Democratic discourse or nationalistic drivel: are South Africans truly empowered?

This is not the first time I am delivering an inaugural address. Why I am punished twice, I do not know, but I presume it is because I had forsaken academia during the years in between, and the University of Johannesburg is no longer the Rand Afrikaans University, where I delivered my first address.

So I went in search of that first address amongst some old and dusty files. I found to my amazement that on 22 November 1989, almost exactly 21 years ago, my professorial inaugural address was on the topic 'Liberal Communication: Myth or Possibility in South Africa?' ('Liberale Kommunikasie: Mite of Moontlikheid in Suid-Afrika?').

What interested me most in reading this old address is that I was quite concerned, at the time, about the way in which the ruling powers then, whom I referred to as 'Dadas' (bullying Daddies) constituted a tyranny of the minority - not tolerating alternative thoughts or solutions - who exerted unbridled power, violence and 'kragdadigheid' to ensure compliance.

In the address, I referred to unacceptable transgressions of democratic and liberal communication, which included,inter alia, the following:

• Far-reaching government interference in the media, and arbitrary prescription to journalists and editors as to what should appear in the media (especially in the Afrikaans media).

• A total censure and/or sanctioning of loyal South Africans and specifically Afrikaners who dared to question government policy.

• The establishment of the Directorate of Media Relations in 1987, consisting of super censors whose identities remained unknown to the media itself.

• The clamp-down on the so-called alternative media (Vrye Weekblad, Weekly Mail, Frontline, New Nation and others).

• The arbitrary persecution of media editors in terms of the Internal Security Act (Max du Preez was one of them. I testified in court for him; alas, without success.)

• The withdrawal of literary awards and prizes to writers such as André P Brink and Breyten Breytenbach, due to undisclosed political reasons.

• The arbitrary banning of certain films, also for undisclosed political reasons, and the production by the government of propaganda films using taxpayers' money.

• The prescriptive De Klerk measures introduced in 1988 with regards to communication activities on university campuses.

• The right to peaceful protest which, up to nearly that time, had been prohibited.

• Legislation which, in terms of the protection of information, limited reportage on any communication with regard to the police to such an extent that it eroded the credibility of the police force irrevocably, and dramatically fuelled public suspicions and speculation about the existence of death squads.

Lest my audience suspects that my first inaugural address was merely exploited as a platform for political rhetoric, I analysed it further and concluded that it was quite balanced.

An equal amount of time was spent on the tyranny of the majority, and the threat that any tyranny of thought could pose to liberal communication. Finally, it elaborated on the right, the obligation, and the mandate of universities to initiate liberal discourse and investigate alternative viewpoints, by linking it to the prevalent communication theories of the time.

Apart from the inaugural platform, which had some listeners twisting uncomfortably in their chairs, I recalled that the only outlet I could find, at the time, for those and other things I had to say, was certainly not in any academic publication, nor in the mainstream Afrikaans press. Vrye Weekblad published it, as did The Star, following which I received a letter, and a personal visit, from an influential Afrikaans editor in the NasPers stable who threatened to withdraw Naspers funding from the university if one of its professors (me), and an Afrikaans one to boot, continued to spout such inflammatory content.

Given what I have said, then, you could argue that my last inaugural address, 21 years ago, says it all. We could conclude, as Karl Marx did, that 'history always repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce'.

Do we find ourselves today in a less paternalistic, authoritarian society? Has the monologue of repressive nationalism been replaced by democratic discourse? Is any departure from the dominant paradigm of thinking, now truly tolerated?

Before we can answer these questions, perhaps we should look at some of the things that have changed.

• Politically, we have moved from apartheid to post-apartheid (or is it postapartheid? - as there is a difference between the use of the concept with and without the hyphen)¹. Notably, we have negotiated a new democratic dispensation for South Africa, thanks to the efforts of leaders such as Nelson Mandela, and FW de Klerk, and the efforts of countless other influential individuals and movements, behind the scenes. Most notable about our new political dispensation, is our Constitution.

• Philosophically, we have moved from a modern to a post-modern society (with the hyphen).

• Economically, we have moved from a post-industrial age to a global-interactive age.

