‘Unveiling’ the sins of black editors

At the risk of sounding like a wounded old journalist, let me share a story about the forgotten hero of South African journalism, one Percy Tseliso Qoboza.

I, like most aspiring journalists in the 1970s and 1980s, have looked up to him as an icon and inspirational figure. In addition, he was a charismatic figure and controversial character who was fearless, resolute and committed to the truth.

He was the editor of The World, the Weekend World and Golden City Post before they morphed into the Sowetan and City Press.

I woke up last Saturday — on the day of his tombstone unveiling — to find he had pretty much become a forgotten figure. It seems that even editors and journalists in the African community do not know there was such a man.

Have we come to the end of history where African editors disconnect the present from the past? Perhaps in a small subtle way and this is what makes me nervous. And so I have chosen to show how Qoboza has been forgotten despite the fact that he is an example of this tragic development.

Who was Percy Qoboza, you demand to know?

I am pissed off that you don’t know your own history and its heroes. I feel terrible that this man who led The World and Weekend World — two so-called black publications that were at the height of the struggle for their coverage of the 1976 student upheavals and which reflected African aspirations –has been forgotten.

In his own unique way, PQ — as he was fondly known — had risen to become the most powerful African editor on the continent. He epitomised the true meaning of “speaking truth to power” and was thrown into jail for that with various attempts at his life and his family harassed.

In fact, the death of the former editor, public intellectual, community leader and opinion leader, was a historical event. It was tragic news that was greeted with profound sadness and shock. People suffered a deep sense of loss and the nation mourned.

I sometimes feel that his death marked a turning point in so-called black journalism. In fact, not only was it emptied of self-less visionaries but was plunged into a rapid decline that left it without a clear, self-determining agenda.

In 1985, when I first arrived at City Press to work under the man, Nelson Mandela was on Robben Island, Oliver Tambo was in exile, Steve Biko and Robert Sobukwe were dead, the ANC and PAC were banned and Thabo Mbeki was beginning negotiations with apartheid spies.

In short, the African majority had no leaders.

It was into this void that Qoboza – just like Winnie Mandela, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and Dr Nthato Motlana, for example — achieved the greatness which history thrust upon them.

PQ became the agent of change he wanted to see in his motherland. He not only was the ears and eyes of the African majority but the conscience of our society. And for that, he was widely respected as one of the outstanding leaders of his generation because he articulated the aspirations and hopes of his people.

But exactly 20 years after his death, it looks like he did not live in this country nor had a profound influence on journalism and the media in this beautiful land. There is no memorial lecture or website in his honour. There is no published collection of his writings despite the fact that he worked for two of the biggest media companies in the world, that is, the Argus Company (now Independent Newspapers ) and Naspers.

There is no monument in his honour.

He is not part of journalism history or a syllabus except for a little-known bursary scheme at Rhodes University. And yet this was a man whose thinking and writing shaped the way people thought, dreamed and imagined their future in a free and democratic society. Significantly, when Soweto students threw stones and changed the course of history in 1976, it was PQ who defined the act and gave them a political vocabulary to understand and explain the meaning of their actions.

The death of PQ has had a huge and almost continuous impact on the crisis of black newspaper journalism. My aim is not to criticise the decline in standards of so-called black journalism much as it deserves strong condemnation. Also, I am not interested in pointing an accusing finger at the people who have succeeded him at the Sowetan or City Press, two publications he took to great heights.

However, PQ remains relevant not because he was the voice of the people when Mandela was in jail but because he is, even in death, an outstanding example of the role and responsibility of an African journalist.

His death has always been controversial.

In fact, it has been touted as a case history of how effective the chemical warfare of apartheid death squads could — in a modern-day replay of the Greek tragedy of Socrates — poison leading thinkers who were considered a threat to the system.

Much as we understand that he died of heart failure, serious questions remain as to the exact causes of his death and no one knows the real answer to this day.

There is no doubt that when you look at the content of his irreverent and provocative “Percy’s Pitch” column, PQ is, for many people who know where they come from, a personal, intellectual and political icon.

In fact, he was one of the most outstanding visionaries and prophets of the new society — just like Biko, Sobukwe and, of course, Mandela.

But we seem to have blotted him out of our collective memory and banished him to the wilderness of forgetfulness. This is a serious indictment of today’s media leadership and management, especially so-called black editors at the Sowetan and City Press.

Where is our sense of history and continuity?

When journalists and other media professionals commemorate October 19 and observe apartheid’s onslaught against media freedom, there is no special mention of Qoboza.

If we are to be honest, PQ can be seen to be a victim of petty jealousy, rivalry, political myopia and infighting among black journalists.

Worse, the fact that he is almost forgotten shows lack of vision and how African journalists are disconnected from their own history.

If you go to the internet, there is not a single article by him or anything that has been written by a black journalist.

We are grateful that the family has erected a tombstone in his memory, presumably, without any contribution from the journalistic or media fraternity.

In fact, we should look at the complete blackout of commemorative news, articles and perspectives on PQ as an example of the self-damage that African people inflict on themselves.

And yet the existence of courageous, independent and free African editors and opinion leaders — that is, if they exist — is a reality today because PQ practised disobedience and set the example.

He did not cooperate with an evil system or feel comfortable in a racist, unjust and oppressive society.

We may be in danger of forgetting that it has become very normal not to acknowledge and recognise heroes like PQ in the new society. In fact, he may not even be a footnote in history.

Sadly, there are many young black journalists who have no clear idea of who PQ was or what he has done or represented. He may be dead 20 years from now. But his spirit lives in those who love African people more than they love themselves.

We must always remember that those who do not honour or remember their heroes are a lost people.

Like most African critical thinkers, I tend to have a defeatist attitude about the so-called black media: dismissing it as irrelevant or accepting that it has succumbed to vague market forces.

After all, in the last 20 years there is not a single black editor who has risen to the stature and height of Qoboza. The prospect of such an event happening in this century looks dim. There will be a great cost to this attitude of turning our back on a man of PQ’s significance, a cost that can be likened to acid rain falling on Freedom Day.