The apartheid order is best characterised as an authoritarian system rather than a totalitarian one. This important distinction highlights the total suppression of dissent in totalitarian fascism and Stalinism, in contrast to the restricted tolerance of opposition in apartheid South Africa. Some well-known universities, churches, NGOs and newspapers espoused heresies. Perhaps the repressive state even benefited from this limited freedom, because it obscured authoritarianism and legitimised the whites-only democracy.
In those institutional niches of progressive foresight outside nationalist indoctrination, a few politicians, clergy, academics and journalists of a remarkable calibre flourished. One of them is Gerald Shaw. During half a century he operated as a reporter in Pretoria, parliamentary correspondent, stringer for foreign papers and for the longest time as Cape Times political columnist and associate editor. His fascinating autobiography with the unfortunate theologising title Believe in Miracles (Ampersand Press) provides a telling picture of the trials and tribulations of a liberal newspaperman.
Unlike academics or judges who, once they received tenure could not be fired without serious cause, journalists operated under more than 100 media laws.
Their writing was subjected to daily scrutiny by a diverse but largely conservative readership. Without risking their career needlessly, journalists always had to balance their own moral convictions and integrity with the interests of their employers in profits and circulation: no easy task.
The few South African journalists I have known personally displayed a wide range of styles and political acumen in this difficult balancing act. Ken Owen was probably the most provocative, acerbic, sharp and incisive editor, who now in active retirement needs to write his own book on his rich experiences. Allister Sparks, often referred to as the doyen of the craft, ambitious and opinionated with good reason, could lecture in academia as a popular teacher. He has published several widely read serious books. So has Max du Preez, who made his name with his embattled Vrye Weekblad. Du Preez often shoots from the hip and offends easily, with his writing full of juicy gossip and is never boring.
Without the late Donald Woods and his friendship with Steve Biko, the latter’s horrendous killing would probably have received little attention. Stanley Uys, a thoughtful, gentle, soft-spoken former Sunday Times analyst, still writes an astute blog from London. Richard Steyn, an equally low-key but principled and consistent anti-apartheid voice in Pietermaritzburg, served as editor of the Natal Witness and later as editor-in-chief of The Star.
Benjamin Pogrund, of the Rand Daily Mail‘s famous exposure of prison conditions and impressive biographer of Robert Sobukwe, moved to Israel and continues political education by publicly dialoguing with Palestinians.
Raymond Louw, his former colleague at the Rand Daily Mail, still publishes the weekly Southern Africa Report, a solid newsletter the considered opinion of which many embassies use to report home. Tony Heard, the long-time editor of the Cape Times and friend of Shaw, can elaborate so agonisingly on the difficulties and merits of the President’s office that you have no choice but to sympathise with his self-inflicted predicaments.
All these characters come alive in Shaw’s book, because at one time or another he encountered or worked with them. Most irritated one another, but there is no indication that Shaw argues with them. He is too decent and modest to have enemies. To my taste, Shaw’s political commentary could be laced with more bite. He never goes out on a limb and expresses what the protagonist in J M Coetzee’s Diary calls ”strong opinions” within the broad liberal consensus. This is both his weakness and strength. Shaw’s accurate descriptions ensure him a wide audience without turning readers off by too partisan a stance on controversial topics.
Unlike his colleagues, Shaw’s style is measured and balanced, his judgements in his political surveys faultless. Like a hybrid academic, he unearths diplomatic cables to substantiate his political history.
Shaw’s grim description of the 1950s and 1960s contrasts like an old black-and-white movie with the colourful Mandela inauguration or the funny and celebratory portrayal of the 1989 Paris meeting with the exiled ANC at the invitation of Danielle Mitterrand, wife of then president of France, François Mitterand.
Reflections on progress and despair are intertwined with riveting stories, such as the 1966 assassination in Parliament of then prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd by Dimitri Tsafendas, which Shaw witnessed just after the killer-to-be served Shaw a sandwich in the press gallery.
The book’s merit lies beyond those intriguing stories and historic events brought alive. Shaw’s authentic account unwittingly contradicts the picture of the English press painted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Was the English press a force of opposition or a handmaiden of apartheid, compliant and appeasing, as the TRC asserts? The TRC account conflates the exclusively white and capitalist ownership of the press with conformism to apartheid, overlooking the divergent ideologies, interests and political strategies in this camp, known as the English opposition press.
The summary dismissal of the oppositional role of many journalists by the TRC is simply not true: ”The term ‘opposition press’, used to describe the English-language press, was a misnomer. Within this then bi-polar world, there was only one viewpoint propounded in the mainstream press and that was the capitalist perspective. Independent black, liberal, socialist and communist publications were either banned or folded under commercial pressure, while the so-called mainstream press prospered and grew” (TRC, Vol. 4, 173). Yes, then and now all major media operate under capitalist auspices. But were liberal and socialist publications ”either banned or folded”?
There is ample evidence that the state did not succeed in silencing anti-apartheid journalism. To be sure it is still debated whether the Rand Daily Mail folded for commercial or political reasons in 1985. Although a thorn in the regime’s propaganda armour, Anton Harber’s and later Philip van Niekerk’s courageous Weekly Mail continued to publish despite harassment. The even more combative Vrye Weekblad survived several attempts to bankrupt it with lawsuits.
As models of investigative journalism in an authoritarian order, the two weeklies became a must-read among all serious analysts during the 1980s. They also shaped the South African image abroad. The anti-apartheid movement has to thank these outlets for the exposure of Vlakplaas and the Civil Co-Operation Bureau or the Information Scandal earlier. The two weeklies were heavily subsidised from abroad and therefore were less subject to market forces than their mainstream competitors.
Shaw was one of those multipliers of liberal opinion. He cultivated a wide spectrum of academics from the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape — whether nationalists, liberals or communists — and opened his Cape Times to their musings, regardless of misgivings.
Few Afrikaans journalists broke with their nationalist background and wrote for the English media. Notable among them were Hennie Serfontein, who exposed the secret Broederbond membership in the Sunday Times and Chris Louw who worked for Die Suid Afrikaan. In the Afrikaans mainstream press equally few progressive editors stand out for their cautious criticism of the volk’s nationalist consensus: the late Schalk Pienaar, Ton Vosloo and later Tim du Plessis.
To be sure, the English media managers and owners, basically Anglo-American, should have promoted more black journalists earlier, handed over responsibility to black editors beyond the later ”township editions”, protected more vigorously the few black papers like The World when it was banned in 1977, and given more prominence to the liberation movements, beyond Tony Heard’s much publicised publication of an interview with then ANC president Oliver Tambo. With hindsight far less caution and self-censorship were called for.
However, from my experience during the heydays of emergency legislation, I doubt that Moegsien Williams, now editor of The Star, is correct when he argues that the opposition press confined itself to white sectarian politics only: ”They did not support the ANC, never articulated ANC policies, never wrote about the aspirations of the vast majority of South Africans, about their views, what they wanted, their need for a vote” (TRC, 4, 175). On the contrary, the prominence of the United Democratic Front, the ANC surrogate inside the country, was greatly assisted by coverage in the Cape Times and other Argus papers, through their extensive coverage of police brutality, rallies and protests, even if the papers’ owners might have felt uneasy.
South Africa is fortunate that in a less perilous period many black journalists continue this critical tradition of speaking truth to power. The unassuming Shaw in the modest portrayal of his life serves as a model of how journalists can inform and educate with exemplary professionalism and integrity.
Heribert Adam is professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and an annual visitor to the University of Cape Town. His latest book, co-authored with Kogila Moodley, is Seeking Mandela: Peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians (Temple and Wits University Press)
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