HISTORY WILL JUDGE THE ANC HARSHLY FOR DEFENDING DE KLERK BY SIHLE LONZI

“Our permanent suspicion for the “Rainbow Nation” project has, once again, been reaffirmed, and, above all, the African National Congress remains an enabler of racist denialism, white arrogance and supremacist ideals.”

17 FEBRUARY 2020

In the 2020 State of the Nation Address (SONA), the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by their President and Commander In Chief, Julius Malema, caused a stir when they questioned the presence of Apartheid President, FW de Klerk, in Parliament. This happened at the backdrop of FW de Klerk’s recent comments about Apartheid, on national television. de Klerk argued, in a SABC interview, that Apartheid was not a crime against humanity. A very unrepentant and crass statement to make, considering the violence, dispossession and dehumanisation experienced by the African majority at the hands of the Apartheid State. 

The leader of the EFF, staying true to the protest character of the EFF, used the platform of SONA to question the presence of such a man, in what is meant to be a Parliament born out of the reconciliatory project of 1994. Whether you agree with the EFF or not, you must admire its ability to reimagine, and reconstruct, Parliament as the centre of national discourse. The EFF pushes us to ask the question; beyond the red carpet, the lavish Hollywood-esque outfits, the parade, and 21-gun salute, what about the business of Parliament, with specific reference to SONA, resonates with the ordinary citizen of South Africa? In other words, is the Parliament of South Africa in touch with, and responsive to, the realities of the people.

Occasions like SONA, before the arrival of the Economic Freedom Fighters, have been nothing but a theatre of fantasies. A numbing drug, which seeks to paint a picture of normalcy in the midst of abnormality. The EFF shuts the stage lights, and reminds the audience that the conditions are not as glossy as they are made out to be, by the powers that be. It is without any surprise that the immediate response, whenever the EFF shuts the stage lights, is hostility, even from the people it seeks to liberate. This is the price that Fighters pay for speaking truths that people are either not ready to confront or would rather ignore forever. 

When the Commander In Chief of the EFF stood up and raised the infamous “Point of Order” the Nation was, once again, driven into a state of discomfort. Many thought he would lambast Pravin Gordhan, the Minister of Public Enterprise at the helm of the collapse of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), however, to everyone’s surprise, he turned our attention to an Apartheid Apologist. To understand the significance of this moment in the history books of South Africa, it is important to understand the principal foundations of South Africa’s democracy. 

The central theme and definitive component of South Africa’s democracy, as inspired by the 1994 project of the ANC, led by Nelson Mandela, is the idea of Reconciliation. From the “Rainbow Nation” to the now #StrongerTogether narrative, sponsored by the Springbok Rugby World Cup win, is the idea that the white minority recognizes their collective contribution, and benefit, from the violence inflicted on the non-white majority. As such, they, the oppressors, are now repentant and shamefaced by the actions of their forefathers and their peers, and the privileges that they now enjoy in society as a result of racist social engineering which saw many lives lost and families destroyed. 

It is this genuinely apologetic attitude, which the nation building project of South Africa depends on, as characterised by the ANC and all those who sympathised with the TRC project. According to them, the reconciliation of the oppressor and the oppressed relies heavily on, firstly, the genuine remorse of the oppressor, and, secondly, the acceptance of that remorse by the oppressed. After which a “united” and “rainbow” future can be carved. This is the spiritual aspiration of the so-called “Rainbow Nation”, and all organs of the State, more especially Parliament, are tasked with achieving this goal, as enshrined in the preamble of the Constitution of the South Africa, which reads;

“We, the people of South Africa, 

Recognise the injustices of our past; 

Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land; 

Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and 

Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.”

The presence of a man who denies the severity of the “injustices of our past” in an institution which is supposed to protect and preserve these ideals of Reconciliation and Nation building, undermines the very essence, of not only the institution, which in this case is Parliament, but, also these principles. When one begins to unveil this crude denialism, you see the sub-consciousness of many white South Africans. To de Klerk and his kith and kin, a crime against humanity can only be inflicted on human beings. To agree that Apartheid was a crime against humanity, would mean recognizing those who the crime was inflicted on as being part of humanity. Furthermore, Black South Africans are being confronted by the reality of forgiving people who never asked for forgiveness.   

