Editorial comment
There is no doubt in my mind that as a nation we have reached very high and unacceptable levels of criminality in our communities.
And judging by the senseless murder of two young children, aged eight and nine, whose lifeless bodies were found dumped in Thokoza last week, as a parent and father of a 10-year-old daughter, I can deeply feel the excruciating pain the parents of the two children are going through right now.
While it is still too early to speculate on the course of their deaths, it is equally troubling to think that any sane adult person or people would even think of murdering, not only one but two young and innocent children and dump their bodies in the open fields. What on earth could these two innocent young children have done to their killer or killers to deserve being killed in such a brutal fashion?
As we urge and support the police in their effort to find the person or people responsible for this savage deed and bring them to justice as soon as possible, our heartfelt condolences also go out to the grieving families for the loss of their loved ones. All parents with children should put themselves in the shoes of the two grieving families and share their grief through prayers.
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A SAD FAREWELL TO SAM NZIMA
The death of internationally acclaimed press photographer Sam Nzima last week, at the age of 83, marks yet another sad era in the history of black journalism in South Africa.
Bra Sam was the internationally celebrated photographer who took the picture of Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying 13-year-old Hector Petersen who had been shot by the police during the 1976 student uprisings in Soweto. But instead of reaping the benefits of his gallant photographic achievement, Bra Sam, was pushed out of sight and isolated from the limelight and back to his rural homeland in the old northern Transvaal and was never heard of again.
Nobody knew where Sam Nzima had vanished to, meanwhile, his photograph continued to be used to stigmatise South Africa internationally in effort to turn the tide against the country’s racist apartheid policies. I had never met Bra Sam nor did I ever work with him at the Sowetan newspaper and his sudden disappearance from the media landscape meant absolutely nothing to many of his media colleagues.
However, the sad story of Sam Nzima will remain untold for as long as those who know the truth about how and why he was removed from the public eye after his famous photo hit international headlines, remain silent.
In fact, I also personally find it ironic that Bra Sam’s death followed soon after that of the Mozambican rebel leader Alfonso Dlakama. Because, it was in Giyane in the then Northern Transvaal, soon after the outbreak of the Renamo Resistance movement war against the ruling Frelimo government of the late Samora Machel in Mozambique, that I was to meet with this gentle photographer.
I was a reporter for City Press at the time (long before the publication was taken over by Naspers) and I was also covering the plight of the displaced refugees fleeing the South African government sponsored guerrilla uprising in Mozambique. It was at a camp hosting Mozambican war refugees who were fleeing the gruesome guerrilla uprising in their country that I first met Bra Sam. The camp was manned by the South African Red Cross and the SADF and for a brief time Sam and I managed to chat and he related to me his sad story.
What he told me in strict confidence about the grief the 1976 photograph had caused him, I vowed to keep with me till the day I die.
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Malombo band leader and founder Phillip Tabane is no more.
His death came as a shock to all of us who in our teens back in 1964 was thrilled by the Afro-jazz sound called Malombo at the Castle Lager Jazz Festival at Orlando Stadium. The band Malombo was made-up of Phillip Tabane on guitar, flautist Julian Bahule and Abe Cindi on the cow-hide drums and bands’ never heard of unique Afro-sound, made them the pride of music lovers in South Africa.
