Читать книгу The People’s Paper - Christopher Lowe - Страница 11

By 1912 the need for a Rand-based African newspaper with national aspirations was apparent. There was only one state-recognised African paper in the Transvaal in 1911 and two by the end of 1912,⁶⁶ while in the white press Africans appeared, if at all, mainly as villains in court reports.⁶⁷ Two weeks after the SANNC’s inauguration in January, Seme wrote to his African American friend Alain Locke that ‘there is a great chance here of organising and directing a Native Journalism along National Lines. There is enough money in it.’ Some months later he was given the go-ahead by Congress to establish a newspaper.⁶⁸ To consummate this goal he recruited first Cleopas Kunene and then Robert Grendon.⁶⁹ Both had close ties with Swazi rulers, reflected in a series of articles on Swazi affairs in Abantu-Batho’s first years, some of them reproduced in the Anthology in Part II.

In September Ilanga announced the name of the new paper (Abantu) and revealed it would be weekly, published in English, Sesotho and isiXhosa, and the organ of the SANNC (and, intriguingly, also of the ‘Native Ministers’ Union, The General Conference of Native Women; The African Brotherhood Society and other native associations’). Ilanga also reported a ‘strong Executive Committee’ of the paper had formed that included ‘Basutu, Xosa and Zulu men’ in Johannesburg and Pretoria.⁷⁰ On 1 October 1912 the eminence grise of black journalism, J. T. Jabavu, gave his blessing to a rash of new papers, mentioning the imminence of those by Seme and Alfred Mangena: ‘We welcome the new people’s newspapers: “Izwe La Kiti”, “Umbuzeli”,⁷¹ “Tsala oa Batho”, and in Pretoria Mr Mangena still works at his, while Ka Isaka Seme and company establishes his in Johannesburg. The blessing of doing good work is desirable.’⁷²

The precise date is shrouded in obscurity, but the first issue probably appeared either at the very start of November, as announced after an earlier meeting between Cleopas Kunene and Illanga staff at their offices, where he presented a mock-up copy,⁷³ or rather more likely 23 October, a date according with an article reprinted in The Christian Express on 1 November 1912 (and also with the weekly’s sequential numbering: translations from a series of isiZulu articles on Swaziland show this frequency from late December).⁷⁴ Evidence in other papers also suggests Abantu-Batho first appeared in late October.⁷⁵ A note in Leselinyana la Lesotho of 24 October, citing Mochochonono, mentioned its existence: ‘many new black newspapers have just been established’, including ‘Molomo oa Batho, Abantu, and Koranta ea Batho’.⁷⁶ Reports in Ilanga of 25 October and Izwe la Kiti of 30 October announced Kunene as editor,⁷⁷ the former mentioning his visit to its offices with a ‘sample’ of ‘a new paper which is to be issued in November in Jo’burg’; there is further mention in early December.⁷⁸ There is no evidence to support one claim⁷⁹ that it was April: this may rather refer to a decision by the SANNC executive to form the paper.

The road to the launch was not a smooth one. Seme failed to outbid Sol Plaatje for the printing press of a short-lived Johannesburg paper called Motsualle oa Babatsho,⁸⁰ but appears to have been successful in Swaziland, where he possibly acquired the press of the lapsed Times of Swaziland. Ilanga noted his visit to the Swazi kingdom about a press.⁸¹ The visit took place in late September or October when Seme, on his return coach trip, suffered the indignity of being refused accommodation in the Lake Chrissie Hotel, only securing lodging in a stable thanks to the generosity of the black driver.⁸²

Also obtuse is the relationship with other papers. A report from Pretoria on 11 October noted the imminence of new papers of Mangena and Seme.⁸³ Soon after, the weekly African Native Advocate of Mangena and Sefako Mapogo Makgatho appeared in Pretoria. Edited by Allan Kirkland Soga, it lasted only until 1913.⁸⁴ The Advocate’s launch in the same month as Abantu-Batho suggests either rivalry between Seme and Mangena (who a few years later formed a legal partnership) or an attempt to reach a wider audience.⁸⁵

