In one of his tiradical tweets, Professor Adam Habib vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Witwatersrand recently gave a defunct, dishonest and disappointing take with regards to the issue around accommodation and student housing at Wits University and the surrounding Braamfontein precinct.

In an article published on Times Live, which can best be described as a discouraging contribution given the stature of the academic and VC that he is, Habib ignorantly claims that the biggest underlying factors around the accommodation crisis and student homelessness is in fact according to him not a matter of space, but a matter of affordability and individual student’s academic performance.

While he is partly right on the point of affordability; on the other hand he diminishes a lot of confidence in his own sense of perception and comprehension of current lived realities of hundreds of students in his university and outside of it.

Indeed Habib is right to point out that the high cost of rent for off-campus accommodation providers has greatly impacted student homelessness, he however conveniently begets to inform us how his own on-campus residences are very price competitive in their own regard. In fact the way in which Wits Housing and Res Life is set up is such that the VC has almost no control over it since it is largely an entity that runs parallel to the university and almost entirely outside of his jurisdiction and purview. Wits residences are priced no less differently than a host of other accommodation providers, in fact comparatively speaking an average Wits residence is priced the same as the top student accommodation found in Braamfontein.

Be that as it may, Wits residences are absolutely always full come January of every year with first time entering students as well as returning residents scrambling for space from one hall of residence to another.

When it comes to his argument about students who are without accommodation due to academic issues the VC claims that a majority of students find themselves without a place to stay because either NSFAS or some other bursary has dropped them because they have failed once or repeatedly. This is a very shocking analysis to make since it is a well-known fact that NSFAS has never funded students who are in their postgraduate studies; as a result a bulk of students who were on NSFAS in their first year are subject to financial woes because they are currently doing their honours or masters, or post-graduate diplomas and not because of failure.   

The truth is that space and cost have become interlinked over the years. The big problem with regards to student housing however is the lack of astute policy making and decisive leadership in institutions such as Wits.

For one, institutions such as Wits are very research intensive and thus are the beneficiaries of vast amounts of research offerings and grants. In many cases those grants are on a ‘discretionary-fund’ basis and subsequently are there for the University to use as they please. If institutions such as Wits would re-direct some of those funds intended for research (which are almost always in excess) and direct them towards either subsidising students for accommodation or investing in capacitating their own housing infrastructure then the crisis would be half-conquered.

A second solution would be for Universities to partner with the private sector in terms of student housing. Institutions like Wits University have very powerful alumni that play different stakes in the private sector, including that of student accommodation. The lack of engagement between institutions and their powerful friends in the accommodation and property private sector highlights a malignant relationship between prominent VC’s such as Adam Habib that is not centred on students and bettering the university space but rather profiteering.

Lastly, institutions such as Wits have in their charge staggering amounts of assets worth unspeakable amounts of Rands. It is shocking to discover the amounts and kinds of property owned by several previously white institutions. The idea here is not to say that Universities must sell-off all their assets to fund student housing. However, trimming the fat here and there would go a long way. Some of these assets are themselves profit-generating and list on different stock exchanges.

Politicizing the student accommodation crisis must never be mistaken for an earnest interest in solving it.

(Orediretse Masebe served as the SRC President of Wits (2018). He speaks of the student housing crisis at Wits very passionately, as reflected in his term. This year (2019) he, along with other student activists, has led successful marches against the University and the City of Johannesburg for their silence and uncaring attitude toward the student housing crisis. They have had two occupations which resulted in talks with the Mayor of Johannesburg, Mr Herman Mashaba. A Student Housing Committee has also been established for the basis of championing the needs and interests of students who are residents in and around Braamfontein)

The post Zuma era, as it has been deemed has been marked by many peculiar political consequences in South Africa. It has seen the revealing of the Democratic Alliance as an organization bereft of ideas and allergic to policy. It has revealed the African National Congress itself as organization with deep rooted corruption that reaches far beyond one particular faction and ideological inconsistency, and it revealed that the only political party ironically that has been able to keep itself rooted to its own identity and ideas post the controversial character that is Zuma has been the Economic Freedom Fighters. This is ironic as it was long heralded that the EFF would not have an identity, and would lose a substantial amount of its support, due to a ridiculous assumption that the only problem in the ANC was Jacob Zuma. Polls from the very same detractors have indicated otherwise, and legislatively the EFF continues to steam roll forward and give us far more definitive substance than Obama-esque poetry.

