Beyond the Broken: Reconciling Power and Poetry

Introduction

A couple of weeks ago, the premier of Gauteng, amid a deepening access to water crisis, told Joburg residents that he too is affected by water cuts and that he sometimes has to go bathe at a hotel. As to be expected, a controversy ensued. In an attempt to apologise he said that his comments were misinterpreted, and that the point he was actually trying to make is that we are all suffering the same pain – and it was never his intention to suggest that water cuts affect people differently based on their positions in society. Paradoxically it would have been more radical and honest if that was indeed what his intentions were-  to admit that water cuts do affect people differently based on their stations in life.

What I also find troubling is that this was the Premiere’s attempt at showing that he was just like everyone else. This was his attempt at human connection, an ability and quality that should be critical in his line of work but which he sorely lacked in that moment.

Political power and the dulling of the imagination

Neuroscience research has shown that political power dulls the part of the brain that enables us to connect with other human beings. It revealed that power alters the structure and function of the brain, shifts moral values, weakens empathy, and diminishes the ability to make decisions based on the perspectives of others.

We are also in a city whose best and brightest idea for keeping its people safe is to spend R100 million on building a wall. A wall? In one of the most segregated regions in the country? A R100 million wall in a city with a Housing Needs Register of over 400 000 people waiting for decent housing?

The absurdity is glaring if not simply offensive. The architecture being built is never just physical, there is also the accompanying architecture of lies deceit and manipulation by our leaders.

Unbuilding Walls

A better idea, a more connective and relational idea is articulated by the protagonist in the book The Dispossessed by speculative fiction writer Ursula le Guin who says “I come with empty hands and the desire to unbuild walls.”

But instead of unbuilding walls , compromised political minds are imagining higher walls, sending for the army and responding with nonchalant insensitivity to human suffering.

Power and Poetry

Part of the source of our discontent and disconnect is the impenetrable walls between our hearts and minds which especially has serious consequences if such division exists within a politician. What if instead, wondered John F Kennedy, political leaders were in equal measure also poets, valuing artistic and cultural contribution as much as business and statecraft.

Eulogising poet Robert Frost in 1963 and about a month before his own death, President John F Kennedy expressed one of the most powerful truths, particularly powerful considering the ethically compromising office he occupied (it’s no wonder that someone of his ideas did not hold that office for too long) -  that poetry saves power from itself. When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths that must serve as the touchstones of our judgment.

Our Fragmentation and Local Elections

And in a case of all power and no poetry, as we all know we have local elections this year. I recently read a comprehensive article aptly describing our local governments as the nexus of fragmentation and state failure. There is nothing that signifies a breach in the foundational contract between a state and its people quite like a broken local government. And the stakes couldn’t be higher because for the people, a broken local government means a lack of service delivery, like collapsing energy grids and water systems which leads to desperate attempts at self-reliance which are expensive, increased poverty, and intense community frustrations that boil over into violence.

Similarly for business, a broken local government means increasing operating costs to offset lack of service delivery, which in turn means reduced profits and declining investor confidence.

Local government is the most intimate form of government – its not a thing over there- The quality of our local government is with us in our everyday lives, in our communal spaces, offices and in our homes when we open our taps, flip on our lights and as we expectantly roll out our trash bins. If the quality of our local government is decent then that decency will be reflected in our lives, if local government is indecent- that indecency will be on us too.

Because it’s the sphere of government closest to us, the apparatus of local government most directly affirms or denies our human dignity making local government the "training ground" for the realisation of human rights, and of citizenship. So, considering the lamentable state of this training ground what kind of citizenry are we breeding? 

The article I read painted a grim picture- one that will surprise no one here but worth repeating. Our training grounds are politically unstable. Coalition governments have become the norm. The 2021 local government elections delivered about 70 hung municipalities indicative of high voter dissatisfaction and frustration. And by 2024, political instability in these coalition-governed municipalities had become endemic, with manifestations including not merely dysfunction but systematic violence.

