can be forms of protest and resistance against the evils of exploitation.
We are inspired by Ntuli's impatience with narrow specialisation. The diversity entailed in his work contains the seeds for a new society, a society where people are not confined to one sphere of activity but can become accomplished in any aspect of life that they wish.
Through Ntuli's work we can see the shape that this new society will assume. His work mounts a challenge to capitalist notions that one should either be a poet or a sculptor. Through his work, we can see that it is indeed possible for one "to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner...without ever becoming a hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic."[1] <#_ftn1>
Ntuli's work should be used as a platform to channel society towards creating a holistic human being, who has a reciprocal relationship with nature and his/her surroundings.
Ntuli's work serves as a bulwark against the de-politicisation of art. It is an integral part of dismantling the fictitious wall erected between politics and art.
Pitika Ntuli's work is important because it is the eyes and the voice of the revolution.
Culture and Art as Midwives to Revolutions
We are all too aware that most revolutions that have recorded success have done so using culture as a bulwark against imperialism and exploitation.
We know for a fact that in Cuba, as early as 1959, several new cultural institutions were founded that would become important to the development of art and culture across Latin America: Casa de las Americas, the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry (I.C.A.I.C.), the National Theatre, the National Ballet, the National Symphonic Orchestra, and the National Folkloric Group. The literacy campaign also raised Cuban capacity to fully engage in the arts and culture.

These developments enhanced the life of the Cuban people. But what has most characterised cultural development in Cuba is the massive participation and access to arts and culture that is available to the Cuban people.

The same thinking inspired the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. The struggle against US imperialism in Venezuela is waged side by side with the struggle against a cultural imperialism and the elite monopolisation of arts and culture.

Various efforts are being made to ensure that the museums and the art galleries cease to be the preserve of the rich and become melting pots dedicated to the defence of the revolution and the deepening of participatory democracy in that country.

The people of Venezuela are engaged ceaselessly in a war to ensure that culture responds to the immediate challenges facing the working class and the poor of that country.

