Special Hearings — Media Hearings — UNKNOWN

CHAIRPERSON: I wonder if there are any members of the panel who would like to put questions.  Ms Mkhize?

UNKNOWN: Professor, as a scholar of media, if you are to write the last book on your career, what sort of issues would you cover, especially taking into consideration all what has been revealed by the TRC process about what went wrong in the past with our media?

UNKNOWN: Chair, thank you for the question, Ma'am.  We did, indeed, write a book, it was in 1993, and it was called Mass Medium in the Nineties, and it was only after this book appeared, that we realised - when I realised, as editor of the book, when a young black journalist from the then Technikon Northern Transvaal said to me you know, this is a very white book, and when Graham Addison, a colleague and friend and a former journalist, full-time journalist wrote a review in one of our journals, stating that the mindset of this book was confined to the "mielie driehoek", meaning Potchefstroom, Bloemfontein and Pretoria.  And over the last three to four years, we realised yes, indeed, our mindset was that of the "mielie driehoek".  That was the way we perceived reality, that was the way we perceived South Africa.  Though, I think, we didn't really fulfil our duty, I think if one look at the 1997/1998 edition, you will find a different version, a different look, a different perception.  	To come directly to your question.  I think if you look at this particular Commission and its work, and one has to write about that in years to come, one of the main issues that will come to the fore, will be how Afrikaans-speaking people like myself, did not know and I didn't mention it earlier, but let me give you one or two examples.  I have a very good friend of some 35 years standing, who was much mor involved in the struggle process that I could ever dream to be.  I almost lost his friendship because I believed that there was no such a thing as the "derde mag" (Third Force). I did not believe it was possible that somebody could do acts such as was published in Vrye Weekblad.  And one of the main reasons why I couldn't believe it, was because I said to him it is impossible, because I know the people in Cabinet, I know a number of them on a very personal basis, and those people will not allow this to happen.  When a friend of his disappeared, our friendship almost went out of existence, because I could not believe that any Afrikaans government, any party with people that I knew, could be the reason for such a person to disappear.	So I would say the one thing that this Commission has done, was to open up the history, not only the history of pain, of those who were in the struggle, but the history of ignorance that so many white Afrikaans-speaking had also almost had to endure.

UNKNOWN: Just a brief related question.  Is there a way in which you think media as a science, can be introduced in this country in such a way that it is not so much a question of believing, but enabling people or giving them the licence through which they can take a critical look at what is unfolding before them, and be able to take meaningful positions?

UNKNOWN: Yes, Ma'am, indeed. I believe that media studies were introduced in high school, which will give young children the opportunity to get to know mass media, but mass media in its full perspective, not only the mainstream media, but also community Press, community radio.  And yes, you are quite right.  Right now there is a change going through the whole higher education system, and we as people in the field of media education, have to make incredible paradigmships and we are - the example is set to us by people who were excluded previously from the broad media education field.  And we have had such a meeting just the week before last, or last week at Rhodes, where it was incredible to see the synergism between different points of view coming or actually moulding a new paradigm on media education in this country.

MR LEWIN: Prof De Beer, could I just ask - what you have said is very telling, particularly when you refer to your closeness to Cabinet friends. How was it possible, do you think, that either they didn't know or that they didn't let other people know? I am just thinking, yesterday we heard from one of the people involved in setting up for the Cabinet Minister the whole preparation, for instance, of the Gaborone raid. Setting up the entire media structure to handle that.  How was it possible?

UNKNOWN: I think it was a question, this is just shooting from the hip.  It was a question of a mental psychological and religious turn-off. I cannot for - I just cannot see how people in high places could not know if they had asked the question. I can understand or I can still not understand how it was possible for newspapers like Vrye Weekblad, Weekly Mail, to report on happenings in this country and then for people in high places to say they didn't know about it. It boggles the mind, I cannot understand it.

MR LEWIN: Was it not perhaps that they were told that by the Press and by their sources of communication?

UNKNOWN: Sorry, Sir, Chair, no, I don't get the question?

MR LEWIN: Sorry.  Was it not perhaps because that is what they were told by the Press that they read, by the radio they listened to, by the television they watched?

UNKNOWN: I can't really put myself in the shoes of any other person, Chairman, but if I were to be somebody in important policy-making position in this country, and I received Weekly Mail and Vrye Weekblad on my desk, the most obvious thing must have been to ask what's going on here; are these guys mad, are they just - are they sucking it out of their thumbs, what is going on here. I cannot imagine that somebody who was in an important, responsible position as a leader, a political leader of this country, from a certain perspective, could not ask questions and could not get answers to it.

MR LEWIN: Did you ask your friend?

UNKNOWN: I was on a friendly footing with him, Chair, I don't say close friends in that sense. I know him by first name.  I know his first name, I mean.  Yes, I had by occasion asked certain people what is going on in this  country, and the answer was you know, it is all, it is Communist propaganda, it is the - you have to realise we are in "die totale aanslag" (the total onslaught), et cetera, et cetera.

MR LEWIN: Thank you, Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, thanks again then, Prof De Beer, for having come, but also for having said the things that you have said.  We have met in the course of our existence as a Commission, people who have not been able to say the things that you have said.  It is not easy for any one person to say I could have done more; I was in a position to have made a difference, but I didn't use all the opportunities and the resources at my disposal to influence change, and it is gratifying to get somebody like you say so.  One can only hope that there are more people like you, because if there are, then maybe there is hope for some of the objectives of the Commission to be achieved.  In the course of this week alone, we haven't had many people who weren't quite prepared to say the things that you said about yourself and about what you could have done.  So thank you very much.

UNKNOWN: Thank you, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: The last but not in the least, submission for the day will be from Special Report, Max du Preez.
VRYE WEEKBLAD