As I write this, I recall a comment made one evening in Tanzania in 1981 during a discussion about the known corruption in both the apartheid state and the ANC. Fellow exile, the late Hettie September, a bluntly outspoken trade unionist, communist and then secretary at the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (Somafco), thought that there was a possibility that the leaderships of the apartheid state and the ANC might negotiate a settlement.

Hettie felt that the apartheid government, weakened by an internal rebellion not under the control of the ANC, might need to seek a settlement. The ANC was clearly the internationally recognised alternative, but did not have the military capacity to defeat the apartheid state. A future, internationally approved “stitch-up” could be on the cards. A nasty shambles would result. “And if our lot gets together with their lot, I’m fucking off to Finland,” she said.

I conceded the possibility of a negotiated settlement, but argued that the emerging and militant union movement, combined with street-level organisation in the townships would be the counterweight: the beginnings of a new, democratic order would emerge. It might initially play second fiddle to the ANC, but would be the real hope for the future.

Hettie was not impressed. But, in the following years, Barbara and I became “licensed dissidents” in the ANC and talks began, prisoners were released and those of us who were banned were no longer silenced and were allowed to return home. Hettie came back before I did. She had, by then, remarried Reg September, an executive member of both the ANC and the South African Communist Party.

Read in Daily Maverick: “Reflections of a Wayward Boy – plenty of excitement in the air, but no revolution in the offing”

It was to Reg I turned when I discovered, shortly after arriving in Cape Town, that we exiles, registered by the ANC as refugees, qualified to have our flights home paid for by the United Nations. Nobody had informed Barbara and me. Reg admitted that this was the case. But he waved me aside with the comment: “You see what happens when you fall out with us.”

I also discovered, from other returnees, that we former exiles also qualified for a R400 “settling in” allowance from the UN. I applied, got it, and Barbara and I bought a slightly battered VW Beetle that made carting our mobile bookstall, mainly from campus to campus, a great deal easier.

It wasn’t much later that we “fell out” with the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and its local loyalist group, ending up being expelled “with 22 others” for effectively failing to obey instructions that we considered not only wrong, but imposed undemocratically. I argued our position only to be told by the SWP leadership that I made a fetish of democracy.

I readily admit that I consider democratic decision-making, when based on all available facts, together with respect for human rights, to be a cardinal principle. And it is one that I think should apply in particular to journalists as individuals who are supposed to seek out facts and to be the eyes and ears of the public at large, reporting without fear or favour. And, as human beings, acting accordingly.

Although it was obvious by 1996 that a sense of almost universal euphoria had ensured that the only serious political game in town was the ANC, I remained optimistic. This was especially so when the government turned its back on the ANC’s own macro-economic research group and similar policy proposals put forward by the combined trade union movement.

But amid only murmurs of dissent, including from the SACP, alliance unity prevailed: an apparently hastily cobbled together – and fundamentally free market – Growth Employment and Redistribution strategy was adopted.

The split never came. Perhaps because “national reconciliation” was also all the rage at the time with the decision to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who had initially been sceptical of “politicians involving themselves in the theological concept of reconciliation”, was able to square that particular circle and took up the chairmanship of the TRC.

My lawyer friend from the Transkei, Dumisa Ntsebeza, took over as investigations head of a TRC that seemed extremely unlikely to delve too deeply into the horrors of the past. And it certainly did not promise the justice many demanded.

Read in Daily Maverick: “Reflections of a Wayward Boy: Squatting on Hampstead Heath”

However, I eventually conceded that Dumisa was probably right in maintaining that the TRC was the best we could have hoped for in the circumstances. And it did flush out a great deal of the vile mess of the apartheid security state.

But with so much unfinished business left unexposed, I collaborated with Dumisa, Nelson Mandela’s other “wayward boy”. He made available access to the TRC documents and the result was the book, Unfinished Business – South Africa, apartheid and Truth, published locally by us and overseas by Verso in London.

Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations

However, it soon became evident that the intention in official quarters was that much of the unfinished business of the past should remain unfinished, buried beneath a sometimes smug veneer of reconciliation. It was also clear that the ANC demand that unity of the movement be a priority was also still solidly in place, along with the economic infrastructure and geography of the apartheid state.

Nelson Mandela’s long walk to freedom was clearly going to be an ultramarathon event if, indeed, it could ever be achieved. But at least we had freedom of expression constitutionally entrenched and this extended to media that, at least until 2014, were all considered fairly free and reliable.

However, signs of Hettie September’s predicted “shambles” were evident. Journalists could investigate, discover facts of malfeasance – and nothing happened. I feel particularly aggrieved that no action followed evidence of the culpability of apartheid president FW de Klerk in a massacre, or that the same non-action met such exposés as a massive driver licence scam 20 years ago.

But investigative journalism continues and books are being published detailing evidence of many prima facie cases. And there is some evidence of belated movement on the judicial front.

However, Independent Newspapers Limited (INL), the largest chain of English-language newspapers in the country, has also fallen into disrepute, publishing obviously biased – and sometimes what seems clearly fake – news while refusing independent scrutiny. However, a counterweight to this has emerged in the weekly Daily Maverick 168.

Read in Daily Maverick: “Reflections of a Wayward Boy: Setting up the primary division of Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College – chronicle of an ANC decline foretold”

The putative owner of INL since 2013 is Iqbal Survé, a medical doctor turned businessperson. His wholly false claim to have been Nelson Mandela’s doctor catapulted him to prominence. And his friendship with well-connected political figures apparently led to the government’s Public Investment Corporation, along with a Chinese company, making it possible to purchase INL.

Survé is highly litigious although his many legal threats appear to amount to what are known as Slapp suits – Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. In other words, legalistic efforts aimed to intimidate critics. I and News24 are now believed to hold the record for a (failed) defamation claim: R100-million.

That was because I discovered, wrote about – and News24 published – that much of Survé’s claimed and published background was fictitious. Everything, from his claimed rags-to-riches boyhood, to being a sporting legend, friendship with Prince (now King) Charles of the UK and, above all, his medical responsibility for Mandela was phoney.

That was only one of a number of memorable incidents in a tumultuous time in which so little – at a fundamental level – seems to have changed. Yet I still live in hope. However, having reached what many may regard as my dotage, it is hope for the next generation.

And at least I can now forsake the Boy label.

But I’m happy to remain wayward. DM