People who are artistic have always been a threatening force to people who are dictators. Even though we call this country a democracy, it's turning out to be more and more a candy-coated dictatorship. It seems fairly logical that those (candy-coated dictators) would do everything to make it impossible for people who communicate through the arts to say anything that might say a message like "the emperor isn't wearing any clothes". For some reason that scares the piss out of them, so they do everything they can to stamp it out.
Q: In a democracy, are there any controls that are valid over artists?
A: No, why does an artist need to be controlled in a democracy. In a democracy everyone gets to say what's on their mind.
Zappa from 1991. South Africa still had a lot to do to get to its democracy, this is Zappa speaking about George HW Bush and his administration. The parallels between the ANC and American politics are probably no coincidence - politics is politics. It doesn't excuse the ANC for being so patently incompetent.
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