Loose cannon Robert Kirby
And so, he slowly ponces off into the sunset, his great mane of carefully sculptured hair bouncing to his wearied gait, his spicy ManTang bodyspray wafting around him, his cute little beard still flippantly jutting in defeat. These last few days I have been sorely tempted to write a column entitled “Jay Naidoo – My Part in His Downfall”.
On reflection the temptation waned. There’s not a hell of a lot to say about Jay Naidoo’s departure from public office except perhaps a whispered “Thank you, Thabs”. I must confess to a frisson of worry about what’s going to happen to people like Pieter “Epol” de Klerk, the IBA councillor who, once he had resigned in public disgrace from the aforementioned sinecure, was immediately snapped up by the Jay Naidoo Rehabilitation Centre for Disabused Credit-Card Wielders. Otherwise, I can’t really claim commendation for the inevitable conclusion of a career principally notable for its personal and professional vanity.
Still, as a friend observed, “Jay Naidoo shouldn’t be too worried about being given the old heave-ho. It’ll give him more time for aromatherapy and standing on his coiffure.”
Though Naidoo has gone, more pertinent enigmas persist in the so-called “electronic media”. Cruelly deprived of the Jay’s occult caress, the remaindered custodians of public broadcasting continue to sustain his formalities. Especially when it comes to talking absolute bollocks.
It is unnecessary to respond personally to the recent subversive attacks made upon my credibility by one Theo Erasmus, General Manager of SABC 3. His anile letter to the chairman of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa, questioning both my qualification to sit on the Commission and my general character, would amount to a fairly embarrassing defamation suit – if I had either the time or money to pursue one. Such a line of action would probably be welcomed by Erasmus for this plays to the tactic of lesser tin gods, who hope to chase away their detractors while at the same time enhancing their own careers. Copies of Erasmus’s letter were carefully sent to his newer masters just in case they weren’t yet fully aware of his layover fidelities. It’s called “grovel maintenance”.
Dispensing therefore with Erasmus’s opinions about my Financial Mail television column and moving instead to the closing paragraph of his letter, which reads: “… the SABC has no option but to stress, once again, that it will not be amenable to having Mr Kirby sit in a hearing or adjudicate as a Commissioner on any broadcasting complaint involving the Corporation.”
As that Danish lunatic once said: “Ay, there’s the rub.” For what Mr Theo Erasmus, General Manager: SABC 3, is actually saying is that he, and therefore the SABC, feel they have the right to deem who is fit or unfit to sit on a Commission which decides whether the SABC has erred in terms of the BCCSA Code of Conduct to which the SABC has subscribed the interpretation of its professional conduct. The inference is that Mr Erasmus believes the SABC is above such petty considerations as respect for the procedural and legal establishments of the BCCSA. He’ll decide who sits and who doesn’t. And don’t forget that little “once again”. This is by no means the first time Mr Erasmus has been banging on the back door, fulminating about my presence on the Commission.
What is even more pitiful is Erasmus’s implication that my seat on the BCCSA offers extended scope to my “vendetta” against the SABC. Presumably the amplification of this vendetta would include the collusion of my thirteen fellow Commissioners and the BCCSA chairman, Professor Kobus van Rooyen. Erasmus’s letter deeply insults them as well. It also bespeaks Erasmus’s apparently disorderly interpretation of the functions of the BCCSA which, as evidenced by the Commission’s record, are more directed to amicable and inclusive prosecution of broadcasting complaints and problems than ever they are towards harsh disciplinary resolutions. In fact, at the last meeting of the Commission, the principal speaker was an SABC researcher, on the subject of observed social sequelae of excessive television violence.
Seen in a slightly wider context, Erasmus’s letter is either unfortunate coincidence or another leery warning of forthcoming legal asylum currently being solicited by the public broadcaster of its ringmaster politicians. The SABC’s Mr Enoch Sithole is also recently on record, calling for parliamentary legislation to protect the SABC from “unfair” criticism. Just like apartheid’s most ostentatious bootlick, Dr Piet Meyer, so often threatened when he ruled on Auckland’s proud hill.
But then Mr Theo Erasmus probably hasn’t heard of Piet Meyer, either.