Smear tactics against Dispatch echo apartheid
The raging war between the paper for the people, the Daily Dispatch, and the government is mischievous, ridiculous, extremely unnecessary and downright disingenuous.
In fact, the ANC-led Bhisho government seems to have virtually no case.
If it had, it would surely have used all available constitutional avenues to present it and have it arbitrated rather than resorting to the court of public opinion in which no winner or loser is legally declared.
The intention is transparent, even to an infant – it is the faint hope of winning the hearts and minds of the remaining, yet ever dwindling number of ANC supporters by tarnishing the good name of the newspaper.
This is an old apartheid strategy of discrediting an independent media house.
It is in the public domain that the ANC has been shown to be losing the bigger war taking place within itself – a war characterised by decay, the most brutal infighting, with members at one another’s throats, house burnings, and the destruction of life and property.
This war intensifies closer to elections. Any perceived obstacle to retaining power is perceived as a threat. As we have seen time and time again, no-holds are barred in the pursuit of crass power.
Who in their right minds would involve themselves in clandestine activities to try and smear or tarnish a publication with a proud and patriotic history like the Daily Dispatch?
You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time!
Is it the Daily Dispatch that facilitates corruption, nepotism, the complete disdain of the rule of law and the general avarice that has become the currency of the ANC- led government?
Is it the Dispatch that is responsible for the paralysis of most provincial departments especially, health, education and local government?
Is it the Dispatch that is responsible for the brazen and unwieldy looting of state resources, as evinced by the Amathole District Municipality’s R631-million toilet scandal?
Presently our councillors, day in and out, appear in court for charges relating to the Nelson Mandela funeral scam.
Who ever imagined that a person claiming to be an ANC member would ever risk dragging the good name of our international icon into the mud?
How, just how, is the Dispatch supposed to report favourably on a scandal of such a magnitude other than presenting the facts as they are?
The Dispatch, like any paper worth its salt, is a watchdog, not a lapdog of the government.
Section 16 of our Constitution enjoins the right of media to be free and independent.
Writing in 1999, Guy Berger, former professor of Journalism and Media studies at Rhodes University and later Director of UNESCO’s Freedom of Expression, himself an apartheid prisoner, noted: “The true test of media freedom in a society is during time of high political tension. What gains were made in 1994, were not given on a plate, but were fought for. What defences were held, were maintained, not through the weakness of attacks but the resilience of the defenders. There was no shortage of powerful forces seeking to silence journalists.”
Those words were surely prophetic of the present times. We are now witnessing a threat to press freedom in our province.
Berger’s words also carry warnings of the kind of paranoia that takes place when a government that cannot be defended loses ground and resorts to clutching at straws instead of dealing with it’s own man-made weaknesses.
Why is the ANC not confronting endemic corruption and the rotten leadership from the top down?
It is indeed a sad day that the Dispatch has, once again, to have to look to safeguarding its reporters.
How can this happen during our freedom?
As if the well-documented harassment of the media by the apartheid state in days gone by was not enough?
It is my hope, and I would imagine, the hope of most rational South African citizens, that this freedom loving province will uphold the wise words of former Constitutional Court Judge Kate O’Regan who wrote: “Freedom of expression lies at the heart of democracy. It is valuable for many reasons including its instrumental function as a guarantor of democracy, it’s implicit recognition and protection of the moral agency of individuals in our society and it’s facilitation of the need for truth by individuals and society generally’
If indeed, the ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa, or anyone else for that matter, is serious about revealing the real truth relating to a so-called plot “to sink the provincial government” they must do the honourable thing and produce credible evidence and press charges in a court of law.
Vivi Mpikashe is from Mdantsane