It’s over three weeks since the ministry of Sports and Recreation was merged with Arts and Culture with Minister Makhosini Hlongwane presiding over the portfolio.
By Kennedy Nyavaya
The minister has been conducting consultative meetings with stakeholders, including artists in a whirlwind movement designed to influence growth in the arts sector widely regarded as struggling.
A lot of issues, including prejudice, side-marketing and violence among others, have slowed the growth of the arts industry which has great potential to meaningfully contribute to the country’s troubled economy.
Last Wednesday The Standard Style’s reporter Kennedy Nyavaya (KN) caught up with Hlongwane (MH), who outlined his vision for the promotion of arts in the country, while promising major positive changes in the not-too-distant future. Below are excerpts from the interview.
KN: It’s been three weeks since the arts and culture sector was added to your portfolio. What is your immediate action plan to jumpstart the industry widely regarded as inferior and dysfunctional?
MH: First and foremost, it is not true to say that arts and culture is dead. In fact, in Zimbabwe’s economy if you want to see one sector that is very vibrant, it is this sector.
A good initiative by the young men and women who slug it out to entertain the country and give it content which is very important. What is required in this sector is more organisation and the provision of an enabling environment for the arts sector to thrive.
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The artists must benefit from their hard work and we must arrest illicit behaviour around theft of content and intellectual property to ensure that the investment that the artists put in there pays, therefore that provides us with an opportunity to innovate. As government, we certainly cannot do that alone and that is why today [Wednesday] I am having the first consultative meeting with artists to hear from them because we should not be trying to answer questions that have not been asked.
We also want to have our artists respected. Apart from the theft of intellectual property that we hold in such a dim view, we also want artists to be respected. In that respect, I want to condemn the hooliganism, acts of violence meted against one of our illustrious artists Jah Prayzah. This obviously shows that something is wrong with our society, why do we resort to violence in resolving issues? What has happened with our traditional structures of dispute resolutions?
We must go back to our culture and invest in the processes of traditional dispute resolution structures. Where there has been misunderstanding between Jah Prayzah and his employees, certainly they must sit down and resolve the issues. But, we will not accept as government to see our artists being unnecessarily humiliated, beaten up or violated. That is very unfair and we condemn it in the strongest of terms as Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture ministry.
It is something that shocked me looking at it yesterday and I said to myself, this is not the kind of environment that would allow culture sectors to thrive. So, we need to change that narrative, we need a moral regeneration programme, reconstruction of traditional structures for dispute resolutions and we need to give our artists the honour, respect and dignity that they deserve.
KN: Still on that note, there has been a lot of harassment of artists as you might be aware of that at some events it has become a norm that when fans do not like a particular artist, they throw objects at them and either hurt them or destroy equipment. What could be the immediate way to conclusively deal with this?
MH: There are laws in this country to arrest any forms of violent behaviour, so that is the starting point; if you assault somebody, the law must take its course. If you engage in violent behaviour against a citizen, the same should happen.
But, there are many ways to address, especially issues of errant behaviour at shows. The first thing is that we must invest in the development of the artists themselves in terms of presentation that they should present themselves professionally.
We have seen a boom of young men and women who have joined the sector in music, for example, they do good songs and they want to perform before crowds to get an income but there is an investment that needs to be done to make sure they understand their job so that if a show is starting at a particular time, it should be, so if you have promised people that you will perform, then you must do so.
If they do not have proper structures like those of well established artists then those kinds of things may also happen but conversely, we must also invest in the fans and supporters who need to accept that shows are family environments and must not engage in violence or try to threaten the artist.
KN: You have mentioned a contentious issue relating to eradicating piracy but there are some musicians who use such ways to push their brands forward. Is there a way to regulate this or it is an outright lost battle?
MH: I have heard from my consultations with some artists that there are some of their colleagues who actually feed piracy. So, I want you to know that as government we cannot embrace illegality.
We are not a banana republic so government, has to threaten its structures for rule of law and that for us is important; it is important to protect content in order to protect the artist and secure their work from theft of intellectual property. However, having said what I have said, there has been a boom in formalisation in our economy and this cuts across many sectors?
You see that people are now employing themselves within the informal sector and that has not spared the arts sector. The question is, how can we mediate between the two extreme positions? One such way is to say those selling pirated music can also sell original music if we deal with the issues of price and pushing the quantities, so they must make sure that the product is available and we could train the vendor to sell only music that has not been pirated.
That answers the question of demand and supply, so there is no shortage; I can tell you these people that are driving around that want to buy music, they want to buy original music but sometimes that music is not there. We must also answer the question of platforms. Where is this music being bought, is it there in the shop? Certainly not, so if the infrastructure is already in place of these vendors how do we convert to legal?
Do we train them or set up a peer review structure so that they can monitor themselves to ensure that those deviating are punished or taken off the streets so that is another way.
KN: You have been having consultative meetings for the past weeks. Take us through some of the issues of concern that have come up in these meetings and how long will it take to deal with them for example, repealing of the National Arts Council Act?
MH: A repeal or amendment of any act is a long process; it goes through the conversing system of Cabinet, it has committees, it has systems and that’s quite some process but we are already working on those matters not only for the Arts Council, but all parastatals that we administer as the ministry.
The key issue that has come out of consultation with these bodies is the issue of development modelling to say how do we put together a developing model for the arts and culture. With structures that are very solid, respectable and followed, we will make sure that there is education to the communities to understand that these men and women survive on the work they are doing and they need to be supported.
KN: Artists’ welfare has oftentimes been left at the mercy of promoters and that exposes them to abuse both locally where promoters value foreign artistes more at the expense of local ones while those who go out of the country sometimes leave them stranded. How is your ministry going to curb this?
MH: The starting point is to define clearly who is a promoter. Is it simply a person that has money they want to put into this business? We must have a benchmark to what kind of a person do we call a promoter and in order to certify them as such, what is the procedure they have to go through in order to process them so we can say they have been value-added enough and beneficiated. So, we must have a programme of developing and accrediting promoters in the country and there must be rules which if broken, we can always defer to the process and say you have done so and you should not be thinking we strike you off the register, that should be put in place and followed to the latter.
KN: Still on the issue of promoters, a closer look at rural artists shows that they have been left to die yet some of their music is being sold and played in towns, what can be done so that they can benefit from their work?
MH: The country does have a collection in the form of Zimbabwe Music Rights Association and it is their job to make sure that royalties are paid not just on time but without fail to artists because they deserve it. Government through an enabling Act called the Neighbouring rights and Copyrights Act, set up a collecting society in place and that society should be functional and work hard as they represent all the artists in the country.
