Distort history and deny well-known and obvious truths to advance narrow and self-serving interest
One of the fundamental requirements for any rational discussion is familiarity with the facts relevant to any matter under discussion, as well as respect for the truth. It is a great pity that some journalists today who pose as political experts and analysts are nothing but an acute embarrassment that are not familiar with facts and also do not have the slightest respect for the truth.
Giants such as Percy Qoboza, Steve Biko, Can Themba, Nat Nakasa, Dan Tloome, Ruth First, Joe Gqabi, Sol Plaatjie and John Tengo Jabavu and other heroes whose powerful pens spewed the revolt and sense of purpose from their powerful minds and clarity of thought must be turning in their graves at the sight of such gutter journalism.
To all these and more, we owe gratitude not only for the fact of freedom; not only for helping to define the content of that freedom - but also for laying the foundation of South Africa's best tradition of journalism. Some of our modern journalists cannot claim or even pretend to be worthy heirs to their toil and worthy claimants to their mantle.
Sadly we have to contend with a curse of our modern day journalists of the likes of Justice Malala who are an injustice to the journalism trade and are classical examples of an abuse of the pen in terms of columns offered to them by their media houses and they abuse the very trust placed on them by society who relies on them as a source of information and education.
The downright insulting, irrelevant and ignorant vitriol by Justice Malala against the ANC and its leader Comrade Pallo Jordan - in The Times edition of Monday, 4 October 2010 titled "The ANC did not set us free" - is a case in point (see here). It does not only say much about the man of Justice Malala but it also says much about the supposed watchful eyes of The Times Editorial Team and whether those eyes are open and equipped with editorial ethos. The article as a whole descended to new lows that cannot be left unchallenged in the interest of the truth and respect for fellow South Africans and The Times readership.
From its inception the ANC has never purported to be a saintly organisation that is perfect and that never committed mistakes now and in the course of our struggle. But far from it, the ANC has always been the first to own up to its slip-ups and to actively correct them. What is missing, deliberately or perhaps out of sheer ignorance, from the commentary by Justice Malala is any reference to the courageous act of the ANC leadership to own up to whatever abuses that he mentions as having taken place in exile and importantly during conditions of war that brought our freedom as a people and a nation.
It is a fact of history that in 1984 the ANC in its own accord under the leadership off its then President, Comrade OR Tambo, instituted the Stuart Commission to investigate the developments that had taken place within its camps in Angola. Though the report was not exhaustive, it truly reflected the situation in Angola proposed to correct the wrong that were identified. The ANC leadership acted upon the Stuart Commission recommendations and improved conditions of detainees in our camps and ensured that were in line with international accepted standards in situations of war.
It is common knowledge, except to Justice Malala and The Times editorial that in August 1991 the ANC released persons whom it had apprehended as "secret agents, spies, agents provocateurs and hired assassins" in the employ of the apartheid government's security services. Upon their return to South Africa they made grave allegation of having been beaten with iron bars, bicycle chains and barbed wire, while they were in captivity. The ANC did not shy away from this and through its President, Cde Nelson Mandela, undertook a full investigation into the treatment of detainees in ANC camps and appointed the Skweyiya Commission.
The ANC also instituted the Motsoenyane Commission and made submission to other external commissions like the Human Rights Commission, Goldstone Commission and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to own up to its excesses, unlike the media which flatly and arrogantly refused to discuss and even own up to its role under apartheid. The deliberate omission or perhaps his ignorance of these public facts enables Malala to play up the threat posed by the abuses as if they are current and therefore relevant to the discussion Cde Pallo Jordan raises about the ANC's position on media freedom.
Justice Malala's selective raising of the spectre of abuses committed many decades ago, in exile and in a war situation, to justify his anti-ANC rhetoric betrays the height of dishonesty and abuse of the position bestowed upon him as a columnist. It is to Malala?s undoing to even pretend that he knows the ANC better than Cde Pallo Jordan merely upon a cursory reading of a website entry. We must say it will do Justice Malala, The Times Editorial and many others who pretend to know the ANC whilst they have never been ANC members or even bothered to extensively familiarise themselves with all the facts about the ANC to do something deliberate to increase their level of understanding of our august movement by reading more than one article to make such resolute determination on the ANC.
