Comrades;
Pasted are further insults on our general secretary.
Rgds, ST
Barney Mthombothi
Editor’s note <http://www.fm.co.za/Article.aspx?id=117201> Deadly threat to
all <http://www.fm.co.za/Article.aspx?id=117201>
Barney Mthombothi
Thursday, 5 Aug 2010
The collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago exposed not only the
bankruptcy of its ideology but the rich and obscene lifestyle of its leaders
— the dachas where they romped and lolled and the extravagantly furnished
bunkers where they would have safely repaired in the event of a nuclear
attack.
<http://ad.za.doubleclick.net/jump/n5963.financialmail/fm.life;tile=3;sz=728x90;ord=123456789?>
*Meanwhile ordinary people were constantly exhorted *to put their faith in
the revolution. It was dachas for the cream of society and gulags for
dissenters.
Communism is an ideology conceived in a lie. Leaders say one thing while
doing the other. They live a life of deception. They don’t seem prepared to
live the life or reality they often romanticise, or to which their policies
condemn ordinary people. And because the media and other forms of
communication are controlled by the state, the so-called working class are
kept in the dark and therefore meekly accept their lot.
That is the nirvana that Blade Nzimande has in mind for us. The general
secretary of the SA Communist Party, who works as minister for higher
education when he feels like it, wants the media shackled because it has
shown him up to be a hypocrite. This champion of the working class drives
posh cars and lives it up in fancy hotels — at our expense. Now he wants a
tribunal to stop or frustrate the media from telling the truth.
But that’s par for the course, I suppose. After all it was Vladimir Lenin
who blurted: “Telling the truth is a bourgeois prejudice. Deception, on the
other hand, is often justified by the goal.”
It’s revealing that the two men leading the campaign against the media have
been in the news for the wrong reasons : Nzimande and communications
minister Siphiwe Nyanda . Nyanda, the man with a fine taste for tenders, has
seen his name crop up in many an unsavoury scrap as a result of his business
dealings. He got a tender that got Siyabonga Gama fired at Transnet. He’s
currently embroiled in a messy fight with his director- general, and tenders
are at the heart of the dispute. On Sunday he wrote a long, rambling article
in favour of a media tribunal. The logic was difficult to follow. He should
stick to tenders.
There are those who may think the media is obsessed with gazing at its own
navel. This is not a war waged against the media only, but against democracy
itself. It challenges the very essence of our constitution. As the FM argued
recently, it is a battle that should involve all strands of society —
business, civil society — against those who are intent on imposing darkness
on us, so that they can loot and plunder at will.
This is by no means an isolated attack. In the eyes of Jacob Zuma’s
supporters, the media forms part of that axis of evil — to borrow a phrase —
which almost denied their hero what he was due ; the other axis members
being the Scorpions and the judiciary. Zuma’s triumph in Polokwane sounded
the death knell for the Scorpions, who were immediately consigned to the
scrapheap. The judiciary has been shouted down and almost cowed. Which
leaves the media, with its enormous power to influence public opinion and to
expose, shame and embarrass those in authority.
As Lenin once posed the question, what then is to be done? The media
tribunal and the Protection of Information Bill seem to be the answer. The
notion of “protecting” information from the public in a democracy is,
frankly, bizarre.
It’s not the first time government has tried to rein in the media. The Nats
tried several times, and failed each time . This lot, which seem keen to
learn from their predecessors, will also fail. But that would demand
concerted action from all sectors of society, including the business
community. For once, business needs to raise its voice against what is
arguably the biggest threat to our democracy since the fall of apartheid.
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