The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
ONCE upon a time, artistes in Bulawayo and Zimbabwe had unions representing them.
Like other professionals in other fields, they recognised they needed someone in their corner, someone who could walk in the corridors of power and give them a voice in important offices where crucial decisions about their lives and careers were made.
The unions were important, not only for regulating the affairs of artistes but for making sure when a rainy day came, when catastrophe struck, someone would speak for the country’s artistes.
Now that rainy day has come and the voice of the unions is absent. Covid-19 has swept artistes off the stages and more than ever, artistes need their voices, not to sing, but to shout about the struggle and hunger the pandemic has dumped on their laps.
“The arts right now are like a big luxury ship, a ferry, at a harbour and this ferry has no captain or travellers,” says arts doyen Cont Mhlanga.
“This ferry is just there. Yet there is a big harbour and a big ferry and a lot of people around that town who would enjoy a ferry ride and yet it’s an industry that has no structure or order.”
According to Mhlanga, most of the country’s artiste unions, born at the onset of independence, died at the turn of the century.
“The truth is that from 1980 to 1995 the arts industry in Zimbabwe was built on associations and unions that were both voluntary and trade-based. The union structures were necessary to build the foundation of the industry. The people that came in the mid-90s to the 2000s are the ones that became selfish and started breaking down the unions and being disruptive in all sectors in the creative industries,” he says.
Before their demise in the new millennium, all arts disciplines were represented by these unions. Representing theatre in Bulawayo was the Bulawayo Association for Drama Groups (BADG).
The union represented theatre organisations in the city from 1980 all the way through to 1995 and was acknowledged for its ability to successfully engage the National Arts Council Bulawayo City Council. At one time there were as many as 40 groups in that organisation, most of which folded when the organisation disbanded.
Nationally, thespians were represented by the National Theatre Organisation (NTO) which was then white-dominated while the Zimbabwe Association of Community Theatre represented smaller groups usually housed in high density suburbs.
For literature enthusiasts, the Matabeleland Arts Writers Associations (Mawa) represented writers in the southern parts of the country while nationally the Zimbabwe Writers Union (ZWU) stood for authors. Mawa gained fame for bringing to the screen a series about Tshaka and other productions like Kukhulwa Kokuphela. From ZWU other sub-unions like the Budding Writers Union of Zimbabwe and the Women Writers Union of Zimbabwe were born.
With South Africa still under apartheid, Zimbabwe became an ideal filming location for big Hollywood studios, leading to the birth of the Zimbabwe Film and Television Union.
For musicians, the Bulawayo Classical Music Association represented those that were into classical music while nationally the Zimbabwe Union of Musicians (ZUM) stood for artistes across genres in the country.
ZUM gave birth to the music royalty collecting associations while it is credited for taking music from hotels and bars to larger arenas by creating an enabling environment for promoters. Like other unions and associations, ZUM would also crash and burn at the turn of the century.
For visual artists, the Visual Arts Artists of Bulawayo represented craftsmen in the City of Kings while nationally they were connected to the National Visual Arts of Zimbabwe.
According to playwright and arts administrator Raisedon Baya, all these associations died when a few individuals started trying to speak for all artistes.
Raisedon Baya
“I think the issue of associations and unionism started long back and long back there was power and people were willing to come together. I remember in Bulawayo here there were associations like Bulawayo Association for Drama Groups (BADG). Mawa was also another association as well and there was also the white dominated National Theatre Organisation . . . Most of them failed for two things. Firstly, most of them did not have a voice. It was just a few people in the secretariat making decisions for everyone and they really didn’t have issues to unionise around because of the way artistes were paid and how they’re still being paid. It’s difficult to centralise and unionise around that,” says Baya.
The Intwasa Festival director says selfish interests were the final nail in the union’s coffins.
“The other thing is that there was a lot individualism in the sense that a lot of unions would have one or two people probably running them as briefcase projects. I think that killed a lot of that. Now a lot of artistes don’t believe in unions because a lot of us now believe in individualism and an island kind of mentality where you think I can fight for myself. It has forced people to be individuals and take care of themselves,” says Baya.
For former ZWU president Mhlanga, the coming of non-governmental organisations (NGO) at the turn of the century is what led to the death of the unions.
“The first 15 years after independence the Creative and Cultural Industries grew and mushroomed and had a global impact. Then after those 15 years there was a big decline. This big decline started with the crumbling of the unions and sectors. By 2000 you would hear only negative comments and fights about these unions and nothing more. After that, efforts of reviving them here and there were tried but this was difficult.
“The political situation in the country had attracted a lot of NGOs that were using the arts to drive their own agenda so the arts became campaign arts and all creators, particularly the young ones, went running to donors to create gossip clubs against each other. This was all for money,” says Mhlanga.
With little to no engagement with Government as artistes ran, begging bowls in hand, to donors and thus the unions were destined to fail.
“The industry became a back-biting and gossip club where people of little ability were then running to gossip about others so that they could become mouth pieces of NGO art. That is really what destroyed the unions. That is why to this day artistes are not engaging their Government. They think they’re better off engaging NGOs forgetting that these NGOs are institutions from other people’s governments.
They’re not NGOs from the moon or from mars but they are from other countries and they’re here because they engage their governments from back home,” says Mhlanga.
Interaction with NGOs, Mhlanga said, has given artistes the impression that they can attain greatness from just being vocal and controversial.
“It’s important for artistes, particularly young ones, to know that they’re not going to become great artistes by engaging donors or NGOs internationally. They must face reality and engage their own government. All serious industries around the world engage their own governments. They dance with their own politicians. They put deals together and hammer politicians in the forehead. But you’ve got to be together and you’ve got to speak with one voice,” Mhlanga says.
For writer and actor Philani Nyoni, some figures in the arts might be against the revival of unions because it would be against their own interests.
“I think we do need unions and guilds to represent our issues and speak with a united voice to Government and other stakeholders in the industry.
“I think if we had unions, things like digitisation would move quicker, there would be more equity in the industry and less room for us to be taken advantage of. Those who may be opposed to this idea might be protecting their own interests which is understandable; but if we unionise properly, we make the cake bigger and more nutritious,” Nyoni says.
