Questions you failed to ask
I am a long-standing admirer of your paper and a supporter since those dark apartheid days when readers were urged by the then editor to ‘Wail, dammit!” against threats by the Nats to close it down. But I am deeply disappointed by your handling of the story ‘Brown-envelope journalism” (November 13), where you have fallen severely short of your own high standards.
I am not a neutral observer: I am a senior journalist at the Cape Argus and a colleague of Joe Aranes, although I was not privy to any aspect of the internal investigation the story describes. However, I believe the way the story was presented was deeply unfair and it does not pass the test of defendable journalism.
Your reporters apparently failed to ask, and certainly failed to answer in the story, the most obvious questions: Who arranged the meeting between Brown and Vukile Pokwana? Who authorised the taping of this meeting? Who did the taping and where is the tape now? Was the taping legal?
Your story also claims that Pokwana mentioned the names of journalists from other newspapers alleged to have received payments for manipulating the news and that radio journalists were also allegedly recruited. So why was Joe Aranes singled out in the story? Why aren’t these other journalists also named?
The story correctly states that Aranes and then-colleague Ashley Smith were subjected to an internal disciplinary hearing — that is now common knowledge. But it then baldly states that Aranes ‘returned to work”, and fails to add the fact that this inquiry found no evidence of impropriety against him.
The story quotes Pokwana as saying he believed his life was in danger, and then in the next sentence — not even the next paragraph — refers to Aranes’s past involvement in the ANC’s Bonteheuwel military wing, suggesting military training, with all that implies. This juxtaposition was mischievous at best, and probably libellous.
The reporters apparently also failed to ask Roger Friedman of Oryx Media Productions why he had refused to assist in the disciplinary hearing against Aranes and Smith, despite reportedly having relevant information. And another obvious question about the possible role in this saga of intense business competition for lucrative provincial administration contracts between Hip-Hop, of which Pokwana was a shareholding director, and Friedman’s Oryx Media also apparently remained unasked.
I would hope that the Mail & Guardian is sufficiently courageous to admit its shortcomings in this instance. — John Yeld, environment and science writer, Cape Argus
M&G responds: The juxtapositioning of the paragraph about Vukile Pokwana’s fears for his life and the description of Joseph Aranes’s background in the Bonteheuwel military wing was the result of a sub-editing error, which we immediately corrected in the online version of the story on Friday morning. It was not our intention to suggest that Pokwana had anything to fear from Aranes, and to the extent that that impression was created, we apologise. Certainly there is a good deal more to be said about the media wars carried out in the Western Cape over the past five years, and we intend to publish several follow-up stories that we believe will address your other concerns.
The muted media response to the damning revelations that some journalists accepted ‘brown envelopes” to take sides in the Western Cape ANC’s internal battles makes for a disturbing phenomenon. Is it a case of closing ranks? Or a continuation of a policy of swiftly but quietly getting rid of scum without embarrassing the publishing house concerned?
Media play the important role of pricking the conscience of any society. The taking of bribes is an affront to the journalistic ethos. The reported shenanigans only serve to damage the media’s public standing. These scumbags have brought our profession into disrepute and the sector can ill afford simply to look away and hope this scandal will go away.
Stern measures that include blacklisting and naming-and-shaming should be applied to illustrate zero tolerance for errant behaviour. Otherwise, the rot will set in. — Mogomotsi Mogodiri, Johannesburg
We need a language mix
Cornia Pretorius’s article ‘Good lessons in any language” (November 13) implies that English-only is the answer to the challenge of improving scholastic performance.
She is right about ‘the lack of mother-tongue education” being used as ‘a convenient scapegoat for poor scholastic performance” and that a child is better off taught well in another language than being taught badly in his or her mother tongue (generally the case where the mother tongue is actually being used). But she is pointing to only a part of the solution to our dismal scholastic record.
Bringing in English as a common language can do nothing for quality teaching where school management can’t even ensure teachers are actually in the classroom. The Development Bank of South Africa’s ‘Road Map” exercise has shown how far we have to go. Thereafter, getting quality teaching requires a multi-dimensional strategy; no change in language practice will make the kind of difference we need on its own.
Even if we get good basic pedagogy right, if we ignore the child’s language needs and do not somehow use his or her language (an incredibly valuable academic resource) in the learning process, we will still be faced with a system that is both unfair to the majority of our learners and unable to achieve our academic goals.
The Home-Language Project (run by a coalition of five Johannesburg school governing bodies) is piloting a multilingual programme based on best-practice pedagogy as well as the use of every child’s own language in support of the common language (English in our case). English-only is not an answer. We need a mix, with the home language as part of our brew. — Margie Owen-Smith, manager, Home-Language Project, Johannesburg
Has Pretorius spent time in classrooms where teachers and learners alike are battling to understand texts in a second and even a third language? Has she gone into a classroom where children learning in their own languages are pushing ahead to show the visitor the work they have done?
The Western Cape education department is supporting 16 schools in extending the use of mother-tongue languages for learning from grades three to six. These are mostly underperforming schools.
Two years down the line these schools continue to underperform, but both morale and performance have improved markedly. It is true that we need to focus on good teaching. There are many barriers to this. Let us not add a further one with language.– Ruth Versfeld, Cape Town
Isn’t it time for a common national African tongue? This could be a new language synthesised from the existing nine, or a modern version of one. A largely Zulu/Xhosa hybrid comes rather self-evidently to mind.
