I must confess to having experienced a feeling of great personal relief when reading recent statements by our lovable Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Nkosazana-Sarafina-Virodene-Dlamini-Zuma. Like lots of other embittered neo-colonialists, I have come at last to realise that all the fuss and grief over Zimbabwe is little more than a white-owned, media-generated conspiracy to make an altruistic savant like President Robert Mugabe look like a deranged tosspot.
It took Nkosazana to explain how villainous our media have been. I’ll run out of space if I keep using her full name, so I’ll just call her Nkosazana and hope that, unlike Manto-African-Potato-Garlic-Onion-Olive-Oil-Beetroot-Riaan-Tshabalala-Msimang, she won’t go ballistic at my impertinence.
Last week Nkosazana said that the government restrictions imposed on journalists and newspapers in Zimbabwe could have no effect on the free and fair flow of information. Such an opinion was not entirely stupefying, as it was in close harmony with those often expressed by a prominent Zimbabwean intellectual, its Minister of Information, Jonathan Moyo.
Nkosazana was quite right. We may now all sit back and watch as the government patiently imposes a foreign affairs department-approved Zimbabwe-style code of ethical control of the media on papers like the Mail & Guardian. After all, it was the same Moyo who recently described the M&G as both “apartheid tainted” and “white owned”. Moyo could best be described as the Zanu-PF official sphincter.
Once the elections are over and with President Thabo Mbeki safely back touring distant red carpets so that he can’t be blamed, the first sign will be in the mysterious late-night blowing up of Die Burger’s presses.
Despite forensic evidence and various eye-witnesses willing to swear they’d seen a dead ringer for “Bobby” McBride lurking in the vicinity, the explosion will be blamed on People against Gangsterism and Drugs.
A fortnight later, in a combination putsch, the magazine noseweek will be banned and its owner, Martin Welz, arrested and flogged at the same time as being sued for R7-billion in a joint action under the Corporate Revenge Act brought by South African Airways and SABMiller.
A giant leap towards bringing the wanton South African media to heel will be the passing of new legislation, the Democratic Media Guidance Act (DMGA). The Act will create a new post: Director of Democratic Media Guidance.
First to take up the job will be Dr Warrington Bheminsangu, recent recipient of an honorary doctorate in literature from the University of Cape Town English department for his seminal work, Zen and the Art of Warthog Buggery.
Bheminsangu will kick off gently by declaring the Farmer’s Weekly to be a racist publication because its Hitching Post column does not include an appropriate ratio of offers of marriage and companionship from white people to people of ethnic origins. Shortly afterwards police will enter the Farmer’s Weekly offices and chainsaw the computers.
The editor and journalists will spend a long weekend in police cells receiving electrical stimulation to their genital agricultural zones. Once again Nkosazana will be proven right. Being lawful is all that counts. Press freedom follows automatically.
It is not long before Bheminsangu’s tiny red eyes will light on that crucible of counter-revolutionary malice, The Citizen.
In Bheminsangu’s opinion this newspaper is nothing more than a leftover mouthpiece for the apartheid powers that originally created it. Worse is that within the brief period of a month, the newspaper published two editorials critical of Mbeki’s globular fantasies. These exceeded the allowable ratio of anti-government comment as defined in the DMGA. Bheminsangu’s ruling that The Citizen is closed down is upheld in the High Court by Acting Judge Anthony Yengeni.
Within weeks of the judgement, several more “democracy-hostile” newspapers will feel Bheminsangu’s sting. Sowetan, City Press, the M&G and the Sandton Chronicle will be just four served with orders under the DMGA, which imposes what the Act defines as “watchdog precautions”.
Before publication all newspaper content must be approved by designated police officers holding the rank of constable or higher. These officers will also be responsible for issuing day-tickets to journalists. Police officers must also accompany journalists on all assignments and any reporting done without this stipulated police escort will be deemed illegal. All of which once again underwrites Nkosazana’s belief that press regulations have no effect on press freedom.
Encouraged by Bheminsangu’s first volleys, many more in the media decide to be more balanced and responsible. The DMGA also offers encouragement and support for “news-gathering organisations that selflessly advocate the values of a democratic society based on the doctrines and ethics enshrined in the writings of Chairperson Mazwai”.
The SABC news department is therefore awarded the first DMGA Gold Cup, along with a cash prize of R200-million and the installation of a dedicated satellite link between Jimi Matthews and the Union Buildings.
These feeble imaginings of the way things will be once Nkosazana’s cerebral secretions about media freedom are taken up by her political colleagues are offered in the spirit of reassurance.