By PHAKAMISA MAYABA
‘Ons fade nie, ons fokof.’ These blunt words speak the spirit of what was Vrye Weekblad – an unpretentious but outstanding rag that flipped the bird at injustice regardless of who was wielding the sjambok. In the 1980s, and doing so ‘in good Afrikaans,’ no less, as editor-in-chief Max du Preez expresses in a farewell column announcing the publication’s looming closure on 28 March 2025.
Adieu to Ismail Lagardien’s highly intellectual but emotionally immersive pieces. Cheers to Du Preez’s sometimes humorous, sometimes in-your-face stingers. No more of Herman Lategan’s jaunts between vagrants, actresses and dope smokers in both seedy and bourgeoisie enclaves in the Mother City.
It all feels a bit like standing at a surrendered cant on the platform, listlessly waving off a friend you know you’ll never hear from again. At least not unless you revisit the memories of the times when his words meant something and you’d brood long and hard after the opinions he expressed. Farewells are never easy, not least the ones to the boxer you’ve never met but who looked done for until he revealed, for the first time, the suicidal rope-a-dope to an audience that saw him live to tell the story.
They are even harder when one of the hounds who wrote some of your most cherished words in the publication also happens to be dispensing free writing advice in your DMs. The sort of gifted wordsmith whose prose puts both the once-upon-a-time glamorous features writer and the street hooker on your doorstep, and you can’t tell the difference as they stand there, both dignified, both with big dreaming eyes and a life to get on with, no matter how flawed.
Alas! Who will sate our literary pangs when they ‘fokof?’
In the 1980s, as apartheid was clearly turning into a liability, but a cheeky journalist or activist could still inexplicably disappear, Du Preez and Co were those progressive (traitorous to some) sorts of whites who carried the message of a ‘New Voice for a New South Africa’ before ‘I voted “yes” in the referendum’ was even a thing. Launched in November 1988, the paper quickly found itself in the muck before it had gotten going.
As an ominous prelude of woes to come, the cost of registering the paper shot up from R10 to R40 000, courtesy of then justice minister Kobie Coetsee, who saw the paper as a menace from its earliest editions. A month later, they were sued by former president P. W. Botha, this amid being taken to court for publishing the paper illegally. The following year saw a plethora of charges related to state of emergency legislation brought against the paper. If these were meant to weaken the editorial team’s resolve, they actually achieved the opposite, no doubt at great embarrassment to the establishment and attracting the kind of international attention that did the government no favours.
Vrye Weekblad would go on to publish many exposés of apartheid horrors, not least of which were confessions by Dirk Coetzee, a former commander of the Police Death Squad at Vlakplaas. As such, Vlakplaas remains synonymous with the very worst of that establishment’s barbarism, and is spoken of with palpable animosity in black political circles.
Since then, the paper has seen on its masthead some of the country’s finest journalists, not least Jacques Pauw, author of The President’s Keepers, the runaway success that delved into serious allegations of a “shadow mafia state” during Jacob Zuma’s tenure as president. That book would see not only threats of criminal charges being made against the author, but also against his life.
Here we must also give a shout-out to Anneliese Burgess, the daring investigative journalist and co-founder of the SABC’s flagship current affairs show Special Assignment. She brought the realities of South Africa’s grimmer recesses into our living rooms, sparing those of us who find the telenovelas that are inundating late-night viewing more than a good enough reason to change channels.
But in one month’s time, those who care about these things will be bidding farewell to yet another legion of journos who did it because it needed to be done. And it’s the right thing to do, the one that lets you sleep at night, innit? One assumes that’s probably why they came back from the dead in 2019, to resurrect a paper that was forced to close its doors because it attacked an illegitimate government that had a penchant for dispensing violence at a whim. Only to pick up where they left off by reminding the new dispensation that the paper’s support of democracy did not mean it would stand by and watch the powerful treat the nation’s coffers like a personal piggy bank.
Du Preez is no stranger to being on the wrong side of the political big-men, or being regarded as a traitor by his own clan. But he’s also no stranger to those who feel that he, more than many, gets it. In the turmoil and race-baiting that often takes up social dialogue, Du Preez has no qualms stepping out of the laager into no-man’s land. To most people, this – away from the security of the collective – would seem like dangerous territory, suicidal even, the sort of place where reputations are shattered and turncoats are sniffed out.
But for Du Preez, it represents the very essence of what a democratic society –achieved with great sacrifice and bloodshed – should look like. The freedom of speech, as in to speak left when all about you are running headlong in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, in polarised societies (which South Africa regrettably remains), these sort of characters are often rejected, and sometimes only absolved after their deaths.
So who will man the defence against social and racial division when they fokof? Which other legion might be tempted to follow suit and shut the doors on what is increasingly looking like a journalism industry on life support? After a splendid 42 years, City Press published its last print edition on 22 December last year, signalling the end of an era. Four years earlier, Drum, that iconic magazine that was a staple in almost every African home and produced some of the most outstanding African writers in years gone by, also pulled the plug on its physical existence, disappearing fully into the online space.
Virtually every publication with enough sense has had to disappear behind a paywall. There’s simply no other way to remain alive and pay salaries. In years gone by, one had unfettered (albeit sometimes delayed for the benefit of the hard-copy consumers) access to these online publications because advertisers were faithfully feeding the machine. But with cheaper means to get one’s message across, bottom-line priorities have seen corporates leap at these new opportunities. Added to the decreases in revenue, mortality has also taken a toll of the industry’s human capital.
Nearly two years ago, the journalist and writer Jeremy Gordin was murdered in his home. In January Paddy Harper, political editor at the Mail & Guardian passed away due to a heart attack. Described by journalist Niren Tolsi as ‘The sloping, stoner flaneur … the friend of the people,’ Harper’s every article – even the usually dreary hard news stuff – was just too damn good, witty, sharp, every time. He not only inspired this wannabe writer to reach out to the M&G, but also ensured that the e-mail I sent found its way to the right person. I suspect he might have even dropped a kind word, even though he barely knew me from a Facebook avatar.
In light of the sad closures and tear-jerking departures, I mourn, and try not to think too hard about the road ahead. Yes, these are just papers, printable a million times over. Except now they join the rubbish heap of all that makes one apprehensive about the Mzansi future. They go into the potholes, the bottomless long fingers around the coffers, the uncontrollable influx of illegal migrants, the crime that kills good people, and the good newspapers who are brave enough to tell us exactly who the bad guys are.
Without these guys and their words, the powerful will toast, and it’ll be hard to separate facts from disinformation. For the most part, these credible papers have been instrumental in enabling us to gauge the truth from the flood of misinformation that sweeps across social media every day. Hopefully, no other should have to go under.
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on Phakamisa Mayaba’s website, eParkeni. Used with permission.