BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The recent controversy surrounding the awarding of a music prize to the wrong person and the subsequent move to correct the mistake has left the public awe-struck. It was indeed a bizarre event belying the carelessness, and possibly the cynicism, of the award granting institution which is none other than a department or a committee within the Ministry of Culture which was given the task of organizing this year’s award for best artist, i.e. musician, playwright, composer or performer. The public and possibly the august gathering at the awarding ceremony must have been embarrassed by this strange performance of the committee tasked for selecting candidates for the awards.
Dagmawi Ali, the popular musician and authentic winner of the award was later on contacted by the same people who made the false step and apologized for the mistake and gave the prize money of 100 000 Birr, a little more than 2000 dollars to the rightful owner. Gildo Kassa, the man who first collected the prize was this time denied the honor that was passed on to his fellow musician. Dagmawi was unlucky the first time and lucky the second time while the reverse was the case for his counterpart. What the hell was going on in this bizarre drama of granting and then retrieving an official award? Nobody really knows the answer.
In a way, some inconsistencies in the awarding process of prestigious prizes are sometimes observed. However, no such phenomenon was ever witnessed here at home or elsewhere and this makes the incident a unique happening that confused not only the real or sham winner but also the public altogether.
There were even some controversies during the nominations of writers by the Nobel committee or by the judges at such prestigious literary events as the Booker Prize in Great Britain. The process of selecting of the winners at such prestigious establishments is usually so laborious and meticulous that there are no controversial candidates once the final decisions are made in the selection process.
Both the Nobel and the Booker selection committees are composed of the most respected literary experts who usually read hundreds of entries and finally select a handful of books for the final stage of the competition. However, sometimes members of the public disagree with the choices made by the committees. Those shortlisted by for the Nobel or Booker prizes often draw criticism from the literary world. For instance the 2020 shortlist of the Booker Prize for best novel included Ethiopian author Meaza Mengiste who failed to win the prize. A relatively unknown writer won the prominent prize for his debut novel and this was considered favoritism by some critics who favored Meaza’s book entitled “The Shadow King”.
Even at the level of the Nobel Prize, many writers were ignored by the awarding committee in the past. Notable writers were the late British author Graham Green who was often a favorite of the literati for winning the Nobel while some members of the awarding committee refused to grant him the coveted prize on allegedly personal grounds.
Salman Rushdie was another potential choice for the Nobel but he is always left aside simply because his novel entitled “The Satanic Verses” had raised a storm of international controversies in opposition or in favor of the author when Islamist radicals killed many people who supported the author and Iran imposed a Fatwa or an edict outlawing the book. Rushdie’s book was subsequently made the target of book burnings and assassinations of booksellers who kept “The Satanic Verses” in their shops.
In Ethiopia, many awards are granted yearly for musicians, writers, movie makers and other performing artists as well as for dance troops. This year alone, an award of recognition was granted to veteran writers by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who bestowed medals and certificates on those whom “Ethiopia recognized their contributions”, as the PM made it clear. There was also an award giving ceremony for movie makers and actors known as the Guma Awards for best films, actors, producers and directors. There were also similar awards in the past, the best one being the Haile Sellassie I award foundation that gave the first prizes to writers, poets, playwrights and painters like Kebrekristos Desta and Eskunder Bogosian.
Poet Laureate Tsegaye G/Medhin, perhaps the best national poet the country has produced in more than a century, was given official recognition by the monarch and subsequently became the best playwright in the country. Although the Haile Sellassie award foundation was established with money given by none else other than the monarch himself, it was later on abandoned following the onset of the Ethiopian revolution of 1974. The Haile Sellassie I award foundation was instrumental in promoting the best artists in the country who later on proved their mettles by producing remarkable works of art that outlived their creators.
The Derg, which was committee of elite military officers who claimed to lead the revolution, was intent on granting honors and awards to soldiers and commanders who excelled at the battle fronts rather than in other areas. Artists and writers had no place in national life as the consciences of the nation. Most of them were seen as critics of the regime or “counter revolutionaries” in the official parlance of the time and ostracized from assuming public functions in arts and literature. Some of them were killed, deported or exiled.
There was some kind of revival in the artistic and literary fields when the EPRDF government reestablished the long defunct awards ceremony for artistic and literary achievements. The award, which was officially sponsored by the government, had ambitions plans to make the awards a permanent fixture of public life. However the awarding institution’s existence was short lived as it stumbled and fell after two or three years due to financial constraints that made it difficult to turn the awards into a permanent institution.
With change in the function of arts and literature, the awards vanished altogether following the introduction of a new line of thinking known as “developmental art” by the authorities. This killed all remaining initiatives for creativity and artistic excellence. ‘Developmental art’ was not a new philosophy or ideology. It was a kind of perverted version of the old socialist realism philosophy in arts and literature that was encouraged by the previous self-proclaimed socialist regime.
“Art for art’s sake” was then denounced as bourgeois or reactionary. The purpose of art and literature should be to promote class struggle and portray working class heroes who were building an egalitarian society that was only a figment of the imaginations of so-called revolutionaries. The last official award of medals and certificates for veteran artists and writers is therefore the latest official event that the government sponsored.
The ultimate question remains whether artistic and/or literary awards contribute to the development of culture. The answer is yes, they do. Awards of merit granted to artists, writers, journalists and in other fields of endeavor indeed encourage and inspire others to excel in their respective fields. The Grammy Awards for best music, the Pulitzer prize for journalism in the United States as well as awards at the annual Cannes festival for best performing artists are very old events that have contributed to the emergence of talented artists that promoted the respective industries, bringing prestige, respect, honor as well as prize moneys to the award winners.
In Ethiopia, the national award system is still at its early stage although more than half a century has passed since the Haile Selassie prize foundation was established and later on disappeared under the pressure of revolutionary events back in the 1970s. Nevertheless, occasional awards for best achievements in the fields of arts and literature have brought many artists to the limelight and made their contributions recognized by the public. Young and aspiring artists were often inspired by these events.
As a consequence, the publishing and film industries have also gained a great deal from these activities. It would therefore be relevant to make the awards permanent and institutionalized in the coming years. Artistic awards may not create geniuses but the fact that they encourage and inspire the available pool of talents and promote good culture is an incontrovertible and highly significant fact.
It may be difficult or impossible to restore the defunct Haile Selassie awards foundation. Yet, a new kind of institution with similar objectives can be set up with money granted by the government or philanthropists. Those who ran the institution should be distinguished for their integrity and high moral standards and devotion to the cultural renewal of the nation.
However, an important point needs to be raised in this context. The problem with the selection of awardees might be suffering from some shortcomings. Those who are nominated to select the potential winners should be highly disciplined, committed, neutral and knowledgeable people. They should have no connection whatsoever with the artists to be selected for specific awards. They should also responsible for none other than their own consciences and moral standards. In this way the awards might be free from all sorts of allegations, suspicions and distrust. This is the basic lesson that the cultural authorities should learn from the recent incident.
The Ethiopian Herald August 11/2021
