Julius Malema and the South African Media

Julius Malema is the bête noire of South African politics. He would, of course, call this description “racist”, put forward by a “bastard” with a “white tendency” and an “agent” of imperialism. At least, that is what the president of the African National Congress Youth League recently called a white BBC-journalist who had dared to ask a pointed question during a press conference at Luthuli House, the headquarter of the ANC in Pretoria. Welcome to the ongoing slinging match between South Africa’s leading populist and the press. It is an intriguing match – and an emblematic conflict about the trials and tribulations of the young democracy 16 years after the end of Apartheid.

 

Some more background is needed here. As president of the influential ANC Youth League (ANCYL) Julius Malema prepared the way for another populist, Jacob Zuma, who now in the presidency, finds it very hard to rein in his young trailblazer and acolyte. 

 

Born in 1981, Malema seems to over compensate his lacking struggle credentials by verbal radicalism, a common trait among members of the Youth Leagues in the former Apartheid states South Africa and Namibia. Not by accident cartoonists like Zapiro in South Africa and Dudley in Namibia draw these youth leaguers, belatedly blurting out liberation struggle slogans and songs, in nappies.

 

The expulsion of the BBC-journalist Jonah Fisher on April 8^th happened at a press conference where Malema was talking about a recent trip to Zimbabwe. In Harare he had been praising Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF’s indigenisation plans and farm seizures as a model for South Africa. There he had also been rendering the struggle song “Shoot the Boer”, the singing of which the Southern Gauteng High Court on March 26^th had ruled “unconstitutional and unlawful”, implying it amounted to “hate speech”.

 

A few weeks earlier Julius Malema and the ANC-Youth League had threatened to expose private details of those journalists who were investigating his controversial business dealings. In the case of the “City Press”-Editor Dumisane Lubisi they did so leaving the public wondering which state institution the Youth League had gained this information from.

 

In short, Julius Malema and his ilk are a law onto themselves - and they are proud of it. They gain informal power by acting as the storm troopers of a former revolutionary movement; Malema was alluding to this when he had the BBC-journalist expelled from “Luthuli House” claiming territorial rights over this “revolutionary house”. They raise awkward and dormant subjects by appealing to the lowest instincts of their supporters or sympathisers.

 

These Johnny-come-latelies are often practising their informal power with a compensatory but nevertheless bewildering sense of entitlement. They feel and act as if the public owed them something because they are too young to have been part of the liberation struggle.

 

And what did the media do? Did the journalists walk out of the press conference at “Luthuli House” in solidarity with the expelled colleague? Did the media houses complain to public authorities over the release of confidential information on the journalists that had investigated Malema’s possible gains from public tenders?

 

No, they did not - and thus abysmally failed in performing their role as a watchdog in a young democracy. They neither understood nor dared, it seems.

 

As Ebrahim Fakir of the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) points out  this interpretation of and reaction to Malema’s threats by the press was “narrow and selfish”. The journalists went to the ANC(YL) and not to the public prosecutor; they appealed to persons, parties and professional organisations, but not to the guardians of the rule of law, nor did they protest on principle. “In acting purely in their own interests the offended journalists and the ANCYL appear to be conspiring in the erosion of our constitutional values and holding back our attempts at fostering a democratic public culture”.

 

This rueful reaction mirrors that of Jacob Zuma in his belated criticism and reaction to Malema’s unlawful behaviour when the President declared that the ANC-structures would be dealing with Malema’s provocations. It’s a private and internal matter, the Head of State is saying, not something for public authorities to deal with or for citizens to be concerned about.

 

But why is there no appropriate response?

 

Firstly, had all, mostly black, journalists left the press conference together with their expelled British colleague they would have opened themselves up to the criticism of siding with what Malema calls “the white tendency”.

 

Secondly, it shows the lack of a political organisation and representation of journalists in South Africa. There are a number of trade unions with journalist members only dealing with bread and butter issues. And there are a number of protest-trained media organisations with few connections to working journalists. Hopefully the recently launched “Professional Journalists Association” can close that gap and nurture not “citizen journalists” but “journalist-citizens”.

 

Secondly, it shows that media owners don’t see any reason to promote a more rational public discourse in this matter since they live nicely with the sensational reporting about personal politics, thank you.

 

The habitually practiced privatisation of political conflict on all sides just shows that the very notion of “the public” is not well understood in South Africa today. The long-lasting crisis of and over the “Public” Broadcaster SABC is just another case in point.

 

But how could it be different after 350 years during which the very notion of “the public” was systematically denied by the advocates of white supremacy and the defenders of Apartheid.

 

Yet unless the liberation movement-turned government in South Africa stops harassing journalists and starts to struggle for the establishment of a truly public sphere - where the defiance of a court ruling is openly criticized and properly acted upon - this poisoned history will live on. A president and a press who themselves could distinguish private or party political matters from public concerns would be a good start.

 

 

- April 14, 2010 by Rolf Paasch