That may at first sound far-fetched, but such things have been done. Israel brought Hebrew back from the dead. Afrikaans achieved its dominant position among regional languages partly through decades of affirmative action. — Guy Bullen-Smith, Muizenberg
Malema rants degrade ANC
The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) of Anton Lembede, Walter Sisulu, Max Majombozi, Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela and others is degenerating under the leadership of Julius Malema.
Malema came to that leadership through a conference that was not only embarrassing but also signalled a departure from the culture, norms and values of the Congress tradition. Instead of democratic processes, that conference was characterised by the behaviour of drunkards showing their buttocks. The current leadership of the ANCYL has failed to implement the conference’s resolutions.
It remains crucial for us to rebuild the structures of the ANCYL. It has been reduced to a conveyor belt of populism, opportunism and entrepreneurship politics. Instead of swimming in turmoil, the ANCYL needs to learn a lesson from its counterpart, the Young Communist League (YCL), and take positions that resonate with youth on the ground.
It is lamentable that the legacy of earlier generations is now being destroyed by anarchy and confusion, crass materialism and self-enrichment. The revolutionary phase has been replaced with the slinging of insults. It is a critical challenge to build Malema, instead of destroying him: we must ensure he is groomed in the Congress tradition, using our Marxist-Leninist tools of analysis. — Malefo Mosimanyana
Why is it that when I see Malema ranting on TV I feel like I’m back in the apartheid days? Probably because, in those days, most of the dominant politicians were arrogant, complacent, ignorant racists — just like Malema.’
The elders of the ANC should act wisely and send Malema to study somewhere abroad or elsewhere in Africa. It might help him to grow up and to widen his limited horizons.
It would also relieve us of having to pay R400 000 a month (the annual salary of a senior university lecturer) to ‘protect” him.
The struggle for democracy was not fought by one race group alone. No single race group can own or successfully rule this diverse country. We need get over the past and work together — and we need leaders who can help make this happen. Malema is not one of them. — R Andrew, Durban
By ‘big themes”, Gray seems to mean historical novels (JM Coetzee deals with ‘big themes”, doesn’t he? And Gordimer? And Brink? And Gray?). He also confuses commercial clout with literary achievement. Oprah Winfrey can give Cry, the Beloved Country ‘golden sales” because she has seven million viewers, seven times the biggest talk show on SABC. He also fails to mention Garden of the Plagues by Russel Brownlee or Islands by Dan Sleigh, two excellent recent South African historical novels, or other, older works by such authors as Peter Abrahams on the Great Trek and James Ambrose Brown on early Johannesburg. He also ignores many such works in Afrikaans. — H Gordon, Cape Town
The magic of entertainment
South African entertainers and artists do tend to shout with one voice — a sort of distorted chorus. They need to be heard above the din of imported commercial product that exists here at the expense of our own indigenous knowledge systems, art and culture.
South Africa could easily adapt the Danish music and entertainment education system, offered to us many years ago. But none of the loud-mouthed spotlight-seekers were listening. Did any entertainer even mention this solution to Jacob Zuma? What they did instead was to boo a hands-on entertainer like Tsepo wa Mamatu (‘Artistic licence to kill,” November 20).
Piracy and the lack of facilities they scream about are easy targets that affect the mainstream suits and digital-age stars. They have nothing to do with the magic that calls young people into the entertainment business.
Sadly, the system we have often only works through smoke and mirrors and, like all magic, nobody wants to reveal how these illusions are made. With free basic indigenous music and art education, we could have developed a healthy educated art and culture class. The so-called art and culture education we have here is usually lessons on make-up and design or how to bump and grind and become a bitchy American pop-idol drone. — David Marks, Durban
Capitalism to blame
The media covering xenophobia assume the cause was issues of work and salaries. But I am convinced capitalism is responsible for the skirmishes in De Doorns (‘We just want to work”, November 20). Capitalism is about profiteering. The owner of the means of production who aims to maximise profits will seek less expensive processes of production and less expensive labour.
Farmers in De Doorns employed the cheapest available labour. Who would pay R150 a day when labour at R40 a day is available? The suggestion by unions that we should standardise labour costs is tantamount to price-fixing. They should be hauled before the Competition Commission. — Takwana Makaya
In brief
Halala! Percy Zvomuya’s feature on hip vegetarians and vegans (Friday, November 20) was truly refreshing. I have been waiting for years for someone to write about such turned-on people. Congratulations to Zvomuya for finding them. Placing them in a double-page spread on vegetarianism and exposing the very real damage meat-eating does to the planet gave them exquisite context. The whole package was enough to turn anyone off ‘flesh”. — Fiona Macleod
I do not believe Julius Malema should resort to racial slurs if he loses a debate. I am a Cope member and a social democrat who believes in an active state rather than a commandist socialist state. Must I then insult Malema because our views are different? Must I resort to racism to dismiss his views? The answer is no. — Nigel Mkhwanazi
I was touched by Nikiwe Bikitsha’s article ‘When alarm bells ring” (November 6). It is not only applicable to incidents of stalking but to life in general. We have, by and large, made peace with living with the wrong things. The despicable act committed against Shadi Rapitso shows a sick society and should serve as a reminder never to take any indication of that sort lightly. — Thabiso Maape, Pretoria