Mandela’s formula

Mandela’s formula for stealing the thunder

Anti-apartheid leader and African National Congress (ANC) member Nelson Mandela addresses at a funeral of 12 people died during recent township unrests in Soweto, 20 September 1990, in Soweto. - GETTY IMAGES

by Pearl Thevanayagam

(August 27, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Nelson Mandela stands tall and is spoken in the same breath as Gandhi, Buddha and Jesus for his relentless struggle against apartheid by being incarcerated in Robben Island while BBC recently revealed a darker and much concealed secret of his fellow prison inmate Neville Alexander. The 74 year old Alexander spent as much time in the same prison as Mandela. In his interview with the BBC he recalled how his grandmother who was of Ethiopian descent and who was bartered for grain to slave merchants (one does not know if they were Africans, Indians or Europeans) and subsequently rescued by British ship owners and entrusted in the care of missionaries later went on to become an educationist. And she was his inspiration.

But alas, he was never feted for the same cause of apartheid he fought against along with Mandela and several others since he was like the proverbial turtle which lays a thousand eggs but makes no noise and hence they are not sold in supermarket shelves all because the hen having laid one egg cackles so loud and everybody consumes chicken eggs. This is Saatchi & Saatchi’s mantra on the power of advertising.

Alexander’s grandma fought valiantly against apartheid and succeeded at a time when Blacks were not considered human beings by the Afrikkaners, British and others in the West. James Michener’s book, The Covenant, is a very thick volume which narrates the history of Africa and how the West infiltrated and conquered it and systematically destroyed its culture and made Africa what it is today; a continent plagued with tribalism, racism, poverty violence and discord as it struggles to free itself from the clutches of western dominance.

The late Daryll de Silva, my colleague at The Daily News, who met an untimely death by being trampled by an elephant working as communications officer for the Department of Wild Life borrowed this book from me and never returned it. I am still holding a grudge against him and it still pains me. Perhaps I’ll ask for it when I meet my maker. The Covenant is certainly is not an emotive novel like Alex Haley’s The Roots nor is it fiction.

Something of a minuscule proportion occurred to me when I attended a workshop on conflict resolution arranged by international Alert headed by Kumar Rupesinghe, ex-husband of Sunethra Bandaranaike , and co-ordinated by the current editor of Sunday Leader Frederica Jansz as she was Kumar’s PR or Communication Officer at the time in 1996.

Sunila Abeysekera who was later to receive the UN award for monitoring Press Freedom simply by compiling newspaper clippings was in my group during this workshop. Our group was cloistered in a room for brainstorming during which time I took the minutes when Sunila said she had better present my report since she is well known in the circle and she had experience in public presentation. She also had the advantage to prove her point in the fact her late father had won a UN Human Rights Award.

Plus she was a champion of Women’s Rights since she is a single mother for her children but she soldiers on courageously providing for them single-handedly in a society which frowns on women living dangerously without the burden of tying the marital knot. I stood aside and forsook my careful and painstaking deliberation of the workshop while Sunila delivered her rendition of my report to a captive audience.

This phenomenon is nothing new in the media, academia and politics.

With 193 nations as its members the UN has neither the time nor resources to check the credentials of its nominees for the many awards it offers; be it democratic governance, Human Rights (Human Wrongs), gay and lesbian rights and any subject which catches its eye and violates its core principles stemming from the resolutions it made post- World War 11 circa 1945 particularly when it comes to appointments from third world countries.

A researcher freelancing for the late Neelan Thiruchelvam’s ICES (International Centre for Ethnic Studies) once told me she actually wrote the papers on child soldiers for the UN while Radhika Kumaraswamy claimed authorship as UN’s Special Rapporteur on the subject of children being exploited.

Around 2001 I wrote an article to the editor of The Guardian (UK) on the anniversary of the LTTE abrogating the peace talks initiated by Lakshman Kadirgamar which led to the mass exodus of Tamils in the North fleeing in their thousands and eventually the government took control of Jaffna in December 1995 when Anuruddha Ratwatte hoisted the Lion Flag.

Not unexpectedly Roy Greenslade ( a senior journalist at the Guardian) wrote a half page feature on the subject but chose not to give even a passing credit to me as a source. Anyhow I met him eight years later and mentioned this to him. He made a quick exit apologising to me that he had an urgent appointment.

Plagiarism goes undetected and air-brushed when committed by those in higher echelons. I do not hold a grudge against that Island regional correspondent who plagiarised my story verbatim on malaria published in the Daily News since unlike reporters based in newspaper offices who receive a fixed salary the correspondents only get paid a pittance depending on the number of stories published. They might deliver some 20 stories a day either hand-written and hand-delivered or faxed (the cost of which is not calculated by the editors) but they would be lucky if the editor selected even one for publishing.

The Nuwara-eliya correspondent for Weekend Express used to Colombo office at least twice a week with his cloth bag full of stories of temple festivals, ministers opening them, suicides, pesticide poisoning, rape, child abuse and it was painful to discard most of them since this is his only income earner barring the pongal he is given.

I do apologise for straying from the subject at hand.

Getting back on track, the juniors do all the ground work and the hierarchy claim credit unless you are three steps ahead of them. A group of researchers gather data and overawed by titles of their superiors truly forfeit their hard work for them to claim credit and receive plaudits not to mention massive monetary gains.

Why do universities award PhDs to only a select few? These smart Alecks are masters in the art of picking the brains of others and not necessarily researching their theses. Now the question arises as to how one arrives at this theory. Experience.

I was invited to Oxford University to discuss Sri Lanka’s refugee situation for the PhD students at the Department of Migration Studies several years ago. Actually it is a poky two roomed office and the head of the department was one Dr Van Heer. There was Paul Sathianesan, Newham Councillor who would talk at the drop of a hat and how he came to UK with only a suitcase ( as if others arrived on P&O cruise liner) and the Tamils have heard this sob story ad nauseum , Ms Punitham David who never fails to attend any confab on refugees and gives her tuppence worth and yours truly.

This is the first lesson I learnt. I spent for my own travel and wasted three hours from London only to be given biscuits and tea and not even a refund for my travel expenses. Realising this I kept mum and did not speak on the issue. Apparently the students were due to leave on a research mission for theses and the Dean was picking our brains free of charge!! This is Oxford, mind you with massive funding in its coffers and us idiots were stupid enough to go there.

There you go; this is the way the cookie crumbles.

(The writer is Asia Pacific Journalism Fellow at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, California and a print journalist for 21 years. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)