February 28, 2011 – A decade since the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) was passed in South Africa, the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory asked what access to information and the representation of our history means within the context of the liberation struggle.
While the subject may yield more questions than answers, ongoing dialogue sessions hosted by the Centre of Memory will continue to provide a platform for such open discussion.
The first forum on these issues, held at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg on February 25, 2011, coincided with the launch of the exhibition, Remember Africa, on Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, which was convened by the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, the South African History Archive (SAHA) and the Robert Sobukwe Trust.
The exhibition was launched on February 24 with keynote addresses by author and academic Jacob Dlamini as well as Sobukwe’s son Dini Sobukwe, chairperson of the Robert Sobukwe Trust.
Panelists in the three dialogue sessions on February 25 included authors, academics, historians and senior journalists. An audience of over 130 included liberation struggle stalwarts, historians, politicians, dignitaries and members of the public gathered enjoyed a day of intense dialogue.
In his opening address, the Foundation’s Verne Harris explained the rationale behind the forum, and the naming of the dialogue sessions as “the secret”, “the taboo” and “the disavowal”.
Verne Harris
“We would argue that cultures of secrecy are pervasive in South African society, and that understanding this is imperative if we are to engage meaningfully with what is going on in Parliament, the Union Buildings and Luthuli House,” he said.
“Obviously there are many obstacles to accessing information in our society, ranging from lack of will to lack of resources, from deliberate obstruction to poor record keeping. But what are the dynamics of psychology, culture, organisation and association that resist transparency? Our focus groups have identified three: the secret, the taboo, and the disavowal”.
- The secret is the story one chooses to keep hidden. The choice might be conscious or unconscious.
- The taboo is the story one feels one has no choice but to keep hidden. Cultures of family, institution and/or society demand it.
- The disavowal is the story one chooses to disown, reject, marginalise or wash one’s hands of (such as, for example, the story of struggle icon Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, who many believe has been disavowed in recent history)
The secret
Terry Bell
Freedom of information activist journalist and author Terry Bell started by singing the lyrics to a well-known 1963 song: “Let me tell you a secret. Come closer, let me whisper in your ear.”
He went on to explore a distinction between two types of secrets – those that are private, and those that should be exposed. In Bell’s view, private secrets such as pin numbers and passwords exist for a reason, but he called for the eradication of secrets that if exposed would be of benefit to the public interest.
“People very much in the public eye, or those in high office, are the major promoters of keeping certain information top secret. But these people are our representatives, and they should work in our interest,” he challenged. “They have no business doing business behind our backs.”
Bell maintained that despite legislation engineered to protect the public’s right to know, the veil of secrecy surrounding parts of the liberation struggle is supported by politicians and bureaucrats throughout South Africa.
He recounted his experience in retracing the location of 34 “lost” boxes of documents that had “gone missing” after the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was presented in 1998. Bell claimed that a statement by the interdepartmental Archives Committee that there was an investigation into the whereabouts of the boxes was false. He believed that it had been engineered to keep him from asking questions.
“A society that supports open dealings is a healthy one,” he said in closing.
Jabulani Sithole of the History Department of the University of KwaZulu-Natal questioned the extent to which South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) is open to engaging with the past to free the story of liberation from secrecy.
Sithole recalled his interviews with a number of ANC veterans, who would wanted to tell him parts of their story “off the record”, which left him with an anthology of histories filled with blank spaces.
The younger veterans he interviewed, he said, had been trained to think in two compartments – about things you could talk about, and about things that were never mentioned. But, Sithole maintained, secrets are not known by just one person.
He cautioned: “We have the opportunity to consolidate democracy, we have the opportunity to strengthen the legislation that was passed years ago, but at the same time we have the option of sliding backwards towards a culture of secrecy and censorship.”
Prime Time anchor of eNews and newspaper columnist Nikiwe Bikitsha explored the theme of the secret via her encounter and subsequent reports about Brigadier Oupa Gqozo, the former military leader of the apartheid-created Ciskei ‘homeland’.
Gqozo was implicated in the killing of 28 ANC supporters and the wounding of 200 during a protest march on the Ciskei capital Bhisho on September 7, 1992. He eventually appeared before the TRC and declared his remorse for his role in what became known as the Bhisho Massacre and he was granted amnesty. But Bikitsha spoke of her reluctance to accept his remorse as sincere.
She spoke about her personal experience with Gqozo and why it took her six years to relate the story in the media. Her response to him as an individual left her feeling ashamed, “as one does, when things that were once hidden are exposed”.
Her analysis of the secret was this: “We have distilled the villain and the hero into clear lines of black and white that make us comfortable, but the battle was far more nuanced. Black people were co-opted into the system too, but we keep it a secret.”
Bikitsha maintained that there was no room for secrecy in society, even when it related to people’s private lives. “Questions need to be asked and answered – by the media. It is the media’s duty to reveal information.”
The taboo
Chaired by Frank Meintjies of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the second dialogue session was titled “the taboo”.
Carolyn Hamilton
University of Cape Town historian Carolyn Hamilton, opened this session by defining taboo.
