Dark day for South Africa

Salamu.

I try to keep my blog as light hearted as possible because by nature I can be a pretty serious person. And I also think that life is pretty serious without someone making it more so.

But there comes time where an issue is far to important to let slide, and we as the media who are the channel of information to the people needs to bring such issues into the public space.

Yesterday, the ANC bulldozed their way in Parliament and provisionally passed the Secrecy Bill. This bill will now go to the provinces and finally JZ who will then sign it off into law.

What this means is that any article that a journalist writes about a politician must then be read by a tribunal who will then decide whether the article can be published or not. This runs the risk of corruption and bribes being swept under the carpet.

This was all apparently because of something the ANC called "irresponsible" journalism. And granted, some of the stuff in the media is a bit unnecessary.

Once a journalist delves into the private life of a politician they need to be careful. and i am not talking about corruption and kick-backs because that is part of their private lives which affects their job and ultimately the public. I'm talking about extramarital affairs and such. I work for a major media company and in one of our publications we ran a story a while ago about Fikile Mbalula having an affair. I mean come on. Did this really need to be printed?

That being said, JZ's unprotected sex affair when he trying to preach about the fight against AIDS is understandable though.

This Secrecy Bill is taking South Africa back 30 years. Everything that the ANC fought for during the struggle is now being forced onto the public by the self same people who gave their lives for it. They fought against apartheid and are now forcing draconian apartheid styled laws on society.

Speaking as a journalist, more CONTROL over the media is needed. Not CENSORSHIP. That's why we have the OMBUDSMAN and the PRESS CHARTER. I just think that government is trying to over control things and we are fast becoming a Banana Republic.

The Herald newspaper in Zimbabwe is banned from going to print unless they have a front page story praising Robert Mugabe, and the news on ZBC does not go to air unless their top story praises Robert Mugabe. Not his government...HIM.

Now ask yourself, do we as proud South Africans want that in South Africa? How will the world see us? The world who praised South Africa for being a shining light of democracy on a continent which has a long history of dictatorships.

Yes Albert Luthuli fought for freedom, yes Walter Sisulu fought for freedom. But they never fought for this. THEY NEVER FOUGHT FOR THIS!

For many years, the Apartheid government polarized itself from the people so severely that people used to get on their hands and knees and pray for the downfall of its government. The ANC must mind that they dont do the same thing by passing laws such as this. Nothing lasts forever except freedom. And when you start to take that away from people, you have an almighty fight on your hands.