My Father Died for This. Lukhanyo Calata
my husband had already released it and that it had gone viral.
LUKHANYO
I was on leave at the time. That Monday morning, Abigail was at work and our three-year-old son, Kwezi, at school. After my morning devotions, I picked up my phone to check for messages and scan Twitter for the latest news. I found that Abigail and my good friend Koketso Sachane had sent me text messages about Jimi Matthews’s resignation. In June 2016, Jimi was acting group CEO of the SABC. I read his resignation letter, which he had posted on Twitter. To my horror, Jimi claimed to have compromised values he held dear ‘under the mistaken belief that [he] could be more effective inside the SABC than outside’. He blamed the ‘prevailing, corrosive atmosphere’ at the SABC for negatively affecting his moral judgement and making him complicit in decisions he wasn’t proud of. He ended the letter with, ‘What is happening at the SABC is wrong and I can no longer be part of it.’
This was a complete surprise to me and I’m sure to many of us in the various SABC newsrooms. About a week prior to his resignation, Jimi had filed an affidavit at the Western Cape High Court in which he’d sung the praises of Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the SABC’s chief destroyer, disguised as its Chief Operating Officer. In his affidavit Jimi had written, ‘his presence at the SABC is vital to the public broadcaster and that the SABC would effectively suffer without Motsoeneng’s leadership’.
The sentiment expressed in his resignation letter, however, was far removed from that in his affidavit. What could’ve happened in the space of a week that would so drastically change his opinion of Motsoeneng?
We (most SABC staffers) had known for a long time that something was amiss at the SABC, but to see Jimi finally stating it in black and white like this left me stunned. I read the resignation letter over and over, trying desperately to make sense of it all. I had always looked up to Jimi and had to some extent believed that as long as he was there, the SABC newsroom was a protected and sacred space. Now that he was gone, and having admitted so publicly that something was wrong at the SABC, I started to worry about those of us who would remain in the trenches, so to speak.
Just then, Koketso called. He was out of the country at the time, visiting his wife, Shanti, in Oslo, Norway. Usually our telephone calls start off with banter, jokes, and just plain nonsense. But this call was different. There was no banter, no jokes, none of the usual nonsense chit-chat. It was a very serious phone call, both in tone and content, right from the start. We had been good friends for around fourteen years at the time, and he was well aware of the significance of the date to me and my family. I was touched by his phone call, particularly as it was meant to commemorate this day with me. We then got to discussing Jimi’s resignation letter and what it meant for the already embattled public broadcaster and its Mad Hatter COO. I told Koketso how disappointed I was by Jimi’s decision, and that what perturbed me most was his frank admission ‘that what is happening at the SABC is wrong’. I was angry that Jimi, at least in my opinion, had thrown in the towel and allowed Motsoeneng to get the better of him.
I just couldn’t fathom how he and many others, including (at least) two non-executive boards of directors appointed by parliament, could allow this guy, a high-school dropout, to run roughshod over them like that. While I was in the middle of this rant, Koketso asked me what I was going to do about it. Something about his question struck a nerve in me. I mean, what could I do about it? It jolted me out of bed. I was now on my feet, pacing up and down the short passage in my home, the question hanging over me. About a minute passed and I still hadn’t – or rather couldn’t – answer the question. My emotions were in turmoil. I was angry; I was disappointed; I was fearful, yet I knew I had to do – or, at the very least, say – something publicly about what was going on at the SABC.
‘Why don’t you issue a statement?’ Koketso asked. I liked this idea, particularly as I could link it to my family’s commemoration of the 31st anniversary of my father’s disappearance and murder. It was rather fortuitous – at least for me – that Jimi had chosen this day to resign. I agreed we should draft a statement.
I wanted the statement to be strong, critical of the current state of and issues affecting the broadcaster, but I did not want it to get me fired. Suspended maybe, but not fired. Once I was happy with the statement after a few drafts back and forth between us, I had to decide what to do with it. I asked Koketso to send a copy to our friend and former colleague Gasant Abarder, who at the time was editor of the Cape Argus, one of the most widely read daily newspapers in Cape Town.
I sent a copy of the statement to Andisiwe Makinana, the parliamentary correspondent of City Press, a national newspaper. At the time, Andisiwe boasted just over 33 000 Twitter followers. I knew that with just one tweet from her, the statement would reach a critical mass of people in an instant. Barely a few minutes after I sent Andisiwe the statement, she called. Her voice was cracking, as if she had been crying. She told me the statement had brought her to tears. I’ve known Andisiwe for several years. We started working as journalists at around the same time and I had grown quite fond of her over the years. I never really thought a statement – particularly one I had written – could bring her to tears. She was even kind enough to warn me that the SABC, and Hlaudi Motsoeneng in particular, would not take kindly to my statement and that I should prepare myself. ‘They will surely come for you,’ she said. I was touched by her genuine concern for me and my family. The only problem, though, was that by then I had already taken the decision to go public with the statement. I honestly couldn’t care any more who or what would come at me in response. I had done what I needed to. Now it was up to them to do what they needed to do.
ABIGAIL
I expected Lukhanyo to be at home that Monday afternoon. So, after reading the statement, I called him hoping to chat to him about it. To my surprise, I found out that not only had he released the statement without my input, but he and our son, Kwezi, were by then on their way to the Cape Town offices of Independent Media. Upon reading the statement, Gasant (the editor of the Cape Argus), immediately asked Lukhanyo to come in for an interview. While I was speaking to Lukhanyo on the phone, the repercussions of what was happening slowly dawned on me. How could he go public with something like this without discussing it with me, his wife, first? How could he make a potentially life-changing decision without my input? I was getting worked up – an untenable state for me to be in at that point since I was still at work. In order to calm myself down, I asked after Kwezi and his well-being. But before ending our telephone conversation, I let my husband know in no uncertain terms that I was terribly upset by his decision to issue the statement without my knowledge or input and that we would discuss this when I got home later that day.
After hanging up, I went onto social media. I wasn’t surprised by what I found. The interest in and reactions to the statement on Twitter, Facebook, and news websites told me that what Lukhanyo had done resonated with people. I realised I could do nothing to stop it and that I, like the rest of the country, could only sit back and watch as things unfolded.
Unable to focus on work any more, I spent the rest of the afternoon staying on top of everything that had to do with the statement on Twitter and Facebook. The Cape Argus posted video excerpts of its interview with Lukhanyo on its platforms to whet readers’ appetites for the story that would become their front page lead the next day, 28 June 2016.
As I watched the short video clips and listened to my husband speak, I felt a sense of peace envelop me. It replaced my anxiety about what could or would follow the statement, yet somehow I just couldn’t reconcile myself to the fact that my husband had excluded me from the decision-making process when the consequences would directly affect the three of us – him, Kwezi, and me.
They were not home yet when I arrived there. The minute Lukhanyo walked through the door, with our excited son in tow, we started the promised discussion about the release of the statement. With Kwezi safely out of earshot in the bath, I told Lukhanyo that I did not appreciate his decision to issue the statement without my knowledge. I stressed that my problem was not with the content of the statement, but with the fact that I was completely excluded from the decision to release it when I, together with Kwezi, would be directly affected by its release. A heated discussion ensued. But Lukhanyo eventually realised his mistake and we agreed that going forward any and all decisions – particularly ones with such massive implications