Media veterans recall October 19 1977

Here’s how two media stalwarts sum up the significance of the 30th anniversary of the bannings of three newspapers on October 19 1997:

Thami Mazwai

The day found me doing the rounds in Soweto for the World newspaper. I’ve been a journalist on the active side, never enjoyed journalism on other side of telephone. So I would go around and get stories for my 9am deadline. I found that people had been arrested, and called my news editor Joe Latakgomo about it. He said: “Come back, we no longer have a newspaper”. It hit me like a sledgehammer. It was unbelievable.

At the office people were milling around, one could not comprehend the situation. Later in the day, the police came to take our editor Percy Qoboza. That was the climax. Meantime, our Union of Black Journalists (UBJ) had been banned, and two of our members, Juby Mayet and Phil Mtimkulu went to the bank feeling that it was our money, not the government’s. That was another story, because legally then withdrawing that money was theft. They were charged with theft, and I got a subpoena under Section 205 because I was said to have seen them “steal”.

The Times made us look at the profession. The Black People’s Convention had challenged us as to whether we were journalists first, and black afterwards, or vice versa. Today, we need to look again at the profession. How do we define our role in a democracy, are we going to do what the British do — – undressing their politicians in public. Is it part of our culture? We cannot see ourselves as struggle media tearing government to pieces.

Joe Thloloe

When “Black Wednesday” fell, I was inside prison and didn’t even know what happened. Only about March the following year, a policeman came into my cell saying: “It’s a different world. Your Union of Black Journalists no longer exists, your Black Consciousness Movement is dead. The Black People’s Convention and Saso are gone. Biko is dead, Sobukwe is dead. He said it so casually. My immediate concern was: “How did they die?” He laughed and said he would not tell more. The following day, he brought me a Government Gazette with the bannings, saying: “You didn’t believe me. It’s a new world.”

Fast forward: The culminating moment was when our Parliament adopted this incredible document — the Constitution. For the first time, freedom of expression is guaranteed, freedom of the media. That for me was vindication. The Constitution, plus the honest practice of our press code, are what will protect us in these very wild days that we are going through.

(Mazwai is now CEO of Mafube publications and a board member of SABC; Joe Thloloe is the Press Ombudsman. The above remarks are excerpts of their remarks at the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism on October 17, ahead of National Press Freedom Day, October 19.