West shifts blame, accuses others for its faults
YESTERDAY Zimbabwe joined the rest of the world in celebrating 2024 World Radio Day. We trace and hail the participation of women in radio broadcasting in Zimbabwe for many decades.
This year’s theme is, “Radio: A century of informing, entertaining and educating”, which UNESCO describes as shining a broad floodlight on radio’s remarkable past, relevant present and promise of a dynamic future.
Women’s voices have increased tremendously on radio in the last few decades thanks to equality and gender awareness programmes that accompanied yearning for political freedom, independence and democracy.
Women were notably heard alongside male comrades in the guerrilla radio stations during the liberation war.
A number of them have risen to supervisory and senior leadership positions.
Universities, polytechnics and colleges have also increased their intake of women training as journalists and radio broadcasters in particular.
With the opening of the airwaves during this millennium, many stations, including community radios have sprung up, at times being spearheaded by women.
Permanent women radio broadcasters were fewer in number compared to men when radio developed in the then Southern Rhodesia between the 1940s and 1970s.
On the former African Service (now Radio Zimbabwe) women did not feature prominently in errands like news reading, rural reporting and sports commentaries.
On the General or European Service (now Classic 263) voices of personalities like Jill Baker, Caroline Thornycroft and Sally Donaldson were very familiar in the 1970s newscasts.
In the past, popular programmes produced and presented by women included all- embracing magazines like ‘Woman’s Hour’ on the General Service and Radio Homecraft Club on the African Service.
They were also very active in health, lifestyle, culinary arts and social debates.
The founder and chairperson of the Federation of African Media Women (FAMWZ) now Gender & Media Connect (GMC) in 1985 Mavis Moyo started broadcasting during the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953 while she was still a school teacher.
She later left the classroom for a full-time broadcasting career at the African Service in the early 1960s and retired in the 1990s.
She worked very closely with different community and women’s club leaders in Harare together with Ranche House College to share different skills on her radio programmes to a wider listenership.
This was a precursor to what she was to spearhead decades later as the Development Through Radio Project which became the pillar of FAMWZ now GMC.
Moyo studied radio production at Radio Netherlands Training Centre and her radio play ‘Changes’ about women emancipation, scripted by Ghanaian author Ama Ata Aidoo won the much acclaimed international Prix Futura Award in Germany.
Mavis Gumede later well known as Justice
Mavis Gibson was one of the early women pioneers of radio broadcasting before she left the country for further studies overseas.
Upon her return home at Independence in 1980, she was appointed a High Court judge in Zimbabwe and Namibia along another fellow 1950s broadcaster Justice John Manyarara.
Marjory Chapman was a white broadcaster who spoke fluent Shona and produced and presented many programmes on the African Service.
On the General Service Jill Baker Lambert Elford was a renowned radio and television newsreader, commercial radio broadcaster and author now based in Australia. After spearheading the formation of Radio Three now Power FM alongside Gordon Mackenzie Kerr in the early 1980s, she established Jill Baker Associates advertising and production house. She also had some stints on then Salisbury’s local channel, Radio Jacaranda.
Abbie Dube kaTebele was always based in Bulawayo as a lonely permanent woman broadcaster on the Ndebele section of Radio Zimbabwe.
She hosted many popular talk shows and carried out lots of interesting interviews with people around Bulawayo and from Matabeleland provinces also broadcast on Radio Mthwakazi the Ndebele FM station established in 1975 at Montrose Studios, Bulawayo. Her ‘Inhlupho Zanamhla’ talk show was popular for many years as it tackled hot social issues.
Shiyeka Khumalo co-produced and anchored Radio Homecraft Club from Salisbury. In the 1960s she was known for her commercial programme ‘Hamba kahle ngeBata’ co-presented with Ephraim Chamba.
Children’s programmes have over the years been handled by very likeable grandmothers of radio. Names like Gogo Silamba, Gogo Makhalisa, Mbuya Miriam Mlambo (Mbuya Chirambakusakara) and Mbuya Bakasa come to mind.
For many years, they became household names through programmes such as ‘Abancane Qha!’, ‘Nguva yevana vadiki’ and ‘Mitambo yevana vadiki’.
Professional women from teaching, community development and nursing backgrounds formed pools of freelancers who would come in as presenters and guests in various programmes. Isabel Mguni, Ruth Mpisaunga, Gladys Maseko,Tsitsi Munyati, Barbara Makhalisa, Jean Zulu, Musa Ramushu and Harriett Mangate are just but a few.
Jane Esau, a trained school teacher, began her broadcasting career at the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education’s Audio Visual Services (AVS) in Mount Pleasant under BBC veteran John Parry, who was succeeded later by Robert Gardner.
