Veteran journalist Dr Thami Mazwai was honoured with glowing
tributes from fellow contemporaries at a recent luncheon held in his honour at
the SAB World of Beer Heritage Centre in Johannesburg September 12.
Boasting a sterling journalism career spanning more than 40
years, Mazwai has been recognizable figure and a leading light in the South
African media industry, local political landscape as well as an outspoken
proponent of black empowerment (BE).
An array of celebrated black journalists lined up to bestow
praises on Mazwai at the event, whose highlight was a decision to publish a
book chronicling the stalwart’s illustrious
career and other aspects of life as media activist and BE campaigner.
Welcoming guests, former City Press political editor Sello
Sekola paid tribute to the father of
Black Consciousness philosophy Steve Biko as well as media personalities and
journalists who recently went the way of
flesh – such as former City Press and Sowetan senior journalist Mike
Ndlazi, former World and Weekend World and Rand Mail journalist maSophie Tema
and Elizabeth Manana Ndulula, long-time editorial secretary at World, Post
Transvaal and Sowetan.
Mazwai-lifetime friend and veteran journalist Joe Thloloe
told the gathering that their association stretched to more than 50 years ago. Heremembered
recruiting students for the Pan Africanist Congress those days, including
explaining to Mazwai what Pan African stood for in the context of South African
politics and persuading him to join the liberation struggle.
Mazwai’s career as a journalist started 1969, having joined
the Golden City Post as a cub reporter at the time. He had been expelled from
the University College of Fort Hare the previous year. He was detained in June
1981 for interviewing one of the June 1976 student leaders Khotso Seatlholo,
after which he refused to give evidence and was sent to jail for 18 months - in
addition to the eight months already spent in detention.
He is the former news editor of Post and later Sowetan,
where he also served as Day Editor. He holds an honorary doctorate from Rhodes
University.
Other achievements include also being the owner of the
defunct Enterprise magazine; former director of small business at the Univesity
of Johannesburg and current resident executive at Wits Business School.
Thloloe, who went to prison for his political activities in
1963, recalls: "I came back from prison as a member of PAC ‘s Viljoenskroon
branch. Mazwai came back also come back from Robben Island as a journalist. Our
life after these experiences was to enrich sheeben queens. I drank just a bit. And
Thami had the same problem.”
Of course, drinking “just a bit” was a real understatement,
considering how journalists of the time lived for the bottle and often starting
their mornings almost goofy-eyed. Hardly surprising then that both Thloloe and
Mazwai launched their working careers right at the source of their drinking
troubles – at the liquor store.
Both would inevitably report for duty barely sober and much
less leave work in steady feet.
"From working for the municipality-owned bottle store,
we went on to become Data Capturers, and we both stopped drinking. Both later
joined The World and Weekend World, and got involved in the activities of the Union
of Black Journalists. It is very sad to see the Media Workers Association of
South Africa in the state it is now.
"We became targets of the system. We were detained and
tortured, and even today Mazwai is still in the forefront of that struggle of fighting
for the black community. He has being invited as a visiting professor for the
University of the Western Cape. He is still a brother to us and the black
community,” Thloloe summed up their parallel lives with nostalgia.
Former City Press Mathatha Tsedu said he came from the then
Northern Transvaal, now Limpopo province, reporting first for Post Transvaal
and later Sowetan under news editor Mazwai . Tsedu said the late Ndulula served
as a link between Mazwai and the newsroom at both papers. He said Ndulula, a highly
competent and empathic Dictaphonist, was
a great and ever-reliable help to journalist who filed from outlying areas as
she would step in to help with timely grammatical corrections during phone-in
sessions.
“I worked with Bra Thami in two ways, both as reporter and
as a fellow union activist at the Writers Association of South Africa. He came
to lunch at a union branch in Limpopo. The lunch happened at Dan Langa's house.
Thami became the treasurer of the union, and there was no holy cows during his
stint. The union used different means to access funds from the International
Federation of Journalists.
"The apartheid police banned meetings of WASA. Bra
Thami was very strict and would always question the role of liberals in the
struggle. I remember this very well. Mike Tissong was around that time in those
meetings. When Bra Thami wanted a story, you just had to deliver. I remember
the day Mosibudi Mangena being released
from prison. At the time, the release of a political activist from prison was a
big story. Thami wanted the story of Mangena’s release to be written as soon as
possible to ensure that Sowetan was not
scooped by other newspapers."
Tsedu recalled Mazwai saying that he had messed-up his front
page after he(Mathatha) was briefly detained and released the same day. Mazwai
fought for his salary to be paid while he was banned and in detention. Mazwai
was indeed at the forefront of the battles of black journalism.