• In communications, the massive technological developments of the global-interactive age have caused the boundaries between traditional communication disciplines such as marketing communication, corporate communication, business communication, management communication, political communication and public relations to blur and fade - to the extent that we find ourselves in the new emerging paradigm of strategic communication, as the name of our new communication department at the University of Johannesburg - the first in the country - also reflects.

  Strategic communication is simply defined as 'purposeful communication' (Hallahan, Holtzhausen, Van Ruler, Vercic & Sriramesh, 2007:4). It is essentially necessitated by the digital communication revolution, which has turned everything on its head, and has rendered all organisational systems to be poised on the edge of chaos, as the complexity science approaches predict (Neher,1997).

  In one lifetime, the new communications super-consumer has access to literally thousands of ways in which he/she can connect instantly online via blogs, social media, music and events.

  Consider the following staggering statistics (which are changing as we speak): Facebook has 400 million active users, of which 200 million joined in the last year alone. The average Facebook user has 130 friends. 20 billion pieces of content are generated per month. YouTube has 300 million visits per month to the site. Every minute, another 15 hours of video is being added to YouTube. Twitter has more than 105 million registered users, and new users are signing up at the rate of 300,000 per day (Bosman, 2010).

  According to Bosman (2010), we are dealing with an all-knowing, all-seeing and globally vocal media customer who has the same marketing power as the entire marketing department of any of the world's largest brand owners, and sometimes more. Viral campaigns can make or break a brand, a company, a person, or an institution within a matter of days, if not hours.

Therefore, allow me to linger a little at the new paradigm of strategic communication.

The new paradigm of strategic communication

The core driving forces of the new paradigm of strategic communication must be viewed against the background of four key epistemological tenets which characterise post-modern knowledge and communication practice, as identified by post-modern communication scholars such as Foucalt (1980), Lyotard, (1988), Dozier and Lauzen (2000), Hassard (2002) and Verwey (2010).

1. Emergence: Attempts to discover the actual order of things must be regarded as naïve and mistaken, as nothing is fixed.

2. Reflexivity: We must possess the ability to be critical of our own intellectual assumptions.

3. 'Differance': There is no single truth and objective knowledge.

4. Resistance: Blind, uncritical obedience to power must be resisted from within when it is unjustly exercised.
   

The meaning of these four tenets will become clearer as we examine the core driving forces of the new paradigm of strategic communication, which is characterised by the following shifts:

From top down to bottom up

A post-modern approach favours communication as an interaction, as opposed to the modernist notion of simply diffusing messages to a target audience. The latter approach is typified by the old Lasswellian concept of who says what in which channel to whom with what effect. This very linear theory is now contrasted with the strategic communication approach as an evolving and emerging process of discourse and negotiation with a variety of stakeholders.

Connectivity, dialogue and participation of all stakeholders are the key to building relationships, and this is supported by one of the most influential theories of the cybernetic tradition, Weick's theory of organising (1979), in that communication makes the organisation and not the organisation, the communication.

In short, organisations can no longer control what people think. This is a phenomenon called 'disintermediation' (Verwey, 2001), which is a direct consequence of the digital revolution, and of which the best example is provided by Howard Schultz, chairman of Starbucks Coffee (Business Day, 7 September 2010):

In the 1960s, if you introduced a new product to America, 90% of the people believed in the corporate promise. Then 40 years later if you performed the same exercise less than 10% of the public believed it was true.

Still surprised that, despite their market dominance, Starbucks haven't eliminated the slight smell of lavatory you get as you enter.

On local soil, an interesting example of disintermediation recently found Absa, under threat of losing accounts worth billions of rands, quickly backing down on statements regarding rugby quotas following viral campaigns on Facebook and Twitter by civil rights movements. Woolworths was forced to put its poorly selling Christian magazines back on the shelf following similar campaigns by aggrieved parties.

From control to self organisation

Ample evidence has been provided in recent years that change and transformation in an organisation is more effective when creative solutions spontaneously evolve from the bottom up through active participation in dialogue (Ströh, 2007). Jack Welch's spectacular transformation of General Electric, Sam Palmisano's massive turn-around of the staid culture in the colossus IBM, and Brand Pretorius' turn-around in a highly diversified workforce at McCarthy's, are but a few examples of this.

Truth is, power has become much less important than the influence that is exerted from the bottom up. In this respect, if you would permit me, I would like to pay homage to my late husband, Willem de Klerk, who never believed in power - in fact he despised it a little bit - but he did believe in influence. He was by no means the only one, but through his participation in behind-the-scenes dialogue with other role players across the political spectrum, he helped to steer and influence this country towards democratic solutions.