Despite his detention and experiences in ANC camps, Cde Pallo Jordan declares that the ANC has, as an organisation stood for and fought liberation and democratic rights of all South Africans, including freedom of media. Why Malala's article based entirely on a website entry, should be an authoritative source on ANC policies defies logic. It does not even pretend to be dealing with ANC history on the media nor does it seek to interpret the ANCs official policy position on media freedom. Importantly, Justice Malala himself did not even argue that his article is about neither the topic under discussion (ANC fought for and brought media freedom) nor an authoritative account of history of the ANC and media freedom. Again this betrays Justice Malala's grave dishonesty as a person of questionable integrity and an abuse of his position as a columnist. His article was simply irrelevant.
We are not going to say much about the tone of Justice Malala's article and his selection of words, safe to say they are reflective of a child who was badly brought up or who was left to grow on his own and adopted foreign and regrettable mannerisms.
There are yet other disturbing aspects to Justice Malala's article. His version of the truth about which organisation led the struggle for the liberation of this country and who really delivered the country to the democracy that it is today- and who fights to protect these freedoms, to paraphrase him, would be laughable if it is not so offensive. Many South Africans sacrificed their lives, their liberties, limbs even their families fighting for the liberation of this country under the banner of the ANC. Even other liberation movements like the PAC, AZAPO whose role cannot be wished away in the fight against apartheid, do attest to the fact that the ANC was at the pinnacle of the struggle to liberate South Africa.
Justice Malala has all the right to have his say but to deny, airbrush and erase from history the centrality of the ANC in the struggle for liberation and enormous sacrifices made by many who perished under harsh conditions in exile under the apartheid government's hit men, parcel bombs including full scale invasion of neighbouring states by the apartheid government's defence force, to destabilise neighbouring states and more so to eliminate the ANC leadership, just to have a go at Pallo Jordan is deeply offensive and hurtful and it is defecating on the graves, names and memories of our martyrs lying in graves on foreign soil and the innocent civilians of those countries who were causalities of the fight for liberation. What Justice Malala and The Times editorial are saying is that their deaths were in vain.
It is another fact of history that many South Africans participated in the ANC-led struggle beyond what Justice Malala sees as the only dimensions of the liberation struggle. For his education and for the benefit of The Times editorial, the struggle for liberation was based on many complementary pillars including internal mobilisation, armed struggle, underground work and international isolation of the apartheid regime.
This led others to take up arms and face the might of the apartheid regime in unequal combat conditions and many paid the ultimate prize in pursuit of freedom. Others joined the underground movements and involved themselves in risky undertakings to ensure mass mobilisation knowing that if caught they would be tortured and thrown in detention for many, many years and even executed. Many were dispatched to mobilise the international community against apartheid and they met their deaths in bombing, poisonings and killing campaigns of the apartheid death squads in various capitals of the world.
Justice Malala and his newspaper should know that hundreds of other committed activists are yet to be accounted for as they disappeared here in the country and abroad, whose families have not yet closed the chapter of pain as a result of not knowing where the bones of their loved ones are and in some instances who and what circumstances led to their deaths. It is inconsiderate and tinkering on criminal conduct (defeating the ends of justice) for Justice Malala and his paper to conceal such information that will help concerned families and our liberation come to terms with our dark past and for the authorities to act on behalf of those affected in the interest and pursuit of justice.
We unequivocally dare Justice Malala to stop his beer hall rumour mongering and hearsay and to bring forward any information at his disposal on the poisoning of Thami Zulu. We dare him to expose those whom he knows are responsible but "are now snugly in cabinet giving us legislation such as the Protection of Information Bill" to allow his namesake to run its course. It does not help anybody safe to create mistrust, suspicion and loss of confidence in our government by spreading malicious rumours of there being "hidden criminals" serving in our highest government structure.
