ANC members challenge opposition DA outside Luthuli House on February 12, 2014. Police prevented the opposition group from marching to Luthuli House., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Confront liberal opportunism and a politics of opposition in media
By Kgaogelo Kgolomodumo
Umsebenzi Online
This past weekend a number of political parties launched their manifestos for the forthcoming May 7th elections. All of these manifestos are premised on the manifesto of the ANC-led alliance as reference point, but in hostile way.
The difference in the one extreme is that there is located one manifesto that has gone up but too far in space, by making unviable if not unrealistic populist promises that are chaos-ridden. The recklessness in this extreme will inevitably disrupt and destroy our country in no time. In another extreme there is located one manifesto that reflects an agenda to conserve and augment the socio-economic gains acquired on a racist basis to the disadvantage of the historically oppressed under the racist colonial and apartheid regime. It is upon this conservatism that a racist liberal agenda is forged to prevent the democratic government from intervening in the economy to redress the imbalances of the past through affirming the historically and previously disadvantaged. This agenda seeks to resist transformation and replace it with liberal reformism.
Paging through the press it is clear that many oppositions against the ANC receive prominent coverage and are sparred critical if not given favourable but embedded analysis. Some broadcasters in radio and television have also not been rigorous in scrutinising the oppositions' manifestos. In a democracy, one would have expected a robust examination of these manifestos.
In fact, large but not all sections of the print media have shown that there's nothing neutral, objective, fair and balanced reporting. The dominant sections of the mainstream press have actually become an instrument on the part of others to pursue a politics of opposition against the ANC and an array of all other progressive and revolutionary forces and the government that it is leading.
Reflecting on all this one had to come back and revisit her unpublished letter, responding to Mr Mondli Makhanya, shortly after the ANC's manifesto was launched in January. I have since edited the letter with additional content into this small piece and asked for Umsebenzi Online for publication. Let's move South Africa forward now.
Makhanya is editor at large who contributes to the City Press, now every Sunday. His 'editorials at large' are anti-ANC and are littered with hatred against our President, comrade Jacob Zuma. Makhanya's 'editorials at large' would not say anything when others make a motion for constitutional amendment in parliament, but would jump to paint as irrational any talk of constitutional amendment when the ANC and particularly President Zuma talk about the need to amend the constitution when it becomes necessary.
Makhanya penned an 'editorial at large' in the City Press (19 January 2014) entitled 'Constitution not for politicking'. Makhanya spits all sorts of labels against President Jacob Zuma and unidentified others in the ANC. He writes that they are: riding in a "populist bandwagon”, engaging in a "loose talk”, "anti-constitutionalist”, making "wild statements that portray the constitution as the enemy of the people and the cause of their continued economic oppression”, and are engaging in "anti-constitution populism”. All these hollow labels that are absolutely empty of any constructive and intellectual content represent the poverty of philosophy characteristic of a deep-seated anger of some defeated project seeking refuge in opportunistic liberalism.
Makhanya cautions against politicking on our constitution. But his work, whose essential content is summed up by his labelling of others as quoted above, represents the worst type of politicking not only on the constitution but also on others. If his labels are to be adopted to seek clarity who he probably is, Makhanya could fit the character that they define very well but dressed in anti-majoritarian liberalism of an opportunistic type hoping if not longing and therefore advocating for a decline of the ANC. Evidence for this is to be found in the thrust of his argument, which forms his conclusion as well.
For Makhanya, amending the constitution amounts to interference. The constitution, he argues, must be treated like "the New Testament, the Qur'an or the Torah”. Notice this, not the Bible, but "the New Testament, the Qur'an”, etc. Why this selective liberalism to both history and the truth? The answer is embedded in Makhanya's politicking against considerations for amendment to the constitution when it becomes necessary. He chooses the 'New Testament' and not the Bible as a whole, because the latter is made up of both the 'Old Testament' and 'New Testament', and because in his mind any mention of the Bible as a whole would highlight his argument's anti-thesis, i.e. the necessity to adopt changes (i.e. amendments) to keep pace with the continually changing conditions. Makhanya has lost it completely.
