that the lasthonest whiteman is dead of racism haunt… · lenged. marcus garvey, a jamaican, burst...

Dispatches14 independentJANUARY 19 2014

THE SUNDAY

MORE THAN a cen-tury after its for-mation, the PanAfrican Move-ment was finallyhosted here in

South Africa on Tuesday, Wednes-day and Thursday last week. Thiswas the eighth Pan African Con-gress gathering since its formationin 1900 in London and the third onAfrican soil.

Formed at the instigation of aTrinidad lawyer, Henry SylvesterWilliams, Pan Africanism is aninternational movement of peoplesof African descent spread through-out the world.

America’s foremost sociologistand a pioneer of Pan Africanism,WEB du Bois, explained the raisond’etre of Pan Africanism at its inau-gural meeting: “The problem of the20th century is the problem of thecolour line, the question as to howfar differences of race – which showthemselves chiefly in the colour ofthe skin and the texture of the hair– will hereafter be made the basis ofdenying to over half the world theright of sharing to their utmost abil-ity the opportunities and privilegesof modern civilisation.”

The Pan African Movement wasthus formed to mobilise all peoplesof African descent against thescourge of racism throughout theworld and secure them equal treatment.

For close to 50 years of its earlyexistence, however, the Pan AfricanMovement was largely preoccupiedwith the plight of the African dias-pora. This was a reflection of thedominance of the diaspora. Du Boissingularly dominated the movementuntil the 1950s, organising all of itsfirst five congresses.

Du Bois’s Pan Africanist concep-tion, however, was not unchal-lenged. Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican,burst on to the American publicscene in 1915 to challenge Du Bois.Their rivalry cemented the two, con-trasting ideologies that had definedthe movement since the early 1800s.

Du Bois was an assimilationistand Garvey an exclusivist. WhereDu Bois believed that African-Amer-ican could assimilate intomainstream American society, Gar-vey countered that different raceswere irreconcilable.

Inter-racial habitation, accord-ing to Garvey, made racial conflictinevitable. To the sociologist DuBois, however, race didn’t deter-mine one’s culture. Racial mixingled to acculturation. So Du Boisinsisted on full rights of citizenshipin America, while Garvey agitatedfor the return to the motherland.“Africa for Africans” would becomehis slogan.

The rivalry, though lasting forroughly 10 years, simply reaffirmedthe diasporic focus of the PanAfrican movement in the first halfof the 20th century.

It is only after African national-

ism had spread and intensified thatthe PAC would pay equal attentionto the plight of continentalAfricans. The 1945 congress espe-cially, following as it did in the after-math of World War II, was inspiredby the promise of self-determina-tion. It was convened to agitate forthe realisation of that promise.

And, once decolonisation beganin the 1950s, so did the location ofthe congress move to the continent.Kwame Nkrumah, the foundingpresident of first independent state,Ghana, would host the initial PACon the continent in 1958.

The purpose was to devise waysto accelerate the liberation of otherAfrican countries and explore forg-ing unity among them as theybecame free. The subsequent con-gresses in Tanzania and Uganda, in 1973 and 1994 respectively, wouldensure that continental Africaremained central to the movement’sagenda.

What did South Africa do todeserve this splendid honour, youmay ask? Presidential remarksabout Malawi make this questioneven more appropriate. Kwesi Prah,a highly accomplished Ghanaian-born linguist, has something to do with it.

A respected Pan Africanist, Prahhas been the driving force behindthe eighth Pan African Congress,bringing together scholars andactivists from different regions ofthe diaspora to the most southern

tip of Africa. Prah’s commendable efforts

aside, it is befitting of South Africato host the eighth congress of PanAfricanism. Official uppitynesstowards Malawi belies a long andstrong tradition of Pan Africanismin our public consciousness.Although the movement wasformed in the diaspora, the ideaitself – awareness of, and identifica-tion with peoples of African descent– evolved locally. Its origin datesback to the 1860s and was articulat-ed by Tiyo Soga.

The first ordained and overseas-educated African priest, Soga wasresponding to racial prejudice by afellow missionary, John AitkenChalmers, who had lashed out that Africans were doomed tobecome extinct.

All this would happen, accordingto Chalmers, because the Africanswouldn’t respond to his pleas to con-vert to Christianity. Writing in theKing William’s Town Gazette edi-tion of May 11, 1865, Soga dismissedthe assertion that only a Eurocen-tric demeanour would guaranteenatives of perpetuity.

