Attacks on journalists benefit only the corrupt

Stephen Grootes and Peter Bruce, among others, have been singled out for their “support of white monopoly capital” by the Black First Land First (BLF) movement.

Eusebius McKaiser and Carima Brown were added to the list as black journalists supposedly “mimicking these agents of white monopoly capital”.

Apparently, they will be dealt with as “rogue racists”, but that wasn’t before the BLF added that “we will not treat black people the way we treat white people”. How noble.

The BLF leader, Andile Mngxitama, and his band of rogue lunatics actually took the brave step of showing us how they’ll deal with the so-called rogue racists: like thugs, they attack these journalists where they are most vulnerable, at their homes.

How did we get here? When did it ever become acceptable for journalists to be singled out and branded racists, and worse, have their personal freedom and right to security threatened in the name of partaking in a revolution?

This is not a sudden realisation on the part of the BLF that there is a section of the media that represents white monopoly capital interests. South African media has always been divided along racial lines, no surprises there.

But the race of a journalist has never determined on which side of the divide they fall. It has always been about the content of their writings and the agenda they represent.

The characterisation of business interests owned by the white section of the population as white monopoly capital plays right into the hands of those who have sought to magnify the race divisions that defined South Africa pre-democracy.

The concept of white monopoly capital, because of its emphasis on the race of those that own the biggest slice of the economy, falls into the hands of those who wish to plunder the public purse in the name of undoing past economic injustices.

The allegation that an international public relations firm that has aligned itself with the looters of the public purse actually promoted the use of the phrase white monopoly capital is not surprising at all.

The scale of the looting of public funds, which is alleged through the leaked e-mails and the State of Capture report, makes it necessary for a divisive distraction to be created.

While the majority of the country is focused on the black-versus-white economic debate, the looting carries on.

Mngxitama is supposed to be more leftist than the EFF, which he left, alleging they sold out the revolution. So to have him peddling lies about reputable journalists like Grootes, Bruce and McKaiser is a coup for the faction currently doing the looting of state resources. He is supposed to give them legitimacy as a leftist black radical fighting for the return of the land.

This manufactured fight against white monopoly capital lacks substance and ends up being part of the actions of a lunatic fringe that will threaten individual journalists doing their jobs of exposing real corruption.

It is clear whose interests the BLF’s “revolutionary” actions of threats serve: those threatened by the actions of investigative and critical journalists exposing their corrupt acts. All the journalists who made it on to that list must take a bow, they’re serving South Africa exceptionally well.

Sydney Majoko.