Sisonke Msimang is a South African-Australian writer, activist and political analyst based in Perth, whose focus is on race, gender and politics. She is the author of Always Another Country: A memoir of exile and home, and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, and has been published in The New York Times, Al Jazeera and The Guardian. Missing Perspectives chatted with Sisonke ahead of her headline appearance at Sydney’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas.
The Festival brings together leading international and Australian thinkers, writers, artists, academics and changemakers to dig deeper into issues around hatred, belonging, nationhood, conspiracy, morality, faith, evil and pluralism. Sisonke will appear in panels ‘Killing Culture’ and ‘Against Goodness’ on August 22. Here’s what she had to say about the Festival of Dangerous Ideas.
As part of your appearance at Sydney’s upcoming Festival of Dangerous Ideas, you’ll be dissecting the growing ways that artists’ work is being policed and put up for sale. Your panel, ‘Killing Culture’, asks: is truly dangerous art still possible? So I wanted to know, what makes art dangerous, and is it a good thing or a bad thing?
Art is dangerous when it challenges power, pushes cultural boundaries and gives a middle finger to social norms. It’s also quite literally dangerous when it meets repressive regimes and ideologies. So, in the instance of Maria Alyokhina, art literally landed her in a Russian prison. And of course we have seen attacks on queer people that mean someone like John Cameron Mitchell risked his life to make Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
And so it doesn’t make sense to glamorise that kind of physical danger. At the same time, art that is subversive, that pokes and provokes emotional and political responses – that kind of art remains vital. In fact, at a time when so many of our experiences are mainstreamed and homogenised, dangerous art has never mattered more.
How has artistic freedom changed over the past decade? Are you concerned that Australia might follow in the footsteps of other global powers who are cracking down on dissent and restricting the right of artists to challenge the status quo with their work?
I am very concerned about crackdowns on dissent in this country, and I also worry about how fragile institutions support the dumbing down of art. They lower the threshold of what is considered dangerous, and make even potentially boring or distracting art appear to be more interesting and subversive. Case in point, the recent furore over the Race Around the World contestant and her comments about Gina Rineheart. Both the commentary (the ‘art’ in this instance) and the response by the ABC Managing Director were distractions in the face of so many very real issues that art can and should be responding to.
In an increasingly divisive media landscape, who gets to be difficult or provocative without compromising their safety or career?
In a fragmented media landscape, there is more scope than ever for subversive voices to rise. So, there are really interesting content creators, artists and public intellectuals who have carved out spaces for themselves beyond the reach of the kinds of institutions that would have offered them homes even a decade ago. So that’s exciting and interesting, and there is a sense in which knowledge has been democratised. And then of course there is the reality that the social platforms we use for sharing our art are so inadequate and so greedy. They devour natural resources, they eat our attention and have a huge mental health impact. They also happen to be owned by some of the most nefarious people on the planet who can and often do silence dissent. And this is why it’s such tricky terrain — because it’s not either/or. And by the same token, even when artists who are dissenters aren’t punished, they often simply disappear into the algorithm.
There is such an overwhelming amount of stuff pumped into the world that it’s really hard for artists to garner the attention they need to provoke and challenge and push boundaries. And then, of course, in terms of IRL art, what we see is that the gatekeepers — those who grant access to cultural institutions — are increasingly petrified of offending powerholders. Whether this is museum or festival boards, or funders, we have seen repeatedly this past few years in Australia – from the rescinding of Khaled Sabsabi’s invitation to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale, to the attempt to bully Randa Abdel Fattah from the stage of the Adelaide Writers’ Festival. It’s both obvious but also important to note that in so many cases, the artists who are being deplatformed and questioned are from marginalised communities and the people objecting to their right to express themselves are those who have always represented power.
You believe that oftentimes the loudest voices in any debate about culture and censorship are rarely the people closest to what’s at stake. Whose voices are missing and whose job is it to lead these discussions, those with power or those without?
It’s a conversation for everyone, but it’s clear that the debate about artistic freedom is easily abused. When the powerful want to denigrate people, they assert their rights to express themselves as a fundamental human right, and when they are on the receiving end of criticism or hear views they don’t like, they seek to use their power to silence their critics. Invariably, the power to silence belongs to those who own the institutions and the platforms that amplify voices. When they withhold their support, there are very real consequences for artists.
