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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 6964
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 11, 2008 - 01:32 pm: | 
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South Africa
April 10 2008 at 10:58AM
By Bennie Bunsee
The findings of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) that whites should be allowed into the Federation of Black Journalists (FBJ), presumably because to do otherwise would be racist, have implications for other associations.
Women's-only associations, for instance, are now a norm in societies. In fact, in the early years of their formation, women had to fight to exclude men from their organisations in terms of their right to self-organisation without the presence of men.
The reasons were obvious, among them that men still carried the incubus of male chauvinism in one form or another, and women did not wish to be distracted from their goals by self-justifying arguments of men, which inevitably intruded into their discussions.
It is amazing how, in an African country, Africans and black people encounter resistance to their efforts to carve their own destinies in their own images after centuries of colonial dispossession.
In every other country, the national assertion of the oppressed is taken to be as natural as eating pie.
In these cases, where the institutions served one section of the population to the exclusion of the majority over centuries, it is taken for granted that they must be changed to reflect the aspirations, needs and viewpoints of the demographic majority if democracy is to have any substance for those previously excluded.
Any other approach means seeing colonial institutions servicing colonial interests as the norm into which we must all fit.
The resistance from representatives of the former regimes and those supporting them is usually done in the name of democracy, anti-discrimination and human rights.
When the oppressors talk in the name of these rights, what they mean is the retention of their privileges built over centuries of oppression and denial to the majority.
Change to them means tinkering with a few reforms here and there, and not overturning the whole social order in the name of justice for those who have been been systematically marginalised.
The new social order attempts to level the field and also gives to the former oppressor equality, but not the excessive privileges of the past, and the creation of society in their selective image.
It calls upon them to accept the transformation process and to participate in it also as equals, but not as masters.
Culture, embracing the arts, literature, education and the media, is one such field of transformation to reflect the world view of Africans and black people as they define themselves, not as the objects of history, but as its subjects, to be able to make history on the basis of their own self-determination.
The whole philosophy of the Black Consciousness Movement founded by Steve Biko was based on such a premise.
Biko broke away from the student movement which included whites because he felt it did not reflect the needs and aspirations of black people.
Human rights and democracy are not abstract concepts. They must relate to the real needs and aspiration of people, be they minorities or a whole nation that was previously oppressed. In South Africa, they must relate to the African and black majority whose identities and self-worth have been dented and damaged over centuries of colonialism.
It is commonly accepted that the media play a great role in the daily lives of a nation. The print or electronic media do not only inform us about what is happening on a day-to-day basis, they shape the image and identity of a people by reflecting their identity in a positive sense. Media are thus a cultural and intellectual tool of identity politics.
It is a contested area of social control globally. Who controls the media controls society. In our world, huge corporations reflecting capitalist interests control the media worldwide, and are thus a hub in social control.
Right from 1994, when we became a democratic country, attitudes towards the media have been on the boil.
I welcome aspects of our media for exposing corruption, highlighting some of the obvious failures of the government and generally taking a progressive stand on social issues. But the media do not reflect the black and African world as black intellectuals, writers and journalists understand it.
There is a distinction between those black intellectuals who wish to assert an independent black identity and those who have become so Westernised and Europeanised that they have internalised colonial oppression into their persons, sometimes unknowingly.
Frantz Fanon and others have analysed this internalisation of the oppressor's viewpoint. It exists in South Africa, too, among many black intellectuals and journalists.
In India, outstanding intellectuals, and social commentators such as Ashis Nandy, still write about the effects of colonialism on the Indian psyche today.
To a great degree, Africanism is regarded as being racist in our intellectual life. I have encountered persistent substantial resistance to it from various quarters, not least that of black intellectuals themselves.
In his Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela calls the pan-Africanist ideology of the PAC racist.
Space must be given to black journalists and journalism to thrive, develop and articulate their viewpoint. It will be continuing the tradition of the acclaimed "Bantu World" to define African and black identity, something that goes back to the days of Sol Plaatje.
White journalism in various forms flourishes in our society. Black journalism can be as universal in its value system as that of any other national culture.
Through its universal value system, it can incorporate the rights of others as an equal element. We have done that in our constitution by recognising the cultural and linguistic rights of minorities.
Bunsee is a freelance journalist.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20080410054601521C8 65723 |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12040
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 11, 2008 - 03:04 pm: |
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Think of exclusively-black organizations in America as being comparable to fraternities and sororities. Only instead of having Greek letters to identify their groups, they can simply refer to themselves as "Justa Brotha Hood", or "Sista Girl Thang". They would be like secret societies whose initiations were proceeded by the ongoing hell-week of being black in a white-dominated society.  |
Nels
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Nels
Post Number: 1119
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 11, 2008 - 10:26 pm: |
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Ok... Now let's all displace the Jew-Phucks that (own and run the media and) exclude everyone but themselves from the ultimate cash cow. Give me a break. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6572
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 12, 2008 - 10:33 am: |
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The findings of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) that whites should be allowed into the Federation of Black Journalists (FBJ), presumably because to do otherwise would be racist, have implications for other associations.
(The members of them all white country clubs must be shaking in their boots.
I would let white people in the Association of Black Journalists--they'd just have to identify themselves as black when asked.
Let's see how many would want to be in then) |
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