Bond of broeders: Anton Hartman and music in an apartheid state

Musical Times, Summer 2004 by Walton, Chris

As for Hartman's political beliefs themselves, his extremism only really shows towards the end of the book, when a number of absurd statements show how distant he and his colleagues were from reality. The supporters of apartheid had many betes noires in the cultural sphere. One was television, which was not introduced to South Africa until 1976 on account of the liberal ideas that it was feared might be spread through it; another was the Western popular culture of the 19605 and after. Mia Hartman quotes from the minutes of a FAK committee meeting of 1970, in which Hartman acknowledged the desire of the youth of his day for a popular music that would speak more directly to them. However, he said, they should be encouraged to fulfill these desires in Afrikaans music, in particular through writing and singing songs in Afrikaans. Today, of course, one finds this so absurd as to be almost charming - until one reads on, for Hartman adds that 'radio, press, film, the record industry and educators' should be drawn in to achieve this goal. One suddenly remembers that Hartman was not just another old fuddy-duddy incapable of understanding the younger generation, but a fascist bureaucrat in a country in which state control of radio, press, film, the record industry and the education system was in fact the norm, and which possessed a propaganda machine of the first order. Even how the national anthem was to be performed was determined precisely by the state: solo renditions were forbidden, and the FAK music committee in 1979 even deemed discussion necessary of a renegade solo performance that had been given by a country singer at the opening of a boxing match. The promoters were quietly informed that they should in future rather play the official version over their' loudspeakers (p. 136). Eight years earlier, Hartman and the FAK music committee had expressed grave concern that the songs sung at sports occasions in schools and elsewhere tended to be of English words to English melodies. It was thus decided that a letter be sent out to raise the consciousness of all parties concerned, and to promote the singing of songs only in Afrikaans - though it was stressed that the resultant texts must be in keeping "with 'Afrikaans morals and traditions' (presumably a euphemistic instruction to avoid the delightful obscenities so typical of the English rugby song). However, the FAK music committee was not completely backward-looking. In a gesture of inclusivity, monies were found to print a Braille version of their Afrikaans church choir book so that blind, white, Calvinist Afrikaners would not feel at a disadvantage to sighted, white, Calvinist Afrikaners (a case, perhaps, of fiddling while Soweto burnt).

This biography of Anton Hartman raises more questions than it answers - but that is to its credit. Although he was a champion of contemporary music whose contribution to his own country was - in relative terms - comparable to that of William Clock in Britain, everything he did served to cement segregationist policies at all levels of cultural life. The breaking-down of boundaries that has been a determinant of contemporary culture since 1945 was in his case reversed. 'Apartness' was all. He belonged to a deeply homophobic society, yet nevertheless promoted the music of openly gay composers. And he was a devout Christian who was more concerned about the evils of Sunday opening hours and public dancing than the injustices visited upon millions of his countrymen by the state machinery that he helped to run. How can any intelligent individual come to terms with such inherent contradictions in all he does? Perhaps only by becoming the intensely repressed person that everyone says he was.