HOW FEAR CAN KILL FREEDOM

By Bill Saidi

IN conversation at the Quill Club in 1980 with – among others – Justin Nyoka, I once used the word “profundity”. Justin expressed admiration for my use of such “jawbreakers”.

I have always wondered: was he pulling my leg, or was he genuinely impressed.

Justin Nyoka always had a great sense of humour, which could be quirky. This was one reason for his popularity at many gatherings of scribes in Harare and elsewhere.

Justin was well-read. Unlike many in the fraternity, he loved the langauge for its own sake, for its own beauty. The language I refer to here is English. Justin was very down-to-earth and was humble, without deepening this humility to the extent of perhaps, as someone once opined, trying to conceal his basic streak of conceit.

Although Justin ended his life working for the government, most of us suspected that he was such a free soul he would have preferred a life among his kind of people – journalists. He himself was a great raconteur. His wide travels had provided him with a large portfolio of scintillating anecdotes from here to Timbuctoo – maybe even farther.

To me, he was the quintessential journalist: his ear was glued to the ground, yet he was liberal enough in his outlook towards people and life in general, he didn’t hold any firm and unshakeable convictions on most of what we would call “the human condition”. I always suspected he was a reluctant civil servant – in the end.

I first heard of Justin before meeting him in the flesh in Lusaka in the late 1970s. I was then deputy editor-in-chief of Times Newspapers. Justin Nyoka was a correspondent of Times Newspapers, The Times of Zambia and The Sunday Times of Zambia. Most of Justin’s coverage was of what the United African National Council was getting up to.

The UANC, led by Abel Muzorewa, operated freely in Rhodesia. Neither of the nationalist movements who had set up liberation movements in Zambia, Zapu and Zanu, enjoyed no such privilege. There was then a tenuous relationship between the two organisations and the UANC, How Justin ended up in Zanu is probably too convoluted a story to go into here. I thought ti should mention him because he loved journalism – the cut and thrust of debate in that great forum of the printed word.

We have come a long way since Justin’s time. I met him in the flesh for the first timer in Lusakas, when he had come to collect his fee. After independence, and we were both involved, once again, in the media, we never discussed that relationship. But we remained close. It is healthy for all of us in the fraternity, whichever side we are on, to remain close – not to the extent of exchanging valuable corporate secrets or explosive ‘inside’ tidbits. We should cultivate the sort of familiarity that ensures we recognise how great it is to build the nation. This is to know that there is no formula that could set us apart – a formula of THEM vs US., two camps fighting like dogs over a piece of discarded meat. We are all on one side – perhaps not the side of the angels, but The Good Side – the side that wishes the country well, that would not betray the country for anything, the side that would not conceal any dark secrets from the people, or anything that is going on everywhere in their country, including its darkest, ugliest side.

Speaking only of Africa, I find we are in something of a quandary. What do you really understand by a free media, or even freedom of expression as understood in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically Article 19?  My interpretation is that all citizens ar e entitled to express their views freely – any time, any where, without let or hindrance.

Clearly, under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, this was a myth. AIPPA marked a period in Zimbabwe when there was a naked attempt to muzzle the free press. The proponents tried to defend this evil, draconian law creating an imaginary “enemy of the state”, a bogey, phanthom whose evil design was the destruction of the country through the propagation of so-called “falsehoods. I’d rather not go into the seamier consequences of this law – for example the locking of four journalist s of The Daily News in 200l and the eventual closure of the same paper in 2003. It’s enough to say we hope, like the people victimized by The Holocaust, may this madness never be visited on the good people of a free Zimbabwe ever again.

Today, there is a new daily paper to compete with The Herald, NewsDay. So far, it has had a good run. Its owners have not had any of their titles banned. But a bullet in an envelope was delivered to the editor of one of its titles, The Standard, by a soldier in uniform. I was the acting editor at the time, he editor having gone on leave soon after the paper had gone to bed. I am agreat optimistic : I don’t believe the message was intended for me, personally. But I am reasonable enough to conclude that this fact suggests I should not be grateful in any way. I am still in this business. So far there has been no epoch-making change in the government attitude towards journalists who will not compromise their principles. I was one of the senior journalists as The Daily News inched its way towards its eventual Armageddon. I have said before that my time at this dynamic news organization called Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe Limited was utterly  breathtaking.

I ended up as the Assistant editor, although I had been offered the job of editor-in-chief. I turned it down on the logical grounded with me at the helm. Geoff Nyarota accepted my explanation. But other events intervened. We had szettled for me being the paper’s deputy editor-in-chief. But in the end, I settled on the Assistant Editor’s job, reluctantly. Davison Maruziva, who had worked under Geoff at The Chronicle took over what was to have been my job. Isaac Zulu, also from Zimpapers, joined us at the same time as Maruzivza. There was talk of them having been hired as “package”. I never saw anything in writing to that effect.

