Is McBride a victim of the media, or of himself? Read Rapule Tabane‘s argument
Let’s get one thing straight: Robert McBride’s involvement in the bombing of Magoo’s Bar has made him a mortal enemy of some sections of the South African populace. For that act, he will be a focus of media interest until he dies.
Which is not to say that everyone necessarily shares the antipathy that some of our compatriots have for the Ekurhuleni police chief. His decision to join Umkhonto weSizwe was a choice made at an historic point in our country — and it was a choice that more people are proud of than embarrassed about. Whether his methods were correct is a different debate altogether.
But all of this makes me wonder why he finds it so easy to dishonour the freedom that he fought for.
We could easily blame McBride’s woes on the “untransformed” media. But consider this: McBride was no Lone Ranger. If the attention he received was inspired purely by the fact that he took part in the armed struggle, why then does no one else — including commanders of MK — receive the same treatment?
Suppose that he was as sober as a judge, as he says. He ought to know that by obfuscating and hiding behind the “fact” that someone who was supposed to draw his blood at the scene didn’t, he simply helps fuel the stereotype that things are falling apart since the natives took over.
One would expect that as police chief he would fire whoever was responsible for the “embarrassment” he now finds himself in. Instead, his gatekeepers rush in to argue, like lawyers, that those who allege McBride was drunk must prove it. In the court of public opinion, the rules are different, and even if they were not, it is common cause that he was “disorientated” after the accident.
McBride dishonours the cause for which he fought by behaving as though the whole point was so that society should know that certain people, like him, are above the law.
McBride is no better than those who behave as though the only reason they endured exile and prison was so that their names would be among the first that industrialists thought of when they needed a few black faces on their boards of directors.
It would help if McBride and his ilk would, for once, not worry about what the Democratic Alliance will say, do a little introspection and realise the harm that their recklessness does to the concept of being a free and victorious people.