DURBAN DATELINE:
With South Africa reeling from the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, a year after the first coronavirus victim was diagnosed – and the death rate grimly topping 50 000-plus and the infection rate soaring to 1,52-million, the tragic death of one of the latest high-profile victims has struck at the heart of a reality check that this mysterious and deadly disease will spare no souls.
Karima Brown – 20 May 1967-4 March 2021: In death, Karima Brown shone a light on the country’s controversial and complex media landscape. At 53, she lost her battle to survive coronavirus.
Her death in a Johannesburg hospital last Thursday immediately lit up the print and electronic media – with her TV station, eNCA breaking the shocking news of her demise after three decades of occupying a ringside seat in radio, television and newspapers. Within this difficult terrain and environment, she was always on top of her game, brooking no nonsense and getting to the heart of the facts and figures in black and white.
She was born Karima Semaar of Muslim faith in Mitchells Plain, but kept her byline name though she became a single-parent with a son, Mikhail, 30. Her legend is her fighting spirit and privilege of asking her interviewees tough questions, and she came from a family and community of activists. Her father Achmat Semaar was a top ANC community activist-leader.
Comrade-colleagues in Cape Town recalled how she cut her political teeth in the militant anti-apartheid campaigns with the Cape Youth Congress, SA Students Congress at the University of Western Cape. Social media went abuzz with many colleagues and citizens posting tributes and offering condolences on Facebook, WhatsApp and other online platforms. The publicity of her sad demise brought our media into sharp focus, with many of her colleagues and comrades recounting and reliving their personal experiences with one of the Fourth Estate’s best-known bylines and media mover-and-shaker.
Karima Brown was a hands-on prolific writer, political commentator and TV and radio host. Memories of her forays into one of the most difficult professions were refreshed – especially from apartheid to a democratic state fraught with a multitude of political, economic and social woes – and began resurfacing from her professional prowess to controversial interviews and tiffs.
TV viewers were visibly moved by the still image of her simple, white coffin placed on the grass near her grave site on TV ahead of her funeral by Muslim rites at the Westpark Cemetery in Johannesburg. Her colleagues, media personalities Eusebius Mckaiser and Faith Daniels paid their last respects and gave TV crews fascinating insights at the cemetery. After the moulana delivered the final rites and her coffin was lowered into the grave, Abdul Karriem Matthews posted a photograph of a wooden grave marker pegged into the red soil: 4/3/2021 Karima Brown B124 and wrote: “A simple burial as befitting someone who believed in equality.’’ Her on-air battles with the political heavyweights, ANC, EFF and DA, is legendary, and yet controversial. No-one could gag, muzzle or intimidate the mother of all media.
Karima Brown stood on the shoulders of giants in journalism – among a pioneering brigade of women journalists ever since Zuby Mayet wrote her first story in the Golden City Post in the 1960s.
A fearless and feisty practitioner, she emerged from Cape Town publishing houses and then to Johannesburg’s SABC, Radio 702, CNBC Africa, Business Day, and finally at the 24-hour news channel. Every Sunday she hosted and powerfully presented and anchored The Fix on eNCA.
She was a fiery fixer, always tirelessly trying to fix the politics and social issues of a broken country in crisis and at the crossroads of change. She lived by the old-styled journalism tradition – publish and be damned! Out of the many journalists, photographers and editors I have engaged over the years, I did not enjoy the pleasure of meeting Karima Brown: regrettably we passed each other like two ships in the dark. However, I first heard about her prowess from John Perlman, a progressive journalist at the Mail & Guardian and SABC when I hosted him during my sabbatical year at media institutions in 2000, and also as chairman of the ML Sultan Technikon’s journalism board. After delivering a guest lecture to journalism students, Perlman said he would share his experience with his producer, Karima Brown. Literally shooting from her hip, Mrs Brown belonged to a pantheon of legendary, warrior-like wordsmiths. Big-hearted and ubiquitous, there was a softer side to this battle-hardened communicator. After defeating EFF leader Julius Malema in court, she told SABC that she did not know him “from a bar of soap’’.