I joined ANZ in 1998. I was 61 years old and a grandfather. Part of my job included writing a weekly column called Bill Saidi on Wednesday. I enjoyed it tremendously, as I have enjoyed writing a column for most of the newspapers I have worked on.

These included The Herald, for which, under the editorship of Farayi Munyuki I write a a weekly column under the nom-de-plume of Comrade Muromo.  

The Daily News was an utterly new enterprise in journalism in Zimbabwe. Nothing was sacred. Most of us at the top had worked for the government media. We knew exactly what they would not publish under orders.

The Daily News would inevitably get up the government’s nose. There had been so bold an exposure of government bungling as there was in this new paper. After the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change, the stakes were raised even higher agaiasnzt Zanu PF. This party was not a direcdt6 offzxhoot of the ruling party, as Edtgzsr Tekere’s Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) had been. This party had come out of a coalition of trade unions, intellectuals and a vibrant student movement. I suppose in the government’s frightened perspective all it needed was a radical and fearless daily newspaper to complete its profile as the most potent opposition nightmare for the governing party since independence.

We all relished the challenge. I was aware, from the beginning, of the presence of people whose spine was not made of the kind of stuff to withstand an open challenge from the government. Soon, Geoff spoke of an attempt by a shadowy group to take over ANZ. There was money trouble, it was true: the foreign element of the ownership seemed to be getting cold feet. For instance, thee was a problem with the salary. I was fortunawte that I had come from Horizon magazine, owned gby ASndrew Moyse. I had bezen given a substantial severance payment.

Later, Geoff said he had identified the hitherto “shadowy group” as being linked to a branch of the government whose name he would not mention. But we all knew he was speaking off. It was a relief. Yet it also raised fresh fears of the extent to which the government would go to shut up the newspaper. I was personally under no illusions about the ultimate objective of the government towards ANZ and its “pesky” daily paper. It soon outstripped The Herald I circulation. After the referendum and the 2000 parliamentary elections, our circulation just soared above that of the government flagship. Our formula was simple enough: we would cover every story that The Herald would not conceivably find worth covering. We knew the editors worked under orders from the Ministry of Information.

The temporary financial problem had been solved by an injection of funds from Strive Masiyiwa, a well-known crusader for the freedom of the media. I had always had aZ soft spot for Masiyiwa. At Horizon, for which I worked from 1995 until I went to ANZ in 1998, had done a fascinating cover story of his fight to get Econet Wireless going. He was portrayed as hero, which he really was in terms of fighting for the rights of the private citizen to fulfill his potential – whatever it was. I had not been personally involved in negotiations. But he knew I was there and knew something of my own crusade for the downtrodden.

The crunch for ANZ came with the change of the top management. Masiyiwa seemed dissatisfied, to the extent he brought in his own man right to the top – Samuel Nkomo. I was unaware of the dynamics until I heard there were attempts to ease me out of the Assistant Editor’s job. Geoff brought it into the open when we had a one-on-one meeting: I was past the retirement age of 65, he said. They wanted to retire me. I asked him what he wanted. After all, he had invited me to join him in this scheme. He knew how old I was. He tried to make the retirement benefits so attractive I might find them irresistible. But I resisted. I said I would accept the proposal to retire me – unless it was being suggested I was somehow incompetent or senile.

Coincidentally, Sam Nkomo had objected to the proposal to retire me. He told me so himself. Clearly, he and Geoff had got off on the wrong foot and the feud ended with Geoff leaving the company. Geoff had brought in as a news as editor, John Gambanga. After he left, Sam Nkomo made Gambanga editor. I was amazed: Gambanga had worked under me at The Herald. There was no way he could have acquired enough experience in the intervening period to become my editor. I told Sam this in no uncertain terms. I was appointed Associate Editor. But it would not work. Leo Hatugari and I were far more experienced than Gambanga and ait showed. In fact, on a conference talk, strive Masiyiwas asked Nkomo why Gambanga wouild rate his appointment as an editor. Where had he worked before? Masiyiwa asked. The Manica Post, dcame t he reply. Masiyiwa’s next question was: Is Bill Saidi still there? Yes, said Nkomo. That’s all right then.

This arrangement lasted only until Francis Mdlongwa came on the came on the scene as editor-in-chief. Gambanga lost the editor’s job, as Mdlongwa appointed someone he had brought with him from the Financial Gazette editor. I was appointed editor of the new Daily News on Sunday. Sam Nkomo had appointed Barnabas as editor of the paper. He became my Associate Editor.

This was the team at ANZ when the government shut it down. The story if the drama at Oldf Muitual House has been told many times. For me, the most unfogettabnle scene is of a beefy plainclothes detective haranguing Sam Nkomo. Nkomo stood his ground, until it looked as if the man would attack the smaller man physically.

 Anyway, it was all over: the great experiment that was The Daily News had been crushed by what some people described as a frightened government. There were people I talked in the aftermath of the shutdown. They condemned the shutdown as an excessive reaction to criticism. If the new government evinces the same fear of criticism, then  we are not yet out of the woods.