So you can’t call Zuma a zombie? Says who?

I may not be the greatest expert when it comes to freedom of expression, but news of Ravi Govender’s dismissal sits in the throat.

Were Govender’s comments strong and perhaps overly harsh? Sure. Of course they were. Aside from calling the president “Zombie Zuma”, Govender said the “uneducated creature” was “massacring the beautiful English language” and “even the other moron Mugabe speaks much better”.

All of these things are insults, but they’re not slander. For something to be slanderous or libellous it needs to be false, and not just insulting or mere opinion. Zuma has boasted about his lack of education in the past. It is what it is.

Other journalists have been given a hard time in the past for making fun of Zuma’s reading and English, but doing so is not demonstrably racist. No one has gotten into trouble for mocking his inability to read long numbers (even The Grand Tour has made fun of this) – so does that mean that English is off limits and racist but maths is fair game?

It’s also true that Mugabe speaks better English than Zuma. Mugabe speaks better than most politicians anywhere, actually. And like it or not, unless Zuma is speaking off the cuff and making his “heheh!” jokes, he is as likely to be inducted into the Toastmasters Hall of Fame as I am to win a Sama award for best hip-hop album.

Zuma giving a speech could put a meth addict who’s being electrocuted while having two trains crash beside him to sleep.

I doubt that Govender was genuinely making the slanderous statement that Zuma, at some point in the past, succumbed to MaNtuli’s cooking and was brought back to a form of animation as the living dead.

He just meant that Zuma drones on as if he’s half dead. Once again, it’s an opinion. It’s constitutionally protected. You should be allowed to call people zombies because it’s not a racial tag. I’ve watched a lot of zombie movies in my time, and the undead come in all kinds. Zombification is a pretty equal opportunity affliction.

Calling Zuma a “creature” is also quite a low blow, true, but Govender was feeling angry, and if the reign of Zuma does not leave you feeling a smidgeon of anger – well then, you probably don’t love your country.

That’s my opinion, and I have a constitutional right to express it, as does Govender.

He has told The Citizen the only reason he apologised and withdrew his comments was because of the allegations that they were supposedly racist. How are they racist, though? Just because Zuma happens to be black, you can’t point out his failings or insult him?

This is the same Zuma who tried to dismiss armies of peaceful marchers who were calling for him to step down after his last cabinet reshuffle as nothing more than “racists”. Many, if not most, of the marchers were black people. At the very least, the marches were reasonably nonracial.

Govender doesn’t think he’s racist or that his comments were racist – he just wants to keep doing a job he’s been doing very well for 13 years.

He was dismissed by the same SABC who, for year after year, failed to get rid of Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who quite provably did little other than bring the public broadcaster into disrepute – the same crime Govender has been accused of.

But Motsoeneng always stood firm in his loyalty to the ANC and his hero worship of Zuma. That made him virtually untouchable. Govender’s crime, in the eyes of the ruling party, was the most egregious of all.

His rapid dismissal demonstrates that, despite there being a new acting board at the SABC, and despite Motsoeneng no longer hanging his hat at Auckland Park, this SABC still fails to understand that it is not the PR division of the ANC. It is meant to have a duty towards all South Africans, whether they support the ANC or not. All South Africans, regardless of creed or colour, are all avoiding paying their TV licences together, and should not be treated or served differently.

It’s a public broadcaster, not a state broadcaster.

If the SABC felt the man was out of line, then perhaps a sanction of some sort was warranted. But I’d say that if you keep a general rule of doing the opposite of what Edward Zuma wants, you can probably rest assured you are on the righteous path.

Charles Cilliers, Citizen.co.za digital editor