RASHID Lombard was a photojournalist and political photographer at South Press. One of the struggle papers whose pages now form the background header of Medialternatives, right above this piece.

Boeta Rashid practically took every image that appeared in the weekly paper, pushing out black and white and Kodachrome negatives in the days before digital cameras. I remember Rashid with his signature black beret, frantically coming back to the newsroom on Russel Street, from events where students had been beaten up or detained, with rolls of film that would invariably make their way into glossy overseas publications.

Life for those working for a small paper often banned by the regime was not exactly a cake-walk, but we were all intimately related to events, knowing what could happen if we failed. The security branch who might come knocking in the middle of the night, and the dirty tricks operation that was underway further complicated matters.

Later as CEO of ESPAfrika the company behind the Cape Town Jazz Festival, and in the aftermath of democracy, Rashid offered me use of his collection of jazz photography to complement my story on Jimmy Dludlu and Robbie Jansen. A piece which would have broken the racist mold created by apartheid separate development. The story was never published, and condemned as ‘not fit for publication in a family newspaper’.

Instead of availing the generous offer, Media24 took a glim view and refused to return Rashid’s phone-calls, at first they rejected my story out of hand, then amplified their accusations of plagiarizing my own writing and/or quoting from a music industry biography, correctly attributed to the music industry in quotation marks. The accusations have never been challenged by an attorney before an impartial court of law.

The claims recorded in the tainted outcome of Lewis v Media24 are vexatious to say the least.

DF Malan’s media company which has a history of involvement in apartheid went so far as pillorying me for being Jewish (or the wrong kind of Jew) and for having a struggle history, and the matter became a fact before the corrupted Labour Court of SA, along with a letter on an EspAfrika letterhead explaining Lombard’s generous offer.

Instead of accepting this evidence, I was accused of name-dropping, whilst an alternative reality comprising baldfaced lies was handed down by then executive director of the Resolve Group, Halton Cheadle whose client and business partner I was suing. This fact of the group and its involvement in the media was never revealed during the proceeding, but only became knowledge after I complained to the Judicial Services Commission who referred the matter to the Cape Law Society.

Of course, we all know the outcome of this Kangaroo proceeding in which the racist court was so captured by the Broederbond it literally forgot that apartheid had ended, proceeding to mock the outcome of the TRC, and thus deserving of our condemnation.

The last I saw Rashid was some years ago at Tagore’s in Observatory, Cape Town. He arrived shortly before midnight, promptly grabbed my hands and we ended up doing a surreal waltz around the small venue, landing up outside to smoke a joint.

A puff and pass to other jazz legends and struggle luminaries that have walked this path.

Rest in Peace

Tag: Music