Cartoonist Zapiro saw red and sketched an Idi Amin-lookalike military general of the EFF commander-in-chief, frantically touching his mobile phone keypad and sending a flurry of e-trolls, saying “Target: female journalists.’’ Published in the Daily Maverick and posted on social media, it is headlined: Cyber-Fascism to Fascism, showing an angry red-beret brigade of EFF mobs shouting and hurling a brick through the window of a terrified, bespectacled Karima Brown seated at her desk, working on her laptop, cellphone flying off her hand and her grey cat as only witness to this frightening home invasion.
The stunning graphic relates to Brown’s 2019 court case against the EFF when Malema tweeted on Twitter to his supporters to “harass” and issue death and rape threats to the broadcaster after accusing her of ‘attempting to spy on the EFF’’. The court found that the EFF had contravened parts of the electoral code. Brown did not emerge smelling of roses. The judgment criticised her “strident and political” conduct towards the EFF. She had mistakenly posted a watching brief comment intended for eNCA to Malema, which he misread as if Brown was spying on the EFF as an “ANC security operative” and not a journalist. Journalists have to live by a strict credo: audi alteram partem – publish the other side of the story.
- Tributes for a trailblazing titan of the Fourth Estate’s world of the printed word, sound bites and footages poured in:
- Ryland Fisher, former Sunday Times Durban bureau chief and Cape Times editor: “Karima Brown was an important face in media and democracy and when you lose a voice like that it is a big loss.’’
- Lisa Bingham, business consultant to the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ) and a colleague at CNBC Africa: “Your voice was loud but you spoke from a soft heart. You were a stalwart at the time of democracy and always kept your voice above the crowd to remind us of the struggle.”
- Uveka Rangappa, presenter at eNCA during her TV interviews: “Her death left us all in shock. She was loved and feared for her unwavering pursuit of truth and justice …passionate about politics and certainly leaves a legacy of fearlessness and brave journalism. She was super-intelligent and simplified politics. Off-air she would discuss walking or menopause.”
- John Bailey, eNCA head: “She has been battling Covid-19. She was a strong woman and a fierce fighter against sexism and racism, and never shied away from tackling people. She was very principled. I am going to miss a whole bunch of SMSes on story ideas.
- Melody Emmet, executive member of the Southern African Freelancers’Association (SAFREA), posted a poem penned by Athol Williams, headlined: Warrior for Karima Brown.
- Peter Bruce, former editor of Business Day: “She could be intimidating, but I was not intimidated and she charmed her way around me. She could call politicians when others couldn’t. The foreign correspondents read her reports first. She knew what was going on in the ANC and that is why we employed her.”
- Zubeida Jaffer, former political editor at Independent Newspapers: “She was influenced by me and Rehana Rossouw. She was a feisty individual. Though she was not recognised, but she shaped the behind the scenes radio debates for John Perlman and Tim Modise on SAfm.”
- Rebecca Davis, in her obituary in the Daily Maverick described Brown as a “tiger”: She never let criticism silence her voice and she was utterly fearless in holding politicians “feet to the fire.”
- Kate Skinner, outgoing executive director of the South African National Editors Forum, paid a glowing tribute to the fallen foot-soldier, whom SANEF supported during her battle with the EFF.
- A colleague wrapped up her persona and demeanour: “Her entire personality was: This is me – take it or leave it.” There’s a Kind of a Hush in my newsroom-war-room, it is time to switch on to YouTube and take
a listen to the Herman’s Hermits classic song, Mrs Brown, you’ve got a lovely daughter.
Footnote:
The daughter of the revolution is gone to the newsroom-studio in the Great Blue Skies. Who knows if she is debriefing Nelson Mandela?
Until next week, in the wisdom of our founding president: “A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.’’
We salute these fallen change-makers, visionaries, frontline workers and ordinary people:
Hamba Kahle, (go well, farewell in isiZulu) comrades, compatriots and citizens – MARLAN PADAYACHEE – MapMedia GreenGold Communications. marlan.padayachee@gmail.com