Perhaps the most interesting consequence however is the emergence, or rather reinvigoration of a sector in our society that has been unable to control its desire for a particular political trajectory in this country, electorally. This is a sector comprised of a select few academics, political analysts and pundits, and of course a self-proclaimed integrity filled, respected clique within our media fraternity. Over the past few years, particularly after the 2017 Conference of the ANC there has been much to be said about the lack of objectivity within this collaboration of what should be respectable and unbiased collective of people from various sectors of our society.

A large chunk of this critique has been uncritically dismissed as conspiracy, as an attack of freedom of opinion and media and in some instances the critiques themselves have been labelled as intimidation, signs of fascism and as unwarranted. The palpable biases are completely ignored, the publishing of allegations without any substantiation and the consequences of that has become a strong tool of character assassination, and the abuse of power by those who preside as editors of publications, Vice Chancellors of institutions of higher learning (although embarrassingly uninformed on many philosophical and political assertions they make) or as relatively influential people within our society are never taken into regard, as a tirade to isolate particular ideas continue to the benefit of an ANC that is inexplicably projected to be on the track of renewal.

To try and capture the level of bias and unashamed mob like mentality of all of this would require a far more extensive piece that would illustrate on a case by case the rot we are dealing with, something I do not intend to do in this piece. What I will do is provide a brief comparative analysis of how media, academia and influential sectors of our society can and have been used as a means to solicit or retain power by aspiring or existing state apparatus and regimes. The media fraternity being used as a means to maintain or obtain power through manipulation of public opinion, facts and character assassination is a historic exercise that requires a far more intensive challenging than approaching of relatively toothless Press Ombudsman, whose regulative measures are ineffective instructions for apologies to be published on page 4 of publications in a corner of a plethora of other articles, when the damage of creating a cloud of suspicion is already done.

This will hopefully display how when the South African media and its accomplices are critiqued for using the platform they have to push particular narratives at the expense of the political adversaries of those they represent, it not only poses a threat to democracy but the very fabric of journalism and academia itself. How being captured, operating as a political cabal as the press is a threat to media freedom in itself. It will illustrate how media houses and academia themselves are founded on ideological biases and this informs their socio-economic and political views. Perhaps more importantly, the need to establish legitimate alternatives that will challenge those who present themselves as the paragon of justice, intellectualism and the epitome of media freedom and objective journalism.

In the case of South Africa, a country currently preparing for its 6^th Democratic National Government Elections, the context of media manipulation falls in line within that framework. An apt case study to then look that would be, ironically the role of media houses in projecting an ideal candidate, an ideal ideology and an ideal party to champion those values. Let us then look at the phenomena of Fox News and Donald Trump.

The ideological bedrock of US politics, bar its self-imposed title of as the leader of democracy and the free world is capitalist nationalism. It is a nation founded on a job in every household, opportunity, factory centric production, socio-cultural and economic segregation and a well catered for white working class. It is a country founded on friendly and necessary imperialism, attributing social decay to alternatives to the capitalist values it espouses, and its own political and social decay from a straying away from these values which were sustained by exploitation of minorities.

A particular news outlet in the US played a critical role in advancing this particular narrative, the” Make America Great Again” philosophy, and ipso facto the reinvigorating of a society to a moment that was founded on unequal racial development. This translated into a palpable support of Donald Trump by what maintains is an independent news outlet. Primetime Fox has been widely accepted as State Television, with recurring advertisements bashing opposition and of course emphasising how Trump continues to keep his promises to protect the everyday citizen, as right wing as many of these promises, and secular as many of these citizens remain to be. This Fox widely denies as conspiracy and an attack on media freedom, sound familiar?

Opposing media outlets echo the same sentiments when their bias towards the Democratic Party, and their anti-Trumpism is pointed out. Outlets such as CNN, are on the flipside the “liberals” on this coin. The ideologies not fundamentally different however with a fundamentally altering of the American status quo not on the cards, a friendly version of Trump ideology, imperialism and welfare capitalism. Regardless, both of these media houses are underpinned by ideological views of the country itself, and thus, be it through that, partisan affiliation or streams of funding, the fabric of media in itself is not immune to bias and this is not a phenomenon that can be resolved by reports to the Press Ombudsman, but require robust confrontation as it reflects institutionalized biases within a media fraternity that claims independence to the ideas that construct society themselves.

