DIVIDE AND RULE
The Silent War in South Africa’s Creative Sector
By Thami aka Mbongo Manzana
In South Africa we know this game. We have seen it before. We have lived it before. Divide and rule is not a theory to us — it is history written on our bodies.
Under apartheid, the lines were clear. They did not hide the system. They told you where you belong. Whites knew where they stood. Blacks were pushed to the margins. Coloureds were placed in between. Indians were boxed and labelled. The cruelty was open. The enemy was clear. It was the apartheid regime. It had a name. It had laws. It had uniforms.
We fought it because we could see it.
Today, we say we are free. We say we are democratic. We say this is a new South Africa. But when you look closely at the Cultural and Creative Industries — at the theatres, the councils, the funding bodies, the festivals, the sector representatives — you begin to feel something familiar. The language has changed. The faces have changed. But the spirit of divide and rule is still breathing.
It is no longer about race on paper. It is about access. It is about proximity to power. It is about who is inside and who is outside. It is about who gets the call and who keeps waiting. It is about who is told, “Come in, my comrade,” and who is told, “Be patient, your time will come.”
And while we wait, we turn on each other.
That is the tragedy.
Artists are not fighting the system anymore. They are fighting each other. A playwright looks at a funded director with suspicion. A filmmaker looks at a funded producer with anger. A dancer looks at another dancer and sees competition, not collaboration. We whisper about each other. We question each other’s talent. We doubt each other’s worth.
But we are not asking the bigger question.
Who benefits when artists are not united?
Because somebody is benefiting.
When artists are divided, institutions are comfortable. When artists are competing, management is safe. When practitioners are busy defending crumbs, no one is asking why the loaf is so small and who is cutting it.
Under apartheid, divide and rule was about racial categories. In democratic South Africa, divide and rule is about controlled access. It is about creating a small circle of insiders and convincing them that those outside are the problem. It is about telling those who ask questions that they are troublemakers. It is about making artists fear speaking out because they might lose the little they have.
And fear is powerful.
Fear makes you protect your position instead of challenging injustice. Fear makes you silent when you should speak. Fear makes you look at your fellow artist as a threat instead of a partner.
We hear in politics the phrase, “It’s our time to eat.” That sentence alone explains the sickness. When leadership becomes about eating, then institutions become feeding grounds. They stop being houses of service and become houses of survival. And when survival of the powerful is the priority, unity of the sector becomes dangerous.
So the sector must remain broken.
We must remain suspicious of each other.
We must remain divided.
But let us be honest with ourselves. Cultural institutions are not separate from the sector. They exist because of practitioners. Without the artist there is no theatre. Without the filmmaker there is no commission. Without the writer there is no literature council. Management is not above the sector. They are part of it. Or at least they are supposed to be.
Yet too often, management behaves like it is a referee in a game where artists are the players fighting for survival. They forget they are servants of a public mandate. They forget that public money is not private favour. They forget that access is not generosity — it is justice.
And slowly, a dangerous narrative grows. Those who question are labelled negative. Those who demand transparency are labelled bitter. Those who push for fairness are labelled political.
Meanwhile the system stays untouched.
This is the quiet continuation of divide and rule. It is softer than apartheid. It does not carry guns. It carries meetings, policies, silence, and selective access. It creates the illusion of opportunity while keeping real power concentrated.
The painful truth is this: the system has made artists see each other as enemies. We are angry, yes. But our anger is misplaced. We are pointing sideways instead of upward.
If we are serious about transformation, then we must ask uncomfortable questions. Do those in management see themselves as part of the creative community, or do they see themselves as administrators of it? Do they feel accountable to practitioners, or only to political principals? Do they benefit from a fragmented sector that cannot organize and speak with one voice?
Because unity changes power. Unity demands accountability. Unity is harder to ignore.
In apartheid South Africa, unity among artists was powerful because the enemy was clear. Today the enemy is hidden inside systems, inside habits, inside a mindset that says access is a favour and not a right.
But history has taught us something important. Divide and rule only works when people accept the division.
The real question is not whether the system is dividing us. It is whether we are willing to see it.
Who benefits when artists are not united?
Not the young creative in the township waiting for an opportunity.
Not the seasoned practitioner trying to survive with dignity.
Not the audiences hungry for honest stories.
The ones who benefit are those who fear a united voice. The ones who benefit are those who are comfortable in a broken structure. The ones who benefit are those who prefer competition among artists instead of accountability within institutions.
If we continue to fight each other, the system will remain untouched. But the day artists recognize that the problem is structural — not personal — that is the day the ground will shift.
Divide and rule survives on confusion.
Unity begins with clarity.
And maybe it is time we remember who we are — not competitors for crumbs, but custodians of culture in a country that still needs healing.
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