Power of written word
backgrounds, children who could not go to school because the colour of their skin was dark.
I had no problem getting scoops from people from all races. I made it a hallmark of my work to get the stories which other reporters could not get. Some fair-minded editors marvelled at the fact that I could flit from one story to another, from community to community, and return to the office not only with the facts, but photographs.
It was not enough for me to have the front page lead; I had to have pages 2 and 5. The double-page centre spread did me very nicely. The same went for the sport pages.
Halfway through the six months, I was made chief soccer writer and had the backing of the big clubs like Orlando Pirates and Moroka Swallows who had the habit of beating up sports reporters whom they claimed were biased. With me they kept their distance.
On the last day of the sixth months, I received a letter from Selwyn Smith; not only was I now on the full-time staff, but I also got a R20 increase. At that moment I knew exactly what I was going to do. My job was not simply to afflict the comfortable, but also comfort the afflicted. (Not my quote).
The mainstream white papers and even the Western governments gave the impression that apartheid was not all bad. That was a myth I was going to blow away.
I was going to make a career of exposing the evils of apartheid every step of the way, like it had never been before. Also, I was going to reboot the campaign for nonracial sport.
These were great days, full of purpose and shared with many talented people.
In today’s world we need to once again come together and work towards higher goals. And we must remember that we are making history.
We are always making and recording history. MAHATMA Gandhi had died 20 years before I got my first full-time job at POST, but he was still making news.
Just my luck that during my time, he continued to make headlines. And still does.
He started a worldwide trend when he burnt his pass book outside the Newton Mosque in Johannesburg during the 1890s.
Even today, burning instruments of oppression is very much the practice.
In 1895, the British tried to impose a poll tax on Indians and in response Gandhi launched the first economic sanctions against the rulers in this country.
He called on the people not to pay.
Gandhi is quoted as saying: “Satyagraha is a weapon of the strong; it admits no violence under any circumstance whatsoever; and it insists upon truth.”
From there, the power of the people was noted, cherished and it blossomed in so many countries.
Often when I found myself among people in so many countries fighting oppression, it was Gandhi’s leadership which they used to inspire their people.
Whether it was African countries, Iran, Brazil, United States, France, Malayasia, Singapore, Mauritius and even behind the so-called Iron Curtain of the once mighty Soviet Union.
During his time, Gandhi led by example, no material trappings, no motorcades or living in plush mansions.
His moral, spiritual and political stances have since become principles held dearly by many nations.
In modern day South Africa his teachings of modest living, caring for the indigent and living a life of selflessness and in service to mankind is urgently needed.
His is the only political philosophy to come out of Africa and is very much as relevant today as it was at the turn of the 19th century – and will be in the future.
Economic sanctions, protest action, civil disobedience, defiance campaigns might not be his inventions, but he certainly took them to a level near perfection.
He made it real, lived its principles regardless of the consequences and it destroyed the forces of evil.
The British Empire lost its stranglehold on India, much due to his leadership. Its military leaders asked, “How do you fight a man who will not hit back?”
For me, economic sanctions played a far larger role than the so-called armed struggle.
All the ships, jet bombers and fighting men of the USA could not stop Martin Luther King to get a million people to Washington in a non-violent, peaceful protest inspired by the Gandhi leadership.
It gave him the ascendency and victory to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
In South Africa, Gandhi’s journey began in 1893, he left for India in 1914.
But he left his son, Manilall to continue his work.
Dr Monty Naicker took over the leadership of the Natal Indian Congress, until the apartheid government banned the entire leadership.
However, Mewa Ramgobin, his grandson-in-law, revived it in 1972. In 1990 it was dissolved. Big mistake.