THE TRAGEDY OF CENSORSHIP
Art allows us to engage with truth. It does not prescribe what we should or should not think; rather, it creates and holds a space in which we are confronted with realities and perspectives – often divergent, sometimes conflicting, and frequently ones we might never otherwise allow ourselves to encounter.
This is the essence of beauty: truth.
When we are able to behold reality and allow it to affect us – when we are free to respond in ways that are honest to who we are, while simultaneously holding another person’s truth as equally valid – we expand both our hearts and our minds. We begin to embrace the fullness of truth, and that, in itself, is beauty.
Beauty is not contrived. It is not curated or packaged for an audience. It is that moment when truth reaches us……because truth always illuminates. And light is beauty, even when it reveals sadness, discomfort, or the hard realities of life.
This is what makes the role of the arts so critical, particularly in an age where perspectives are increasingly polarised. Art does not elevate one viewpoint above another. Instead, it creates a space capable of holding a diversity of thought – a safe space, an invitation to engage. Not only with one another, but with ourselves. With our own feelings, reactions, and beliefs.
Art stills us just long enough to hear our own hearts beneath the noise of opinions and judgements amplified by a social-media-driven world.
We must create space for art. For truth. For beauty.
Because knowing the truth sets us free…….and light is desperately needed.
Art does not have to be sunny or pretty to bring light. Especially when dealing with heavy subject matter, it is the experience of connection, reflection, and the genuine regard for the other that allows art to illuminate.
Censorship, therefore, does not merely silence a voice or shut down a perspective. It robs us of the moment of pause – the chance to think about how we think; to examine ourselves; to hold a feeling, a thought, a perspective; to consider, to imagine, and to fully inhabit what it means to be human.
A rare thing these days.
Beth Arendse
CEO – Business and Arts South Africa
