June 3- June 09don’t use

Wail for the Mail

The interdict granted to Imvume to restrain the Mail & Guardian from reporting on the ”Oilgate” scandal is a severe setback for freedom of expression in general and press freedom in particular.

The fact that press freedom can be abused does not justify prior restraints on it in a democratic and transparent political system.

In our law, a party may obtain an interdict to restrain the publication of defamatory material or material violating privacy. However, by its very nature the interdict is a drastic curtailment of free expression since it prohibits, in advance of publication, matter from seeing the light of day.

It is for good reason that in other democratic countries, such as the United States and Canada, the courts are not kindly disposed to most forms of interdict or prior restraint. In the well-known American case of Near v Minnesota, it was held ”that the fact that liberty of the person may be abused by miscreant purveyors of scandal does not make any less necessary the immunity of the press from pernicious restraint in dealing with official misconduct”.

There are indeed very cogent objections to the employment of interdicts, which detrimentally impact on free speech and expression. Firstly, they replace speech with state-sanctioned silence. Secondly, the liberal granting of interdicts must inevitably give rise to self-censorship and a chilling effect on the robustness of essential political discourse. Thirdly, regulation of political expression is not desirable at all. — George Devenish

Bravo on your editorial, ”Paper-thin excuses” (May 27). Public pressure and embarrassment are essential to curbing corruption, and the news media must always be at the forefront as the public’s protector and watchdog. — Chuck Lewis, president, The Fund for Independence in Journalism

Those afraid of the power of the media should heed the words of Robert Nesta Marley: ”You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

Wake up! Get up! Stand up! Be counted! Consume the media! Come to your own informed and perpetually evolving conclusions!

The responsible freedom of the press will annul intellectual servitude. We have no need for Orwellian thought police. — Neil van der Merwe, Welgemoed

Who is this Judge Vas Soni? How could he view the general issue — R11-million of public money transferred to the African National Congress — as ”not of -overwhelming public interest”?

And who is Imvume? Does it have any business activities other than its procurement agreement with PetroSA? If it doesn’t, it is nothing more than a legally constituted ”graft” operation, whereby ”commission” is creamed off and channelled to well-connected individuals. — Ron McGregor, Mowbray, Cape Town

I lived through the era when newspapers were regularly banned or prohibited from printing the truth. Heaven forbid that we have returned to this state.

Your looming court battle over this gagging will be a test of the independence of the ”transformed” judiciary, and I sincerely hope you win.

Even if the front page turns out to be blank, the M&G will still be a better publication than some of the other pulp available on the news stands! — Mike Nixon, Cape Town

I am sure I will not be alone in writing to express the utter shock with which I received the news of the gag put on the M&G. As a journalist, and as a citizen, the news came as a visceral blow. Particularly in the light of the interdict, I support the Democratic Alliance’s call for an investigation into the ”Oilgate” allegations. — Tamlyn Monson, Northcliff, Johannesburg

How could Judge Soni rule that ”Imvume and [Sandi] Majali’s right to privacy, dignity and reputation, trumped both freedom of expression and the public’s right to know”? Surely the public’s right to know is what ensures accountability?

Why does Majali not play open cards and allow the public the benefit of the doubt, instead of going to court, gagging the M&G and raising suspicion in the public’s mind?

Is it normal business practice for service providers to receive multi-million-rand advance payments from parastatal companies and, when they default, for the parastatal to duplicate payment?

Surely such large advance payments call for accountability? But no! Privacy supersedes freedom of expression.

I pray let this not be the start to what the judicial system has degenerated into in our northern neighbour! — Sharmla Dharamalingam, Kempton Park

I had hoped that my days of blacked-out bits and pieces in my favourite weekly were over. The judge’s view on our young democracy made me track down Edward Murrow’s classic comment nearly 60 years ago when McCarthyism was rife: ”The right of dissent — or, if you prefer it, the right to be wrong — is surely fundamental to the existence of a democratic society. That’s the right that went first in every nation that stumbled down the trail towards totalitarianism.” — Theo Heffer, Rivonia

If the explicit constitutionalisation of media freedom as part of free speech means anything, it means prior restraint should become all but impossible. Ferial Haffajee is editing with a sure touch and a firm hand. Keep up the excellent work. — Dene Smuts, MP, Cape Town

What did it say?

What did it say?

the censored Mail & Guardian,

about the manoeuvrings of

certain of the gravy-oiled sheiks

in our new democracy.

Where a newspaper, so-called,

can offer up a page three girl,

non-exploitatively and artistically, of course,

and not get the same treatment

our apartheid censors, of old,

gave newspapers, magazines,

music and art, way back then.

What does this say?

about us?

about our new society?

(Is this what we struggled for?)

Armed with black pens and sticky stars

and other equally sophisticated tools,

apartheid’s foot soldiers protected our morals

by covering nipples and pubic hair,

shielded our easily influenced minds

from Black Beauty and Groucho Marx, and

John Lennon’s Working Class Hero.

Has it come to this?

