Giving this year’s Lozikeyi Lecture, the Minister of Education, Arts, Sport and Culture Minister David Coltart quoted Picasson on the role of art: “We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise truth”.

Impressively Coltart used the lecture to make a powerful argument against censorship, and in favour of artistic freedom of expression. In particular, he argued against the banning of Owen Maseko’s art on Gukurahundi, and described the ban on a more recent piece, in the interest of “public morality,” as “patently ridiculous.”

Whilst he didn’t go so far as to argue that the Censor Board itself be disbanded, or reconstituted, he was none the less far more outspoken about the issue than the MDC-T’s co-Minister of Home Affairs, Theresa Makone was on the same issue. For his troubles, Minister Coltart is now being threatened by war veterans who are insisting that he retract statements he made in the speech, suggesting that Gukurahundi was akin to genocide.

Read the full lecture here – it’s worth it!

This entry was posted on November 16th, 2010 at 12:45 pm by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Governance, Inspiration, Media, Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.