Posthumous honour for Sam Nzima
Even in death, the legendary photojournalist, Sam Nzima cannot be silenced.
Nzima, who had taken the photo of Mbuyiseni Makhubu carrying the lifeless body of a young Hector Pieterson after he had been fatally shot by the apartheid police during the 1976 Soweto student protest, was officially conferred with an honorary doctorate by the Tshwane University of Technology.
The world-renowned photographer was officially honoured on Saturday in Mkhuhlu during a befiting event witnessed by the likes of the minister of justice, Ronald Lamola, Prof John P Shongwe, Dr Elijah Maswanganyi and Dr Ruel Khoza, to name but a few.
READ: The late Sam Nzima tells of that fateful day
When Nzima took the photograph in 1976, he was still working for The World and was covering the student protest for the newspaper. The photo has been widely publicised and exhibited all over the world, mostly unauthorised and without acknowledgement of the man behind the photo.
The image inspired many in the world and in South Africa to take up arms and support the liberation struggle.
After 22 years of fighting for the rights to this photograph, Nzima was finally given copyright to it in 1998 when the Argus Group sold its newspapers to the Independent Online Group.
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His iconic image made Time magazine’s headlines in 1976, revealing to the world the brutality and ruthlessness of the apartheid system. The magazine also recognised it as one of the top 100 most influential images of the century.
Nzima’s wife stepped in and received the honorary doctorate on behalf of her late husband.
“It is only in Africa, unfortunately, where we celebrate people who have passed on, when they have crossed the skies to glory land. “We rarely celebrate people when they are still alive,” said Maswanganyi in his keynote address.
“Sam Nzima was supposed to have been given many flowers while still alive,” he continued. “He was supposed to have been celebrated throughout the entire country while still alive. I appeal to you all, to undergo a paradigm shift and move away from that tradition of recognising and appreciating people when they are no more.”
He likened Nzima to the biblical Moses and Joshua who had both played a huge role in freeing the Israelites from a life of slavery in Egypt. “As we celebrate, recognise, acknowledge, affirm and appreciate this great man, Sam Nzima, I attempt to draw a parallel between Moses and Joshua. Just like Moses who freed approximately three million Israelites from Egyptian bondage, and Joshua who led the Israelites to Canaan, the Promised Land, Sam Nzima’s act of heroism through his lens freed millions of South Africans.
“Who could have thought that a young rural man from the poor and unknown village of Lilydale would be the one to respond with a sense of historic clarity and vividness… June 16 has become synonymous with that globally recognisable and famous picture, taken by a sharp visionary and the legacy-creating lens of Dr Sam Nzima.”
“It is beyond dispute that June 16, 1976 became a major turning point in the history of the struggle against apartheid, because that historic picture exposed the international community to the brutality in South Africa, which was immediately declared a crime against humanity by the United Nations,” he concluded.