Did courageous South Africans at home and abroad not fight to deliver the country to the democracy it is today? Of course they did. It can only be the ignorance and meanness of Justice Malala and his paper?s reasoning to be so dismissive of their sacrifice.
Did the majority of freedom fighters not belong to the ANC and have they not fought for media freedom as well as other rights that are today enshrined in our constitution? Indeed, most of them did and even those who were not formal members but who belonged to civil society organisation and other fraternal organisations knew that their struggle was led by the ANC including the United Democratic Front, South African Youth Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Union whose leaders and members including Comrades Peter Mokaba, Trevor Manuel, Popo Molefe, Jay Naidoo and many others were imprisoned and maimed for furthering the objective of the ANC.
Thank God, even the overwhelming majority of South Africans know this and that is why they have since 1994, consistently voted for the ANC in their large numbers because they know that it is the ANC that delivered them from apartheid and colonial bondage, and they know and are confident that it is only through the ANC-led government that we will together work to achieve a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexiest and prosperous South Africa.
What then gives Justice Malala and The Times newspaper the right to treat all these courageous democrats with the hate and disdain that his article espouses? How dare he treat the most painful period in our history in such a dismissive and disdainful manner and the countless sacrifices that were made to liberate us from apartheid in such a contemptuous manner just to score cheap political points in unrelated discussions?
The Times permitting of the revisionist interpretation of the history of our struggle also displays another disturbing tendency. It echoes apartheid propaganda as we used to know it during the struggle to liberate our country from the apartheid system. We dare The Times editorial, owners and management to look through the apartheid propaganda archives to see if they will not find similar sentiments.
Justice Malala writes "While the ANC was detaining the likes of Jordan or torturing young women in its camps, it was people like my young friends and relatives who were, under the banner of the Mass Democratic Movement, rendering the apartheid state unworkable". This framing of the role of the ANC in the struggle is not only unfortunately not true in historic context but reminiscent of the propaganda of the apartheid state. Ask those who followed the apartheid media, this casting of the ANC in this depraved role were the hallmark and standard stock of apartheid spokespeople, the apartheid propaganda machine, and the then South African press which clearly is alive and kicking in The Times today.
It is very unfortunate that Justice Malala depicts the Mass Democratic Movement in such a negative manner against the ANC. We want to assure him and his like minded that the Mass Democratic Movement that fought for the liberation of this country, also fought under the leadership of the ANC.
They never wrote about the gallant efforts of Mkhonto Wesizwe combatants who faced the might of the apartheid state in unequal battle conditions, victims of parcel bomb recipients, victims and causalities of cross border raids by the South African Defence Force and many underground activists who defied apartheid to organise and mobilise for the Mass Democratic Movement and those who refused to betray the struggle under torture and those who espoused the virtues of a non-racial democracy in which the people would govern.
Apartheid apologists only saw instigators, terrorists, torturers and murderous gangs on a wanton pain-inflicting spree. Why would The Times and resort to such caricature in modern day and age?
The Times and others have been at pains to prevent a public discussion about media transformation and accountability. They had a nerve even to instruct the ANC to remove the discussion on media ownership and transformation from the agenda of is National General Council. They failed in this attempt and even on brandishing to society the ANC?s alleged attempt to muzzle the press and thereby curb so called media freedom.
It is not surprising that now space is given without thought and consideration of facts to publicly attack the ANC in such a dishonest, insulting and hurtful manner.
If this is not another naked display of abuse of trust bestowed on Justice Malala and media to exercise their role in society to inform, educate and shape opinions of society, we do not know what it is. It affirms our view that we need to help the media to play its meaningful role in the building of our national democratic society.
We again ask the question, what is our recourse under these circumstances of the Malalas and their media.
Aluta continua!
This article first appeared in ANC Today, the weekly online newsletter of the African National Congress.
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