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- Mphuthumi Ntabeni writes a regular book column for LitNet.
In the beginning was the literary word, and we believed it would endure – untouchable by law, impervious to fear. But words and images are never neutral, and no authority can censor them without peril. When a cultural institution disinvites a writer, or an artist is dropped from a global exhibition, it creates a tremor that shakes the very foundation of a society that calls itself free, threatening to unravel the threads that bind public discourse to conscience.
In Adelaide, Australia, a literary festival collapsed under the weight of censorship when an author was removed “for cultural sensitivity”. This decision, framed as protective, was experienced by the literary community as silencing. Scores of writers withdrew in protest, directors resigned and boards imploded; as a result, one of the country’s oldest and most respected festivals was cancelled entirely. A space meant for engagement, debate and challenge became an empty marquee, hollowed out by fear rather than enriched by discourse. All because the presence of a Palestinian-Australian author was deemed intolerable because it touched on “sensitive” politics.
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The lesson of history is clear: When political anxieties dictate who may speak, the marketplace of ideas collapses. Every writer’s freedom suffers, not just that of the one targeted.
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The lesson of history is clear: When political anxieties dictate who may speak, the marketplace of ideas collapses. Every writer’s freedom suffers, not just that of the one targeted. Those who withdrew did so not merely in solidarity, but in defence of the principle of literature existing to confront discomfort, and not to affirm comfort. When art is forced to echo only dominant politics, it loses its vitality. Literature becomes impoverished, the imagination is constrained and moral courage withers.
Closer to home, South Africa experienced a tremor of its own. Gabrielle Goliath, an internationally celebrated artist whose work confronts violence, memory and marginalisation, was selected for the Venice Biennale. Her project, Elegy, which mourns women and queer people killed by systemic violence and civilian victims in Gaza, was first approved by an independent committee; this approval was then abruptly rescinded by ministerial fiat. The decision, sudden and opaque, revealed the fragility of artistic autonomy when confronted with political expediency.
What are South African writers saying, let alone doing, about this? Particularly those who rely on funding from the Department of Arts and Culture? Does ministerial fiat implicitly co-opt them into a political agenda, aligning them with selective sympathies abroad while subtly constraining their independence? The question is not abstract. Silence, in this context, is a form of complicity. It signals acquiescence to forces that seek to control cultural narratives for the sake of political optics, rather than artistic integrity.
The minister’s intervention, and the Goodman Gallery’s acquiescence to these pressures, is a cautionary tale. We know of their sympathies with the Israeli state Zionist politics. Art and writing exist not to serve any politics, but to testify, to mourn, to reckon with history. Once you subordinate the arts to political expediency, they lose moral authority. A government entrusted with protecting cultural freedom becomes its prosecutor. It claims to shield the nation’s image abroad, yet it strangles the very voices that animate its conscience. And here we are, in a country that survived apartheid and with a history of extraordinary courage, barely lifting a finger.
The arts and letters are the conscience of a society. Writers and artists give form to anxieties, fears and truths that would otherwise drift unmoored. Silencing them out of fear severs the threads that bind citizens in understanding and empathy. Freedom of expression is non-negotiable. South Africa’s Constitution enshrines it precisely because democracy without bold, critical art is a hollow echo chamber, serving only those already in power. When political pressures shape cultural decisions – through ministerial intervention or ideological censure – the guarantee of freedom is superficial at best.
Institutional autonomy is a vital safeguard for artistic freedom. Independent boards and selection committees exist to defend cultural platforms against political winds, not to accommodate them. When boards capitulate, their purpose is corrupted, their judgment compromised and their credibility eroded. This erosion extends beyond programming decisions to the disbursement of grants, funding criteria and the oversight of cultural institutions. The risk is systemic: Censorship becomes normalised, not through law, but through fear, habit and the subtle pressures of patronage.
Censorship always costs more than it saves. In Adelaide, the cancellation fractured trust and erased entire programmes because writers stood by principle at material cost. At the Venice Biennale, South Africa risks erasing its presence from one of the world’s most prestigious stages because of timidity and hesitation. In both cases, the cost is visibility, dialogue and reputation – assets that no amount of political prudence can replace. The consequences are also greater, because every act of silencing diminishes the country’s capacity to reflect critically on itself, to confront uncomfortable truths and to engage honestly with the world.
It is astonishing that, in the 21st century, we are still debating whether art must engage with human suffering. War, displacement and injustice – these are precisely the subjects that unsettle authorities and audiences alike, and precisely the subjects that art must illuminate. Dreams of a “safe” cultural space are illusions; art’s mandate is to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. Artists and writers do not exist to reassure the powerful or flatter prevailing narratives of economic power; they exist to bear witness, provoke thought and hold society accountable.
Silencing artists and writers for political reasons does not suppress dissent; it suppresses thought, innovation and the moral courage of a nation. In that silence, history will remember our fear, our complicity and our cowardice. Australian writers vindicated themselves at great cost, risking careers, reputations and material security. The South African arts community must ask itself the same question: Will we allow political power to bully us into silence, into abandoning one of our own to secure favour or funding?
Cultural courage is not optional. Silence is complicity. The stakes are high and clear. To defend artistic freedom is to defend democracy, the moral integrity of a nation and the very imagination of its future. If we fail, we will be remembered not merely for what we censored, but for what we were too afraid to hear, to show and to say. The tremors of censorship do not stop at the margins; they reach into every classroom, every gallery, every home and every conversation. They shape the society we leave for the next generation, and we will be judged by the echoes we permit to fade into silence.
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Kommentaar
Bravo! Good article.