Milton Nkosi: The apartheid child who changed Africa’s story

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As a child of Soweto, apartheid South Africa’s most notorious black township, Milton Nkosi could easily have become an embittered adult; in June 1976 he witnessed the Soweto uprising in which white police brutally suppressed protests by black schoolchildren, leading to many deaths. Yet, as apartheid began to collapse in the early 1990s, Milton found himself drawn into TV journalism; enabling him to question his former tormentors and helping viewers around the world to see the moral case for change. So began a career that took him from translator and fixer to producer and eventually, the head of bureau for the BBC’s news operation in South Africa, where he then sought to diversify coverage of a fast-changing continent. As Milton explains in this conversation with Owen Bennett-Jones, his humble beginnings turned out to be an asset: Among his childhood neighbours in Soweto were anti-apartheid activists including Nelson Mandela’s wife and children, many of whom would become valuable contacts. However, after the transition to democracy in 1994, Milton also had to ask uncomfortable questions of some of them, as claims of corruption emerged within the ANC government. Moral dilemmas such as this defined his working life: Is it even possible to be an impartial reporter when your subject might be a close associate? For Milton, the issues need to be seen in context. As he points out: “Nobody can ever justify apartheid based on the mistakes of the post-apartheid leaders”.

Produced by Michael Gallagher Editor Bridget Harney Image: (Milton Nkosi) Christian Parkinson

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello this is Owen Bennett Jones with assignment here on the BBC World Service.
0:05.8	This program is all about distinctive journalism and for the next few weeks I'll be exploring
0:12.2	what that means to four people, each an expert
0:15.6	in their chosen journalistic field, finding out about their work, their lives, and the interaction
0:22.1	between the two.
0:23.4	It'll be a change from the usual assignment style
0:26.4	when not on location, but rather in conversation.
0:30.3	So, to start off, a television journalist who's had a remarkable personal journey.
0:36.6	Having spent his childhood in the black township of Suweto, in the days of South African
0:41.1	apartheid, Milton and Cozy ended up a producer, a reporter, and
0:47.0	finally a bureau chief for the BBC.
0:50.4	And in a way, his disadvantaged start led to his success.
0:55.0	The son of an African National Congress activist
0:58.0	he grew up alongside many of the people who went on to make news as leaders of the ANC.
1:04.0	Yet it also presented him with difficult ethical issues.
1:08.0	Can a victim of a political system be impartial when reporting on that system. And what happens if the people
1:16.7	you know, family friends, win power and are accused of corruption? Milton and Cozy, welcome to the program.
1:23.5	Thank you, Owen, it's good to be with you.
1:26.1	And just to begin with that upbringing in Suweto, the obvious question, I guess, what was it like?
1:31.8	We thought we were just growing up in a normal neighborhood, but as we came out of our childhood,
1:37.6	we started to see the differences. The township was full of black people, everyone was black but the police were white
1:44.9	Also black people wouldn't be living in the same areas as where they worked so they had to be
	...

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