South Africa’s new secrecy laws
I blogged earlier in the year from South Africa about the attempts by the South African government to make whistle blowing much harder. Well, they’ve done it.
The Secrecy Bill has passed to the applause of the ANC, whose comfortable majority forced it through.
Democracy and press freedom campaigners are calling today Black Tuesday in reference to October 19th 1977 (called Black Wednesday – though rather different to the one in Britain) when the apartheid regime banned several newspapers and individuals in their assault on freedom of expression.
As I reported at the time many of the journalists campaigning against this law have said what is going on in Britain post-hacking scandal is deeply worrying to them.
For as long as a “liberal democracy” such as ours is prepared to countenance state regulation of the work of the media then governments such as South Africa’s which are still working through their relatively new relationship with a free press will use it as an example.
Serving South African politicians and officials are currently besieged by whistleblowing junior officials who expose corruption almost every week in the press. That is going to get a lot harder when it becomes illegal to be in unauthorised possession of classified government secrets on pain of a twenty five year jail term.
Follow @krishgm on Twitter.
There are 8 comments on this post
Krishnan,
The fall of the ANC into corruption is a tragedy for everybody, but especially Africans who expected so much after ousting apartheid. Just goes to show corruption knows no colour bar.
Glad you said: ‘a “liberal democracy” such as ours.’ We are of course nothing of the sort. Britain is a neocon one party state with different factions, what one of our best novelists termed ‘a litter-strewn, extreme right wing authoritarian rat-hole.’ We have become a pathetic client state of the American version, now virtually without any collective or individual pride and no end to it in sight.
As for Britain’s “free press” – don’t make me laugh. If recent events haven’t finally demonstrated the evils of neocon monopoly ownership to you, then there’s no hope of you EVER understanding the issues. Still, that’s all right hey so long as you can front up for C4 News?
It isn’t just a matter of “classified government secrets.” It’s a matter of how ALL the media continues to lie, distort and ignore the truth of important issues. It’s also a matter of how you media people divert attention to trivia and the destruction of private lives to suit your own agenda.
If you want any help, consult the Leveson Inquiry and tapes of MP Tom Watson’s brilliant exposure of the Murdoch family media ownership policies. It seems you need it.
Don’t like to agree , don’t like to disagree. Individual morality, individual pride, individual ethics make up a collective. Competition to out do,out manoeuvre increases from the particular to the general. The theory is we need ever more heightened stimulus to make us read. Tell me any human condition, whether in South Africa or the UK which for sales isn’t competitive, either competition supposedly for the good in the expose of libel or in sensationalism.
It is upstage and counter upstage which is why I can’t agree with you attacking Krish, although one might say I am doing the same to you.
As they, or someone said: it only takes good men to do nothing for bad men to prosper. And we’ve certainly had a lot of men ‘doing nothing’.
How many risked ridicule to support Clare Short’s attempt to remove Murdoch’s freedom to introduce soft porn to daily news papers? Few, as I recall. It was only young working class girls’ naivety being abused, “only a bit of fun and it sales newspapers”. Turns out this licence to abuse ushered in quite a lot of harm.
This is the saddest story of the year.
How can the party that fought so tenaciously for freedom become the party that is blocking free speech?
It’s down to power – those who have it will do anything they can to protect it.
But you don’t need to look to South Africa or Egyptian generals – just look at Nick Clegg and the sell-out party.
After what went before, it is the ultimate sadness to anticipate that South Africa, a land with so much on its favour, will soon become the next Zimbabwe.
The only thing standing in its inexorable decline is the survival of Nelson Mandela – once that sainted figurehead is gone, there will be nothing to stop the headlong rush downwards, of which this step is only one visible symptom.
A tragic waste of so many campaigning lives, so much faith and trust, so much expectation.
Maybe being a colony wasn’t so bad after all ?
Sometimes (actually quite often)
I despair for Africa and Africans. Why is it that nearly every African state is oppressive, corrupt and undemocratic?
And, worse in some ways, why is it even 3rd and 4th generation British blacks are still at the bottom of the social heap?
I know there are honourable exceptions. There are a few decent democratic African countries. There are a few enterprising British blacks who have done very well. But only a fool would deny they are the exception that proves the rule.
I also know the standard ‘right on’ responses about colonial oppression and racism. But I don’t think they stand up.
It is 60 years since colonialism effectively ended. During that time Europe has recovered from (arguably) the worse war in human history. Much worse than anything suffered by indigenous Africans under colonialism. All European states are now liberal democracies.
In my experience, British Asians are more unpopular than Blacks ever were, and yet they have achieved well on the whole. As far as I am aware they are not rioting, drug dealing and killing each other on the streets.
I repeat I know there are success stories, but the failure of black African society seems to be almost universal.
Somehow it should be addressed. I have know idea how that could or should be done. Foreign Aid certainly does not seem to be the solution.
But one thing does seem obvious to me. Pretending there is no elephant in the room, will not make it go away.
Although agreeing with much of the above, I must take issue with your assertion regarding British Asians.
I can only assume that you have not visited Bradford or many other depressed northern areas recently. All those attributes of rioting, drug-dealing and killing are prevalent and almost uniquely contained within the Asian community. Same goes for child sex-grooming, car-crime, fraud and many other facets which are never fully reported for PC reasons.
This saddens me, as I have some close friends in the local Asian community who also despair for the behaviour of their fellows of similar origin. They admit privately to the scale of the problem and to their community’s inability to address it internally, and share the frustration that the authorities insist on tip-toeing around it all to avoid confrontation.
Until someone finally grasps it, those Asian groups in the post-industrial North and the black gangs in other areas will still ‘own the territory’.
We are born free, only fear can stop our freedom. Fear mongers are afraid of us.