In 1972 a young woman living in England, just out of school and waiting to go to university, travelled to Zambia to work as a volunteer teacher at a mission school. She returned home to England via South Africa, catching a boat from Cape Town to Southampton. She only spent a few days in transit in this country, but was so horrified by what she saw here that by the time she landed in Southampton she had determined to dedicate herself to the anti-apartheid struggle.
She threw herself into the cause as an undergraduate, married a South African exile and together they moved to Mozambique where they were recruited into African National Congress special operations. They risked their lives travelling across the border into South Africa, carrying weapons, planning transport routes and identifying targets for Umkhonto weSizwe. Her marriage broke down and, when her mentor and teacher was murdered by South African agents, she married the dead woman’s husband, thereby placing her life once again on the line because he happened to be one of the icons of the struggle and probably more hated by the apartheid regime than any other.
Helena Dolny does not talk much about these events, because it is not her style. The daughter of a Polish father and a Czech mother who met as wartime refugees, Dolny was brought up with a social conscience of a kind which allows little room for self-aggrandisement as well as little patience for fools. Truth to tell (and ironic as it may seem, considering she is Joe Slovo’s widow), she is not a particularly political person.
An outstanding economist, her real interest is in exercising that talent for the benefit of the new South Africa. Over the last couple of years she has succeeded brilliantly, through the remarkable reform of the Land Bank of which she is chief executive. Her ambition is to consolidate that achievement. She is being handicapped in doing so by a transparent smear campaign mounted out of apparent malice by a man, Bonile Jack, whose contributions to the anti-apartheid struggle seem to have been limited to corrupt service in the administration of a puppet dictatorship created by the apartheid regime.
An independent inquiry, instituted by the Land Bank’s board, has made it clear that they have found no evidence of improper behaviour on Dolny’s part. As reported in this edition, that view has now been confirmed by a high court judge.
It has become clear that at the bottom of this affair was a smear campaign of the worst kind. Dolny’s critics, having failed to “put up”, should now “shut up”. To demand an apology to Dolny from Jack would be to dignify him with expectations of which he is unworthy. But an apology is certainly due from the board of the Land Bank whose betrayal of their chief executive has been a betrayal of the ideals which Dolny herself bravely championed. Ideals which we believe to be the foundations of our society.
A great farce
At the weekend the SABC ran a full-page advertisement in the country’s Sunday newspapers, pronouncing itself to be “a great success”.
A close reading revealed that this finding was not a tribute from their peers, but a “submission” by “two members of the Board” whose identity is not disclosed. No explanation was offered as to why they wished to be anonymous (shame is one possibility which inevitably springs to mind), or why the other 10 members of the board failed to join in this orgy of self- congratulation.
It has been reported that the advertisement was placed by “senior management” at a cost of nearly a quarter-of-a-million rand. This being the SABC, we can assume that licence-holders will be footing the bill, rather than the two anonymous board members, or the said members of “senior management” who also failed to identify themselves in the advertisement.
Needless to say, the shield of anonymity was not extended to the targets of attack in the advertisement. Again, needless to say, the Mail & Guardian was the prime target, this newspaper being accused of making “premature and hysterical outpourings and inaccurate statements” as well as lacking “true commitment to proper investigative journalism” and harbouring “possible malicious intent”.
This sort of language is normally actionable as well as execrable. But the credibility of the SABC is such that it would no doubt be extremely difficult to persuade a court that its pronouncements are capable of being damaging to anyone’s reputation.
To the extent that the ad can be understood, the gripe which its authors seemingly nurse against the M&G relates to our disclosure – more than three months ago – that auditors had reported evidence suggesting serious irregularities in commissioning, but that management was sitting on the allegations. We later named those accused as the head of SABC TV, Molefe Mokgatle; the head of communications, Thaninga Shope; and Prince Phaweni, head of marketing.
On Tuesday this week, two days after this bizarre attack on us, the SABC finally announced they were taking action … by formulating “disciplinary” charges.
AS PRESENTLY CONSTITUTED THE SABC OFFERS A USEFUL SETTING FOR A SITCOM. BUT IT IS HARDLY FIT TO BE THE NATIONAL BROADCASTER.