Big Brother is waiting in the wings
EVERYONE who lived under apartheid and loves freedom will appreciate just how remarkably different life in South Africa has been for the past 16 years since liberation.
You just can't put a price on the ability to live as Mother Nature intended - without shackles.
These years of freedom have been most remarkable in freeing people's minds and unleashing human potential.
In contrast, the mere thought that the freedoms we have grown accustomed to might be under threat can be debilitating to the mind. Because what is freedom if not the ability to think freely, speak your mind and share your thoughts and ideas?
It's disheartening that South Africans should be preoccupied with resisting threats to their natural right to be informed in a democracy, when that freedom is enshrined in the Constitution.
I had a foreboding feeling this week while listening to retired editor Joe Latakgomo at the SAB sports journalism awards. Festivities briefly gave way to serious reflection on the scary goings-on in our country. Talk of a party pooper with a cause.
Paying tribute to erstwhile sportsmen and sportswomen who scaled the heights and became icons despite apartheid, Latakgomo felt compelled to remind us of the turbulent 1980s with their draconian laws aimed at silencing the black majority.
"Sadly, some events regarding the current government's determination to gag opposition and a critical press remind us of that decade. The 1980s was a time in which newspapers were gagged from reporting on the unrest in the townships - in the national interest."
Maybe it's just as well that a celebration of excellence in journalism should be rudely alerted to the real prospect of our ugly history repeating itself, as is happening with the proposed secrecy law and the media tribunal.
Latakgomo should know. He was there when the gutsy newspapers, The World, Weekend Post and Pro Veritate were banned on October 19 1977.
"How can we so quicklyforget what the result of gagging the media could be? How can we forget what happens when power begins to corrupt?"
Tellingly, President Jacob Zuma responded to the editors' counsel by beating the war drum, heralding the imminence of the tribunal even louder in Parliament on Wednesday.
It remains to be seen how many journalists would, in the absence of such a lofty goal as exposing apartheid, want to risk going to jail by exposing companies that bribe corrupt public officials to pass defective condoms, putting millions of people at risk of HIV.
Even fewer journalists would risk going down a mine after midnight to uncover the bodies of people's fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, nephews or uncles left to rot after they were shot dead at the behest of politically connected so-called patriotic capitalists.
Why, indeed, would young journalists bother about the plight of miners who go unpaid for months and have to depend on soup kitchens for sustenance, when it is easier - and safer - to regale us with tales about the thousands of rands their fat cat bosses blow at lavish parties?
If you think the fears are far-fetched, you need not look further than the hasty and shambolic arrest last month of Mzilikazi wa Afrika on trumped-up charges, and their subsequent provisional withdrawal.
The politically motivated, public arrest of the investigative reporter was clearly calculated to prevent him and other journalists from exposing the corruption and profligacy of those who abuse their positions of trust to line their pockets.
Of course, all this is being done "in the national interest", they tell us.
One truly hopes our fears are unfounded and that we can believe the ANC when it says it has no desire to censor the media and that it, in fact, values a critical press.
LATAKGOMO SHOULD KNOW. HE WAS THERE WHEN THE GUTSY NEWSPAPERS WERE BANNED
oilthieves
only when the poor are smarter than the rich - will they get out of povertyAfter WW2 - Germany was forced to sack it's media because the media was seen as not independent but controlled, staffed, by the Nazi government.
in south africa colonised by imperialists - it's media wasa hotbed of racism, it was a real big brother in a real police state. just like the nazi media. like the media in brazil and australia today.
but after the artificial liberation, the govternment kept the media of the old regime in place. this media carried on as before, with it's staff, it's shareholders, it's content reflecting the old white supremacist agenda - with a sprinkle of political correctness. imagine selling a racist product to the race being victimised.
in every country in the world the government controls the media - some openly most secretly. the AFP work for the french govt, the BBc the british, bloomberg & reuters the US.
like good salesmen they pretend to be independent because it sells papers. Citizen Kane the archetypal media magnate sums up their logic 'people pay me to control people's minds'.
but unlike the rest of the world in africa 98% of the media is controlled and funded by foreigners. this foreign media is paid to persuade africans to be exploited for the benefit of foreigners.e.g. the rich countries pretended to adopt id cards, europe bribed ECOWAS and EAC with aid to force their citizens to adopt id cards, then suddenly europe cancelled id cards for their citizens - saying they didnt have enough money. similarly the rich countries pretended to adopt GM food, now the stats show 98% of worlds Gm food is grown and eaten by africans. african guinea pigs thanks to the anti african media
So, when an african government responsibly tries to control the foreign media - they are dubbed by the foreign media big brother. a joke
even with a non nazi media - the nazis, kept economic power in germany,and their children are the billionaires in germany today.
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Sageville
@oilthievesYour comment goes all over the place.
The only thing I can gleen from it is that you are an apologist for this proposed media gagging.
Kind of ironic as you are using that very media freedom to decry it.
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oilthieves
the poor need2b smarter than the rich, and bear their childish rants when they are exposedSageville
insinuation, hyperbole and fantasy - do you write fiction?
it is indeed ironic,
when those who lie compulsively,
hide corruption of the DA and big business in south africa,
to de-stabalise the country politically
complain when they are gagged,
you have not fooled us 'we want our shares now'
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Muzi
Yes...gag the media but use the law, everyone needs a path to walk on, so does the media!Report Abuse
MacDaddy
Mr Editor, are you part of the dumbing down briggade. What's with all this tabloid cow dung in you newspaper. If it's not tshomi its that mbau.What happened to current affairs?
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