Auto White Balance (AWB)
Saturday April 3 2010 was a day that for South Africans, their lives changed.
Right wing AWB leader Eugene Terre’Blanche was murdered by two of his farm workers in his bed on his farm a few kilometers from the Platteland town of Ventersdorp. The murder took place amidst a racial controversy in South Africa involving ANC Youth League leader, Julius Malema, who openly sings a struggle song that includes the lyrics “Shoot the Boer”.
With this as background, there was a rise in racial tension the week after the murder, both at the opening day of the court case and at the tense, but quiet funeral of this “boer leader”. Social networking sites and newspaper websites around South Africa were also inundated with people’s viewpoints from both sides.
Covering the court case and the funeral became a difficult and sad week for me as the two parties to the story, the white AWB members and the black farm workers and unemployed from the nearby township, faced off outside the court house while the two suspects inside awaited their future. To stand between the two sides and photograph people shouting racial slurs filled with such sadness.
Just how can humans hate each other SO much because of the difference in skin colour and cultural differences?
Although there are clearly racial divides on South Africa it was very depressing to witness this level of openly displayed negative emotion. Although, for those who lived through the horrid 1980’s, photographing the struggle of our democracy, this may very well have been a commonplace event or show of hate.
The other interesting aspect of the week’s coverage of the murder story was the local and international media coverage of the story. Most of the world’s major news networks, newspapers, agencies and local outlets covered the court case and funeral, and although there were very few media outlets that reported a biased story, it was stunning to see how fast and effectively the average South African was polarized by the event. This is obviously from media reports as the vast majority of the 49 million South African’s were not in Ventersdorp to witness the events.
This brought my thoughts to the question: just how much of a role does the media play in fanning the flames of discontent and racial strife, and to what extent can the media be held responsible for the widespread hate? Is this murder and the coverage thereof simply a starter motor or ignition for feelings which people already have – and are they simply waiting for an event like this to start to air their hate and racist feelings?
Would this hate boil over if we lived in a society WITHOUT media? Or is the media coverage which, like it or not, remains a polarizing tool, a major factor in the thought processes of the public?
Dare I say it? As a member of the international media, I alas feel the media had a huge effect this week in driving a wedge between South Africans, and were also probably responsible for reinforcing the opinion of international readers that South Africa is unsafe and not worth traveling to.
Let us hope and pray that one day our society can live in some form of harmony and that we will honour the constitution that so many fought for so long to institute.
Ultimately the middle of the road South African has been held ransom between the two extremist sides of the political spectrum, the AWB and Julius Malema.
I agree. But it’s not just about covering the event… it is the sensational and overly-dramatic reporting that fans those flames.
With the World Cup so close, SA based journalists are drooling at the prospect of a calamitous event that can derail the World Cup and explode into a “historic” civil war. It would be really good for the CV.
Another thing I saw that backs up your statement…. when one suspect was taken away from court, a handful of people let out a half-hearted cheer. As soon as us camera people focused out attention on them, the crowd tripled and ended up chanting “Heroes! Heroes!” something which was widely reported on. It wouldn’t have happened if the media weren’t there!
I’ve been working on a story on the abuse of domestic workers for the last couple of months and its opened my eyes to how little has changed in our country.
If in a “normal” house (meaning not far right wing) the domestic worker still gets her own tin plate to eat from, we don’t have to dig deep to realize how entrenched racism is in our society.
I think the media did have a huge role in blowing this into more of a race/hate story than what it was and yes maybe the AWB was a very obvious and easy target to push such a story (frankly we should be more worried about the English soccer hooligans than the AWB) – but the sad fact is that the majority of white south africans (cutting through all languages and religions) are still such racists at heart.
Its time our race relations are taken out of the cupboards so that we can all see clearly that the king IS actually naked. We’ve been pretending for too long.
My dear friend, i feel for your frustration many times over. Not just in South Africa, but in the other parts of the world as well. Every once in a while we who work for the media come across experiences that confront us with our own impotence and the fact that we serve as the dust throwing machines for people’s eyes, so they would not see well the reality that surrounds them. But, that said, in the same breath i am a living witness to some amazing other examples: Local news that creates role models from the people who really deserve it, not some shitty politician or actor or sportsman, but a person from the neighbourhood. I feel like an old rattling broken record, but in South Africa there were examples – remember “One City Many Cultures”? What a triumph of the media! What a great real journalism! What an amazing role in the society … and the print-run of the Cape Times grew for it! Now, it was a rare example, but i could be replicated and adapted. We just all need to find time and way to support the local media as much with those kind of initiatives and ideas and stories. That is how i feel. The fight continues.
Have a good Light