World Renowned Sculptor Dr Noria Muelelwa Mabasa conferred Honorary Doctorate by University of Johannesburg.

April has been a fantastic month for the South African visual arts sector, with two significant events snagging my attention. The University of Johannesburg bestowed a well-deserved Honorary Doctorate in Arts and Design on one of the most accomplished sculptors, Dr. Noria Muelelwa Mabasa. Meanwhile, Senzeni Marasela, a visual artist who works across different media, combining performance, photography, video, prints and textiles, won the K2 Global Art Award in Germany. These two incredible women are the pride of the African contemporary art landscape. I admire and salute them for their dedication, commitment, and contributions to the visual arts sector. Their accomplishments serve as an inspiration to future generations of creative artists on the continent and around the world.

World-renowned sculptor Dr Noria Muelelwa Mabasa 📷 From UJ Facebook 

I must, however, voice my discontent about the manner in which Mme Mabasa’s accomplishment has been communicated in both mass media and UJ communications. A headline like "UJ Confers Honorary Doctorate to Trailblazing 84-Year-Old Venda Sculptor, Noria Mabasa" has no place in a society such as ours, where our rights to dignity and protection against discrimination are protected by the Bill of Rights. 

Let me first explain my discomfort with this description; it smacks of ethnic and racial bias and, in my view, promotes tribalism. It is problematic to pigeonhole world-renowned artists into a specific ethnicity, especially when done by institutions that are thought to be progressive and inclusive.

Mme Noria Muelelwa Mabasa has been producing mind-blowing, world-class artworks for more than 5 decades! How then do you box such talent into narrow containers of academic and racial arrogance? Is it because she is a woman? Is it because she comes from a particular geographical area in the country that is perhaps looked down upon? In contrast, UKZN gave a more accurate and dignified citation when it conferred an honorary doctorate on the musical genius, Madala Kunene, which read: “World-renowned guitarist Mr Muziwakhe ‘Madala’ Kunene was honoured with an honorary doctorate at a University of KwaZulu Natal graduation ceremony held on Wednesday morning. This was in recognition of his contribution to the development of indigenous music and his phenomenal contribution to the music of Africa and that of the world.”

While I applaud UJ for their admirable gesture to honour our art matriarch, I feel duty-bound to point out what I believe is a divisive tendency. In 2018, UJ conferred an honorary doctorate on South African painter, Esther Nastokana Mahlangu, whose ethnicity as a person born from the Ndebele nation was highlighted in headlines like: 'Ndebele artist Esther Mahlangu honoured at UJ with a doctorate’. Much as this was a laudable gesture, the way it was worded minimized this world-renowned artist’s significance in the local and global art fraternity. 

There is clear indication of ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the mix here. It raises difficult but vital considerations about the tradition and purpose of honorary degrees. Universities bestow honorary degrees (typically, but not always, doctorates) to recognize remarkable performance in a particular field or contribution to the larger community.

Mme Mabasa was joined this year by three other distinguished honourees: Prof Chris Brink, Prof Ibrahim Gambari, and Sir Hillary Beckles. In their descriptions, there was never a hint of the kind of narrowed consciousness that was used to describe Mme Mabasa; so why was her ethnicity highlighted when other recipients' headlines did not contain descriptions like 'Afrikaner,' 'Swedish,' 'Jewish,' or 'Igbo," so and so honoured at UJ? There is no such headline because as formerly oppressed people, we have compounded our own problems and remained ripe for intrigue and treachery. In the words of Es'kia Mphahlele, 'black people have become accustomed to hardships for centuries. We have collectively lost our sense of proportion, our ability to distinguish between the norm and the dysfunctional'. 

As a black artist working in South Africa today, I am offended that an artist with a proven track record of creating work over 5 decades can be described as a Venda sculptor. Is this kind of phrasing used deliberately so that the institution appears to be a saviour? Have we as Africans become complacent and tolerant of ethnic discrimination against one another? 

Let me sum up this opinion piece by way of highlighting the issues I have raised. What I am saying is that the terminology used to describe black artists in South Africa and the continent at large is not used to describe white artists from the continent. It is as if your talent and greatness as an African artist is not enough to deserve the title ‘artist’ but must be overburdened with your ethnicity – as if to highlight the ‘us and them’ phenomenon, if not to take away our worth. To create ethnic narrowness when recognising contributions by black practitioners is to negate any healthy attachment we might have wanted to forge with higher institutions. If such institutions continue to drag ethnic and racial undertones in conferring honorary degrees, then we owe it to ourselves, for our own sanity and self-love, to turn appreciation of our legends around and make it work for us.