This does not mean that leadership is no longer important. Visionary leadership, however, does not exclude ongoing engagement of stakeholders, even if such engagement encourages dissent.

From consensus to dissensus

The post modern chaos theories view organisations as living processes - much like organisms that live in an unpredictable environment, within which change and transformation are inevitable, and conflict plays a central part.

Strategic communication is not, therefore, necessarily aimed at achieving consensus, but rather about ensuring multiple voices and even dissent. Postmodern philosophers and critical scholars argue that organisational conflict should be encouraged "to the extent that conflict serves as a pathway to the emancipation of subjugated groups and individuals" (Miller 2009:176). This is of particular relevance where deeper conflicts exist in culturally diverse organisations and systems as a result of class, economic, racial or gender differences.

In a recent, and most incisive, article in Mail & Guardian (27 August 2010), Jonathan Jansen, vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State, laments the erosion of an intellectual culture on South African university campuses as a consequence of 'creeping managerialism', 'poor leadership' and 'fixation with numbers' that turned the scholarship of inquiry into a 'parade of measurable units'.

To restore this culture he exhorts that what is required is not this 'busyness, but quality activities that breed curiosity, creativity and dissent'. In this respect he referred to the then recent public standoff at the University of Cape Town between Max Price, the principal, and Neville Alexander, a professor, on race-based admissions policies.

From monologue to dialogue

Simultaneous with the shift from top down to bottom up is also the shift from monologue to dialogue, where the traditional approach of one voice has shifted to the emergent approach of many diverse voices where experimentation, openness to many diverse viewpoints and freedom of speech encourage creative approaches to problem-solving, without the fear of reprisal (Ströh, 2007:134).

Management often hides behind the argument that they do encourage 'participation' or, in fact, demand that from their stakeholders. This however, is referred to by Mkhize (2006:7) as 'pseudo dialogue', as the control is never really relinquished, and conflicts are suppressed or 'managed' in order to solve them, while groups unknowingly consent to unequal partnerships while management still retains more power.

Being 'involved' makes groups feel they are participating, yet they have to pay the price of losing their voice and giving up resistance. This is perhaps best captured by the words of Deetz (1995:404):

True participation is the process of dialogic communication where meaning is not created through influence but through participation. Emphasis is thus on the process of negotiations and discourses and not on the outcomes of the negotiations. [Own underlining.]

Management itself is called to accountability, and the governors to governance. No longer will they be able to hide things from their stakeholders. Privacy has become a luxury, a fact which is underlined by Bosman (2010:5) when he points out that the younger generation, especially, is not obsessed with privacy, and expects the world to be much more transparent than the older generation is used to, "and that means that anything [an organisation] wants to hide away... will sooner or later be exposed in the public domain".

Media convergence and digital connectivity are forcing our institutions to engage in dialogue. The point is, management is no longer in control, and word-of-mouth, like in the days of the Roman street vendors, is once again becoming the most important medium of communication, albeit in cyber space. The digital air waves have become res publicae, and the digital revolution might well spell out the end of content control.

Now, it is the stakeholder who is empowered, not management.

Are South Africans empowered?

Against this background, I have tried to assess whether we, as South African citizens, the stakeholders in a constitutionally entrenched democracy, are truly empowered. Empowered in the sense that we exercise the democratic rights and means at our disposal, to engage in robust democratic discourse, and not to succumb to nationalistic political correctness for fear of reprisal.

In doing so, I am not going to repeat all the issues that dominate the political agenda right now, as they are all discussed to death, but will rather use this platform and academic freedom, to profess - perhaps a little outrageously - with some support from the writings of others.

In answering the question as to whether we are truly empowered, I will convert these issues into a priori assumptions, or value judgements, all of which I am going to cross with a resounding NO.

• NO, we are not empowered, as we still find ourselves under the yoke of top down authoritarianism: the same as in the apartheid state - only with other ideological influences.

  In a recent ANC discussion document on leadership (Beeld, 30 July 2010), the party itself admits to its concerns about the growing social distance between those in power and those at grassroots level. In addition, there is a growing culture of 'winner takes all', and the erosion of any culture of accountability, moral leadership and servitude.

