CHRIS FREMANTLE

Chinua Achebe‘s lecture  on Nigeria, politics and the role of the artist at Cambridge University’s Centre for African Studies, reported in the Guardian:

“We have endured a terrible failure of leadership – not just individuals, but a whole class of potential leaders, from which I do not absolve myself. The role of the intellectual is difficult. We should live by what we preach and we should speak out. In that way we always seemed to be superior to our former western leaders. For them, writers and painters just had to write and paint and keep out of politics. Leadership in all its forms is a sacred trust in a democracy, almost like an anointed priesthood.” Guardian 13 Dec 2010

See also Ken Saro-Wiwa’s comment on the nature and purpose of art.