AN interesting and telling remark was made at a recent Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) press conference.
It seems all the talk about HIFA becoming more of an indigenous festival in recent years has incensed some Western elements.
After bitter complaints by artistes and other stakeholders who queried the elitist nature of the arts bonanza, organisers have in recent times made an effort to include more local acts.
Changes have been made over the years, especially after the festival was showed to be closely linked to the regime change agenda.
Many today like to embrace the arts fiesta as a truly Zimbabwean affair with no ulterior motives other than to promote and celebrate the arts, but at this press conference, a representative of the Danish Embassy, Eric Rasmussen, had different sentiments.
The official is definitely not the type to beat about the bush.
When his turn to speak came, Rasmussen was clear and not apologetic when he highlighted that HIFA is a political event.
“HIFA is a political event,” he crisply put across his statement.
The event this year runs under the theme, ‘Articulate’ and Rasmussen ‘articulated’ the Danish sentiment.
Perhaps he is an honest fellow and not hypocritical when it comes to the involvement of the Danish at HIFA.
Rasmussen did no wrong, but this forces one to think more and deeply about the festival.
The associate executive director of HIFA, Tafadzwa Simba desperately explained that the event was not a platform for any politics.
Is it not?
HIFA came into existence in 1999, the year the Movement for Democratic Change was launched.
No sooner were the MDC and HIFA launched was Zimbabwe put on illegal sanctions that crippled the country.
It is not a secret that HIFA, like the MDC were and are heavily funded by the West.
HIFA became a platform for the ‘troubled’ white minority that was being ‘chased’ from ‘their’ farms.
The arts became a mouthpiece for the ‘abused’ and highlighted the ‘deficiency’ of democracy in the country.
Through HIFA, Zimbabweans got to see and experience gay and lesbian ‘parades’ in the streets of Harare despite the Government clearly, through the country’s laws, making homosexuality illegal.
Naturally with massive funding, the popularity of HIFA grew beyond the borders, making it a must attend international festival.
Is it a coincidence that organisations that funded regime change are redirecting funds after failure of agents tasked with effecting the removal of President Robert Mugabe?
HIFA has also found itself with fewer sponsors this year?
Of course HIFA has said prevailing hardships have forced the ‘corporate’ world to withdraw funding, but we have had these challenges for more than a decade.
Organisations such as HIVOS, will be pulling the plug as from next year as they will not be sponsoring the festival.
They say their policy forbids them from supporting the arts sector for more than 10 years, but is that really so?
HIVOS is an international organisation that operates in countries in which, according to them, there is limited existence of freedom of expression mostly through the support of independent media.
It is through such organisations that ‘human rights’ for gays and lesbians are propagated in a country that does not culturally recognise them.
It is through such funding that the founder and artistic director of HIFA, Emmanuel Bagorro took recruits to Serbia to give them training in the effective use of social media for ‘transformation’.
The ‘Arab Spring’ that saw the toppling of governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia through the use of social media could have been a source of inspiration to local regime change agents.
While HIFA claims to be apolitical, its play Lovers in Time at last year’s edition was a political piece that attempted to ridicule and mock our political heroes Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi.
We eagerly await this year’s festival that according to HIFA’s executive director, Maria Wilson, will seek to celebrate being Zimbabwean.
“HIFA is not only about celebrating arts, we are celebrating what it is to be Zimbabwean,” she said at a previous press conference.