Media texts and contexts
Introduction
This essay will analyse media production that took place during Makhanda’s service delivery protests. The protests in question were organised alongside Taxi Associations, however, this essay focuses on the residents of Makhanda who united to contest continuing poor service delivery. The Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM) and Taxi associations, supported by a number of Makhanda residents, protested from Monday the 24th of May into Wednesday 26th May. Unrest has followed the protest as Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane fails to address town residents in person as per their request. From the 24th to the 26th the town came to a standstill, all businesses and activities were brought to a halt as people called on Mabuyane to address their issues in person. The issues people were raising included: no water or dirty water when it was provided, sewer flowing through streets, poor infrastructure (roads and ablutions) and illegal dumping of trash.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) perspective and the fixing of a power dynamic by RNEWS
The media production to be analysed is the DA’s communique on the protest followed by an article released by RNEWS. The DA headline (released on the 25th of May) read DA condemns violent taxi protest in Makhanda, on face value, this excludes Makhanda residents and UPM from the protest action. The communique then states that protests were ‘spurred on’ by Taxi Associations. In this statement, the agency of residents who gathered to hold Mabuyane accountable is overlooked. The DA then states “The responsibility of what is happening in Makhanda needs to be laid squarely at the doors of the ANC, both at local and provincial level.” A chilling quote follows, “The South African Police Service (SAPS) must immediately put boots on the ground to save residents from the total anarchy they are being subjected to.” Rather than calling for a resolution to the issues that residents are faced with, the DA openly encouraged SAPS to take action against the protest. The communique continues to state “This town and its people are effectively being held hostage!” The report then finishes with a plea “Change will never come from violent protests! It can only come from the ballot box. Residents need to bring about change by voting in a DA government, which will ensure the delivery of services to residents.”. The point of the communique shines through in its conclusion, vote DA.
RNEWS produced an article on the same day titled Protests in Makhanda and Nelson Mandela Bay condemned. The article gives Mabuyane’s perspective on the protest, obviously, he condemns the violent nature of the unrest. It then lists points given in the DA communique stating why the ANC are to blame for the protests. Like the DA’s released statement, RNEWS’ article wrongfully excludes UPM and residents of Makhanda from the ‘protesters’. The conversation does not look at the humanity behind the people, it does not at their quality of life in a failing municipality.
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In a nutshell, the DA condemns Taxi Associations for their protest, excluding residents from the term ‘protesters’, but acknowledges the issues faced are relevant and blames these issues on the ANC. The DA and RNEWS have made no attempt to give voice to the root causes of the service delivery protest. The issues faced by protesters remain obscure to readers and the protests then appear unjust. A town halting all proceedings to hold government officials to account warps into a DA vote-gathering opportunity. This essay will argue that the DA remained focused on promoting the lives of the upper-middle-class citizens at the expense of disenfranchised South Africans
Neoliberalism and coloniality
Whilst colonialism is a system of the past, its resulting effects appear as coloniality in South Africa. Coloniality is present “in books, in the criteria for academic performance, in cultural patterns, in common sense, in the self-image of peoples, in aspirations of self, and so many other aspects of our modern society” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:487). Colonialism was a way of life that has now ended, yet coloniality is present within power patterns that represent the 'darker side' of modernity (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:487). Modernity is a Euro-North American-centric form of civilisation (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:486). It is characterised by Grosfoguel as "racially hierarchized, patriarchal, sexist, Christian-centric, hetero-normative, capitalist, military, colonial, imperial", (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:486). Within coloniality are four 'key levers': control of the economy, control of authority, control of gender and sexuality and control of knowledge and subjectivity (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:487). Modernity appears as the only way to develop in modern society; coloniality underpins modernity using race as 'an organising principle' (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:288). Racial hierarchy places Euro-North American-centric epistemology as the "universal, disembodied, truthful, secular, and scientific" thus sustaining asymmetrical global power relations (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:488).