‘Killing Culture’ facilitates a conversation between yourself, Brook Andrew, Tim Minchin, and John Cameron Mitchell. What connects you all and what inspires you about these artists?
Maria is a founding member of Pussy Riot, and she’s punk rocker through and through. She’s anarchic, totally uninterested in what people think and incredibly tough. The satire of songs like “Putin Pissed his Pants” and “Mother Mary Banished Putin” are what make her art so powerful. And that she survived a Russian prison.
They all play in the boundaries, roaming in the space of the subversive and the punk. Each of them is satirical, often fearless — tough. I’m thrilled to interview them, but to be honest, I haven’t been sent to prison like Maria or been subjected to the kind of constant scrutiny Brook has had to endure. I have not put my body on the line the way John Cameron Mitchell has. It’s a fearless panel.
Another panel you’re appearing on, ‘Against Goodness’, is set to warn the audience about the dangers of moral certainty. I’ve often said that some of the hardest people to reach when talking about politics, race, gender, class, power etc, are those who absolve themselves from doing further work because they are convinced they’re not a part of the problem. Should anyone ever be convinced of their own virtue? What does it even mean to be virtuous in this day and age and who gets to be the judge?
Listen, I think dogma is a disease and everyone is susceptible to it. I’m petrified of orthodoxies. I’m constantly checking myself because when you write about race, class and gender (as I do) it’s so easy to be reductive. To frame everything cynically, to over-determine, to already think you know what someone or something means. So, this dance between not dismissing your prior knowledge and recognising that the world throws up new ways of understanding and thinking and being all the time, that feels like a really important space to inhabit. It’s super-important to resist the arrogance of certainty while not being played for a fool by the way power works in patterns that can be painfully predictable.
Are we oversimplifying and invisiblising the complexity of humans to our own detriment by categorising groups of people as either good or bad, progressive or conservative, heroes or villains?
Absolutely. The kind of shorthand ways of referring to groups of us and them inside and outside… It’s not just dangerous because it’s lazy and hides all kinds of important differences, but it’s just boring. I’d rather say what I mean than use these big, loose labels.
How important is it to remain in conversation with people who hold different political beliefs or moral values to you? How do you stay aware of what’s happening outside of your own echo chamber without wasting time with people who may have become “unreachable” or “dangerous” to be around?
I guess the question assumes that I’m interested in changing people’s minds about stuff. I used to be. Now, I’m more interested in creating work that’s challenging, that demands grappling and introspection and that can often come from people who haven’t had the opportunity to reflect deeply on an issue. And the importance of interrogating more deeply is that it often leads to action. So, if someone is espousing hate and provocation there is nothing interesting about that to me and I’m not interested in engaging them. But if a person is curious, then I’m game.
In terms of people who are ‘dangerous’ to be around I guess I have a very clear definition of that. For me, someone dangerous either has a weapon, or they have an unchecked platform. Short of that, someone with views I hate isn’t dangerous to me, they are tiring and boring.
Are ‘culture wars’ and public debate a distraction or a necessary function of democracy?
Both. I think they become a distraction when they are made up and don’t represent conversations that are productive — when they serve as the imaginary backdrop for powerful people to take out their anger and xenophobia on people who cant defend themselves.
Should there be more work done to make these conversations more accessible to people across both side of the political spectrum to make them more effective and inclusive?
The notion of making stuff more accessible carries an assumption about who is doing the talking and who is doing the listening. I feel like these days if I want to be in on a conversation, I do the work to try to find people who are interesting and have voices that may not be tuned into mine. The conversations I’m most interested in involve people who are younger than me, or speak a kind of patois I can’t immediately access. The queer kids, urban cool kids in Johannesburg or south of the river in Perth. I’m interested in discussions I have to work to figure out, because that’s where art and culture are at – I’m old enough to recognise that I’m not at the forefront of culture-making any more and that gives me a deeper take on ‘access.’ Who am I to make conversations accessible to others? If they want to tune in and stay listening, they will find the conversation..
What do you really hope the audience will take home from your conversations with these fellow writers, activists, and thinkers at the FODI?
I hope they listen and think, and that they feel provoked, stirred, moved – in all the right ways.
You’re a prolific writer, activist, and political analyst. What’s next for you?
I wish I knew!