In KwaZulu-Natal, at least 19 councillors were assassinated between September 2022 and early 2023, and since 2011, more than 150 politicians have been killed in the province – the vast majority murdered by rivals within and across political parties. Just at the beginning of this month a Cape Town a councillor, Lazola Gungxe, was gunned down outside a community hall in Nyanga. The 3^rd in 6 years.  Our local governments are not training grounds but battlegrounds rife with threats, intimidation, malicious damage to property and political assassinations.

If our local governments are the battlegrounds, then what are we? Co-conspirators? Mercenaries? Collateral damage? Or the peacemakers? The light bearers?

This political fragmentation, dysfunction and violence breeds not only fear and distrust but also cynicism and apathy discouraging not just ordinary citizens from engaging in civic life but the rare ethical public servants we do have. The not too far off result of all of this are residents who prefer "strongman" leadership or authoritarian solutions, like armed soldiers at every street corner, over democratic processes. 

And this is bad for business.

Nothing to look backward to and nothing to look forward to

To add to our woes - It is not coincidental that in many of these grossly dysfunctional municipalities that there are also funding cuts to the arts which I think is part of a broader political strategy intended to control the narrative, suppress dissenting voices and weaken institutions that cultivate civic engagement and spaces for community solidarity.

It is creativity and culture that determine political action. As has been popularly understood – all politics is downstream from culture. (note: elaborate in conversation with audience)

Another truth by JFK is that a nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of the farm hand, Silas in Robert Frost’s poem The Death of the Hired Man, the fate of having “nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope. That is what is at stake.

Funding cuts aside, in even the best of times art and creativity are by default handicapped disciplines in our societies.

Partly because of the enduring and harmful romanticisation of the struggling creative- the struggling theatre, the struggling music school, community centre, notions that are easily accepted as the natural order of things which leads to the devaluation of the arts. We sometimes forget that these creative centers do what they do in spite of the distress- not because of it. And it doesn’t help that these creative communities have a bad habit, as Toni Morrison put it, of being resilient which deceives us into believing that they will be just fine without our support.

When a society undervalues, underfunds, or neglects its creative community, it suffers a loss of not only culture or innovation, but also emotional depth- and a collective dulling of our brains, our imaginations. This narrative of inherent struggle discourages creative pursuits and forces artists into "voluntary poverty" or away from their craft altogether.

This enduring romanticisation of the struggling artist together with the current funding cuts can be described as a "progressive starving" of the arts, particularly affecting community-based organisations in townships that rely on public funding to sustain the critical work they deliver to their communities. What is also at stake for all of us are deepening social inequalities and the loss of critical outlets for thinking, self-expression and communal development. And so much more.

For all the reasons I have mentioned and more, things are not just dire as Toni Morrison would say- they are dangerous – and I am not here to propose creativity and culture as a panacea but to make a far more modest proposition- what if we held them in higher regard as a necessity at this politically perilous time?

Our work as the CPF and Local hub is not to control, its to provide space for the questioning, for the truth to unfold. And the creative and cultural organisations we support are not political propagandist or engineers, they pursue the truth.

And this pursuit is not a "feel good" remedy. (Note: share Albie Sachs’ story with audience)

I personally believe as both a lawyer, and a creative- a writer – that both law and creativity require a faith in words. A faith in what words can do. I really believe experientially and know that words go places we cannot perceive and change people. I know that with everything we resource that we are resourcing a quiet revolution- a soft vengeance as Albie would say against the malaise and against the deliberate dulling of imaginations. The Creativity Pioneers through their work are unbuilding walls, - I know this because as a writer I already believe in the power of creativity.

I believe in creativity and culture as the antidote to what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls organised abandonment which is the process by which the state deliberately leaves behind communities through disinvestment, privatisation, and the degradation of the environment. It is a way of conditioning survivors to the fact that no help will be coming, of demanding they be resilient because there is no alternative. It is that which creates the conditions for extra-judicial forces to fill the cracks of a compromised social infrastructure making some of us. not all of us as the Premier of Gauteng will have you believe, more vulnerable to slow and early deaths.

The 3,5% Theory

We also believe that creativity, whether through music, visual arts, public spaces, design, film, or poetry can carry and translate the message of progress across barriers such as political affiliation, opinion, gender, class, and age, thereby helping to build the population threshold of 3,5% which according to political scientist, Erica Chenoweth, is required for change to occur.