In the US case, one can delve deeper into how these seemingly opposing media houses can collaborate at the level of narrative formulation when it comes out to rolling out US foreign policy in what can be termed media imperialism. This is when the US media fraternity and its allies, Fox News, CNN, BBC play a role in delegitimizing nations their mother nations seek to either plunder in terms of resources, or whose political trajectory they wish to determine. We have seen it with Iraq and “The War on Terror” under the Bush administration, we have seen it with Libya and the removal by US funded insurgents under the Obama administration, and we are seeing it now with Venezuela and other Latin American countries under trump, with what can be termed the War on Socialism. The US media has and has had a political view on all of these cases, and their views served as justification for particular socio-political decisions of their governments. The media was a tool for political warfare.

Let us then bring it back home. Not much is different, except for the obvious fact that in South Africa currently, particularly considering Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC, SA media is one coin with completely identical sides.

The bedrock of South African politics is the substance less rainbow nation ideology of 1994. The poetic reconciliation ideals, mixed welfare economy principles, which are at the expense of the truth and the structural altering of South African reality. The candidate and party of choice for this poetic ideology is Cyril Ramaphosa and his, operative word being his ANC. A view shared widely by renowned media figures, academics and one which is treasonous to oppose along with its philosophical underpinnings.

The crime of the DA is not having much to offer, and the crime of the EFF is holding views which are fundamentally in contradiction with maintaining policy perspectives and philosophies that are out of touch with the reality of poor black South Africans. It is speaking truth, that to continue with a project that has proved to fail whoever its custodian is madness. This is a fact that all the media fraternity were all but willing to ignore when the EFF was waging a war against corruption, one they perceived as an aid to their factional ANC fight against Zuma. Now for the EFF to continue to exist after that, and continue to be critical of a vehicle for whom to them simply needed a different driver is an unforgivable sin.

The biases that exist within the South African media fraternity have thus begun to reveal themselves, more so as we edge closer to elections, and this is with crass and subtle narrative formulation. The New Dawn of Ramaphosa contrasted with the fascism of Malema. The fear mongering that is required in order to create a saviour, a saviour in a man who was complicit in the rot of the years preceding him as Deputy President of the country. It resembles the propaganda machinery marked by the era of “The War on Terror”. A party that participates in a democratic government and its elective processes. That has not been found guilty of any conduct in judicial terms, that regularly runs democratic elective process within its own ranks is marked as fascist, while one that subjects its people to lack of toilets and housing, kills those who protests against it be it for labour or education, is riddled by elderly leadership, loots and sells its own strategic economic enterprises for personal benefit is marked as democratic and a prospective leader of this country (mind you it has led it for over two decades).

The media in South Africa then simply refuses to be called into order for the dangerous role it plays in bias narrative formulation and character assassination. When Peter Bruce identifies Ramaphosa outside of ANC Conference policy and marks him as the ideal man to lead a country, we should all accept this. When Ferial Haffajee, Pauli Van Wyk peddle allegations of corruption week in and week out about the EFF and do not provide evidence of them, leaving a lingering cloud over the party, we must just be silent about what informs them. When Karima Brown mistakenly texts a not so innocent revelation of narrative formulation around the EFF and a disturbing directive as to who particular constituencies who attend EFF events are, the exposition of this is described as an attack on media and signs of a fascist government. The EFF is described as a party with beasts on a leash ready to release against detractors, racist caricatures, and when substantiation of these allegations is required, there is again dead silence.

It is irresponsible. Frankly, the only response is to challenge this phenomenon head on, and perhaps establish sound counter propaganda machinery, because we must accept we are not dealing with free press, but state machinery that has amassed enough legitimacy that it locates itself outside of and immune of critique.

The Red Pen must then serve as such a platform. For when the mob does not want to publish Op-Eds with alternative views, for when the cabal persistently campaigns for the ANC of Cyril Ramaphosa. The Red Pen must serve as a platform that is favourable to the alternative, to the left. That exists as a different coin all together. It must be a platform that provides the young and the old with an opportunity to think outside of the constrains of rainbow South Africa, and dare to speak the truth, even if it may be a threat to the flimsy fabric of unity our country is founded upon. It must explore the political, social, cultural and economic reality of South Africa and Africa beyond the mundane and the normative. It must challenge us. The Red Pen must be South Africa’s opportunity to think.