Aggrey Klaaste remembered

Photo courtesy of www.joburg.org.za

Klaaste was editor of the Sowetan from 1988 until 2002, taking the newspaper into democracy in 1994.

The overall aim of Nation Building was to try to repair the damage apartheid had wrought on the structures within black communities across the country. This was done by means of identifying people who, despite severe hardships imposed by the government's wantonly discriminatory policies, had risen above their circumstances and set a remarkable example by their actions. These achievements were to be recognised by giving awards.

Klaaste was among the last group of black students to have completed his degree at Wits before it was closed by apartheid statute to blacks. In 1960 the Extension of University Education Act was passed, forcing the country's best universities to exclude blacks for the next three decades. Klaaste graduated in 1960.

On finishing his BA degree, Klaaste moved easily into journalism. Why journalism? "Because of booze," he laughs. "I started drinking at Wits and starting hanging out with the wrong crowd - the boozers." And the boozers were often the journalists. He got a job with Drum magazine, and from there moved to The World (which was banned in 1977), and later The Post, which became the Sowetan in 1981. In 1977 he was arrested along with The World's editor at the time, Percy Qoboza. Klaaste spent nine months in jail.

When Klaaste took over the Sowetan in 1988 it was "a kitchen newspaper", and he wanted to "instill something more serious", hence the Nation Building programme. The programme "got the paper nearer to the community - the loyalty was amazing". And that loyalty remains to this day.

Klaaste, one of eight children, was born in Kimberley, but spent most of his life in Johannesburg, a city he described as "the passion of my life". His parents moved the family to Johannesburg when he was three, and his father became a clerk on the mines. In 1955, when Sophiatown was cruelly and roughly dismantled, he moved with his family to Meadowlands, Soweto.

Klaaste was far from ready to retire when age 60 rolled along. He was busy with his autobiography, an executive with black empowerment company New Africa Investment Ltd, and still very involved in community work. In July last year, Johannesburg's executive mayor, Amos Masondo, appointed Klaaste chairperson of the newly-created, Johannesburg Tourism Company.

When asked how he would want to be remembered, he replied: "I want to be remembered as having done something for abused people."

He'll be remembered for much more than that.

Source: Johannesburg News Agency, www.joburg.org.za.