The role of the black press in the struggle is largely a myth

COMMENT

Almost 40 years ago the apartheid regime mounted its assault on the freedom and integrity of so-called black newspapers.

In 1977, the government silenced the World and Weekend World, which were mistaken for revolutionary voices simply because of the skin colour of the staff and the market they catered for. Some of its senior journalists, including the editor, were detained without trial.

Although the public misunderstood this as confirmation of the newspapers’ radical political nature, there has long been a need to closely re-examine and put into perspective the role and relevance of black newspapers in the struggle for freedom.

Even though some black journalists were harassed, it would be misleading to bestow the status of being unsung heroes of the struggle for liberation on all or even most black editors and journalists.

To a large extent, black newspapers were primarily instruments of a systematic agenda calculated to soften or dilute political consciousness among their readers. It was a mistake, or a result of limited historical knowledge, to assume that a small number of their staff was in the vanguard of the struggle and were stirring up radical militancy in their communities.

A critical examination of the lives of black editors in the 1970s and 1980s, for instance, quickly reveals they were not necessarily the hard-core political activists they made themselves out to be.

The apartheid intelligence regime that was responsible for banning the publications was not only out of touch with the realities on the ground but their decision was also not based on any track record of papers such as the World playing a role in heightening political consciousness among their readers.

When the World was banned in 1977, big business quickly had to reinvent a substitute that would be a suitable vehicle to tap into the sleeping giant that was the black market.

It was in this context that the strategy was developed to sponsor the transmogrification of a popular knock-and-drop into a mainstream publication that would rise in stature, influence and power.

Perhaps in its own unique way, the story of the Sowetan, particularly, represents an important milestone in the struggle for self-determination and freedom of thought and expression. Instead it punctuates the sad history of the constraints on the black media and its journalists to articulate the hopes and aspirations of the African majority.

The banning of the predecessor to today’s Sowetan happened 39 years ago.

There is no doubt that a few politically conscious black journalists, in their role as self-appointed custodians of freedom of expression, have exercised a powerful influence in giving expression to the African majority’s demands for freedom and democracy. Sadly and predictably, this has been and will be fleetingly brought into focus when we again observe what has come to be known as Black Wednesday.

The stature and power of black journalists has not grown in the past four decades, and there will always be a need to critically examine and debate the claims that black journalism either served a political agenda or was founded to pursue the commercial interests of its owners. This distinction is important to place the role and responsibility of black journalists and media into their proper context.

Significantly, the Sowetan and its predecessors – the Bantu World, the World, Post and the Mirror – were not African conceptions, or even under African ownership or control. The publications were largely the result of the colonial agenda to spread and co-opt Africans into Western thought and lifestyle. Their purpose, essentially, was to dilute anything that was an expression of African radical heritage, history and culture.

What this means is that these publications and their black journalists were, in essence, imitations of European thought and cultural patterns. They were, and remain, vehicles to entrench Western intellectual domination through the creation and promotion of African elites.

For example, the Bantu World was founded by a white former farmer, Bertram Paver, who obviously had neither a noble intention to propagate African radicalism nor a desire for Africans’ self-determination and independence. Not only did he desire the newspaper to be predominantly in English but he also wanted it to propagate news from the standpoint of how Westernisation benefited Africans.

Although Africans owned a 50% stake of the newspaper, only seven out of 20 pages were in indigenous languages, thus encouraging the marginalisation of African languages.

The first generation of editors and journalists in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s were highly educated and Westernised African men, who enjoyed prestige among their African readership because they were representatives of the white man’s way.

Over the decades, these black editors, including Richard Victor Selope Thema (1932 to 1952), Jacob Nhlapo (1953 to 1957) and Manasseh Moerane (1962 to 1973), were increasingly dependent on white editorial directors who guided and shaped their political orientation and outlook.

Thus, from the beginning, the black press, its journalists and editors, were created and controlled by white money to propagate a white perspective and create an African middle class alienated from its own history, heritage and experiences.

After the banning of the liberation movements in 1960, for instance, the black newspapers did not step into the political vacuum because their primary concern was to make profit and, at the same time, depoliticise the African population through an overcautious editorial policy.

It was into this political void that students such as Steve Biko and Barney Pityana stepped to popularise the philosophy of the Black Consciousness Movement and mobilise the black community.

African journalists who worked for publications such as the World and Post were largely conservative types, who espoused the liberal philosophy of gradualism and were reluctant to embrace or reflect black consciousness.

But this did not stop journalists such as Bokwe Mafuna and Harry Nengwekhulu, for instance, from organising them into a politically conscious formation that awakened their political commitment.

To a large extent, black journalists were ensconced in middle-class aspirations, lifestyles and outlooks, which confined them to reporting on nonpolitical stories that emphasised sports, entertainment, crime and “society”.

They conformed to the role that was prescribed by white editorial directors, who were more interested in using the newspapers to tap into the black market than in waging political battles to liberate the country.

The dramatic change of attitude happened with the rise of Biko and the rumbles of discontent among students in Soweto in the early 1970s with the introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.

As much as Percy Qoboza (1964 to 1977) was an outspoken critic of the apartheid regime, he functioned under strict white editorial control. Thus when the paper was banned in 1977, only to be resurrected as Post in 1981, Qoboza was forced to resign for reasons that may have been linked to his being “uncontrollable”.

But he was a black liberal who knew how to work within the system.

It is not incorrect to say he epitomised a new phenomenon of a growing struggle-consciousness among young and courageous journalists, who had been banned or imprisoned, including Phil Mthimkhulu, Zwelakhe Sisulu, Mathatha Tsedu, Joe Thloloe, Thami Mazwai and Aggrey Klaaste.

They may have won the battle but not the war to steer the role of black journalism from a market-oriented, profit-making strategy to one of political activism.

Most owners of the newspapers that largely attracted a black audience, including those of the Rand Daily Mail, were opposed to the notion of using their publications to express support for banned organisations such as the ANC and Pan Africanist Congress, or to articulate political views.

The black press was mainly a vehicle not only to create a black middle class that would be a buffer between white economic control and the poor African majority, but also to open opportunities for white business in the black market through sensational stories and misguided politics.

Significantly, the first editor of the Sowetan, Joe Latakgomo, was a sports writer whose beat presumably posed no threat to the political regime. Many editors and senior writers were forced to ignore politics and re-adjust to promoting entertainment, sports, general news (crime, sex and scandals) and small business.

The media continues to use sports as an opium of the people. Editors and senior writers in the black press and mainstream media continue to be expected to conform to the interests of capital and thus protect and preserve the unjust economic capitalist system.

More often than not, the editorial controllers were inclined to be hostile to any African journalist who used the newspaper for political purposes. For instance, any journalist who called for the return of the land, redistribution of wealth or condemnation of racism, and challenged economic inequality, faced serious consequences.

The fact that men such as Qoboza, Klaaste, Thloloe and Mazwai were once part of the black press’s evolution and history does not absolve it of its role in being an instrument for white business to tap into the black market.

Today, the black press has what can be considered an ambivalent relationship with the government, for instance, which raises serious questions about its role in the development of an African state.

Sandile Memela is a writer, cultural critic and public servant. His book, His Master’s Voice, deals with power dynamics in newsrooms. It was published by Mamelang Publishers in May 2012