Black Tuesday

Image taken from www.iol.co.za article "Psst... let me tell you a secret"

Today is a sad day for our basic human right of freedom of speech.  As the national assembly voted today and passed the secrecy of information bill marking the day the South African government officially turned it's back on the it's people and it's constitution.  About a year ago the ANC government tabled a bill to give the government the ability to censor sensitive information.  The same law type of law is already in play in various other countries such as, Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Germany and various other, with some differences however.  The bill tabled in South Africa has absolutely no public interest clause.  The original draft as it stands would empower the government to arrest and prosecute anyone that publicly publishes any information on any THEY deem sensitive.  However due to a massive public outcry the bill was returned to Parliament for review and we (the public) were assured that the necessary consultations will be sought and a public interest clause will be made provision for.  They lied.


Recently (a year later) the ANC government tabled the exact same bill.  No changes were made, no public interest clause was added and no consultation were sought.  In a rush bid to get the bill passed the national assembly met today to vote on the bill of secrecy of information and passed it.  Regardless of the protests and the outcry by opposition parties the bill enjoyed a massive 227 vote majority in the national assembly.  Even amongst warnings that the ANC would lose the favour of the masses and stand to damage their political standing with the people, it didn't detur them.  The secrecy of information bill in its rawest essence would empower the government to censor absolutely anything and the people would be completely powerless to do anything about it.  I thought democracy was about electing PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE.  In a democratic government the people's voice rings the strongest.  This bill however will allow the government to silence that voice, because the people simply would not know.

So the government feels that if we do not know about how our tax money are miss-managed or stolen, we would be none the wiser and we would just carry on with our everyday lives in poverty and ignorance while they reap the rewards stealing our hard earned moneys while taking steps to ensure we do not know about it.  What I am trying to say is, dear reader, is government corruption would not be public knowledge and easier to not have to deal with for the government.  President Jacob Zuma promised us an end to corruption in his campaign.  Is this what he meant?  If we don't know about it, it doesn't exist, am I right?  Maybe this was his idea all along.  We will know for sure if he signs his approval for the bill next year after it is approved by the committee of provinces.

However, maybe there is a glimmer of hope.  Various opposition parties has stood up against this draft of the information bill.  Ms. Mazibuko of the DA has personally vowed to write an appeal to Pres. Zuma to ask him to send this bill back to Parliament a second time and this time to make sure it gets re-drafted with the proper cosultations and clauses.  If that fails she vowed to take the fight all the way to the constitutional court.  In my opinion that is the only hope we have.  Remember the Western Cape is the only province ruled by an opposition party and therefore getting the bill passed on a provincial level won't be a problem for the ANC.  But lets look at the history a bit of secrecy laws in South Africa.  How many people of the 70's and 80's generation knew about the Vlakplaas horrors?  How many of the 60's or 50's generation knew?  That's because secrecy was greatest weapon of the apartheid government.  We as the people that lived through those times on the most part didn't have a clue about half the horrors our government had committed at the time.  We were totally ignorant because all of that was kept out of the media.  How many even knew that we had a nuclear program where we built about six nuclear weapons in about four months?  We only found out about South Africa's biological weapons program where biological weapons were tested on human subjects after the apartheid regime came to a fall.  It makes one wonder what other crimes against humanity they committed that we still don't know about!  Now the ANC government wants to go the same route? 

The ANC will become the very thing they fought against during the years of the struggle.  My question is will Mr. Zuma allow that to happen and single handedly destroy the vision Madiba had for this country?  That remains to be seen.  However today marks the first step in what could turn South Africa into a totalitarian state like Zimbabwe and possibly a dictatorship like in the days of Stalin or Poll Pot.  This bill will be the death of our democracy and press freedom and even possibly the death to freedom of speech.  It is against everything out constitution stands for.  Ironically that same constitution was so conveniently called on and quoted by Mr. Zuma and other ANC officials when it suited them at various occasions.

In closing I would like to quote a friend of mine's wall post from facebook which I think says it all in a nutshell:

"October 19 1977 - South Africa's Apartheid government bans several local newspapers for publishing news articles about the beating and murder of Steve Biko at the hands of the police... the ANC protested this violently.

November 22 2011 - South Africa's ANC government passes the Protection of Information Bill allowing the incarceration (for up to 25 years) and banning of any journalist or entity that makes public information about the corrupt nature or actions of members of government. 

are we living in China yet?"