CIC Julius Malema found the African National Congress (ANC), sleeping on this very fundamental contradiction. Unable to read the moment, the ANC played hide and seek with the rules, with some of their MPs proclaiming that “de Klerk is going nowhere!”, followed by cheers after the Speaker of Parliament rejected the EFF proposal to have the former Apartheid President, and now apologist, removed. 

The people of South Africa, particularly those who remain at the margins, the unemployed, the victims of corporate racism and discrimination, the exploited poor workers, the students who remain excluded in institutions of Higher Learning, and all those who continue to bear the brunt of the legacy of an evil system, Apartheid, the crime against humanity, were all shown a middle finger by the former liberation movement on the 13 of February 2020. 

Our permanent suspicion for the “Rainbow Nation” project has, once again, been reaffirmed, and, above all, the African National Congress remains an enabler of racist denialism, white arrogance and supremacist ideals. History will judge the ANC harshly for defending de Klerk.

THE EFF MUST INTENSIFY ITS MULTIMEDIA PRESENCE BY SIYA NYULU

“The beauty about multimedia unlike simple written text, is that people understand the context more. There are some people who would rather listen and watch someone speak about the EFF than have to read about it.”

17 FEBRUARY 2020

At the rate which white media establishments such as News24 and Daily Maverick are so vigorous in tainting EFF leaders with unfounded allegations and stories that are not true, the resolution of the EFF at its second National People’s Assembly in Mangaung to establish a WhatsApp radio station sounds good in theory but won’t meet its intended objective. Using WhatsApp as a means of communication has to come with the voter’s consent and it will take time as people are sceptical about sharing their phone numbers while some even lose their phones and do not inform branch leadership about their new numbers. Creating a WhatsApp radio station shouldn’t be rejected in its entirety, but it does need careful deliberation, planning and it needs time. 

I am of the opinion that the organisation should rather focus on the blog section of its website because the website has people viewing it on a daily basis. Mass media, including digital media platforms have been used by media houses as a political tool, with great impact on ordinary people, and on power & our democracy. These political manoeuvres have a significant influence in the party’s progress and especially in light of the CIC’s remark, “sensationalism is now the order of the day. No other political party in post-apartheid South Africa has been declared from editorial pages as an enemy, other than the EFF ”. 

The South African media is in denial hence we need to create our own content to spread party related information, but we need to do this using what we already have. 

Malcolm X observes that “the media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s the power. Because they control the minds of the masses”. As the fourth pillar of democracy along with judiciary, executive and legislature, the media of today has a role to act against the injustice, oppression, transgressions and bias of our society. Instead the media as we have come to see today is publishing particular narratives and defends certain discourses. 

Outside of the EFF’s increase in the general elections, testament to the party being able to relate with black people and black people finding hope in the EFF, the party has also changed the lives of ordinary people significantly. This can be seen in its documentary ( Accessible at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI0V19aav4E) wherein EFF  is documented assisting ordinary South Africans, listening to the cries of these South Africans who have been dehumanized, whose cries have been falling to deaf ears and who have lost hope in a government which has used their votes for their own self-enrichment since 1994. 

The Commander In Chief is correct when he says that most media publications are “hungry dogs of factions of the ruling party and domestic and global capitalist institutions”. To prove his point, late last year eNCA appointed Kanthan Pillay, founder and leader of the Capitalist Party of South Africa (ZACP) as the TV channel’s news boss. Pillay promotes and supports a particular political system and ideology, which goes against journalistic and ethical principles of independence. After the twitter outrage of Pillay’s appointment, he stepped down as Head of News. Instead of eNCA hiring an objective person they’ve filled that position with Ndivhuwo Munzhelele, chairperson of Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) who sits on the Ministerial Advisory Committee on digital migration. Yet again eNCA is appointing politicians in important positions, thus presenting a glaring  conflict of interest. 

