Listening to the silent majority

[126]

It was my intention, initially, to include the views of black journalists in this report. But I came up against some peculiar experiences. Some were quite cordial and willing to talk, as sam Mabe of The Sowetan and Jon Qwelane of The Star had been. Others hid behind rude behaviour like Eric Mafuna of Africa Now, or simply turned down my invitation like Maud Montanyane of Tribute magazine. Jumping to conclusions about strangers, also when they are white foreigners, and suspect that they are siding with Pretoria is a typical error which balanced journalists should have mastered. Not so, in some of these cases.

Sam Mabe belatedly withdrew permission to be quoted verbatim, as I reported before. I wondered whether black journalists often hesitate to grant interviews to whites because of hidden suspicions.

Jon Qwelane agreed to an interview quite readily and was most accommodating to begin with. Then I sent him a copy of my book, Apartheid USA 1988, in preparation for meeting him, and received an extraor-

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dinary reply. Qwelane wrote: ‘As I knocked off work rather early, yesterday, I went straight home and began reading. Having read some excerpts, and particularly, having read the preface you have written, I doubt very much if anything I might say to you would in any way alter your stance which - if you allow me the liberty to say so - I feel is a subtle argument for patience with the perpetrators of apartheid.’ He intimated further, that a discussion between him, a black journalist from South Africa, and me, a white journalist from Holland, ‘would not serve any purpose, other than just a talk session’.^114.

Projection is most commonly regarded as a defence mechanism. It is a means of protecting oneself from anxiety, by attributing problems to others. All I had suggested to colleague Qwelane was an interview with him on his views, not mine. The objective of my interviews was always to obtain, and perhaps interpret information the interviewee give in order to add to the diversity of opinions presented in this volume. I found his reaction to my book paranoid, and silly. The foreword to my book covered three pages. To conclude from those 750 words, mainly geared towards exposing apartheid as it is practised today in America, that I advocated a ‘go-slow’ approach on eradicating apartheid in South Africa, was a defensive projection based on prejudice against a white colleague. It's in my view the worst that can happen to the state of mind of a journalist, because he must master the ability to listen carefully, not jump to conclusions and only after recording relevant information he actually can begin to analyse it. Jon Qwelane, a Star reporter, was already analysing without basic information.

I asked to interview Jon Qwelane because I had carefully read his columns in the Star over a period of three years. I always wondered why it was that, within the narrow limits of a single 1 000-word commentary, he would zigzag from perfectly sound arguments to a point clouded with emotion. How are our thoughts formed and shaped? How do we reach our convictions in proper ways? Are our judgements, especially when we express them on paper, based on knowledge and knowing? Is a judgement, when we express it, grounded in verified information? Do we obtain our ‘facts’ from our own data bank or do we rely on data banks in the heads of others? Does our consciousness release sufficient reliable information which is absolutely trustworthy, so that we can just-

114. Letter dated April 28, 1989, from Windhoek, South West Africa - Namibia

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ifiably speak of ‘a healthy and accurate self-awareness?’ I thought Jon Qwelane's reaction to my invitation lacked these ingredients entirely. His projection about my ‘stance’, as he called it, on apartheid, had no relation to what I think on the subject. My actual words, in the preface of the book he referred to, ask the reader to take a more sober view, taking into account the continuing racial mess in the United States after forty years of efforts to eliminate ‘apartheid’. I also mentioned the ‘wholly unjust system of apartheid in South Africa’.^115. It must be clear to colleague Qwelane, that one can't shoot apartheid down, because racial notions dwell in the neural circuits of the mind. To ‘kill’ them will mean having to decode them. If Qwelane thinks this can be speeded up by placing limpet mines, I am afraid he should attend an elementary course in one of the Mind Sciences and observe what little positive results violence has achieved so far anywhere in Africa.

115. In June 1989, Ronald Reagan pointed out in his ‘Winston Churchill’ lecture, in reference to students in Beijing demonstrating for democratic rights, that Chinese leaders should understand, ‘You cannot massacre an idea’