Protesting artists reminded me of the haunting picture of half-naked Sibongile Mngoma in 2021 taken on the same spot

It looks like indeed the more things change the more they remain the same in the South African cultural and Creative sector.

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

There was dancing and there was singing as well as reciting supercharged poetry on Madiba Street in Pretoria on Wednesday, May 14, 2026. No. This was not a celebration of the recent triumph of Kaizer Chiefs against Orlando Pirates, a game which has left the fans of Pirates with their egos deflated, me being one of them.

But this was a dance of anger and frustration by artists unhappy with a number of issues they claim the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and Minister McKenzie are not addressing, and therefore negatively affecting their art practice and in return affecting livelihood.

They marched to Sechaba House because the artists, who numbered between 150 and 200 because say that their pleas to the minister and the department officials to attend to those issues fell on deaf ears at best and at worst, the Minister and the officials are showing disrespect for the creative and cultural sector, the very same reason they are in the positions they are in in the first place.

Seeing the anger and the toy toying by the artists around the shuttered and heavily guarded entrance of Sechaba House where DSAC is housed, I could not help but be reminded of a similar but disturbing scene that played itself out at the same spot in 2021. Then the nation was left in shock when security guards and the police manhandled the then leader of protesting artists Sibongile Mngoma. Mngoma was on Tuesday again part of the protesting artists, perhaps validating the idea that the more things change, the more they remain the same. But the protesting artists then in 2021, that went by the name Abahlali Vase NAC –in reference to their occupation of the National Arts Council offices in Newtown for 60 days are different from the ones that protested this time around. But the issues are more or less the same. Then the Abahlali artists protested about how their plight during Coivid-19 was mishandled by the arts funding body and DSAC officials which saw R300 million meant to assist artists during the world pandemic Covid-19 administered badly. Images of a half-naked Mngoma, having been stripped down to her bras shocked the nation. That demeaning photograph shared widely on social media was clearly a violation of a woman’s dignity by those who man-handled her.

However that incident preceded the current minister’s arrival at 202 Sechaba House, 202 Madiba Street, an arrival that was at the time last year greeted with mixed reactions, with some expressing the view that the new Sherriff in town was going to fix the teething problems that remain unresolved effectively by several ministers appointed to that portfolio for the past 30 years, mainly in relation to issues of funding the creative and cultural sector by DSAC and its funding agencies such as the NAC, National Heritage Council and the National Film and Video Foundation.

McKenzie’s arrival was with much fanfare, especially because he promised to change the funding landscape, but that promised change is yet to be witnessed as long standing problems remain unresolved and new ones have since emerged, such as the recent mishandling of the call for funding by DSAC under the Mzansi Golden Economy programme, which has left artists fuming.

It is one of the several issues that are contained in a memorandum that the artists handed over to the Presidency at the Union Buildings on Tuesday, but were unable to do the same to McKenzie. That left a sour taste in the mouths of the protesting artists. They fumed that the Minister, who it was not clear whether or not he was in the shuttered building on the day, had allegedly snubbed them.

That prompted the artists to displace shortly after 2pm, with their leaders telling the gathered artists that came from various organisations in the creative and cultural sector, that as leaders they were going to meet that very same evening to map out a way forward.

McKenzie has however announced on several occasions that he indeed is fixing the problems in the department, citing specifically the setting up of sector councils that he believes will address some of the problems affecting the creative sector. Indeed several meetings bankrolled by McKenzie’s department, involving those who have bought into the idea of the councils as the panacea for the problems facing the sector, have been taking place for several months to shape the planned councils’ roles in the arts funding schemes of government.

The efficacy of such councils is however yet to be seen as the councils are yet to be established, their shape and form explained to a mainly doubting sector used to being previously promised by several ministers things that turned out to be meaningless in adequately addressing their issues.

And so the artists’ impatience and cynicism with what processes are currently going on, engineered by McKenzie and his senior department officials, have to be understood against the background of the long standing tradition of promises that were never fulfilled in the past.

And so as it turned out on Tuesday, witnessing the scene at the shuttered entrance of the Sechaba House, I could not help but be haunted by the image of the photograph of a half-naked Mngoma wrestling with security guards and police on the same spot.

It looks like indeed the more things change the more they remain the same in the South African cultural and Creative sector.