Wilson (2018:2-3) states that within neoliberalism “the market is, or ideally should be, the basis for all of society”. A market-based society, through social, cultural, and political-economic forces, drives competition between the person, the other and the social world (Wilson, 2018:2). Self-enclosed individualism is a product of neoliberalisms belief in individual liberties, property rights, and free markets driven by capitalism (Wilson, 2018:2). In modern society, the individual is framed to be in opposition with greater society (human and non-human) (Wilson, 2018:3). This fixes narrow conservation of self, defined by an 'us vs them' and furthermore, 'self vs the wider world’ as humans compete for limited resources on the planet (Wilson, 2018:3-4). The contradiction in the conservation of self is that individuals alone in society cannot control outcomes regardless of their competitiveness (Wilson, 2018:4). South Africa is the most unequal society in the world; if you are born in a township and attend a no-fee paying school your life opportunities are severely limited in comparison to a child born into an upper-class family who attends private schooling. For the DA to state that change is to emerge from voting rather than protest (violent or not) is to promote the conservation of self and condemn people from holding infrastructures and institutions in place to account. It does not promote social cooperation focused on a common, collective good highlighting the unstable nature of the infrastructures in place, it condemns the structures and people living under them (Wilson, 2018:5).
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There are many different cultures and ‘ways of life’ in South African society. A cultural studies analysis of culture defines it as “the shared world-views, beliefs, values, rituals, traditions, and practices that bind folks together as a community or nation” (Wilson, 2018:6). A neoliberal system promotes westernised development at the expense of alternate culture and practices such as protest action, which dates back to a colonial time, is condemned by those who protect the market as the central system in society. Power is never absolute, as there is always points/weaknesses in a system where people may challenge the structure and organisation of power (Wilson, 2018:8). Sharing a conjuncture in history, citizens can form a “whole ... greater than the sum of the parts” to contest the structure of power but there will be resistance present in the DA’s communique (Wilson, 2018:9). Wilson (2018: 13) states that white students, in academic spaces, become defensive when dealing with privilege. This is because it is misinterpreted as a condemnation of the work and decisions they have had to make (Wilson, 2018: 13). In Makhanda, the defensive nature of white citizens in society is ever-present on city, social media chat forums. It is the self-enclosed individual that sees settler colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism as a threat that will diminish their sense of self (Wilson, 2018:13). Status-quo stories then appear from the DA whose party is entrenched in the racialised history of the country justifying elitist white perspectives.
Representation, genre and ideology
The cultural bomb is a weapon of the imperialist nature of modernity, it is effectively unleashed against collective defiance (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:487-488). This bomb casts people's past as a graveyard of non-achievement by annihilating belief in their 'names, languages, environment, heritage of struggle, unity, capacities and themselves' (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:488). It casts doubt on the moral rightness of struggle, for example, the DA's perspective sums up Makhanda's protest as a violent taxi strike. Although the taxi industry was involved, the Makhanda community and UPM were part of the strike. Residents of every age gathered to demand accountability but their voices are not represented in a DA perspective. Friedman (2010:118) states that “When government is seen not to hear the voices of the citizens to which it is meant to account, a greater role for civil society is seen as the antidote”. The contradiction is that when civil society aligns with citizens in South Africa, the umbrella term protester groups all those diverse entities and their actions. It is essential that the action of the citizen, whether partisan to protest or not, be distinguished from civil society (Friedman, 2010:118). Civil society is understood as the “realm of citizen voice”, a space to alter decision making by government officials (Friedman, 2010:120-121).
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Within the Makhanda protest were taxi associations, UPM, residents, and finally members of the community who committed violent acts during the protest. Why collect these different people under the umbrella term protesters and assign acts to 'them'? Or, as the DA did, wrongfully collect these people representing their action as taxi strikes? Disenfranchised citizens experience inequalities when communicating with society, this is not the sole issue of civil society (Friedman, 2010:123). Whether people are heard doesn’t lie within civil society, it requires having the means and contacts to communicate with wider society (Friedman, 2010:123). Furthermore, power dynamics within the media hold power over the narrative that is distributed within society. It means that when citizens unite with UPM and taxi associations to hold Mabuyane to account, they are not acknowledged as being a key presence in the gathering. Friedman (2010:124) argues that “There is significant civil society activity in support of poverty reduction”... “But it lacks the capacity to undertake a sustained and coordinated campaign against poverty because civil society organisations are not sufficiently embedded among the poor” (Friedman, 2010:124). In the Makhanda protest organisations were aligned with citizens, they were embedded among disenfranchised residents and the collective had a clear voice. Yet media that emerged from the protest was of a sensationalist nature that told a very different story. The media Labelling ‘service delivery protests’ explains away demonstrations whilst obliterating the concerns and demands of those protesting (Friedman, 2010:124). It is labelled by Friedman (2010:124-125) as anti-democratic in two ways: “it silences the protesters by substituting an elite-generated explanation of their actions for an attempt to investigate and listen to their grievances” and “it assumes, inaccurately, that people at grassroots are passive recipients of government ‘delivery’, rather than choosing and thinking citizens who demand to be part of the discussion on the way in which government should serve them”.
