Spotlights focus once again on formalising local Ar

Paradise blog

However, this is not the end of the story for her, with regards to their stated intention of improving the overall administrative workings of the Arts Industry, for all concerned.

There is a lot more left to be done before all stakeholders can get the rewards they deserve, she maintains. To enhance the effectiveness of such announcements made last Monday, at the

bi-monthly Art Forum (Jukwaa la Sanaa), Lukanga, feels there requires a lot more physical cooperation between the Council and the four federations within the Industry, together with their associations.

Through various conversations with other stakeholders within the Industry it was discovered that such views, which Lukanga, who is also Director of the Binti Leo Network of Women Artists Tanzania, expressed to the ‘Daily News’ earlier this week, turned-out to be quite common amongst local artists, from all sectors.

One such person is the Performing Arts Association (CHASAMATA) Chairman, Mkwama Balanga. He, in turn suggested there being a “crucial need for officials” of such organisations, as BASATA to physical put more effort into building and maintaining closer relationships with artists. This, he says becomes even more important for those, who are registered with this institution.

The Tanzania Film Directors’ Association (TAFIDA) Treasurer, Ndambwe Nassibu, is another artist spoken to, who totally agreed that the laws governing the Arts Industry are formulated and put into operation without essential participation of artists. This in effect, he suggested, makes these laws ineffective when used towards rectifying problems, which arise.

“This means I, as an artists can be seen to be officially registered on BASATA’s books. However, when it comes to the implementation, it’s as if I’m not there.

Therefore, the first thing I’ve seen is that there is contention in the laws, which are supposed to be there for the mutual benefit of all those in the industry,” Nassibu told the ‘Daily News’ during another conversation.

Secondly, he feels officials in such institutions as the Arts Council, the Film Board and the Copyright Society of Tanzania (COSOTA), appear to be reluctant to “establishing certain necessary laws” simply because of their “fear of losing their prominence”.

It is for this reason that he strongly believes local artists will never get their rights, unless they start going out of their way to be heard.

It is in regards to rectifying what Nassibu sees as an un-resolving predicament within the Arts Industry that he sighted the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF), as being one example of how things work-out, when all stakeholders are given the chance to play their respective roles.

In fact, he went as far as to say, if ever he had the opportunity to meet President John Magufuli, he would ask four things from him. “The first would be to establish a court for artists.

This would start correcting the amount of artists’ works that is being stolen. The second would be to explain what has happened to our policy, which we paid 70/-m to a South African expert to produce but seems stuck there,” he said.

Nassibu’s third request would be an answer to the question as to why the four federations were established, when they are not being used by administrations within the institutions in the industry. His fourth request to the national president would be based on the fact that Art comes from talents and not politics.

Therefore, he would ask President Magufuli to instruct officials not to bring politics into the Industry. This implementation would start by putting those of relevant Art talented and skilled individuals, as leaders in these institutions and not politicians.

When the ‘Daily News’ spoke to the Arts Council’s Legal Officer, Francis Magare, concerning this issue and comments made by local artists, his reply was immediate. He started with an admission of there being inadequate coordination between the regulating authorities and artists.

The current situation in existence, which Magare has noticed is that artists see the established institutions as being solely geared towards impeding their efforts towards success. Whereas, on the other end, the officials say artists are too often copying western-oriented practices, which goes against valued local norms.

“This clash that you see tends to bring a tug-of-war situation between the artists and the authorities. Here it’s just a situation of inadequate coordination. Artists are not familiar with the roles of the authorities and somehow the authorities tend to misinterpret the artists,” Magare, who is also an advocate of the national High Court, suggested.

Such an undesirable situation can be rectified through the authorities and artists to sitting down together, he proposed. In this way the Arts Council, which has the role of coordinating and harmonising national ethics, whenever artists produce artistic works, would be able to fulfil their mandate of 1984? These national ethics would then be implemented in artists’ minds.

BASATA’s Senior Information Officer, Aristides Kwizela, who coordinated last Monday’s forum told the ‘Daily News’ the main emphasise of the agenda was to find the best way increasing registration with them and also the limitations or controlling of Art festivals, in which artists must be involved. “We need to formalise the industry so that artists can be registered and only those, who have complied to participate in Art events.

However, there is a sort of legal confusion, whereas we have these federations seemingly on one side and the National Arts Council on the other.

Now, unfortunately these federations were formed without any government law enactment, at the time, which can connect the two,” Kwizela explained. That is why they, at the Council on Monday, opened the discussion to find out how best for the government to connect legally with the four Art federations.

He admitted that artists need to make more noise, by going to decision makers within the ministry. This is based on the fact that the issues of policy making or enacting a certain law comes from stakeholders, who according to Kwizela are the artists themselves.

“What we were telling the artists on Monday is when they get an opportunity to meet different decision makers within the government, they need to introduce this issue of legalising these federations,” he added.

Such a situation has arisen today, according to Kwizela, given the previous situation, whereby local Art lacked all form of formalisation and operated in a lazier-faire fashion. It was in 2013 that the formalisation process was started by the government, with the music and film sectors. Unfortunately the response they have been getting from artists within these two sections has been very poor.