IN THE TIME CRUISE OF A DYING DREAM: ART, ANCESTORS, AND THE AFTERMATH

By Gregory Maqoma

I write this not as a commentator, but as a carrier of memory — a body shaped by dance, history, and the unrelenting echoes of a land that refuses to forget. South Africa is sick. Not just in its hospitals or brittle systems, but in its soul. And when a nation forgets how to remember, it forgets how to live.

Art is the last line of defence when everything else collapses — when systems fail, when leadership lies, when the body politic rots from within. Art remembers. Art listens. And in post-apartheid South Africa, where the scars of segregation still pulse beneath rainbow rhetoric, art has been our only tool to mend what is broken—in our bodies, our minds, and our collective story. Even when the minority beneficiaries of Apartheid choose to leave, citing the unfounded claims of genocide and aligning with Trump’s narrative by relocating to the USA, art remembers.

Health, in its truest sense, is wholeness: not only physical strength, but spiritual grounding, emotional nourishment, and political dignity. By that measure, we are not well.

We come from deep fracture. Apartheid did not just legislate race—it determined who got to live fully, who breathed clean air, who accessed beauty, and who was reduced to a number. But what happens when the post-apartheid state begins to mimic the very dysfunctions it vowed to undo?

Long before apartheid carved its cruelty into our soil, my ancestor Inkosi (King) Jongumsobomvu Maqoma stood as a beacon of defiance—a Xhosa warrior who fought not for power, but for dignity. The British labeled him a threat and exiled him to Robben Island. His memory, like so many of our true heroes, was buried beneath colonial narratives and nationalist edits.

Inkosi Jongumsobomvu Maqoma and his wife Katyi. Maqoma was a chief and commander of the Xhosa forces during the Cape Frontier Wars. Image courtesy of the author.

That same soil that drank his blood later held Nelson Mandela. Revered globally, Mandela became a symbol repackaged to soothe the world. The “rainbow nation” now stands as a cracked mirror, reflecting fragments of broken promises and politicians bloated with self-interest. His legacy is used like morphine—numbing a restless, dying society, even as institutions he helped build decay from within.

Even our Constitution now strains to hold the weight of betrayal, inequality, and rot. Where are the Maqomas and Mandelas now? Not in Parliament. Not in power. And certainly not on the podiums of diplomacy, which have fallen eerily silent while other African nations either rise in defiance or burn in neglect.

In Burkina Faso—once led by the fearless Thomas Sankara—there’s turbulence, yes, but also a will to reimagine the state, to reclaim land and dignity. In contrast, South Africa surrenders—drifting on a time cruise through moral fog, led by caretakers of decay. We distract, we perform, we delay. The lights are on, but the power is borrowed.

And yet, the arts remain defiant. We dancers, poets, singers, painters—are the last warriors of memory. We invoke ancestors when government files forget them. We create ritual where leadership offers only routine. We move not for applause, but for survival. Because when no one else tells the story, we dance it. We sing it. We bleed it.

"We move not for applause, but for survival. Because when no one else tells the story, we dance it. We sing it. We bleed it."

But make no mistake — we too are under siege. Funding is scarce. Institutions crumble. Cultural policy becomes branding. Yet the fire remains. Somewhere in our bloodlines — in Maqoma, Mandela, Makeba, Biko, Sankara, Simone — there is a refusal to die quietly.

Prisoners in the workshop. This image was staged and taken for the International Red Cross visit. Courtesy of Robben Island Museum.

Still, the question remains: can we survive this cruise? Or do we need a Tom Cruise—a high-octane, impossible-mission figure to disarm the ticking bombs of our economy, our politics, our trust?

Of course not. We do not need a white saviour from Hollywood. We need a radical shift in script. We must stop casting ourselves as the wounded. We must direct and headline a new story, where the arts are not ornamental, but fundamental. Where health is prioritised. Where memory is not museum but medicine.

We come from greatness. From bloodlines that survived genocide, exile, betrayal. From voices that sang in chains. But where are we going now—and who is brave enough to take us there?

Like the Met Gala this year—an embodiment of history layered in regal silhouettes—we are reminded that Blackness is not just presence, but legacy, resistance, declaration. In the absence of political courage, the body becomes the archive, the runway the podium, and style a sovereign act. We are telling the world, and ourselves, we have not forgotten.

But memory alone cannot carry a nation. South Africa, once the world’s miracle narrative, must decide whether it will remain an exhibit in the museum of struggle or rise again as a living force of integrity and imagination.

No, we do not need Tom Cruise. We need the return of memory. The restoration of truth. Leaders who do not perform empathy but embody it. We need warriors with vision, integrity, and a deep connection to the soil beneath their feet.

We come from greatness. But if we are to survive this time cruise, we must reclaim the map. Write the next chapter not with the ink of compromise, but the breath of fire. As Sankara said, “We must dare to invent the future.”

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Mandela: The Official Exhibition will be on view at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle from May 24 - September 7, 2025. The exhibit explores the life of the world’s most famous freedom fighter and political leader. His epic journey is told in a series of experiential galleries, from his rural childhood home through years of turbulent struggle against the apartheid regime, to his eventual vindication and final years as South Africa’s first democratically elected president. A highlight of the exhibit is Mandela's 1999 visit to Seattle. Mandela recognized Seattle as one of the first U.S. cities to boycott South African goods.

On Tuesday, June 10th, ARTE NOIR Founder Vivian Phillips will moderate a discussion in conjunction with the exhibit, From Our Corner of the World: Seattle's Solidarity Against South African Apartheid, featuring former affiliates of the Seattle Coalition Against Apartheid, to reflect on the value of international solidarity and the impact a local community can make on global issues of justice.

The preceding article by native South African Gregory Maqoma provides a glimpse into the state of affairs in current-day South Africa and extols the necessary role art plays in maintaining memory and inspiring imagination, particularly in a country where the system of apartheid ended only 35 years ago. A system in which Gregory Maqoma was born and emerged as one of the country's most prolific creative voices.

Signs from the Past: On view in the exhibit, guests can explore historical notices that designated space by race. Image courtesy of MOHAI.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gregory Maqoma is a globally celebrated dancer, choreographer, and cultural visionary. As founder of Vuyani Dance Theatre and descendant of the great Xhosa warrior Jongumsobomvu Maqoma, his work bridges ancestral memory and contemporary resistance. For over three decades, he has used the stage as a site of healing, truth-telling, and disruption — both in South Africa and internationally. Maqoma’s artistic legacy is rooted in reclaiming erased histories, challenging compromised leadership, and moving audiences toward deeper reflections on justice, identity, and the body as archive.