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Namibia: Amandla! Opens Space for Alternative Media
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New Era (Windhoek)
6 May 2008
Posted to the web 6 May 2008
Catherine Sasman
Windhoek
International Press Freedom Day was celebrated on May 3. New Era spoke to Brian Ashley, Managing Editor of Amandla!, a magazine started in October 2006 on the crest of a resurgence of civil society activism in South Africa, with intent to reflect more in-depth views from the southern African region and the rest of the African continent.
Why was the Amandla! magazine established?
We have quite a rich tradition of independent popular organisations and movements, be it labour or social movements, non-governmental organisations, and so on. However, there has been a dip since the end of apartheid. Subsequently, we see a kind of revival, a renewal - but I would have to say this guardedly and quite cautiously. There is a lot of hope among those that were disappointed with the [Thabo] Mbeki period characterised by a presidency that was really aloof and removed from the people. That period saw policies imposed that have led to greater poverty and high levels of inequality.
One of these policies was the introduction of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy adopted by Cabinet.
But the GEAR policy was introduced under the Mandela presidency.
Yes, it was. But Mbeki was already the real person in charge. There had since been some departures from the GEAR policy in the sense that there had been some shifts in some micro-economic reforms that are really directed at ways to make business cheaper in South Africa and expanded public investment programmes.
The government is trying to use the 2010 World Cup to roll out investment in infrastructure in a period that it is dealing with a collapse of infrastructure.
The energy crisis is a very good case in point. Similar problems are emerging in terms of the water infrastructure. For example, some weeks ago there was a report of 80 children that died from contaminated water in the Eastern Cape.
Part of it has got to do with the tremendous weakness of local governments, the lack of resources and lack of capacity at those levels.
There is the superficial analysis that Mbeki is the cause of the problem rather than see some of the structural aspects of it.
Amandla! wants to go deeper into such issues to find out why some of these problems emerge.
The magazine is mostly focussed on South Africa and South African issues, but we are very interested in Africa and particularly the southern African region.
But to do that we would, for example, not just argue that Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change's (MDC) Morgan Tsvangirai is a knight in shining armour, but investigate the MDC's economic policy programme.
Things like these have to come to the fore and not simplistic illusions that one thing will sort out the other.
It is, for example, incredible to see how South African capital is lining up waiting for a post-Mugabe regime to come in to purchase valuable assets that exist in Zimbabwe, under the guise of a recovery programme.
These are the things Amandla! tries to bring to the fore.
What is the tradition of the magazine?
We come in the tradition of some of the progressive publications that existed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. There was a very important journal called New Era, and other publications such as the Work in Progress, and the New Nation that were part of the arsenal of alternative media that grew up in the struggle against apartheid.
It is unfortunate that the end of apartheid did not see the flouri-shing of that media but rather saw its demise, particularly when reconstruction begs for a critical media interested in seeing a plurality of alternatives that could critically engage in what the government was doing. When looking back on the last 14 years, one can see how important that would have been.
South Africa probably has the biggest concentration of independent media in the sub-region. Are you saying that there was nonetheless a vacuum for critical media there?
Newspapers are mostly linked to big commercial media presses with two dominating: the Independent Media Group and Naspers. They do not just dominate the productions, but also all the production chains. It is a huge problem to get Amandla! into bookshops because these work through distribution agencies linked to the media giants.
But surely the media environment there cannot be as unyielding as you are suggesting?
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It is. There are, of course, smaller independent presses, no doubt. But then quality and pricing are being compromised because the big companies are printing on economies of scale.
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