Now even one of our most prominent theatres is involved in censorship.
Now even one of our most prominent theatres is involved in censorship.
And irony of ironies, the subject of this spat is one of the fathers of our liberation.
It seems as if the Windybrow Theatre in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, has pulled the plug on Steve Biko: Where the soul resides. Why? Because the Steve Biko Foundation won't give its imprimatur to the work to mark the 30th anniversary of his death.
It seems that playwright Martin Koboekae recounted a few of Biko's earthier peccadilloes. The foundation wants to control history and will only approve tales that cast Biko as infallible.
The theatre went along with this insanity and came up with a ploy that would have required Koboekae partially to fund the production.
Shame on the theatre and the foundation. Censorship is censorship, even when protecting the reputation of the great and the good.
The next step down this path would be a government dedicated to freedom trying to gag its critics - in the interest of its citizens, of course.
After that the demagogues and thugs of this world would be roping in their juvenile acolytes to prevent journalists reporting the court cases in which they appear.
And where would that leave us?
Curtains for human nature
Now even one of our most prominent theatres is involved in censorship.
Now even one of our most prominent theatres is involved in censorship.
And irony of ironies, the subject of this spat is one of the fathers of our liberation.
It seems as if the Windybrow Theatre in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, has pulled the plug on Steve Biko: Where the soul resides. Why? Because the Steve Biko Foundation won't give its imprimatur to the work to mark the 30th anniversary of his death.
It seems that playwright Martin Koboekae recounted a few of Biko's earthier peccadilloes. The foundation wants to control history and will only approve tales that cast Biko as infallible.
The theatre went along with this insanity and came up with a ploy that would have required Koboekae partially to fund the production.
Shame on the theatre and the foundation. Censorship is censorship, even when protecting the reputation of the great and the good.
The next step down this path would be a government dedicated to freedom trying to gag its critics - in the interest of its citizens, of course.
After that the demagogues and thugs of this world would be roping in their juvenile acolytes to prevent journalists reporting the court cases in which they appear.
And where would that leave us?
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