Sipho Sepamwa

I hope that they applied the pencil test at the door! Racists are racists whatever their origins – and as a proud African I object to the phrase ‘of African origin’ – where the hell are are Afrikaners from? Van Riebeeck and his plunderers arrived in the south west of SA not long after the Bantu peoples arrived in the north west. WHo owns the place under this logic – The Khoi-San people. Were they represented in the meeting? I bet not.

majola

Cool down Sipho. Our fellow black brethren were being taught not to think like K*****. After all Khoza (I mean the one who when Trevor exprsses concern at the commision payment for the PSL’S big man brought up issues of struggle credentials of the critic)is connected to JZ. Same line of thinking of our leaders.

The problem is we now have embedded journalists?

Jerry

FBJ and honourable? JZ made an interesting point. In the ANC and JZ semantics apparently only Whites can be racists.

What would be their reaction if tomorrow I started the FWG (Forum of White Golfers), the FWC (Forum of White Cricketers), FWM (Forum of White Managers), FWB (Forum of White Businessmen) etc., etc., and offered to extend similar courtesy to racist Black Journalists and corrupt Black Politicians?

Graeme

Why is it, do you think that some taxi-drivers believe it is acceptable to behave as they do towards women ? Why is it that people in authority and responsibility in public service deem it acceptable to steal public funds ? The simple answer: because their leaders do, that is what leadership is about, showing those around them the “right” way of doing things. So we have the message loud and clear, it is acceptable to base our thoughts and actions based on race.

And the people believe that this man is has the skils and intelligence to be the next leader of the country ?

Luke

This is the kind of thing that really irritates me. If this had been a white journalist meeting and blacks were refused entry then there would be a huge public outcry about how whites are being racist and how we haven’t changed since the Apartheid era. Now people think that this is absolutely fine to exclude white people in forums because of the past history.

I personally think that this is completely racist, I was too young to remember the Apartheid days so I’m looking at this through a current day perspective and to me this is a direct discrimination against a certain race. Unfortunately this is the way that the country has become, and the worst bit is that the person supporting this could be our next leader.

Fred Brown

I must commend the BJF on having the courage of their convictions. Why should they allow whites into their meeting if they don´t want them there? It´s comforting to know that racism is not confined exclusively to whites, and that Freedom of association is now acknowledge as a fundamental right. I intend starting a whites only organisation soon. I only hope Mr Zuma has the same understanding for my group as he has for the BJF.

BONGANE

I stand in wander how we have lost the plot.
We all have lost the plot. Its black-on-black verbal violence to the amusement of the quietly mainipulating enemy.
Mabe, you have no idea how happy the enemy is, observing this nerve piercing balderdash we are so obsessed with -all trying to be relevant in a very irrelevant way. MM included -leading headless chickens in disarray and heltersketer of wild political confusion

BONGANE

Be careful, Sipho -do not talk about theories you have not researched and do not understand such as the theory of an empty land. You do seem to have read some of those liberal texts that smartly justify European occupation of Africa and South Africa in particular -be careful, my friend. Good attempt, anyway. Try to read Govan Mbeki’s Peasant Revolt(1964) or Nancy Harrison’s Winnie Mandela: Mother of a Nation(1985) or Shula Marks’s Reluctant Rebellion (1970) etc. Good luck.

ak

What would you say if Mr Zuma said the following to the BJF.
“Madoda nani maNenekazi; I have called you to state categorically my support for your organization. You know that we as the leadership of the movement, have always supported the free press.”

“We are also aware that today in South Africa nobody would expect that an organization which calls itself the Black Journalists Forum. You know we have been fighting all along for an open society. A few of your members have approached us, they want us to listen to their problems, which are unique to them.”

He would perhaps pause to wipe his glasses at this point.”We have met as the leadership and debated about this matter and we have decided that we should give you a hearing and listen to what you have to say.”

“Well in a way, it is good that we meet like this today. You know our organization is open to all races, but I do not think there is anything wrong if we meet as fellow black people. For the same reason there is nothing wrong if the Greek, Journalists decide to meet the ANC, I think we would like listen to them as well.”

