A hiding place for bullies
Attacks on the media, linking it to some sort of conspiracy funded by reactionary forces, hell-bent on undermining and destroying liberation movements turned governments, is nothing new.
In the southern African context, bullies like Robert Mugabe, Jacob Zuma and other former SADC heads of state have liberally used these conspiracies to explain why they were making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
It was however disheartening and quite perturbing to hear our very own vice-president, Nangolo Mbumba, in a speech read on his behalf at a Workers' Day rally on Tuesday, seeking to throw shade, while at the same time regressing to this hiding place created by those who are looking for scapegoats.
It is unclear whether Mbumba penned the speech himself, but it showed all the hallmarks of someone who was making a valiant attempt to defend the indefensible.
How one can blame the media for a growing scepticism 28 years after independence is beyond comprehension. Namibia, a nation of about 2.5 million people, blessed with a plethora of natural resources and riches, remains one of the world's most unequal societies. This is not a media creation. Politically connected tenderpreneurs emptying state coffers is also not a creation of “some media houses”.
One could go on and on about a small group of elite vacuuming up the country's resources, who don't, in the words of Mbumba, need a “connected coterie of politically opportunistic people who seemed to have vowed to target the government and denounce it as everything but good and competent, until it is brought down”, to make headlines.
A head of state, and his or her government, including our own president, Hage Geingob, should be open to fair criticism.
We are not living in the type of dictatorships that characterise many of our international so-called friends.
If the media, in the words of Mbumba, is “misleadingly rehashing old stories or contriving fake news, to foster widespread hatred and discontent among the general Namibian populace”, then there are remedies available. That is democracy.
Journalists, like most Namibians, will remain patriots, who painstakingly do their work, with the hope that it can add to the nation's development agenda.
In the southern African context, bullies like Robert Mugabe, Jacob Zuma and other former SADC heads of state have liberally used these conspiracies to explain why they were making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
It was however disheartening and quite perturbing to hear our very own vice-president, Nangolo Mbumba, in a speech read on his behalf at a Workers' Day rally on Tuesday, seeking to throw shade, while at the same time regressing to this hiding place created by those who are looking for scapegoats.
It is unclear whether Mbumba penned the speech himself, but it showed all the hallmarks of someone who was making a valiant attempt to defend the indefensible.
How one can blame the media for a growing scepticism 28 years after independence is beyond comprehension. Namibia, a nation of about 2.5 million people, blessed with a plethora of natural resources and riches, remains one of the world's most unequal societies. This is not a media creation. Politically connected tenderpreneurs emptying state coffers is also not a creation of “some media houses”.
One could go on and on about a small group of elite vacuuming up the country's resources, who don't, in the words of Mbumba, need a “connected coterie of politically opportunistic people who seemed to have vowed to target the government and denounce it as everything but good and competent, until it is brought down”, to make headlines.
A head of state, and his or her government, including our own president, Hage Geingob, should be open to fair criticism.
We are not living in the type of dictatorships that characterise many of our international so-called friends.
If the media, in the words of Mbumba, is “misleadingly rehashing old stories or contriving fake news, to foster widespread hatred and discontent among the general Namibian populace”, then there are remedies available. That is democracy.
Journalists, like most Namibians, will remain patriots, who painstakingly do their work, with the hope that it can add to the nation's development agenda.
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Namibian Sun
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