The Patriotic Front on Tuesday gave satirical singer Chama Fumba, a.k.a Pilato, a 48-hour ultimatum in which to withdraw his controversial song “Koswe Mumpoto”. They claim the song is “insulting, provocative, degrading and outside the province of one’s entitlement to freedom of expression”.
“We vehemently disagree with the offensive lyrics as they are designed to insult and demean. While we do not expect Pilato to like President Edgar Lungu or any other leader, no one should promote vile-charged social commentary intended to drag the rest of society to low-time sewer politics. We therefore call on members of the public, including the Church, to condemn such contaminated social commentary aimed at insulting and ridiculing leaders. While we believe in freedom of expression, we shall not condone abuse of that freedom to insult innocent citizens, including our leaders,” stated the Patriotic Front.
Why is the Patriotic Front angered by a song that hasn’t mentioned anybody’s name? And how does one withdraw a song? This is a laughable demand!
John Gardner was right when he observed, “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” It is said that when an artist is more concerned with what is said than how it is said, there is no art. No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
Aristotle wrote,
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” For Pilato, the only thing better than singing is more singing. Martin Luther said, “Next to the word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.”
True artistic expression lies in conveying emotion. And democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. It is impossible to be truly artistic without the risk of offending someone somewhere. Original artistic expression is, by its very nature, questioning, irreverent, iconoclastic.�As Dario Fo correctly observed, “Every artistic expression is either influenced by or adds something to politics.”�Victor Pinchuk said, “Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics.”
It is said that any artist knows that their songs, their creations, their pieces must express an array of human emotion and experience. From the juvenile and innocent, to the erotic and the dangerous, and everything in between. Because life is all of these things and more. It is the artist’s divine purpose to reflect what experience has shown them and others. What truly sets us apart from each other is whether or not we truly know ourselves enough to reflect objectively; but, through our own unique ‘voice’.
It is also said that pain is a crucial part of our reality; it awakens a person from a mental stupor. A person must never be afraid to discover where their pain originates, follow pain to where it emanates from, learn from its messages, and reject the mindless business and busyness of contemporary culture in order to fuel an artistic vision of the self. An artistic person taps into the destructive emotional energy of guilt and shame and the longing to love and be loveable and transforms these powerful emotions into a creative force.
The Patriotic Front cannot define good or bad in art. It’s all about the way one looks at things around oneself. The power Pilato posses as an artist is to find and express his own unique message. Pablo Picasso said, “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
Ramana Pemmaraju said,
“An artist is one who can see divinity in nudity…Your audience change according to your performance, while your performance varies according to your mood! So regret not, go with the flow. If both the performer and audience are on the same plane then it’s not art but science, for art is a personal expression that varies from one individual to another, while science commands uniformity and certainty!”
Clearly, all forms of art must contribute to the discursive dialogue regarding the composition of the malleable human condition.
“Writing and other efforts to produce an enduring piece of artwork is a gallant response to the prospect of death. Every person knows that they must die, and consequently people build elaborate symbolic defenses mechanism to shield themselves from knowledge of their impermanence. Every person possesses autonomy of the will, the ability to choose how to conduct their life. The freedom to act towards objects is ultimately useless; it provides a person with no sense of meaning and supplies no purpose to life because a mere collection of objects will not transcend their physical demise. An artist does not deny their impermanence but embraces the prospect of their death by labouring to create a monument of their existence that will survive their expiry,” observed Kilroy Oldster.
And Anna Katharine Green said, “There are two kinds of artists in this world; those that work because the spirit is in them, and they cannot be silent if they would, and those that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to others the beauty that has awakened their own admiration.”�Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to try and “withdraw” Pilato’s song. Let Pilato sing his song!