Open letter to President Jacob Zuma

By Lee Hall

Mr President, you state that “ … this right [media freedom] cannot not be allowed to enjoy greater protection than [other freedoms] enshrined in the Constitution”.

Strangely enough, it is not so much “media freedom” that is under threat here. Rather, it is my constitutional right to choose freely what information I have access to, and what I am able to do with it.

There can be no debate but that the media, like any other interested parties, put a bias on the way in which they present information to their consumers. Political parties do exactly the same thing — presenting their own agendas in the best possible light, and those of their opposition in the worst. The ANC do it. The DA do it. The Communist Party does it. That is the way things are done, and most definitely not only by the press. Indeed, the SABC under control of the Nationalist Party became a very unreliable source of information, and it remains so under the control of the ANC. And lest, Mr President, you be tempted to deny this very self-evident fact, please recall the ruthless silencing not that long ago of men such as John Perlman, who had the audacity to call the Corporation to task over its blacklisting of certain persons (including the then president’s brother Moeletsi Mbeki, Karima Brown and other free thinkers). And remember too the recent somewhat unguarded comment by party faithful Julius Malema that “the SABC is ours”, and if anyone should know, it is he.

Only someone who is either very naïve or very foolish ever relies on a single source for the kind of information which may be subjectively reported.

And yet here we have the ANC telling us that they should have the right to pre-filter citizens’ access to information, and to do so according to their own bias, preconceptions, values, prejudices and standards. In other words, effectively forcing everyone in the country into the same situation as the naïve and the foolish …

And you, Mr President, have the arrogance and gall to suggest that you are doing this for our own good!

Not that long ago and with regard to Jackie Selebi, Thabo Mbeki told South Africans: “Trust me!” Thanks to a free press, we know how badly that trust was abused. And now the ANC are in effect saying: “Trust us! We know what is best for you to know.”

Interesting concept.

Add to this, Mr President, the innumerable times that you have gone on record saying exactly what it was that you thought your listeners wanted to hear, and in the process serially contradicted yourself — add all the promises that you have made and failed to deliver (500 000 jobs by the end of the year; legislation against cadre deployment) add the flagrant and undemocratic way in which the ANC steamrollered through the destruction of the Scorpions on the flimsiest of pretexts, and what you have is a total loss of credibility — both personal with regard to yourself, and on the part of the ANC government.

So to get back to your suggestion that we should trust the ANC to choose — on our behalf — what we should be entitled to see and to hear, to read and to believe …

I think not, Mr President.

Media freedom and civil liberty correlate very closely indeed. Any constraints on media freedom will inevitably have a corresponding negative impact on civil liberty as a whole. This is not my invention, nor is it the product of an anti-ANC press — it is a principle which has been confirmed time and again by research and by bitter experience. Civil liberties in South Africa are at present not rated particularly highly — we are sandwiched between Ghana (slightly freer) and Lesotho (slightly less free). We are much better than North Korea and much worse off than most of the Western world. Where will we stand, I wonder, after our free press has been silenced?

If this proposed legislation goes ahead, who will benefit? Not the people, who will lose the right to choose what they see and hear and read. Not the media, and especially not the investigative media, who will be straight-jacketed in a manner that cripples their ability to perform their duties. No, the only beneficiaries are those in government who will be calling the shots, and of course all those who are — in terms of the present dispensation — politically well-connected.

A couple of years ago I heard world-renowned academic and Templeton Prize winner George Ellis deliver an address to the South African Institute of International Affairs. In his address, he predicted, with compelling arguments, that once the ANC become threatened at the polls, as Zanu-PF were threatened at the turn of the century, they will respond in the same way that Zanu-PF responded, by clamping down on Civil liberties and clinging to power by anti-democratic means.

The ANC have recently taken a bit of a beating in by-elections. Next year they are faced with municipal elections, which may prove very telling in the run-up to the next general election. And surprise, surprise — we have this massive attempt on the part of the ANC to strike at the very heart of democratic accountability! The predictability of it all would almost be funny were it not so chilling.

You Mr President, have said that there should be debate regarding the media tribunal and the Protection of Information Bill – that the media should enter into discussion and refrain from going on the offensive. And yet other members of the ANC hierarchy have stated bluntly that the legislation will go ahead, finish en klaar. So which is it, Mr President? Is it a done deed, or is it open to discussion and debate?

Whom should we believe, dear leader?

The challenge we face certainly does require a response from all South Africans, and the most appropriate response would be at the polling booth.

The African National Congress have signally failed their own people. They have failed the country. And they have failed Africa. It is time now for them either to mend their ways, or else to go — before the Zanufication of South Africa becomes irreversible.

Lee Hall is a superannuated information systems manager and part-time eccentric.