Sitting in our offices as journalists and editors watching the dramatic arrest of fellow journalists and seeing the determination of ANC politicians to push through the media tribunal and the Protection of Information Bill, we feel like our world is about to collapse.
We shake our heads in despair and sulk in the misery of our “Zimbabwean moment” after listening to populists spew their bile about the tribunal.
You really feel like throwing your hands up in despair after listening to the president of the country support the tribunal by asking the profound question: Who elects the media?
But if you ignore the bile for a moment, you will realise that this country is actually at a crossroads in which the paths diverge dramatically. We can choose our destiny, good or bad, but we must not allow those who have always questioned the post-1994 project to claim self-righteously that they have always warned us (the media) about this ANC of ours.
The question is: Which ANC did they warn us about? Nelson Mandela’s ANC or Thabo Mbeki’s ANC or Jacob Zuma’s ANC or even Kgalema Motlanthe’s ANC? There is no doubt each generation leaves its footprint.
What the past few years have taught us about the ruling party is that it is a contested space in which Kader Asmal’s liberal democracy jostles with Blade Nzimande’s democratic centralism and Julius Malema’s bluster. The huge diversity of views about who we are and where we should go should provide some comfort that no one will rape this country with the rest of us in civil society and even in the ruling party following along sheepishly.
This week I read septuagenarian Ben Turok’s well-thought-out letter in Business Day articulating his frustration with the media and compared it with the political sloganeering we have been fed by President Jacob Zuma, ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu and Communist Party leader Blade Nzimande’s bloodthirsty call to finish off the media: “Kudala bezenzela. Makuphele.”
If you were worried that the country could end up as a dictatorship or that it could be stuck with a mediocre leader for a long time, take heart from the call for intergenerational change from the young ones.
If you were planning to cling to power endlessly, you would not sleep peacefully after hearing the ANC Youth League say: “We need fresh blood. We need energy. The world is becoming younger. The world is accepting the leadership of a president of a country who is between 40 and 50.”
Decoding that message from the Youth League’s leaders, it means: “Zuma, you should serve one term. We have discovered that you are not a great leader after all, but we cannot be seen to be saying that in public (especially after we vowed to kill for you). So we will resort to ageism and say Kgalema is only seven years younger than you, so if you serve two terms, he will be too old when his turn comes.”
If you are a failed revolutionary, like myself, who still views the queen as the ultimate symbol of colonisation, privilege and ostentatiousness, and were embarrassed by Zuma’s remarks about how he took time to practise his handshake before he met the queen, you at least have ANC Youth League leader Malema to thank for the brave comments in which he told off Zuma for cowering before Her Majesty: “We need an ANC that will say to the queen in London that the economy in South Africa will change. We need a leadership that is not scared of the queen. We don’t want a leadership that will reassure the queen that nothing will change.”
He may have been making a different point about the economy, but the aside directed at the queen will do for me.
And for those who are beginning to be concerned about the economic future of this country, I ask: Why should big business shake in its boots in fear when the leader of the influential Communist Party (Nzimande) declares that “nationalisation on its own is not inherently progressive”.
We often laugh at the haste, emotion, illogic and poor grammar of statements from the young commies and young lions of the ANC, but I believe that they have always kept our rulers on the edge of their seats and in check. We should not dismiss them and the likes of Andile Mngxitama because they question and dismember our treasured notion of nonracism.
I felt only satisfaction watching the Young Communist League at its national conference recently, in which it called for a ban on politicians engaging in business. Because when members of the media have raised the issue, the stock response from the ruling party has been to comment sharply: “This is a free country. Are you saying the members of the ANC and their families have no right to make a living?”
The answer is clearly a much more complex one.
Let’s identify and isolate the enemies of this democracy, make this country what we want it to be and stop wallowing in self-pity.