Linking to my media production and related perspectives
When approaching the protest, from afar, it presents as one would direct sensationalist media. Yet as one moves closer the people behind the collective emerge, children kick a rugby ball in Fingo square with the crowd erupting as the ball flies into the air or is clumsily spilt on its way down. The crowd is impatient but docile waiting for Members of the Executive Council (MECs) to address their issues. Residents regularly emerge from the crowd to inform me of a story I may have missed, or just explain why they are here gathering, why they believe in the movement. Instead of writing on the protests, I selected photography as a medium that can tell a more detailed and truthful representation. It is present in the multimedia and gallery section of my portfolio website.
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Decoloniality is a blueprint that can be considered in one's own media production. Decoloniality is constructed on three premises, coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge, and coloniality of being. beyond the 'Zone of Being' lie areas in society such as townships (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:489). It can be termed a 'Zone of None-Being' and is coupled with 'abyssal thinking' (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:489). In essence, there is a divide between 'us' and 'them'; 'them' being those who are said to exist beyond the bounds of society governed by expropriation and violence (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:489-490). Coloniality of knowledge looks at epistemological issues, focus on the generation of knowledge and its purpose (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:490). At the 'barbarian margins of society' lie indigenous knowledge, this knowledge is not represented in the media (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:490). There is little to no representation of this knowledge so the media produced on Makhanda's protest does not attempt to analyse the hardships that those protesting live with in day-to-day life. Finally, is the coloniality of being, which questions how African humanity was questioned (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015:490). The objectification of Africans is an issue present in Makhanda's protests, the removal of people/residents from the conversation and broadly terming taxi strikes is a version of this objectification. A racist post was shared on Facebook that cast those protesting as animals and used derogatory commentary. These constitute different effects of the continual objectification of African's in the global order, the ideas have disseminated within South African society and globally.
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In countering these premises, the photography pursued focused on the up-close individual showing the humanity behind their struggle. Power was prevalent in the protests as the police were armed and in significant numbers. Citizens marched holding hands, followed the instructions of the protest leaders, and were singing and dancing. They marched toward a police blockade; in the front row were ten black officers supported in the background by white officers highlighting power within power. A resident explained that elders had been consulted before the protest, they instructed that vandalism should be avoided as "Makhanda's already Vandalised". The perspective was that people exploit the nature of the gathering for their own purposes but the protest and everything it aimed to achieve was important to the residents. None of this perspective was included in The DA’s narrow-sighted perspective. Broadly condemning protests whilst doing little to understand the unique and dire circumstances that those gathering faced in an anti-democratic process. It clearly shows why the DA has not had a majority vote in the new democratic South Africa as they fail to answer to the issues faced by disenfranchised South Africans.
Conclusion
This essay attempts to unearth the root of the DA perspective and their view toward the Makhanda protest. Furthermore, it gives evidence of the ‘blind following’ of RNEWS when reporting on the ongoings in Makhanda. South Africa continues to face challenges that appear in coloniality, understanding that society is ‘tailored’ to the West and their systems of domination is fundamental to understanding the perspective towards the issues of disenfranchised South Africans. Self-enclosed individualism promotes othering of people who do not share a skin colour, economic class or location of being. Instead of navigating the issues of society together, media corporations and political parties drive separatism and power alienates the voices that don’t do anything to promote a selfish individual’s place in society.