Mondli Makhanya suffers from Mbeki-ism -- firing Bullard is a sign of that!

Mondli Makhanya’s paper has been among the chief opponents of Mbeki-ism, which is a tendency to fire those with whom you disagree. However, Mbeki-ism seems to have taken over the Sunday Times. Mondli beware!

What Mondli did last Thursday was not only astounding but also embarrassing. How does one fire a columnist on the basis of one article? Should people be fired for the views they hold, for that matter? Should there not be a debate on their views with the intention of winning them over?

I have loved and hated David Bullard’s column in the Sunday Times, such that I jump the first page and rush straight to the business section where I know Bullard will be saying something I will either like or hate. Many South Africans had the same feeling. But his writings are a thing of the past in the Sunday Times, and we will be bored once more.

I have always felt, from time to time, that some of Bullard’s columns are racist. But does that qualify him to be fired. Not one bit. Instead, firing him creates the false impression that everything Bullard utters is racist and therefore must be hidden from society. We must not be afraid of debating what Bullard says and resort to censorship.

In fact, what Bullard expressed on colonialism, a couple of Sundays back, is what most white people covertly share as a conception. Indeed, some believe that we (blacks) are an ungrateful lot, who would still be wearing G-strings (as some call traditional attire) every day. Acting as if it does not exist is only denialism, akin to Mbeki-ism. I believe that this conception should be debated.

Censoring people shall not make them stop sharing a particular conception about events. Instead, it makes them more determined and resolute since they share it only among themselves and not broadly so that it can be contested. Anything, including racist conceptions, must be allowed into the public domain. Let it come out in the open. Let it earn the intellectual wrath of society for the bile that it is. We must not attempt to make as if these views (propagated by Bullard) do not exist.

I am among the chief opponents of colonialism. However, as much as colonialism had its backward elements, such as the degradation of an entire black population, forced removals and so forth, we must admit that the introduction of capitalist production in South Africa — thus breaking with feudal relations of production — had made the country an industrialised economy and therefore brought closer people of different tribes under one nation, something that could not have happened before.

Making as if colonialism only brought negatives and no positives, however small they are, would not only be stupid but would also be a sign of intellectual laziness and dishonesty. Indeed, that must not then amount to a celebration of colonialism, as Bullard tends to do. However, proper historical lessons must be drawn on the negative and positive effects of colonialism in South Africa and Africa, so that we know its dangers and that no society ever finds itself seeking to repeat it.

Lastly, the South African media must not treat us, the citizens, as a group of fragile people who cannot make their own assessments and therefore need certain things hidden from them. If there is anyone in the South African society who holds that view, we run the risk of have a neo-apartheid society where banishment and censorship are the order of the day — and we know very well what the repercussions would be.