  We are indeed, in the words of Cosatu's Zwelinzima Vavi, becoming a predator state. Not that the old Nationalist regime was free of corruption itself; the question becomes whether the corruption is "accidental" or "systemic", and whether our systems are still intact. This, particularly in view of our municipalities' neglect to spend nearly R2.2 billion on much-needed infrastructure during the past financial year.

• NO, we are not empowered, as nationalism is still the order of the day, accompanied by repressive race constructions and typical elitist behaviour. The game is the same, only the role players are different. The ANC, just like the Nationalist Party before, confuses party with state and thereby breaks a basic liberal-democratic rule.

  On the continent of Africa, as Chipkin (2007) explains, a nationalistic movement is not just another political party which competes for power in a postcolonial context. The nationalist movement becomes a state organ in itself, intolerant of difference, and enforces its yardstick of 'values' upon other state organs, such as parliament, the judiciary, the defence force and, potentially, the Constitution. In the process, the rule of law and equality before the law are both eroded.

  Wat op die spel is, volgens Christi van der Westhuizen in 'n kragtige artikel in By, en ek stem saam, is "niks minder as 'n stryd tussen die omskepping van Suid-Afrikaners in demokratiese burgers of in nasionalistiese subjekte" (2010:4). This battle is confirmed by the ANC discussion document on Media Transformation, Ownership and Diversity (2010: clauses 132 and 152) which openly states that it is the ANC's responsibility to "dominate the battle of ideas", that these ideas "dominate the national discourse" and that "our voice is heard clearly above the rest".

  Clearly, there is only one voice talking here.

• NO, we are not empowered, as we still have a Dada complex. Our public discourse is wholly dominated by a hyper masculinity, as represented by the verbal flatulence of Julius Malema against a BBC journalist: "rubbish is what you have covered in your trousers... you're a small boy, you can't do anything", which, in turn, is faithfully mirrored by our media, turd for turd for turd.

  The masculinity as represented by our President and his enviable prowess (and quest for privacy) with respect to the women in his life, and his formidable progeny. And let us not forget our neighbour Big Daddy Mugabe, whose verbal excretions also dominate our front pages.

  Love them, hate them, but we South Africans have had a Daddy complex long before the days of the finger-wagging PW Botha. In fact, we are obsessed with our Daddies. With respect, even our icons are daddies.

  I am in full agreement with Dr Mamphela Ramphele (Beeld, 22 July 2010) that South Africans have become addicted to Nelson Mandela (an iconic 'Daddy'), who cannot live forever. Instead, she said, we should learn to live without a father, and rather revert back to the principles and values that Mandela stood for.

• NO, we are not empowered, as our media freedom is still under attack. As are our self-regulatory systems.

  The proposed media appeals tribunal is an attack on free speech, and will, if passed into law, introduce a culture of censorship. Contrary to what Dr Pallo Jordan says, faceless officials will be empowered to determine beforehand which information should be classified in terms of the Protection of Information Bill.

  Ah, but therein lies the catch... and according to media and constitutional law experts, potentially also our salvation.

  Issues that deal with the protection of "national security" and "individual privacy" are very vague, and therefore difficult to classify. In terms of constitutional law, Parliament may not delegate decision-making powers to an official or state organ that are vague. Secondly, even if such vague decision making powers exist, it would most likely be nullified by the Constitutional Court.

  While the media appeals tribunal will more than likely come into existence, it may turn out that each and every move it makes will be challenged in the Constitutional Court. As Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke ruled:

  Freedom of speech, and the right to receive information must be awarded a generous interpretation and be fully invoked at the outset when testing the facts.

  If, added to that, the turn-around time for complaints to be dealt with becomes too long, or increasingly excludes the right of reply, it creates the gap for government to step in. This may be the case with the press ombudsman.

  As a matter of interest, the marketing communication industry, apart from self-regulating via the Advertising Standards Authority, is already regulated by approximately 85 laws which, according to legal experts (Delport, 2010), makes us one of the most-regulated countries in the world.

  One would argue that, if this is so, why target the self-regulatory systems? Why not rather take recourse to the courts? We all know the answer to this; our courts will not be able to deal with this, and the high costs will be a deterrent.

  We find ourselves in a situation where the systems which are supposed to work, are becoming increasingly dysfunctional, which in turn is used as an excuse to create new dysfunctional systems, thus perpetuating the vicious cycle.

