The undertaking by Justice Minister Jeff Radebe, in his address to the SA National Editors’ Forum in Johannesburg on Saturday night, that the government would not treat the media in the way it was done during the apartheid years is unfortunately of little, or no comfort.
The apartheid regime could be lethal to those who tried to break out of the censorship laager created by a government intent on ensuring the citizens of South Africa remained steadfast in their acceptance of minority rule. In this regard the views from within and outside the country — which did not coincide with that goal — were ruthlessly dealt with. Had the internet been around one wonders how long this disgraceful system could have lasted.
The minister, in suggesting that this government won’t be as bad as them, is basically saying that the Vietnam War was OK because next to World War II, the casualties were negligible.
So too, is his undertaking that any law must be in conformity with the Constitution.
The South African Constitution provides at Sections 15 and 16 for “Freedom of religion, belief and opinion” and “Freedom of expression”. These are tempered by, inter alia, Section 16 itself which provides that the freedoms contained in that section are not unlimited and sets out the exceptions.
Accordingly the government need only have regard to the Constitution itself, case law and the existing Criminal Procedures Act to uphold standards consistent with a free society.
In a true constitutional democracy one of, if not the main protections citizens enjoy, is the right to media freedom. Through knowledge gained via the media they are able to guard against corruption, abuse of power and any other matter or thing that threatens them as they go about their daily tasks.
If this is removed, as it was during apartheid, then, for example, whites who adore Nelson Mandela are led to believe that he is a terrorist who would do to them what the Nazis did to the Jews if given the chance. Or that the ANC — in anybody’s terms a moderate party — are a bloodthirsty left-wing radical group who would order the whites slaughtered the day they took power. When I used to tell people in the 1980s that the ANC were moderates they nearly fell off their chairs.
In the case of the factional war between President Jacob Zuma and former president Thabo Mbeki, I always said then, as I do now, that if Mbeki was of a mind to do so he could have closed down the mass media — as President Robert Mugabe did — and then employed the NIA, police and even the military to take out Zuma, Julius Malema and anyone else who opposed him.
How soon those in the Zuma faction forget that when the press is censored, as it was during apartheid, the government can literally get away with murder. So much so that they can trap an entire black population behind walls, shoot those who question their authority and block out the opinion of an entire outside world. Taking that as your starting point, how much easier would it have been to get rid of just the leadership of the Zuma faction?
Accordingly, by suggesting that a media tribunal be appointed to oversee what is the public’s main safeguard against government abuse, the ANC are threatening the most valuable protection people enjoy — information. Armed with that, people can respond to danger and ask questions of their government. Deprived of it they are sitting ducks.
How, for example, would people take the government to task about the arms deal billions if they never knew about it?
South Africans from all parties must unite on this issue and demand that media freedom be preserved and remain totally independent of any government interference.
That is particularly aimed at the ANC.
Lest the party forget, during the years of Mbeki there appeared to be a discernible divide between the ANC and the government. In the hands of someone lusting for power at all costs, the government could effectively have blown the party away.
Never mind forming a party like Cope, there could easily have been a Mugabe-like dictatorship wherein those close to the top control government, army, police intelligence and all the major resources while blacking out the media.
As the world has seen, once media censorship is entrenched it is almost impossible to get rid of it without a civil war or major bloodshed as outside forces intervene.
The party most in danger from that is the ANC and nobody else.
Of course, the fact that the justice minister is suggesting that the media would have to reveal their sources is all the proof you’ll ever need of how vital this independence is to the wellbeing of South Africa.
Who would ever come forward after being told that those in power will know that you are the one who blew the whistle?
Nobody — you might just as well throw yourself under a bus.
In the words of the very wise and astute professor Pierre de Vos: “What the ANC and the government it leads actually needs is not a media appeals tribunal, but a media strategy to woo the non-state media to its side by talking the language of ordinary people and citizens. Instead of talking that faux revolutionary drivel and blaming the Dark Lord Sauron, anti-transformation forces, the CIA or the Devil himself for their bad record on service delivery and for the bad publicity on corruption and the like, the ANC needs to face up to the facts and take quick and decisive action to correct mistakes to try and convince the real media that it really, really cares and is doing its best to stamp out corruption and to improve service delivery.”
Freedom of speech and the freedom of the press is the only thing that we have to hold the Government accountable for what they do.
The best way to ensure that the gravy and looting trains can continue unabated is to cut off the press from reporting on these things.
Denial-ism does not work anymore so now we have to have ‘ignorance’. If we don’t know about it we won’t complain.
What a great solution!! All the incompetence and corruption of the ANC will disappear overnight – what a fabulous solution to crime and corruption. The police are already loosing dockets or refusing to take cases in the first place so this too does wonders for reducing crime statistics. Is we deny crime and corruption then its like HIV/AIDS – it does not exist.
To quote our esteemed previous president “Crime, Corruption – what crime and corruption?”
We don’t have to be anyone with an IQ of more than 2 to know who will elected to ‘the free and fair tribunal’,! It will, of course be the ANC who will ‘police’ themselves and leave the rest of us in the darkness. Let us not keep bringing up “Apartheid”. This is press censorship for the benefit of the ANC and their cronies.
