Publication: Mail and Guardian Issued: Date: 2007-12-14 Reporter: Editorial

Speech Therapy

 

Publication 

Mail and Guardian
Date

2007-12-14

Reporter

Editorial

Web Link

www.mg.co.za



Let's say that ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma wins at Polokwane. As ANC president, what will his first speech be next Thursday, December 20? The Mail & Guardian hopes it will be this:

Comrades, the challenges facing the ANC are enormous. As we enter our 97th year we owe a lot, not only to the party, but to the broader public. Our spats on the road to Polokwane have been debilitating, damaging and dirty.

It is important that we undertake a period of healing. This is no moment for triumphalism and the politics of the winner takes all.

For those of you rubbing your hands together as you plan a post in political office, or a cushy job in the civil service, or how to win a tender, stop now. Take off your "100% Zulu Boy T-shirts"; put on your working clothes. We owe it to South Africa to put our noses to the grindstone. Ours is a wealthy country and we need to share that wealth more equitably. Our schools must be centres of learning so that our children can read, write and multiply with the best in the world. By 2010 we must see substantial improvements in literacy; in maths and science skills and in the matric pass-rate.

And by 2010 we must make inroads into unemployment. The basic unit of a decent life is decent work.

To the criminals, I repeat that the laws will become less user-friendly for you. You will never lose the right to legal representation because, like me, you are innocent until proved guilty. But know that your reign in the land is coming to an end. If you live by the gun, you will end up living behind bars.

The lesson of Polokwane is that leadership is accountable. And I will be a symbol. If I am charged with corruption, I will stand down as your president until I am proved innocent. And while I have apologised for my actions and my words during my rape trial (charges on which I was acquitted, it must not be forgotten), I apologise again, not only to you in the ANC, but to the nation.

HIV/Aids is our country's most serious challenge; I am committed to the national plan to prevent HIV infection and to treat and care for Aids sufferers. A shower will not prevent infection; condoms will. Wear them. Every time.

In choosing the NEC of the ANC we strove for balance; balance between left and business; balance between men and women; balance between regions and races.

It's time to dance to a new tune. Accordingly, join me in a new song. No longer Awuleth' umshini wami, but Awuleth' idemocracy yami.

Polokwane newsflash

In the hubbub of the succession fight, a measure most inimical to our democracy seems set to pass through the ANC's conference -- and this is the ruling party's recommendation that could bind government to new restrictions on the media.

With days to go before the Polokwane meeting, the M&G asks the 4 000 delegates to think very carefully about how they proceed on this explosive issue.

This is not special-interest pleading and has nothing to do with newspaper sales or ramping up advertising sales for private-sector broadcasters. South Africa's open media dispensation is one of the great victories of its democratic revolution, for which the ANC deserves praise. It would be tragic if the party of liberation sets the country on the road to media repression. For all its faults, the media have shown that they are an ally of democracy by providing a forum for all the debates that the road to Polokwane has demanded.

Among the resolutions of the ANC's June policy summit -- set for endorsement at Polokwane -- was a motion calling for a review of media self-regulation and an investigation into the possibility of establishing a media tribunal. The stated aim is to "safeguard and promote the rights of all South Africans".

There are no details about the proposed tribunal's composition and powers, but the drift is clear: state appointees would sit in judgement on the private media and what they publish. The dangers are obvious. The apparatchiks would inevitably seek to protect the reputations of politicians and other bigwigs under the guise of enforcing their rights to privacy and dignity, even when media reports are true and in the public interest.

This was foreshadowed in the outcry over the Sunday Times's coverage of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang; and in the unhappiness about media exposés of the allegedly bent ways of ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma and police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi. All of these have come to inform the Polokwane conference; South Africa is richer for knowing about each of them.

What is particularly worrying is that the left, which says it wants to deepen democracy, is clamouring for controls. This has nothing to do with principle and everything to do with the petty pique of leaders like Blade Nzimande and Zwelinzima Vavi over media reports about them and their hero, Jacob Zuma.

Media outlets are fallible human institutions which make mistakes. But in managing human error the choice is between state control and the current system -- modelled on other democracies -- of redress through the courts and self-regulation through the Press Council and ombudsman.

The Press Council was reconstituted to give it greater independence and the new ombud, Joe Thloloe, is a former radical journalist of unimpeachable integrity. The M&G would support additional measures to strengthen the system, such as the right to fine.

With acknowledgements to Mail and Guardian.