CREATIVES CONGRESS MOVEMENT (CCM)
FOUNDING STATEMENT:
RECALLING the artistic excellence that emancipated African people through the revolutionary victory of the Harlem Renaissance;
REAFFIRMING the outcomes and resolutions of the 1998 African Renaissance Conference held in Johannesburg, South Africa;
REAFFIRMING our lineage to the African heroines and heroes who redefined and reclaimed Africa’s historic relevance and excellence, as inscribed in the Timbuktu and Mapungubwe manuscripts;
EMBRACING the relevance and progressive vision of the African Union Agenda 2063, especially as articulated in Aspiration 5;
INSPIRED by the artistic conviction of heroines and heroes who founded, spearheaded and achieved the mission and vision of the Amandla Cultural Ensemble; and
CONVINCED that the World will be a liveable and peaceful place to coexist through the promotion of friendly cooperation relations, anchored on Cultural Diplomacy;
WE HEREBY COMMIT to the:
Creatives Congress Movement, in short CCM, founded to fundamentally achieve the vision and mission of building a mass based organ that mobilises and organises creative people in South Africa and across the World; to define, consolidate and defend their political, economic and social interests and agenda with the aim of advancing South Africa’s National Interest throughout the Continents of the World.
The Creatives Congress Movement is organised across all provinces of South Africa, prioritising creative people in marginalised corners of society. The CCM membership is made up of individual creative practitioners and sympathisers, who have affiliated and exercise their respective constitutional rights of FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION. Any creative person seeking membership of CCM must have shown the interest and will, through their creative works, to support and deliberately grow South Africa’s creative consciousness and creative economy; anchored on a clear creative political ideology that is expressed through creative wisdom, consciousness and power of craft and creative works.
Cognisant of the harsh lived experiences amongst creative practitioners in South Africa, spanning over 26 years since the dawn of a democratic South Africa, the CCM works collectively with all creatives to challenge the status quo in order to tilt the balance of forces to the benefit of the creative industries; looking forward to the next 26 years and beyond. It is an open secret that the power and influence of creative practitioners has been used and abused to defend narrow political interests of various organisations; instead of advancing the creative industries’ socio-political and socio-economic interest and transformation. In many an experience as a result, the abuse of creative practitioners, for narrow political interests, has divided the citizenry along political lines; which consequently has had a direct effect on the livelihoods of creative practitioners; many of whom died paupers.
The CCM’s primary mission therefore, is to consciously organise creative industry practitioners across all levels of activism and professionalism; and provide support in creating organised activists platforms that ensure unity of purpose amongst creative practitioners. These organised platforms strengthens the solidarity and drive the agenda of building a commonly agreed creative industry political, economic and social ideology and agenda amongst creative people of South Africa and beyond. Furthermore, these organised platforms enables creatives to choose and advocate for a socio-political and economic path that is beneficial to the creative industries in influencing South Africa’s social and economic transformation discourse and leading the national creative industry agenda.
The CCM believes that the creative people, practitioners and sympathisers need to hold hands and unite in a mission of building a common socio-political and socio-economic ideology and agenda. Through a solid and strong foundation built on the founding of the CCM, there is a high possibility that the creatives can take over the responsibility of leading the creatives political consciousness that can contest for political hegemony in South Africa; anchored on a highly active CCM membership that works tirelessly to grow South Africa’s economy through the immense contribution from the creative industries and its practitioners.
The key and deliberately structured interventions to grow the influence of the CCM have a directed focus towards strengthening the activism and professionalisation of the creative communities of practice, and subsequently prioritise the deployment of these communities of practice to support and nurture young creatives in schools and universities. These interventions are a clear expression to South Africa that the CCM is the long awaited home for South Africa’s creative masses. CCM is the home for all creative people and practitioners to consolidate a united voice that advances the creatives political, economic and social interests, which will in turn preserve and protect the creative commodity gains for posterity.
The CCM advocates for the total inclusion of creative industry practitioners in mainstream political, economic and social discourse landscapes, wherein the future of South Africa is discussed and debated. This is meant to ensure that the creative industry practitioners are never let tin the peripheries of mainstream national discourse that defines the developmental trajectory of South Africa. The CCM will represent and lead the agenda of creative industries and its practitioners and ensure that the creative commodity is preserved and protected from alien subjugation.
CREATIVES CONGRESS MOVEMENT FUNDAMENTALISM
(Strict adherence to the basic principles of the creative discipline)
* To preserve and protect the only commonality that has the potential of growing South Africa’s economy, and that is, the creative industry;
* To consolidate, lead and defend the creative industries’ political ideology and agenda in South Africa and beyond;
* To unite the creative industry practitioners on clearly defined creative industry political, economic and social fundamentals that will drive South Africa’s National Interest;
* To shape the creatives political consciousness and construct a common political ideology influenced by the historical victories of the Harlem Renaissance and Amandla Cultural Ensemble;
* To evaluate the creative industry’s political ideology and consciousness, so as to compete at an equal level with other political ideologies that currently defines South Africa’s narrow political landscape;
* To actively strengthen the creative industry’s political ideology to be a catalyst for the formulation of laws, policies and professional standards that are responsive to the transformation and welfare of the creative industry and its practitioners respectively;
* To position the creative industry’s political ideology to be the main driver of South Africa’s economic growth;
* To build and support the creative industry socio-political formations at local, regional, provincial and national levels, with the aim of venturing into World territories;
* To strengthen the levels of professionalism within the creative industries, anchored on a creatives’ political consciousness that is fundamental to building solid and sustainable creative industries and economies in South Africa;
* To lead the formulation and administration of laws and policies that are advancing the transformation and developmental agenda of the creative industries and practitioners at all levels;
* To content national, provincial and local government political representation in order to lead the agenda of the creative industry across all levels of political strata, including in international multilateral platforms;
* To continuously review, refine and align the CCM fundamental political, economic and social agenda based the pull and push progressive factors defined by the rapidly changing realities of World geo-politics;
* To embrace and spread the message of unity and love amongst the creative peoples of the World; and provide assurance that creative practitioners are FREE to practice their calling without prejudice;
* To organise the creative industries along clearly defined political fundamentals, which goes beyond the current limitations of the narrow political landscape in South Africa; and
* To encourage for self-reliance in building solidarity amongst creative practitioners in South Africa and beyond, with one common mission of LEADING THE WORLD.
The CCM continuously advocates for a Declaration that must unite the creative industries and its practitioners, to solemnly declare that:
“We, the South African first class citizens in the creative industries, will ensure that the creative industry laws and policies intended to transform the lives of all creative practitioners, are formulated and administered by the creative practitioners themselves across all sectors of society; be it in government, private sector or civil society”.
This Declaration will effectively STOP the abuse of creative practitioners by GOVERNMENT, POLITICIANS, CORPORATES and the GATE-KEEPERS within the creative industries.
CREATIVES CONGRESS MOVEMENT MANTRA
“Define, Consolidate, Own and Defend the Political, Economic and Social Interests of Creative Practitioners in South Africa”
HASHTAG#