Authorship & Ownership in TV Drama

- by Lauretta Ngcobo *

If we talk of such things as ownership and authorship it is imperative for us to be honest with ourselves and with one another. We should not be afraid to bare our souls and explore those hushed –up areas of our experiences, for the function of our stories is to explore and come to terms with our past. Here we are as black people and white people joining hands, in quest of who we are and for the sake of ourselves and our children.

In fact, who are we? We are Africans who have tried hard to trample on our past while we seek to reveal who we really are. When our African fathers and later our mothers were first drawn through the imperatives of the times into the city experience they soon found out that they were at variance with the lifestyles of the city. They became self conscious about their dress, their songs, their dances, their food even. Ever since that encounter, African people have lived like chameleons on their long journey of adaptation. In the process of shedding all the paraphernalia, they also learned to look down on themselves and their culture as white people did. From then on, most Africans especially the educated ones are practitioners of a hybrid culture, forever grappling emotionally, intellectually and physically with the vexing questions of who they are, much like the American that is portrayed in the writings of Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin and others.

White people lately are faring no better in their turn, having to come to terms with the fact that if they are wealthy and better off in every way, relative to Africans, it is because that wealth was acquired dishonestly under a spurious belief that they had to oppress others so that they could prosper. And if they are poor it is because the only thing that had given them status before was their feigned superiority to the African people. The sanctuary of the skin. That is the burden they bear today. White people have to explain how they can be “good people” when everything they are, is based on the exploitation of others. Much the same as the white people of America are forever searching for the essential me in writers like Williams Faulkner, Margaret Mitchell, Harper Lee and many others.

Here we are standing naked before each other now, forced to tell stories, true, authentic stories that proclaim who we really are. Most African writers, brought up in the cities are forced to appropriate for themselves those selective cultural aspects of their original culture, often with half-baked understanding of what it all means and often mixed up and jumbled with aspects of the superior culture. Yes, superior, because we do draw from it often what we ourselves do not fully understand, now that we have shed our own. As a result, the stories that come up on our screens leave us unsatisfied or unfulfilled for aspects of the stories seem phoney and alien on our own uninformed mindscape.

The screen is a fleeting medium. And often after it is gone from view we sit and sigh because it has affected us deeply – not so much the storyline. We already know who killed who and why. You can even tell that it is about jealousy, vengeance reconciliation and so on, whatever the theme is. But deep in the recesses of the mind,

you continue to wrestle with the deeper human conflict that the text is dealing with. Basic truths, told in symbols, codes if you like, telling the human story of life and death, birth and renewal, time and eternity, providence and destiny; the origin of the world, the end of the world, the end of time, the creation of the world, question of time and eternity. Stories about all these delve deep in every culture. They come through stories, language, communication, religion, art, literature, drama etc. In other words, we look for hidden meanings, the symbols that filter through the stories we tell or read or dramatise. This treasure store does not owe its existence from direct experience only. They often come from the very ethos of ones existence as a practitioner of a culture. Many attitudes that the characters portray in drama are partly due to the writers own beliefs. How they live and why and how they die, what they will fight for and what they will defend with their lives.

Such values that influence our judgement and morals are taught to us in very subtle ways in the culture and become embedded in our interpretation of life and develop into legends and folk tales. They are the foundation of culture. Stories about gods, superhuman beings and extraordinary events in a time – span altogether beyond our comprehension. The actors in these mythical stories are people who influenced and changed the human condition. For the English such is the story of King Arthur and the Round Table, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and other foreign legends. They have such a powerful hold on the thinking of the speakers in their societies. The values in such stories are internalised and passed on so that even the not so literate members of the culture are tutored through story telling.

Now, to come back to the Africans in South Africa. It is undeniable that very few city homes from which we draw most of our script writers are told on a regular basis, from early childhood the stories of Mabhejana, Sondonzima, Chakijana and many more from the varied languages in South Africa. In other words, while they labour and create, they are focused on the culture and the traditions of the other. Few Africans have assimilated and soaked up the stories of King Arthur and his Round Table, characters like Pinocchio among the Italians and other foreign legends. Yet they superimpose the values of these other cultures on their thinking for even though they do not live like the English do, they perceive the culture to be the centre point of expressing their inner-selves.

