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Silenced
voices: Coletane
Markham
by
Siobhan Dowd, with the cooperation of the Writers in Prison Committee
of International P.E.N., London
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Silenced
Voices, a monthly column about imprisoned authors, is
written by Siobhan Dowd. This column originally appeared
in the Literary Review (London).
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(April 29, 2002) If
murder is the ultimate form of censorship, unsolved murder is
the ultimate chilling effect. The International Federation of
Journalists says that it has about 700 cases of murder on its
books from the past decade, and many of these were never solved.
PEN, the writers' association, keeps cases of unsolved murders
alive, campaigning for full investigations: only an answer to
what happened, it says, can allow relatives to move on in their
lives, and colleagues to regain a sense of stability as they carry
on their literary or journalistic work.
If one allows for the
lower proportion of women in the writing professions, then it
seems that women have been murder victims as often as men. Guatemalan
poet Alaide Foppa de Solorazano remains on PEN's books, even though
she was kidnapped as long ago as 1980. There can be little doubt
that, with the violence of that time and nothing having been heard
from her since, she is dead. Her advocacy of Mayan rights is sufficient
to explain her fate, but nobody has ever been arrested. In Chechynia,
Nadezhda Chaikova was found battered and shot near Grozny. The
lack of any proper official investigation into her death caused
her colleagues on the Obschaia Gazeta to mount their own enquiry.
Again, no perpetrator has been found. A more recent murder was
that of South African writer and journalist Coletane Markham.
On May 5, 2000, she was battered over her head with what seems
to have been a hammer. As a journalistic colleague of hers puts
it, "the matter is still shrouded in reams of uncertainty
and we intend to follow the case up. There has been deafening
silence about the progress of the case. At the time of her death,
the South African Union of Journalists had pledged some funds
towards a reward for information that could lead to the resolution
of her subsequent murder." Two years on, her murder remains
a mystery.
A committed life
Perhaps
the main theme of the work of Coletane Markham (above) was
her commitment to young people. (Photo courtesy of the
Sowetan) |
Coletane was black,
uncompromising in her commitment to social reforms in her country,
and outspoken, and a seasoned activist. Educated in Botswana,
Cape Town and Leeds in the UK (where she completed a Masters in
Development Studies), she held a variety of posts for such campaigning
groups as the Catholic Institute in Booysens in Johannesburg and
the Labour Bulletin. She was an active member of the ANC
under apartheid and for some years worked as a researcher for
the South African Institute of Race Relations. In 1995, she joined
the staff of the Sowetan newspaper group, and by 2000, had become
a sub-editor on the Sowetan Sunday World, a tabloid aimed
at black readers with a circulation of around 300,000. She also
published in-depth articles, more academic in tone, on subjects
such as the white monopoly of ownership within the media. Although
critical of how, even post-apartheid, skin color still determined
the structure of power, she also noted that "the Achilles
heel in South Africa is the lack of unity and purpose among Black
organizations" and called for a "united front interested
only in the well-being of the people". Not long before her
death she was becoming increasingly interested in environmental
issues, but perhaps the main theme of her life and work was her
commitment to young people, especially those growing up poor and
uneducated in the townships.
The first literary
work of hers to be published was a poem entitled "For the
Children," reportedly written when she was only about twelve.
It appeared in two anthologies (including the 1991 Voices from
Young Africa from Sached/Macmillan), and remains an uncannily
sharp, ironic indictment of the exploitation of children in a
violent, greedy world:
I would like to
destroy the child,
to use its innocence and honesty
as my weapons
its newfound maturity as my armour
and the world as my battlefield…
and save thousands
of children
from the dilemma of becoming
corrupt and bitter adults.
Murdered while exposing
vice
Many of her colleagues
fear that it may be no accident that at the time of her death
she was researching a story on child prostitution. She had grappled
with this issue for many years, on one occasion finding out that
certain staff members at a home for the protection of child prostitutes
were themselves abusing the children in their care. She herself
had lived in Hillbrow, a notoriously violent neighborhood, with
many of poverty's social ills, child prostitution among them.
She knew the street life of the townships, was confident in her
dealings with their inhabitants. She spoke the language and commanded
respect. She had no qualms about going where she needed to get
stories she wanted.
At the time of her
death, Coletane had moved to a prosperous middle-class neighborhood
in Johannesburg. She lived alone, but had a wide circle of friends
and a dog for protection. None of this prevented her death. She
was attacked by an unknown assailant by the gate to her house,
and left for dead. In an odd detail that many have puzzled over,
it appears that her attacker drove her car away from the scene
of the crime and abandoned it outside the police station. One
conclusion was that the attacker wanted her killing to be especially
"marked": it had been done and the aim was to show it
had been done.
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What
you can do
Letters
requesting that the investigation into Coletane Markham's
murder be vigorously pursued can be sent to:
Dr.
M. G. Buthelezi
Minister of Home Affairs
Private Bag X 741
Pretoria 0001
Rep. of South Africa
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An unsolved crime
Her colleagues at the
paper were dismayed that the police investigation was only mounted
a few days after the crime. Many vital clues may well have been
lost. The police concluded that although little evidence was available,
the act was premeditated. And there the cases lies dormant. The
ANC, however, released a strong statement condemning her murder
and mourning her loss: "It is always a severe blow when the
community loses anyone one of its members. But it is even more
painful when the life lost is that of a journalist, especially
at a time when our country needs the watchdog role of the media
for checks and balances as we traverse this learning curve of
transition from our sad past to a truly free and democratic order…
We appeal to the law enforcement agencies to redouble their efforts
in making sure that the perpetrator or perpetrators of this dastardly
act are brought to book. May her soul rest in peace."
One of her colleagues
in email touch with me reinforced this message two years on. She
pleaded that more be written about her tragic death, especially
because, outside of South Africa, little was ever published, despite
her impeccable credentials as a young talent, a woman of principle
and a journalist with far more to say than her short life allowed
her.
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