In its editorial attack on the Mail & Guardian‘s new owner, Trevor Ncube, The Sunday Independent purported on Sunday, with its usual pompous presumption, to speak on behalf of all South Africans. Ncube is a foreigner, you see, who does not understand our government. The South Africans at the M&G beg to differ.
Ncube did not say South Africa is doomed to become Zimbabwe, nor that ”the media should be negative, as blacks in government cannot be trusted with freedom”, as per the Sowetan‘s ludicrous distortion in its news columns on Wednesday. What Ncube sought to highlight were embryonic forces in the ruling African National Congress which, unchecked, could take us down the same road. They are not the only dynamics in the ANC, though they have become much stronger under President Thabo Mbeki.
It is not only Jeremy Cronin who sees signs of ”Zanufication” in the ANC. National executive committee member Saki Macozoma also sees worrying trends, as he noted in a debate with Ncube a few weeks ago.
The greatest threat to South Africa is the authoritarian nationalism which, in Zimbabwe, has ballooned into a collective psychosis. Its overriding preoccupation is the power, wealth and prestige of the elite. It has no interest in universal human rights and is interested in the law only as an instrument of its own power. It is hostile to the multiparty concept and independent centres of influence, particularly the media and trade unions. It acknowledges no distinction between state and party. Spurning racial reconciliation, it instinctively backs the settling of scores. It is prone to leader worship and sees plots everywhere.
Within South Africa, authoritarian nationalism has reared its ugly head with growing frequency in recent years. ANC business people and the unions have been fiercely impugned for alleged plots against Mbeki. Parliament was savaged for trying, under its constitutional mandate, to scrutinise the arms deal. One man’s vagaries on HIV/Aids paralysed the government and the ruling party for two years, and conventional scientists were harassed to toe the dissident line. In contrast with regional parliamentarians and the Commonwealth, ANC MPs endorsed Zimbabwe’s violent and fraudulent election, while their party still cannot bring itself to denounce, clearly, strongly and in public, the racial persecution that has intensified since the poll. And in the latest round of heavy-handedness, the hapless Cronin has had to eat humble pie for his mild criticism of ANC leaders.
The party’s hostile attitude towards the media, evident during the Human Rights Commission’s inquiry into alleged racism in the media, resurfaces in its pre-conference documents. While arguing for greater media diversity, these make it clear that it does not believe certain views should be aired, or certain commentators left free to voice them. Its hatred and anger at what it sees as excessive media power are underscored by the description of our comparatively tame press as ”intrusive, embarrassing, irresponsible, disruptive, vulgar, brash and uninformed”. At the same time, legislation has been tabled which, unamended, would convert the SABC into the poodle of the communications minister.
In this context, it is flabby-minded and irresponsible to argue, as The Sunday Independent does, that God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the country. South Africa still has a democratic order with a human rights culture that includes a free press. But it is equally clear that certain powerful elements in the ruling elite are, in their deepest instincts, enemies of constitutional democracy. Witness Thami Mazwai, appointed by Mbeki to the SABC board, who firmly believes there is no room for independent journalism in Africa.
The Sunday Independent would have us believe that the price of liberty is eternal complacency. In fact, what is needed is vigilance and courageous outspokenness, from the media, the non-government sector and the best elements in the ruling alliance. These will determine how far authoritarian nationalism comes to dominate South Africa in the years ahead.
Seepe’s legacy
Sipho Seepe’s 18-month run as fortnightly M&G political commentator comes to an end this week. He is off on a Fulbright scholarship to the West Coast of the United States. There, in an academic setting, he will explore the notion of indigenous knowledge systems. Can they offer an alternative to, or greatly enrich, what are generally considered Western criteria of science?
However Seepe answers this question, we are sure his output will be challenging, penetrating and controversial. For that is what his column has always been. As such, the column has attracted both extravagant praise and withering criticism.
Seepe has the gift of inquiry. No idea, however undermining of his reigning beliefs, is too fearful for him to explore. No personage is too grand to be attacked. No balance is too delicate to be upset. As a result, his intellectual courage leaves behind in South Africa an important legacy: he has created considerable political space for the more timid among us to challenge, without apology, ideas and people, whether great or small.