Johann Zietsman, Africa

As with other areas of South African society during the apartheid era, the cultural sector was generally divided along racial lines. Publicly-funded institutions such as museums, galleries, and performing arts institutions catered primarily to the interests of white people, while the artistic needs and aspirations of the black majority had no voice whatsoever in government policy.

In the monumental shifts of the past decade, however, the voice of the cultural community has grown in strength and unity. The change has been so dramatic that today, the cultural sector has become the driving force behind cultural policy decisions of the "New South Africa."

While dramatic, this change in status has been evolving for almost 20 years, throughout the shifts of politics and policy of a country in transition. In the 1980s, with the intensification of international pressure on the South African government coupled with rising internal resistance to apartheid, there emerged a number of progressive cultural organisations. At a time when states-of-emergency severely restricted political activity, culture became the shield—and the arts became the tools—for anti-apartheid struggle.

By the early 1990s, when political transformation began to occur, these emergent organisations continued to organise their constituencies in accordance with their interests as artists and creative people. Even with the lifting of the ban on the African National Congress (ANC), these cultural organisations forged their own agenda, which was often at odds with the ANC, itself.

Despite the vigorous oppostion of the ANC cultural department, these groups organised the "Arts for All Campaign" which hosted a massive gathering of artists, arts educators, arts administrators, cultural organisations, and cultural institutions from around the country at the end of 1992. This, the largest and most representative gathering of the arts community, launched the National Arts Initiative, a year long process in which creative people around the country researched local needs and international policies, and began to formulate a comprehensive set of policy proposals for cultural policy.

With their combined strength, these organisations formed the National Arts Coalition (NAC), the first national, multi-disciplinary lobby for arts and culture in the country. By the time of the epoch-making elections for a non-racial democracy in April 1994, the arts community as represented through the NAC was well-positioned to influence new cultural policies.

In June of that year, the new Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology appointed the General Secretary of the NAC as his special adviser on arts and culture. In order to develop new cultural policies, the Ministry appointed a 23-member Arts and Culture Task Group (ACTAG) out of more than 300 public nominations.

Hundreds of submissions, regional public hearings, regional and national conferences later, the ACTAG presented its report to the Minister in August 1995. The broad thrusts of that report had already been formally debated and adopted by a majority of representatives at a national conference.

As with the NAC, the major challenge facing the ACTAG was extremely difficult. How were they to redistribute the limited public resources for the arts to the vastly underserved majority without destroying the existing cultural treasures of white South Africa? Certainly, their funding pool would not increase, given the other priorities of addressing apartheid's social imbalances. And yet, there were now the unmet needs of 30 million people that had never received public resources before.

ACTAG broadly recommended that the cultural resources be rechannelled away from historically privileged institutions and made available to previously disadvantaged artists. However, this left the Ministry between a rock and hard place. In the context of the Government of National Unity and the emphasis on reconciliation, the ACTAG report seemed to raise the threat of repolarization, by reverting resources away from "white" institutions that had grown to depend on them.

As government sought to resolve these seemingly irreconcilable poles, the publication of the white paper on arts and culture policy was delayed by almost six months. Eventually a draft appeared at the beginning of June 1996 which generally built on the ACTAG recommendations. The public was invited to comment on the draft, changes were made as deemed necessary, and finally the white paper was presented to the cabinet. The cabinet adopted the white paper in August 1996, thus heralding a new arts policy framework in which the arts community had been the prime architects.

Now awaits the practical implementation, which poses daunting challenges to orchestras, dance, drama, and other performing arts companies (whose funding from central government will be totally cut by 1999), and exciting opportunities for hundreds (or thousands) of artists who can now look forward to a brighter future.

The future of this "rainbow nation," as with its arts and culture, is all about balance!

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