Audio excerpt — [Attendees singing at Natan Mwanza’s funeral]

RUBY:

Two weeks ago, in the evening, 24-year-old Natan Mwanza was on a bus in Melbourne’s south west.

He was allegedly approached by two other young men, followed and eventually stabbed and killed.

His death has sparked an outpouring of grief from the Australian Congolese community, many of whom have fled violence in their home country.

Writer, historian and filmmaker Santilla Chingaipe, also felt the impact of Natan’s death and set about trying to understand what had happened.

It soon became a story about how we write and report on crime, and how black lives are treated in the media.

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

Today, Santilla Chingaipe on the life of Natan Mwanza and how black grief is rendered invisible.

It’s Thursday, March 6

RUBY:

Santilla, Natan Mwanza was killed two weeks ago. You've been speaking to his family in the wake of his death. To begin with, could you tell me what they told you about him and about who he was?

SANTILLA:

So I spoke to his uncle, Tresor, who described Natan as this gentle giant, you know, who was about six foot three, the second of six siblings.

Audio excerpt — Natan Mwanza’s uncle Tresor:

“Gentle giant, just someone that was very respectful, very reserved. You know, obviously, if you got to know him, then you get to realise the puppy side of him.”

SANTILLA:

Natan and his family moved to Australia actually from the Democratic Republic of the Congo when he was seven and they settled here in Melbourne. And Tresor says that, you know, when he arrived, he loved playing soccer and so he used to take him to soccer practice when he was a kid. And there was a point when Tresor thought that Natan might actually turn professional and play soccer as a career, but eventually ended up becoming a model and quite successful actually. He featured in campaigns for brands like Nike and Champion. And yeah, he was much loved by his family. He was regarded as someone who was quite respectful. He had a very close bond with all of his siblings and his dad as well. So yeah, he was clearly very beloved.

Audio excerpt — Natan Mwanza’s uncle Tresor:

“He would never hurt a fly, you know, he loved kids. He always loved hanging out, playing with his siblings and things like that, just the kind of guy that would give his shirt off his back to give to someone.”

RUBY:

And so what do we know about what actually happened to Natan on the day that he died?

SANTILLA:

So it's alleged that Natan was taking the bus home on Wednesday the 19th of February. It was around 8pm. And when he was on the bus, an altercation ensued with two other people that were also on the bus. This altercation, according to the police, spilled over onto the nature strip when the bus stopped and Natan exited the bus. And following this altercation, the two people that were on the bus and then followed Natan out of the bus are alleged to have inflicted stab wounds on him, which ultimately led to his death. So he died from his injuries by the time paramedics arrived on the nature strip in Wyndham Vale that night of Wednesday the 19th of February.

RUBY:

And so as these distressing details have filtered out about his death, how are Natan's friends and his family and the wider community around them, how are they grappling with what happened?

SANTILLA:

Yeah, I think, you know, like any family, like any parent, I think people are very distressed. I mean, this seems like it was a very random attack on a young person who was going about their day. You know, it's not the kind of thing that you would expect to happen. I mean, this is what his uncle said to me. I mean, you read about these sorts of things in the news and the media and you don't think it's going to happen to a member of your family. His mum, you know, when she and a few other family members, I'm told, had to go and identify his body, ended up being taken to hospital just because that was all quite distressing for her to experience. His dad has come out in the media and talked about just how much of an impact this has had on the family, how they want answers, they don't understand why this happened, how it could have happened.
And there was also a lot of outpouring of not just support but also just shock on social media from a lot of people who identify as African-Australian who just could not fathom why this would happen out of the blue.

RUBY:

And for many people who've come from the Democratic Republic of Congo, they've come to Australia to escape violence and they're here because it's supposed to be a safer place. So when something like this happens, the shock and the trauma must be overwhelming. What did people say to you about that?

SANTILLA:

That's right. You know, to put into context for listeners, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been, you know, experiencing civil unrest since 1996. And that civil unrest has led to more than six million people being killed and millions more displaced.

Audio excerpt — Santilla:

“Can you tell me your full name and your title?”

Audio excerpt — Doghy:

“My name is Doghy Bongwa.”

SANTILLA:

And I spoke to the chair of the Victorian Congolese Community, Doghy Bongwa, who expressed just how distressing and traumatising it was and is for the Congolese community in particular, because of the trauma from, you know, having lived and survived the ongoing conflict there.

Audio excerpt — Doghy:

“It's very sad news when we hear it as Congolese people. We're traumatised. Really, we don't know what to say. Since that day, we are asking ourselves what to do. You know now back home, wars are going on. People are being killed. And here again, it's the same.”

SANTILLA:

And so you can imagine managing to flee that environment and then arriving in Australia where you assume that there would be relative safety, where you would be able to move around without fear of losing your life and for this to then happen to a member of your community brings up a lot of that trauma, where you sort of think, you know, is there anywhere that's safe?

RUBY:

And can you tell me any more about the vigils and memorials that have been held in recent days?

