Hope as a political category

Some years ago, my daughter Isabella applied for a scholarship. On the scholarship application form she had to list ‘father’s occupation’. There was no category on the form for ‘artist’. The nearest thing, which she chose to put down, was ‘semiskilled manual labourer’ – because, as she said, ‘it is not as if you really have any skills, you are not a watch-maker, you are not a jeweler, you can’t fix anything in the house’. Having a family gives one a good perspective on oneself. My wife, who is a real doctor, not semi-skilled in the arts of healing, says, ‘Don’t for one moment think you can bring that hood and funny hat with you into the house and call yourself “doctor”’.

But I am delighted to be here to receive this degree from the University of Cape Town, and to be with you all to celebrate your degrees. Although my three years at university were at Wits (the University of the Witwatersrand), I do have connections to the University of Cape Town. My maternal grandparents both studied here, my mother did her undergraduate degree here, my father, who is with us today, was given an honorary doctorate in the 1980s, and two of Anne and my three children are studying here at the moment. It seems although this Honorary Degree claims to be in Literature, I suspect it is really for family commitment.

I’m aware that you are all humanities students. You have come through a minefield, have had to use the most precise logical thinking to approach all those fields – art, literature, psychology – in which this form of knowledge falls apart. There is a long lecture on the virtues of non-instrumental thinking to be delivered, but I am very aware that you don’t need a lecture, today. Your three years are done; it is not necessary to take any notes.

To show this is not a lecture there is in fact a joke in this text, to which the punchline is ‘maybe someone will come’.

To return to the semi-skilled manual labourer: my life has essentially been in the studio, and most that I have learned has come from there. In the ongoing conversation between images and ideas that I have, the physical, manual activity of making, and what the paper, charcoal, and ink throw back at me. One can think of the studio as a place where the world is invited in – in the form of images, drawings, phone conversations, news reports – and the world is then taken apart and fragmented and re-arranged, and then sent back out into the world as a drawing, film or text. In between, there are many hours of walking round the studio stalking the image – a process which is mixture of stupidity, uncertainty and decisiveness. It is not just a question of peripheral vision, of seeing images out of the corner of your eye to put them together, but peripheral thinking is also required. There is a need understanding the importance of things at the edges, of that which does not fit. Waiting for a clarity to reveal itself. Hoping for connections to consolidate.

On these occasions, it is usual, even expected, to give advice to the graduates. I know advice is not wanted, and not heard. But anyway, here’s a piece of advice: Never give advice unless you are specifically asked for it.

If I think of all the thousands of pieces of good advice I have received over the years, I can remember only three. The first was, ‘[i]t does not really matter what you draw. Whatever you do, in the end it is a self-portrait’. It will always show your desires and fears. The second piece of advice was, ‘[d]o what you do well, an enjoy it, and in the end other people will respect you for it’. The third piece of advice – now that I think of it, I have forgotten. But these pieces of advice both arose in moments when I was absolutely listening to hear them when they confirmed what I already knew.

There is another piece of advice, however.

When I left university with a Bachelor of Arts degree, I was caught between wanting to draw, wanting to act, wanting to make films. I was advised – correctly, how could this advice not be correct – to do one thing. To do it well – whether drawing, acting or making a film – but to only do one thing. To try to do all three things was to be destined to be a dilettante, an amateur. This was good advice, and I tried very hard to follow it. I stopped drawing and went to Paris to learn to be an actor. I failed as an actor. I returned to South Africa to make films, but failed at that, too. In the end, I was reduced to being an artist. It was many years later that I found that despite my best intentions I was also working in theatre and film. It took my about 12 years to unlearn that advice I had assimilated. We are all caught in a conflict of a confidence of who we are, an absence of an idea of who we are, an understanding of the world outside and trying to understand what place we have in it.

So here is the joke.

Albert comes into a room and sees Abe sitting there. He is naked except for a top hat.

Albert: ‘Why are you sitting there naked?’

Abe: ‘It’s all right. No one is coming’.

Albert: ‘Why the top hat?’

Abe: ‘Someone might come’.

South Africa today is a place in which the edges are important; where that which does not fit needs to be acknowledged; where contradiction is central. We need to understand that instability and provisionality are the order of the day. You finish your degrees as our country is in the middle of massive hangover. The democracy party of 20 years ago is long finished, but everybody is left with a headache and a foul temper. The feeling that ‘I am nothing, and I should be everything’ seems everywhere. Race and class divisions in the country are with us as strongly as they have ever been. A happy ending is by no means assured. There is a daily low-grade civil war at every stop street. The incidents of racial abuse, verbal and physical, alert us to the rages that burn inside. They are shameful to all of us. There is much still to undo, and even more to do.

The optimistic future in South Africa is not assured, but neither is disaster. You owe your education to your country. You owe a debt. To leave immediately after your degree is not just to avow the pessimistic future but to push it further. This is not a sentimental nationalism. A portion of your education has been paid for by you or by your parents or family, and your graduation today is truly also their celebration. But one must understand that is also largely paid for by people who will never be at this university, but whose labour is the basis of the wealth of the country, and the state support of your education. To not understand the debt you owe, not abstractly to a nation but concretely to those whose labour power has paid for your education here needs a blindness or a sense of entitlement – unfortunately both very present in this country at this time in our history.

No one in this country is satisfied with their positions. We are aware that everything feels awry. In my world, the general dissatisfaction manifests itself in every film-maker wanting to be a photographer. Great photographers really want to be appreciated for their poor drawings. The artist wants to be a philosopher. The philosopher wants to be a merchant banker. The merchant banker sneaks off to life-drawing classes. I suspect this dissatisfaction is normal. But the advantages you have coming through the humanities is to understand that these contradictions are not aberrations, but the only way of understanding the world. You are blessed with this.

It is a powerful tool to take from the university. It is not that one is either a pessimist or an optimist, but to understand that both of these futures – the pessimistic and the optimistic – unroll at the same time, and the only true understanding and way to work in South Africa now and to understand that this shifting surface is as stable as it’s ever going to be.

But look at all this another way, we are in a state of crisis. All is possible. Be realistic, demand the impossible. Rage, envy, greed are our national characteristics. Change those. Understand that hope is also a political category. Understand that making sense of the world, and of yourself, is a daily activity.

The easy lesson of South Africa is this: strength comes from vulnerability, not power. Relish the state of fragmentation. Find the pleasure and beauty of unexpected connections. Understand your debt to your profession – painting, writing, being a sociologist. Learn from it. What you do is who you become. Delight in your body. A lot. You will never be so beautiful again. Keep a sharp eye for the day’s events, but a keener feeling for a longer unfolding. Be kind. Understand that everyone is involved in their own titanic struggle.

Seize the contradictions. Listen to the periphery. Be naked. Wear a top hat.