Yet the work we had time to study, and this was none the less quite a large body of writing, seemed to focus almost exclusively on culture as the expressive activity of mature people in settled and welldeveloped nations. We had to accept that many people in South Africa had been living in the midst of a lowkey but very vicious civil war. Many still do, in the KwaZuluNatal province. For such people, the promises of 'culture' in the form of art, dance, and poetry must simply seem to be luxuries. Most importantly, from the point of view of democracy, the things we can look at from this way of using cultural theory are precisely matters which are the business of local government.
Lines of communication extend as far as one's local municipal offices.
Finally, we believe that by adding the cultural dimension to the need for social service equity restores an element of concreteness. It starts with a constituency which is doing actual nurturing and looking after, who are the primary agents of culture in any culture.