SANTILLA:

On the weekend, just days after Natan's death, I started to see a lot of friends who identify as African-Australian posting about it on social media and talking about how triggering it was for them. You know, a lot of young people posted videos on TikTok where they tried to remember and honour Natan.

Audio excerpt — Tiktok 1:

“I am very sad and if you look properly into my eyes, I've just been crying, listening to the stories of the family, sharing about Natan.”

Audio excerpt — Tiktok 2:

“It hurts seeing a young life being taken very tragically like this.”

Audio excerpt — Tiktok 3:

“Young African-Australians are dying daily and nobody wants to speak about it. Justice for Natan.”

SANTILLA:

The family held a vigil near where he was murdered. And I think what was interesting about it was that here's a community that is used to being marginalised and seeing the community find ways to hold each other, to find ways to mourn Natan, to honour his life and to remember his legacy.

It was almost as though if you know the space won't be made, the community will find space.

RUBY:

After the break, the way black lives are treated in the media

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RUBY:

You say this is a community that is used to being marginalised. And I think that media narratives really play into that. And since Natan's death, there's been a lot of reporting about knife related crime in Melbourne, particularly among young people. There was a recent Daily Mail article that calls Melbourne “a city that has come accustomed to rampant mindless violence”, for example, and it comes in this bigger context of a lot of references in the media to gang on gang violence. So. Tell me what you've thought as you've seen the story of Natan's death reported in that context.

SANTILLA:

Look, it's been very interesting and it made me think about how do we report about crime and how do we report about victims of crime and how we report on them really matters. In this instance, it's a black victim of crime and black victims of crime generally aren't given the space to be memorialised despite the fact that black victims are disproportionately victims of violent crime. Then there's also the aspect of offences that are regarded as knife crimes and this narrative that knife crime is increasing, but when I started to look at the data, there hasn't actually been an increase. I think, if anything, overall, crime in Australia seems to be going down. But what is interesting is how the media reports on it. And because we've seen very high profile cases that have led parts of the media to speculate on rates and incidents of crime, which really do not mirror the data. And that then feeds into fear and anxiety in the community. So it does lead to the illusion that things are worse than they actually are.

RUBY:

And within this reporting, you do also sometimes see a version of this phrase. You know, the person who was killed was not known to police, which I think goes to this implicit idea that a victim, particularly a young black man, might have been involved in a gang or done something wrong in this context. Is this something that you were noticing when you were working in newsrooms? Do you have any other thoughts on, I suppose, how these media reports come about and the effect that they have?

SANTILLA:

Yeah, I mean when I first started reporting on the story, my journalistic instincts were to, you know, look at the data and use the data to kind of somehow make sense of what happened. And I think what was interesting for me was looking at studies overseas, particularly in the US and the UK that have looked at how the media reports on victims of violent crime who aren't white. And from those studies, what becomes very clear is that, you know, black people are disproportionately victims of violent crime, and yet the way that they're reported on by the media does not humanise them. And if anything, contributes to narratives that seem to suggest that criminality and race are linked when we know that that's obviously not true, those are very much racist tropes. And so the more these narratives are sensationalised and when black victims aren't humanised, it feeds into these ideas of who perpetrators are likely to be of crime. So it challenged me as well, because I hadn't thought about these things until I started working on it, looking at research.

And like I said, it's very rare that black victims of crime are memorialised. I mean, if Natan was a young white person, I'm pretty sure his death would have seen a lot of media coverage. I think he probably would have ended up on the front page of quite a few newspapers. But, you know, he didn't get that kind of memorialisation. And I thought it was very important that at the very least, there was space to humanise him.

And so I'm hoping that by sharing Natan’s story and writing it in the way that I did, it forces many of my peers to kind of reflect on how they also report on crime.

RUBY:

And so to come back to Natan then, to how he lived, what do his family want people to know about their son or their nephew?

SANTILLA:

They want people to know that he was loved, Ruby. I mean, it's pretty much as simple as that. He was loved, his life mattered, you know. He came from a big and very tight-knit family. You know, one of his siblings spoke at the vigil and talked about how he thought that his big brother was gonna be there for his wedding, you know, and he can't fathom the fact that he's not gonna be there and he's not gonna be able to witness this big life event.

But yeah, it really just comes down to the fact that he meant a lot to a lot of people and he will be very much missed by those who knew him and those who loved him.

RUBY:

Santi, thank you for your time today.

SANTILLA:

Thanks, you too.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

Evacuation centres have been established on the Gold Coast, in anticipation of Cyclone Alfred, which is expected to make landfall sometime today or Friday morning.

The region, along with Brisbane and the Queensland hinterland, is expected to face the worst of the strong winds from the category two storm.

And

Western Australia police have charged a 16-year-old boy over an alleged online threat to a Mosque in south-west Sydney.

The teen allegedly threatened to "Christchurch 2.0 this joint", in an apparent reference to the 2019 terror attack in which an Australian man killed 51 people at a mosque in New Zealand.

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