The name Zanu-PF used to be synonymous with liberation as was the ANC. It used to stand for the high ideals of fighting oppression at great cost to those who lead the fight. Across the globe, liberated, free-thinking societies and the media institutions that represented their views stood by Zanu-PF as they have stood by the ANC and their struggle.
Without this global support, generated mostly by journalists, it is doubtful that the world would have exerted enough pressure on Ian Smith and FW de Klerk to effect any real change. The world would not have known or cared. Through brave and incorruptible journalism both here in South Africa and abroad, the plight of the people in these countries was made known and a groundswell of support forced foreign governments to act.
It has become apparent, however, that few of the freedom fighters actually seem to believe in the ideals that they stood for. In power, they now oppress and victimise, they steal and foster corruption and they fabricate truths. They are becoming those that they despised. Zimbabwe is at the bottom of virtually every human rights index and every standard-of-living index available and Zanu-PF has put it there. The country is a joke. It is a mess. It is the very model of liberation reversed. It has no official free press; its journalists expelled or imprisoned or exiled. Its people are suffering like never before.
The image of Zanu-PF across the globe has plummeted with that of the country that they misrule. Mugabe is laughed at by virtually every member of every advanced economy on the planet. Why? Because the free press that he tried to cull, lives on stronger than ever on the internet and through other media around the globe. Through that free press we see him for what he is and not what he tells us he is. Through that free press alone, the behaviour of Mugabe is somewhat moderated and the people of Zimbabwe retain hope that their story will be heard and change will come yet again.
You can close a newspaper office down, you can ban publications from sale and you can even murder journalists. You can’t stop the free flow of information on the internet. Blogging has created more journalists and social commentators than ever before. The free press will never die. A dictator could not even do it in Zimbabwe.
Let that be a warning to Floyd Shivambu, Julius Malema and their herd of sycophantic, amateur ANC anarchists here in South Africa. No matter how powerful you get, no matter how draconian your methods you will never squash the free press in this country. You may ban the internet here one day, sue all the newspaper cartoonists and close all the newspapers, but the stories will still be told all over the globe. For every journalist you shackle, ten will rise up. You are being watched, as the apartheid government was watched. You will be judged by the greater world as they were judged.
It is ironically apparent that Julius and Floyd have abundant aptitude to become the new oppressors. They are the new censors, the corrupt and the vile junior leaders that shovel the riches of a nation down their gullets while protesting that the poor have nothing. They do this with their boots on the neck of the common man. President Zuma seems to think they will mature into good, ethical leaders with the interests of the people at heart one day. That, logically, is a public admission of the fact that they are anything but ethical or good leaders at present. One wonders, therefore, why they have gone so far in the ANC thus far. One also wonders if this is honestly the best we can do. Do we one day have to see Julius Malema meeting with Obama? Can our nation not deliver a more worthy representative onto the stage of the world?
In cases such as this, it is possibly the sole responsibility of the free press to moderate the behaviour of these people. They will never be great and benevolent leaders doing great things for our society. That much is already apparent. They are populist thugs with their paws in the cookie jar. They are sound-bite, banner-waving politicians that rely on flash to hide the distinct lack of substance. Thanks to the free press we know this already. The free press will therefore help to keep them on the straight and narrow and get the best out of them that we can hope to. They will expose their failings, expose their corruption and broadcast it all to the world. The free press will conceivably be the only balancing force to their actions.
Floyd. Julius. The free press is watching you and we will never back down. Get used to it.
Thanks to Sipho Hlongwane for this crucial initiative at a crucial time in the development of our democracy.
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SpeakZA
Bloggers for a free press
Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of ANC Youth League Spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the secretary-general of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money-laundering practices of Dumisane Lubisi, a journalist at City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.
We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa.
We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The media have, time and again, been a vital democratic safeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.
The press have played a vital role in the liberation struggle, operating under difficult and often dangerous conditions to document some of the most crucial moments in the struggle against apartheid. It is therefore distressing to note that certain people within the ruling party are willing to maliciously target journalists by invading their privacy and threatening their colleagues in a bid to silence them in their legitimate work.
We also note the breathtaking hubris displayed by Shivambu and ANC Youth League President Julius Malema in their response to the letter of complaint. Shivambu and Malema clearly have no respect for the media and the rights afforded to the media by the Constitution of South Africa. Such a response serves only to reinforce the position that the motive for leaking the so-called dossier was not a legitimate concern, but an insolent effort to intimidate and bully a journalist who had exposed embarrassing information about the youth league president.