“Taboo is a strong social prohibition based on a belief that whatever it is, it is too dangerous to undertake. To breech a taboo is considered to put the whole society at risk. But the question is, does it?”
Hamilton explored homosexuality as taboo and recalled the pronouncement by South Africa’s former Minister of Arts and Culture Lulu Xingwana that “homosexuality is not African” in response to artist and activist Zanele Muholi’s photographs depicting naked women embracing. Xingwana was reported as saying she walked out of the exhibition in March 2010 “because it expressed the opposite of social cohesion,” and because children were present.
“What is the dangerous social disorder that the breeching of a taboo [such as homosexuality] threatens to dissipate? Is it that the lifestyle challenges patriarchy?” asked Hamilton.
The solution, she suggested, is that taboos have to be named and recognised. They cannot be suppressed.
Mondli Makhanya, editor-in-chief of Avusa, and chairperson of the South African National Editors’ Forum, discussed various taboos.
Mondli Makhanya
“Will we forget about the contribution of other ideological strands to our liberation?” he asked, with reference to Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, the Pan Africanist Congress, the United Democratic Front and various voices of the liberation struggle other than that of the ruling party.
“Today we refer to March 21 as Human Rights Day not Sharpeville Day, writing out the involvement of the PAC [Pan Africanist Congress] from our country’s liberation history. We call June 16 Youth Day, not Soweto Day,” he added.
Other taboos, he said, include Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu as well as religious intolerance. He spoke about Mandela and Tutu -two national icons who are seemingly “untouchable” when it comes to “any negative media coverage” because the public prefers to look up to them rather than to render them human.
Speaking of religious intolerance, Makhanya used the example of South African cartoonist Zapiro, who will draw anything, but observes restraint when depicting Muslim characters or the Prophet Mohammed. Why? asked Makhanya. Because he fears the impact of his actions.
Sexual orientation has become a taboo subject because of the tyranny of political correctness. Ultimately we fear the consequences of engaging in a taboo that may be out of our control, he said.
Mmatshilo Motsei, author of the Kanga and the Kangaroo Court; Hearing Visions Seeing Voices and Find your Star and Live your Purpose, told the audience about her visit to Robben Island and the house where Robert Sobukwe was held. She recalled a deep sense of longing, of wanting to get out of the bus and enter his house to feel his spirit.
Mmatshilo Motsei
“But you are labelled crazy if you continue to fight for those ideals which are deemed no longer valid,” she said.
Motsei remarked that a taboo thrives on fear, a strategy not dissimilar to that employed by the oppressors of South Africa’s liberation.
She spoke specifically about a taboo that is violated “secretly but openly” by the greatest number of people, namely corruption, and asked: “Is there anyone here who can say they are immune?”
In her work with youth groups from rural Bushbuckridge in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province, she gained the insight that: “Those who hate corruption don’t hate it because it is wrong; they hate it because they cannot benefit from it.”
The disavowal
Frank Meintjies
Chaired by Meintjies, the third dialogue session – the disavowal – was opened by Kate Skinner, activist and chairperson of the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI).
Her take on the topic included a look at the so-called “blacklisting saga” of 2006 at the South African Broadcasting Commission (SABC) where journalists were prohibited from interviewing certain commentators and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) which did not adequately assist freedom of information activists with their enquiry into the matter.
“What happened? [then-South African President] Thabo Mbeki’s critics were apparently being banned by the SABC, which was brought to the attention of the public by John Perlman from SAfm,” she explained.
Kate Skinner
“Initially there was a positive response from the SABC, talk about a commission of enquiry and so on, but suddenly a lot of backpedalling began to take place that culminated in an official report on the issue never being released by the institution,” Skinner added.
Civil society’s efforts – with the help of the FXI – took the issue to court, said Skinner who added that the Gauteng High Court recently ruled that Icasa had to hold the SABC accountable to its mandate as the public broadcaster of allowing a diversity of views.
Ndumiso Ngcobo, a journalist, former teacher and author of the bestselling books Some of my Best Friends are White and Is It ‘Cos I’m Black? called for a focus on shared complicity when it comes to disavowal, and the disavowed.
“We love to ascribe uniqueness to that which is extremely universal,” he noted, saying that as humans we are not wired to accept ideas that are in dissonance with ideas we already believe.
He explored the theme of disavowal by talking about the songs of liberation. “They belong to everyone, why now is there a call for some songs to be sung, and others to be silenced?” he asked.
Ndumiso Ngcobo
“Race is a theme that is disavowed. When Afrikaans author Anele Botes goes on the record and says ‘I am racist, I am afraid of black people, and I am not afraid to tell you to your face,’ she is starting a national debate that could grow public discourse on race. But what did we do with the opportunity to have a very frank discussion about race? We punished honesty,” he added. “We tried to cover up what she said and made it a national farce.”
While he believed that debate in the public sphere still took place on a superficial level, Ngcobo said future dialogue sessions hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation would encourage real conversation and inquiry.
With the object of opening up discourse and exploring topics of discussion so pertinent to South Africa’s democracy and intellectual freedom, the Foundation promotes one of Mandela’s enduring legacies: That dialogue between people will reveal multi-layered realities that can be built upon and used to create a new framework for working together.