Look Up! There’s a political asteroid heading our way

It took coming within an inch of World War 3 to pry our national focus from the build-up to the most important political event of 2022. Albeit temporarily. 

With the 55th elective conference of the ANC set to take place in December, and one of the factions having fired opening salvos as early as January, it won’t be long before we see South Africa’s political war games reignited.

While we can debate that the conference boils down to two candidates (President Cyril Ramaphosa vs whoever gets the nod from the RET faction) and we can deliberate further on the likelihood of a RET win (it’s almost certainly higher than you think), let’s for a moment indulge in a bit of scenario planning for the state of media in a RET-controlled state. 

Unlike political analysts and businesspeople, whose scenario planning might result in worrisome spreadsheets and a higher cost of capital, the real-world impact of such an outcome for freedom of speech, and functioning democracy with it, will simply be catastrophic. 

The lives and livelihoods of media practitioners are in the crosshairs of the RET faction should they come to power. Analysts can afford to be optimistic yet possibly wrong. We, what’s left of the news media, don’t have that luxury.

Putin’s Playbook

There is enough evidence that moves from Putin’s Playbook will probably be employed and that like all sequels, State Capture Two will be far worse than the original, when the media was still not seen as a fair wartime target. Following the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, with one signature, killed another bird with the same stone – he effectively wiped out the remnants of any independent news coverage in Russia. 

In a country where the maximum penalty for murder is 20 years’ incarceration, the Kremlin has made the punishment for publishing “false” information about the Ukraine invasion a 15-year prison sentence. Alongside blocking some social media platforms and international news websites, Putin also punished those protesting against the war with prison time followed by conscription into the Russian army. With these threats hanging over their heads, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists matter-of-factly called it the “death of Russian media”.

Putin can now control the narrative inside the heavily walled prison that is the Russian information sphere, pushing propaganda about the war at will through Kremlin-controlled TV, radio and internet. 

Russian outlets, many of which started broadcasting and publishing before and through the Cold War, have shut down. International news organisations have responded by evacuating their correspondents, and some braver organisations have begun publishing reports without bylines and location information to protect their people on the ground. The BBC started doing its broadcasts on shortwave frequencies that can be accessed in faraway places.

These extreme measures by Putin should reinforce why independent journalism is so important in any society, no matter how dysfunctional. However bad things are, they are always much worse without the light that intelligent, independent, investigative journalism brings to the world. 

By now you should understand why we, the media in South Africa, are worried. We see the signs from the previous ANC administration’s attempts to reignite censorship, and of fans of Putin studying his extermination of the free media for local implementation, should the December voting count in their favour.  

Putin’s Playbook is best considered by positing the question: “What is a deeply corrupt leader willing to do in order to hang on to power and keep all the money that’s been stolen?” 

The answer, as we have so sadly seen, is: “Whatever it takes.” 

One expects the same from a faction with similar motives finding itself in the same situation.

Worrying signs

South Africa’s official response to the invasion and war in Ukraine has been, at the very least, schizophrenic. Abstaining from the UN General Assembly vote and failing to condemn the clear acts of unprovoked war has put us in the global minority. 

Does Russia have dirt on South Africa’s ruling elite – what else could incentivise such moves? It is, in the end, inconsequential. What we do know is that Russian influence in our politics and over our politicians will spill over into how the ANC’s RET faction deals with the pesky free media problem. Throw the never truly dead Russian nuclear deal into the mix, and the desire to neutralise independent and investigative media only increases. The unfinished job from 2017 will kick into overdrive. 

Consider the Films and Publications Amendment Act 11 of 2019, which came into effect on 1 March. This piece of legislation was proposed in the Zuma years and requires all online video content to be rated in the way movies and games carry an age rating. 

News publishers and social media platforms are now required to submit every video for classification or apply for a self-classification licence that could cost up to R2-million. The only way to describe this is “complete lunacy”. 

What media can expect in a RET world

It is impossible for the Film and Publication Board to actually rate all digital videos, but the law could be used in a more nefarious way. Assuming some video content was unrated and critical of the RET leadership, the law can be used to penalise and threaten publishers and to prevent the distribution of future online videos. 

This law and other more directly targeted efforts like the so-called Secrecy Bill, or worse, will quickly find their way back onto the presidential table. The extra legal pressure will be on. 

