Defend Truth

Opinionista

It’s time to free South Africa’s journalists from shackles of coloniality

mm

Busani Ngcaweni is Director-General of the National School of Government, South Africa.

Perhaps SA should seriously consider introducing a black journalists empowerment programme prioritising the reconstruction and correction of epistemological foundations of their craft and thought processes. For far too long we have witnessed epistemicide (annihilation of our knowledge and value systems) and it is time we freed our brothers and sisters: black journalists matter!

At the level of epistemology, this article calls for a collective effort to liberate black journalists from the neo-colonial locus of enunciation or, to put it simply, from an apartheid point of reference. In the realm of the political economy, it argues for the overhaul of the media industry to free our scribes from economic blackmail which threatens their livelihood to the extent of making them mere conformists with no agency, no original pro-African story to tell.

These calls were prompted by the article by the editor of The Citizen in which he owns up to the miseducation he has suffered in the past 12 years that caused him to believe what the white media wanted him to think and write about the President Jacob Zuma. He has been a willing askari in the neoliberal offensive even though his very blackness kept him firmly in the zone of subjectivity. When sales go down, his competence is questioned. Whereas for their white counterparts, dropping sales are attributed to market conditions.

This is the story of many black editors. They can strut about with machismo shouting “media freedom!”, “transparency!” “accountability!” but everyone knows that whiteness determines what goes into newsroom notebooks.

The essence of The Citizen editor’s apology to Zuma is that in court you are innocent until proven guilty. In the media you are guilty until proven innocent.

I suspect the source of this existential crisis is coloniality: our scribes are predisposed to whiteness – not necessarily colour but the state of mind and point of reference.

Our journalists are products of Euro-American modernity which treats everything black as suspect and inferior. They write stories to please their white masters – media owners and advertisers. Most black journalists have no views of their own, as far as their marginal economic position circumscribes.  

Part of the problem is that most schools of journalism do not teach African history and philosophy – as if other humanities faculties do!

As a result, most black journalists are ideologically and epistemologically dislocated.

Lied to by the liberal (conservative) establishment, they chase headlines, not trendlines. They win awards for that. Standards of affirmation are set for them by the establishment and it is up to them to conform, to fit in.

After all, they themselves are suspects, struggling to find their independence and original voice. Their tenure is never guaranteed unless they conform to the Eurocentric locus.

As for their white counterparts, like the one from the Sunday Times who plagiarised my tribute to Professor Bernard Magubane (need I say he was protected by the condescending black editor), the media is theirs so they don’t really have to be rigorous to secure tenure. They misspell our names shamelessly. They invent sources and phantom stories without consequence. They mock our culture same as colonial anthropologists did.

This is the nervous condition that requires radical psychological, philosophical and economic liberation. The call for epistemological justice has never been opportune.

Perhaps SA should seriously consider introducing a black journalists empowerment programme (BJEP) prioritising the reconstruction and correction of epistemological foundations of their craft and thought processes. For far too long we have witnessed epistemicide (annihilation of our knowledge and value systems) and it is time we freed our brothers and sisters: black journalists matter!

This BJEP should liberate our journalists from being mere technicians who chase headlines. They should become intellectual agents and activists with a progressive agenda founded on the principles and aspirations of African agency and liberation.

How many journalists read Valentin Mudimbe, Cheikh Anta Diop, Archie Mafeje, Govan Mbeki, Mzala Nxumalo, WEB du Bois, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ali Al’amin Mazrui, Mazisi Kunene, Ntongela Masilela, Lewis Nkosi and Phyllis Ntantala?

That is where the problem starts – I recall a senior member of the South African National Editors Forum asking: “Why is Frantz Fanon such a phenomenon? The guy is long dead.” And another political editor quipped in 2010: “I never really took an interest in OR Tambo until the controversy of the renaming of the Johannesburg airport.” Go figure!

Just think about it, do you truly believe that those novice political reporters in our newsrooms ever bothered to read the Constitution cover to cover? Needn’t we commiserate with those radio journos who mistake rudeness for rigor trying hard to copy CNN and BBC anchors?  

As for commentators like Prince Mashele who abuse media access by penning diatribes such as the recent tirade in which he concludes that Africans are backward because they transmit inferior knowledge by relying on oral tradition, there is only one logical conclusion: he ranks amongst the most illiterate of our time. He is not worth his salt. A lengthy response will canonise his nonsense so let us end it here and caution the editors against turning their papers into anti-black storyboards.

I submit that South Africa needs to urgently consider measures to liberate its journalists from the shackles of coloniality. DM

Ngcaweni is the editor of Liberation Diaries (Jacana Media), The Future We Chose (Africa Institute) and co-editor of Nelson Mandela: Decolonial Ethics of Liberation and Servant Leadership (AWP, forthcoming).

Gallery

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.