The National: A bold new chapter in South African journalism

THE recent decision by the Sekunjalo Group to launch a new national newspaper, The National, reportedly backed by strategic partners in the US and Europe, can only be described as breathtakingly confident.

At a time when there is a global economic crisis and the marked decline of print newspapers for a long while, it is certainly an act of huge confidence in the fruition of its plans.

In objective terms, especially since it was reported last week by the chief executive officer (CEO), Lucien Jacobs, that the launch is part of a broader and aggressive media strategy designed to revitalise South Africa’s media ecosystem, this is a very welcome development.

But the key and critical question is how the contemplated new national newspaper will navigate the tough economic, social and political crises we face in this country. On the other hand, it is properly, fully and bravely dealing with these very complex and deep crises, which could itself turn out to be the harbinger of a new and fresh depth to South African journalism.

However, the heart of that strategy, if it is to be successful, will have to be an injection of new and challenging media perspectives which enable readers and the public at large to get to the real roots of the multifaceted crisis we face in South Africa today.

It is the great Black American philosopher, feminist and political activist Angela Davis who defined “radical” as getting to grips with the real roots of the material conditions of people’s lives in order to understand them and see what systemic and structural changes might be necessary.

But to get to the roots of this devastating crisis in our country will itself take a great deal of political openness and intellectual honesty and courage about what has really happened or not happened in this country to account for this crisis.

Of the utmost importance in this new and fresh media endeavour is to unleash an intellectual and political appraisal of those many questions which will begin to also provide some answers to them. It is this huge courage to unearth the real roots of our multiple crises in South Africa that this new newspaper will need to be consistently committed and dedicated to.

But that is what responsible and courageous journalism is supposed to be about. Not pulling wool over the eyes of the readers and the public at large, which conceals the real roots of the crises we face, but laying bare the real problems for all to see.

Too much obfuscation of the issues which really matter in the daily lives of people has been seen in the media for many years.

If The National can produce and unearth the real roots of this devastating and multifaceted crisis today in SA and thereby call things by their proper names, I would be its greatest supporter. We urgently require a new and brave journalism which unearths the roots and trajectory of those crises in ways which make it essential reading.

Today the black working-class majority in South Africa is facing arguably the worst socioeconomic crisis since the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910. Mass black poverty, hunger, starvation and malnutrition of both children and adults are widespread.

This is not only the situation in highly impoverished rural towns but has been spreading in urban townships too for many years. All these and many other social ills plaguing those communities did not just happen.

No, those are the terrible results of the neoliberal policies the African National Congress (ANC) have been implementing since 1994, after we had our Uhuru elections. There is also revealingly a massive gulf which separates the lives of Black townships from the conditions, the mansions and the leadership the ANC lives under in formerly white suburbia.

The clear, naked and indisputable betrayal of the Black masses who supported the ANC for many years is widely evident. Municipalities and basic infrastructure have collapsed in most parts of the country, with many having been placed under administration.

That is why the ANC lost both the 2016 and 2021 local elections in the powerhouse of production and nerve centre of the economy, Gauteng, and why they also, for the first time, lost a national election in 2024.

The indisputable fact is that the Black voting masses finally woke up to this betrayal in those elections, and that is why I predict the ANC is also probably going to badly lose the November 4 local government elections.

The ANC effectively abandoned the Reconstruction and Development Programme, which was their virtual election manifesto in the 1994 elections, in March 1996 and, just three months later, in June, adopted the explicitly neoliberal Growth, Employment and Redistributionist (Gear). Gear led to massive retrenchments and other attacks on the public sector in the late 1990s.

The genuinely redistributionist and iconic Freedom Charter programme was also effectively abandoned by the ANC. A programme which was very closely associated with the ANC and mass struggles in this country since the 1950s was effectively dropped. Today, the ANC hardly ever talks about it.

However, the crises I earlier referred to also largely explain the roots of the migrant crisis in this country over the recent period. If one closely follows the mainstream and social media commentary, most people hold the ANC and the current coalition government of national unity (GNU) primarily responsible for arguably the worst social and political crisis since 1994.

The past month or two has also seen the worst migrant crisis in the history of South Africa. The most incredible violence and vigilantism against migrants was widely evident on all media platforms. Many migrants who were in possession of the required documents were also violently attacked.

The ANC, which was the ruling party until they lost the 2024 elections, did not do much about the widely evident migrant problems over the years, including huge corruption and incompetence issues at the Home Affairs department.

The first time those problems were more seriously and systematically confronted was when the Democratic Alliance minister of Home Affairs, Leon Schreiber, took over in 2024.

But it is also very much the neoliberal economic framework since 1996, its austerity budgets and the corruption and mismanagement across all government departments, which hugely diminished the available resources for basic municipal, hospital and other public services. This is a big factor which negatively affected both the South African and migrant populations and the relations and claims between them.

However, very importantly too for the contemplated newspaper is to seek to understand why the ANC lost the 1994 elections in the Western Cape, especially since the UDM, which primarily supported the ANC in every respect, was formed in Mitchells Plein, in Cape Town, in 1983. And why, too, has the DA been the ruling party in the Western Cape since 2006?

More specifically, why would the Coloured working-class majority in the Western Cape vote for the DA, a largely white-controlled liberal party, instead of the ANC, especially since that is largely why the DA has remained in power in Cape Town since 2006?

Why also is crime and gangsterism so rife in Cape Town’s Coloured townships? Who in the media has seriously probed those vitally important political questions over the years?

So bad is crime and gangsterism in most of these townships in Cape Town that it has become extremely difficult, if not impossible, to openly organise and mobilise in those communities for whatever reason.

Besides, what has happened to the constitutional and Freedom Charter commitment to the principle of non-racialism, and that, therefore, this country belongs to all who live in it? Why have we also seen the growth of an Africanist majoritarian chauvinism over the past decade or so?

It is these and so many other stories that need to be told, which requires a courageous, bold and insightful initiative in the media world. Besides informative news stories, a newspaper must also be a tool for education and the development of critical and analytical consciousness.

Given the depth and complexity of so many combustible crises simultaneously unfolding in this country at this particular conjuncture, now would indeed be the most appropriate time to begin a new media publication. Hopefully, it will deal with so many important issues which have in the past either not been ventilated in the media or not to the extent required.

In conclusion, my sense is that as a direct result of the deeply systemic crises we currently face — which has been certainly aggravated by the recent and ongoing very violent and combustible anti-migrant eruptions — South Africa is going to experience a profoundly leftward and radical shift in our politics.

This trajectory will have to be very carefully navigated by the new publication because the current devastating crisis will probably also give rise to much populist rhetoric, which will require one to distinguish noisy clamour from serious radical substance which needs to be constructively engaged with through public exposure, discussion and debate.

These are very interesting times indeed. The anti-migrant crisis, besides its severe limitations and contradictions, has also starkly shown the atrocious living conditions and lack of proper housing in Black townships and informal settlements.

* Dr Ebrahim Harvey is a political writer, analyst, and commentator.

** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, Independent Media, or IOL.

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