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Chapter 8 - State Capture and the Popular Imagination: Narrowing the Narrative
- Edited by Mbongiseni Buthelezi, University of Johannesburg, Peter Vale, University of Pretoria
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- Book:
- State Capture in South Africa
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 28 February 2024
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2023, pp 175-196
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Summary
If one is living in an abnormal society, then only abnormal expression can express that society.
— Dambudzo Marechera, Cemetery of MindTexts – whether films, paintings, poems or songs – always frame a particular picture of the world. They make witting and unwitting choices about which slices of reality to depict, and which slices to omit. On those rare occasions when texts pierce the popular imagination, they can create ‘collective social understandings’ that universalise these ‘particular ways of seeing’ (Storey 2018, 4). The political impact of texts, then, is heightened in proportion to their social reach.
This chapter focuses on the ‘particular ways of seeing’ encapsulated in popular artistic representations of state capture between 2012 and 2019. It explores how state capture was presented in paintings, non-fiction films and rap songs, and investigates how various South African publics responded to these artworks. It does this by highlighting work that gained heightened public attention.
Each section involves a close analysis of between two and five works, which are read against news articles and scholarly criticism in the state capture era. Through a combination of art, film and lyrical criticism, these sections trace links between popular art and the popular political imagination and investigate the relationship between the aesthetics of state capture and its politics.
To achieve this, I explore a single claim: popular art in South Africa narrowed the meanings of state capture between 2012 and 2019. It did this by confining the notion to a limited time period and restricting its actors to Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family, thereby obscuring state capture's structural and historical roots. As such, popular art suffered from – and simultaneously co-produced – a narrow conception of state capture, which oversimplified events of the late Zuma presidency and produced an ideology rather than an understanding of the notion. While these works seized unprecedented public attention, they also presented a binary conception of state capture.
THE DOMINANT NARRATIVE
Five features characterise what we will call the ‘dominant narrative’ of state capture. Firstly, it confines the notion of state capture to the late years of Zuma's administration (2012–2018).
Chapter 3 - The game's the same: ‘MustFall’ moves to Euro-America
- from PART TWO - PRIMARY VOICES – ‘THE ROOTS OF THE REVOLUTION’
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- By Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh holds an MPhil in international relations from the University of Oxford, and an Honours degree in politics, philosophy and economics from the University of Cape Town. A Weidenfeld scholar, he was one of the Mail & Guardian's ‘top 200 young South Africans’ in 2013. In 2010, he served as president of the UCT student representative council. He is currently pursuing a DPhil in international relations at the University of Oxford, and writing a book of essays on South African politics.
- Edited by Susan Booysen
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- Book:
- Fees Must Fall
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 20 April 2018
- Print publication:
- 31 October 2016, pp 74-86
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
It is the 23rd of October 2015. About 350 people are gathered outside the South African High Commission in London. Familiar struggle songs ring out. This could be a protest at any South African university, but for the British accents, slight chill in the air and faces of smiling police officers in brilliant neon jackets. A collection of students and South Africans abroad under the banner of #FeesMustFall demand to see the high commissioner. A stand-off ensues: the high commissioner is in a meeting and cannot come out, according to a member of his staff. ‘We're not leaving until he does,’ cry hundreds of voices. The high commissioner eventually emerges, smiling at the crowd as if at a rally. The crowd erupts, out of relief, not reverence, then crouches in silence. A debate follows over whether the high commissioner should sit on the paved floor, or whether he should use a regal chair produced moments earlier by a subservient staffer. Jeers abound as the chair dances its way over the top of the front of the crowd. The protesters want him to sit on the floor à la Habib. He does. A memorandum is signed, the international media capturing the high commissioner's every facial twitch. Not since the anti-apartheid struggle has the South African High Commission seen an event like this.
As the London protest spreads on social media, #FeesMustFall in South Africa is preparing to march on the Union Buildings. Rhodes has already fallen at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and Oxford is battling to decide whether to remove its own Rhodes monument. Students at the most prestigious universities in the US also call for the removal of symbols linked to slavery. An old conversation is awaking in new ways.
One of the most neglected aspects of the ‘Must Fall’ movement is its spread to Euro-America. Oxford has seen sustained protest under the #RhodesMustFall banner since May 2015, centring on a statue of Cecil Rhodes located on its High Street. Under pressure from a campaign called ‘Royall Must Fall’, the Harvard Law School has abolished its official crest, an ode to the slave-owning Royall family. Significant debates have raged in both Britain and the US over the apparently unapologetic public attitude of universities towards the legacy of slavery and colonialism, spurred on – and in many cases directly inspired – by events in South Africa.