the Cape Town Festival
7 March 2006
Programme Director,
Honourable MEC of Cultural Affairs and Sport in the Western Cape, Mr Whitey
Jacobs,
Members of the Executive Council here present,
Municipal councillors here present,
Leader of our faith communities,
Leadership of the public sector,
Representatives of the business community,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I want to express my profound appreciation of the invitation I received to
join you this evening. We have all passed through a rather acrimonious few
weeks since the beginning of this year. The municipal elections have come and
gone but we in Cape Town will have to think very hard about finding workable
solutions to the outcomes they have to think very hard about finding workable
solutions to the outcomes they have produced not only in this, but in virtually
all the local governments of the province.
The people have spoken! And it is now up to the political leaders of the
various parties to read correctly what they have said with their votes. That
requires both humility and a great deal of patience.
The Cape Town festival has established itself as one of the more notable
events on South Africaâs annual cultural calendar. Originally conceived as a
festival to showcase the varied texture and plurality of the mother cityâs
culture, the festival has assisted the city and its people greatly to come to
terms with its identity as South Africaâs oldest city of modern times.
Given the diverse character of the population of Cape Town, with elements
drawn from virtually every part of the world but especially Africa this is a
city that was seen by many as an outright repudiation of the notions of racial
purity superiority and essence that dominated South African politics for most
of the past century. Many might not remember this but when people of generation
were growing up in Cape Town, this was the least segregated city in all of
South Africa! It took some 40 years of concerted racist social engineering to
produce the racially segregated and segmented city we live in today. I am
pleased to see that slowly but surely, we are beginning to reverse that trend.
But we still have a long way to go.
As South Africaâs Premier port city for over three centuries, Cape Town
became the home of thousands who came to our shores from other parts of South
Africa. That particular experience is engraved in the architecture of this city
in its cuisine and of course in the unique character of people.
The Cape Town festival is a celebration not only of this historic past but
serves also to affirm the continuing interpenetration and interaction among
different cultures, races and creeds that animates the life of this city. The
festivalâs embrace of the rich tapestry of peoples and cultures that is Cape
Town has helped transform this into a city that truly belongs to all who live
and work in it.
The theme of this yearâs festival is âMy Cape Town, Our Festivalâ. And it is
very important that we continuously underscore that because as we have seen
during the past two months, there are some amongst us who appear to think that
Cape Town is part of some mythic continent other that Africa part of some
mythic country other than South Africa and that Africans are not, should not
and if they could have their way will not be part of this city.
For almost three centuries Cape Town was known as the tavern of the two
seas. It was onto these sandy shores that the first contingents of immigrants
from Asia were dragged ashore in chains. It was here too that the first
frontiers between the colonising Europeans and the indigenous people were
established. Slavery and the frontier both had an extremely regrettable impact
on the history of this country. We are still wrestling with that legacy as a
nation. This city too has to seriously address that legacy, not by absurd acts
of denial and wilful forgetfulness but rather by facing up to it undaunted and
uprooting it through intelligent social and political interventions. I remain
confident that South African endeavour and achievement in the arts will play an
inordinate role in our overcoming it.
The portrayal of Africa as a continent frozen in time and space with no
history worth speaking of, of her people as alternately âchild-likeâ or
âvicious savagesâ was a function of self justificatory myth making. Historical
lies, myths and half truths, as we have seen. Can spur human beings to commit
the most extra ordinary atrocities. Our past has imposed on us the obligation
to undo much of this damage by consistently unearthing and showcasing the
achievement of Africa and her peoples, past and present.
Tonight we are celebrating the people of Cape Town. We celebrate their arts,
their cultures and their heritage. During the past 11 years we have witnessed
encouraging progress to realise the creative energies present in this
province.
Like so much else that the democratic state inherited, in heritage we found
landscape characterised by a deliberate silencing of African voices and
experiences. When they were not caricatured, the cultural expressions of the
majority of the people were stigmatised as pagan, backward, primitive or
otherwise lacking in worth. The built heritage, place names, and street names
celebrated colonial and White domination. Yet there can be no denying that what
we experience as the city of Cape Town is the outcome of contributions made by
all the people of this city and they are Coloured, African, White, and Indian.
They speak Afrikaans, Xhosa, seTswana, English, Gujerati and Urdu. They profess
a multiplicity of faiths, some are Christians, some are Muslims, some are
Hindus, some are Jewish, some practice traditional African religions.
In moulding a nation at peace with itself, it is essential that all South
Africans come to terms with our past, and that the contributions of all be
recognised.
The institutions the democratic government has put in place, like the
National Arts Council and the National Film and Video Foundation have helped
unlock the vast reserves of untapped cultural resources that reside in the
creative hearts and minds of our citizens. Though the Multimedia Language
Awareness Campaign we have also begun to instil an appreciation of the value
that all our languages add to the texture of our daily lives. It is to me very
significant that among the first publishing houses that responded to my call to
unearth the rich vein of literature written in our indigenous languages was a
small publishing house here in Cape Town. Each day reveals to me that we sit
with a wealth of cultural resources, knowledge and probably undiscovered talent
amongst the people of this city and this country.
Deputy President Mlambo-Ngcuka, who preceded me in this post launched and
inaugurated the National Heritage Council (NHC) on 26 February 2004. The NHC
consists of 31 members made up of nominees for the national Ministry, nominees
from the provincial MECs and the chairpersons of the various national bodies
within the heritage sector.
The appointment and establishment of the NHC brought about a significant
increase in cooperation and coordination on heritage sector development among
Department of Arts and Culture (DAC), its provincial counterparts, associated
institutions declared cultural institutions and other departments.
Our aim is not to deny, denigrate or to erase the cultural heritage of any
of the diverse communities that make up South Africa. We seek rather to affirm
the heritage of all and thus bring about arts and cultural institutions that
belong to all our people. This Cape Town festival is making an extremely
important contribution towards that objective.
There are still innumerable challenges that face us before we attain what
former President Nelson Mandela termed the âexpansion of the frontiers of human
fulfilmentâ. To meet these challenges requires us to harness unique strengths
of the arts and cultural endeavour to fight poverty and create work. Through
this festival let us demonstrate that all our diverse people with their
differing languages, religions, skin colours, hair textures and cultures can
contribute to the development, growth and success of a city as beautiful, and
beautiful precisely because of its diversity, as Cape Town is.
By promoting, celebrating and showcasing the cultural treasures of our
country and its entire people we can enrich all humanity.
Thank you!
Issued by: Ministry for Arts and Culture
7 March 2006