He pointed out the obvious his-torical fact that the African race hadlived long before its initialencounter with the missionaryenterprise, during which it hadexperienced many a challenge – andyet continued to live: “I find theNegro from the days of the oldAssyrians downwards keeping hisindividuality and distinctivenessamid the wreck of empires, and therevolution of ages. I find himopposed by nation after nation. Ifind him enslaved – exposed to allthe vices and the brandy of thewhite man. I find him in this condi-tion for many a day – in the WestIndian Islands, in Northern andSouthern America and in the SouthAmerican Colonies of Spain andPortugal. I find him exposed to allthese disasters, and yet living – mul-tiplying and never extinct.”

Soga’s contention heralded theonset of Pan African consciousnessthat would remain part of SouthAfrica’s imagination.

Various intellectuals would sub-sequently take up the subject at dif-ferent moments of our history.

In the 1890s, for instance,Hlonipha Mokoena tells us in herimpeccable book that Magema Fuzeenchanted his newspaper readerswith numerous articles informingthem about the common descent ofcontinental and diasporic Africans.

The young Langalibalele Dubeemerged in the 1890s as a staunchPan Africanist.

An American-trained priest,Dube was quite distrustful of mis-sionaries.

“There is a saying in mycountry,” Dube told his Americanaudience, “that the last honest whiteman is dead.” Dube pleaded withAfrican-Americans to return toAfrica: If the Zulus could see their

own sons and daughters actuallymaking and doing the great thingswhich they now think only thewhite man can do, and which havemade him appear to them as superi-or being, they would respect the reli-gion which could so exalt them.

From individual articulation,Pan Africanism found an institu-tional advocate in the independentAfrican churches in the 1890s.

South Africa’s African MethodistEpiscopal (AME) Church forgedlinks with its American counter-part.

The relationship saw a numberof blacks going to study in the US, adecision that was also forced onthem by denial of higher educationin South Africa. They would returnas disciples of Pan Africanism,some even shouted: “Africa for

Africans.” Racism continues to be a prob-

lem in the world. This monstrositypersists not only in Europe and theUS, but is present even in India, ourpartner in Brics. The Siddis, whoare of African descent, told theeighth PAC meeting of horrible sto-ries of racism at the hands of fellowcitizens and the Indian governmenton account of their blackness.

Brazil is an impressive examplethat racism can be overcome in thediaspora. Africans, wherever theyare, continue to be united by theircommon experience of racism todayjust as they were at the start of the20th century. Aluta continua!

■ Ndletyana is head of the Politi-

cal Economy Faculty, Mapungubwe

Institute for Strategic Reflection.

The Pan African Movement wasformed to mobilise all peoples ofAfrican descent against the scourgeof racism,writes Mcebisi Ndletyana

Scourge of racism haunts Africa’s diaspora

“THERE IS A SAYING

THAT THE LAST

HONEST WHITE

MAN IS DEAD

AFRICA FOR AFRICANS: Marcus Garvey in military uniform as the ‘Provisional President of Africa’ during a parade onAugust 1922 at Lenox Avenue in Harlem, New York City. According to the writer Garvey burst on to the American publicscene in 1915 to challenge Du Bois, arguing that different races were irreconcilable. PICTURE:AP

Transformation at a standstill,and media double standards at play

THE REDEPLOYMENTof former Cape Timeseditor Alide Dasnois,which seemingly result-ed in her departurefrom the newspaper and

the controversy that followed, hasonce again exposed the double stan-dards with which issues areaddressed in South Africa.

I don’t profess to be an expert onissues pertaining to free speech andfreedom of the press but I simplywish our doyens of these greatvirtues of our constitution would beconsistent.

Almost 10 years ago, veteranjournalist, Mathatha Tsedu wassummarily dismissed from his postas the first African editor of theSunday Times.

Let me also declare, upfront, thatI am a former Sunday Times colum-nist and had there been another edi-tor I could have used to argue mycase, I would have.

Initial reports from Johnnic Pub-lishing, the holding company thatowned Sunday Times, Business Dayand other media organisations, saidTsedu’s dismissal emanated fromirreconcilable differences.

Under pressure to explain them-selves following Tsedu’s version ofwhat had brought about his down-fall, the organisation released astatement to the effect that the edi-tor had been fired due to poor per-formance.

