Roshila Pillay
‘The Ray Ban advert with the vampires,” drools Eloise Hendricks (19) when asked what her favourite advertisement is.
A business communications student at Pretoria Technikon, Hendricks cannot afford the Ray Ban sunglasses. However, she says the Ray Ban advert has had a major impact on her choice of sunglasses.
Many students agree that the media is a major influence on their moral values, fashion, lifestyle trends and the figures they idolise.
Young people contend that they get various ideas from the media and that they choose clothing brands and subscribe to a particular culture group based on what the media flings at them.
“The media actually define what youth and people talk about. The role of the media cannot be underestimated. The question is whether this is positive or negative,” says Gilbert Mokwatedi, a freelance broadcasting journalist and lecturer at various tertiary institutions.
Communications specialists say while young South Africans seem to keep up to date on the latest trends, fashion, sport and music, they are not informed on important issues that affect them.
The media, says Pedro Diederichs, head of the Technikon Pretoria journalism department, “is also an information tool but as far as the print media is concerned, there is a lack of readership among the youth”.
Diederichs says although illiteracy is on the decrease, this is not reflected in print media circulation.
Mokwatedi says today’s youth are more easily influenced and absorb information without understanding or questioning what it is all about.
“This stems from a lack of knowledge about their past,” he says. The problem is that without this basis of knowledge, one cannot make informed decisions about one’s future.
Diederichs says this could have a detrimental effect on the youth. “How will they [the youth] fight for their future if they do not know what is happening now. HIV/Aids, environmental and other issues impact on the youth.”
The solution, he maintains, is for the media to gain the youth’s attention by introducing role models.
Communications specialists believe the mass media have played a key role in encouraging the spawning of youth subcultures and have helped young people identify with role models representing different culture groups.
The dependency on subcultures could be a result of South Africa’s problems. Crime, unemployment and violence are all legacies of the past that still affect society today.
As a result, the youth steer clear of depressing news and immerse themselves in music or fashion. Media that deal with these subjects would appeal more to the youth. The increasing number of youth programmes on television seems to confirm this.
“The media are vehicles for role models. These are the figures the youth idolise and strive to emulate,” says Pete Ward, an author of several books on youth.
Ward says the increase of youth subcultures could be an indication of a higher level of acceptance of cultural and lifestyle differences among black and white South African youth.
However, there is still a marked difference between black culture and white culture in South Africa. A recent study found that there are three main subcultures among black youth rap, pantsula and Italian.
These groups are distinguished mainly by their styles of dressing and the music to which they listen. Rappers listen to rap music, wear “potato bag” jeans (jeans so baggy you could fit a sack of potatoes in them) and swear like troopers.
Pantsulas and “Italians” on the other hand concentrate on their image. Pantsulas wear All Star takkies and listen to kwaito, while Italians don the most expensive Italian garb hence the name.
White youth subscribe to a variety of subcultures and only 30% identify with a particular subculture. These vary from alternatives, punks and Goths to hippies, grunge metalheads and yuppies.
Sport also plays a large role in the formation of subcultures. In some areas there are sport-orientated subculture groups.
@Amnesty debate continues
Piers Pigou
a Second Look
As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) begins to wrap up its business, the slide towards impunity continues. Less than two weeks since the commission officially closed its doors, the government is reportedly “sounding out” apartheid generals and opposition parties on their views about amnesty and future prosecutions of perpetrators who were either refused amnesty or did not seek it.
Not surprisingly, some opposition parties, such as the Freedom Front, have called for a blanket amnesty something that the TRC has urged the government to resist, warning that such a route would feed a culture of impunity.
Indeed, the government on several occasions has said it will take this path, although it has raised the possibility of supplementary amnesty processes for the military and combatants in the conflict in KwaZulu-Natal. The military and other groups, such as the Inkatha Freedom Party, effectively boycotted the amnesty process. Despite this, both groupings were accused by the TRC of playing a central role in the violence. Details of what a future amnesty process might entail have not been made public, but whatever materialises on this front is likely to be an affront to the TRC’s own endeavours.
What is left of the human rights community has remained largely silent on the issue. Only a handful of organisations, such as the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation and the Human Rights Commission (HRC) of South Africa, have called for continuing investigations and prosecutions.
“This after all is what people were promised and now the government looks set to renege on this,” says Venitia Govender, national director of the HRC. “How can we expect ordinary citizens to respect and uphold the rule of law when the government keeps shifting the goalposts?
“If no real effort is made to deal with elements that snubbed the process, this will only give further credence to concerns that the prioritisation of victims’ and survivors’ concerns is nothing more than lip service.”
Not everyone in the human rights community agrees. Barney Pityana, chairperson of the HRC, made his position clear last year, saying the country simply cannot afford this route and there are other pressing priorities to address.
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Penuell Maduna took up the financial theme again this week during debate on the budget vote in Parliament, pointing out that the prosecution of Wouter Basson alone had already cost about R4-million. Concerns have also been raised in some sections of the media that future prosecutions would resemble a witch-hunt.
The TRC has referred more than 800 cases to the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions. Deputy National Director and Scorpions chief Percy Sonn says that even if the evidence was available only a handful of matters would be taken to court. This “will depend on budget and a variety of other considerations. In short, our prosecutions, since they will have to be selective, should be as representative as possible of the total purview of the TRC process.”
And here comes the rub the decision on whether to prosecute is not simply a question of finances.
“Of course this is a major consideration,” says Govender, “but it is also about political choices. It would seem, for example, that there is ample evidence to pursue prosecutions against senior IFP members involved in gun-running during the 1990s.
“The weapons smuggled from Vlakplaas were used in many murders and other incidents, yet there is no real political will to pursue these cases, presumably because it might upset the African National Congress/IFP dtente process. A selective prosecution strategy may reek of political expediency.”
Prosecutions, however, are just one area of possible future action emanating from the TRC. The government has yet to provide a detailed response to the panoply of recommendations by the commission in its interim report to former president Nelson Mandela in October 1998. The final volumes of the report, to be presented to President Thabo Mbeki this year, will contain further recommendations and they are expected to request that such a response be prepared.
Much of what is recommended is highly contested. In some areas, such as reparations, there have been some positive developments. With regards to other issues dealing with institutional transformation and concerns addressing both governmental and non-governmental spheres, progress has been limited and in many cases non-existent. The TRC’s appeals to the wider South African community has either not been heard or has fallen on deaf ears.
Many, of course, will be relieved to see the end of the process. What started out as a two-year project has taken six, consuming millions of rands and creating problems and rancour across the political and social spectrum. The ANC, IFP and New National Party have all instituted legal proceedings against the commission and a number of individual cases are pending or under consideration.
It is to the government’s credit that it has seen through this painful and expensive process. While the institution of the TRC is coming to an end, the issues it has raised remain. The commission acknowledged it had made only limited progress towards the goal of reconciliation. Finding the truth was an integral part of this.
“While truth may not always lead to reconciliation, there can be no genuine, lasting reconciliation without truth,” says the TRC.
Continuing dialogue about the past is a necessary precondition for reconciliation to have a chance in South Africa. This process must encompass issues of racism and other divisive social and economic forces. As the TRC has pointed out, this is no easy task and something for which we are all responsible.
Reconciliation is never-ending, costly and often painful. For it to develop it is imperative that democracy and a human rights culture be consolidated. Reconciliation is centred on the call for a more decent, more caring and more just society. It is up to each individual to respond by committing ourselves to concrete ways of easing the burden of the oppressed and empowering the poor to play their rightful part as citizens of South Africa.