Don’t take it personally; it’s not personal #ThisFlag

People who are about to offend you often prefix their hogwash with, “Don’t take this personally; it’s not personal…” Of course it’s personal because all offences are.

What Hlaudi Motsoeneng is doing as the Chief Operations Officer of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is highly personal to me…and should be for all humans in the 21st century.

Many will only realize how personal it is once it reaches the levels of #ZimbabweShutDown that we’re currently witnessing on the other side of the Limpopo River – where the ruling government is clutching at straws; shutting down the public’s access to information on social networks such as WhatsApp. 

It’s the usual bully tactics of ZANUPF at play - restraining freedom of expression and association. In an unprecedented move, Zimbabweans are saying it loud and clear that they can take only so much molestation in their lifetimes; it’s personal.

The government which has ruled since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 has over the years systematically made sure to curb personal freedoms. 

Unfortunately when some publicly air their personal frustrations, like Pastor Evan Mawarire who started the #ThisFlag movement on social media, they are jailed, purged from greater society and their houses vandalized by state agents. 

The irony… That a ruthless government and its fans will always respond personally to confrontation while telling you “Don’t take it personally, it’s not personal” when you react to the negative effects of the national state of affairs of their doing.

The truth is Zimbabwe was not always like this. Neither was warring Burundi. In these two currently unstable SADC countries, repressive media laws have steadily been introduced to shut down critics who want nothing more than public servants to account to the public they serve; for public servants to respect existing laws that favor the majority. 

This is where Hlaudi is taking South Africans; to another failed African state.

The inefficiencies of governments leave citizens stripped bare of their dignity and hard-earned resources. Of course it's personal. That's why the #ThisFlag campaign is relevant to not just Zimbabwe but all Africa's failed and failing states.

Any Swazi journalist who has worked in South African media will tell you how naked one feels when they start working there – it’s a personal journey of largely unlearning and there’s no denying it makes you question deeply about your person. 

I had to practically discard almost everything that I knew to be journalism when I joined the Kaya FM newsroom from Swazi TV in 2005.

Apart from the nice cars and lifestyles journalists could afford just from their salaries, I was stunned to witness how the South Africans engaged some news sources. I had joined Kaya FM at the same time as Lindelwa Mthembu who had come from eTV news. 

This feisty lady must have thought I was lazy when I told her a government spokesperson said to call us back in about 10 minutes with comment. At exactly 10 minutes later said spin doctor had not called and she called him herself. It turned out he was trying to evade us.

“You’re a public servant whose duty is to inform the public…if you have no comment then I’ill record that and broadcast it – that you’re saying – in this time of crisis, when we need to hear information from your department to inform our next steps, you have nothing to say to us as a people”, she said. Gasp!

This characterized her interactions with a few more people including cabinet ministers – who by the way, always ended up giving the requested information once reminded of their duty to the public. Gasp!

In fact, with some, reminders were unnecessary. Once they heard her intro on the other end of the phone, they would ask her to hang-on while they excused themselves from a meeting in order to respond to the radio interview questions. Gasp!

I was just about ready to run out of breath when I realized that I was the one with the problem here. My timid approach to news sourcing was as a result of what I had known to be journalism in my early years of the business at Swazi TV. 

I had so much self-censorship embedded in me because I ‘knew’ not to ask anything outside of what was in the government press brief. The few times that I had asked, I was hastily reprimanded by MPs, cabinet ministers, chiefs…you name it, until it became the norm for me not to question.

Heck, once in my early days in the profession I’d covered a protest by University of Swaziland (UNISWA) students marched to Lozitha Palace to address the UNISWA Vice Chancellor. 

I invested all of my new-found journalistic energy in sourcing sound bites from all news angles and relevant people including student leaders. 

My efforts alone would have filled a complete news bulletin. That night, the 30 minute 7 o’clock news bulletin lasted less than 3 minutes. None of my stories made it to air. I was young. Left confused but I got the lesson in (Self) Censorship 101 loud and clear.

So when Hlaudi first spoke of banning visuals of protests where public facilities were being vandalized I wondered what next? Obviously the protesting people themselves; people who protest to express their frustration. 

And who are these people? And what about the people behind those cameras and microphones, do they stop being people who are capable of being frustrated by day-to-day life because they are journalists? 

Do they not have family members in the different sectors of society who experience frustrations? Of course it’s personal. One’s destiny shouldn’t be fait accompli.