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Koni Media, led by the Groovin Nchabaleng, might not sound like a very serious proposition. But the secretive attempt by Koni to buy Johncom is part of a Machiavellian strategy to deal with the Sunday Times, the group’s largest and most powerful newspaper.
The attempted buy-out by a government front follows news that the police are investigating the Sunday Times editor and deputy managing editor and that the pincers are tightening on advertising from government. Attempts to get the board to censure editor Mondli Makhanya have been unsuccessful.
The real heavyweights in Koni are Mbeki’s adviser, Titus Mafolo, foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa and the state’s former head of protocol, Billy Modise. The Koni gambit takes place in the run-up to the ANC’s December conference and at a time when the Sunday Times‘s criticism of Mbeki’s administration has been labelled “a campaign against the state”.
The next two years until Mbeki steps down as president in 2009 are likely to be rocky, whether or not he is victorious at Polokwane.
The Koni bid comes against a back-drop of increasing political intolerance for feisty and questioning media.
The leading candidate for the ANC presidency, Jacob Zuma, has excoriated media coverage of corruption allegations against him, lodged several defamation cases in that regard and peddled the same tired demands for more “responsible” (read “compliant”) media.
In fact, reining in South Africa’s independent media is about the only issue on which the major factions of the ruling party agree. It is a racing certainty that whoever wins the day at Polokwane proposals for a media oversight mechanism will get the nod.
It has been suggested that the outcry about the Koni bid reflects prejudice against Mbeki, because there is no similar outcry against another presidential contender, Tokyo Sexwale, who has purchased a stake in Johncom, or against Cyril Ramaphosa, who was formerly a long-serving director of the company.
Ramaphosa has been exemplary in being a hands-off owner, while Sexwale has not been tested. Ideally, active politicians should warehouse all business stakes into trusts and give voting rights to independents.
The difference with Koni, of course, is that Mbeki is a sitting president and one whose lieutenants are involved in a protracted battle with the Sunday Times. The central principle here is that of editorial independence. Viewed through such a prism, this deal is anything but groovy.
Holy terror
There can be no more striking evidence of the Islamophobic paranoia that has unhinged the US than its repeated refusal to admit South African academic and human rights activist Adam Habib, on grounds of his alleged involvement in terrorism. His wife and children, aged nine and 11, were also refused visas.
US officials have refused to explain the grave allegations against Habib, stating that they “do not enter that specificity of discussion”. In other words, they are happy to inflict serious damage on his reputation without taking responsibility for doing so.
Habib is not a very likely recruit to al-Qaeda. Deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, he is a respected political scientist who has lectured across the world on human rights themes. His speciality is democracy in transition, including, ironically, the question of how to bridge religious and economic divides. On this occasion, he was barred from addressing the American Sociological Association on social movements. In another irony he has been invited to address the American Association of University Professors next year on the subject of academic freedom.
One possibility is that Habib is being punished for his vocal criticism of President George W Bush’s various foreign policy disasters, including the war in Iraq and US policy on Israel/Palestine. Of course, one does not have to be a terrorist to do this — it is the global consensus. The other is that his name resembles another entry on a US “watch list” — numerous South Africans have suffered because of this crime.
Significantly, Habib has been barred under the US Immigration and Nationality Act, passed in 1952 during the anti-communist paranoia of the McCarthy era. Other people barred under the legislation include actor Yves Montand, former Canadian premier Pierre Trudeau, Nobel Prize-winning authors Doris Lessing, Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Pablo Neruda and South African leaders Tokyo Sexwale and Nelson Mandela.
Survey after survey underscores the declining respect for America and its leadership among the world’s citizens. The treatment of Habib helps explain why.