Let's set the record straight.
Firstly, our constitution is a product of politics and it is therefore not only a legal document. It was negotiated and adopted by political parties with others for and others against. The ANC as the majority party adopted the constitution, which is also a political document that is subject to changes in politics but not the empty rhetoric in the province of Makhayna's politicking characterised by the hurling of hollow labels against others. Had the ANC not adopted the constitution no other political party or a combination of political parties would have had sufficient strength to have it adopted. Makhanya's labelling of the ANC as anti-constitutionalist is therefore a figment of his abstract liberal imagination.
Secondly, our constitution is not opposed from being amended when it's necessary. On the contrary, it makes provisions in sections 44 and 74 to be amended. Talking about the need to amend the constitution as and when it becomes necessary as President Zuma did in the run up to ANC's manifesto launch is therefore not unconstitutional. Neither is it anti-constitutionalist. Anti-constitutionalists are people who want to do away with the constitution and replace it with anarchy. People like Makhanya who are against provisions in the constitution for its amendment are another strand of anti-constitutionalists.
Makhanya's argument against the need for introducing amendments to the constitution when it becomes necessary is against the spirit of the constitution itself. The nature of constitutional democracy consist among others in campaigning to amend the constitution when it becomes necessary, for example in line with a programme of transformation which may require constitutional amendment to become successful. In a democratic electoral contest, it's not wrong therefore to campaign to secure sufficient majority for amending the constitution when it becomes necessary. On the contrary, that what political formations that are worth taking seriously seek to achieve.
Lastly, for Makhanya to suggest that there were no compromises when the constitution was negotiated is just absolutely untrue if not grossly ignorant and misleading. On the contrary, there were indeed compromises. What is in the constitution is not necessarily everything that every party that was involved in the negotiations wanted. And, Makhaya should know that by their very nature compromises are not permanent.
In our case, we achieved political democracy through the 1994 democratic breakthrough which was led by the ANC in alliance with the Communist Party and the progressive trade union and civic movements leading an array of many formations of the mass democratic movement. We did not simultaneously achieve economic emancipation. Ownership and control in the economy remained in the very same hands that exploited our people as it was during the colonial and apartheid eras. And, this very ownership and control which came from the history of the wars of colonial conquest and dispossession against our people including primitive accumulation involving among others bloody and legislative expropriation were protected in our constitution.
Political changes that inform considerations for constitutional amendment are therefore inextricably interconnected to dynamics in the economy, the vision we would like to achieve in that realm and the pace of transformation. To the extent there's no movement forward or the pace of transformation is too slow to respond to the overwhelming material and cultural needs of the people and the vision of a society we would like to achieve then answers must be sought on what is to be done. And if considerations for constitutional amendment are necessary in that search for answers then it cannot be wrong by default to think about this.
The example of people like Makhanya who consistently use their occupations in the media to drive anti-ANC politics of opposition and the generally prevailing hostility in some media houses against our ANC-led movement, coupled with the showering of biased profiling of opposition parties should be noted with a sense of deep concern. This past Monday one daily newspaper dedicated almost more than one page to a single opposition party's manifesto launch coupled with anti-ANC and anti-President Zuma embedded reporting. The biased reporting on the rallies held last Saturday in Tembisa by the ANCYL and one larva political party in favour of the latter is another example.
As all this shows that the principles of objective, fair, balanced and even accurate reporting in the media have been turned into an empty rhetoric that is not observed but used to propagate the ideas of the strategic opponents of our movement and revolution. As revolutionaries we have spaces too. It's time we wield power in these spaces to confront the entire opposition for what it is, regardless of the mask that it is wearing in the media and elsewhere. In addition, we must deepen our work in alternative media platforms and the most reliable mediums such as strong organisation on the ground through which we must constantly report directly to the people as a whole in combat with all hostile media reports.
Kgaogelo Kgolomodumo is an open learning BA student from Monsterloos based in Tshwane where she is active in the revolutionary movement, and she writes in her personal capacity.
- See more at: http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=4228#redpen
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