On April 20 this year the Mail & Guardian published an article on the Afrikaans Arts Festival that took place in Oudtshoorn. The article, under the heading ‘Art Festival or Boer Fest?”, was written by Zebulon Dread. The Freedom Front found the contents of the article unacceptable and filed a complaint at the Press Ombudsman. The result of the complaint was that the M&G allowed the Freedom Front the opportunity to publish this reaction to the article and an apology. The Freedom Front welcomes this.
Various positive and negative articles about the Oudtshoorn Arts Festival appeared in the media. The Freedom Front, and most Afrikaners, are used to very critical and vicious articles about Afrikaners, which regularly appear in the media. Of course, these articles annoy Afrikaners. These articles, with their unfair criticism, make one angry — especially when they are not based on facts. Most of these articles rely on stereotypes and generalisations. All Afrikaners, or all members of any group, are not the same. Yet, to establish a true democracy, it is important that freedom of the media and freedom of speech be established in South Africa. The Freedom Front will fight for this in Parliament and in public. Therefore, the Freedom Front never thought it necessary to complain about all these one-sided and unfair articles.
The article by Zebulon Dread, however, falls in a class of its own. We had to complain in this case. A distinction must be made between immature touchiness about criticism of Afrikaners on the one hand, and the crossing of borders and the abuse of the freedom of the press on the other hand. In our opinion, the article by Dread fell in the latter category.
In an effort to be critical, Zebulon Dread uses a flood of curses, references to the female anatomy and sexual acts to describe Afrikaners in his article. He deliberately tries to shock and to offend. Such vulgar language might possibly be acceptable in a private conversation, but never in a newspaper. When a newspaper like the M&G, which is publicly available, publishes such an article, it offends certain people, displays bad taste and challenges the regulations of the Press Code.
The Press Code, drawn up by the different components of the media, has very specific regulations regarding this issue. Section 1.11 reads as follows: ‘A newspaper has wide discretion in matters of taste but this does not justify lapses of taste so repugnant as to bring the freedom of the press into disrepute or be extremely offensive to the public.”
Section 1.12 has to do with the racial and ethnical differences in South Africa and prescribes that they should be treated with consideration. It remains an interesting question whether the M&G would have published a similar article describing the Zulus or any other population group in the same vulgar manner — especially if a well-known Zulu opponent wrote the article!
Freedom of the media is one of the most important pillars of a free democracy. Freedom of the media can, however, not give more freedom than that which the individual has. In many countries of the world, continuous interference in the freedom of the media occurs. Governments and people in positions of power usually look for reasons to act against the media.
In South Africa we have already heard noises from the side of the government against journalists who supposedly are disloyal to the country. SABC TV was criticised by government spokespeople and threatened with rebuke because certain programmes allegedly had a bad or wrong influence on children.
It was proclaimed that journalists who publish sensationalistic reports on the private lives of people, damage the moral standards of the country. Our neighbours in Zimbabwe present a good example where journalists are harassed on many pretexts, even arrested, and the offices of an opposition newspaper was destroyed by a bomb.
Powers that be often search for reasons to limit the scope of the media. If the public also appeals to the government to discipline and control the media, governments find even more reason and opportunity to act against the interests of the media. After the publication of the article by Zebulon Dread in the M&G, the Freedom Front was inundated with complaints and demands from the public that the media in South Africa must now be brought under control. To prevent such a situation, the media launched a pre-emptive operation in 1998.
On December 2 1998 the media adopted a Code of Conduct, which included rules and regulations to lodge complaints and to enable the Press Ombudsman to solve problems. Interference by the government therefore becomes unnecessary. It was this Code of Conduct and procedure that the Freedom Front put to test with our complaint.
We are grateful to report that the media’s own disciplinary process is functioning. In this way, it was possible to solve the problem satisfactorily. This makes it unnecessary for the government to look for restrictions or measures to regulate the media.
Dr Pieter Mulder is MP and leader of the Freedom Front