No more Mandelas

This is the title of a BBC production. It is a documentary based on a journey of a certain gentleman who having witness the end of apartheid comes to visit South Africa to see how things have been since the demise of Apartheid. This video is available on the BBC website and you are urged to see it so that you do not only take the views expressed in this post but you also get to formulate your own and perhaps challenge those expressed in this post.

According to the documentary, there are 15 murders a day in South Africa. This number, the documentary states is 7 times that of the United States. South Africa is according to the reporter, a "frighteningly dangerous place". The team behind this documentary goes to some great lengths to support their conclusions about South Africa and how frighteningly dangerous it is. The thesis is that the Nelson Mandela legacy has been squandered and with it the chance for South Africa to develop and thrive. First is an interview with a group of young unemployed young men somewhere in the Johannesburg area. The group of young men interviewe are black but so-called coloured in South Africa. According to the reporter it is fairly early in the morning yet the young men are already high on drugs and alcohol (sic). That judgement of the state of the young men notwithstanding, they are just the right group to interview and this is the question they are asked (among many questions some of which I am sure we do not get to see or hear) "are the things that you are doing, killing people, is this what Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison for?"

Admittedly I paraphrased the question but did not change its content. The answer to that question is very telling and shows (or at least I hope it showed the interviewer) that what is done by this group of young men or others like them, has nothing to do with Nelson Mandela or his legacy. This group of young men were also asked directly about their criminal activity and whether they thought the terrible things they did to others were right. The response was that they did things like hijacking of cars in order to get money and to survive. The interviewer then suggests to the young man who gave that response that, the young man may have to kill to get the car. The young man almost dismisively said "if you refuse to give the car I will kill you" as in get with the program dude, this is a hijack not a negotiation! The young men also pointed out to the interviewing group that they can steal the camera (yes, the one used to record the interview) as an example of the kind of things they trade in. Well, the edited version shows the crew leaving their interviewees and a voice saying "when they suggested that they are about to steal the camera, we left". The interview got to show a frighteningly dangerous South Africa.

The next stop for the crew was a squatter camp, informal settlement or whatever other name is appropriate. On the way to this location a voice says "this is Soweto sunday afternoon". I have no idea what part of Soweto the crew was driving around in but it was absolute squalor. People interviewed at this location were asked how they felt about the conditions under which they lived. One such interviewee when asked if he thought things will get better said that maybe if the white government came back. I suppose the good old days were indeed good for this gentleman, he does say as much "there were jobs for the people". The interview got to show the failure of the government to deliver on the promise of Nelson Mandela.

Interspesed with the interview clips was also a report of the murder of Lucky Dube. The late is described as South Africa's most popular musician and the South African Bob Marley. I do not mean to speak ill or make less of the dead, I also do not want to make value judgement about a person who does not have a right of reply. To say that Lucky Dube is the South African equivalent of Bob Marley is with respect not true. That of course does not make any less of the senselessness of his killing. If it is indeed true that President Mbeki resents western views, from the conclusions drawn by makers of this documentary, it is easy to see why. They either know very little about this country or about Bob Marley. We should not measure the atrocity of a murder by the standing of a person that is killed. If the crew is disingenuous about this what else in that documentary is also a paler shade of the truth?

Bishop Tutu is also interviewed in this documentary. He is rightly saddened by the atrocities he sees visited upon South Africans. What stands out in the Bishop's interview is his statement to the effect that he is surprised the poor people have not as yet gone on a rampage. The documentary gets to show a frightening South Africa. The documentary also moves on to deal with the manner in which Thabo Mbeki dealt with the Aids issue and the situation in Zimbabwe. The president could of course have done better on both counts but to demonise and write him off in fact his entire presidency is less than honest. This way, they get to show incompetent leadership that squanders the legacy of Nelson Mandela.

The clincher for me is the interview conducted with Jacob Zuma. Apart from being called a crook under the pretext of journalism, Jacob Zuma is not given an opportunity to answer a critical question relating to his rape trial, whether he took a shower in the believe that it would protect him from HIV infection. I do not know how much editing was done on the Jacob Zuma interview but I leave this for you to assess for yourself when you watch the documentary.

Scenes from this documentary are the reason why some of the leaders do not want to have anything to do with the media. The makers of this documentary left the UK with a view that South Africa is in tatters or well on its way there. All that they need to do was to find facts, scenes and interviews to support that conclusion. We celebrate the democracy that allowed this crew to come and make the documentary that shows our country to be frighteningly dangerous. The country that they drove around in and did not get their car or equipment stolen by some marauding gangs. The country in which they get to perpetuate the story about the shower without giving the person involve an opportunity of stating his side of the story. The country in which they could suggest to the leader of the ANC that he is a crook, to his face.

I can only wish that the crew could return to South Africa soon so that I can take them to play golf at the Soweto Country Club and to lunch at Nambitha and for a drink at the Rock or maybe a picnic at a park of their choice in Soweto. By the way all those other places of interest are in Soweto and this time I promise the crew will drive on tarred roads only. While we are at it we will pay a visit to few old people who live in Soweto to talk about their experiences when they go to the local clinic to get their medication. This is South Africa, we have problems lots of them and we have as many successes. It is true, there are no more Mandelas there is just the reality of building a country from the ruins of Apartheid. Incidentally, there are no more Sobukwes either but then again, that is whole story by itself, one a disinformation British crew is not likely to appreciate.

Just so that we are not biased or appear as such, we will also suggest that they take us on a tour of the UK especially those areas where children are stabbing each other to death, where fire-fighters are attacked while trying to do their job and all those other places where we can observe Brits and yobs in their natural habitat.

Journalism is dead, long live journalism!