Mike Van Graan
THE United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reports on the global Creative Economy in 2008 and 2010 revealed Africa’s share of global trade in creative goods – music, film, literature, television programmes, computer games, craft, visual art, etc – to be less than 1 percent.
This pointed both to a lack of investment in the creative and cultural industries within African countries, as well as to the potential for growth in this area. Ministers responsible for arts and culture met in Algiers in 2008 to adopt the African Union’s Plan of Action on Cultural and Creative Industries, thereby expressing a political commitment to growing the continent’s creative sector. There is a huge gap though between making policy and plans, and the implementation of these.
An earlier legal instrument adopted by Unesco – the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions – is designed to provide further impetus to the development of the creative industries of the global south. South Africa has been instrumental in the formulation of this Convention with the country’s first arts and culture minister, Dr Ben Ngubane, serving as the deputy chair of the International Network of Cultural Policy – a collective of ministers of culture from around the globe – that lobbied for this Convention. The former minister of education, the energetic – and now deceased - Prof Kader Asmal, chaired the committee that drafted the Convention.
Against the backdrop of World Trade Organisation regulations that promoted free trade, the rule of the market and the elimination of international trade barriers such as import tariffs and duties, the Convention provide states with the legal means to take measures to protect their creative and cultural industries against dominant market forces.
The reasoning for this is that unlike toothpaste, cars and clothing, creative goods have values, worldviews, ideas and ideological assumptions embedded within them so that if “the market” was allowed to have its way, then many local creative industries would be annihilated by dominant industries such as the film and television industries of Hollywood, and consumers would imbibe the values, worldviews and ideas contained in their creative products.
By allowing governments to support their own creative and cultural industries, the 2005 Convention potentially provides citizens with alternatives and at least creates the premise for ideas, values and perspectives from less-resourced countries, to be projected into the world market of ideas, through creative means.
The 2005 Convention established the International Fund for Cultural Diversity with member states of Unesco contributing to this Fund which would support projects that particularly help to develop the creative industries of the global south. The Convention also provides for preferential access to global north markets for creative goods and services from Africa, Asia, the Arab world, Latin America, the Pacific and Caribbean regions.
It was because of such clauses and promises that the 2005 Convention became one of the fastest-ratified international conventions; to date, more than 35 of the 54 Africans countries have formally agreed to the Convention.
The African Arts Institute (AFAI), a Cape Town-based NGO with an African footprint, performs much of its work within the framework of this Convention. Historically, because of the separation of South Africa from the rest of the African continent because of our apartheid policies and because of the cultural boycott, our country has had little to do with, and little knowledge of, African artists and their creative work. We have had much more of a relationship with European cultural practitioners through funding available from European agencies to promote such collaborations and our recent history of xenophobic violence against African nationals has strained relationships with our counterparts on the continent.
With the support of Spier, our founding private sector partner, the African Arts Institute created a toolkit for artists from the African diaspora living in Cape Town and South Africa more generally, to provide them with advice about accommodation, legal support, financial and other resources to assist them in their desire to be integrated into the local creative mainstream.
AFAI also produced a publication detailing the stories of artists from other African countries and their struggles and achievements in South Africa.
In giving concrete effect to the 2005 Convention and with the support of the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, AFAI seeks to introduce African artists to South African markets, to provide such artists with a possible income stream from one of the larger African markets for creative products. To this end, AFAI has screened movies made by African filmmakers on a regular basis, has invited and supported Kenyan, Ugandan and Nigerian writers to participate in local literary festivals, has brought performers from Botswana to participate in The Voorkamerfees in Darling, and introduced producers from neighbouring countries to The National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.
SA companies have a highly visible presence across the African continent. Shoprite, Mr Price, Spur, MTN, MNET and even the public broadcaster, SABC, play a role in spreading South Africa as a brand, as well as our views, ideas and debates in other African countries, but there is little reciprocity, so that while we may complain about the American and European cultural “big brothers” in our country, we play a similar role – and are viewed similarly – in other African countries.
Coinciding with Africa Month (linked to Africa Day that marks the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on May 25 1963, the African Arts Institute has hosted its inaugural African Arts Campus, providing a series of short courses to introduce the public to African literature, music and film, as well as to provide broader education about African cultural, social and political issues.
These are modest efforts, and yet they are important beginnings in our efforts to “learn Africa, love Africa”.
l www.afai.org.za