The Sowetan: Black faces, white thoughts

The story of the Sowetan newspaper, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, represents an important milestone in the struggle for self-determination, freedom of thought and expression.

In fact, it punctuates the sad history of the constraints on so-called black media and its journalists to articulate the hopes and aspirations of the African majority.

There is no doubt that in their role as self-appointed custodians of African aspirations and freedom, some politically-conscious black journalists have exercised a powerful influence in giving expression to the African majority’s demands for freedom and democracy.

Significantly this has been brought into special focus with the celebration of the three decades of the existence of a former knock-and-drop Sowetan, which has grown to be an influential publication.

However, there is a need to critically examine and debate the claim that black journalism served a political agenda or was founded to pursue the commercial interests of its owners.

This is an important distinction to place the role and responsibility of black journalists and media into its proper context.

It is important to note that the Sowetan and its predecessors – the Bantu World, The World, Post and The Mirror — did not develop under African conception or control.

The publications were, largely, the result of the colonial agenda to spread and co-opt Africans into the Western thought and lifestyle.

Their purpose, essentially, was to dilute anything that was an expression of African heritage, history and culture or articulate it from a Western perspective.

What this means is that these publications were, in essence, imitations of European thought and cultural patterns. They were vehicles to entrench Western domination through the creation and promotion of an African elite.

The Bantu World was founded by a former white farmer, Bertram Paver, who, obviously, had no noble intention to propagate African desire for self-determination and independence.

Instead, not only did he desire for the newspaper to be dominantly in English but wanted it to propagate news from the standpoint of how Westernisation benefitted Africans.

Though Africans owned 50% of the newspaper’s stake, only 7 out of the 20 pages were in indigenous languages, thus encouraging the marginalisation of African languages from the mainstream.

The first generation of editors and journalists in the 1930s, 40s and 50s were highly educated and Westernised African gentlemen who enjoyed prestige among the African readership because they were representatives of the white man’s way.

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

Thus from the beginning, a publication like the Sowetan was created and controlled by white money to propagate a white perspective and create an African middle class.

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

It was into this political void that young students like Steve Biko, Barney Pityana et al stepped in to popularise and mobilise the black community through the philosophy of Black Consciousness.

African journalists who worked in publications like The World and Post were, largely, conservative types who espoused the liberal philosophy of gradualism and were reluctant to embrace or reflect Black Consciousness.

However, this did not stop journalists like 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 lifestyles and outlooks that confined them to reporting on non-political stories that emphasised sports, entertainment, crime and “society”.

They conformed to the role that was prescribed by white editorial directors who had more interest in using the newspaper to tap into the black market than 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.

Much as Percy Qoboza (1964–1977) was an outspoken critic of the apartheid regime, he functioned under very 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 might have been linked to him being “uncontrollable”.

He epitomised a new phenomenon of 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 among others – for deviating from the market-oriented profit-making strategy to political activism.

The owners of the Sowetan were opposed to the notion of using the newspaper to express support for banned organisations like the ANC and PAC or articulating political views.

It was, mainly, a vehicle not only to create a black middle class but open opportunities for white business into the black market through sensational stories.

Significantly, the first editor of the Sowetan, Joe Latakgomo, was a sports writer whose beat, presumably, posed no threat to the political regime.

Editors and senior writers at the Sowetan were expected to conform to the interests of capital and thus protect and preserve the status quo.

Many of them were forced to ignore politics and re-adjust to promoting entertainment, sports, general news (crime, sex and scandals) and small business.

Although partly true, it is misleading to portray the history of black journalism or the Sowetan as primarily about being the custodian of African political aspirations and hopes.

It was an accident of history for a few of its journalists to have been subjected to detention, banishment and imprisonment.

Instead, it has to be understood that the Sowetan and its predecessors were not established to pursue what could be considered an authentic African agenda for political self-determination and liberation.

In fact, they were vehicles of white control and domination over African thought.

The owners did not subsidise the papers for black journalists to be freedom fighters but instruments that would be pivotal to the creation of a black middle class that would be a buffer between white economic control and the poor African majority.

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 faced serious consequences, if you like.

The fact that men like Qoboza, Klaaste, Thloloe or Mazwai were, once upon a time, part of the Sowetan’s evolution or history does not absolve it of its role in being an instrument for white business to tap into the so-called black market.

The Sowetan has an ambivalent relationship with the government, for instance, which raises serious questions about its role in the development of an African state.

But the claim that it was more of a political newspaper than a commercial institution on the side of capital needs to be debated.