We urge the ANC as a whole to reaffirm its commitment to media freedom and other constitutional rights we enjoy as a country.
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Any every citizen who fought for democracy, and will fight for it still, should be behind you all. I certainly am and I am now old enough not to care about being taken out as my daughter is perfectly capable and I have a husband, now, who is behind me! Viva reporters Viva!
Well said and keep up the pressure.
One of the big differences about the era when journalists had an influence on the world forces bringing about change in the previous era was that the world seemed to give more of a toss. Today there’s more information going out, more easily, and the world just lets dictators be.
Where ever you go in the world the most expensive item is ALLWAYS : politicians. We will have to find another way to rule ourselves. We cannot afford them any more.
Awesome initiative!
Just a pity you described Shivambu and co. as anarchists. They certainly don’t deserve this honourable appellation.
Anarchism doesn’t mean ‘chaos and disorder’: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
Viva the free press! It is natural to disapprove of oppression when it directly affects your own interests. It requires yet another major step in moral development to come to understand and to accept that freedom from oppression is indivisible and cannot be apportioned selectively where and when you wish.
All true but the press alone cannot make us free and cannot in any event be solely responsible for moderating the behavious of politicians.
Anyone interested in considering the point further might like to look at:
http://www.richmarksentinel.co.za/rs_articles_contributors.asp?conid=5&recid=1442&pcurr=1
When asked to comment ANC spokesman, Jackson Mthembu said “Hic….one maca, two maca, three macarana, hey, hey macarana…..hic”
Aragorn23 – You are correct. I used the term anarchist in its more coloquial negative context. Poor choice of terms. Lets rather just call them knobs
Anarchy has a positive libertarian spin and while it may be unlikely that it would actually work in its extreme form as a feasible state of social relations, the concept of being ruled without a state is very compelling. It is more compelling still when the state you are ruled by pushes tossers like Malema and Shivambu to the fore. Remove the state and remove the power of such people.
The problem as I see it is that human nature will allow for a new power complex to form and the abuse of such power will eventually lead us back to the system of a state to protect the property and human rights of those who subscribe to it. We may just end up going in a big circle.
Where I agree with anarchism totally is the diminished power of the state to govern the choice of the individual. Why should a state forbid porn, drugs, consensual sex between adults and other such things? We should be free to interact in a manner, free from reasonable harm to or interference with others, of our own choosing. To deny this is barbaric.
One day, when we have advanced sufficiently to consciously allow for our own nature, anarchy may prevail in the academic sense. Until then we are stuck in the democractic system with all of its failings.
I have been trying for the last few years to bring together a lifetime of observation and overlay it with my recent experience in South Africa. This article says what needs to be said. Living in a time in which truth is distorted is nothing new. But it is now, and that pisses me off. The science of climate change as it has evolved in the past decade is a useful analogy of how truth can be used one way or another. Journalism as a force
is necessary to see the world in all aspects and when it is controled or warped, we again become monkeys. What was bugging me is no more. It was not my imagination that much needs to be said now about Zim in the context of SA, nor the roots and historical evolution of today, a day in which things can be done. Of the modernity of the method, the internet is like a childs brain waking up.
Very well said all of you, A LUTA CONTINUA
Tony
Nice one Grant. If there was no Internet, I would still be miserable trying to get George Charamba and Robert Mugabe to publish my views in the PravaHerald!
Well said, Grant. I think that people tend to underestimate the harm done to human relations in SA by the likes of Malema and Floyd – it reminds me of the time before the 2nd WW, when the German government did not take seriously the growth of support for the Nazis, and soon it was too late. Someone sent me a piece that a guy whose name I forget recently wrote on the Facebook Malema fan site – it is sheer hate speech, promising murder and mayhem, not only to SA whites, but to President Zuma into the bargain. Unfortunately it is possible to publish stuff like that on the internet – and I am not in favour of ‘controlling’ the internet; we need freedom of speech – but I do hope something is done to repudiate and possibly prosecute the person in question for unadulterated hate speech – inspired by the way this person perceives Malema as a ‘leader’, can you believe it?!!!
I agree with you Grant with the importance of free press , but I very much disagree when you say Floyd and Julius are a treat to free press. Their view must be published as they are and if there are allegations of corruption within the media , they must be also published as such. It baffles me that the medium can write about everyone else except themselves.
Journalist are also corrupt able and therefore it is absurd that when there’s a shred of such , it must be taken to the authorities without it being published.
VIVA!!!!!! PRESS VIVA !!!!! press will nevar die . guranteee