We come back to the thorny question of authorship and ownership of the books that the writers produce. In view of the background we have given, we pose this question and interrogate the issue. From the models we have cited it is clear that there are more than one body of stories that we are talking about. There are those that have been passed on to us and have influenced our thinking and form part of our culture. They insidiously work themselves into our lives and we use them in formulating our view of life. We own such stories. But on the other hand, they inversely own our creativity. We claim them for ourselves and use them as we wish. We tell them to one another over and over again. We, in Africa, are also privileged to be allowed to intervene in the retelling of such stories thus becoming co-creators as we put in our own variations of such stories. We feel no guilt in doing this. If we should be telling such a story to the young we may embellish the details to suit young minds. And conversely do the same with an adult audience. We can even create parallel stories that resemble the legends. No one can accuse us of plagiarising. The ownership is all inclusive.

In a mixed society, such as we are, there may be problems of ownership and authorship in such cases. There are fine lines that separate these categories. Among Africans, it is considered acceptable for a story teller to extend his/her imagination in the act of creativity. We have the case of one writer who chose to write about the African tokoloshe. A fine literary piece. But when another writer wrote his own contribution based on the same legendary figure of tokoloshe, there was an outcry for others perceived his writing as plagiarised. This is a cross-cultural conflict.

On the other hand, we have stories that spring from our own personal experiences and are evoked by our own imagination, a complex amalgam of personal thoughts as influenced by what we know of life. These we author on our own and lay claim to authorship. Ownership and authorship overlap for the former is common property and the latter is the product of one inspired creative writer. It flows from common experience whether of one singular person or a social group. So we appropriate them for self or a social group as we identify them through common experience.

There are no answers to these eloquent questions but in addressing them perhaps we could consider a new paradigm. True creativity is a matter of the heart. So should we not be moving towards a better understanding of our common humanity. That at heart our creativity has complex links, ancient origins and definitely defies linear description. But where would that leave plagiarism litigation?

* Novelist and essayist, Lauretta Ngcobo, was born in 1931, raised in the Ixopo District of southern Natal and educated at Inanda Seminary and Fort Hare University. Lauretta Ngcobo’s late husband, AB Ngcobo, a founder executive member of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), was detained in the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. In 1963, she left South Africa, escaping imminent arrest, and went into exile with her husband and children, first in Swaziland, then in Zambia and finally settling in England where she worked as a teacher for 25 years.

She came back in 1994 at the time of the new political dispensation in South Africa, thirty years after she left her country of birth. After a short teaching spell she became a Member of the KwaZulu Natal Legislature where she spent eleven years before retiring in 2008. She now lives in Durban.

Lauretta Ngcobo is the author of several books and is the recipient of the annual South African Literary Awards’ lifetime Achievement Award, 2006. The rural community of Ixopo, where she was born and raised, is described in her most recent novel, And They Didn’t Die. She praised the unsung heroines, the rural women, whose struggles and complexities in harsh environments were further compounded by having to deal with the hardships of apartheid.

The above article appears in the South African Mail & Guardian (25 April-1May)

Public Broadcasting Survey in Africa

- by Hendrik Bussiek * (article available in this week’s Mail & Guardian)

Public broadcasting has a lot of friends in the world today – though they do not always seem to be loving quite the same thing and certainly not for the same reasons.

(Almost) every national broadcaster in Africa now lays claim to the PBS title, proudly calling itself a ‘public broadcasting service’, regardless of how it is run or constituted. There are obviously a lot of myths and misperceptions around what is basically a simple and straightforward concept: a broadcaster that serves the public as a whole and is accountable to the public as a whole.

Clearing up some of these misunderstandings and assessing the real status of public broadcasting in Africa is one of the purposes of a comprehensive survey currently undertaken by the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) of the Open Society Foundation – the first such survey on the continent. Researchers in 12 carefully selected countries (Benin, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe) are presently busy collecting and collating information on regulation, ownership, access and performance as well as prospects of reform of broadcasting in Africa. Field workers are interviewing representative samples of listeners and viewers to assess their use of media in general and opinions on broadcasting in particular – another first in most of the countries under review.