The law will be weaponised to bog us down, soaking up bandwidth, funds and the emotional energy to deliver on our mission. Strategic lawsuits against public participation is a phenomenon already on the rise around the globe and spurious legal charges are already commonplace in our offices. Confronted by looted funds and the resources of the state, defending legal actions will become a full-time effort by practitioners already crumbling under the strain of “normal” operations. 

Media machines like the SABC under full state control and the Gupta-reincarnation Survé Media will peddle RET lines ad nauseam. Social media could be shut down ahead of elections, or armies of trolls employed by state resources to harass, threaten and push deliberately false disinformation campaigns. And if general elections are not boding well for the incumbent ruling faction of the ANC, many will want not to get bothered with having them.

If we are lucky the weapons and ammunition will remain legal in nature. But there are worrying trends worldwide that this won’t be the case.

Whistle-blowers and independent media played a huge role in derailing Jacob Zuma’s plans at the ANC’s December 2017 elective conference. As the drums of accountability inch closer for the State Capture looters and prison sentences become a real consideration, we have seen the devastating rise in assassination attempts and successful hits on whistle-blowers. 

With home invasions of journalists – something we’ve already encountered here at Daily Maverick – and the rising physical threats to journalists and whistle-blowers, we must prepare ourselves for the unthinkable. In Mexico, 35 journalists were murdered in the last decade, five of them just in 2022. 

Desperate people are capable of despicable acts. We underestimate them at our peril. 

Like Putin, his disciples will do anything to keep their day of reckoning from happening. 

Facing these kinds of pressures, we should expect even more people to leave journalism for good and fewer whistle-blowers to come forward. For a sector that already lost half of its workforce by 2018, this would be the death knell event, just as is now happening in Russia. 

What can we do?

The first thing we should do is not simply buy into the narrative that the President is a walk-in for victory at the elective conference. We should be concerned that not enough people are concerned about a RET win. 

The presidency was secured by just 179 votes out of 4,701 at the previous elective conference, and with so much on the line, it would be silly to bring rose-tinted reasoning to a gunfight. Many delegates are personally worse off under President Ramaphosa. The party has even struggled to pay salaries and discontent is palpable in many quarters. The final voting is hard to predict when one faction successfully argues that the clock should be stopped at Zuma time. 

We must look up! There is an extinction-event asteroid hurtling towards South Africa’s democracy. 

Shoring up our independent media sector, supporting whistle-blowers and civil society are investments in our collective future. Business and society do not operate in a vacuum – the destruction of these fundamental elements affects the existence of every South African. Everything we do now to support these sectors will be needed for the longest time, regardless of who wins in December. 

We will continue with the mandate we accepted of exposing corrupt forces and dangerous developments, but we can’t do it in a vacuum. South Africa’s young democracy needs everyone, from civil society to business leaders, to step up the pressure on demanding accountability and action from Ramaphosa. 

Stop hoping that every assurance that South Africa’s anti-corruption drive will continue after December is true and start asking: “What if it doesn’t happen?” And then take action to assist those frontline efforts. 

We urgently need to improve the environment in which the independent news media operates through policy reform and incentives to support this crucial element of society. We must better protect and financially support the whistle-blowers who risk so much for social justice. 

We need everyone to find in their hearts all the love they have for South Africa and make sure our 28 years of democracy are not a blip on an autocratic radar. 

The knives do not simply get packed away in some self-cleansing redemption cupboard, even after a loss. Corrupt forces and people will persist in trying to wrest back the control they enjoyed during State Capture as long as orange overalls and personal bankruptcy are possible outcomes. 

That truly independent media will continue to be targeted goes without saying. To clarify: a RET loss at the ANC’s elective conference would not produce a morning after with birds chirping on a beautiful day in a perfect world. The only award South Africa will get is to stay on and fight for another day – and who knows on how many fronts.

And yet, that chance to continue fighting itself is worth fighting for.   

Our dark side of 2022 predictions might come across as alarmist to many. For those of us who work so close to the machinations of power, the impact of breakdowns inside the cog itself is felt quickly and brutally. 

If an undemocratic wave engulfs the ANC in December, we can kiss independent media goodbye. And with it, the remnants of our struggling democracy. DM