01 Oct 2013 | Tony Leon | Original
Publication: BDlive
Self-censorship is found in Corporate South Africa
too and, on occasion, business leaders speak out, but in the main keep their
heads down and hope for the best, writes Tony Leon
GARLANDED with honours, showered with honorary
degrees and heaped with international gongs, including a Nobel Peace Prize,
Nelson Mandela is not exactly short of acclamation at home and abroad. But in
retelling his storied presidency, it is easy to overlook a notorious, much less
merited award he once received. Back in February 1998, the South African
edition of porn magazine Hustler indecorously named the great Madiba,
"Asshole of the Month."
According to Mandela’s authorised biographer Anthony
Sampson, then deputy minister of home affairs Lindiwe Sisulu criticised the
magazine as "vile, outrageous and obscene" and considered,
apparently, banning it. Mandela, in contrast, "laughed the matter off’’
and said, somewhat oxymoronically, that the magazine should use its "own
sense of morality and judgment". In the midst of the fuss, he surprised
his director-general, Jakes Gerwel, by asking him impishly: "Have you seen
this month’s Hustler?"
Fifteen years on, Mandela’s aversion to censoring
anything appears to have been replaced by a self-censorship that invades some
of the very spaces that under apartheid manned the ramparts of free expression
in a very unfree society. Despite the generous provisions for freedom of
expression under our constitution, weekend reports suggest "a politically
sensitive work of art" was banned by organisers of last week’s Joburg Art
Fair. The offending item, according to the Sunday Times, was Ayanda Mabulu’s
painting, which depicts, in the wake of Marikana, "a laughing President
Jacob Zuma holding the leash of a dog that is threatening to bite a kneeling
miner’’. Others in the tableau are Cyril Ramaphosa and a laughing (in itself
unusual) Queen Elizabeth who shares a veranda with Prince Charles and the
African National Congress logo.
Ross Douglas, one of the fair’s organisers, said the
artwork was removed because of "sensitivities" around government
sponsorship of the art fair, which he feared would be jeopardised by the
display. Only the forceful response of internationally acclaimed Johannesburg
photographer David Goldblatt, who removed his works in protest, led to the ban
being rescinded. Liza Essers, director of the Goodman Gallery, which housed The
Spear last year, and at least had the excuse of mass marches and vandalism to
force her hand on removing that painting, noted: "As a result of The Spear
saga … a culture of self-censorship has become increasingly ubiquitous in the
South African art world."
There is something paradoxical about the instances
of self-censorship, by no means confined to arts and culture, and the
exuberance of often extreme antigovernment and deeply personal attacks on the
president — both of which feature in South Africa today. The rule of thumb
appears to be: the further away from the government and the less dependent on
it for your fortunes, the more hyped, even on occasion exaggerated, the
criticism. Think here of the egregious Julius Malema’s depiction of the
government as "worse than the apartheid regime". This covers the
opposition, much of the nongovernmental organisation and media community (with
some notable exceptions) and many international investors.
Conversely, the more enmeshed with the government
and dependent on its favour, the more muted the response even when vital
interests are at stake. Corporate South Africa uneasily straddles this divide,
despite a torrent of market-unfriendly measures coming down the pipeline. On
occasion, business leaders speak out and even break down in tears as Anglo’s
Mark Cutifani recently and memorably did. But in the main, they keep heads down
and hope for the best. It’s reminiscent of the great scene in the movie Annie
Hall. Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are on a date and mouthing onscreen the
usual platitudes of courtship. However, below the scene appear subtitles which
depict what each of them is actually thinking. We are witnessing many Annie
Hall moments in the business-government dialogue.
A contrast came from Britain last week. Labour Party
leader Ed Miliband decided to offer up some red-in-tooth-and-claw anti-big
business sentiment to pacify his supporters. Miliband used his conference
speech to take aim at and decry the country’s energy firms, deeply unpopular
with voters because of ever-rising gas and electricity bills. He announced that
on entering office, he would price control and freeze all gas and electricity
prices for 20 months after the next election.
There was an instant and angry response from the big
six energy companies targeted. One of them announced such a move would make it
unviable to continue to provide supplying energy in Britain. A second predicted
blackouts and another decried Miliband’s policy as "economic
vandalism" and "insane".
A head-on collision between big business and the
possible next prime minister might be troubling for some, but it certainly
deepens the debate. And neither side has any doubt what the one thinks of the
other.
• Leon is the author of The Accidental
Ambassador (Pan Macmillan). Follow him on Twitter: @TonyLeonSA OR on Facebook: facebook.com/TonyLeonSA
No comments:
Post a Comment