The Times *No thanks needed* /But judge ANC through its actions, not your prejudice/ *Z Pallo Jordan, The Times, Johannesburg, 6 October 2010*Unlike Justice Malala, the ANC has always been ready to admit its mistakes, take responsibility for them, and correct them.
Which is why it established three separate commissions to investigate and report on the abuses committed by its security apparatus and went before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Those reports are in the public domain.
It is wise also to remember that the events referred to occurred in a war situation, when security personnel sometimes go overboard and can become abusive. To suggest that because the ANC made those terrible mistakes in that context, "... large chunks of the ANC hate free speech and hate people who speak truth to power", is self-evidently unreasonable.
The very persons Malala names - Peter Mokaba, Trevor Manuel, Popo Molefe and others who served in the leadership of the United Democratic Front, could tell him a very different story to what he claims to know about the UDF, its origins and its inspiration. Documents regarding that, too, are now in the public domain.
Like PW Botha and his securocrats when they extorted the Nkomati Accord from Mozambique and browbeat Swaziland into denying ANC militants access to that country, Malala thinks the ANC only existed outside the boundaries of South Africa.
The ANC has never (nor did I, for that matter) claimed it liberated South Africa without any help.
We strove to galvanise the people of South Africa to liberate themselves.To that end we bent all our efforts towards nurturing united action - through a number of methods, tactics and strategies, these included initiating fronts such as the UDF, helping to organise trade unions, women's organisations, and youth and student bodies, Contralesa.
The history of the movement is suffused with the search for effective, united action by the oppressed.
There was an ANC presence in virtually every structure of the MDM. The diverse threads of this multi-layered movement converged on the ANC after 1984, enabling it make the call to make South Africa ungovernable.
The unfurling of the ANC banner in virtually all the mass demonstrations after 1984 was expressive of the authority the movement commanded.
Consequently, when the white power-wielders of the day sought a way out of the crisis, they approached the ANC. First Gavin Relly and the Anglo American heavies in 1986; then Van Zyl Slabbert and Idasa in 1987; then, as a recent movie reveals, senior members of Botha's security services in 1988; then FW de Klerk in 1990; running parallel with exchanges between the imprisoned Madiba and Kobie Coetzee.
At that point in South Africa's history the ANC was a movement that commanded respect among the majority black population and in the international community. The tree-shakers and pie-makers Malala mentions were directly or indirectly linked to that movement as well.
Instead of responding to what I wrote, demonstrating that since it assumed office in 1994, the ANC has created an environment in which all forms of media, including those that are still to come on stream, can take root and thrive, Malala shifts the goalposts and wants to instruct me about my own personal experience.
So, once again I pose the question: Can one in all seriousness suggest that a government that has given every South African who has the means, access to the international information highway is trying to suppress the media and free speech?
That a government that has set about an unprecedented programme of building libraries equipped with the latest in information and communications technology is bent on "shutting down the media"?
That a government, whose policies have resulted in an unprecedented number of commercial and community radio stations "... hate(s) free speech ..."?
Malala will have to marshal better arguments to make his case. Reminding me that I was once detained by the ANC's security apparatus is not one of them.
The fact is the ANC has a 98-year track record of fighting for media freedom and its government has set in place an environment in which it thrives. Media freedom arrived in this country when the ANC became the government and it is our employment equity laws that created the space for the talented, such as Malala, to rise commensurate with their ability.
No! We are not asking for a vote of thanks. South Africans deserved all these things. We do however insist that we be judged on our actions, and not through the lenses of prejudice.
Malala was presumptuous implying he knew that NGC delegates were a gang of time-servers, unconcerned with the burning issues. Such presumption is called "prejudice".
Whether inspired by racial attitudes or by some other deficit, it is reprehensible and offensive.
The fact is Malala got it wrong! Completely wrong! Rather than admit that he was wrong, like all prejudiced people he has resorted to evasion.
Let me assure him once again, unless of course he has broken the law, there will be no knock at his door in the early hours of the morning.
*From: http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/article691319.ece/No-thanks-needed*
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