MAKHUDU SEFARA | This is how you press a prince’s buttons: simple words

Who would have thought a few words on Twitter could get you jailed for 45 years? It’s not something that happens everywhere, except that kingdom run by King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 37-year-old de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.

You may also know the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as the place where journalist Jamal Khashoggi was not just killed but cut to pieces on October 2 2018 at the behest of the prince. There’s another prince in KwaZulu-Natal, whose comrades and associates in the Inkatha Freedom Party are planning an unnecessary march to the City Press newspaper next Friday to which we will return.

But this prince of Saudi Arabia, colloquially referred to as MBS, is considered a warmonger, a repressive hot-head responsible for the killings of civilians in Yemen through indiscriminate air strikes he sanctioned. He is a divisive, toxic prince who, importantly, feels threatened by words spoken by ordinary people. In Tunisia, Finland, Rwanda, DRC, Zimbabwe, Russia, Hong Kong, journalists are under siege. Committee to Protect Journalists says more than 50 practitioners have already been killed in their line of duty this year. The figure stood at 95 the year before.

Khashoggi, for his words, is gone. Feminists in Saudi Arabia know no freedom of speech. Scholars are fearful. Now ordinary people are in the crosshairs of a prince gone rogue. Nourah al-Qahtani, a mother of five, was sentenced to 45 years in jail for simply daring to say words that make MBS and the kingdom uncomfortable, according to Abdullah Alaoudh, director of research for Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a Washington-based rights group founded by Khashoggi.

The truth is that the one thing dictators and pro-democracy pretenders agree on, is their intolerance to free speech. Our history is replete with these examples.

“Targeting ordinary people is meant to send a shockwave of fear to the locals and Saudi public to refrain from even criticising the Saudi government via anonymous Twitter accounts,” Alaoudh told AFP this week. Sounds familiar, does it not? There seems to be so much meant by sending a shockwave of fear in SA and elsewhere about the globe. These things help us remember that we may be free to cast a vote, but voting itself is not freedom. Even presidents of free countries like the idea of a free country, not so much the spotlight journalists bring them under. Even here at home, our ruling party and erstwhile freedom fighters show signs of intolerance to media freedom.

Our opposition leaders fare no better. The EFF threatened to march on the Sunday Times recently. But the IFP has decided to march to the offices of City Press because it feels that the editor, Mondli Makhanya, abuses his power in how he has criticised Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the prince of the Zulu nation, and the IFP. It is worth noting that the IFP and the prince are quite aware what to do when one disagrees with what is written about them. They filed three complaints against the title and lost. They filed an appeal and lost. No less an authority than judge Bernard Ngoepe told them they have no case.

Instead of sitting in their “stout” corner and licking their wounds, they have resorted to asking their members to descend on the premises of the media house. Instead of reason, they have resorted to rage and intimidatory tactics. Perhaps this comes naturally, who knows? The effect of this is exactly what Alaoudh referred to: “a shockwave of fear to the locals ... to refrain from even criticising ...”

For similar reasons, the SA National Editors’ Forum slammed former president Jacob Zuma for instituting private prosecution against journalist Karyn Maughan, noting this was calculated to have a chilling effect not just against her but the industry at large. In other words, to send a shockwave of fear to the locals to refrain from saying uncomfortable things about Zuma.

The truth is that the one thing dictators and pro-democracy pretenders agree on, is their intolerance to free speech. Our history is replete with these examples. Those with power tend to view criticism as outward expressions of hate. Apartheid warlords closed down newspapers, arrested journalists, tortured many activists for using words. These were weapons against their comforts.

Nelson Mandela had his on and off relationship with the media, which in truth didn’t exactly know how to relate to him. The default position was to be uncritical of the champion of reconciliation, our first democratic president, the guy who was working hard to ensure we don’t descend into war like many countries. Yet in many ways, he was deserving of criticism and his imperfect leadership required a lot of it, just as the prince in KZN, in Riyadh or any other leader we have had — but more so Zuma.

The current wave of attacks on journalists reminds us that, regardless of the nature of the challenges we face — be they repressive kingdoms, warlords, poor service delivery, corruption or rampant criminality — words are an important arsenal against those intent on sending shockwaves of fear, so we stop criticising them. They may exude power and a veneer of invincibility, but words send shockwaves right through their core.