The study starts from the premise that development and democracy cannot thrive without open and free public space where all issues concerning people’s lives can be aired and debated and which gives them room and opportunity to participate in decision making. Nobel Prize laureate Amartya Sen describes democracy as “governance by dialogue” and broadcasters are ideally placed to facilitate this dialogue by providing the space for it – if their services are accessible, independent, credible and open to the full spectrum of diverse views.

The key objective of the survey, therefore, is to assess whether and to what extent the various forms of broadcasting are able to create such a public space, with special attention given to those services which call themselves ‘public’.

While the study may be unprecedented in its scope and depth, it does feed into ongoing discussions among broadcasters, civil society and politicians on the nature and mandate of genuine public broadcasting. At least on paper there is already broad consensus on the need for state broadcasters to be transformed into truly public broadcasting services. The AU’s African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights says in its 2002 Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa that “state and government controlled broadcasters should be transformed into public service broadcasters accountable to the public”. This African document serves as one of the major benchmarks in the AfriMAP survey (see box below).

Most countries in Africa still have a long way to go towards the realisation of the ideal of a truly public broadcaster. But the process is gathering speed – not just because progressive forces in civil society and among law makers are pushing for it. Already even staunch defenders of state broadcasting are reluctantly learning the lesson that their impact and influence is on the wane: with more and more other sources of information at their disposal, people are not easily fooled any longer by blatant propaganda or content with government using the airwaves purportedly to ‘inform’ its citizens while in fact crowding out almost all other information or points of view.

The survey’s ultimate goal, then, is to provide facts, figures and informed assessments on where broadcasting in Africa stands between “His Master’s Voice” of old and the envisaged public broadcasting service of the future. These data can then be used as a sound basis for the friends of public broadcasting to conduct and intensify their advocacy work, both among decision makers and civil society as a whole. To assist in these efforts, National Fora will be held in all participating countries to discuss the results of the survey and explore avenues and strategies for possible reform.

First results will be available from September 2008 on www.afrimap.org

* Hendrik Bussiek is the editor-in-chief of AfriMAP’s Survey on Public Broadcasting in Africa

Article VI of the 2002 Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa issued by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights of the African Union:

State and government controlled broadcasters should be transformed into public service broadcasters, accountable to the public through the legislature rather than the government, in accordance with the following principles:

Ø public broadcasters should be governed by a board which is protected against interference, particularly of a political or economic nature;

Ø the editorial independence of public service broadcasters should be guaranteed;

Ø public broadcasters should be adequately funded in a manner that protects them from arbitrary interference with their budgets;

Ø public broadcasters should strive to ensure that their transmission system covers the whole territory of the country; and

Ø the public service ambit of public broadcasters should be clearly defined and include an obligation to ensure that the public receive adequate, politically balanced information, particularly during election periods.

On Apples, Seeds and Public Broadcasting

- by Dan David*

Fifteen years ago, I arrive in Johannesburg with one of the early waves of foreign journalism trainers invited to a country tensing for its first truly democratic elections. We come from public broadcasters in Denmark, the U.K., or the U.S.A. I’m with the Canadian crew from the CBC. We’re invited to help SABC transform itself from a “state-controlled” broadcaster into a “public” broadcaster and to prepare for the elections.

On the ride in to the SABC, we pass through neighbourhoods with names like Houghton, Rosebank, or Parkview. I notice the high walls around homes that are going even higher. The driver, a journalist and friend, says almost every home is fortified, armed and guarded. The walls are going up, he says, because people are afraid. Change is coming .

At the SABC, I see massive metal gates, airport-style metal detectors, and armed guards telling people to check their weapons at the door. Our friend describes the building as a fortress built by the rulers, a state institution with no need for pretense. He warns that inside, bureaucratic walls may be going up as well.

