Lessons In Democracy

GWEN Lister’s Political Perspective in The Namibian of Friday, March 20 2009 was quite revealing on why certain articles from the political parties and individuals don’t find space in the media.

Simply that, democracy must not be compromised by such political parties or individuals.Then, if that was true – why have we being reading reports and statements that threatened the very ‘democracy’ Gwen Lister’s Political Perspective wants to protect?For example, The Namibian had carried stories of ‘kill all Whites’, ‘Cockroaches’, and a number of insults targeted against certain political rivals in the country – especially with the mounting tension of RDP and Swapo today.Indeed, most of those articles have been labelled as hate speech by prominent members of the civil society, but were published by The Namibian.Are those cases exempt from undermining the Namibian democracy that Namibians enjoy today? Or what is the reason behind the publication of those articles or stories that create fear amongst citizens?Again, if the concept of a democratic state allows for freedom of expression, why doesn’t The Namibian allow people to decide on who is talking sense from nonsense?And for people to make that informed decision, it requires reading for themselves what those political parties or their representatives are saying or writing, and not hearsay.Therefore, other than trying to censor which articles are good for the nation, let the people decide for themselves; alternatively, the law can still take its course by going after hate or threatening articles meant to destabilise the very pillars of our democracy.In that process, political parties and individuals will learn a lesson on what to say or write without jeopardising their stand in society.Mulife MuchaliVancouver – CanadaNote: Your point is a good one and there’s no easy answer except to say there is a distinction between news events and gratuitously abusive opinions and comments. The media has no real choice, if, for example, a prominent political leader, head of state even, makes ‘undemocratic’ remarks about foreigners, or opposition or gays for instance, in a speech or elsewhere. They may not comply with democratic requirements, but we still have to report on them. We don’t really have a choice with news events. People must, after all, judge their leaders by what they say and do and it is not our job to sanitise prejudice. But when people or parties write statements, that are not only offensive, but also incomprehensible because they are badly written, we cannot often make enough sense of them to write a news report about them, and it serves no good purpose to publish rubbish. The ‘kill all whites’ story was because of a public demonstration, so we could hardly ignore it, and the person in question was later charged under appropriate legislation. We don’t censor, but we also have to look at the news value (or not) of much of the material we are provided with. – Ed