Art for social cohesion

By Abdurezak Mohammed

Art molds and guides the world. Art is at the epicenter of mankind development. Art enables us to go beyond the boundaries of what we currently know or think. It is the very means to scrutinize our current beliefs, generate new ideas, or critical thinking.

Art can also motivate people by creating alternate visions for the future which emboldening people to unleash new action. Artistic works also enable people to express themselves by sharing their stories and experiences allowing others to gain new insights. There are numerous ways in which art can be a successful and powerful weapon to initiate social change. Arguably, at the heart of strengthening social cohesion lies cultural and art packages.

Art has the ability to bring people together through shared experiences.And also art has the capability to promote interpersonal communication skills and adaptability. Every artistic expression is connected with a given social context. Each social context has a unique relation with imagination and the role of the arts in such context is the outcome of such peculiar relationship. Besides cultural and aesthetic values, every artistic expression has a potential of social function: art can create a sense of belongingness improving social cohesion; art can also contribute either in changing cultural taste opening the way to new social order conceptions, or confirming traditions and identities.

Social cohesion is present when individuals and groups with different cultures, values, beliefs, lifestyles and socio-economic resources have equal access to all domains of societal life and live together without conflict. And art is what guides such social cohesion. Ethiopian Artists agreed that art plays a significant role for social cohesion. 

Nebyu Baye (Asst. Prof), Head of the Addis Ababa City Administration Culture and Tourism Bureau, is a prominent Ethiopian actor.

He said that art is the representative of social life of human beings. It reflects the day to day activity of the people all over the world. So, art should take the leading role in serving the society and molding believes of the society to come together. He explained that the origin and destination of any artwork is the people’s social life. Art has the greatest impact on social, political and economic life of the society and it takes the lion share in promoting the lives of society.

Nebiyu said art should focus on the universal values. Humanity or prestige of human being is one of universal values. A person who is from any part of the world seeks these universal values. So, any kind of art must respect the prestige of human being to bring togetherness with in the society. He also said that we Ethiopian, Indian or others’ movies because art is universal.

So, art should focus on universal values like human rights. If the art focused on the universal values, it has a great power for social cohesion because the peoples respect the rights of each other. Social cohesion can be ensured with the presence of tolerance. “Artists like Mahmud Ahmed who lifeless work should be listened for many years. For example take Artist Mahmud Ahmed’s song, lesew lijoch selam (peace for all human being).

The song was released before 30 years ago. But the song is being listened lasting decades, because all peoples of the world need peace at any time and the song was sung for all human beings”, he indicated. To him, social cohesion cannot be achieved by a one time campaign and propaganda.

It needs sustainable effort. Art is bigger than propaganda. Art has great power in ensuring social cohesion. However, nowadays the positive impact of art is falling because of so many factors such as lack of freedom, capacity and finance.

Artists need freedom. So, the government should give freedom for artists to produce effective artwork which is used for social cohesion. And our universities have to train the professionals to improve their capacity, he added. In other countries there is “Art Fund”, collected from different sectors, which supports great art projects. But there is no such type of organizations in Ethiopia. Because of this, our artists are forced to solicit fund from private companies like breweries to produce great artistic works.

Establishing “Art Fund” in collaborating with government and other concerning organizations or bodies makes art more effective.

Dawit Yifru, Ethiopian keyboardist and music arranger who is also founding member and Chairman of the Board of the Ethiopian Musicians Association said that creating and maintaining unity among society is not only the duty of art but also the role of all other professions.

But, art, especially music, has a big impact on the social, economic and political life of the society. “In Ethiopia Artworks are not as productive as they are expected to be especially in consolidating unity and promoting Ethiopia .There are many reasons for this. The major ones are: financial problem;less support of the concerned bodies; less habit of working cooperatively and lack of capacity”, he indicated. He said that the sector has not been receiving adequate attention from the government.

But there are many artworks that have the capacity to unite the society produced by the efforts of individuals or some groups. It requires huge sum of finance to deliver effective artistic work to the public.So, the government should support sector for the latter to discharge its role. In addition to the government bodies and art associations, other stakeholders need to play a greater role in supporting the sector, he added. He said artworks are the results of teamwork.

Art associations and even artists have less habit of working cooperatively with art schools or departments. Capacity limitation should be overcome through training. The art schools must provide training for artists to for them to conduct their work professionally and efficiently.

Shambel Belayneh is an Ethiopian singer and came back to Ethiopia after thirty years of stay in the US. He released 17 singles revolving around Ethiopia and unity with in a period of thirty years. He explained that art can bring change within the society.

He is now in Ethiopia do music on Ethiopian nations and nationalities like Guragigna, Tigrigna,Oromiffa and Othersin collaboration with different Ethiopian singers. “During Derg regime we artists traveled through different parts of our country and offered different music that strengthened the unity of Ethiopians. We were able to come up with effective and successful artistic works.

But, the sector has been undermined in the last twenty seven years”, he explained. To him, since Ethiopians have great respect for art, social cohesion would be ensured if all artists worked cooperatively to change wrong perceptions of the public. “I participated in “hizb le hizb (people to people) tour with Tilahun Gessesse, Bizunesh Bekele, Maritu Legesse and other prominent artists of that time by traveling different countries.

It was the best work I have ever done. In my opinion no tour could perhaps have been better,” he said. To him, Ethiopians should tackle ethnic politics to create and maintain social cohesion within the society. The role of art is irreplaceable in shaping politics, culture and other aspects of the society and Ethiopian singers should celebrate unity and tolerance in their artistic works more than any time before, he added.