Journalist-turned-entrepreneur Morakile Shuenyane said one
undeniable thing about Mazwai was that “he is a man of essence”. He said there were two factors which nurtured
Mazwai's life: "It is who you are
born. That is used to shape someone’s essence and the case of many people.”
Shuenyane said the other
key element was audacity, Mazwai was no doubt courageous. “ I remember the days
of the World newspaper when Thami used to say that he is writing a front-page
story and nobody in the newsroom would beat him for the cover of the front
page. He would boast that I am the man! Thami was first a Black man, second a
journalist."
Shuenyane praised Mazwai for changing Sawubona to a
publication of black business. He added that even Enterprise Magazine, a
business publication once owned by Mazwa, pushed the black agenda. According to
Shuenyane, Enterprise magazine was a black project and championed the agenda of
black community in business.
Bokwe Mafuna, founder of the Union of Black Journalists who
also worked at the now-defunct Rand Daily Mail, said he was happy to speak at
the occasion to honour Mazwai. He said the Mazwai event was an opportunity to
focus on the development of journalism in South Africa. He urged fellow
journalists to follow the example of stalwarts like PQ(Percy Qoboza).
Mafuna said he came from Mahikeng to join the Rand Daily
Mail. He said he was a migrant worker, selling sweets on the trains before
joining trade unionism. He said was not educated and did not even have JC
(Grade 10).
"I said I am coming in. It is good that today we are
able to express the pain that we are feeling. I did not know the Afrikaans language
and Ike Segola helped me to do court reporting in the Rand Daily Mail. We were
all separated in some little cluster. I was James Mafuna and changed to Bokwe
because of the Black Consciousness Philosophy."
Mafuna remembers how his picture won an award, but it was
not credited to him but to someone else. "I could not do anything. It was the
apartheid system in the newspapers. The police would ask for pass book. We were not registered at the Rand
Daily Mail. It was a situation that made us look different from other
journalists. We realized that there was a need to be organized and ours was a
political struggle.
"The thinking and feeling behind the Union of Black
Journalist came as a result. We need to record our our history. Black
journalists need to record this rich history of the struggle for the next
generation; the richness of our experience in this country. We are creating
history. I worked on radio overseas. I have been taking pictures. Malcom X said
we must learn from the Devil. The problem with us, black people, is that we don’t
record these things. We still need to catch-up. I took pictures of Steve Biko
and worked with him but I don’t have these pictures today. We should be on each
other’s shoulder to progress as black people."
Joe Mdhlela, former journalist who worked with Mazwai on the
Sowetan, said there were many things he had learned from Mazwai. In his time, Mazwai
worked very hard, and even now he was still the same workhorse. Mdhlela said he
still regarded Mazwai as a first-rate journalist.
"We need this hard tough master. Yes, it is almost
difficult to please everybody all the time. Mazwai is a compassionate person.
He is a thread of good journalism; a hard taskmaster. He expected others to be
self-driving. He always initiated the breaking of good stories. He was a leader.
He showed the country that every black child is capable of becoming anything he
wants to be despite difficulties."
Former business-journalist-and –newspaper-executive Mzimkhulu
Malunga said thanked Mazwai for where he was today in life. He knew Mazwai
since 1989 when he hired him at the Sowetan as a business journalist.
Willy Bokala, former World journalist and Sowetan news
editor, said he got into the newspaper through the back door. He said the then
World sports editor Leslie Sehume had asked him to report on local football in
White City before PQ intervened and asked him to join the newsroom as news
reporter instead. Before that, he was worked as Telex operator. He said Mazwai
trusted as he sent him to dangerous assignments like the June 1976 upsurge.
Len Kalane said he implemented to good effect what Mazwai taught
him in journalism. He said he knew Mazwai for 42 years. Mazwai was the chief reporter
the first time he met him at the World.
Mazwai knew how to
write good stories, Kalane said. He hoped that South Africa would remember the
role Mazwai played in journalism. He was a tough master and the best-ever news
editor in the country.
Professor Sipho Seepe said Mazwai re-invented himself from
being a journalist to a business person, intellectual and scholar. Seepe said
Mazwai and his colleagues looked at South Africa through through the prism of
blackness.
Gabu Tugwana, also a veteran sports journalist and one the
former editors of the defunct New Nation, said he joined journalism through
Mazwai, who had played an important role in his life.
"I am here because of bra Thami. I want to take this opportunity
to thank you."
Mazwai’s protégé Len Maseko gave a book to Mazwai as gift in
gratitude for recruiting him as a 21-year-old – his first job – back in 1980 on
the Post Transvaal.
The event was organised by a group of Independent veteran
journalists with the kind sponsorship of the SAB World of Beer Heritage.
