The amateurish yet sinister “protest ” outside the home of Sunday Times columnist Peter Bruce has added a nasty tinge of political gangsterism to the state capture narrative unfolding in South Africa. This is worrying to all who cherish the ideals of fundamental freedoms in a democratic and nonracial society.
Under the spurious pretext that Bruce’s writings, in our sister publication Business Day and in the Sunday Times, somehow support or “hide the truth” about so-called white monopoly capital, the protesters hinted at more ugliness to come as state capture continues to spread its tentacles. It needs to be lanced as the noxious boil on our body politic that it so obviously has become.
Bruce has no doubt that the Gupta family is behind the Black First Land First protest and, intrepid journalist that he has always been, has vowed to keep writing what he sees as the truth. But it's not Bruce alone who sees the Gupta hand in this gutter politics.
Just this week, struggle veteran Tokyo Sexwale quit the nonexecutive chairmanship of advisory firm Trillian, a Gupta-aligned entity that targeted large state companies like Eskom and Transnet. His decision was based on a legal opinion from Advocate Geoff Budlender, a renowned anti-apartheid voice. In quitting, Sexwale said the factionalism stoking state capture had "brought hatred", turning former comrades against each other.And the thousands of leaked Gupta e-mails add further weight to disclosures, many of them in this newspaper, that not a single big contract is given out, or a senior appointment made at a state entity (or the cabinet, for that matter) that does not fall in the shadow of Saxonwold's (or is it South Africa's?) first family.
Would a protest outside a columnist's house in Johannesburg's northern suburbs be beyond the family?
And from our rulers, from their best friend in the Union Buildings, has there been a word of censure or concern? Most certainly not, but then President Jacob Zuma only really gets going when his own interests (and those of the Guptas) are at play. To its credit, the ANC was strong in its condemnation, but we all know now that its word carries less gravity than it once did.
Perhaps Zuma fears that his saying anything would highlight his complicity in the storied rise to super-wealth and super-impunity of a family so important that they were given their own air force base for a day.
The harassment of Bruce followed equally amateurish "revelations" about what purported to be his private life, and Bruce has refuted these and threatened legal action against Atul Gupta, the patriarch. The so-called WMCleaks site, which carried this dross, also bears the hallmarks of the energetic and no doubt costly counter-information campaign waged by the family and its surrogates, complete with fake-news websites and the odiously supine and Gupta-beholden ANN7 TV station.
Have no doubt, Bruce's voice will be as clear and as reasoned and as passionate about the future and the welfare of South Africa as it has always been. And can one wonder that it will be excoriating in respect of the Guptas? Yes, but always fair.Sadly, though, in the case of the late SABC journalist Suna Venter, one will not be able to say the same. She died this week, of a "broken heart", which had as much to do with the appalling treatment she received after daring to go up against deposed SABC strongman Hlaudi Motsoeneng as the heart condition she suffered. One of the SABC8, she was fired by Motsoeneng, an action found to be unlawful, and was subjected to horrific harassment, including threatening SMSes, her flat being broken into, her car's brake cables being cut and its tyres slashed.
The culture of intolerance and bullying and disregard for the most basic principles of free speech in our society in the new smash-and-grab milieu is such that lives are being put at risk. Venter may be one of the first casualties of a war against free and independent journalism being waged in our society.
This was a sad week for media freedom in South Africa. A week of shame...