Tsedu, the multi-media companyannounced, had failed to “edit thenewspaper in a manner consistentwith his contract of employment.We are committed to quality”.

The statement further noted howTsedu had failed to maintain thepaper’s target market of “LivingStandards Measures (LSM) cate-

gories 6 to 10 in South Africa andSouthern Africa, and is profitable”.

And as a result of his failure toattract, or at the least, sustain thismarket share, Tsedu had to go, thestatement said.

“Mr Tsedu's failure to meet theserequirements has resulted in both aloss of circulation and of readers ofall races in our key target audience.In terms of circulation, the SundayTimes has sold an average of 5 600fewer copies a week over the past sixmonths than it did in the same peri-od last year (excluding bulk andsponsored education sales). Thishas resulted in circulation revenuebeing R1.7 million behind budget.We are committed to our sharehold-ers.”

I bring your attention to thepaper’s declaration of its commit-ment to shareholders and I ask you,the reader, if that commitment doesnot implicitly compromise editorialindependence.

If you’d ever thought newspa-pers were anything but a business,pay attention to the fact that Tseduwas dismissed for failure to retainLSM 6 to 10 who are the middle andaffluent classes. But ultimately

Johnnic’s statement said Tsedu hadbeen fired for a loss of sales.

This organisation unashamedlydeclared that they were about prof-it for the shareholder.

Did anyone at the time questionthis business principle?

Unless memory fails me, I don’trecall there being a question forJohnnic to answer on this basicbusiness principle. All those at thehelm of orgnisations must deliver aprofit for the shareholder or go.That’s how business works.

Tsedu, for his part, hit backaccusing the newspaper of ulteriormotives for his sacking.

He pointed to, among others, amemorandum that had been com-piled by the staff – made up ofwhites, Indians and coloureds – thathad pointed to their unhappinesswith his Africanisation of the news-paper.

The issue of the lack of a reflec-tion of an African perspective inSouth African media had been iden-tified in the South African HumanRights Commission’s report of 2000into racism in the media.

All industry stakeholders had, atthe time, committed to adopting this

perspective as part of their transfor-mation of newsrooms.

And indeed the Sunday Timespointed to its Africa edition in itsrebuttal of Tsedu’s accusations thathe was sacked for bringing anAfrican perspective to the newspa-per.

But was there ever a questionraised on whether there was truthin the claim that a bunch of employ-ees had tried to circumvent trans-formation in a newsroom which isas crucial to the sustainability ofdemocracy and a free press as edito-rial independence? I can’t recallsuch depth in the analysis followingTsedu’s dismissal.

Meanwhile, in another dimen-sion cited as the real reason for thedismissal, Tsedu had refused to pub-lish an article by the then SundayTimes senior political correspon-dent, Ranjeni Munusamy, in whichshe had claimed that the formerNational Director of Public Prose-cutions, Bulelani Ngcuka, had beenan apartheid spy.

Upon his refusal to publish,Munusamy had passed it on to rivalSunday paper, City Press, and hadresigned shortly thereafter.

It was alleged at the time that theshareholder was unhappy with Tse-du’s refusal to publish. He was laterexonerated when the Heffer Com-mission tasked with investigatingNgcuka’s spy allegations foundthem to be baseless.

To what extent was Johnnicforced to explain the link betweenthe refusal by Tsedu to publish thisstory and his subsequent dismissal?

And what of threats of a boycottof this stable on the basis of share-holders’ interference in editorial

policy? I again have no recollectionof such accusations on Johnnic.Fast forward to last year.

Dasnois is removed from herpost as editor of the Cape Times onthe basis that among others, the offi-cial statement read, like Tsedu shehad overseen the slump of sales ofthe publication.

As in Tsedu’s case, her support-ers allege that there is a sinister rea-son behind Dasnois’s redeploymentto another post in the newspaperand that the truth, they say, lies inan article published on the newspa-per’s front page which was unflat-tering of the paper’s shareholder,Sekunjalo.

Issues of transformation, as inTsedu’s case, are also cited.

The Cape Times had only whitesenior executives and Dasnois issaid to have been part of a group ofemployees who were against thesale of the Independent Group toSekunjalo.

Media ownership in SouthAfrica still remains largely in whitehands.

■ Khoabane is a writer, author

and businesswoman.

“MEDIA

OWNERSHIP IN SA

REMAINS LARGELY

IN WHITE HANDSPinky Khoabane