Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - Former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke has warned media houses against factional reporting in a time when the “revolution has failed”.
Justice Moseneke was addressing editors and journalists at a recent SA National Editors Forum (Sanef) fund-raising dinner in Joburg.
The retired judge said it was important for journalists to remember the role journalism played during apartheid, and the price some reporters had to pay as a result of how they exposed oppression.
Touching on the 1977 Black Wednesday events, Moseneke made reference to apartheid’s attempts to silence journalists by shutting down their newspapers.
“On that morning, we who are old enough, woke up to the news of the most pernicious and pervasive shutdown of progressive newspapers, the arrest and detention of Black Consciousness Movement-aligned activists, and 18 other organisations. The apartheid securocrat had gone insane.
“This frenzy of repression occurred in the wake of rising popular resistance and the brutal murder of Steve Bantubonke Biko on September 12, 1977.
“Bantu was an incomparable thought leader who famously proclaimed that he writes what he likes. For that, he paid the supreme price. His rulers sought to silence him,” he said.
Justice Moseneke said this did not just happen under apartheid.
“History tends to repeat itself. Then or now, here or elsewhere, power brokers in public affairs and in private spaces detest and fear the Fourth Estate. At the best of times, they would choose a compliant or uncritical media.
“If everything else fails the powerful would choose to silence free, public expression by jailing, threatening or even murdering journalists.
“Journalists across the world are facing increasingly hostile environments. Many have been threatened and publicly assaulted or killed as they strive to search for the truth and publish the facts,” Justice Moseneke said.
“Presently, our ruling elite is factionalised. Power contests are real and feverish. Disturbingly, journalists appear to be factional too.
“The kind of angry words hurled from one media house to another is truly disturbing. Reads from certain stables have predictable villains and heroes,” he said.
He added that the role of judges and journalists was instrumental in ensuring justice and fairness in a nation.
“As for the judiciary of our land, its role has by and large been beneficial to our democracy. I would be surprised if everyone agreed with every decision of our courts. As we speak our courts carry a heavy burden of caseloads.
“Nearly all political, economic and social contests end up with judges. And yet judges must endure the derision and unwarranted criticism of those who use the courts most.
“It is not an exaggeration that without an efficient, effective and truly independent judiciary we would all enter into the dark ages of wanton destruction and misrule,” Justice Moseneke said.
he said it was wrong to suggest that the judiciary was captured, but also urged judges to maintain higher standards.
“Having served faithfully for no less than 15 years at a high echelon of our judiciary, I pray and plead that we realise that it is no option to denigrate and destroy the judiciary as we suggest that it is captured and working at the behest of political or other masters.
“In turn, our judges must maintain the highest judicial values and ethics, maintain the requisite industry and remain faithful to our Constitution and the rule of law … This democratic place and no democratic place can function without an independent, competent, and fearless judiciary,” he said.
Justice Moseneke said he was saddened that the South African revolution had failed. “I conclude with a heavy heart that the revolution has failed. The quest to alter power relations in society in favour of the excluded and marginalised masses of our people has failed.
“The high political and social ideals of those of us who were part of our glorious Struggle have by and large come to naught. We all knew that we could not change the trajectory of inequality and poverty without a competent developmental state. We paid continuous lip service to the kind of state and governance we deserved and did little or nothing about it. Look at us now.
“I repeat my deep sadness that our revolution has failed. A small prosperous black middle class, as someone recently argued, is not and cannot be the mark of what we set about to create a new inclusive, and equitable society.
“The vast majority of the masses of this land are in desperate circumstances and we have failed to wrought what one calls a ‘deep state',” Moseneke said.
Pretoria News