EFF has a consistent working relationship with the media and has a honest attitude towards public criticism. The EFF has in the past had consultation meetings with the media, invited them to photoshoots of the leadership at its plenums and events. It is one of the only political parties that has the most press conferences since its formation, and it was the EFF president who said that media freedom in the party is guaranteed. He reiterated this further and said: “as the second NPA, we must reaffirm our commitment to defend the independence of the media. We need well-qualified journalists who will not seek to impress their white bosses. The country needs media and journalists that will disturb, unsettle, call into question and have a deeper look into the social oppression of the population. 

The rise of the “Digital age” and the importance of utilising Multimedia and the blog section of the website.

There are numerous challenges and benefits of tapping into digital media. Challenges being catering to a certain class of people as some cannot afford data while others have access to Wi-Fi 24hours. Massive shifts in communication, sociality, knowledge production, and politics that the internet enables are not irrelevant to remote communities. Our voters and potential voters are using WhatsApp groups and their phones for their local community crime watch, using mass communication to inform themselves about safety related issues, job openings, stokvels etc.; and I think political parties should utilize these channels to spread their message across. 

The beauty about multimedia unlike simple written text, is that people understand the context more. There are some people who would rather listen and watch someone speak about the EFF than have to read about it. Some people do not prefer reading at all- especially text that has bombastic words which require a dictionary in order for you to understand them. But some people are energetic when it comes to having discussions, and that’s the advantage of tapping into multimedia as a medium of communication to spread the gospel of the EFF through the use of the websites blog. Having discussions creates wider interaction and engagement than having people write articles or opinion pieces. Writing is something difficult to do and it takes time to gather your thoughts and put into an articulate piece without sounding as if you are all over the place trying to put your message across, whereas in verbal communication, raising your point across is not much of a difficulty. However, I do think that there should be a combination of audio and text in sharing party related media information, so platforms like #RedPen should continue to exist and more people in the party should contribute to it. The EFF should make it a custom that party leaders (i.e. provincial chairpersons, branch secretaries/chairpersons, CCT members and parliamentarians) write opinion pieces and articles for the organisation, not media houses like Sunday Times or City Press, and these should be included in the blog section of the website. We need more content!

What kind of content can the blog have? Will it ever run out? 

One can argue that the EFF social media pages (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook etc.) already have content that reach their targeted audience thus utilising the blog will be a waste of time. I don’t think that is the case if the blog is treated more like a combination of an EFF “TV channel”, “radio station/audio box” and “newspaper” at the same time. The blog unlike social media has more in-depth multimedia content, it has more robust engagements. The blog can have readings that branches should engage in, audio documentaries, an EFF online library, PDFs and theses written by our leadership to read during political education classes at the branch level, -all these things can be shared as links on our social media because in that  way two birds are killed with one stone. When the viewer clicks on the link through social media it directs them straight to the website, which makes them see more things on the website including the documents and parliament sections/pages on the website. 

Other proposals for an EFF blog may include the following:

  • Recordings of the CIC speech in every rally of the EFF. 
  • Audio and video documentaries about the lives which the EFF has touched on a provincial and regional level.
  • Short audio summaries in our official languages about the importance of the cardinal pillars. 
  • Audio or visual discussions and debates about land expropriation without compensation, Marxism, Leninism, Socialism and the parties’ stance in relation to this. 
  • Podcasts about feminism and black radical or socialist feminism and its importance in this time of grave crimes on women and children.

This will need a dedicated communications team which is open to exploring creative methods of communicating in these times where most people are constantly on their phones and online, and look into making the EFF website more vibrant by putting in the kind of content we will never see in the media about the EFF. The EFF is the only organisation that has a good working relationship with its online/digital voters and not a week goes by without the party trending, having multimedia content on the website will be a beneficial investment towards communication and giving information about the EFF.