I wanted my final column of 2021 to be a serene and confident overview of how things are. But that’s not going to happen because reality is now up for renegotiation and the people who want to cancel it have got better lawyers than me.
Of course, this isn’t always the case. In certain backwaters the negotiators are still reassuringly old-fashioned and ham-fisted, like Mzwanele Manyi and Dudu Zuma-Sambudla, who tried to flog copies of Jacob Zuma’s new book from the boot of a car outside a McDonald’s in Sandton, Johannesburg, at the weekend.
The book is called Jacob Zuma Speaks, which I suppose is as much as they could fit on the cover, the full title being Jacob Zuma Speaks At Length And With Infinite Self-Pity Into Mzwanele Manyi’s iPhone While The Compound Sleeps, but that’s all I know for now.
I’m not even sure if the McDonald’s parking lot event was the official launch or if there might be a more formal one, say, in a dumpster behind a Steers outside Pietermaritzburg, but the publicity is already ramping up hard.
According to Manyi, the book is a long-awaited chance for Zuma to “set the record straight”, something he clearly hasn’t been able to do until now because humans haven’t invented press conferences or YouTube or commissions of inquiry yet.
One level up, in the corporate world, the people doing the renegotiation become slightly more sophisticated, exchanging childlike blurtings for slightly more polished euphemisms.
Consider, for example, the solid effort from Shell chairperson Hloniphizwe Mtolo, interviewed by Chris Barron in the Sunday Times two weeks ago.
Asked if exploding the ears and internal organs of millions of sea creatures via sonic blasting was a good idea, Mtolo replied that “blasting sounds like a very harsh word”, adding that what Shell was doing was “acoustic investigation”. You know, the way hitting someone on the head with a sledgehammer is “neural repatterning”.
Above these slightly hack attempts at gaslighting, however, the thoroughbred renegotiators are running roughshod over reality, as witnessed recently in the truly spectacular display of reputation-laundering that was the Saudi Arabian Formula One Grand Prix.
The book is called ‘Jacob Zuma Speaks’, which I suppose is as much as they could fit on the cover, the full title being ‘Jacob Zuma Speaks At Length And With Infinite Self-Pity Into Mzwanele Manyi’s iPhone While The Compound Sleeps’, but that’s all I know for now.
If anyone still doesn’t believe that sportswashing works, I would direct them to the social media feeds of a number of South Africans who present themselves as advocates for social justice, who took their lofty principles and incinerated them in a frenzy of high-octane hypocrisy and political amnesia. What? Jamal Khashoggi? Who does he drive for again?
No, I’m afraid if you have a bad reputation in 2021 it just means you haven’t hired the right PR firm yet to explain that Jacob Zuma is a victim, that whales like bleeding out of their eyes and that Saudi Arabia is really taking Lewis Hamilton’s rainbow helmet to heart and will definitely think long and hard next time it sentences someone to death for being gay.
For those of us who cling to a reality constructed out of scientific consensus and academic research, it seems absurd to suggest that the renegotiators might win. The trouble is, they know people better than we do.
They understand that most of us mistake simplicity for truth, believing that the simpler something feels, the truer it must be. Mainlining propaganda makes one feel all sorts of things — angry, special, afraid, select — but I think it’s most irresistible effect is the feeling that a confusing, splintered world finally makes total sense. Chemtrails; 5G; QAnon; microchips: it was all so obvious all along!
All of which is why the sudden and remarkable rise of the BBC’s Ros Atkins is so gratifying and so important.
At first glance, a steady-eyed, even-keeled Brit seems an unlikely figure to become a viral internet sensation or a journalistic hero lauded by some of the biggest names in the business.
But in the past few months he has become both, thanks to a method that is so simple it seems radically subversive: for about seven minutes he presents an overview of a specific issue, accompanied by plenty of verified facts and almost entirely devoid of opinion and sexy packaging.
The Great Renegotiation is happening for many reasons, but one of them is that the news has become overwhelming, even nauseating, like a small slice of bread slathered with butter and Nutella and sprinkles; the dry, important truth buried under layers of assumed knowledge, analysis, commentary on analysis and satire on commentary.
Atkins and others like him are essential right now because they’re scraping off the Nutella. In a way, they’re even chucking out the bread, providing us with a type of journalistic Atkins Diet: all meat, no carbs.
Of course, journalism is a broad church and there is room for more than one type of reporting (and comment, cried the columnist!).
But I wonder if we’re going to see more of this type of pushback against the great gaslighters of the world, where reality is wrested back, or at least contested, by returning more consciously to the basics — who, where, when, what and why — and perhaps discovering that sometimes things can be relatively simple and blessedly true.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.