Publication: Business Day Issued: Date: 2006-11-23 Reporter: Xolela Mangcu Reporter:

Is SA’s Media an Elite Mob that Threatens Individual Freedom?

 

Publication 

Business Day
Date 2006-11-23

Reporter

 Xolela Mangcu

Web Link

www.businessday.co.za

 

Thankfully I do not have to apologise to Judge Hilary Squires. I have never had to make any reference to a “generally corrupt relationship” between Jacob Zuma and Schabir Shaik.

Even if I did, it would never have been to pronounce one way or the other on the innocence or guilt of Jacob Zuma. I have neither the competence nor the inclination to take on the role of a legal soothsayer.

Judge Squires’ assertion that he never said what has been attributed to him is a richly deserved comeuppance for media institutions that have become much too invested in the outcome of the Jacob Zuma matter.

It seems that outcomes matter more than processes in our media. This is odd for a fourth estate that presents itself as a guardian of liberal democracy.

Or have we got to a point where the media have become an elite mob that threatens individual freedom?

How could a newspaper that takes seriously liberal democratic values, such as due process of law, pronounce Jacob Zuma officially corrupt when there has been no such pronouncement by our courts? *1

To be sure, the media have done a wonderful job in exposing corruption in this country. But it is the wrong that they do that should be of concern.

A small mistake by powerful people can have deadly consequences. After all, that is the standard response we give when we criticise the mighty and powerful.

For evidence of that we need hardly look beyond HIV/AIDS and how it threatens to unravel all the good that our society has achieved. The same logic should apply to media organisations and individual journalists.

The defensiveness of some of our analysts on this matter leaves much to be desired. My esteemed colleague, Steven Friedman, criticises Squires for not coming out early enough. I am sure Squires is quite capable of explaining himself on that score. What should be of concern to journalists is their collective failure to pick up what should have been obvious.

It is also not enough for Anton Harber to argue that we all make mistakes. That response raises other questions that go to the heart of our justice system: whose mistakes matter, and whose mistakes do not matter? Among the mistakes that matter, which ones are punishable by law, and which ones are not? Among those that are punishable by law, which ones are deserving of harsh sentences, and which are not?

And what happens when “innocent” mistakes turn out to have grave consequences? Is the answer simply that aggrieved individuals should seek legal recourse in the courts *2, or do we need a system of sanctions that kicks in whenever such infractions occur?

And what about those individuals who do not have resources to take such matters to court, and what happens when powerful media institutions simply ignore institutions such as the media ombudsman?

I raise these rather rhetorical questions as a way of saying the media has a way of defining who is deserving of reconciliation and forgiveness, and who is deserving of punishment, and trip up in the process as they have done in the Squires matter.

However, unlike all those who trip up in the normal course of life, journalists have a way of defining themselves as deserving of forgive ness. I would not be surprised that those who apologise automatically expect to be forgiven. A refusal to forgive would be immediately portrayed as unbecoming.

Reconciliation and punishment have thus become political tools, deployed as and when necessary. Unfortunately, the discourse of reconciliation has not found its way into our editorial and judicial culture. I have often written about the contradiction between the rhetoric of political reconciliation and the rhetoric of retribution in our justice system. No doubt all societies need to settle to a point where those who break the law are duly punished. But does Schabir Shaik constitute such a threat to our society that he should be locked away for 15 years? *3

Does Tony Yengeni deserve four years for his disreputable shenanigans? *3 Does the 22-year-old who threatened a home affairs official with a toy gun deserve five years? In short, are there objective sentencing guide lines or are we completely at the mercy of individual judges?

I am not in any way arguing for state interventions in the media and the judiciary ­ that would amount to substituting one form of political subjectivism for another. Nonetheless, these institutions need to find innovative ways of giving the public a sense that their editorials and judgments are just and fair.

That may be the only way to stave off the kind of radical backlash and state intervention we have seen in Zimbabwe.

Dr Mangcu is visiting scholar, Public Intellectual Life Project, at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is also a nonresident WEB DuBois Fellow at Harvard University.

With acknowledgements to Xolela Mangcu and Business Day.


*1       There is an overwhelming amount of court-quality prima evidence that Jacob Zuma is guilty of both general and specific corruption as well as fraud. He needs to provide plausible explanations as to why the prima facie evidence should not be accepted as fact. He has declined to do so in public, despite having a high public profile and being called upon to do so, as well as having been given every opportunity of doing so, in parliament, in the printed media and the broadcast media.

It is reasonable to consider him culpable of the conduct of which he has been accused - the NPA just needs to get its act together to force him into giving explanations to counter the prima facie evidence.


*2      If Jacob Zuma feels aggrieved by the media's or any one else's branding him as having a generally corrupt relationship with Schabir Shaik, then he should sue them for defamation.

I allege that Jacob Zuma had a generally corrupt relationship with Schabir Shaik.


*3      Schabir Shaik should have got 5 years in jail and should stay in jail for four years with one year off for good behaviour.

        Tony Yengeni should have got 4 years in jail and should stay in jail for three years with one year off for good behaviour.

        Jacob Zuma should get 10 years in jail and should stay in jail for eight years with two years off for good behaviour.

        Alain Thetard should get 10 years in jail and should stay in jail for eight years with two years off for good behaviour.

        Yann de Jomaron should get 12 years in jail and should stay in jail for nine years with three years off for good behaviour.

        Jean-Paul Perrier should get 15 years in jail and should stay in jail for twelve years with three years off for good behaviour.

         Thales/Thint should be disbarred from getting any government contracts for 20 years with a reduction to 10 years for good behaviour including and especially co-operating with the NPA and handing over Perrier, de Jomaron and Thetard as well as testifying truthfully against Jacob Zuma.

The precise roles played by Chippy Shaik, Pierre Moynot and Thabo Mbeki need to be far more rigoroursly investigated by the DSO.

The above are an elite mob that threatens the individual and collective rights of South Africans citizens and taxpayers.