This is why I am damn well complaining…

Heavens, for the life of me, it would appear that the Independent Group and Media24 have deleted every article I have ever written for these two mainstream publishers, and the same goes for all of my writing done during the Struggle, under force majeur force majeure, in a State of Emergency and surrounding by sanctions, for the alternative press.

Of course this is not altogether true, and the problem is a lot more complex than a simple google search or query on flikr. Most SA publications were not actively online prior to 2001.  Hard thought it may be to comprehend in an era where the net is taken for granted, there was a time when there was no internet, at least in the way we conceive of it now, as the www.

South Africa has also been relatively slow to adopt the web in the same way as the USA and other place and is barely progressing towards Web 2.0. There is still only one Broadband Telco, and three mobile operators and the barriers to entry have meant ordinary South Africans have very little connectivity where it counts most, on the Superinformation Highway, and not down some back alley.

Most of the information available to the outside world is therefore hopelessly inadequate, biased and one-sided. Since my critics have greater bandwidth than me, they have prevailed by drowing out the signals that create a picture of who I am. I don’t intend to swamp them with appeals to correct the record. No what I am going to do is lobby Jimmy Swales, and the Creative Commons, to rectify the tragedy of South Africa’s alternative press.

Let’s get the South Press Archive online. Let’s make the Vrye Weekblad available to net-surfers. Let’s put Grassroots back where it belongs. Then you be the judge.

There are bout three years of contributions to the Cape Times which for all intents and purpsoses do not exist. Can one really draw an impression based upon the racist views of a white minority?  Would you trust the manufacturers of apartheid with the truth?
For those of you unable to access my “notable” writing, here are some links to current work available online.

Biophile

Refuting Gaia

Opposing Nuclear Energy

Nuclear Energy – Money hungry swindlers

Design Indaba

ReConstruction

SA Art Times

Here is the link to the sad and tragically misinformed discussion about my wikipedia page deletion, that’s the deletion of the David Robert Lewis page.

An earlier posting about Wikipedia Apartheid Denialism

2 comments
  1. Your complaint is that your articles were deleted when they were never digitised in the first place. I’m not sure that I follow the thought process.

    The reason that the archives aren’t being digitised is that there are costs associated with it and no real financial benefit. These businesses are laying off staff to ensure their survival and they don’t have the luxury of going ahead with projects in the interest of a national good. As you seem interested in the topic, why not digitise your collected works yourself?

    As an aside, I’d argue that the bulk of SA’s news coverage under the apartheid regime is best left in a dusty archive somewhere. The period for reconciliation has passed and we can move on.

    P.S. Learn how to spell “force majeure” and, better yet, learn what it means.

    1. Well at least now the apartheid denialists at Media24 are out in the open. I see that your IP address points to Media24, a company with an extremely bad track record when it comes to treating its employees with dignity and respect, and one which continues to deny any role in the apartheid regime, despite D F Malan being the first editor of Die Burger.

      Firstly my comment is rhetorical and intended to raise the issue of the digitisation of work during the struggle, also the problem of the knowledge gap between the 20th and 21st centuries as a result of the new economy. We can no longer say “We all know .. X and Y” happened. The truth is slowly being erased and it would seem that you don’t give a damn. Perhaps, if I might be so bold – it is because you benefited from the system, or the deals that were made during the transition? Media24 is laying off people because of pressure from a variety of cases against it to do with discrimination. The Kobus Faasen case is one example. Media24 may be able to rig the debate, but it is not going to survive the backlash from countless South Africans who have been left out.
      My own case is just one example of the kind of racism and prejudice at shop-floor level, and the media such as yourself can no longer be trusted to tell the truth – so apartheid was a sick joke and now it never happened? For those who made the best of a bad situation, it was a learning process. We fell in love, we debated ideology and poetry and made peace with our maker. But Media24 want nothing to do with the truth.

      The period for reconcilation is not something we should relegate to a dark and dusty cupboard. No, there will be more truth commissions and inquiries. The children will learn, and we will tell the truth until we are all gone. Surivors of the apartheid system deserve respect and what is occuring in the media is a travesty.

      That very few survivors got paid out is a testimony to the failure of national reconiliation in its current form, there are still several cases involving vicitms and the force majeure that I refer to is the unjust actions of the apartheid state for which activists were not insured and for which none of use got compensation. I am still waiting for the SAPS to apologise for firing rubber bullets and teargas cannisters at me during the UCT Revolt of 1987 and that is just for starters.

      I have a dishonerable discharge from the SANDF for failing to respond to the call-up and being AWOL. I demand that my record be expunged and that my honour be reinstated to reflect the contribution I made at South and Grassroots during the period of segregation. Hell, I actually crossed the colour-line and planted food gardens in the townships while the SADF was killing people on the border and my class-mates were firing bullets at their fellow South Africans.

      You are more than welcome to attend the inquiry into unfair labour practices at Media24 that is on the roll in the labour court of South Africa for April,

      As for INM – I direct the public to the upcoming March inquiry into the financial affairs of one Brian Mulroney, INM director and former Liberal Party PM of Canada.

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