The new paper was strengthened by mergers and by its relationship with leading politicians and Congress. The mergers brought both experienced staff and capital plant. As Chris Lowe shows in his chapter in this volume, a few months after the launch the company was incorporated in Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) and the new paper inherited a printing press, type, office equipment and supplies. The first merger was in 1912 with Moromioa (Messenger), a weekly Setswana/Sepedi paper founded and published by Daniel Simon Letanka in Johannesburg. It had begun in 1910 as Motsoalle (Friend). Selby Msimang recalled that while it was published in Johannesburg, it circulated ‘exclusively in Rustenburg’,⁸⁶ suggesting that it may have been assisted by Congress activists in the region, perhaps Chief K. K. Pilane. A second merger, in 1916, was with Umlomo wa Bantu-Molomo oa Batho (Mouthpiece of the People), a weekly English/isiXhosa/Sesotho paper founded in 1910 in Johannesburg by Levi Thomas Mvabaza, with Saul Msane. Its policy was the ‘unifying of all African tribes into one people, and further to improve and expedite the education of the African children’.⁸⁷ A letter by Xhosa writer Richard Kawa mentions a third Umlomo editor who would join Abantu-Batho, Jeremiah Dunjwa.⁸⁸ Mvabaza edited the isiXhosa columns and L. M. Ramosime the Sesotho,⁸⁹ and by 1916 they were based at 10 Kruis Street, Johannesburg, next door to Saul Msane.⁹⁰ By September the incorporation was completed.⁹¹ No copies of the merged papers survive, but extracts were reprinted, such as a 1914 Umlomo article dealing with pass laws in Nancefield.⁹² If we could establish authorship, these would offer a tantalising glimpse into possible continuities of style of the editors.

Important regional and local forces also bolstered such a bold venture as running a national black newspaper right in the lair of the white Randlords. An emergent black political scene on the Rand, driven variously by ethnic, class or wider nationalist politics (and still in need of its historian), was one.⁹³ Another was the Swazi connection.

Gwamile Labotsibeni Mdluli (c.1858–1925) was Swazi queen regent from 1889 to 1921 and an exceptional political leader;⁹⁴ Manelisi Genge shows how skilled she was.⁹⁵ Contemporary accounts attest she was a remarkable statesperson, ‘the most extraordinary native ruler South Africa ever knew’,⁹⁶ ‘shrewd’,⁹⁷ with ‘a gift for diplomacy’ and able to extract money from whites – some of which she deployed to help found and sustain Abantu-Batho. Her role in this regard is discussed in the chapter by Sarah Mkhonza, while other aspects of the Swazi connection are discussed by Chris Lowe and Grant Christison. Here I can add that her Zulu ancestry and close contacts with Cleopas Kunene and Robert Grendon provided an opening for Seme, who before too long was hunting and picnicking with Swazi nobles and the queen.⁹⁸ Ackson Kanduza stresses that Labotsibeni drew on a non-literate intellectualism of Swazi rulers.⁹⁹ Through her close observation of white politics and her contact with Grendon, she changed her earlier hostility to Western learning to emphasise ‘books’ and ‘money’.

According to Hugh Macmillan, the Swazi royalty’s financial commitment to the paper remained quite strong until the late 1920s.¹⁰⁰ From their side, Abantu-Batho editors made numerous trips to Swaziland, and Mabaso, Letanka and Kunene went out among ethnic Swazi in places such as Bethal and Davel to find subscriptions.¹⁰¹ Swazi leaders were repaid in political kind. Besides articles opposing incorporation in the Union of South Africa, their quest for money to fund land deals was carried in advertisements and leading articles asking every Swazi male outside the kingdom to contribute £5. A poster for Labotsibeni in 1914 forcefully declared ‘the Queen Regent desires that they shall work this year because … in the coming winter, the Swazis are to go to one side and the whites to the other’.¹⁰²

As would be the case with Umkhonto we Sizwe operations several decades later, the ‘Swazi connection’ functioned on both sides of the colonial border. Kholwa (Christian converts) in Natal faced relentless pressure on their land and political rights. Their response was to mobilise in the Natal Native Congress (NNC) and search for allies and resources. Seme and other Abantu-Batho dramatis personae were active in NNC politics and land deals in Natal, and the paper’s final owner, Josiah Gumede, would find a solid base in the Natal ANC from where to launch his successful drive to the ANC presidency in 1927, just as A. W. G. Champion, an editor in 1930–31, was active not just in the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU), but also in the Natal ANC. All of these connections came together around the editorial table in Johannesburg, where, as La Hausse de Lalouvière shows, the Natal Congress tradition had been transferred.¹⁰³