At the end of whatever the Ladies and Gentlemen wanted to say; he would probably say. ” Well I understand your concerns and I feel they are legitimate. We shall do all in our power to make sure that your proposal that we help in promoting the African language newspapers, as we had suggested really gets our blessing.

I think. People must wait a bit , we will surely hear what was discussed. What does an English Journalist have to do with the revival of a Xhosa newspaper. do not jump the gun.

” I happy that you are telling us today that you will not tell lies about us. By all means write as many pages as you like until SAPPI runs out of paper; but please tell it as it is. We all like the truth; but not the composition.”

graeme

I guess I don’t have a concern as to him offering support to any grouping be they black or Greek or white. The question remains for me, why does he have to do it behind closed doors in “secrecy” ? Is there something to be said by the leader of the ANC leader that the rest of the nation cannot hear ?

Surely, that is the concern with the current government, the in-fighting and political intrigue that has required Mr Zuma himself to fight court battles in foreign countries.

There must be a better way of expressing support and sharing ideas.

ak

I have recently been introduced to a term called ” Special interest groups”

These are people who have their own concerns which affect them as members of a particular group.If there is an issue which affects me and my fellow colleagues meet the president, why, I should go there.

Special interest groups do not want people who do not belong to that group to come. I have no problem at all. You should not worry journalists like breaking the news. They will compete to tell us what was discussed

graeme

“Special interest groups” based on race and language ? Sure, I can think of a couple of those, the Broederbond, the Apartheid Government, the Klu Klux Klan ! At this time of our democracy, given the past, the last thing we need are exclusive groups based on race, however “harmless” they appear to be. In particular, I would wish for a President who understands that.

ak

Sometime last year a South African team went to represent us in the rugby games. Some people complained that this team was made up people from a certain color group. It was explained to the complainants that, the issue was not color but physical prowess.

I am not sure if the same argument could not be applied here; that Black is just a color;the important thing is their ability to speak and write indigenous languages.

To actually show how democratic the process was, those Black journalists who did not go, are not being victimized for failure to attend.

I have just seen a blog picture where a priest was officiating in a matrimonial ceremony. I think all the people there were of a certain racial group. Should we now complain that there were no black faces?

But what I think is more important is whether this group did actually plot some subversive things against the rest of the none Black journalists.

But your sensitivities actually point to a fact that we are still a color based society. In more open societies this would really be a none issue.

Sarah Britten

My objection to the JZ event was not the racially exclusive policy of the FBJ per se – you could extend the same answer to women-only groups – but the fact that whites were prevented from attending at all, and not only that, were forcibly ejected.

No different from a black journalist being prevented from observing an AWB meeting, really.

Graeme

I am not sure that I can agree with the women / man argument. For me, differentiation on *** is perfectly legitimate, in that there are obviously issues that effect the different sexes in different ways. A woman’s only group to discuss the issues of childbirth is understandable but the conscious exclusion of black women from that discussion would be unacceptable.

Forcable ejection only compounded the issue.

Sarah Britten

Childbirth is a somewhat different matter from business, for example. Groups for women and groups for blacks amount to much the same thing; why should one be acceptable and the other not? I cringe when I see awards for women – so patronising.

Graeme

I agree… equality in award be in it sport (prize money !), academic achievement or whatever should not be differentiated between men or woman, but you cant convince me that something as generic as journalism should be segregated by race or “***”, particularly in South Africa at this point in our history. It will be interesting to see what the Human Rights Commisssion will decide.

Marirong

What is this noise all about?

Gaddafi Mokoteli

Why should there be lot of noise when black people organize themselves because white people of different ethnic groups have their own organizations and no one has raised a concern about that. In this democratic country we have Greek; Jewish; Muslim;Chinese & Afrikaners organizatins that promotes interests of their specific groupings so why not the indigenous people of South Africa.

Abbey Mekoe and his colleagues should be encouraged and supported in representing the views and interests of black people after all we are not totally liberated.Incidents such as UFS racial saga shows all of us that we have a long way to go and black people must go back to the basics by organizing themselves.