When she left AVS, other school teachers Rebecca Chisamba (nee Tsikirayi) and Mabel Sikhosana joined under the supervision of Arnold Kashambwa.
Esau also did part time radio advertising and became well-known through her programme “In the Kitchen with Jane”. At Independence she joined the staff of ZBC Radio One (Classic 263).
On Radio Mthwakazi opened at Montrose Studio in 1975, Thandiwe Khumalo joined and was popular for her sweet, mellow voice.
Musi Khumalo (nee Mlambo) Nonceba Mnkandla (nee Siwela) were to follow with Musi transferring to Radio Three in Harare which she later headed before becoming controller of Radio Services and leaving ZBC as director programmes news and current affairs.
With the current crop of enthusiastic and determined young women on air nowadays, the future of radio is in safe hands in the coming century!
*John Masuku is a veteran broadcaster who this year is celebrating 50 years of unbroken service in Broadcast Journalism. Masuku was UNESCO’s 2023 World Radio Day International Campaign Coordinator.
Feedback: jjwpmasuku55@gmail.com and X: @john_masuku
IT is obvious from the analysis of armed conflicts that each armed conflict has an extraterritorial impact on neighbouring countries and this damage may extend to the world at large, depending on the geographical location, geopolitical interests and the actors’ objectives, directly or indirectly.
An observer who rationally thinks away from bigotry and propaganda can see examples in both Ukraine’s and Palestine’s conflicts and how the repercussions have graded over time to include the world’s main interests such as energy, supply chains and maritime navigation routes.
In the midst of these and other conflicts, which are growing in many countries for domestic reasons and are fuelled by hegemonic ambitions and influence at the expense of others’ interests and fears, the major powers should recognise their responsibilities to wars, peace, security and global stability.
Unfortunately, the Western nations under the leadership of the US do not want to play this role out of their great dominance over the international system, whose institutions, such as the United Nations and its Security Council, are eroding and eroding.
The sense of strength or desire to preserve it for the unilateral leadership of the world seems to make the US of America act irresponsibly and even support the ignition of conflicts and the financing of the parties in the hope of inflicting a strategic defeat on its rivals like Russia, which is why it rejects realistic peace ideas from whoever came and tries to accuse their owners of supporting Russia and forgets that it does so the most.
The Ukrainian dispute could have been averted if the Washington-led West had committed itself to its pledges to the Soviet Union not to expand militarily near its borders when it agreed to unite Germany, and US officials and academics with acclaimed insightful political analysis acknowledged that the responsibility for the conflict rested first with the West for abandoning its obligations and ignoring Russia’s concerns even when it provided a vision to respond to it before the war.
Everyone remembers the justification used by the West to impose its sanctions on Russia as a deterrent to the cessation of its military operations in Ukraine.
However, despite the severity of the sanctions, Russia entered the conflict for the simple reason that it was forced to do so and could not stop without achieving its objectives.
We have seen the impact of conflict and sanctions on the lives of the world’s people at varying levels, from energy prices to grains and fertilisers to inflation rates and layoffs.
Moreover, the spectre of World War III has returned every time the threat or reference to the use of nuclear weapons has been made. What did the West do to achieve peace? The answer may be another question: does the West actually want peace?
One indicator of seriousness would be balanced proposals, but instead, Russia’s subordination and surrender were unreasonable.
Sadly, the West had tried to demonise every State or peace advocate and suggested ideas on that.
No one was afraid that once America had anything to do with a crisis here or a conflict there, it relied on a parallel media and propaganda strategy of accusing its competitors of involving them in responsibility even when they had no role, all to achieve the goal of diverting attention from its role and denigrating others by threatening and undermining global security and stability.
America continues to play the same role in Gaza through its military, financial, political and diplomatic support for Israel’s occupation and acquitted it of all its crimes despite testimonies from United Nations organisations and press investigations.
The call for a ceasefire has generally been considered by the West in support of what they call “terrorism”.
Some states have taken punitive action against peace seekers. Although such attitudes undermine stability and hinder peace, the West, as it uses double standards and interprets laws and values according to its interests.
The impact of the Gaza War has reached Bab al-Mandeb’s maritime routes.
There is an impact on the route of ships, high insurance costs and commodity prices. However, America does not want to recognise this relationship and tries to address it in a futile way without solving the fundamental problem of finding a just solution to the Palestinian question through the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian State.
Nevertheless, there is a global awareness among people that the West is primarily responsible for threatening security and stability and that it still deals with others in the logic of its colonial past and confers exclusively on itself the right to self-determination, interfere in others’ affairs, give them lessons and act as if it were the ideal world, which, of course, is not. China Daily