Conclusion

The conclusion that I have reached is that South Africans are not truly empowered, and are still caught up in the vestiges of a postapartheid paradigm (without the hyphen) that is wholly out of touch with the post-modern, globally-interactive realities, and with the new paradigm of strategic communication.

The point is: what are WE going to do about this disjunction?

There are two ways in which we can respond:

1. We (and by "we" I mean all South Africans) can continue with our moans and groans, our gripes, our bitterness, our blaming of apartheid (or the end of apartheid), our "I told you so"s, our comparisons to Europe and other developed countries (even while many of us still walk with the proverbial 'white loaf' under the arm).

   We can polarise even further around the burning issues of development, land, standards, taxes, and services. We can continue with our stuffy race-based discourse, using racial differences for our own purposes, whichever 'side' we are on. We can place the blame squarely on our leaders for finding ourselves in this messy political quagmire.

   OR

2. We can stop being feeble, end this communication malaise and find our voices. Because the onus no longer rests on our leaders, but on us.

   In a piece entitled "I'm 63 and I'm Tired" by Robert A Hall currently circulated on our websites, these words are perhaps the wisest of them all:

   I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

   Let us rock the boat, make waves, stir...

   If that means we have to become activist, challenging, provocative, troublesome, so be it. If that means that we create tensions between the state and our institutions, this is healthy. It is called democracy.

   At the very least, let us engage, connect, and begin to talk and debate about the very things that divide us most.

   There is one condition: that we remain critical of our own intellectual assumptions. Only then, will we be able to engage in democratic discourse. Only then, may we begin to bridge the racial divide.

The universities have a major role to play in this revolutionary process. I would go as far to say that the onus rests on universities to become the initiators of democratic discourse, dialogue, debate and dissensus. It remains the right, the obligation and, indeed, the mandate of universities to investigate alternative viewpoints, to let other voices speak. I said it in 1989, and I am saying it again.

Universities should lead, not follow. Per definition, the University should be above any tyranny of thought, and beyond the 'enforced hegemony of political correctness' (Sonderling, 2008: 308) where 'calculation has replaced thinking' (Bayart 2007: 290).

For that reason, it is a matter of concern that Jansen (2010) writes that all (but one) of South Africa's universities lack strong intellectual cultures on their campuses.

Dit is ook 'n rede tot kommer dat Rhoda Khadalie (Die Burger, 1 September 2009) skryf dat talle Suid-Afrikaanse universiteite verbode terrein geword het, "die spergebiede van diegene wat vrye debatvoering smoor en akademici terroriseer wat dit waag om vrae te stel".

We need not dwell on these statements. The more important appeals that are being made are those that call for a return to imaginative leadership, vigorous debate and intellectual exchange on compelling public problems, not as localised events in isolated parts of our campuses, but as a felt and constant experience, and for the building of such intellectual cultures from the bottom up through thoughtful, inspiring and intellectually outrageous teaching sessions.

Indeed, the quality of the democratic discourse and citizen deliberation in the broader society will be determined to a large extent by the quality of the intellectual discourse on our university campuses.

In conclusion, I may have used (or abused) this inaugural platform to call for real transformation of our society through robust democratic and strategic discourse. To create the system through our communication, and not to allow the system to perpetuate itself by dictating how we communicate. To practise 'differance' and 'resistance'. Not merely for the sake of difference, or resistance, but to become the co-creators of change from within. This, precisely because we are dedicated to this country, not disloyal deserters. If we South Africans don't do anything about it, we will deserve what we get.

Yes, history has repeated itself, but the future has overtaken. Are we as South Africans going to catch up, or are we going to be left behind?

As tragedy, or as farce?

Adapted for online use from Prof Nina Overton-de Klerk's professorial inaugural address, 10 November 2010, University of Johannesburg. Hyperlinks within body copy added by Bizcommunity.com.

¹According to Van der Westhuizen (2010) "post-" with the hyphen means "after" and implies something new which came in its place. "Post" without the hyphen means that although one system may have replaced another, there are more continuities than discontinuities.
²Laugh It Off Promotions CC v SAP International (Finance) BV t/a Sabmark International (Freedom of Expression Institute as Amicus Curiae) 2006 (1) SA 144 (CC).