On a recent business trip to Secunda with 3 ANC business associates of mine they were unanimous in their assertion of “what the ear does not hear, the heart will not grieve”.
What the ANC needs to realize is that meddling in the operation of the media is not a legitimate function of the government…whatsoever.
It is OUR media, not ‘theirs’ and our right to it being free does not exist by the grace of the government
What they need to realize is that, as our servants, they have no business doing ANYTHING in ‘secret’, which it is claimed is not in our interests to know about.
That is the way of totalitarian regimes, as is language invoking bogey men in the form of ‘enemies of the people’ not that of an alleged democracy.
Freedom, of the media or of anything else, is only meaningful as an absolute.
Freedom which is ‘allowed’ only when it passes muster of bureaucratic dictate is meaningless…you are being told what you may and may not say and coercion and violence, or the threat of violence in the form of ‘severe penalties’ will be unleashed by the State should you fail to comply.
Only a politician would argue that such a situation constitutes freedom, and invent convoluted political euphemisms to back his claim.
Only one with a blind faith in the benevolence of the State would believe him.
They certainly require a strategy (for good governance), then they would not have to worry about the media.
You omitted to say that Zuma looks very much as though he’s doing what Mbeki refrained from doing. And, no, the constitution is not pointing at the ANC, it’s pointing at THE PARTY IN POWER, which just happens to be the ANC.
Nice article. The chief problem is the the ANC government has NO idea how to actually make any meaning full changes on service delivery. so instead they are once again pending four years figuring out how to avoid the issues. ‘niche’ once said a revolutionary party should not run a government. They should elect someone else to do it. It is one thing to over throw an oppressive regime and another entirely to run a country. No One knowing the truth of apartheid denies it was wrong oppressive, and destructive regime. But some one needs to figure out how to deliver on something. Or no matter what given the internet and access to information available today it wont matter. The truth will out.
For several reasons, mainly economic, liberation fighters-turned-politicians cannot visualise life beyond their party, and thus, beyond the next election. This explains why they can easily dissociate their own life from that of his children, when it comes to political decision-making.
The main purpose of the bill of rights as the protection of the citizen against the state power. The standards are themselves set at an international level, and, as they are not a natural partner of government, a ruling party’s role is to ensure adherence to them for its own survival, as well as that of democracy itself.
For this to happen, accountability and transparency, the very basis for government’s responsiveness is the assurance that citizens will have sufficient knowledge to direct its own affairs. In their absence, elections have no meaning, and government has the potential to become arbitrary and self-serving, according to James Maddison.
The media is the only one that can inform people about how best to determine their affairs and who best to represent them, as well as execute them. If citizens are not well informed, they can neither act in their own self-interest, nor have any serious choice in elections.
The problem we have is that the conflation of of the legislature, the executive and the ruling party is now complete. When the lines between these institutions are blurred, democracy is dead, killed by the majority, who happen to be ignorant
The ANC is trapped in its own propaganda. It must be reminded that it did not discover South Africa and its people. It is given the custodianship by the electorate, under the constitution founded by the people.
To ensure that it does not abuse this power, the people built some guarantees into the constitution as its cornerstone. The right to freedom of belief, opinion, expression, and the right to access of information, were not a gift from the ANC, but protections from any political party that seeks to abuse the trust we place on it.
We have not forgotten how to resist against abuse of power.
The idea of restricting the media in the various ways proposed not only by this media council idea but also the proposed information control legislation pending currently, all point to a government that is developing a confused perception of the link between an open society and one that is prosperous.
They are also inevitable outcomes of an increasingly complex society in which behavioural control is endemic.
We are already the slowest growing society in the developing world, with the highest rate of unemployment; and part of that is due to a too uninformed populace. These curbs promise only that those who practice malfeasance can further avoid detection and/or play legal chess for ever to avoid being pinned down.
Venezuela is an interesting emerging role model of a society that is shooting itself in both feet. Nationalisation, media controls, declining output, declining revenues, rising inflation and pending long term misery.
Where is Dave Harris?
Isn’t this about the time that he swoops in, blames all the countries ills on apartheid, whites and the DA and tells us all that the media had it coming!
If not Dave Harris, then some of the usual racist commentators that tell us that the media is on some kind of anti-ANC crusade; missing the point completely that the ANC are in government, paid by us, spending our tax money and accountable to us.
Are you guys implying that journalists are above the law?When they invade people’s privacy and insult their dignity?
Dont even start by telling me of the media ombudsman.They are former media people who are not objective.The general from eMtata once quiped:”You cannot esnd a jackal to represent sheep in a conference of jackals where the subject matter is the slaughter of sheep.”The jackals in this case being the media.
THE MEDIA ARE NOT ABOVE THE LAW.THEY MUST AND WILL BE REGULATED.
You may whine all you like but what the ANC says,goes.A decision will be taken at the National General Council and there is NOTHING you can do about it.Just keep on whining;its what you do best.
@Lesetja
No one is arguing that the ANC can do what they want, after all they run the country. The point it they (and the rest of us) will suffer the consequences of this idiotic mistake.