Siyabonga Mkhwanazi
The launch of African Independent has been described by the executive chairman of Independent Media, Dr Iqbal Survé, as the needed voice in changing the narrative about Africa.
Survé said at the weekend that the launch of the new weekly print edition, published on Fridays, was an important addition to the Independent Media stable.
There will be a digital platform for the new paper.
The print edition hit the streets on Friday, and is available in South Africa and across the continent.
Survé said the narrative about Africa had to change, and the continent was not about negative stories including wars and conflicts. Africa was rising and driving the developmental agenda.
There are many positive things happening on the continent including development, entrepreneurship, music, sport, art and commercial activity, he said.
“As Africans, the narrative we are told is this narrative about disaster, this narrative has to be a narrative by Africans,” he said of the new paper.
Survé said the narrative would put issues into perspective for the readers to understand that there was more happening in Africa than negative stories.
When some people think of Africa they think of politics. The people and politics have to be divorced as they are not intertwined, he said.
Survé believed that this has to change as Africans cannot be associated with politics all the time. He said Africa was rising, and this has to be reflected in the way stories are reported.
He said that besides the print edition, the online edition would be accessed by 300 million Africans across the continent.
He said he did not want Africa’s development agenda to be distracted by doomsayers.
Survé quoted US author Toni Morrison in asserting this point.
“The function, the very serious function, of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language, so you spend 20 years proving that you do.
“Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly, so you have scientists working on the fact that it is,” says Morrison.
“Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up.
“Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary.
“There will always be one more thing,” says Morrison.
Survé added that the important element in how the paper is doing its business is the manner it contextualises stories on Africa.
This has been a missing link in how Africa has been portrayed by others.
This narrative will have to stick to this line to give a better perspective about Africa.
“This issue of contextualising the narrative is understood to be a story. That is a problem we have today; that we don’t give context to something.
“What has happened in Africa is that people have provided a width of stories; the narrative is wide, but not deep,” said Survé.
He said the African narrative ought to be the world view of Africans about themselves.
He said African liberation hero Amílcar Cabral was correct when he said, “Tell no lies, claim no easy victories.”
This was particularly so on Africans to stop negative stories, but give a correct perspective about themselves.
This was the narrative about the reality of Africa’s growth, development, music and art.
Stories about Africa must be about positive things, and not negative stories.
He said Cabral was correct that Africans must say who they are.
He said African Independent would reach all the corners of Africa in articulating this positive story about Africa.
There is a brand new multimedia platform for Africa, and African Independent will pursue that agenda for positive stories on the continent.