Phillip vanNiekerk:FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
The truism that a week can be a long time in politics has been brought home to me. At the end of last month I devoted this column to what I had thought to be an unanswerable case against newspapers coming out in support of political parties – a practice I have long thought to be both an arrogance and something of a betrayal of readers. This week I find myself running an editorial endorsing the African National Congress.
The decision to plump for the ANC is a fairly easy one – as I said in that previous column, it was going to get my personal vote anyway.
The thought processes by which I came to do a volte-face on the principle of newspapers offering political endorsements perhaps demands more reflection.
In part it was out of a sneaking admiration for Peter Bruce, the editor of the Financial Mail, who two weeks ago shocked his bosses by throwing the weight of his esteemed business publication behind a minor rag tag party of Don Quixotes and political rejects that will at best garner 4% of the national vote.
I met Bruce for breakfast this week and found him a shaken and wiser man.
His decision to back the United Democratic Movement remains difficult to understand. But to Bruce’s credit he sparked the only worthwhile political debate so far in this election.
Another, more significant concern is that many of the Mail & Guardian faithful – progressive and active supporters of the struggle for democracy – feel disillusioned that the first five years of democracy have not lived up to their expectations. They feel alienated from the political process, do not hear any of the political parties appealing to their specific needs and concerns, or would prefer a proper left alternative that is not currently available. Democracy is not perfect, but throwing one’s vote away is not an answer.
What is more important than what political party one supports – or who a newspaper supports – is that one engages with the society at large. Voting is a powerful form of identification with one’s compatriots. I can remember the profound thrill I experienced five years ago when I stood in line and cast my ballot alongside South Africans of all walks of life.
The final factor for my decision was the realisation that “the youngsters” – my political staff who make me aware of my grey hairs – wanted to come out in support of the ANC. On the face of it that would seem a nonsense; a newspaper is a “brand”, a manufactured “good” no different from a packet of washing powder. But, as a member of its staff when it closed, I remember the very real sense of grief, of mourning, attendant on the death of the Rand Daily Mail.
In a sense a newspaper lives, it has a personality, it has a character and, even if a degree of affectation is involved, it must needs be allowed its right to “vote”, no matter what the editor might think.