As foreign trainers, I sense that we’re viewed with a mixture of fear, ambition, and hope. Some people approach with caution, as though we are here to judge, and their jobs are on the line. Others cling, I’m warned, using adaptive colouration like chameleons hoping to blend into the background. One senior executive becomes a shadow. I’m never quite sure if he’s registering approval by his hovering presence, or if he’s taking names. My sense is the latter.

The trainees are a different story. They want change badly. Many of them are tired of being treated like lepers by the greater journalism community. They want self-respect; to feel good about their chosen professions again. They want to be recognized as journalists by their peers.

This training, and moves to change the SABC, are seen as major steps in that direction. Journalists and technicians of all colours, genders, and job descriptions, want to be part of any initiative that might breathe new life and purpose into a rigid old broadcaster.

Many of the trainees are already highly skilled and experienced. Others are less so, and relatively new to their jobs. They’re a mixed group from various programs, positions, channels, colours, languages and regions of the country. This is deliberate. It’s a way of tearing down internal walls.

During the workshops, everyone leaves job titles by the door. We nudge very different people to find something in common with each other. Junior reporters work with, and help, senior editors. Editors take time to thank a camera person. A video editor writes a story that earns applause from professional writers.

The workshops polish skills, but they also tackle ethical and moral questions that journalists around the world grapple with each day. Discussions about their tasks in the coming elections lead to debates about their roles in society, and hopes for the SABC. Something is happening here. They are becoming a team despite all of their differences.

One person says this may be the first time that anyone at SABC has respected her, encouraged her to think, took her ideas seriously. Others say they feel better, more confident about themselves and their work. People want to return to their jobs so they might push for more change from within. Before they leave, however, there’s a warning: This opportunity for change has a “best before” date.

Then, the training is over. Another group waits by the door. And then another. During these months, I’m stunned by the speed of change at the SABC. Almost overnight, an entire corporation turns itself upside-down. It creates new programs, hires new faces. The place is awash with optimism and a renewed sense of purpose.

For the next several years, I go back and forth between Canada and South Africa. As expected, the “best before” date expires. The SABC still evolves, but much more slowly than before. Corporations tend to do that.

According to most public broadcasters, the ideal is to become something that keeps everybody else honest. It would set an example and never knuckle under to pressures from advertisers, lobbyists, governments, or any single segment in society. Any public broadcaster that could achieve that, the theory goes, would set a standard against which society’s institutions might compare themselves.

The transformation of the SABC, only fifteen years old, began with similar high ideals and hopes. Some people look back at those years with longing. They may even judge the SABC by those earlier years. But, as the saying goes, reality bites. Everything changes with time.

Expectations are always highest with a public broadcaster. When people feel it has not met their expectations, they let the SABC know it. Woe to the public broadcaster that dares to violate the trust the audience has invested unto it. That is not a negative. It shows they care.

When things have gone well, there is the comfortable sound of crickets and bullfrogs. To the audience, all is well with the world. No need to rally in front of Auckland Park today. The SABC has entertained them, surprised them, challenged them to think. It made them laugh. It made them proud. It informed them about what was right and wrong with the world on this day. It showed them problems, but solutions too. In other words, it honoured the contract with the people.

You cannot ask for more from a public broadcaster that has too many audiences to serve, in too many languages, on too many channels, in too big a country, on too large a continent. Yet, you – the audience – always demand more. And so you should.

Unlike some, I don’t long for some mythical “golden age” in public broadcasting in South Africa. It doesn’t exist. It never did. Instead, I want to see what happened to those seeds we sowed back then. I want to see which ones have taken root, or have mutated into something weird and wonderful.

I want to see just how far an apple may hope to fall from the tree.

* Dan David is first a Six Nations Mohawk, bear clan, with roots in Kanehstake Territory, near Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Then he is a writer, journalist, teacher and trainer, and former construction labourer, photographer, tree surgeon, and offset printer. He’s created a wake of confused employers at (to name a few) the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, and the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ). He is currently writing two books; one slamming Canada’s Indian Act, and the other a novel based upon his father.

The above article where he recounts his visits to the SABC during its transformation, appears in the South African Mail & Guardian (25 April-1 May)