Protecting our morals from

the wheeling and dealing of the elite

in ivory towers high

Shielding our easily influenced minds from

the suit and silk tie brigade we see, sometimes,

every time there is an election,

every time there is a scandal.

What do you have the right to know?

Who makes up your mind, for you?

Or do you just laugh it off?

— David Kapp

People’s Assembly?

Your editorial, ”System failure” (May 27), makes the same point as I did in Parliament — that the African National Congress has betrayed the Freedom Charter’s promises — yet you accuse me of ”historical myopia”!

The Democratic Alliance agrees with many aspects of the Freedom Charter. But we don’t believe taxpayers’ money should be spent commemorating the Charter at a time the government is abjectly failing to deliver basic services.

In Parliament, I objected that the ANC has arranged a People’s Assembly to celebrate the Congress of the People in Kliptown without consulting anyone beforehand — neither Parliament nor the opposition. That is breathtakingly arrogant.

The People’s Assembly will cost more than R2-million, excluding accommodation, car hire and airfares for MPs, and the costs in each province, where there will be link-ups with legislatures.

The ANC has made it clear it plans to fight the municipal elections on the basis of the Charter. Surely taxpayers should not subsidise this conflation of party and state? — Douglas Gibson, MP, DA Chief Whip

Wheels fall off for Ronnie

Ronnie Kasrils and Victoria Brittain climbed on the Israel academic boycott bandwagon in ”A silent academe” (May 27). Unfortunately, Kasrils’s intelligence network failed to inform him that the wheels of this wobbly wagon had all but fallen off.

The British Association of University Teachers (AUT), the main campaign instigator, decided last week by an overwhelming majority to end the campaign. Thousands of academics worldwide who support academic freedom petitioned against the boycott, and no doubt influenced its demise.

Kasrils and Brittain argue that a boycott would benefit both Palestinians and Israelis and that Palestinians called for the boycott. However, Al Quds University, the largest and most influential Palestinian university, responded to the call for an academic boycott with a loud and clear ”not in our name!” In a joint statement with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, it not only condemned the boycott but agreed to continue working together with the Hebrew University.

Rather than targeting the only Middle Eastern country where full academic freedom reigns, Kasrils and Brittain should encourage cooperation and debate between Israeli and Arab academics to facilitate the peace process. — Felicia Levy, Glenhazel, Johannesburg

The Guardian recently commissioned two opinion articles on the proposed AUT boycott of Israeli universities, one by Kasrils and Brittain supporting it, the other by David Newman and Benjamin Pogrund opposing it. The article did not whitewash Israeli government policies, but focused on the damage a boycott would cause.

Yet you chose not to publish the Pogrund article, publishing only the Kasrils piece and accompanying it with a despicably anti-Semitic cartoon.

So blatantly to distort balance and present only the side of an argument that fits your agenda is unacceptable. — Bev Goldman, Johannesburg

The M&G article on ”how many Israeli university lecturers have opposed the state’s racist and colonial policies” is adorned by a frankly anti-Semitic cartoon, which could have been taken straight from a picture gallery of the Nazi propaganda machine.

Coverage of Israel should not have to resort to anti-Semitic stereotyping. — J Myers, Newlands, Cape Town

It is interesting that Kasrils chose this time to support the boycott call. Just when Israel has announced its intention to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, and there’s at last a chance of peace, he is stirring the pot of hatred and ill-will. — Pauline Podbrey

‘Girl child’ marketing ploy

Cell C’s annual ”Take a Girl Child to Work” campaign raises many questions.

It would be naïve to think Cell C’s involvement with the campaign is based on authentic support for broad-based women empowerment. The campaign is a golden opportunity for advertising the Cell C brand.

A Cell C representative interviewed on radio bragged about her company’s involvement with the campaign. She did not indicate how many women have been empowered by the company, nor speak of women who own shares or occupy senior positions at Cell C.

Secondly, the involvement of the government in the campaign smacks of hypocrisy. A lot of African National Congress-aligned women have been empowered. But because of the ANC’s anti-poor policies, a large number of women also remain poor. They are dying from HIV/Aids, have electricity cut-offs or, even worse, are evicted from their homes.

And while many women still suffer abuse, there is not a single shelter for abused women funded or run by the government. The ANC Women’s League, which has expressed support for the campaign, needs to start walking its ”women empowerment” talk. While the succession debate is going on in the ANC, not a single Women’s League official has raised the subject of a woman president as an issue for serious debate by ANC structures. — Percy Ngonyama, New Germany

Distortion

I am not homophobic and understand young blacks need gay role models. But should we do this if it means distorting our history as black people? I refer to Friday’s article about Malcolm X (”Gay brother?”, May 27).

Nowhere in his biography, as told to Alex Haley, does he say he was a pimp.

The claim about him being a male prostitute is also not based on anything in the book.

As a man who submitted to Allah, undertook the haj to Mecca and came back a stronger believer in Islam, preaching the universal brotherhood of man, it’s sad some people want him remembered as gay. — Motlatjo Seima