Our very own revolutions in Africa were informed as much by the need to negate our economic dispossession as much as they were about reclaiming our lost and bastardised culture. Colonialism would have never thrived for so long without making inroads into the destruction of people's culture. "Cultural domination and oppression were necessary for effective economic and political control" by colonial forces.[2] <#_ftn2> Our history is littered with examples of how "people's songs, poetry, dances, languages and education were attacked and often ruthlessly suppressed." [3] <#_ftn3>
The African continent has produced many astute cultural activists. We are indeed proud of these brothers and sisters who refused to accept colonial oppression and exploitation as a natural state of things.
From Achebe we learnt about the trials and tribulations of the Nigerian people in the post independence era. From Ngungi wa Thiong'o about the resilience of the Kenyan people against British settler colonialism; from Cabral about the commitment of the people of Guinea and Cape Verde to self-realisation.
All this merely shows that our cultural activists, our poets, writers and singers have never been aloof in the struggle against oppression and exploitation.
Creative Workers: Torchbearers for the South African Struggle
Here at home, the role that creative workers played is written in bold letters in pages of the struggle against apartheid oppression. It is imprinted in the graves of the likes of Miriam Makeba, Vuyisile Mini, Brenda Fasi, Phumuza Patrick Cokotho and many others.
The likes of Letta Mbulu have armed us against our oppressors who continuously argue that the struggle is over and that all our recollections must be condemned to the dustbin of history. Through their words we can safely say that indeed the struggle continues and "it is not yet uhuru".
When faced with a dangerous encroachment of selfish values in every facet of our society, we are reminded of the great sacrifices made by those who came before us. We are reminded by Vusi Mahlasela's observation that the "armed struggle is an act of love".
When many were ready to shut their eyes to the injustices committed by apartheid and capitalism on the people of this country and the African people as a whole, the likes of Hugh Masekela reminds us of the pain and suffering brought by the migrant labour system to the entire Southern African region, a system whose profit driven tentacles reached as far as the Congo, Malawi and Mozambique.
Cultural activists played a role in reminding us of the brutal reality of an untransformed judicial system. In poems and songs, they reminded us that the black working class expectations about justice under apartheid were tantamount to corn demanding justice in a court full of chickens.[4] <#_ftn4>
Cultural activists like Phuz'e Khemisi placed the plight of the rural working class and the atrocities committed by some traditional leaders in the public discourse.
These cultural activists understood the significance of the role of artists in a situation where there is a battle of ideas. These cultural activists ensured that arts and culture becomes part and parcel of resistance.
The cultural movement against apartheid ensured that the lived experience of workers finds resonance in the creative world. This meant that the aspirations for defeating exploitation and oppression found expression through the majority of the people as represented by the workers, who experience the rawest oppression and exploitation on a daily basis.
The workers used culture not only as a means of resistance but also as a means of defining the contours for a new South Africa, free of oppression and exploitation. This is the rich history that the generation of the Masekelas, Serotes, Makebas, Don Mattera and Cassie Motsitsi have left to the new generation of activists in the sphere of arts and culture. It is a history rooted in people's culture, from the toyi-toying to singing, to murals, the poster movement and community drama.
This is a history engraved with selflessness and great personal sacrifices. It is a history where the immediate award was not fame and fortune but banishment, torture, arrest and even death.
Pitika Ntuli's work is celebrated today precisely because he did not choose fame and fortune above the commonweal of his people.
Ntuli's love for art and freedom cost him a high price indeed. It drove him from his home and his country for 32 long years.
As a country, we should indeed be proud that we have produced cultural activists who could declare as the poet Wally Serote said "The cost one has to pay for fame and fortune is alienation from the people. Alienation for a cultural worker is shame and death. And there are so many kinds of death. The other alternative is to engage in a struggle for the creation of a liveable world and future."[5] <#_ftn5>
The search for a better world was exactly what prompted many to write song after song, poem after poem and one short story after another.
The Search for Answers in "Moments of Complexity"
We look back to all this history with a sense of nostalgia, but nostalgia on its own will not resolve our problems. Our people continue to cry out for culture that meets their needs and helps them deal with their daily realities of exploitation in the factories, the mines and of their hostile living conditions in the townships and the informal settlements.
Our people look unto you for an understanding of why land is still in the hands of the minority, of why places like Alexandra continue to exist parallel to Sandton, of why the matchbox houses that were such a seminal topic in the 1980s are now being replicated in a poorer fashion in 2010.
Our people want to know why the courts are still untransformed, of why the inequalities continue to rise as well as how they can overcome HIV/Aids.
In these circumstances, creative workers like all workers also need to take sides. They have to give a voice to those who remain oppressed and disempowered.

They have to reflect on the realities of our society and our people, not on the fantasies of the rich whether in South Africa or overseas. They need to hear that resistance against racism and exploitation is not futile. The last thing our people need is to be told to "get rich or die trying" or be given some false hopes about how they can become instant millionaires.

Culture should not be about distracting our people from their daily realities and duping them into the belief that inequalities are natural and therefore justified. Culture should never succumb to the notion that some are born to be workers whilst others to be CEOs who loath in air-conditioned offices and rotating chairs or play golf half of the day whilst the majority toil and sweat for peanuts but whilst the loathing class earn millions in executive packages and bonuses whilst the majority of our people go hungry.

The aim of culture must be to give workers courage, to aid in the mobilisation of workers against social injustices. Culture does not always have to be serious, of course, or realistic - but ultimately it has to be rooted in the realities of our people, in their daily lives, struggles and celebrations.

