Journalists frequently fall into the trap of writing too much about their own profession. It is, therefore, with some reluctance that we return to the subject, specifically by drawing attention to a column written in the latest edition of the Financial Mail by Joe Thloloe, headed “Motshekga and the media” — referring to the Mail & Guardian’s report last week on the shady past of Gauteng’s new premier, Mathole Motshekga. We do so, because we believe the issues at stake have wider implications.
Essentially Thloloe’s article accuses us of “reviving” old allegations against Motshekga for ulterior reasons — he implies on behalf of a “faction from the old Democratic Front” — and he berates us for having failed to have taken the story further and “helped us to assess Motshekga’s guilt, or innocence”. His charges are, in turn, misleading, meretricious and simply untrue.
Suggestions that there was something fishy about Motshekga’s past have been circulating for some time and allegations have surfaced piecemeal, faintly alluded to in other newspapers. But, so far as we are aware, the extraordinary record of conversation between the deputy president of the Constitutional Court, Pius Langa, and the overseas funders apparently ripped off by Motshekga had not been previously reported. Nor had any of the revealing correspondence between Motshekga and the funders been revealed.
If Thloloe finds the opinion of one of the country’s leading jurists — that a report presented to the funders by Motshekga was “extremely fraudulent” — of no help in assessing “Motshekga’s guilt, or innocence”, then all we can say is that the fault lies with Thloloe, not with us.
In contrast to Thloloe’s superficial inquiries into the matter — he discloses that he questioned Motshekga who, somewhat unsurprisingly, assured him of his innocence — our reporters have dug extensively into the premier’s background, enabling us to take the story even further this week by exposing Motshekga’s mentor as a former front man for Renamo who moved within sinister apartheid and foreign intelligence circles.
But more troubling than the detail of Thloloe’s complaint against us is the question as to why a respected colleague should have made it in the first place. Although, thankfully, Thloloe does not raise the racial bogey and while we recognise he comes from the PAC tradition, it does seem to us to be of a piece with attacks by the likes of Jon Qwelane and Thami Mazwai, as well as with a transparent hostility towards us on the part of sections of the ANC leadership.
Underlying this hostility, we suspect, is the sense that the ANC is “black government” on trial; that its “success”, or “failure”, is a test of the capacity of “the black man to rule himself”. This might explain why criticism of the government is so resented. Attack the government and you attack “us” — citizens of a darker pigmentation. So the criticism of the government is put down to “racism”, or to “factionalism” — a charge which hearkens back to the years of ANC exile and the paranoia which led to internal witch-hunts and the camps scandal.
Driven by this racial sensitivity, this paranoia, the government reacts by putting a premium on “loyalty”, grimly hanging on to incompetent and corrupt officials for fear that their sacking will fuel prejudices about the “black man’s” competence, or let in “the enemy” by whom they feel besieged.
If there is any justification for our suspicions, we must say that we can understand the syndrome, but we also bitterly resent it. The ANC is not a “black” government, it is “our” government. It represents all of us. That is why we are so jealous of its performance. And we are not “the enemy”.
This newspaper was born, in many respects, of the liberation struggle. We may not have laid down our lives for it, but in our own way we also fought the good fight for government of the people, by the people. And the victory that has been won and which we hold dear is a victory over racism, over those who would divide the country into “them” and “us”.
We have no doubt, whatsoever, about the capacity of the people to govern; to deny it would be to deny ourselves. We believe, with passion, not only in the capacity of our country to survive, but to do so in a manner which can provide an example to the world of how humanity can triumph over the racism which has been the blight of this century and the burden of our country’s heritage.
But, while believing in our potential, we fully realise the struggle it entails. The nation has chosen powerful weapons with which to wage that struggle — democracy, a separation of powers, a liberal Constitution. But we cannot hope to use those weapons with any chance of success if we allow ourselves to get bogged down in the prejudices and paranoia of the past. That is why we say it is completely irrelevant to us that the premier of Gauteng is a black man. But it matters to us very much that he seems to be a crook.
We believe in the simple proposition that in order for democracy to function and for the people to govern, as much relevant information as possible should be placed in the public domain. Which is why, during the premiership election last year, we called on the ANC to explain why it was at such pains to frustrate Motshekga’s campaign. Now we know why.
But at the time — when disclosure might have had an impact — the party chose not to trust the people with the facts. By failing to trust the people it has, in effect, denied the competence of the people to govern. And that is truly a betrayal of itself.