It is from these beliefs that we established the Creativity Pioneers Fund and the CSC Hub.

The Creative Pioneers are a constellation of creative community-based organisations that we work with which steward spaces that serve as powerful, grass roots, bottom-up movements transforming the proverbial battleground into a runway – where our collective aspirations can take flight.

These Pioneers are a class of changemakers using creativity to merge heads and hearts, poetry with pragmatism, bringing awareness to critical social issues, inspiring action, and driving lasting impact.

We have found that their work is

• Intersectional-  addressing interlinking issues at once. Creativity Pioneers have the unique ability to respond to multiple challenges at the same time. For example, because of their model, supporting Bridges for Music also means supporting the reduction of education inequality, addressing unemployment, mental health challenges and capacitating a sustainable tourism hub for the community of Langa which is another role Bridges for Music is unexpectedly but expertly filling.

• People centric - Creativity and culture more than any other tool tends to facilitate exposure to diverse viewpoints and experiences, and therefore challenges convention, assumptions, status quo and biases. Eh! Woza, for example engages high school students from areas with high rates of HIV and TB in creative workshops that provide them with technical skills to produce documentaries, music, poetry that reflect the impact of health and disease on their lives. This ensures that we address public health not just through science but through storytellers who transform abstract, technical, and often distant health information into actionable narratives.

• Connects the proverbial village to the global - While the work of Creativity Pioneers is specific and localised, it is informed by a global sensibility and awareness, making it relevant beyond their local contexts. Zama Dance School based in Gugulethu brings in both locally and internationally acclaimed choreographers to teach at risk young people, ballet. Some of these young students have gone on to gain global recognition in international dance companies. And these superstars often return to teach where they started. What I love about Zama Dance School is that it demonstrates that ballet specifically in Gugulethu is not only a dance discipline but its also a protective barrier against surrounding violence.

• Nurturing the inner lives of the beneficiaries- Another characteristic exhibited by the Pioneers’ is the ability of creative tools to not just manifest an outward societal change – but also how it nurtures the inner lives of their target audience and beneficiaries. (Note: share an anecdote)

What we have found over the 4 years of the CPF which now has a network of 201 Creativity Pioneers in over 60 countries including the 19 we have here in South Africa, is that in fraught political moments the spaces the Creativity Pioneers have cultivated have offered a parenthesis from heightened and polarising public narratives, encouraging community interaction rather than division.  We have found that these Pioneers are best able to build platforms for engagement, debate, discussion and doing, and also often finding themselves acting in place of an absent government.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention in emphasis of the constellation motif that the Creativity Pioneers Fund is a pool fund made up of a global coalition of partners. And the Creativity for Social Change Hub, which I lead, seeks to marshall resources in a similar fashion locally. The times call for coordination, a doubling down of collective efforts to ensure that in turn the constellation of creative changemakers is denser and brighter. That is how change happens.

Conclusion -  On Being Less Afraid

A pertinent accomplishment by these organisations, this class of changemakers, the Creativity Pioneers that mostly goes unnoticed even by them- is their ability to make people less afraid.

Much of the suffering, cruelty and fragmentation that has tragically defined the world lately is not happenstance. It is not unpredictable. It is intentional, sanctioned and strategically wielded to essentially keep people afraid.

Because when people are rendered afraid, they are rendered unimaginative, frozen and enclosed within themselves.

There are many measurable metrics we can use to express the impact of the Creativity Pioneers. We can share their social reach and engagement, operational efficiency and policy influence.

But what is less measurable is how many people were made less afraid because of their interventions.

The Creativity Pioneers have not saved the world. But saving the world has never been the point. The world does not need saviours, but it does need light bearers. Those who can help us amass collective courage to not only live but to find that which is redemptive.

The Creativity Pioneers are such light bearers who have made not only us but their communities less afraid. And providing ways to help us bear our fears is no small thing.

At least that is what I believe.

Thank you

Lwando Xaso

Managing Director: Creativity for Social Change Hub

20 February 2026