We ought to ask, why is it that cultural workers are found wanting in these struggles? Why is it that there has been an activist lull amongst this section? Is it because the struggle is over as our detractors tell us?
The answer is no. Our biggest challenge is that the world market for the arts is ruled by a handful of companies, interested only in profit. The music industry for instance is dominated by six multi-national companies - BMG, EMI, Universal, Polygram, Sony and Warner. These companies accounted for 78% of global sales in 1996 and sadly not much has changed since.
Together these five companies controlled 92% of the South African market. BMG, Polygram and Sony came back into the country before and immediately after the 1994 elections. Prior to this the South African market was controlled between EMI, Gallo Africa and Tusk Music.

Our film industry is also dominated by American and European companies. South African stories are told and portrayed by artists hailing from other continents. The lead roles in movies such as Drum, Invictus and Skin are all taken by American artists under the pretext that their faces will guarantee more revenue for the movies. This surely points to a need for more efforts to be dedicated towards the honing and funding of our own film industry which will allow the people of this continent to narrate their own stories.

The entry of multinationals has had largely negative consequences for the music industry in our country. For one, the creative aspirations of the worker are seen as worthless unless they conform to the logic of the market.

We should not be surprised when we all we hear is a shallow, vain and fun-loving music instead of music that challenges established patterns of racial and gender oppression as well as class exploitation.

This situation arises precisely because the creative worker has become an appendage to the "free market". He/she has lost all creative control to the money chasing record labels who from time to time remind us of what sells and what doesn't sell.

When these multinationals make money, where are the real workers? The answer is that they are given peanuts to allow them to reproduce themselves - to survive and produce the music that the industry is willing to sell. How much space do these multinationals provide for our people to express themselves, to develop and portray our values and aspirations as Africans and as working people?

This industry like all others creates a fertile ground for high rates of accumulation by the owners and managers of industry, at the expense of workers. In fact it explains why most creative workers, like all other workers, remain property less till their death while those who manage their creative work remain filthy rich. Even in the creative industry we still have the world of the haves and the world of the have-nots. We should never be under the illusion that the creative world stands in isolation from the world of the class struggle, where workers are in a constant collision course with the bosses.

Creative Workers: Pallbearers to the Capitalist System
Creative workers have not been left unscathed by the erosion of revolutionary morality in our society. For many the gift of writing or singing is directed merely at fame and fortune.
The works of many an artist are displayed in the art galleries in suburbs where workers will never set a foot except as domestic workers for the owners of the same galleries. Some musicians have become too famous to perform in the very townships that produced them.
From where we stand, the immediate tasks are twofold. There is an urgent need to build a cultural movement that can challenge capitalist values that emphasise individual fame and fortune above the need to build a world free of oppression and exploitation.
This was precisely the rationale behind the formation of CWUSA. Like any union, CWUSA's chief mandate is to fight and defend the rights of creative workers. However, it would be a great injustice if this vibrant organ limits its role to this.
We encourage cultural activists to extend their reach to their counterparts who sell arts and crafts on the side of the highways and outside shopping malls. These artists might not have the mastery of the academic discourse and training, but they do form a critical component of the Cultural Revolution.
Our struggle depends on creative workers to popularise the demands of the people, their hopes and aspirations as well as to conscientise them about the need to create an alternative world, a world that does not transform talent into a commodity that can be consumed only by those with thick wallets.
It is the responsibility of creative workers to challenge the "dog eats dog mentality", the bling culture and crass materialism. Creative workers also need to advocate for mass literacy campaigns and the improvement of our education system, as this will go a long way in ensuring that arts and culture is accessible to everyone, regardless of their class or status.
The mission of the current generation of activists must be to reclaim the stance that their predecessors occupied. Cultural activists must be the voice of the revolution. They must be the voice of the revolution against corruption and greed, self-enrichment, HIV/Aids, hunger and homelessness, joblessness and poverty. No true and committed activist can turn a blind eye to the hardships of our times. No true activist can ignore the interconnectedness of arts, culture, politics and the struggle for economic freedom.
To us Professor Pitika ka Ntuli represents this connectiveness. We are here to honour you the professor of the working class. To all others we say we want you to be like him.
Thank you once more for having us here