 Youth league's perilous play Editorial, Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 21 March 2010 Sunday Times Editorial: The ANC Youth League is dangerously polarising the country in its effort to protect its leader, Julius Malema, from the public censure he increasingly attracts. With his flair for irresponsible, populist rhetoric, Malema easily mobilises the resentment of those whom the transformation of this maimed, ex-apartheid state has yet to reach. But in doing so he is gambling with the future of everyone outside the mutually enriching circle which he is fighting so hard to remain a member of. This week, the ANC failed yet again to call the youth wing to order after it used blackmail in a bid to stem the flow of negative news about Malema and his henchmen. Instead of condemning the threat by youth league spokesman Floyd Shivambu to use illegal surveillance to find and publish private information about reporters deemed to be hostile, the ANC attacked the South African National Editors' Forum for intervening on behalf of the media industry. Shivambu tried last week to hawk a dossier purporting to reveal details of the financial and personal affairs of a City Press reporter who has reported extensively on Malema's alleged use of political influence to win state tenders and his alleged failure to pay appropriate tax on his wealth. When reporters refused to publish the unverified information, Shivambu threatened they would be next and that the youth league would publish details of their own financial, family and sexual affairs. The media honours a rigorous code of ethics ranging from accuracy and balance to a prohibition on personal profit from privileged information. Reporters claim no exemption from the laws of the land. If the ANCYL or anyone else has evidence of impropriety, it is their obligation to report it to media watchdogs and, if it is potentially criminal, to the police. But the role of the reporter is quite different to the roles of the politically elected and the politically connected. There is strong and mounting evidence that Malema uses political connections to secure state-funded business, his companies do shoddy work and that he does not always pay his taxes. The youth league is the political nursery of the ruling party, with ex officio membership of the ANC's national executive committee. Its graduates are prominent in our history. Others are leaders in our public and private sectors. Malema boasts that the class of 2010 aspires to take over those positions - and he wants to be president. Every free and democratic society holds its political leaders to a special standard and relies on its media to police their behaviour. It is a pact to which politicians submit, albeit reluctantly, as a condition of the status they seek and in the knowledge that if they are found out they will fall. Destroying the media will not only cancel the pact, it will destroy the democracy for which the youth league's honoured predecessors fought and died. -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . To unsubscribe from this group, send email to yclsa-eom-forum+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject. |
