Facts behind alleged media freedom suppression
Dear Editor,
THE African American minister and Black Nationalist, Malcolm X aptly described the power of the media when he said, “The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”
For years, the media and those who control it, have understood this power and have used it to their advantage, often at the detriment of those masses, whose ignorance and gullibility has been seized upon, in order to promote various agendas, often nefarious ones.
This brings one to the following questions, who really controls the Namibian media? Who is behind the recent furor concerning alleged suppression of media freedom in Namibia?
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Who is behind the characterisation of the Namibian Government, especially the Head of State, as dictatorial and intolerant to opposing views?
The fact is that these people behind this wave of self-defeating rhetoric, baying for Namibia to fall from its number one ranking in Africa on the Reporters without Borders World Press Freedom Index, may be the same kind of people of the ilk of Ian Douglas Smith, the leader of the now non-existent Rhodesia, who had no qualms about openly expressing his disdain for black leadership, stating that a black government would be incapable of running “his” beloved Rhodesia.
The truth of the matter is that there is more than what meets the eye when one looks at the sequence of events and recent efforts aimed at painting a false portrait that the controllers of the media and the imperceptive lackeys who support them are desperate to sell to the world.
Their desperation to discredit the Government and President of the day, who have been legitimately elected by the people, has taken them further from the path of honesty and reason, and closer to the path of absurdity and hate-filled rhetoric, as exhibited by that joker of an author of vile and vulgar diatribe in a daily newspaper, posing as a satirist, but at the core a damaged soul, who goes by the moniker The Rambler.
According to certain Namibian journalists, recent events have revealed that there is a “general hostility towards independent media and we seem to be following an autocratic style of a country like China where public information is filtered through the state apparatus such as a government-run and directed news organisation.”
Why the journalists decided to jump to China is strange but then again, for those who have been brainwashed by the ideology of white supremacy, China is one of the ‘boogey men’ countries of the world. However, if we study the World Press Freedom Index, we see that Namibia (23) is ranked ahead of so-called bastions of Western democracy such as Australia (26), France (34), United Kingdom (35) and United States (45). It is strange that we will never get these self-proclaimed champions of media freedom talking about the suppression of media freedoms in these countries. They would rather froth at the mouth and bay for Namibia to fall in its rankings because it irks their psyches for any positive image to emerge from a country run by black people.
So, let us leave it to Reporters Without Borders to tell us of the “fragility of press freedom in Australia whose constitutional law contains no press freedom guarantees and recognises no more than an “implied freedom of political communication”. Or what about France, where, “Journalists were subjected to a very disturbing increase in physical attacks and harassment in 2019.
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As for the United Kingdom, the media watchdog states, “Despite the UK co-hosting a Global Conference for Media Freedom and assuming the role of co-chair of the new Media Freedom Coalition, the UK’s domestic press freedom record remained cause for concern throughout 2019. The killing of journalist Lyra McKee whilst observing rioting in Derry in April, and continued threats to journalists covering paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, underscored the need for urgent attention to the safety of journalists; however there was no apparent progress towards the establishment of a National Committee for the Safety of Journalists and a National Action Plan on Safety of Journalists as announced by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in July.”
A journalist lost a life covering an event in the UK. If that were to happen in Namibia, God forbid, you can only imagine what the self-righteous guardians of media freedom who constantly criticise the President and Government would do. Probably write to their Western sponsors to put in motion a violent regime change ala Muammar Gaddafi (May he rest in peace).
One can go on and on about violations of media freedom in the United States but only a blind fool would need evidence of that, given what has transpired in that country over the past several months.
The fact of the matter is, despite what the anti-Government brigade would have you believe, Namibia continues to remain a champion of democracy and thereby media freedoms, not only on the continent but also in the world. The fact that those from afar can recognise this but certain “citizens” fail to acknowledge or accept these facts, speaks more of the character of these people than anything else.
Once again I ask, who really controls the Namibian media?
Dr. Prince Mutumba
Windhoek