It's None Of Your Business, Says South African Minister Pallo Jordan

South African Minister of Communications Pallo Jordan

It's none of your business!

Madam,

The best riposte to the silly nonsense in your editorial (January 30) is a routine I once heard an Australian comedian perform. It went something like this:
"In April 1961 President John F Kennedy sent a force of secretly trained Cuban mercenaries to mount an illegal invasion of Cuba. Someof the exiles were killed and many Cubans lost their lives. The US Congress discussed the matter, but nothing came of it.

"In September 1964 President Johnson staged a provocation in the Gulf of Tonkin that resulted in a North Vietnamese gunboat being sunk. As a result of this illegal act Congress passed a resolution that enabled Johnson to escalate the war in Vietnam, leading to the deaths ofthousands of young Americans and millions of Vietnamese. Congress discussed the matter, but nothing came of it.

"In July 1971 President Nixon used a group of Cuban exiles to break into the headquarters of the Democratic Party at the Watergate Hotel in Washington. Congress discussed the matter, but nothing came of it.

"In 1995 President Clinton was given a blowjob in the White House by Monica Lewinsky. The US Congress wanted to impeach him.

"Phew! Thank God they sent us the convicts and not the Puritans!"

It is only in repressive, puritanical societies that the private lives of politicians make headlines. In France, Germany, Italy and a host of other places in the world the extra-marital affair of a president would not even register on the radar. And, as the Australian comedian's lines indicate, his private life has nothing to do with either morality or the moral standing of an individual. Catholic monks, like Pope Pius XII, an anti-Semitic bigot who signed a concordat with Mussolini, were not morally correct because they never enjoyed sex. The prurient interest taken by our editors and their journalists in Kgalema Motlanthe's sexual life tells me more about their voyeurism than of Motlanthe's lack of moral sense.

It is one thing to fault President Motlanthe on the policies he is pursuing. But for journalistic voyeurs to turn to his private life is scandalous. Of what interest is it to anyone, other than peeping-tom gossips who take pleasure in discussing the private lives of others?

As a society we would do well to ask ourselves just how far we want to take this. Are the private lives of all South Africans now fair game for the media? Or is it, as your former editor insists, only the lives of politicians? What of the private lives of newspaper editors who presume to sit in judgement over the "morals" of others? What of the private lives of big businessmen and women, whose decisions affect the lives of millions of their fellow citizens? What of the private lives of military officers, whose orders can send thousands to their deaths?

Once we descend this slippery slope there is no knowing where it might lead. And let us remember that what is sauce for the Motlanthe goose is sauce for the everyone-else gander! To the extent that we permit an intrusive media to pry into the lives of our political leaders, to that extent are we opening up our own lives to such voyeuristic examination!

Moralistic, puritanical terminology, like "sugar-daddy" adds nothing to the argument. Neither the editor of the Mail & Guardian nor anyone else knows the quality of the relationship between Motlanthe and his alleged 24-year-old lady friend. It is the height of presumption to characterise it one way or the other. It plumbs the depths of prejudice that you even dare to write about a matter you know absolutely nothing about. The barely concealed suggestion that this younger woman is involved with Motlanthe for personal gain ("to be filleted for a cellphone") sails so close to libel I am surprised your legal department did not advise you against it. And whose rule book says an older adult man may not have a sexual relationship with a younger adult woman or vice versa?

Incidentally, gender equality entails precisely the right of women, young, middle-aged and old, newspaper editors and ordinary citizens alike, to make their own choices in life, to choose which man/men they wish to be involved with, when and why. What is involved here is the right of choice, which neither secular nor clerical authorities, let alone moralising editors, should have the power to restrain. Our Constitution explicitly disallows this.

Nobody questions the reality that historically (and in the present) men have been in a position to make such choices more freely than women. But it is precisely one of the tenets of patriarchy that women's sexuality and sexual behaviour must be controlled: by clerical authority, secular authority or, as the editor of the M&G would have it, by voyeuristic public opinion instigated by the media. You mention a French female minister, but can't even see that you are as guilty of the double standard you are apparently condemning.

The Aids epidemic is a public health problem, essentially no different from other sexually transmitted illnesses, except that there is no cure for it. To invoke the threat of Aids as a platform to make ex cathedra pronouncements that prescribe behaviour for others is conceited in the extreme. What additional prescriptive powers would our editors like to have? Perhaps how we should dress? Or perhaps what we should eat and drink? Or is it where we should live? Maybe where we should work? After all, these too have public health implications.

Kgalema Motlanthe's private life is his own business and, as long as it does not prejudice his performance of his official duties, should be of no concern to the public. It is shameful that the South African media seem to have nothing better to do. -- Z Pallo Jordan, chair of the ANC communications subcommittee