There used to be a time when we swore by the BBC. If a rumour was circulating about some event in Africa or beyond, we checked whether the Beeb had said anything about it. I remember in February 1990 being glued to the radio as the Voice of God that was the British Broadcasting Corporation narrated live the release of Nelson Mandela.
When CNN arrived on the scene, we were seduced by the novelty of 24-hour news. We did not question a lot as Iraq was being invaded in 2003. The propaganda ground had been well watered – but not for long. Not even that booming voice of James Earl Jones declaring “This is CNN” could save the network from the embarrassment of hollowness of the evidence against Saddam Hussein. The weapons of mass destruction were the figment of someone’s imagination. We began to realise something was at play here. Fast forward to 2024 and you wonder who still watches CNN – a channel that has been reduced to an extension of a mouthpiece of a political party. If you want some comedy, you only have to watch Wolf Blitzer or check Senior Political Commentator Van Jones shedding tears at Joe Biden’s stepping down as the Democratic Party nominee.
“It‘s kind of like when your grandpa, you got to take the keys and everybody says, ‘You got to take his keys, you got to take his keys,’ and he’s fighting and he’s fighting, and everybody’s so frustrated,” bawled an inconsolable Van Jones. “And then you finally get the keys back, and then you just cry because this is somebody that you love. This is somebody that you care about, this is somebody who was there for, this is somebody, you wouldn‘t be here without him, and you have to take something from him.” This was not Comrade Mugwadi on ZBC. This was the once venerable CNN of which only journalist Larry Madowo gives a veneer of respectability with his brave coverage of Africa. Madowo acquitted himself well during the recent Gen Z demonstrations in Kenya.
Hear no evil, see no evil
The biggest inconvenience for Western media at the moment is the genocide against the Palestinians by Benjamin Netanyahu and his Zionist drum majorettes. You can see the editors scratching their heads at the BBC, CNN, The Guardian, New York Times. They have rediscovered the passive voice in grammar: “Rocket hits building in northern Gaza and many reportedly killed”.
It is like describing a murder by only referencing the weapon but not the perpetrator. Or it is like the rocket has a mind of its own and decided, like Frankestein, to go bananas. Welcome to the Age of Cowardice. Welcome to a moment of grand collusion between genocidaire Benjamin Netanyahu, Western governments and the American and European media. History shall judge these entities harshly.
Enter Stuart Hall – language is never neutral
The late great Jamaican-British media studies scholar, Stuart Hall taught us that:
“…things and events in the real world do not contain or propose their own, integral, single and intrinsic meaning, which is then merely transferred through language. Meaning is a social production, a practice. The world has to be made to mean. Language and symbolisation is the means by which meaning is produced.”
He gave us the insight that in order for one meaning to be regularly produced, “it has to win credibility and legitimacy for itself, and this involves marginalising, downgrading or de-legitimating alternative constructions”.
We are in a global war over meaning – a genocide becomes a legitimate war of self-defence because the people being killed do not matter. The infants killed, the women murdered, the non-combatants, and the journalists assassinated are dispensable in the war against “terrorists”. Afterall they are Palestinian. Who cares about Palestinians anyway after decades of derogatory words meant to dehumanise them?
Language speaks you.
Sometimes words are all we have
On 28 September 2024 Nobel Laureate in Literature Zanzibari-British writer Abdulrazak Gurnah gave the 22nd annual Nelson Mandela Lecture in Johannesburg.
He reminisced on a past world of decolonisation and solidarity and asked that the spirit be continued especially in the context of the Israeli war of aggression in Gaza:
“Words will not rebuild destroyed schools and hospitals or end detentions or continued injustices taking place in the world…But there are times when words are all we have – words and sympathy and understanding of our comparable experiences, our shared humanity.”
Gurnah’s bravery was in stark contrast to the intellectual cowardice that pervades the corridors of academia in South Africa. With vice-chancellors operating as chief executives and caring more about their compensation packs and career trajectory, they have mastered the language of “financial sustainability”, “accountability” and “governance frameworks”. At one university, the vice-chancellor sent out a memorandum and said staff and students were free to debate the Middle East crisis, but the institution would not take a stance.
It was laughable. It was unbelievable. But that is where Africa is now.
Speaking out
The tactic of right-wing journalists and media commentators is to reference one incident of violence by the oppressed and invoke the right to self-defence of a racist, colonial, settler Zionist regime. Seventy-six years of land appropriation, ethnic cleansing and imprisonment are conveniently forgotten in order to push a cowardly narrative. European guilt over Nazi genocide perversely gives Netanyahu the right to commit genocide against Palestinians.
Indian writer Arundhati Roy aptly summed up the Palestinian liberation struggle: “I refuse to play the condemnation game. Let me make myself clear. I do not tell oppressed people how to resist their oppression or who their allies should be.”
Words may be all we have. We have to speak. Even when the only brave African, Dr Naledi Pandor, has been forced into retirement and the forces of appeasement have gathered strength in Mzansi.
